Medical Abortion under Pressure in Ohio

Ohio's Democratic, pro-choice Attorney General, Richard Cordray, is sticking up for a state law that restricts the use of medical abortion (RU-486, aka mifepristone or the "abortion pill") to a narrower window of time than good medical practice currently requires.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, a 2004 Ohio law limits the use of RU-486 to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, while doctors commonly use it up through the ninth week. The original FDA approval covered only the first seven weeks, but subsequent experience with vastly larger numbers of women has shown it to be safe and effective for two weeks beyond that window. Doctors have been prescribing it off-label through the ninth week, in line with current medical knowledge. The Ohio law has never been implemented because Planned Parenthood sued to block it. This week, the Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the law should be allowed to take effect; the case has not yet been decided.

So what stake does the Ohio AG have in this? The Dispatch reports:

Anne Berry Straight, an attorney in Cordray's office, said she's not asking the court to set medical policy, only to recognize that lawmakers had the right to regulate the drug. ...

Straight pointed out that Ohio lawmakers already have banned the use of anabolic steroids for muscle-building and amphetamines for weight loss.

[Ohio Supreme Court] Justice Terrence O'Donnell said the court shouldn't be put in the position of playing surgeon general for Ohio.

"The court is going to micromanage the practice of medicine if we start getting into managing off-label uses like we're being asked to do (with RU-486)," O'Donnell said.

I'm not sure why either the courts or the legislature are mucking around with the fine points of medical policy! Whatever happened to the notion that doctors and public health experts should be regulating drugs? Neither the legislators nor the justices have the slightest qualifications. Heck, as a historian of medicine, I'm way more qualified than they are! Seriously!

For instance, you only need a dollop of medical knowledge to understand the difference between a medication that the FDA found to be safe and effective (RU-486) and drugs that are notorious for being abused (anabolic steroids and amphetamines). One of these things is not like the other; one of these things doesn't belong! Geez, my legislators need to watch more Sesame Street. (And no, I'm not saying that the FDA's process is perfect. It's often deeply screwed up. In this case, though, the FDA approved RU-486 in spite of intense political pressure to ignore the science.)

None of the statements from the AG's office explain why Cordray believed he had to stick up for the legislature's right to make medical policy. I understand that it's a constitutional issue as well as a matter of women's health, but I cannot fathom why the AG would have a stake in it. I do know that Cordray has publicly supported abortion rights, and I seriously fail to understand why protecting the scope of legislative power would trump his commitment to women's health.

Ohio's Baffling Sexual Politics

Ohio politics mystify me. I've lived here for over eight years now, and the contradictions still leave me spinning. We may be known as a swing state, but don't be fooled. Ohio is often immoderate, a patchwork of extremes. My own little town is a progressive island in the midst of Appalachia, surrounded by the tattered traditions of trade unionism, Bible-thumping fundamentalism, and plain disenfranchisement and despair.

Ohio's sexual politics are just as contradictory. On the one hand my adopted state made the news a few days ago with an abstinence-only sex ed curriculum that promotes rape culture. My county isn't quite within this particular program's scope, but the curriculum does cover the large Columbus market - and public schools along with private ones. Jill at Feministe has all the gory details, including "in the end they all get STDs," which sounds about right. One of my former students told me about a sex ed program at his high school that warned kids if they had sex, they'd likely wind up addicted to drugs, passed out in a New York train station, and possibly missing a kidney to boot.

Ohio is also the home of Derek the Abstinence Clown, another fabulously wise use of your federal tax dollars. 'Nuff said.

On the other hand, Ohio's Presbyterian Church just took a strong progressive position by voting to open the clergy to persons in same-sex relationships. According to this morning's Columbus Dispatch:

The Presbytery of Scioto Valley of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted 115 to 88 to delete language from the church constitution that says clergy must be in a faithful marriage between a man and a woman or be chaste.

In order for policy to change, a majority of presbyteries nationwide would have to vote to remove the old language, and so far the the results don't look promising. If the new policy fails, unmarried but sexually active heterosexual clergy stand to lose, too. The policy change promotes sexual freedom - and removes the incentives to hypocrisy - for everyone, irrespective of sexual orientation.

Whatever happens, I'm glad that in a state where the Reverend Rod Parsley often seems to dominate the religious landscape, Presbyterians have taken a step toward the equality that any just or merciful God would demand.

A Sweeter Gig than Wall Street Tycoon

"Money" by FLickr user TW Collins, used under a Creative Commons license.

So the poor Wall-Street fat-cats are wincing at a $500,000 pay cap? They just picked the wrong job. A recent article in the Columbus Dispatch reported that the presidents of Ohio's public universities and their senior henchmen advisers won't see pay cuts this year - although unionized state employees are staring down a six percent cut:

According to figures compiled by the Associated Press, the 154 individuals at Ohio's 14 four-year public institutions made a combined $34.6 million last year.

They were led by Ohio State University President Gordon Gee, the highest paid public university president in America. He makes $775,008 a year before bonuses. [My emphasis. WTF does he make after bonuses??!!]

A 6 percent pay cut akin to what Strickland is seeking from unionized agency workers would amount to a $2 million savings if applied to university presidents and other top university officials.

My own university's president makes less than $400,000, a comparatively penurious sum. Of that, $85,000 came from this year's raise alone (about a 30% increase on his previous base). Elsewhere in Ohio, Miami University's president is foregoing his $68,000 performance bonus. No word of anything similar happening here.

Instead, my university has hired a headhunting firm to control the search for our next provost. According to the Athens News, the headhunters will be paid a quarter of the new hire's first-year salary. The outgoing provost makes $264,000. Administrators are not typically hired at lower salaries than their predecessors, so my university will likely shell out over $65,000.

