My God Does Not Intend Rape. Does Yours?

“And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
--Richard Mourdock, Indiana GOP Senate candidate

The above comment was Senator Mourdock's attempt to explain why abortion should not be made available to rape victims.

To be a little theological about it, strictly speaking, if you figure everything that happens "God intended" or "willed" then what do you do with the doctrine of "free will"? 

"Free will" is such an American concept, but also very directly a product of Judeo-Christian theology, in which Adam and Eve were free to follow God's command - "Do not eat that apple, you two!" - OR NOT. You see, God asked Adam and Eve not to eat the apple, but God did not prevent them.  God left the choice to them.  God's apparent desire that we have free will means that we have to make our own choices - and let others make their own choices.  Those of us who are religious believe we may have to answer to God, but not to Richard Mourdock or any other politician.

Do you think the snake might be the original politician? 

By the way, I love this art, don't you?  I can't find the artist.  If anyone knows who painted this, please let me know.  

I've Picked My Presidential Poison

I recently lost a facebook friend.  She told me we no longer had anything to discuss when I shared that I was going to have to vote for the Obama/Biden ticket, even though the Obama presidency has disappointed me badly in several ways.  She just does not understand how ANYBODY could vote for President Obama a second time around.  

I should say I think President Obama has done a far better job over the past year or so, but I chalk that up to the ramp up to the election, and worry about his behavior during a last term, when he doesn't have to appease his base. To those of you for whom this admission comes as a surprise, feel free to ask me why - not that it matters at this moment.

Anyway, in case my friend is paying attention, I want to explain myself.

The next President of America affects a lot of stuff - way beyond the Oval Office.  My decision to vote Democrat is a political decision that reflects the following concerns:

1. The damage I fear could be done if we have both a Republican majority in Congress & a Republican White House.  There would be no balance in policy at all.

2. Fear of a Republican White House if the opportunity presents to appoint another Supreme Court judge during the next administration.

3. Fear of the religious right's hold over the Republican party - as demonstrated by the complete make-over of a moderate Governor into a right-wing presidential candidate to get past the religious right gate keepers, the choice of a religious right vice presidential candidate, and the Republican Platform.  I fear the religious right's impact on policy-making, and on the lives of minorities, the poor, women, LGBTs and other pet targets.

4. My personal inability to look the other way on immigration, abortion, small business and welfare policies (welfare having to do with the economic downturn unemployed, rather than welfare mothers - who have not been able to play that game since the Clinton administration). I don't believe that either administration, Republican or Democrat, has the back of small business, actually.  But that's a topic for another day.

5. My strong belief that top-down economic "fixes" don't fix it for anybody but the financial industry. Not entirely sure we'll get anything else, even from another Obama administration, but we SURE won't get it from the Republicans.

6. My fear that Republican "fixes" to social security, medicare, medicaid and health care will just mean privatizing everything - something that has not worked very well, for example, when you look at private retirement savings efforts.

It's not just who's in the White House. It's all the ways we lose a balance of power and policy, if we tilt the windmill completely Republican.

Get Your Game On!

Are you getting progressively more frustrated by extreme politics in our state and nation?  Some of my most politically active friends even talk about sitting this election year cycle out.   I might have the cure for your political blues.  Let me introduce all of you to Lilia Alvarez, a young woman who reminds me of the "Little Engine that Could."  Quite seriously - Lilia is the woman who gives me hope about Arizona again.  

Each of us has a story about a ball we carried way down a field even though conventional wisdom said that the opposing team was impossible to breach. 

Wait, did I just use a sports metaphor?  Really?   

It happened for me as a new lobbyist. My client - the City of Tucson - asked me to do something that any veteran at the legislature would have told me was an impossibility due to the history of the issue.  But because I was a newbie, and really wanted to prove myself, every time my bill got killed, I found someone sympathetic to my newbie-ness and asked how to revive it.  Over and over and over I revived the bill.  Important people got angrier and angrier, but I plowed ahead for my cause.

I saw this kind of raw determination in Lilia when she and a core group of folks refused to believe that Senate President Russel Pearce was unstoppable. They believed it had to be done, and took it upon themselves to organize the removal of Pearce from office. Door to door to door, they got it done.  

