NC Robo-Calls

I was recently in the running in a “Top Ten Female Bloggers” contest sponsored by WVWV.org, which, as it turns out, is the organization that seems to be behind some baffling robo-calls to voters in NC (amongst other places).

Now Women’s Voices is plunging North Carolina into the same confusion. State officials tell Facing South they are still receiving calls from frustrated and confused voters, wondering why “Lamont Williams” is offering to send them a “voter registration packet” after the deadline for mail-in registration for the primaries has passed.

In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women’s Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an “unfortunate coincidence” — a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.

There are other questions about Women’s Voices’ outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting “unmarried women,” their calls and mailings don’t fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious “Lamont Williams.”

Please let anyone you know in North Carolina that these robo-calls are probably illegal & contain misleading information. How much WVWV’s intent is to buck up Clinton’s chances in the primary remain to be seen, but in a state where something like 45% of the voters are African-American, sending voters confusing and wrong information is anti-democratic. If it’s intentional, then I’d call it racist, too.

White feminists, you’re really fucking up here.

(via Daily Kos).

29 of 53

Those poor young women of that Eldorado sect – more than half of them are pregnant or are mothers.

This case made me think of two things – the argument than trans women are the same as women raised female – which is obviously not true. That doesn’t mean that a gender variant kid wouldn’t have been treated worse by this sect – but a young MTF couldn’t have been used as a breeder, either. That doesn’t mean trans women are “less than.” Just that all kinds of women – trans & otherwise – face oppressions and discrimination specific to the type of women they are. Blurring difference doesn’t help us address these kinds of problems, imho.

The second thing it made me think of is an ongoing argument about Danica Patrick that’s been happening on the MHB Boards. The debate is about whether or not it’s messed up that a winning racecar driver – the 1st to win a significant race, from what I understand – isn’t somehow degrading herself by also posing suggestively on car hoods. (I think it is.) These young women of Eldorado remind me of that argument because it’s been thousands of years where women’s bodies have been used – to bear children, to bring pleasure (both physical & visual), to men with power. So the assertion that Danica Patrick is somehow blazing some new trail of “feminine empowerment” by taking her clothes off is like – um. yeah. no. Women have always done that to curry favor with the kind of assholes like the guys down in Eldorado, kings, senators, and drug lords, boyfriend and bubbas. And I just don’t see a woman doing that today as any different than it ever was.

(But I’m sure someone can jump up & tell me those women in Eldorado are somehow empowered by getting pregnant with the children of those fucknuts, too.)

Too Many

There is a lot on the news about the shootings at NIU that left too many students dead. It’s too sad a story, and sadly familiar as well.

But there are two other stories of young people who have died that are barely being reported, and are just as important:

As confusing and frustrating as the NIU shooting is, these other two deaths were entirely preventable: if only we could give kids a little more room to be who they are, while ALSO educating people that gender diversity is not immoral, unnatural, or dangerous.

Still, it frustrates me to see that the deaths of these other children are barely being reported, once again confirming the idea that gender diverse people’s lives are worth a little less.

Sisters Perpetually Indulged

In SF, two of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence received communion, and Catholics – and Bill O’Reilly – are raising a ruckus and talking about “San Francisco values.” The Archbishop who served them has apologized, but a Jesuit theologian commented,

“The general sacramental principle is that you don’t deny the sacrament to someone who requests it,” said the Rev. Jim Bretzke, professor of moral theology at University of San Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic university. “The second principle is that you cannot give communion to someone who has been excommunicated.”

He said such people are designated “manifest public sinners” in canon law.

“This is someone who violates in a serious way one of the Ten Commandments or one of the important laws of the Church,” he said. “While I can see Bill O’Reilly and others might be offended, the sisters do not meet the criteria the church has for denying Communion. Over-accessorizing and poor taste in makeup is not an excommunicable offense.”

Bretzke added, “Even if these people were bizarrely dressed, the archbishop was following clear pastoral and canonical principles in giving them Communion. The default is, you give Holy Communion to one who presents himself.”

They make me thankful every day I was raised by Jesuits.

But the more important issue, to me, is that the Sisters practice what others only preach.

(Thanks again to Lena for the news item)