For that amount they could hire:

• one well-paid assistant professor
• one-and-a-half instructors at my current level
• five people working under my former conditions as an adjunct
• or a scant one-fifth of our current president.

I guess they need a headhunter because there just aren't any smart, ambitious university administrators willing to work for less than half a million, and so none would apply. They'd all waltz off to Wall Street instead. Hey, times are tough all over.

To the Highest Bidder

This evening my university is hosting an event that makes me deeply uncomfortable, yet there's been not a peep of protest. Probably because it's "for a good cause."

Over the past two weeks I've gotten two emails asking me to support this event - a formal dance - either by attending or by purchasing an ad in the program booklet. This already struck me as vaguely weird. Why would students solicit faculty to buy ads? What am I selling, my ideas? They may be priceless, but their value on the open market is mighty low. Plus, I don't know any faculty who are keen on attending undergraduate parties. The colleagues I hang with understand the importance of appropriate boundaries.

But what really got me is this: The sponsoring groups are going to hold a date auction. Proceeds will benefit the March of Dimes. I don't care how good the cause, or how pure the students' intentions. The idea of a date auction still creeps me out.

First, there's the obvious insensitivity of evoking slavery in any lighthearted manner. There was nothing funny about slavery. The ritual of auctioning a person even for temporary services - no matter how much in jest, no matter how good the cause - can't help but echo the history of real slave auctions.

To complicate matters, this particular date auction is being sponsored by a historically Black fraternity. As a white person, I don't want to impute "false consciousness" to the organizers, but I do have to wonder if anyone thought this through. Is it possible for Black people to subvert the history of slavery by parodying it? Maybe, if the parody is very evident. But I don't see that happening in this case. There was nothing ironic in the email I received, and black-tie affairs don't usually mix with mockery.

Then there's the exchange of cash for a person's potentially romantic company. Now, I'm pretty sure that at this dance, both women and men will be auctioned as dates. Yet it means something different when a woman is "for sale." We don't live in a society where women routinely purchase men's sexual favors. Even if there's gender parity on the auction block, only the "sale" of women resonates with the gender inequities built into prostitution. I'm not ignoring the existence of male prostitutes, just saying that realistically, this auction is much less likely to conjure up images of a gigolo.

My concerns aren't just theoretical. A 2005 article from The Daily Northwestern quotes dean of students Mary Desler as seeing problems with date auctions:

"I think they have the potential of putting students -- women and men -- in compromising and hurtful situations." ...

"What if no one bids money for a date with someone? Might that be hurtful? What if someone purchases a date with someone else and there is something about the purchaser that makes the student feel uncomfortable or, even unsafe? What if something happens on that date that is hurtful?" she said.

"I was involved in a situation a few years ago that was not at all positive for the student 'purchased.' I can't forget that situation," Desler continued.

The article doesn't specify exactly what happened, but in a culture awash in masculine sexual entitlement, I'd worry that women could be at somewhat higher risk of sexual assault when going on a bought-and-paid for date. Most men will be perfectly respectful, I'm sure. But when a guy has put out cold cash for the woman's companionship, aren't the odds increased that he'll expect her to put out, too? To be sure, this is a problem with dating in general - and a good reason to insist on going dutch whenever you don't want to get physical with your date. It seems to me, though, that at the very least, "buying" a woman's company at a date auction is reinforcing rape culture. That's the last thing I'd like to see colleges supporting.

I get why student organizations turn to date auctions. They can raise hundreds of dollars and - unlike raffles or auctions of products - it's all pure profit without any need to seek donations.

Maybe I'm just a killjoy. Still, I'd love to see schools and universities actively discourage date auctions. Citing concerns much like mine, the Office of Student Activities and Leadership at the University of Michigan has issued a statement opposing them. (It's not clear whether this statement came out before or after a student group at Michigan held a date auction two years ago to benefit a Peruvian women's shelter - oh, the irony!) Am I asking too much to want my own university to adopt similar guidelines?

Update 2-1-09, 9:30 p.m.: Duh! I meant to mention this in the original post: Though I wasn't there at the event, I'm pretty sure date auctions are mercilessly heterosexist, too. Can you imagine the fuss if one college-aged dude tried to buy another? Maybe it'd fly as a joke - humor is the main way that students deal with discomfort about homosexuality, 'cause they know that overt homophobia is uncool - but never, ever as a for-real date. Then again, if the girls started bidding on each other, that'd be hawt. Ugh.

The Mother of All Long Weekends

My county and the neighboring one have been under a state of emergency for the past couple of days, following the ice storm. Many people in my town still don't have power; today is day four for them. Some are now out of water, too, presumably because the pumps won't run without electricity. The motels are full. The Red Cross has set up a shelter in the city's rec center.

My little family and our immediate neighbors luckily all still have power, water, heat, and plenty of food. Our only affliction is that my kids' school has now burned through every last snow day, plus all of their disposable three-day weekends. We were out of school all last week (and I'm betting the district now regrets calling off Monday for a mere smattering of flakes). If we have another snow day, they'll be going into summer.

But the kids live so fully in the present, they're unfazed. The Bear's comment: "Mama, we're having a nine-day weekend!"

Naturally, there's snow in the forecast for Monday.

God O Thunder Falls to Earth

Lego version of Thor, the Norse God of Thunder; image by Flickr user Dunechaser, used under a Creative Commons license.

Yesterday, Columbus police arrested a guy who'd been an active member of an Internet discussion board for johns, where he reviewed prostitutes and issued advice on not getting busted. The Columbus Dispatch reports he posted under such charming screen names as "God O Thunder." Among the allegations is that he promoted online the prostitution services of a 17-year-old.

