This week in The Slacktiverse, June 25/26 2011

The Blogaround

Sarah wrote posted three articles: one about the male bloggers pretending to be women; another on Bloomsday; and a reflection on the festival zie helped to organize.

Last week, Storiteller wrote about the first vegetables her garden has produced and a recipe to use them. This week, she wrote about losing a beloved childhood farm and recapturing a bit of that memory at a local pick-your-own berry grower.

Laiima writes of her posts this week: I recently found out the last member of my grandparents' generation has died. I'm fumbling toward ancestor veneration, and as part of that, honor a still-living elder I've had a difficult relationship with.

My life has trained me in making the best of bad situations, not so much in first deciding what I really deeply want, then finding ways to make that happen. (And being kind to myself when something doesn't work out.) In perils of volunteering, I figure out another piece of the puzzle.

This week Kit Whitfield posted on the up-side of royalism.

This week the former conservative blogger wrote about disturbing misogynistic humor in the video game, Duke Nukem Forever; criticized a minister's evangelism techniques; discussed conservative Christians' love for Ayn Rand; talked about hir religious background; and shared the music of the Taize monastic community.

This week aravind posted at a second look at orientalism in "The Prince of Persia," specifically focusing on [Trigger Warning: sexual threats, implications of sexual violence] the sexualizing and fetishizing aspects of the movie.

Coleslaw writes: After whining about problems with wheelchair access in public places, I finally come clean and admit my house is not very wheelchair friendly, either in Access Denied 3 - The Home Version. But I find a way to keep myself occupied by participating in the Arbitron Radio Ratings, which leads me to reflect on the effect on self-observation on behavior, the meaning of "listening" and how fuzzy logic doesn't mean what you might think it means, in Arbitrary.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted
Twilight: Playing with the Cheat Codes On
Is there a point to an immortal life where all financial barriers and everyday struggles are already solved with psychic stock market gaming? Come help us figure out a raison d'etre for the Cullens in this week’s Twilight post!

In case you missed this

Trigger Warning: Rape, rape culture, physician assault

The Florida Board of Medicine has voted to allow a physician who has been convicted of rape to practice medicine in the state.

Hummingwolf writes: As the Wall Street Journal puts it, Gay Rites Law Passes. "With the vote, New York is poised to become the largest state in the country to pass a gay marriage bill, more than doubling the number of Americans who can participate in such unions."

Things you can do

Sarah writes: Sunday June 26 is the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is asking Americans to call or email their senators to "to support the public release of the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into CIA interrogation practices."

If anyone's in DC, TASSC (Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition) is holding a vigil on Saturday, June 25, in front of the White House. TASSC was founded by torture survivors, and, to my knowledge, all of the full-time staff are also torture survivors.

MercuryBlue writes: Signal boost: if you're interested in stopping the spread of young-earth creationism and the accompanying anti-science fervor, the company that made the pro-YEC documentary Expelled is auctioning off the rights to the film and production materials (including the interviews with the scientists in the film, the way they were before the editors got at them), and TalkOrigins is raising funds to buy the rights to Expelled. We're hoping that by pooling our resources, we can beat whatever the reserve price is and either win the rights to the film (whereupon we can do all sorts of fun things with it) or put a serious dent in the YEC side's resources by forcing them to outbid us.

This one's kind of urgent, folks--the auction's Tuesday, and because Paypal has a delay between the donors sending the money and TalkOrigins receiving it, only donations made before a given time Monday will be counted into the maximum bid TalkOrigins makes. Also, this isn't Kickstarter, so donations will not be returned if we don't win, but it's TalkOrigins. Halting the spread of disinformation is a good cause.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Florida did WHAT?

[dismayor]

Trigger warning

According to the article, the surgeon raped a sleeping colleague who was under medication. The board voted 7 - 3 to let him keep his license. According to that and another article I found, the board's reasoning was that, since his victim was not a patient and the crime was "unrelated" to the practice of medicine, they shouldn't take away his license even though the military tribunal found him guilty. The board declined to even put him on probation.

