“Not one dime! Not until Democrats pass healthcare.”

That is what DNC fundraisers calling on Betsy Devine are hearing. In her blog today (see “The Blind Leading the Democrats“) Betsy takes a clear look at the Democrats’ success in 2008 with progressive party leadership, and contrasts that with the stumbling shift to “the center” that returned the US to a one-party system, a party of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

If we don’t stand up for progressive reforms now, by 2012 the swing to the right will be so dramatic that Glenn Beck will finally be able to fasten the SS insignia and the swastika armband on his uniform.

The only people more cruel than kids are grown-ups. One day last August Rahm Emanuel reminded us of that when he called liberal activists “retarded.” I’m sure he brought that insult with him as baggage from the school yard. Early last week his off-hand insult was dredged up by Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Wallsten and Emanuel was taken to task for his use of the R word.

“Retarded” has always had a pejorative connotation. Back in the day, degrees of mental retardation as measured by IQ tests carried labels including imbecile, idiot and moron. These words too are more often used as insults than descriptors. In the early sixties families and communities caring for developmentally disabled children found a less loaded label in the term “neurologically handicapped.” But this is such a catch-all phrase that it includes recovering polio patients, cerebral palsy victims, Down syndrome children, paraplegics handicapped by war wounds and many, many more. “Developmentally disabled” has more recently emerged as an acceptable and descriptive euphemism for mental retardation.

We need euphemisms because of the cruel and indiscriminate use of the R word that begins on the playground and ends in the White House. Just as people with other than heterosexual preference have been offended by the “Q word,” Americans of African descent abjure the “N word,” and every other ethnic or culturally different group contends with some kind of appallingly pejorative label applied by a socially dominant caste, so are the developmentally disabled hurt by the R word. The insult carried by some of these appellations can be blunted. For example, the sexuality and gender identity-based culture that was “the gay community” eventually embraced the Q word and became the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered and Queer community.

The coarse humor and aggressive posturing of pre-adolescents (“You queer!” “You retard!”) forming their own identities and groups can be moderated and modified by parents and teachers, but there will–I believe–always be otherization as a way to cement cultural identity. Raising children to recognize and value differences is a way to develop a welcoming, friendly community. Children who think differences involve some kind of zero-sum transaction (“You’re queer, I’m not!”) will grow up to become the Dick Cheneys, the Rahm Emanuels, the Rush Limbaughs of the future.

As a Democrat I’m left with the thought that Rahm Emanuel may be, like Dick Cheney, a morally stunted, aggressive prick; but–he’s OUR morally stunted, aggressive prick. The Wall Street Journal has snookered us again with well timed dysinformation. The good that came out of it was the conversation about our concerns for the well being of people who are hurt by thoughtless, uncaring name calling.

The link to Shaq’s Big Challenge came to me via Jocelyn Matsuo, Hulu’s video editor. Shaq’s altruistic side comes into focus as he “chooses kids from his area who are all morbidly obese, and organizes a program to help them with their weight and self-esteem.”

It’s flamingly delicious.

Nose to the ground, sniffing out truth, justice, and freedom of information, the Berkman Center announced today that its Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is “…partnering with the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) to assist with freedom of information lawsuits and to provide online journalists with FOI information and assistance.”

The OMLN serves “online publishers and creators of digital media who innovate, create, and inform.”

[As an aside, I think there's something interesting in the nouns that emerge from the action verbs innovate, create, and inform. You got your basic innovation and creation. Creations and innovations are products spun up by creators and innovators. Information seems more abstract. An innovation or a creation can be described. The description itself is information attendant upon some thing's existence, real or imagined. Information seems more abstract and intangible than creations and innovations. It reflects a different state of being. The information conveys or at least portrays knowledge about the thing. But that's all higher order thinking that we can leave to David Weinberger, Clay Shirky and others with a philosophical bent, or bent philosophy perhaps, depending on your perspective.]

In 2004 Robert Cox and others formed the Media Bloggers Association to provide legal support services to bloggers facing legal threats. The group seems to have gone dormant, but the ideas behind it have been refreshed, formalized, professionalized and expanded by the OMLN/NFOIC alliance. Here’s more, well… information from the press release:

OMLN, which launched in November 2009 with funding from the Knight Foundation, is a referral network for lawyers and law school clinics that wish to offer legal assistance to online journalists and other digital media creators. Lawyers participating in OMLN provide qualifying clients with free and reduced fee legal assistance on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation.