The real name of this Thor wannabe: Robert Eric McFadden.

Previous government position: director of Ohio's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Before that, he was field director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Current employer: Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

So (assuming the charges are true), he's managed to come pretty close to maxing out the hypocrisy angle, and he's making good headway on the irony angle, too. Does his current job mean he might be able to oversee his own prison sentence?

It gets even more sordid (again from The Dispatch):

Police said they have seized a computer and two vehicles. One was his wife's car, which detectives said was the setting for photos of the 17-year-old girl that McFadden then posted online.

Eeeew. This man sounds like he's got some serious boundary issues. Not that I think it'd be perfectly kosher if he'd used his own car. Still, using his wife's vehicle speaks to a level of hubris and/or passive aggressiveness that too-neatly matches his pseudo-Norse-god alias.

There's also a nice irony in his being busted through one of these john forums. I'm pretty grossed out even at the idea of such forums. The little I've seen of them looks to me like they're more about reviewing a product than a service. They confirm my sense that too many johns view women's bodies as commodities. They underscore my suspicion that for too many of them, paying for sex is both an exercise in and confirmation of masculine sexual entitlement.

Professional escort Peridot Ash, who obviously knows a heck of a lot more about sex work than I do, seems to concur. She recently had a smart post on the demeaning terms johns use in these "reviews." She concludes that their disparagement of prostitutes' bodies is just an extension of contempt in which they hold all women's "saggy, fat, and ugly" bodies. She writes:

This list says to me: women are THINGS. And we only like certain kinds of these things. And the consumer has a right to prefer these things. Because in business, the market decides. Female bodies are consumable and the market has decided that fat, black, old, or flat-chested ones are not as economically valuable as nubile, white, young, big-boobied ones. BUYER BEWARE.

(Read the whole thing.)

And that's why - even though I'm sorry for McFadden's wife and others who'll have to deal with the fallout, and even though I'm convinced that criminalizing prostitution only multiplies its ills - I can't feel sorry that this particular God O Thunder is apparently hoist on his own lightning bolt.

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Racism's Door

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm still worried about whether American racism - overt and latent - might be strong enough to tip this election to McCain? Frank Rich thinks it won't, according to his last column in the New York Times:

Well, there are racists in western Pennsylvania, as there are in most pockets of our country. But despite the months-long drumbeat of punditry to the contrary, there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election. In the latest New York Times/CBS News and Pew national polls, Obama is now pulling even with McCain among white men, a feat accomplished by no Democratic presidential candidate in three decades, Bill Clinton included. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds age doing more damage to McCain than race to Obama.

But then the Columbus Dispatch thinks race could be enough to drag Obama to defeat in my neck of the woods. The Dispatch may be deluded enough to endorse McCain but it's in close proximity to the various Ohio bellwethers. As am I, minus the delusion (or so I hope?).

Here's my encounter with racism on the campaign trail. It's enough to make me plenty nervous, even as it stokes my hope for slow, slow change.

The first day I went out knocking on doors for Obama, I met a frayed-looking middle-aged couple enjoying the mild sunny Sunday afternoon on their porch. They were the very first people I found at home as a freshly minted canvasser. They lived in a neighborhood of modest homes built in the 1950s. I wasn't out in the impoverished countryside; I was among young families and retired professors.

The man said he was genuinely unsure who'd get his vote. And so I sat with them for a good half hour, asking what issues worried them.

It didn't take long to unearth a major concern. The woman said she planned to vote for John McCain. But even if she didn't ...

"I have to tell you something," she said. "I'm not racist." Long, long pause. "But I'd have a problem voting for a black man for president."

Before we were sent out to canvass, we'd been warned that we'd encounter open racism sooner or later. I still wasn't prepared for it in my maiden experience as a canvasser.

And so I circumnavigated. I asked them how they felt about the economy, which had just begun its meltdown. I inquired how they felt about the current president. Once they'd expressed their deep dismay at the status quo, I wondered out loud if they might want to take a chance on the new guy, even if they had to go outside their comfort level.

I wasn't trying to convince the wife, who'd made her allegiances clear. I was just trying to gently nudge the husband back into his self-declared role of canceling out his mate's vote.

But she was the one who eventually moved - not into the Democratic column, but possibly into a different sort of self-awareness.

"You know," she mused, "Maybe I am a little bit racist after all."

I tell this story not to open her up to mockery. In the late September sunlight, the day before my birthday, I took her reluctant but unforced confession as a gift, the more precious for its fragility.

As I said a day ago, canvassing is very much like teaching. You plant a seed. You hope for gentle rains. You never know for sure what will sprout and grow and blossom.

And then there are people who dash your hope altogether. My younger son, the Tiger, is having some trouble with a kid in his kindergarten class who's hitting and calling names. About half his classmates are also being bullied. The insults include "stinky black," aimed at one of the Tiger's friends who is half Latina, half African-American, coupled with taunts that "Obama is stinky."

Kids don't make this shit up on their own. I don't know if he's getting it from his parents - at least theoretically, it could come from other relatives - and I'd rather give the benefit of the doubt than judge them prematurely. Whatever the source, he's sure not inventing racism out of thin air.

Here's what we're up against. The Columbus Dispatch reported on the ubiquity of such attitudes a few weeks back:

Like most other Democrats in southeastern Ohio, Hendrickson, a single mother of two struggling to support her family as a waitress, voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary.

With Clinton out, Hendrickson says she plans to vote for Republican John McCain. She doesn't trust Democrat Barack Obama.

"I just don't feel comfortable with him," said Hendrickson, 36, of neighboring Portsmouth. "I don't think he's being honest about what he's going to do."