If Lilia had been as afraid of him as the rest of us were - really afraid of him - lobbyists, the business community, quite probably the entire legislature and the governor of our state were all afraid of him - Lilia and her group might have decided not even to begin.  And, to add to my delight, the group that Lilia helped form, Citizens for a Better Arizona, is a bi-partisan, ethnically, racially and religiously diverse group - coming together for the good of the state.  And by "good of the state," I mean, striving for a government that works for the well-being of Arizonans, not for crazy ideological goals.  

Lilia and her band of merry politicos refused to sit silent. They refused to be afraid.  Or maybe they felt the fear, but did it anyway!  They proved that Arizonans can take back our state, http://tinyurl.com/98qv5us.  This is why Lilia excites me so very much. She is so inspirational.  

So imagine my pleasure when Lilia told me she was running for County Supervisor.  Why County Supervisor?  Well, the next target of Lilia's ire is Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  And yes, you may get another email from me supporting Paul Penzone for sheriff, but back to Lilia...

Lilia understands that the County Supervisors have allowed and even enabled Sheriff Arpaio to commit all the negligent things he's done here in Maricopa County.  They fund him.  He is supposed to answer to them, but it appears that he calls the shots.  

While the Supervisors stood by, Arpaio has done the truly egregious.  He failed to investigate sex abuse cases his office was contracted to handle, http://tinyurl.com/elmiragearpaio.  He has been put on trial for racial profiling by the Justice Department, http://tinyurl.com/3drrjld.  And he has blatantly wasted your taxpayer dollars to send investigators to Hawaii to chase down non-existent evidence that President Obama is not American-born, http://tinyurl.com/bu2hy7z.  Let me ask you, how is that a Maricopa County duty?  http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19789741/highlight/232949

By the way, this seems minor by comparison to the other issues, but did you know there has only been one woman elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in the past 10 years? It’s true! Other than Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the board has been completely dominated by male Republicans for an entire decade.  Lilia will make an amazing female addition.  She has a law degree, a masters in public health, and a wealth of political experience dating back to her family's involvement with Cesar Chavez!

I'm so excited about Lilia's energy, honesty, and courage.  It's contagious!   And so I want you to come meet her and catch the excitement.  We can take Arizona back!

I'm co-hosting a meet-and-greet after work, Thursday, September 20, at the home of Karen Kruse, 79 W. State, Phoenix.  Please stop by.  After you meet Lilia, if want to make a donation, large or small, so much the better.  But you do not have to.  I am most interested in you meeting Lilia.  I am positive she will rejuvenate your excitement about Arizona.    

Let's get our game back on!

Girls Are Not Commodities

Some of you may not know that I do some consulting for the Avon Program for Women and Justice at O'Connor House.  The O'Connor House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded under the leadership of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor upon her retirement from the Supreme Court Bench.  Justice O'Connor, our nation's first female appointee to the Bench, has focused part of the work of her foundation on projects to help victims of violence, including domestic violence and sex trafficking.  The Program for Women and Justice was created at O'Connor House and funded by the Avon Foundation to turn Justice O'Connor's commitment to women and justice into an action agenda for victims of domestic violence and trafficking.

Today I received a letter from Jill Faber, chair of the Avon Program's anti-sex trafficking project. The letter (below) is powerful and should be shared.  I hope you will repost it to your facebook walls, tweet it, link it to your own blogs, email this post to friends.  The  video just above the letter is recommended watching in Jill's letter.




"Last Friday a national conference call was facilitated by Brad Myles, CEO of Polaris, and Andrea Powell, CEO of Fair Girls (drop-in center in DC for sexually exploited children, most of whom have been advertised on backpage), to discuss what is going on around the U.S. Backpage is the major advertiser of sex services online. It is estimated that 80% of women and children that are advertised online are on backpage. 

 Until two years ago Craigslist had a profitable adult section but due to public pressure and advertisers withdrawing their business, Craigslist shut down its adult section. Much of that business moved to backpage which earns $25 million annually on its adult section. It is estimated that as much as 10% of all ads are marketing children. 