I really don't know what to say about something like this. The Surgeon General's complaint against the surgeon puts it well in my view:

“The qualities that are essential to the practice of medicine include sound judgment, integrity, and respect for the well-being of human beings"

Rape is a crime that demonstrated a profound lack of integrity and disrespect for the well-being of others. I don't see how you can be a surgeon without those traits; at least, not a good one. He violated at least two professional oaths -- as a doctor and as a member of the military and I feel that it's not right for the Board to let him practice in a situation where he has unsupervised access to vulnerable patients. I normally have a lot of criticism for sex offender registration laws but I think this is one situation where they actually might be helpful; any patient who might be going under sedation at the government facility where this man works should know of this potential threat.

[Lonespark]

I...what...
That violates everything I know about professional licensure boards and standards and professionalism generally...

[Kit Whitfield]

If this is a real story (is there more than one source for it?) this is the kind of issue that change.org could campaign against. I'm having some trouble with my account just now - anyone else want to start a petition?

[Mmy]

@Kit Whitfield: If this is a real story (is there more than one source for it?)

As far as I can tell it is a valid complaint. The complaint and final verdict are in the public record.

There is a thread about this on Shakesville -- I'll read through comments and see if anyone knows of an existing petition. I'll post anything I find here.

[Amaryllis]

any patient who might be going under sedation at the government facility where this man works should know of this potential threat

No, I am not at all reassured by the requirement that he works only in government facilities.

Not after this recent GAO Report:

GAO found that many of the nearly 300 sexual assault incidents reported to the VA police were not reported to VA leadership officials and the VA OIG. Specifically, for the four VISNs GAO spoke with, VISN and VA Central Office officials did not receive reports of most sexual assault incidents reported to the VA police. Also, nearly two-thirds of sexual assault incidents involving rape allegations originating in VA facilities were not reported to the VA OIG, as required by VA regulation. In addition, GAO identified several factors that may contribute to the underreporting of sexual assault incidents including unclear guidance and deficiencies in VA's oversight. VA does not have risk assessment tools designed to examine sexual assault related risks veterans may pose...GAO found significant weaknesses in the implementation of these physical security precautions at these VA facilities, including poor monitoring of surveillance cameras, alarm system malfunctions, and the failure of alarms to alert both VA police and clinical staff when triggered. Inadequate system installation and testing procedures contributed to these weaknesses. Further, facility officials at most of the locations GAO visited said the VA police were understaffed.

They can't even prevent or prosecute sexual assaults by clients, let alone by staff. And they're going to let this guy in?
(I suppose there are other types of government hospitals besides the VA (Veterans Affaris, for non-USians) system, but it's a logical place for an ex-military doctor to end up.)

[Hyp]

This is the relevant thread at Shakesville:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/06/today-in-rape-culture.html

I could not find any directly related petition at change.org.

[Mmy]

@Hyp: Thanks. I'm still looking for a petition somewhere, anywhere.

[DS]

The Florida Board of Medicine is notorious for closing ranks and protecting its own; this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and it sadly won't be the last. Hell, the Florida Board of everything is notorious for closing ranks and protecting its own. Identity politics at its finest, I suppose...

Charlie Crist would have put them all up against a wall, but sadly, we proved unworthy of his beneficence.

[Brin]

Why would you want to buy Keflex from shady websites? Isn't that an antibiotic? It's not like it's psychoactive.

*refreshes* Ah, it's been deleted now. Even so.

[Lonespark]

Yeah, that is weird. Is it some new, patented antibiotic?

[Kit Whitfield]

@mmy - are you on change.org? Anyone can start one there.

[MercuryBlue]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges --we have to find out from a UK paper that women who have miscarriages in the US--of pregnancies that these women made a point not to abort, even--are being charged with murder. There are several things seriously wrong with this picture.

[Ross]

Someone commented on twitter over the weekend, something which I don't know that it's true, but I hope it is:

No one ever goes out in the streets celebrating when marriage equality is defeated.

----

Also, someone considerably less pleasant said (paraphrased) "Some things shouldn't change. I read my kids the story of Sodom at bedtime. It hasn't changed"

Which gave me the opportunity to throw Ezekiel 16:49 at him, and also wonder what kind of jerk thinks that the story of Sodom and GOmmorah is a suitable bedtime story for children.

