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Late Friday news flash

I’ve been on the road all day, far from the media and the Internets.  Then I stop for a moment and download my email, and longtime reader Tim Paris tells me there’s a white woman missing from the Supreme Court.  I have no idea what this means.  Your thoughts?

Posted by on 07/01 at 06:05 PM

  1. I think it means we’re screwed.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  06:22 PM

  2. It means wall-to-wall coverage of Missing White Woman “news” on all the networks. It also means the Bushies get to breathe a sigh of relief that another several weeks can go by that the press has something to keep them distracted from the Downing Street Minutes.

    I really do think they orchestrated the timing of this with O’Connor. She would have waited a few weeks otherwise, I believe. They’ve been scrambling for junk food to throw to the media ever since the Michael Jackson trial ended.

    Hey - does anyone know of any kind of insurance policy Black women could purchase in case we go missing? Like if you purchase the “Brunette” plan, you get one week of national media blitz. If you purchase the “Blonde” plan, you get full media blitz until you are found, plus professional private search parties in addition to the “regular” police. With the “Platinum Pregnant White Woman” coverage, you get all all the above, plus every major newspaper and magazine cover.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  06:34 PM

  3. Battle Stations. Battle Stations. All personnel report immediately to battle stations.

    I predict this will be bad.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  06:39 PM

  4. Hey - does anyone know of any kind of insurance policy Black women could purchase in case we go missing?

    Yes.

    Unfortunately, the purchase price is being spotted on an overnighter with Trent Lott.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/01  at  06:55 PM

  5. no shit have we been deeper in.

    w/ all of my pardons for the above, i would rather have yr thoughts.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  07:32 PM

  6. as an adden-dumb, as an aside:

    he will throw us a color or a sex. the right has proven it has co-opted the left’s business in this way-- just look at his cabinet. we no longer need to worry whether it is a white woman leaving or a black woman enplaced (condi proves that, gonzalez for a man proves that). the neo-cons have taken over that wooden leg of the leftwing platform (i suppose it was holding it up) & run w/ it. at this point we need to go beyond hollow legs-- for right wing terror actually does abound. & it hits the screen (whether television or computer) for a day, then it passes, then it is forgotten as the next goes by-- you know, my mother wanted to leave when reagan won, but no, it wasnt quite fascism yet, & still have a -very- hard time believing it was fascism of any real sort when bush the father was in office (he did appoint david souter, did he not. bush jr wont do some similar), but it IS fascism now, or very close, the line dividing is infinitessimal. & the o’connor resignation puts us but so much closer. my mother, i think, would say it is certainly not the time to ban guns-- it is time for us to buy them, as secession (i probably spelled that wrong) is not just a flight of fancy now-- they shall soon be upon us.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  07:46 PM

  7. As a white woman I feel compelled to tell you that some of us actually make it back and forth from the store or office without getting lost.  Most of the time.  During daylight hours.  If we’re with someone.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  08:18 PM

  8. Rest in Peace, Justice O’Connor.

    No matter what good or ill you might have done in your life, your name will forever be tarred with the fact that you helped put Bush the Lesser in the White House.

    In the same manner, Bush the Elected will be known only for the fact that he spawned this man but was not able to hold him in check.

    God Bless America.

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  09:17 PM

  9. I am afraid to think of what it means.

    Posted by bitchphd  on  07/01  at  09:23 PM

  10. Edi, my thoughts can be summed up in three words:  Janice.  Rogers.  Brown.

    Bush will offer the Negroponte Offense:  hey, the Senate already confirmed her once, they can’t back down now.

    Posted by Michael  on  07/01  at  10:49 PM

  11. Maybe I should start an actual blog of my own, but anyway this is my page about the Supreme Court nomination battle:

    http://www.timothyhorrigan.com/supreme_court.html

    It’s gonna get ugly--- the battle, I mean. Nasty things have been said even before a nominee has been chosen. I suppose my page is not all that pretty either.

    Posted by Tim Horrigan  on  07/01  at  10:56 PM

  12. ah, a friend of mine & i were speaking about jrb earlier this evening (especially poignant as we are in california & it is our court(s) she has been fouling). & you are quite right, for the negroponte reason (et al) they would not be easily able to turn her down-- or someone like her --or gonzalez, man of torture, or any other man (or woman) who sees fit to condone torture or any other, oh, i dont know, -commensurate- act he or she feels appropriate to lay upon the american people for as long as he or she is of the ruling body that has control of the court.

    i am upset, not only b/c i am not feeling so well, but b/c when i moseyed on over to the nation to look at what other people who wrote there felt about the issue, i found it was taken over by capital N Nuts who were yelling about the rights of the day old fetus (i do not mean, necessarily, the comparison to day old bread, more to day old news & it was all men, so it was a weirdly hijacked discussion, far from sandra day or janice brown) --i think it will be difficult to keep an audience focused (probably spelled wrong) once this particular story, which i find especially crucial (the changing of the swingvote in the supreme court), heads off the newsfeed..... i am sorry to ramble, it is the middle of the night here. i thank you for yr answer, which was far more succinct than mine. i worry.