We are now calling on backpage to shut down its adult section. Backpage is a huge factor in the sexual exploitation of children in metro Phoenix: On May 19, 2012, in the Arizona Republic, ASU Professor Dominique Roe-Sepowitz said "Almost all of the hundreds of victims of child sex trafficking I have worked with in the past two years have been put on backpage.com, some by their pimps, some by their mothers, some by their best friends. This is an ugly issue, one that we must not turn away from to allow for free enterprise." 

 Across the country there is a large coalition of elected officials, 19 U.S. Senators, 600 faith leaders and 53 leading anti-trafficking experts, as well as all 50 state attorneys general who have joined with 300,000 citizens who have signed petitions on change.org, signon.org and fairgirls.org to demand that Village Voice Media (owned by Phoenix New Times owners) shut down the adult section on backpage. 

________________________________________________________________________

"Almost all of the hundreds of victims of child sex trafficking I have worked with in the past two years have been put on backpage.com, some by their pimps, some by their mothers, some by their best friends."
________________________________________________________

 What we can do in Arizona is: 

 1. If you have not signed a petition (like almost 300,000 other Americans) do so now at www.change.org/petitions/tell-village-voice-media-to-stop-child-sex-trafficking-on-backpage-com There are additional petitions at signon.org and www.fairgirls.org. 

2. Let the advertisers who have suspended advertising in New Times know that you appreciate their willingness to stand up for the exploited youth who are being advertised on backpage. That list includes American Airlines, AT&T, Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Buddy Stubbs Harley Davidson, Crown Imports, H&M, Harkins Theaters, IHOP, IKEA, LG, Macy's, Miller/Coors, REI, Starbucks, and T-Mobile. We should support companies that are committed to values like the protection of child victims from traffickers and from those who would buy children for sex.

3. Companies that have been contacted but have told us they refuse to suspend advertising include American Apparel and Lululemon. If you shop at these stores, let them know how you feel about this reaction to our campaign and consider buying clothes elsewhere. 

4. The focus now is on regional companies and we are obtaining the list of companies that have been contacted by email but have not responded in metro Phoenix. We will forward that list to you this week so you can help us by writing and emailing those companies and encouraging them to join the highly ethical companies listed in (2) above who have taken a stand on child sex trafficking. We should not support companies that are contributing to the bottom line of Village Voice Media (the parent company that was absorbed by Phoenix-based New Times), a company that includes child sex trafficking in their business model. 

 5. Read the article in the September issue of Marie Claire, page 228: "Girls 4 Sale" which explains the impact backpage is having on our cities. Discuss this article with your friends. 

 6. Watch the public service announcement on www.fairgirls.org. (When you go to the site, wait for the "girls are not commodities" photo to come up on the homepage and click on it to see the 30 second public service announcement on backpage----it's powerful.) Forward it to your lists. 

7. Know that efforts are underway to change the Communications Decency Act by national groups and to bring criminal charges against backpage by other groups. Large city police departments have ongoing investigations of backpage. The Department of Justice has been approached by Senators and Congressmen. Some groups are strategizing on state action by their Attorney General or legislative action. Backpage hides behind the First Amendment (freedom of speech) as well as the Communications Decency Act. The National Association of Attorneys General has some high profile members who are looking at taking on a case right now. 

 8. Auburn Seminary in New York is working with religious leaders on an educational campaign to strengthen local leaders across the U.S. who want to join this campaign. 

9. Respond when you are called to protest against New Times----The Frederick Douglas Family Foundation, Southern Arizona Against Slavery, Arizona Foundation for Women and Shared Hope hosted a protest in front of the headquarters of New Times in June. Join us when you hear about the next protest. 

Below is a timeline of activity on backpage for the last 12 months. 

MAJOR ANTI BACKPAGE.COM CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENTS: 

 August 2011 - 51 of the nation’s attorneys general write a letter to Village Voice Media demanding it shut down the adult section of Backpage, which it identified as a “hub” for human trafficking, especially the trafficking of minors. 