Sarah Palin’s PAC buys copies of her book, “Going Rogue.” She distributes the book to donors. Her publisher pays her royalties for book sales.

Questions: Is she collecting royalties for books sold to the PAC? How much has this kind of purchase contributed to the sales ranking of the book?

‘Twas brillig and the slithy tothes, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
–Lewis Carroll
Goo goo g’ joob…
–John Lennon

(Has anyone else noticed that “Slithey tothe” is sort of a slant rhyme with “slimy toad?” Of course, toads aren’t slimy but verisimilitude be damned…)

A troll appeared in the comments at Joho the Blog this month. Twas “Bileg,” a slithey tothe if ever I’ve seen one. The guy is giving ad hominem argumentum a bad name. Bileg’s critique to date includes: a) an expression of dissatisfaction with the Joho colors; b) a yawn and a slur regarding David’s epistemological Work In Progress; c) a gratuitous insult or two around a really funny video of Nathan W. eating a carrot; and d) (my favorite, a sartorial insight of the first water) “If this web site is any indication I bet Weinberger is the kind of guy who wears baggy Dockers.”

I think it was the baggy Dockers comment that led me to take a closer look at the troll. I was probably wearing baggy Dockers when I read it. My interest in the troll’s identity was piqued. Does he, I wondered, have some specific ax to grind with DW or with Berkman or Levi Strauss or what? Some desultory googling yielded nothing so his identity remains cloaked in webby anonymity. I hope he appears again. As a student of ad hominem arguments, I think I can pick up some pointers on how not to do it. (Baggy Dockers!)

Read more about trolls and how to deal with them in this post by Maria Niles at Blogher.

I had a little heart problem a year or so ago and the doc prescribed simvastatin. During the time that I’ve taken the drug, those around me have noticed a dumbing down and a slowness of response. I’ve noticed this too, and I’ve also noticed a decreased ability to find the right word in conversation and while I’m writing.

I thought that this was a general function of aging and I accepted my decline, albeit sadly. I may have been premature. It’s possible that my flat affect and memory condition were a product of simvastatin. Of course I may be rapidly descending into a state of senile dementia and we all should ignore any of my ideas, consider them the ravings of a mad man.

Statins have been shown to improve the survival chances of atherosclerotic patients. I’m one of those. I shouldn’t mess with my meds. q.e.d.

OTOH (as the messagers using a shorthand for the common phrase “on the other hand” say), since I stopped the statins I haven’t felt quite as stupid. OTOH, I stopped taking my statins, so what does that tell you?

I’ve an appointment with the cardio guy soon. In all likelihood I’ll remember to bring this up since I’m not taking the statins. OTOH, I may not live long. Just a joke… macabre sure, but not to be taken seriously. Informed opinions abound regarding the “statin stupids,” my self-diagnosed condition. A few links:

• Do Statins Make You Stupid?
• Do Statins Make You Stupid?
• Can a Drug That Helps Hearts Be Harmful to the Brain?

Wrote this email in response to a thoughtful, optimistic essay regarding the epigenetic nature of the American character. Sharing it here out of context, but I used so many big words I thought “What the hey! People need to read this!”

I had to put tongue in cheek to reply regarding “national character.” I agree that racial or cultural stereotypes are socio-economic in origin and generally based in ignorance. I don’t quite agree that the positive stereotypes should be parsed differently from the negatory. A stereotype is a stereotype, and they can be used as tools of oppression in different ways. Positive stereotypes buttress arguments for American exceptionalism — not a good thing. Also, the story of the empathizing Americans characterized as warm-hearted and full of goodwill belongs to the twentieth century. I think there’s a whole new story for the 21st… the American character has mutated to some kind of snivelly, whiny, fear-driven slugs with a sense of entitlement that they haven’t earned.

Environmental pressures from Bushism, Corporatism, Terrorism, and bizarro libertarian capitalism have forced the production of socio-cultural enzymes that have torn away vast slices of the American national body’s chromosomes and an unrecognizable monster is emerging. Perhaps the new traits of smug religiosity, hypocrisy, and fear-based belligerence will not be inheritable and so will only be here for a single generation.