The political landscape of the 14-county southeastern region, a swing area of Ohio where chronic unemployment and poverty have left many feeling forgotten, would seem to favor Democrats.

But an uneasiness with Obama prevails in Appalachia, and for many it comes down to race.

"I'll be voting for a Republican for the first time in my life," Jeff Justice, a 46-year-old ironworker, said as he finished his lunch at Hickie's.

Asked why, Justice, a white former Wheelersburg resident now living in Florida, didn't hesitate.

"He's black."

But as the economy has tanked, people's willingness to set aside their prejudices has seemingly grown. At Salon, James Hanrahan suggests that racists fear lots of thing even more than they fear black people. As Sean Quinn reported at FiveThirtyEight, a canvasser in Pennsylvania witnessed the following exchange:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

It may be cold comfort to those whose retirement savings have evaporated over the past few weeks. But if tomorrow's vote is close, we can reasonably assume it will have been the economic meltdown that pushed bigots into voting for a black man. If Obama does well enough to claim a mandate, we can still assume "it's the economy, stupid."

Either way, these elemental fears of economic survival are surely multiplying the number of people who call themselves - with a dose of charming self-mockery, to be sure - "Rednecks for Obama." I took this photo a couple of blocks from my house, but I've seen more than one similar sign since then, including one deep in the woods while canvassing yesterday.


By the way, I'm not at all suggesting that self-proclaimed "rednecks" are racists. Only that the current crises are inspiring them to vote for a candidate who - for reasons of race, yes, but a host of other reasons as well - doesn't look like their typical guy.

I am suggesting that if "rednecks" are turning out for Obama, all of us who back him had better do the same.

A new, kinder chapter in American history just might begin today.

In the Belly of the Bellwether

About being the "bellwether" in this election: It's wonderful and horrible. I've been grateful to be in a spot where - in some small way - I might possibly help tip the election toward Barack Obama. Now, on Election Eve, I'm nervous as hell.

Technically, Athens County, where I live, isn't even the bellwetheriest part of Ohio. That has been variously identified as Chillicothe, west of here, or Perry County, which abuts Athens to the north, or maybe the entire southeast region of Ohio. The town of Athens itself is a little island that combines progressive politics with the kind of neighborliness that you thought went out of fashion after 1959. It's dotted with nearly as many Obama yard signs as there are houses. Athens County voted 63% for John Kerry in 2004, which I believe only Cuyahoga County topped.

We aren't at all typical of the region, though. Much of the surrounding county suffers from rural poverty (though generally not as bad as what I encountered this weekend). Our neighboring counties are even worse off; in August of this year, three of the state's six counties with unemployment rates upward of 10 percent were adjacent to Athens County.

And so it's not at all surprising that people in southeast Ohio often feel disenfranchised. This feeds into my three big fears for tomorrow:

• Republicans will try to suppress the vote through challenges to voters at the polling places and various other tactics.
• Democrats may stay home because they think Obama's got it sewed up and their vote doesn't matter anyway.
• Racism may prove more durable than we've all hoped.

At school pickup today I heard a rumor that the GOP has been using robocalls to deceive some Athens voters into falsely thinking that their polling places have changed. Maybe this is just a rumor. If the vote is close, though, I expect that Republicans will comb through every last voter registration, hunting for the most minute or irregularities.

Based on my occasional canvassing work over the past month I'm pretty sure people aren't too complacent. When asked if they planned to vote, people quite often said they'd already voted early. Of the rest, most said "I wouldn't sit this one out for the world." At least in and around Athens, the general sentiment is that this is a historic election and we'd be fools not to vote.

Apart from those who live in the most grinding poverty, even a lot of the less likely voters sound motivated. Yesterday, I dropped off literature at a trailer home where a dead deer lay in front of the steps. The residents were in the yard. They told me they were definitely going to vote on Tuesday.

As for my third worry, racism? Well, that's a topic for my next post.

Update 11:15 p.m., November 3: In an all-too-apt illustrations of how rumors spread and morph, I botched the one above. I originally wrote that postcards were allegedly being used to deceive Athens voters about their polling places. At my local Obama campaign headquarters tonight, other volunteers set me straight on the actual allegation, which involved robocalls to do the same thing. Either way, it's second-hand information. I've updated my post to reflect the most accurate gossip I could gather. :-)

I've Been Biden My Time ...

... but I think I'd better get this post up before the election's over.

Joe Biden came to town two weeks ago, and I got to see him before I had to go teach. The timing was tight, so this involved a lot of high-speed bike riding to and from the local fairgrounds. Okay, my definition of "high-speed" is pretty laughable, and to be honest I rolled into class about a half minute late, but it was worth the fuss.

The speech Biden gave closely tracked the campaign's themes in recent days. Support for the middle class. Energy independence. Health care reform. Prudence abroad. If you watched the debates, you know the spiel.

Which frees me to be totally silly and superficial. (Oops, I just typed "superstitious." Talk about a Freudian slip - I am completely, foolishly superstitious about this election.)

Biden's talk was preceded by the entire Democratic food chain. First up was our wonderful local candidate for the Ohio Statehouse, Debbie Phillips. I rode in too late to get a picture of her. Then again, I know what she looks like; she's a friend, and her daughter's a year ahead of my older son in the same school. She'd in a tough race against one of the very few local Republicans who is not a complete loser. (Their gene pool is small.)

Next up was Richard Cordray, who does not look anything like comedian Rob Corddry, formerly of the Daily Show, although I keep mixing them up - never mind that their names are even spelled differently.