October 2011 - Groundswell, the social action initiative of Auburn Seminary, publishes an open letter to Village Voice Media via a full-page ad in The New York Times. The letter was signed by over 30 prominent, multi-faith clergy and presented a moral appeal to Village Voice Media to close Backpage’s adult section. To date, over 600 clergy have joined the campaign. In tandem with the NYT ad, Groundswell launched a petition on Change.org calling on the public to the campaign. Over 250,000 individuals have signed the petition. 

 December 2011 - 53 leading anti-trafficking organizations send public letter to VVM calling on the company to take action. Groundswell holds a private meeting with Village Voice Media executives again making its appeal. January 2012 John Buffalo Mailer, the son of the co-founder of The Village Voice, Village Voice Media’s flagship publication, joins the campaign. The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof writes the first of several columns on Backpage. Echoes the campaign’s call for Backpage to take action. CNN’s Anderson Cooper does the first of nearly half a dozen stories on Backpage. 

March 2012 - A bi-partisan group of 19 U.S. Senators writes a letter to Village Voice Media requesting the adult ads on Backpage.com be removed. Groundswell holds a rally in front of the office of The Village Voice in New York City to deliver the 250,000 signatures it collected on its petition on Change.org. Rally received a significant amount of press and was attended by NYC Council Members, anti-trafficking and children’s organizations, leading clergy, and members of the public. The Washington state governor signed into law a bill targeted at Backpage and aimed at cracking down on the adult ad business. Village Voice Media sued the state, and the case is currently in litigation. 

 April 2012 - Groundswell and Change.org announce effort to educate Village Voice Media’s top 50 advertisers on the controversy around Backpage and call on the companies to suspend their ads with VVM’s publications until the adult section of Backpage.com is shut down. To date, over 45 advertisers have pulled their ads, including major national brands such as Best Buy, American Airlines, IHOP, H&M, Starbucks, and Miller Coors. The advertiser campaign has been ongoing and continues today. The previous week, four U.S. Senators announced a separate effort to convince advertisers in Village Voice Media’s 13 weekly publications to discontinue their ads until Backpage’s adult section is shut down. A group of leading musicians, including R.E.M., members of the band Pearl Jam, The Civil Wars, Roseanne Cash Talib Kweli, and Alicia Keyes, announce their support for the campaign against Backpage. At least two firms with investments in Village Voice Media sell their stake in VVM, after growing “uncomfortable with the direction of the company” [Reuters, 4/1/12; Reuters, 4/4/12]. U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf of VA writes the first of several letters to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on the administration to launch criminal charges against Backpage. ABC’s Nightline airs a major piece on Backpage. 

May 2012 - Meeting takes place with top White House officials regarding the campaign. The meetings are ongoing, with the most recent one having taken place in July. New York City Council passes resolution calling on VVM to drop adult ads. 

July 2012 -  A PSA is released portraying true story of 13-year old survivor of sex trafficking advertised on Backpage.com. The PSA appears online, in print in The National Journal, and on air in the DC market – during ABC’s This Week and for several days on MSNBC. The ad also aired in local markets by way of earned media. Launched in tandem with the PSA was a petition on SignOn.org, sponsored by the 13-year old actress in the ad, asking the public to join the campaign against Backpage. To date, there are over 40k signatures. Op-ed appears in Huffington Post, penned by Wendi Adelson, attorney, author and clinical professor at Florida State University College of Law, arguing VVM is facilitating a criminal enterprise, which is not protected by free speech/the first amendment – the principles behind which VVM is hiding. Adelson also states that Backpage is guilty of reckless disregard and encourages the DOJ to file criminal charges against the company. Press release sent out featuring statements by two prominent internet freedom leaders (Tim Karr of Free Press and Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute) criticizing Village Voice Media for its abuse of free speech and free internet principles to maintain an unethical business operation in Backpage.com. August 2012 Minneapolis City Council passes resolution against Backpage. 