    Posted by  on  07/02  at  03:24 AM

  13. Ex-Con is 100% right. The upcoming fight over nomination of replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor
    means “Battle station. Battle stations.”

    It means the Christain right thinks this is their moment they’ve been fighting for 25 years for to elect an anti-abortion justice and illegalize abortion.  It means all the debates over abortion will be debated over and over and over thus summer. It means get your arguments on abortion ready and put them out now.

    As for me, I hemorraghed from an illegal abortion, got rushed to the hosptal to save my life. I do not respect the moral position of people against abortions. I do not think they are “for life”. They certain weren’t for my life. Rosaura Jeminez, a poor Mexican-American woman in Texas, after abortions were legal in the U.S. couldn’t afford one, got a cheaper illegal abortion, and died. Anti-abortionists didn’t respect Rosaura Jimenez’a life either. The women who have suffered from the growing curtailment of abortion rights in this country have been the poor, women of color, and teenagers--the most vulnerable. If the right gets their way on illegalizing abortion, these women will suffer increasingly.

    I often think that when the Nazis did got to power they immediately illegalize abortions in Germany as the first step to strip German women of their rights pushing them back to “kinder, kuche, kirche” (child-raising, cooking, church). Yeah, yeah, we’ve been there before. I also think my daddy risked his life in the air force for four years to fight Nazis in Europe in WWII.

    Like ex-con states, “Battle station. Battle stations.”

    Posted by  on  07/02  at  11:11 AM

  14. if the current Leader were even slightly less an asshole, one might imagine him tactically nominating a nice taft-style conservative (remember those?) or even a reasonable-sounding rightwinger to make the dems scream “extremist,” get that one confirmed, and save the real wingnut to replace rehnquist (the dems having nothing left to fight with, since they’ll already have used the “e” word and might already have lost a filibuster fight. alas, tho, since this commander in chief thinks he’s got political capital and plans to spend it, i think we can expect two wingnuts in a row, like rogers brown or gonzalez now and then someone REALLY scary to replace chief justice throatgrowth (did ralph reed go to law school?).

    Posted by  on  07/02  at  11:15 AM

  15. Not only can illegal abortion be dangerous and fatal, as Julia Stein points out, but pregnancy itself can be dangerous and fatal, too. Without access to top-notch obstetric care and close monitoring during my pregnancy, it could well have killed me and the fetus/baby I was carrying. I wouldn’t ask any woman to take on that very real risk unless she wants to be pregnant.

    Anyone know if our Senators’ staffs keep track of how many notes on a given topic come from a single writer? Because I wouldn’t mind submitting an e-mail to them every day, urging them to fight any extreme nominees.

    Posted by Orange  on  07/02  at  12:00 PM

  16. To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary at the start of WWI, “The lamps are going out all over, and I don’t know if we’ll see them lit again in our life time.”

    Jeez, this is going to be bad.

    Posted by  on  07/02  at  12:10 PM

  17. I feel like I should have an abortion next week whether I need one (which I don’t) or not. And update my health care proxy so that the government keeps its hands off my body if I can no longer make my wishes known in any other fashion.

    Posted by alice, uptown  on  07/02  at  03:23 PM

  18. I dunno about the rest of you but I’m communicating with my congresspeople through two and three dimensional mail.  Even if it doesn’t do a darn thing. This is too important.  “Battle Stations” is bad enough (and true), but then not participating in what’s to come is worse.

    Posted by Jean  on  07/02  at  08:14 PM

  19. Justice Roy S. Moore.

    And that’s if we’re lucky.

    Posted by Bombazine Ba'al  on  07/02  at  09:12 PM

  20. Yes, I’m afraid it may be the official beginning of The End O’ Times.  We need a theme song, I believe, for Summer 2005.

    ~ janson.

    Posted by Janson Jones  on  07/03  at  12:18 AM

  21. Theme Songs for that Summer 2005 blockbuster, Revenge of the Faaar Right: 

    Changes, David Bowie
    Imperial March (Vader’s Theme)
    Welcome to the Jungle, Guns and Roses

    Ashcroft, Rove, and Rumsfeld could put out a CD or something.

    Posted by mumpower  on  07/03  at  06:34 AM

  22. I think I saw Justice O’Connor yesterday, in Barre Ontario, singing lead for Deep Purple. Or maybe I just got too much sun. The nomination process could tie up Congress and the Bush Administration for years, all while dividing the Right. “Always look on the bright side of life.” Everybody whistle now!

    Posted by  on  07/03  at  12:25 PM

  23. chris robinson makes a good point. if bush doesn’t throw the christian right the bloody bone they’ve worked for all these years (or if he nominates gonzalez, whose abortion-rights views, according to this morning’s times, are found suspect by the leaders of the fighting fundy fringe), the right might indeed start eating its own guts the way the dems always seem to do, that vaunted discipline over there in the goose-step wing might start to falter, and the lameness of the duck might be emphasized by the impossibility of any ugly legislation clearing the senate. hope springs eternal, but shouldn’t we be singing ‘always look on the bright side of death / just before you draw your terminal breath’ etc?