He's running to be Ohio's next attorney general, after his predecessor disgraced himself. I liked him. And I thought he was rather cute, but the prize for "much cuter in person than I expected" went to Sherrod Brown, Ohio's single Democratic Senator. (See, I warned you this was not going to be a deep analytical post.)


By contrast, our governor, Ted Strickland, is impossible to photograph except when he's making some sort of funny snoot.


I got to shake Governor Strickland's hand after the festivities. I didn't get my paws on Joe Biden, though not for lack of hanging around and looking overeager. Even though it was a fairly intimate rally with a few hundred attendees, Biden was too swamped by the throngs of people for me to get very close. As budding political celebrity whore, I guess I have to work on my skills.


My favorite part of Biden's talk was the anecdote he told early on. While a student at the University of Delaware, Biden visited Ohio University one weekend for a football game. The Athens News took better notes on this than I did:

"I made a little mistake here," Biden told the crowd. That error, the vice-presidential candidate said, was going along with a group of young women he'd met to their dormitory. After walking in that night, Biden said he was immediately accosted by an officer, a quick reminder that men often weren't allowed in the women's dorms in those days.

"But I promise you I never breached the first floor," he joked with the crowd, saying it was only a brief detention with the police. Referring to his experience at the dorm, Biden said, "That's what I remember most about Athens."

And you know, I believed him. It was a rehearsed story, sure, but also a glimpse of the young Biden, carefree and silly and not yet wed to rules of political propriety. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only person at the rally who felt like we knew Biden a little better afterward - and liked him better, too.

"They Got What They Asked For"

Remember the sexual harassment scandal that forced Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann to resign last spring? It's baa-acck!

Mediation appears ready to blow up in the sexual harassment cases involving two employees of former Attorney General Marc Dann, in part because the state's hired attorneys are arguing that the women "got what they asked for."

Sources told The Dispatch that the state offered Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout financial settlements of approximately $10,000 to $15,000, along with a public statement calling the women "heroes" for coming forward with the harassment accusations that eventually led to Dann's resignation under fire on May 14. They sought $400,000 apiece, plus attorney fees.

However, in a Sept. 19 letter to Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, Rex Elliott, attorney for Stankoski and Stout, called the state's mediation tactics "shameful."

"It is now clear, moreover, that the state never had any real desire to engage in a discussion over resolution but rather would prefer to attack Cindy and Vanessa and portray them as women 'who got what they asked for.'"

(Source: Columbus Dispatch)

Man, I do hope these two women will now take the case to court. I hope they get a nice fat settlement. The state's approach is a continuation of the intimidation tactics that made it impossible to redress the problem while the women still worked in Dann's office. Except now the bad guys are invoking the kind of logic that undergirds rape myths.

Next thing you know, we'll hear that the women invited the harassment because their skirts were too short. Or because they went out for drinks with their supervisors. Or because their bosses are men and well, y'know, men are such beasts they just can't help themselves.

Hyperbole, you say? Remember, one of the principals in this didn't just proposition one of the wronged women. After drinking too much, she woke up next to her half-naked superior, Anthony Gutierrez. He wore only his underwear. The top button of her pants was undone. As I argued last spring, it makes no sense to treat this as a civil matter when the facts seem to indicate a possible sexual assault.

So yeah. "Rape myths" would seem to just about cover it.

Playing Poker with Our Economy

A friend of mine published this marvelous letter to the editor in yesterday's Athens News, the local free, independent paper. You have to imagine it read out loud in a rich Scottish brogue:

To the Editor:

I would like to share with you a letter I mailed to Treasury Secretary Henry, aka Hank, Paulson. I am sure that I will receive a reply in due course, reflecting the honest generosity of the man when it comes to doling out taxpayer dollars to the fiscally distressed.

“Dear Secretary Paulson: Or can I just call you Hank? You seem like a decent sort of chap. I see from the news that you are seeking to help your cronies after they made some bad bets. I am hoping you can help me out, too.

On Friday night, I had a straight to the five in a five-card poker game. I stoked the pot as best I could, but incredibly my opponent had a straight to the Queen (God bless her and all her heirs). I took a significant hit with this malinvestment. I assure you I was not at all at fault; it was just the way the cards were dealt.

I see that some of your old cronies have gotten into the same position with some unfortunate bets, and you’ve been funneling them some of Dr. Bernanke’s freshly inflated dollars. Luckily, I did not have time to leverage my bet prior to it going down, as I’d then have been in the hole for much more – like what happened with your chums. My tin of coins is, however, much lighter than it was, and for the next game I am facing a liquidity crunch. I was wondering if it could be arranged for my toxic investment to be sold as an illiquid asset to the taxpayer?

Your obedient servant, etc.”

I am awaiting the check in the mail once our gutless Congress again caves.

David Young
Albany

Yes. We're waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

As for David's poker losses: I can confirm they're not just a literary device. We talked about his Black Friday Night at the after-school pickup. Luckily for us taxpayers who'll bail him out, David's losses are still in the two-digit range.

The disheartening thing is that it's Hank and his cronies who are holding all the cards.

Photo by Flickr user Fabio, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Dominoes Start to Fall in Our New Economy

Photo by Flickr user Mirko Macari, used under a Creative Commons license.

Today my university announced a hiring freeze in response to the mess on Wall Street. No new searches will be authorized for either faculty or staff, though open searches will be allowed to continue. From our president's memo:

Over the past two weeks, the news about the evolving economic situation at the state and federal level has intensified. These events underscore the importance of being prepared so we can continue to foster academic excellence and remain a strong institution, now and in the long run.

For that reason, the most responsible step we can take at this time is to institute a hiring freeze, effective immediately. This initiative will allow us to preserve funds so that we can strategically respond to potential future state budget cuts or other negative effects caused by external economic factors.