KEY MEDIA STORIES: ABC News - Nightline "Girls Sold for Sex Online, Backpage Defends Decision to Keep Ads Up" The New York Times - Nicholas Kristof "Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods" CNN - Anderson Cooper “Should Backpage.com Close the Adult Section?” We will send you the list of metro Phoenix companies that have not responded to our emails this week and hope you will help us by writing and calling the CEO's to ask them to stand with us on this issue. Jill Faber Coalition to Protect Arizona Children http://protectazchildren.com

One Word: Community

Perhaps you've heard about Ann-Marie Slaughter's epiphany,  that women still can't have it all.  Slaughter's article in The Atlantic has been widely talked about and blogged up quite a bit, and I'm not planning to do that here.  Instead, I want to mention one particular commentator, David French, who used Slaughter's article as a jumping off point for proclaiming that he had his own epiphany:  Slaughter, and all of us, ought to know that we are unimportant, except to our families.


What seems to have motivated French, from what I can tell from afar, is Slaughter's contextualization of her own realization within the unabashed success of her professional life.  She starts her article by letting readers know, if they don't already, that she's been places, done things and known people - important people.  She describes herself at an event this way:


"[As]the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, a foreign-policy dream job that traces its origins back to George Kennan,  [I] found myself in New York, at the United Nations’ annual assemblage of every foreign minister and head of state in the world. On a Wednesday evening, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a glamorous reception at the American Museum of Natural History. I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled."


Ms. Slaughter's job, by her description, is very interesting (to me, anyway), impacts many lives around the world, and gives her access to personal and professional opportunities many of us only dream about.   By any American standard, she can be proud of herself and her accomplishments without arrogance.   


David French apparently sees it differently:


"I found [the article] to be thoughtful, interesting, honest - but suffering from a philosophical flaw, one that has little to do with the politics of gender and everything to do with our view of the world and our place in it.  To put it bluntly, how would Dean Slaughter's analysis change if she knew that the job that she loved so very much was truly not that significant?" 

French argues that our jobs amount to a calling or duty, while the only truly important thing in our lives is our family.  He concludes this because, should he up and die, he would be replaced in his professional role without much fanfare, but his family would actually suffer the loss.  I don't know for sure, but to me French's assertion feels like a judgment about Slaughter's choice - a judgment that her professional ego has gotten in the way of understanding her only real importance - within her family.   The conclusion one would have to reach, given his assertion, is that Slaughter shouldn't even have to ask the question, "My work or my son?"?    Or perhaps I'm reading him all wrong, and this is simply an opportunity for musing back to his personal realization that the world is just not that into him.  I really can't know.  


French says "the relevant question"  relates to duty rather than personal accomplishment or fulfillment.  I must disagree.


As my friend David Weiss always says, "One word:  Community."


I think the relevant question pertains to our dual purpose - as part of a family, but also as part of community.   The Almighty or Evolution or What/Whomever made us as plentiful and individually unimportant as grains of sand, or as stars in the Universe.  Yet, She implanted in us an ego that prohibits us from seeing the universe from the lowly perspective of a grain, or even from the overarching vantage of a star.  She fashioned us with vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch and pain and pleasure receptors.  The ego forces us to filter the world through our own experiences, our senses, our emotions, ensuring that we will take it all very personally.


We have to spend a lot of time "learning" that we are not the center of our universe.  As children, we are taught to make room in our world for the needs of others - to share, to play quietly when someone is sleeping, to wait while a parent finishes speaking with someone else.  As adults, we learn that someone has primacy as our boss, that we have to adjust and compromise with a mate.  Maybe eventually we even spend time studying philosophies that help us learn to "let go" of all that we would control but cannot.  In other words, whatever our purpose here on earth, it requires that we both feel and interpret and personalize our way through the universe, and also know that we are a part of something beyond our feelings and interpretations - grains of sand that together create a larger beach, members of a community that would not function as a community without many hands on deck.  


Here and gone, yes.  But what we do while we're here impacts the quality of life of those around us, and changes the landscape of our communities toward either the sacred or the profane, impacting - if for most of us only as the butterfly effect - the world we leave in our wake.


As humans, personal passion for our work - whether at home or out in the community - is part of our make-up.  The fact that it creates personal conflict is no surprise.  We have to make choices constantly as we ride through life.   Imagine if folks had no passion about their communal duties.   Selfishness for one's own family would propel people to dastardly behavior.  Our world would be a far worse place.   

