Why Republicans Rip the Voting Rights Act

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

By stalling in renewal of the hugely important civil rights legislation, the GOP is throwing a bone to conservative Southern whites.

Black leaders kick off clergy conference

DALLAS — Prominent black leaders said they will work to combat Christian conservatives they say have used gay marriage and abortion to distract from larger moral issues such as the war, voting rights, affirmative action and poverty.

The Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Joseph Lowery and hundreds of black leaders from around the country are focusing on mobilizing black voters for the fall elections. They kicked off a three-day black clergy conference Monday in Dallas.

“There are no gay people coming to our churches asking to get married,” Sharpton said. “But there are plenty of people coming with problems voting or their sons in jail.”

Because psychologists have been able to discover, …

Because psychologists have been able to discover, exactly as in a slow-motion picture, the way the human creature acquires knowledge and habits, the normal child has been vastly helped by what the retarded have taught us.

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

Hunger makes a thief of any man.

I am mentally bifocal.

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

Love alone could waken love.

Love dies only when growth stops.

Man was lost if he went to a usurer, for the interest ran faster than a tiger upon him.

Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors.

One faces the future with one’s past.

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband’s bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won’t let them into our country.

We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.

What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

~Pearl S. Buck

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue do…

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.

Big Brother is watching you.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

For a creative writer possession of the “truth” is less important than emotional sincerity.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

In every one of those little stucco boxes there’s some poor bastard who’s never free except when he’s fast asleep and dreaming that he’s got the boss down the bottom of a well and is bunging lumps of coal at him.

In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism - robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it.

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

The main motive for “nonattachment” is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and… too intelligent.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

~George Orwell

NAACP SAYS TV STILL LACKS COLOR

Read at a blog:

Imagine 200 channels of BET. Imagine 10 different types of “Madea’s Family Reunion” in theatres every week (with no other choice). Imagine local nightly news that reports only the negativity in YOUR neighborhood. Imagine Chris Tucker as president. Imagine John Conyers as Speaker of the House and J.C. Watts as the minority leader. Imagine a poor European continent. Imagine a wealthy African continent. Imagine a stressed out existence with little forms of positive entertainment available.
If you don’t like the scenario, then how do you think Blacks feel? The industry folks would say that the problem is economics; but certain people don’t want that to change either.

Posted by pee-wee on June 25, 2006 at 12:05 AM

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Sues Over Affirmative Action Ballot Issue

DETROIT — Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against Ward Connerly, alleging the California businessman engaged in widespread voter fraud to get a proposal to ban affirmative action on Michigan’s 2006 ballot.

Connerly and his supporters “obtained signatures from 125,000 black and Latino voters by falsely telling them that the petition supported affirmative action,” said the lawsuit, which also names Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land and other state officials as defendants. Land has overall responsibility for Michigan elections.

Kilpatrick filed the lawsuit as a private citizen but will be asking Detroit City Council to support the action, said Sharon McPhail, the mayor’s city attorney, who filed the suit at the federal courthouse.

Schools’ Efforts on Race Await Justices’ Ruling

David R. Lutman for The New York Times

Zoe and Jack Ellers, top, are bused to a black section of Louisville.