No word on whether this will affect our president's whopping 29% pay raise that he received this summer, which gave him an $85,000 bump to a total annual salary of $385,000.

Translated: What the prez is getting for his raise alone would finance a couple of instructors like me in my current incarnation, or six of me at my old adjunct level (not counting the cost of benefits.) Not that I'm saying this place needs clones of me; one is probably plenty.

But even so. Who generates academic excellence? Administrators? Or the people who do the actual teaching and research?

At any rate, it's interesting (in that Chinese-curse sense) to see how upward redistribution functions beautifully even at the local level.

An Electoral Snow Job

Abominable snow kitten from I Can Has Cheezburger?

Regular readers of Kittywampus know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time ranting about my school district's silly approach to snow days. (One of its great features is that no snow is required, just weather too cold for flip-flops.) If you thought you were safe from this for a few more months, brace yourself for an unseasonable snow day rant ...

... because the a number of central Ohio schools have already declared November 4, Election Day, a fucking snow day! As the Columbus Dispatch reports:

At least six central Ohio suburban districts -- Bexley, Dublin, Groveport, Reynoldsburg, Westerville and Worthington -- have called off school on Election Day.

Today, says the Dispatch, the Franklin County Board of Elections was scheduled to consider asking Columbus city schools to do the same. The problem, apparently, is that the schools become overcrowded and voters have trouble finding a parking spot. Security issues also apparently play a role, although I'm not sure who's endangering whom. My district isn't on the list ... yet.

I'm not willing to say this is just Ohio's problem. Ohio seems to be a bellwether for electoral snafus as well as for who will win the presidency. We are the canary in America's pseudo-democratic coal mine.

Hey folks, I know it's too late for this election cycle, but if we've reached the point where Ohio's electoral woes are forcing us to cancel school - thus depriving children of crucial educational experiences, or at least creating massive childcare problems for their parents - then isn't it time to start thinking outside the box?

What about if we followed the example of most European countries? My German friends are bewildered at our "first Tuesday after the first Monday in November" scheduling. Not because that's such a mouthful, but because it strikes them as utterly stoopid not to hold elections on Sundays, when fewer people have work conflicts. I realize Congress would have to pass a law, but if it has time to pass resolutions against MoveOn's Petraeus/Betray Us ad, seems like it could squeeze Sunday elections onto the agenda.

The only downside I see to this is that the nice older ladies (my mom and her friends) who volunteer at the polls would have to play hooky from church. Call me a heathen, but I think that's a lesser evil than calling off school. And wouldn't it be lovely if our paragon of democracy didn't have one of the world's worst voter-turnout records?

Young, Pregnant, Desperate? Pick Your Judge Carefully

Photo by Flickr user mindgutter, used under a Creative Commons license.

Parental notification laws for young women and girls seeking abortions are a crappy idea. Most states have them by now, but that still doesn't make them smart.

As a mother, I know that if I want my kids to come to me with serious problems someday, I have to build a foundation of trust. If either of my boys ever got a girl pregnant, they'd need to know that they could come to me for advice and counsel. They'd need to feel enough love and respect that they could trust me to support them. And so my job of establishing that trust starts now, while they're still little kids.

Because you can't legislate love, trust, and respect. You've gotta earn it.

Realistically, though, some families are just dysfunctional. Sometimes a pregnancy is a result of incest. Sometimes a girl fears being thrown out of the house, or beaten, or belittled. In those cases, parental notification laws don't repair anything; they just make a pregnant girl's life much more difficult. And if we're stuck with those laws, then judicial overrides are indispensable.

In Ohio, pregnant teenagers under 18 do have the option of taking their case to a judge - but as yesterday's Columbus Dispatch reports, it matters crucially which judge hears your case:

The bypass hearing is "not something a lot of people know about, I admit," Judge Dana Suzanne Preisse said.

"The average age is 16 or 17, and some are weeks from their 18th birthday. They have to prove to the court they are emotionally mature and intelligent enough to make this decision on their own."

After 18, parental consent is not needed for an abortion.

Judge Kim Browne said she spends 20 minutes with each teen and her attorney.

"I don't think I'm playing God at all," said Browne, who has never denied a request. "That is their choice. That's the decision they are going to have to live with. ...

Judges don't ask for the teens' names or schools, or who the father is. Sometimes, a clean driving record and good grades are enough to convince a judge of "sufficient maturity," the key phrase in the Ohio Revised Code. ...

Some former judges, including Carole Squire and the late George W. Twyford, usually denied the requests on moral grounds, court officials said.

"I don't think it's appropriate for a family court judge to flagrantly disregard the parents' authority," Squire, a Domestic Relations judge from 2000 to 2006, said last week.

"I don't believe (judges) are applying the law correctly. Good grades in school is not dispositive of being sufficiently mature."

As her conservative stance became known, fewer bypass hearings came her way, she said. ...

Preisse has denied only one request, she said.

"I feel I'm elected by the people to follow the statute," even if it goes against her own moral standards.

(Source: Columbus Dispatch)

I don't know where "playing God" enters into this. Why is that even part of the discussion? Why does a judge - even a liberal judge - feel compelled to defend herself against this potential charge? This is a human decision, affecting human lives.

Why does a judge feel she needs to make clear that she herself is more moral than the girls over whose fate she presides? Even though she has only turned down one case, why does she presume that her personal anti-abortion stance is more moral than the decisions these girls have made?

It's also misleading to couch this decision in terms of parental authority. If no action is taken, these girls will become parents themselves! How can a judge deem a girl too immature to make the abortion decision - but then lock her into a parental role, which will demand far more maturity from her?