I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion that skin color is irrelevant to both problem and solution. If, for example, it could be shown that my fellow scandinavians indeed ARE stolid and stupid, that a rude taciturnity is built into our genes, the epigenetic turning of a subgroup of linguistically deprived Utah pioneers subsisting on a diet of grains and honey from stolid and morose knuckle-draggers to light-hearted gregarious friends and neighbors might be due to some enzyme balance shift caused by diet and excessive sunlight.

The offspring of these people would likely return to their natural condition if returned to a more natural dark and frigid environment with a dietary shift back to salt cod, salt pork, potatoes, and the occasional holiday blood sausage.

So, if we could nail down the genetic predictors of behavior, personality, and modes of social interaction then we should be able to identify the stressors that in all likelihood cause epigenetic shifts of character. For example the Swiss, in their own milieu, are partial to lederhosen and yodeling, while when they are isolated in an urban culture of poverty and oppression they turn into rappers and hip-hop aficionados.

(I’m late for my telomerase injections, so I may have to cut this short.)

Fearing for their safety, USian rescue workers in Haiti are having a hard time organizing work parties to shift rubble, set up field hospitals, distribute food and water. Is this an epigenetic effect, I wonder, or perhaps simply the product of minds so saturated with the propaganda that has been used to justify exploitation that the leaders of US rescue teams are paralyzed into inactivity by their own xenophobia?

How much xenophobia is a genetic “otherization” trait that supports the survival of small groups, and how much is the product of marketing (or propaganda, as they call marketing in the political arena)? Or does the marketing merely underscore and enhance genetic tendency?

Lamarck was fairly evolved for a dude lacking even an electron microscope. Spontaneous generation has always been a favorite idea of mine.

Chantal Laurent, The Haitian Blogger, published an informed article yesterday on her blog and in Salon, an article that underscores the irony of Obama’s appointment of Clinton and Bush to lead “an international campaign to help Haiti recover from the earthquake there.” America’s interventionism in Haiti’s affairs, deserves a closer look.

The noble “international community” which is currently scrambling to send its “humanitarian aid” to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti’s people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s phrase) “from absolute misery to a dignified poverty” has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.
– Peter Hallward, The Guardian, January 13, 2010

According to Hallward, “Since the late 1970s, the relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti’s agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums.” He says, “These people were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.” Around 75% of the population lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% – four and a half million people – live on less than $1 per day.

Tom Friedman wrote in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, “‘The Golden Straitjacket is the defining garment of this globalization era. The Cold War had the Mao suit, the Nehru jacket, the Russian fur. Globalization has only the Golden Straitjacket. If your country has not been fitted for one, it will be soon”; and, “Once your country puts on the Golden Straitjacket, its political choices get reduced to Pepsi or Coke – to slight nuances of taste, slight nuances of policy, slight alterations in design to account for local traditions, some loosening here or there, but never any major deviation from the core golden rules. Governments which deviate too far from the core rules will see their investors stampede away, interest rates rise and stock market valuations fall….”

What Clinton and Bush must do is work with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to forgive Haitian debt, to declare a cease fire in that neoliberal assault, to release the country from the bondage of Friedman’s Golden Straitjacket. It would be a nice gesture if they welcomed Jean Bertrand Aristide to join them in helping with Haiti’s reconstruction. If Bush and Clinton can work together for Obama, well… politics do make strange bedfellows.

I’ve been following the unfolding story of the Trautman farm and their struggle with Wisconsin’s Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Affairs. A recent post inspired an email from Betty, one of my favorite readers. She gave me permission to edit it a little and post it here. Any errors or misstatements in what follows are due to my editing. Betty writes,

I used to be partial to conspiracy theories, but lately I’m more inclined to attribute institutional madness to plain old stupidity and incompetence compounded by the unintended consequences attendant on any government regulation or legislation.

Lord preserve us from incompetence! But, as Benjamin Franklin put it, “The lord helps those who help themselves.” We can help each other through that bureaucratic maze that is bounded by incompetence and stupidity with a well planned law suit.

Here’s how things are rolling for the grass fed beef/organic farmers where I live. Yesterday we drove down to pick up our beef from a small custom organic abattoir where our critters are processed. These guys have their facility way out in the country. On a busy day the owner and a couple of employees may handle a dozen head. There’s a USDA inspector on site.

They report that Homeland Security wants thrice daily sample testing any time they announce an Orange Alert for anything anywhere. At $200 a pop for testing, a 5 day alert will cost ‘em $3000. This is an expense over which they have no control. And it’s all because a rule designed for high production (high risk), high vulnerability facilities is applied to a very low production, low risk, low vulnerability facility.