Voting Rights Act Nailed to Burning Cross by Greg Palast

Call to action — I am running …

Call to action — I am running for Congress to move our country in a better direction. Together, we can and will win this race. But to do so, I need your help. Please give financially now. It is critical that I raise as much money as possible by next Friday, June 30. This is important for two reasons: 1) It is the end of the 2nd Quarter for FEC reporting — showing a lot of support will continue to broaden the national momentum we have. 2) We need the resources to respond to the attacks that my opponent, Steve Chabot, is likely to start launching against me in just a few short weeks. Right-wing strategists are publicly boasting that they will launch “early” assaults to not let top challengers “off the mat.” (The New York Times, 5/21/06). A Tom DeLay created PAC has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Chabot’s campaign coffers to “go on the offense” against me and our campaign. (Links: The Hill, 3/02/06; The Washington Post, 3/25/99) Especially since his days as an impeachment manager of President Clinton, Steve Chabot has aligned himself with the most notorious right-wing fundraisers in Washington. Chabot’s campaign treasure chest has been lined through efforts from individuals in the Orbit of Jack Abramoff, including Tom DeLay, Mike Scanlon, Tony Rudy, David Safavian, Neil Volz, and Mitchell Wade. (Links: www.opensecrets.org; Cranley for Congress documented press releases & articles here and here) We know that arch-conservatives like Chabot will not win on the issues that matter most to the American people, so they plan on launching personal attacks to change the subject from their failures. I need your help to make sure my positive agenda is able to rise above the right-wing schemes of Steve Chabot. We have reason to believe that Chabot and his cronies will amass millions for paid media attacks that could begin as early as this summer. I need to be able to respond. Please help by forwarding this letter to individuals and groups working for a better tomorrow. Please post this message on blogs to help maintain the national viability of our campaign. Had Enough? Help Elect Cranley to Congress for Solutions We must win this race to change course and restore a bond of trust between the American people and Congress. I have had enough of my opponent, Steve Chabot, and his neo-con special interests creating expensive long-term problems for the American people. There is so much at stake during this election. Chabot and the Bush Administration have gotten us into a lot of problems. I have solutions. Had Enough Reckless Foreign Policy? We need to target Osama bin Laden and terrorist cells intent on killing us. We also need to partner on human rights reforms in Islamic countries. My opponent, Steve Chabot, however, was intent on going to war with Iraq before we even responded in Afghanistan to the terrorist atrocities committed against us on 9/11. From the floor of the House, Chabot pushed the Bush Administration for war with Iraq just a few weeks after 9/11 on October 4, 2001: “Hussein ought to be put up there with Osama bin Laden in this war against terrorism… And if we are serious about ending, destroying and stopping international terrorism, we absolutely have to target Hussein… I would urge the Administration to include him in those people we have to get rid of.” (Link: US Policy Towards Iraq, Subcommittee on the Middle East & South Asia, 10/04/01) Since those remarks, Chabot has praised Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war, saying “he’s done an exemplary job.” (Link: Roll Call, 5/07/04) It is no wonder The Cincinnati Enquirer has described Chabot as a “Bush stalwart”. (Link: “Local delegation heeds Bush”, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/30/06) I will not be a rubber-stamp to the neo-conservative ideology like Steve Chabot. I will work to make us safer by going after the people who go after us. Had Enough Corporate Welfare to Oil Companies at a time of Record High Gas Prices? Chabot has voted for every Bush Energy Bill and even served on the House-Senate conference committee that handed-over $14.5 Billion in corporate welfare to oil and gas companies last year. Recently, the House voted to revoke $7 Billion of free giveaways to oil companies, but as expected, Chabot voted for the oil companies even though they are enjoying historic profits. Oil companies have rewarded Chabot with over $60K for his campaigns. (Links: HR 6, Vote #445, 7/28/05; HR 5386, Vote #167, 5/18/06; HR 6, Vote #132, 4/21/05; HR 4, Vote #320, 8/01/01; HR 6, Vote #145, 8/11/03; www.opensecrets.org) We need to break away from our dependence on oil. I will fight for a John F. Kennedy “man on the moon initiative” to find new energy sources that will boost our economy. Had Enough of Skyrocketing Federal Deficits? I will focus on balancing the federal budget. I do not believe that we should force the mistakes of reckless fiscal policies onto future generations. When I became Finance Chair of Cincinnati City Council, I inherited a city deficit of $35 Million. For five consecutive years I balanced city budgets with bipartisan support. Bush