French says Steve Jobs, despite his contributions, will eventually be old news. Yeah, but not really. Jobs has changed the global landscape in so many ways, and his work will be - already is - the stepping off point for many future technology changes.  


And the gunner David French mentions in his article, the one he was sitting by when he had his epiphany, was also changing the human landscape.  As he ended lives, other connected lives were changed forever, in ways that reverberated, probably for longer than we imagine or understand.  


And when I look at the work being done by Slaughter, by my friends and I, particularly through assorted professional government and nonprofit positions, and also as committed volunteers, I know that the difference we make to those we serve is very real. Real lives are being changed for the better, the community is being uplifted.  It doesn't make any of us indispensable.  It does make all of us important to our community.  


And knowing that it's all hands on deck in this world, yes, of course it creates conflict.  And yes, we do have to ask sometimes, "My work or my daughters?"   

How a real man apologizes

I've discussed apologies here and elsewhere before.  Today an apology by Jason Alexander, famously known for his portrayal of Seinfeld's George Costanza, crossed my desk.  Jason, on a talk show, found himself in the midst of a discussion about the sport of Cricket, and proceeded to crack some jokes designed to distinguish the polite sport from rougher ground sports.  He used "kinda gay" as one of his descriptors.  The audience laughed, but later, he heard from some offended fans.

Alexander's apology is an exceptional example of what a real apology should be.  It is both thoughtful and genuinely remorseful, but it goes an extra mile by striving to understand the reasons he offended, to acknowledge his acts caused harm, and to show clearly that he's learned.

"But what we really got down to is quite serious. It is not that we can’t laugh at and with each other. It is not a question of oversensitivity. The problem is that today, as I write this, young men and women whose behaviors, choices or attitudes are not deemed “man enough” or “normal” are being subjected to all kinds of abuse from verbal to physical to societal. They are being demeaned and threatened because they don’t fit the group’s idea of what a “real man” or a “real woman” are supposed to look like, act like and feel like.


For these people, my building a joke upon the premise I did added to the pejorative stereotype that they are forced to deal with everyday. It is at the very heart of this whole ugly world of bullying that has been getting rightful and overdue attention in the media. And with my well-intentioned comedy bit, I played right into those hurtful assumptions and diminishments."

That was just a whistle-wetter.  Click this sentence to read the rest of it.

Tricky, Tricky Teacher

So, I just graded the last final essay exam from Spring 2012 NLM 160, Voluntary Action and Community Leadership.  Over half the class got an A on the exam, and I am very happy with that.   I know folks will say that's proof the exam was too easy, but I think it's proof that I coerced them both to read the material and to think.

As at least a modicum of proof that it's not because the exam is too easy:  when I queried my students as to whether the midterm - on which they also did quite well - was too simple, the class emitted an immediate, long, low groan.   My exams aren't that easy.  But if you are good at following directions - all of them - it would be difficult to do poorly.

The key is in the directions.

Get this:

Each question contains a reference to a very specific set of readings - usually a chapter from our text or one or two complimentary readings or audio visual presentations - containing the exact information they need to answer the question.

Then I ask a question - from real life - either their group work, their personal experience or from a case study.  They must apply the information in the readings to the situation at hand to answer the question.  And, they have to provide a citation to the exact page in the reading they leaned on to answer the question.  This forces students to get into the book, figure out what's in there, and further more, figure out what those ideas can contribute to the situation in the question.  This is what I call a "learning exam."

I can easily tell from the depth of their grasp, who's been keeping up with the readings all semester.  Those who are with it display amazing, creative application.  But for some of my students, this will be the first time all semester they crack the book.  One of my students even admitted to me on the eve of the midterm that she didn't yet own the book!  

One of my older students once lamented to me that a couple of the younger students in her group rarely did their reading.  I pointed to my exams and asked if the way I structure my exams make more sense in light of that fact.  She suddenly got it.

NLM 160 is a large class, and asking for essays is perhaps a stroke of stupidity on my part, since I have to grade somewhere between 60 and 80 exams, twice a semester, depending on class size.  But I've discovered I'm not really happy unless my students learn, and the exam is the only way I can guarantee that students must crack those books at least once if they want to get out of my classroom.