It’s not nefarious, it’s stupid. Yet that makes it no less dangerous.

Last time I checked, there were fewer than 300 custom butchers left in the entire state of California. Of these, fewer than half have gone to the considerable trouble and expense to maintain Organic Certification.

Looks like our friends at Homeland Security are gonna insure there are even fewer as they ratchet up their response to perceived threats. They can’t “connect the dots” when informed about a guy being trained to light his pants on fire, but sure as hell they can drive another small business working hard to produce healthy food out of business with insane regulations.

Last year I got yet another missive from the US Dept of Agriculture. This one was a questionnaire regarding paperwork requirements. It’s stated purpose was to study how burdensome paperwork reporting requirements by government agencies are to farmers.

OK. I’ve an opinion about that. Let’s see… I regularly respond to information demands from

• the Bureau of Land Management,
• the Department of Fish and Game,
• the Federal Department of Agriculture,
• the State Department of Agriculture,
• the State Organic Program Office,
• the Organic Certification Office,
• the County Agricultural Commissioner,
• the Department of Agriculture’s WIC Program,
• and the certified farmers market program.

I report the number of fruit and nut trees planted or died each year to the County unsecured agricultural property tax folks, and of course the Air Quality Control board needs to know the total size — 9 cubic feet — of the burn pile of weeds and brush we burn once each year. Then there’s the Agriculture Census and, well… I know I’ve missed a few.

So, I turn from the cover page to this questionnaire. It starts of course with the routine boilerplate of veiled threats demanding that I respond under penalty of law. Then I find a 6 (SIX) page double-sided small print, tiny margin questionnaire. Kinda like a long form tax return. The very thing to study “how burdensome paperwork reporting requirements by government agencies are to farmers.”

hello?

This fall, my Organic Certifier sends out a heads up that the Animal Welfare Committee of the National Organic Standards Board (oops, that’s one I forgot in the long list above) proposed to add a bunch of new stuff to the National Organic Program Requirements regarding Animal Welfare. Most of the proposed changes would have, if approved, materially degraded the quality of husbandry we provide our livestock by requiring that we implement practices with no basis in science, best practice, or common sense.

Here’s an example:

Current rules say if an animal is ill or injured, one may not withhold appropriate medical treatment just to maintain it’s Organic status. Instead, you’ve gotta treat it. If that necessary treatment is not allowed under Organic standard, then you can’t label product from that animal “Organic.” That’s a simple enough rule. It makes sense. Organically raised animals tend to be really healthy. Illness and injury are rare. When they occur they are serious.

The new proposed regulations would require that in this rare event of an ill or injured animal, medical intervention must first include Homeopathic and Herbal remedy. Only after such nostrums have failed, may scientifically based medical treatment be entertained. So I had to send NOSB a filing saying in part:

“…a recommendation that REQUIRES (through use of the word SHALL), treatments for which no efficacy has ever been proved is fundamentally flawed. Note that I do not doubt the placebo effect of homeopathy on so superstitious a species as humans, but I object to insulting the bovine by presuming they need such nostrums to ‘visualize wellness’. ”

The sloppy, ignorant, superstitious claptrap proposed as legally binding regulation boggles the mind.

Here in the World Headquarters of Sandhill Technologies we think conditions for the family farmer will only get worse. Of course we’re a negative bunch, but pressure from multinational outfits like the Swiss owned Nestle corporation, Dean Foods in the US and Fronterra in New Zealand has driven more and more farmers out of business. Population growth around the world only worsens the ratio of food producers to consumers, and our global solution has been to apply technology and corporate business practices to increase production, improve distribution, and meet the growing demand. Downsides of this approach include a degraded environment, the spread of antibiotic resistant disease, and terrible conditions for the animals. Decreased margins for food producers drive the small guy out of business while encouraging growth of the multinational concerns that can make up for slim margins with volume.

There’s a complex tangle of problems around these issues, and the simple solutions that can be implemented locally are often overlooked or ignored. Scott Trautman, Betty, and thousands of other organic producers have answers. We have to keep the light of public interest shining on them if we don’t want to be swamped with pesticides, hormones, and manure from the genetically engineered crops and concentrated animal feeding operations that are the polar opposites of organic agriculture.