and Chabot have turned record budget surpluses into historic record deficits and have raised the national debt limit by Trillions. The conservative Cato Institute remarks, “Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is the biggest spending president in 30 years.” (Link:“The Grand Old Spending Party: How Republicans Became Big Spenders, 5/03/05; S 2986, Vote #536 11/18/2004; H Con Res 95, Vote #141, 4/11/03; S 2578 , Vote #279, 6/27/2002) I have signed a pledge that says until the federal budget is balanced, I will not take a pay raise. My opponent says he’s against taking pay raises, but after he votes “no” he still pockets the pay raises. (Link: “Cranley vows to reject pay raises”, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/10/06) To reduce the deficit I will vote to end no-bid contracts, negotiate prescription drug costs down, vote against “bridges to nowhere”, and audit FEMA, to give just a few examples. Had Enough of Working Harder to Educate Your Children? Chabot voted for “the largest single cut the federal government has made to student aid programs and is expected to increase the debt burden of students and their families as many borrowers of student loans will face higher interest payments.” (CNN Money, 2/08/06; HR 653 Vote # 4, 2/01/06) I’ve had enough of congressmen who preach about getting ahead but put obstacles in the way. Student loans are today’s bootstraps. It’s pretty sad that today’s Republicans like Chabot won’t even provide bootstraps for the future. My opponent has even tried to abolish the Department of Education. (HR 1883, 6/16/95;; USA Today, 2/01/06; HR 1883, 6/16/95) I will make education a national priority and support making college more affordable. Had Enough of Congress Backing Drug Makers First? Chabot has voted against safe drug re-importation and negotiating for lower drug prices. According to campaign finance reports, Steve Chabot has taken $30,800 from the pharmaceutical company special interests. (www.opensecrets.org; HR 2427, Vote #445, 7/25/03; Scripps Howard News Service, 7/25/03; Los Angeles Times, 7/25/03 HR 2673, Vote #624, 11/18/2003 HR 1, Vote #668, 11/21/2003) I will fight to provide affordable opportunities for prescription drugs through negotiating for cheaper drugs and safe drug re-importation. I’ve had enough of Chabot preaching his belief in competition but acting to restrain competition when it hurt his drug company friends. In Congress, I will fight for affordable health care for all. Had Enough of Congress Suppressing Democracy? I have had enough of right-wing schemes to suppress the individual’s voice in democracy. Chabot is an architect of Republican efforts to suppress the minority vote. This is particularly disturbing because our district has a large minority population. Chabot has voted for new measures to block non-profits from federal funding if they engage in non-partisan voter registration activities like voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. In fact, this idea originated from a group that Chabot is a part of – The Republican Study Committee. (H.AMDT.596, 10/26/05; HR 1461, Roll Call 546, 10/26/05; HR 1461 – Federal Housing Reform Act of 2005, 10/26/05) The internet has provided a new frontier for expressing one’s democratic voice. Net Neutrality allows all people to set-up accessible websites, regardless of income. Republicans and the telecommunications industry are now trying to end Net Neutrality. Ending Net Neutrality allows the telecommunication industry to profit from the public internet. Chabot has repeatedly worked to suppress this new frontier by voting against Net Neutrality. This is wrong. The internet is owned by the government and belongs to the public. We should keep it that way. My opponent has been a longstanding friend of the telecommunications industry and they have heavily supported his campaigns, even running independent expenditures against me in 2000. (Links: HR 5417 AMDT, Judiciary Committee vote, 5/25/06, Tech Law Journal, 5/25/06, HR 5252, Markley Net Neutrality AMDT, Vote #239, 6/08/06) In Congress, I will work to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, to support campaign finance reform and to keep Net Neutrality. I will fight to make sure every voice is heard. These are just a few examples of the differences between me and my opponent. Please visit my website – www.johncranley.com – for more. It will be regularly revised with more information. We Can Win, If We Are Able to Compete Ohio’s First Congressional District has long been considered a swing district. In 2004, Bush barely edged-out Kerry by winning the First District with 51%. Chabot’s record of rubber-stamping Bush 89% of the time proves how out-of-step he is with the district. “Chabot’s voting profile tends to be much more conservative then his largely blue-collar district, which is nearly split even between Republican and Democratic voters.” (LINK: “Local delegation heeds Bush”, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/30/06) The National Democratic Party recognizes our campaign as a critical race nationwide and has included us in the Red to Blue Program. Democratic Congressional Campaign Chair Rahm Emanuel said, “This is