    Posted by  on  07/03  at  12:41 PM

  24. It means the same thing it’s always meant - it detracts attention away from Karl Rove and his treason, at precisely the most convenient time to do so.

    Posted by Elayne Riggs  on  07/03  at  05:55 PM

  25. yes, it may mean this. but if it does mean it (the detratcting of attention, is what i mean) it also means that -we- MUST force that attention right back where it belongs, via container ship after container ship load of letters to, say the new york times, the l.a. times, the washington post, etc & ect-- WHY are we NOT doing this??-- for day upon day, week upon week, year upon year, until they feel OBLIGED & IMPELLED to focus on what is necessary, not -only- the horror of the changing of the swingvote (& it -is- a horror, mark my, or anyone else who is thinking’s words) but also the ‘treason of karl rove’ (i quote you b/c it is a good & true quote & i did not make it up). & if the papers will not concentrate, for -whatever- reason, it is time we did it OURSELVES. once again. this has happened in history before, & it must once again occur. facism is thickening around us & time is wasting. it is more than a matter of manning virtual battle stations-- cuteness hath left the building. it is time to actually build the barricades & begin what should have been started in 1980 & which should be more than being just prepared now. we should be ready we are not. the world is too scary for chat. oh my heavens.

    Posted by  on  07/03  at  07:35 PM

  26. mea maxima culpa, when i read what i wrote i sounded a bit, well, overboard. so i shall type a bit of what i think will help. as someone who has spent entirely too much time in the dreadful profession of graphic design, i will use a bulletted list (if this blogging program will let me):

    • write letters to major newspapers & major throwaways.

    • if they do not respond, not only by printing letters but by printing articles in response to an influx of letters, BEGIN TO PRINT YR OWN PAPERS. this has been done since, oh, lets call it time immemorial, but how about since the beginning of -this- country (but before, certainly). use a -good- graphic designer & good distribution to get them noticed. if you want even -more- notice, send out press releases & if someone, i dont care if that person is in japan, wants to interview you, let them. use -good judgement- in whom you allow to write for yr paper. everyone is NOT an artist, nor is everyone a writer. that is a fallacy. it might have once been intended as a kind thought, but it was still a fallacy.

    • get ahold of one of those lists, easily available online, that shows who contributes to republican candidates & who to blue. DONT BUY ANYTHING FROM ANYONE who contributes to the red. i find it extremely ironic how the word “red” has changed meaning over the last 50 or so years, but that probably concerns far fewer people than i think it does. however, the abovenoted is terribly important.

    • NOTE THAT THE TYPICAL FORMS OF PROTEST ARE NO LONGER WORKING & ADAPT. conceive of other forms. if sitting in the middle of wilshire boulevard & blocking traffic is getting less attention as a form of protest than as an annoyance & has AFFECTED THIS ADMINISTRATION NOT ONE WHIT, it is time to do MORE than just demonstrate en masse. my suggestion, at this time, would be an all-employee sit-down strike for even ONE DAY. a boycott of ALL work. clearly these people are run entirely by their pocketbooks. hit ‘em where they live. our votes no longer matter. our -cash- matters. DONT THROW CASH at the oppressors. recognize they are oppressors. get away from them.

    • years ago, when i began thinking of this list i started w/ “dont design for a dirty company.” what i meant by this was something along the line of “dont protest nike on saturday & go design for them on monday,” which is the type of thing i think a lot of people in my (wretched) profession were doing. & i think this sort of thing also must be thought through. WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?? WHO DO YOU BUY FROM?? i am re-iterating points (& none of this has directly to do w/ sandra day o’connor, although all of it has -indirectly- to do w/ her, & karl rove as well) but they are CRUCIAL points & they have helped get us where we are. if one is in a blue city, in a blue county, in a blue state, one must think of these things & act upon them by second, by minute, by hour, by day.

    • DONT DRIVE AN SUV. i HOPE that is an obvious thing, unneedful of mention.

    • be kind & listen to people who do not share yr point of view. i would write “do not condescend,” but i, personally, was a special ed teacher (autistic adults) & i learned from that & having an entire nebuchadnezzer’s worth of pets that each sentient being is neither to be eaten nor condescended to, no matter how irritating he or she may be (right now i have typed this, spray bottle in hand, w/ a parrot who cannot stand typing at my right hand side-- as it whines. the parrot, not the side) & so i think the actual thought would be-- find the common ground in all. this is, perhaps, the hardest thing to do, but when the lady who posted the dead fetus pictures (which i had the moderator remove) told the entire board we were both on that she liked me (who has black, blue & green hair), i finally knew it could be done. i am not shy about hair color either, any more than i am about anything else (for example, posting lists about what needs to be done, although i did post this b/c i was yelling too much about guns, i think).

    at any rate. tired here, often sick, & wishing my best, even while in a state of constant fear,
    i remain,
    only to leave pretty quickly,
    most likely.

    Posted by  on  07/03  at  07:59 PM

  27. Happy 4th of July, all!

    Posted by DK  on  07/04  at  11:40 AM

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