And how does a scared sixteen-year-old figure out in advance which judge will give her a fair hearing, and which one will dismiss her case out of hand?

Lots of questions, no good answers - all spawned by legislation that's basically misguided from the get-go.

Justice, Ohio Style

The Political Cat calls our attention to an absurd miscarriage of justice:

Police in Ohio apparently went to the home of a legally blind diabetic cancer patient in her fifties, looking for her son, a felon. The woman, Denise Harris, was suspicious, for legitimate reasons WHIO TV says they will air tonight in an interview with her.

Police are claiming they knocked on her door and she "became combative" and didn't want to talk to them. So they tased her.

Excuse me? They fucking WHAT? Is somebody putting mind-altering drugs in the water in Ohio?

Um, close to my neck of the woods Dupont has been spiking the water with large doses of C8 (aka perfluorooctanoic acid), which is a suspected but unproven carcinogen. But nobody's yet suggested that either C8 or any of the other abundant pollutants in the state is warping our minds. By golly - that might explain a lot. Like why we in Ohio are acting like a bunch of spineless sheep as the rule of law dissolves before our eyes.

Come to think of it, whatever chemical is inducing docility in Ohio seems to be affecting most of the country. Let's hope we find the antidote before November.

Oh Joy! My 'Winger State Senator Defends the Flag

Photo by Flickr user cobalt123, used under a Creative Commons license.

My, I'm glad my state senator has her priorities straight. State Senator Joy Padgett's latest newsletter reports:

Padgett fights to end sale of foreign-made American flags

Senator Padgett recently introduced Senate Bill 316, legislation that would prohibit Ohio retailers from selling Ohio and American Flags that were not manufactured in the United States.

"The American flag is known throughout the world as a symbol of freedom and democracy," said Padgett. "Unfortunately, not only are our flags being manufactured outside of the United States, but a large number of foreign-made American flags come from China. The thought that the very symbol representing freedom from oppression could be made by a child worker in a sweatshop earning pennies a day is, to me, reprehensible."

SB 316 would make the retail sale of a foreign-made American or Ohio flag a third degree misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

(No link available, the newsletter came to me via snailmail.)

Sure, any reasonable person would conclude that we have a balance of trade problem, and that China is a big part of it. But I think redressing it will take more than just regulating the import of flags - to Ohio.

And of course Padgett is right that child labor is an issue. But since when is it unique to the manufacture of flags? Why doesn't she include sneakers or soccer balls if this isn't just pseudo-patriotic grandstanding?

Padgett is no newcomer to hypocrisy. This is the same vile politician who in her 2004 campaign for the state senate accused her Democratic opponent, Terry Anderson, of being anti-American and cozy with terrorists. A campaign flyer depicted Anderson meeting with a leader of Hezbollah.

Anderson is the former AP journalist who was held captive in Lebanon from 1985 to 1991, longer than any of the other hostages. His captors? Hezbollah.

Padgett won that race. We're still stuck with her.

That's why Padgett's newfound compassion for exploited children rings just a tad hollow.

Transplanting

Last night, as I was finally putting my pepper plants into the ground (a coupla weeks late, as usual for my garden), I got to thinking again how odd it is that we use the word "transplant" both for that and for putting a new organ in a human body.

I've had some reason to ponder this because we've known for a while that the Bear's teacher would be receiving a kidney transplant as soon as the school year ended. She entered the hospital this afternoon and will receive her new kidney tomorrow. Ever since she survived a childhood kidney cancer, she's been running on half a kidney, and now that half-kidney has just worn out.

She was able to schedule the surgery so precisely because her donor is a close friend. It's an extraordinary story. After she went through a hard divorce (not that any are easy!), she became friends with her ex-husband's first wife. Apparently they found they had a lot more in common than just their overlapping marital history and the co-parenting of their children.

And so it's her ex's ex who is going to save her life. She volunteered and turned out to be a perfect match - one more thing they've found in common. Both of them feel it's a miracle. I'd say it's an amazing act of generosity and friendship, too, and a reflection of the Bear's teacher's own goodness and kindness. (If you want to read the rest of the story, it was reported last month by Nick Claussen in our local independent biweekly, the Athens News; I've been careful here not to include any details beyond what's already public.)

Her students don't quite grasp the gravity of the situation, though she's talked directly about it in an age-appropriate way. She's young and strong and courageous, as is her dear friend and donor, and I think it's going to be okay. Still, we'll all feel better once we know that the surgery gone well and they've gotten through the first few weeks.

I don't believe in the healing power of remote prayer, but I know she does, and I know she would appreciate the prayers of anyone who's so moved. Superstitious or not, I can't help but send up a little prayer, myself, even if it's addressed "to whom it may concern," that both of them will find strength and healing. And I'm sending out my warmest hopes that this new kidney will take root just as strongly as my tomatoes and peppers do in my garden.

Down by the Riverside

This is mostly a PSA for the benefit of my local readers, though the rest of you might check it out if you'd like to see what a pretty little town I'm lucky to call home.

A pseudonymous but obviously very, very bright fellow resident of Athens has started a blog called The Attention-Getting Device devoted to discussing local issues. It's thoughtful, smart, and worth visiting if you live here, too.

So far its author, the Watchdog, is dissecting the retirement community planned to be built at the end of my street along the banks of the Hocking River. The original development was to be a continuing care facility, which the community actually needs, albeit in a less stupid location. But the original plans have been scaled back because the state won't approve more nursing care beds. Now the plans foresee a relatively upscale project that will gobble up the last open green space in our neighborhood, continue the trend of paving over the river's banks, and create a traffic hazard along routes that kids use to walk to the elementary school. It will also constitute a major evacuation problem the next time Athens experiences major flooding, which will be sooner rather than later if we keep destroying the floodway.