ground zero. If the (campaign committee) had been smart enough to get behind John when he ran the last time, he’d probably be in Congress now.” (Link: The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/26/06) The National Republican Party has made protecting my opponent a top priority. Chabot’s seat is listed among their most vulnerable seats nationwide. (Links: The Hill, 5/02/06; The Hill, 3/02/06 ) The New York Times, The Cook Report, Roll Call, Congressional Quarterly, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News have regularly covered this race (Link: www.johncranley.com). The Washington Post has even made this a Top 10 race in the country (Link: The Washington Post, 4/13/06). I Need Your Help Please help by donating to Cranley for Congress online at www.johncranley.com or by sending a check to “Cranley for Congress” at 37 W. 7th Street, Suite 804, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. The maximum that an individual may contribute for the general election is $2,100. Every bit helps. Again, please help by forwarding this letter to friends and posting this letter on blogs and emphasizing the importance of contributing by this Friday, June 30th. Again, I am very appreciative of all the help that so many of you have given already. We are less than five months away from a victorious election day. Together, we can and will win Ohio’s First Congressional District. There is more information on my website, which is undergoing a complete overhaul. Please make sure to check-in regularly to www.johncranley.com. Thanks in advance, John Cranley About John Cranley John Cranley comes from a long family tradition of service to Greater Cincinnati and the country. John’s grandfathers and father are war veterans who collectively served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. John’s mother is a teacher and serves as President of the Cincinnati Public School Board. John attended St. William’s grade school and St. Xavier for high school, where his long term commitment to public service emerged. At John Carroll University, John graduated magna cum laude in Philosophy and Political Science and twice served as student body president. As a Junior, he was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship — a national award granted to students who share a commitment to public service, leadership and academics – which helped him pay for law school. At Harvard Law School, John worked as a student attorney for people who could not afford legal counsel. He was elected First Class Marshal and delivered the Harvard Law School graduation speech on behalf of his class. Upon graduation, John took a position as an associate attorney with Taft, Stettinius and Hollister. John also graduated from Harvard Divinity School with a Masters Degree in Theological Studies. During his time at Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School, he taught two undergraduate legal and philosophy courses at Harvard College. In 2000, as a first time candidate and the Democratic nominee for Congress, John held incumbent Steve Chabot to 53% of the vote. Following his impressive debut, Cranley was appointed to the Cincinnati City Council and has since been elected to keep his post three times. In the most recent election, John was voted the top vote getter in a field of 31 candidates. As a city councilman, Cranley has been a leading voice for change and has a history of making tough choices. When he became Finance Chairman, he inherited a city deficit of $35 Million. Cranley rose to the challenge and for five consecutive years has balanced city budgets with bipartisan support while reducing property taxes and putting more cops on the street. Cranley has also led efforts to redevelop the urban core by creating tax increment financing districts. He has also worked to expand and keep affordable public transit and to pass a clean air law. During his tenure, Cranley has been the most outspoken and effective leader in getting more cops hired and on the street to fight crime. In addition to his work on City Council, Cranley co-founded the Ohio Innocence Project at the Rosenthal Institute for Justice at the University of Cincinnati Law School, where he has served as administrative director. Through the use of DNA evidence, The Ohio Innocence Project works to free the innocent and identify the real criminals. In April, Cranley gave up his position at the Innocence Project in order to focus on his congressional race. Now, six years after holding veteran politician Chabot to 53% of the vote, John Cranley is challenging Chabot once again so that everyone in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District will be represented in the House of Representatives. Donations and gifts to Cranley for Congress are not tax deductible. Corporate contributions, contributions from individuals under the age of 18, and contributions from non-U.S. citizens who are not lawfully admitted for permanent residence are prohibited. Paid for and Authorized by Cranley for Congress, Todd Dittrich Treasurer Paid for and Authorized by Cranley for Congress Cranley for Congress Web: www.johncranley.com Email: info@johncranley.com My Profile: Update My Profile

