"By definition, anyone with ideals is a hypocrite." - Cat & Girl

Recall the bracing good sense of Obama's October 2002 speech to a rally organized by Chicagoans Against War in Iraq: "I...know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military [has] a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda."
[TheNation]

I may be a skeptic when it comes to the noise, but I like this anyway.

I've been reading a bit lately about folks on the autism spectrum and the various contemporary issues surrounding the subject, and I keep meaning to sit down one night and lay out some of what I've read, but it's a big subject, and it gets bigger the more I learn about it, such that (like so many things) earlier "insights" and opinions tend to feel trivial over time, or even down-right misguided. In some ways I feel a little silly coming on this stuff so recently, seeing as how I have friends who've been working in this field for years, but I remind myself that a certain level of interest has been simmering in me for years now, it's just that I'm paying more attention to it in this, the year of our lord, 2008.

That said, as I sit down to type about this stuff, I feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start, and I wonder if that's how it's like for Liz to sit down and try to get a handle (in written words) on butch-hood and gender issues in general. I don't want to throw out some comment out of context, but I feel ill-equipped to succinctly provide meaningful context. Even these two paragraphs feel unwieldy, and I'm not even to the link I want to make.

Jimmy came by today and was nice enough to drive my detritus to the trash/recycling center on Dillman road. Chatting afterward he live-linked (my term for someone referencing an article in meatspace) this NYTimes article about federal health officials meeting in Indianapolis to discuss the Hannah Poling case. (Leftbrainrightbrain comments on the article here.)

Study after study has failed to show any link between vaccines and autism, but many parents of autistic children are convinced that vaccines — usually given around the time autism becomes apparent — are to blame.

Parents and a small group of doctors have offered a variety of scientific explanations in recent years to try to explain why they think vaccines may cause or contribute to autism. Among the first was that the measles vaccine caused a low-level measles infection that affected children’s brains. The science underlying that theory has since been discredited.

The next theory was that a mercury-containing vaccine preservative, thimerosal, poisoned their brains, causing autism. Multiple studies have failed to find any relationship between thimerosal exposure and autism, and nearly seven years after the preservative was removed from childhood vaccines, autism rates seem unaffected.

The Poling case, however, offered advocates a new theory: that vaccines may cause or contribute to an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which in turn causes autism. Although autism is common among children with mitochondrial disorders, several experts in the disorders dismissed the notion that vaccines may cause the disease, which is widely understood to have a genetic origin.

“After caring for hundreds of children with mitochondrial disease, I can’t recall a single one that had a complication from vaccination,” said Dr. Darryl De Vivo, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Columbia University who will present at the meeting on Sunday and is one of the premier experts in the field.

This falls into the category of "venus/mars" type thinking, but hey, most cliches have some basis in someone's reality...

“What did you think?” I breathed to a fellow female fellow, as we filed out of the classroom for lunch.

“I have a crush on her,” she said. The women around us made approving noises.

“It was her passion and energy and approach that was infectious,” she later explained in an e-mail. “I really had an emotional reaction to her, and found myself day dreaming about being her friend.”

What is this thing we so often do, when confronted with an impressive woman? Why do they, in particular, set off such a Pavlovian rush of emotion? Why, for women in particular, do they set off this me/not me engagement, this game of my friend/not my friend, this eternal, sometimes infernal play of positive or negative mirroring?

Men do a version of this with women, too — though I think it plays out more in terms of validates me/doesn’t validate me, which may amount, in slightly altered form, to much the same thing. I don’t see them doing it with other men. I don’t hear of men getting “crushes” on other men because they’re impressed with them. They don’t seem to get so flooded with the desire to be them, to try on their skins; they don’t appear to be constantly testing their identities against another man’s example, calling into question, at the drop of a hat, their clothing style or hair or general sense of being in the world.

[NYTimes]

Now to ask myself - have I ever crushed on a dude like this? Bonus points: have I ever talked to another dude about a dude-crush? Dude. For some reason I'm reminded of that great scene in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when the titular characters, each having believed the other to have died, embrace in joy at learning of their safety - only to separate quickly afterward to shyly call each other "fag."

From Liz:

it’s not unusual for this kind of conversation to disintegrate into who gets to define butch or it becomes some pissing contest about manliness. So after a frustrating twenty minutes I finally said look being butch is ultimately about cultivating and protecting one’s masculinity. It’s about expressing one’s masculinity as masculine. Nobody said anything back to me and then everybody started talking about gardening.

[...]

We are expressing it as a relfection of our masculine selves and for sure, it’s easier when it’s obvious, like working on your car, or building a deck, or playing football, or driving a big ass pick-up truck or wearing all black with a big chain wallet and a tatoo on your neck. But to limit it to that obvious stuff will fuck you up when the hot femme gets up to bat and hits one out of the park or the butch cooks you this incredible dinner.
[it’s about the masculinity, stupid]

If I'd been quicker with my thoughts I would've put this in a comment on Liz's page, but it's been peculating so it ends up here instead, where perhaps it doesn't get read by Liz's millions of readers but perhaps my billions of readers will still benefit...

WHEREAS, in his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed abuses of power.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and that he be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

You can download the articles of impeachment from Dennis' site. See Keith Oberman's discussion here. I gotta admit, when i first got an email from the Kucinich folks about this my first reaction was to dismiss it. Impeachment in year 8? Never gonna happen. But that's the cynic in me, not the idealist. I'm giving the idealist a little play here, since he's so often ignored. Go Dennis, go.