Out and Back

Congratulations, Al Gore

Finally, Al has won something that George W. Bush and the Supreme Court can't steal from him -- I couldn't be more pleased for him and for the cause of advancing awareness of climate change.

Excuse me while I throw things...

I was dismayed yesterday to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the plaintiff (and the EEOC, I might add) in this case.  Here's the gist: according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employees who experience discrimination in the work place are required to file suit within 180 days.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued over the years that "each paycheck that reflects the initial discrimination is itself a discriminatory act that resets the clock on the 180-day period[.]"  Today, the Supreme Court effectively told the EEOC to stick that interpretation where the sun don't shine.  So now employees can't sue for pay discrimination more than 180 days after the discrimination allegedly occurred... which means that employers are going to get away with continuing to pay women and minorities less than their white male counterparts and employees who are experiencing discrimination will have an even harder time getting their cases heard.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened a can of dissenting whoop-ass today, though, reading her dissenting opinion from the bench, which doesn't happen very often.  According to the New York Times article:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small, Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay."

Rock on, Justice Ginsburg.  And props to Justices Souter, Stephens, and Breyer for not having their heads up their asses.

In April, the American Association of University Women released the findings of a study it conducted over the course of several years about the pay gap.  Their findings?  The pay gap is real and it gets worse for women the longer they are in the work force.  You can read more about it here.  Then write to your elected officials and tell them to get off their butts and support the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act.

I am so loving Al Gore right now

He impressed the heck out of me today with his capitol hill testimony.  I wish he would run for president again.  The slate of Democratic candidates (with the exception of Obama) has me thinking I might have to vote for Giuliani.

Pot, have you met Kettle?

Get this: Newt Gingrich admits that he was screwing around on his wife at the same time he was going after Clinton over the whole Monica Lewinsky thing.

But he's not a hypocrite, no... because he didn't lie to a judge about it.

Flimsy excuse if you ask me.... if he'd had to testify about his own affair, you can bet the bastard would have perjured himself.  What kind of red-blooded male will actually admit that he's cheating on his wife?  And even if ol' Newtie didn't lie to a judge, he sure as hell lied to his wife at the time. 

I'm not the only who feels this way.... check out this little ditty by Eric Schwartz.  (It's not about Newt, directly, but it does draw a lovely comparison between Clinton and Bush.)

The Dumb Amendment

I'm going to get slammed for this post, I know, but I have to raise the issue.

South Carolina's got one of those ever-so-trendy "marriage is between one man and one woman" amendments on the ballot for next week, and all the polls seem to indicate that it's going to pass by a landslide.  Ugh.  My brother lives in Virginia and they have a "family discrimination amendment" in their state constitution now, too.

So why does this upset me so much?  I'm straight, legally married, and by all accounts it's an issue that doesn't affect me.  But I'm a bleeding-heart liberal moonbat (as the Woodster would say) so I do care.  I care that two people who love each other and are committed to each other can't have their union recognized in the eyes of the law.  And as Margaret Cho puts it, "Any government that would deny a gay man the right to bridal registry is a fascist state!"

I love this!

This was on The Colbert Report a couple of weeks ago.  I just about died laughing.  The best part is that Jane and Gloria are totally in on the joke.

Assorted assholes

Wow, am I ever on a tear!

This whole Mark Foley thing is appalling to me, but even more appalling is the apparent attempt to cover up the whole thing by the Republicans.  These are a lot of the same guys who went ape shit on Clinton over the whole Lewinsky thing.  To them I say, "At least Monica was legal, you morons."

On a more serious note, I volunteered for CASA when I was living in Missouri.  If you don't know, CASA stands for Court-Appointed Special Advocates.  As a CASA volunteer, it was my duty to represent the rights of abused and neglected children in court.  I saw and dealt with some pretty horrific things, including two little girls (ages 4 and 6) who had been sexually molested by their father (after he had gotten their mother hooked on meth.)  I also met a four year old boy whose bipolar mother was dating a guy with a hair-trigger temper, and when mom was off her meds and in a major depressive episode, the bf just couldn't deal with an active four-year-old.  The child's grandparents took out a restraining order against the bf on the kid's behalf.  In both cases, it was up to me to recommend to the judge what was in the best interests of these poor children.

So when I read about an adult who uses his power and influence to sexually exploit minors, I get more than just a little pissed off.  I have seen, firsthand, what happens when children are abused and exploited, and I'm shocked not only by Rep. Foley's behavior, but also by the manner in which his Republican friends appear to have tried to cover it up.  There's no excuse for this kind of garbage.