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to publ…

“The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men.” ~Plato

"Anyone who tells you that ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ …

“Anyone who tells you that ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no ‘house rule’ that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos.” ~Mike Vanderboegh

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions…

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” ~Thomas Jefferson

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who …

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave." …

“To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave.” ~Frederick Douglass

"A nation of well informed men who have been taugh…

“A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” ~Benjamin Franklin

"Freedom of the press, freedom of association, the…

“Freedom of the press, freedom of association, the inviolability of domicile, and all the rest of the rights of man are respected so long as no one tries to use them against the privileged class. On the day they are launched against the privileged they are overthrown.” ~Prince Peter Kropotkin

"Thus corporations finally claimed the full rights…

“Thus corporations finally claimed the full rights enjoyed by individual citizens while being exempted from many of the responsibilities and liabilities of citizenship. Furthermore, in being guaranteed the same right to free speech as individual citizens, they achieved, in the words of Paul Hawken, ‘precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to prevent: domination of public thought and discourse.’ The subsequent claim by corporations that they have the same right as any individual to influence the government in their own interest pits the individual citizen against the vast financial and communications resources of the corporation and mocks the constitutional intent that all citizens have an equal voice in the political debates surrounding important issues.” ~David C. Korten

"I never could believe that Providence had sent a …

“I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.” ~Richard Rumbold

"A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they …

“A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands — even for beneficial purposes — will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.” ~John Stuart Mill

"Most Americans aren’t the sort of citizens the Fo…

“Most Americans aren’t the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.” ~Joseph Sobran

"Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bes…

“Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? ~Samuel Adams

"Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes…

“Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches.” ~Catherine of Siena

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranqu…

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” ~Samuel Adams

"If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all …

“If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.” ~John Locke

"Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other…

“Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” ~Thomas Paine

"COWARDICE, n. A charge often levelled by all-Amer…

“COWARDICE, n. A charge often levelled by all-American types against those who stand up for their beliefs by refusing to fight in wars they find unconscionable and who willingly go to prison or into exile in order to avoid violating their own consciences. These ‘cowards’ are to be contrasted with red-blooded, ‘patriotic’ youths who literally bend over, grab their ankles, submit to the government, fight in wars they do not understand (or disapprove of), and blindly obey orders to maim and to kill simply because they are ordered to do so—all to the howling approval of the all-American mob. This type of behavior is commonly termed ‘courageous.’” ~Chaz Bufe

Men love their ideas more than their lives. And th…

Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it. ~Edward Abbey

“If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go …

“If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?” ~Joan Baez

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that…

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service. ~Albert Einstein

[I]n such a world of conflict, a world of victims …

[I]n such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. ~Albert Camus

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fi…

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. ~Ernest Hemmingway

The aim of military training is not just to prepar…

The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it. ~Louis Simpson

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a sca…

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. ~Mark Twain

I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship you…

I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment. ~Kahlil Gibran

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so uni…

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion. ~Voltaire

"The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll b…

“The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.” ~Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-1881

Bigotry Beneath the Fog by Eugene Robinson

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produ…

“A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself.” ~Joseph Pulitzer

"Such as it is, the press has become the greatest …

“Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?” ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

He survived to educate us about racial hatred and violence

Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’t…

Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. ~Shel Silverstein.

"The very least you can do in your life is to figu…

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it…” Barbara Kingsolver

Our government … teaches the whole people by its…

Our government … teaches the whole people by its example.
If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ~Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis

African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List

Olivia Judson - Is He More Attractive If She’s on the Pill?

June 11
10:30 pm

Experiments I’d Like to See Done, and Why

I hereby declare this week to be … Mad Scientist Week! In that spirit, I’m going experimental. Over the next five days, I will describe a few experiments I’d like to see done, and why. The first is to answer this question: Can taking the oral contraceptive pill change a woman’s taste in men?

Before I get into that question, however, I’d like to say a little about my motivation for the series.

Part of what we know about the world comes from experiments. But many important experiments never get done. Experiments that are very expensive, or that will take years to get results, are often not funded by the public purse. Ideology gets in the way, too. We know far less than we should about human sexuality, for example, because many people shy away from doing the experiments we’d need to find the information. Then, some interesting experiments aren’t practical. It’s much easier for us to conduct experimental evolution on bacteria, some of which have a generation time as short as 20 minutes, than on a fish like the orange roughy, which takes around 25 years to reach maturity.

Finally, ethics prohibit many experiments. Gone, I hope, are the days of shame: the days when surgeons performed head transplants on monkeys. (Yes, such experiments were done, and not that long ago. Unsurprisingly, the transplanted heads died soon after arriving on their new bodies, though at least one of the heads had a chance to bite the finger of a surgeon who was foolish enough to poke it in the mouth.) Gone, too, are the days when the U.S. government deliberately irradiated part of the population (yes, this happened, too), or failed to treat people with syphilis just to see how the disease unfolds (ditto).

But there are still plenty of fascinating experiments that we should do and could do, but haven’t yet done. For this week’s series of columns, I’ve picked questions I think are important or just plain interesting and — as far as I’ve been able to discover — still unanswered. My aim is to play with ideas and suggest ways to explore the world.