But the Watchdog says this all way better than me, so check out his/her blog.

I will just say that when we had relatively minor flooding last March, this was the view from the site of the proposed development. That concrete strip leading into the river is part of the bike path. The project would be built next to that path, slightly behind where I was standing as I snapped this shot. 'Nuff said.

Bidding for Babies

Ohio is contemplating a law that would let adoptive parents pay a birth mother up to $3000 for her living expenses, according to a report in today's Columbus Dispatch. (Current law allows reimbursement for medical and legal expenses, but not for more general expenses such as rent and groceries.)

I know that pregnancy often puts women in a financial crunch, especially when it's unplanned. I want mothers and their (developing) babies to be well nourished, securely housed, well rested, and just plain nurtured. So why do I feel uneasy about this pending bill?

It's not really true that this law would create a bidding war among prospective parents, which was my initial concern. It would cap the amount of aid at $3000. It's likely that some adoptive parents do already help birth mothers with living expenses in violation of Ohio law, although I have no idea how common this is. If so, this cap would actually level the playing field by bringing a covert practice into the light and regulating it.

So far, so good.

Yet I feel slightly queasy at one rationale that proponents of the bill are giving:

"It is a birth-mom and a baby drain, and it means Ohio couples are losing babies," said Thomas Taneff, a Columbus adoption lawyer. ...

"Why is this important? It's simple," Taneff said. "Probably 25 or 30 percent of our birth moms are adopting out-of-state. This bill will help keep Ohio babies here for Ohio couples."
(Source: Columbus Dispatch)

Am I the only one who thinks that babies start sounding like commodities when they're discussed like goods in an import-export business?

Am I alone in feeling troubled when birth moms are discussed like a natural resource?

If the problem is a bidding war for babies among states - not among would-be adoptive parents - then a patchwork of state laws is not going to solve the problem. It's only going to formalize the competition at the interstate level.

Several policy goals are at stake here, and I think they're all things that decent humans ought to agree on: Selling babies is bad. Keeping babies and mothers healthy is ethically right and fiscally smart. Adoption is a beautiful thing when a woman feels able to go through with it. Birth mothers seeking an open adoption should always have the possibility of a local placement, because obviously if your baby moves to a different state you won't have any chance at a real relationship. And finally, no one should feel compelled to have an abortion or give up a baby for financial reasons alone.

If we care about all of these things, then I think two things need to happen, legislatively. We need a federal law regulating payments from adoptive parents to birth mothers, so that states don't get into stupid competitions over "their" babies. And we need much more generous public assistance for expectant and new mothers. I don't know that bringing back old-style welfare is exactly the answer. But if some pregnant women are in such crisis that the prospect of $3000 or $4000 entices them to send their babies to a family out of state, then the system is broken.

And that's exactly what's happening, according to the Dispatch story. It describes an Ohio couple, recently married, who gave their baby to a Missouri couple. They were facing some relationship struggles over religion (she is Mormon, he is Jewish) and she regarded abortion as completely unacceptable. But the reason they gave up their baby? They were faced with losing their home. She used the $4000 the adoptive couple gave her for living expenses to cover the mortgage, as well as for groceries and utilities. You have to wonder: If they'd had health insurance and enough money for their basic needs, would they have relinquished that baby at all?

Simply allowing Ohio couples to play the same game won't fix the real travesty: the fact that such games are necessary in the first place.

Dutch iris from my garden.

Dann's Trifecta

I'd vowed not to say anything more about Marc Dann because it's really a waste of my time, and yours. Since he resigned a few days ago his screw-ups will be fading from public view anyway - at least until the Republicans mine them for gold before next fall's elections.

But in response to a story in yesterday's Columbus Dispatch, I'm gonna take the bait. Dann's paramour, Jessica Utovich, resigned in the middle of this whole mess, nearly two weeks before Dann finally stepped down himself. Turns out that her resignation was the result of yet another screw-up that Dann had a hand in creating:

When she learned that then-Attorney General Marc Dann was going to tell the world the next day that he had an affair with a female staff member, Jessica Utovich hurriedly decided to quit her job with the office.

She submitted her resignation late in the afternoon on May 1.

But that evening, Utovich talked to Dann, with whom she had been romantically involved for several months last year. She says he convinced her to rescind her resignation. She agreed.

Thus, Utovich was stunned the next day when she says she learned, while watching back-to-back televised news conferences by Dann and top assistant Thomas R. Winters, that she no longer had a job.

Later that day, while speaking to The Dispatch editorial board, Dann professed ignorance of the whole situation: "I don't know why she resigned."

(Source: Columbus Dispatch)

Now, I realize Utovich is a grown-up. Adultery is not right. She didn't have to get involved with Dann. She's not excusing herself for any of that.

And yet: Utovich is 28 to his 46. He's got a generation's worth of experience and (one would hope) wisdom on her. He was a powerful man and his attention was surely flattering. More to the point, he was her boss. He had an obligation to uphold professional propriety.

And then he fucking feigns ignorance of a conversation that apparently cost her her job?! What a douche.

Marc Dann has wreaked havoc on three different categories of women: the two (or more) women who suffered hostile environment harassment; his wife, who has been embarrassed at the bare minimum and more likely emotionally bruised; and now his ex-girlfriend, who involuntarily lost her job as well as her lover. It's a perfect trifecta.

So just for a minute, I want to spare some sympathy for Jessica Utovich, who definitely got far more than she bargained for - and a pretty lousy bargain it was. I'm glad she's seeking legal counsel, and I hope she gets some satisfaction.