[Ross]

(TW: Abortion)
I'm outraged. It must be monday. An Anti-Abortion group is calling for (Additional Warning: Related Emotionally Manipulative Imagery) graphic warning labels "on abortions" akin to the new cigarette warnings.

One of the things I find myself wondering is whether this and the whole "The Only moral abortion is my abortion" bullsantorum is related to the mindset that says things like "Of course we should allow the police to do unwarranted searches and wiretaps; if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear.": they imagine that if you're having a "moral" abortion, you won't be affected by being called a baby-murderer, and if you *are* upset by it, that only proves that you're one of them shameless harlots.

(END TW)

Fwiw, there's not-insignifigant evidence that the new cigarette warning labels will prove literally worse than useless. The short version boils down to "Man, that graphic label is really distressing. After looking at that horror, I really need a cigarette to help me calm down."

Because it almost never ends well when you try to use an appeal to fear to change someone's behavior.

[Deird, who wants to read the comments]

(Anyone know why Fred's site is down?)

[Mmy]

@Deird: Anyone know why Fred's site is down?

No. It was up earlier today. Not only Fred's blog but a number of other blogs on the same site are down so I am thinking that it may be a server issue. They are in the process of adding a number of new blogs and they might have to take a server or two offline in order to do so.

If the site is down later in the day I will let my contacts at Patheos know about the problem.

@Kit Whitfield: no I am not on change.org and I probably should be.

[Hummingwolf]

Fred's blog is up for me. Well, it's working as well as it ever does--Disqus is glitchy, as usual.

[Mmy]

@Hummingwolf: Yeah, it just went back up for me.

[Caravelle]

Talk.Origins didn't get the film :
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/06/a-thank-you-fro.html

According to them all donations made by credit card or paypal balance will be refunded. If anyone donated and wants the donation to stay donated they'd have to re-donate, because distinguishing between those who want a refund and those who don't is too complicated.

Still, good on you for the signal boost MercuryBlue.

[zigforas]

From MercuryBlue's link to http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

"South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy."

.....That's a problem.

[Mike Timonin]

Another signal boost:

My wife reads the journal of a charming couple who are faced with a complicated situation. Both are QUILTBAG, they self identify as gay, they are living in a state where they cannot legally be married. One half of the couple has severe medical issues; the other half of the couple has been providing basic care (as members of loving relationships are wont to do). The care giving person is on unemployment, and taking classes. Recently, the state unemployment board decided that since the couple are not married, the care giving person is technically a care giver, and, as such, should be getting paid, and, as such, is ineligible for unemployment. More here: http://clayshaper.livejournal.com/378714.html

[Ross]

@Mike: How do state officials deliver news like that to someone without adding a "Muah Hah Hah!" at the end?

Seriously, at some point, you cross the line from being mundanely unjust to being cartoonishly cat-strokingly evil.

[MercuryBlue]

Should be. Not is, but should be. That's the part I can't get past.

[Mike Timonin]

Should be. Not is, but should be. That's the part I can't get past.

Ya, me too. It's like a punch to the gut. And, you know, perhaps that's true. Perhaps everyone who provides care SHOULD be paid for the care they provide. Perhaps housewives (and husbands!) SHOULD be compensated for the work they do - but they aren't, and using it as a justification for cutting off the only source of income - no, worse, REVERSING the source of income into an outgo - ya, Ross is spot on. It's mustache twirling, tying pretty girls to the railway tracks evil.

[Ross]

So... The argument here seems to be "You're providing care for this person. Because you're not married in the eyes of the law, what you are doing is acting as a caregiving professional. And that's a job. And the fact that you're doing it for free is awesome and all, but you should really be looking for a paying job before you waste your time doing pro-bono."

... And then I can't hear what they say after that in my imagination, because in my imagination, I got sick of that smug tone I imagine they're using, and I imagine that I just broke their nose. (So seriously, recently more and more I read things that make my mind take comfort in thoughts of physical violence being done to people who say stuff like this. That can't possibly be healthy.)

Yeah. Moustache-twirling.