And don't even get me started on the recent school shootings, in which young girls were victimized by half-cocked men.  A recent post on feministing.com exposes the underlying misogyny in these attacks.  Once again, anyone who thinks the feminist movement is dead or useless needs their fucking head examined.

You Nazi cow

The crazy-ass conservative soccer moms are at it again.  This time, it's some beyotch down in Georgia (just a little ways from me) who is trying to get the Harry Potter books banned from the school libraries in Gwinnett County on account of the fact that they supposedly advocate witchcraft.

Oh, please.

I'm reminded of my favorite scene in Field of Dreams when Amy Madigan's character takes on the book-burning beyotch at the PTA.  "Step outside, you Nazi cow!"

News flash: Harry Potter's been around for years now.  J.K. Rowling is almost finished with the series.  Have we seen legions of young readers turning to witchcraft, devil-worship, and all those other horrible, horrible things that the Nazi cows are afraid of?  I don't fucking think so.  Get bent, Laura Mallory.

More boiling blood

I found this account via feministing.com, a great feminist blog that I read regularly.  It's about a woman's attempt to get a prescription for emergency contraception, also known as Plan B or the morning-after pill.  Needless to say, I was livid after I finished reading it.

Anyone who thinks that the feminist movement is "over" or "tired" or "irrelevant," or just a bunch of man-hating bitches who need an excuse to become lesbians or something ridiculous like that should take a look at this article.  As long as there are self-righteous people (male and female) trying to keep us from controlling our own bodies, we'll be around to fight back. 

I wonder what would happen if a female doctor refused to prescribe Viagra for a single guy because she had a "moral objection" to the fact that he would most likely go out and fuck everything with two tits and a pulse?

Grr.

I leave you with one of my favorite slogans:

Because woman's work is never done
and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or
repetitious and we're the first to get fired
and what we look like is more important
than what we do and if we get raped it's
our fault and if we get beaten we must have
provoked it and if we raise our voices we're
nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're
nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if
we ask our doctors too many
questions, we're neurotic and/or pushy and
if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we
stand up for our rights we're aggressive and
"unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical
weak females and if we want to get married
we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're
unnatural and because we still can't get
adequate safe contraception but man can walk
on the moon and... for lots and lots
of other reasons, we are part of the
women's liberation movement.

Rest in Peace, Ann.

Texas -- and the U.S. -- lost a great woman today.  Even George W. Bush had the decency to say, "Texas has lost one of its great daughters."

And I have no doubt that, up in heaven, she came up with a sharp, snappy retort after hearing him say it. :)

Check out the new South Dakota state logo!

You can view it here.

My husband was recently being considered for a job in South Dakota.  We weren't sure if we really wanted to live there (the job was in a really small town in the middle of nowhere) so he ended up withdrawing his application.  Not a minute too soon!

Breathtaking Inanity

"Breathtaking inanity": truer and more eloquent words have never been spoken.  For those who don't know, "breathtaking inanity" is the phrase used by U.S. District Court Judge John Jones to describe the Dover, PA Area School Board's decision to stick "Intelligent Design" (Jesus-freak speak for "Hey, let's crucify Charles Darwin's theory of evolution") into the science curriculum.

Judge Jones, whom, I might add, is a churchgoing Republican, kicked Intelligent Design to the curb on Tuesday, calling it "a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism."

All I can say, somewhat ironically, is "Hallelujah."  For a while, I was feeling like I was stuck in a bad reality-show version of Inherit the Wind.  Fortunately, they got the ending right.

Swingin'

For the most part, I am cheered by the election results around the country this morning (the gay marriage ban in Texas notwithstanding).  It seems to me that the great political pendulum is starting to swing back the other way.  We have a President who has gotten his ass in trouble (thirtysomething percent approval rating, anyone?), and the citizens of this country are showing their displeasure by electing Democrats for governors (New Jersey and Virginia most prominently), mayors (here in good ol' Allentown and my hometown of Seattle as well as in other places around the country) and voting down the Governator's stupid-ass ballot initiatives in Cali. 

My favorite story from this recent set of elections is from Dover, Pennsylvania, where eight of nine school board members who advocated the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in their school district got shown the door by the voters.  (The ninth member wasn't up for re-election.)  Fabulous.

It's grey and rainy here in Allentown today, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a beautiful day.