And so, back to the pill. I’m prompted to ask the question — can taking the oral contraceptive pill change a woman’s taste in men? — because of a curious result. In 1995, a team of scientists published what is now universally known as “the smelly T-shirt experiment.” In brief: The team collected DNA from 49 women and 44 men, all students at Bern University, in Switzerland. The DNA was then analyzed for a particular set of genes known as the major histocompatibility complex, or M.H.C. These genes are highly variable and are thought to affect several traits, including what you smell like and the workings of your immune system.

The M.H.C. genes are also suspected to influence whom you find attractive. There are two good reasons why this might be the case. The first is that members of the same family have similar M.H.C. genes, and it’s not a good idea (at least if you’re a mammal — some insects are less constrained) to mate with members of your own family, because it can lead to genetic disorders in the children. Avoiding people whose M.H.C. genes are like yours may thus help you avoid sex in the family (not everyone knows their relatives). Second, people with lots of different M.H.C. genes are thought to have immune systems that are better at fighting infectious diseases. If your mate had an M.H.C. different from yours, your children would inherit a broader arsenal of weapons for their immune systems, making them more likely to survive diseases. Because the M.H.C. also affects what you smell like, it is thought that smell might mediate sexiness, with women preferring the smells of men whose M.H.C. genes are different from their own.

To test this, the men in the Swiss study were issued clean white cotton T-shirts and told to wear them to bed two nights in a row. During this time, the T-shirt wearers were asked to abstain from (among other things) smoking, sex, garlic and deodorant. The day after the second night, the T-shirts were put into boxes, and the women were invited to sniff the shirts (each woman was given six of them) and rate the smells.

The results were provocative. Thirty-one women preferred the smells of men whose genes were different from their own. Eighteen women did not — they liked the smells of people whose genes were more similar to theirs. These 18, it turned out, were all on the pill; none of the 31 was.

Provocative — but hardly compelling. For starters, the number of people involved in the experiment was tiny: perhaps those 18 happened to be a bit weird — perhaps, if you looked at 10,000 women, the results would be different. Another problem is that the effect of the pill was not tested directly; it was invoked to explain an anomaly. The effect might have had nothing to do with the pill. Perhaps the women’s desire to take the pill in the first place reflects a wiring of the brain that also somehow determines which smells they would like.

Therefore, I propose an experiment to test the pill directly. The basic idea would be to select a large number of women — say 1000 — of the same age and ethnic group who are not on the pill, and give them the smelly T-shirt test. Then put the same women on the pill (they should all use the same brand), and test them again. We’d probably also want to control for a possible change in preference over time — so we’d want half the women to start off on the pill, and then come off, while the others did the reverse. This is not a complete design — I haven’t detailed everything we’d want to control for — but you get the idea.

Of course, even if the pill were to influence which smells a woman likes, it wouldn’t necessarily be that important in deciding whom she mates with. Woman does not love by smell alone; Romeo does not always smell of roses. Indeed, though the smelly T-shirt experiment suggested that women like the smells of men with M.H.C. genes different from their own, other research has found that when it comes to choosing someone to marry, there is no evidence that M.H.C. makes a difference.

A final caveat: there is some additional circumstantial evidence to suppose the pill may have an effect. A few studies have shown that a woman’s desire for sexual activity changes over the course of her menstrual cycle; such changes are presumably under hormonal control, and the pill affects hormone levels. (Indeed, the pill has been accused of altering the desire for sex, too.) But almost all the studies I know of have involved fewer than 40 people — which makes it hard to draw conclusions. Also, the scientific literature tends to overestimate such effects, because small studies that fail to find an effect often don’t get published. (This is the problem of so-called “negative” results.)

But suppose the pill does have a big effect. Suppose a young woman is on the pill, falls in love, gets married and wants to have children. Then she comes off the pill — and finds she no longer desires her husband. If that is true, it is important. Perhaps we should find out.

Borrowed Bodies

Will Racism Come Home to Roost in the "New" Germany?

“The good writing of any age has always been the p…

“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.”

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.”

“Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.”

“In depression . . . faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come — not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. . . . It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.”

“Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.”

“The madness of depression is the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained.”

“Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.”

“The pain is unrelenting; one does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.”

~William Styron

Why White People Are Afraid

What do white people have to be afraid of in a world structured on white privilege? Their own fears.

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