Update:

On March 14, 2012, Texas will effectively strip one hundred and thirty thousand (130,000) women of baseline health coverage with the end of the Women's Health Program. This is after the October's slash and burn that stripped 2/3 of the budget devoted to women's health. The federal Title X is barely hobbling, and I'm not sure, but I think we had a woman called a slut on national radio and told she should broadcast her sex life publicly if she wants subsidized birth control.

I wouldn't characterize this as a war on women. This is more what I think we'd call a 'rout'. In fact, hands up, on a glance, I think we're tragically unaware we have already lost.

At some point, I have to stop following links; ending up staring in horror at therightfangirl earnestly strategizing about how to defend themselves from the liberals that will totally blame them for this or blankly watching unironic use of this tragedy to earnestly shout about gun control and political capital being amassed because yeah, this tragedy shouldn't be about the people who were actually victims for any longer than absolutely necessary. By that I mean, not at all.

I do get the fact this is probably a politically-motivated crime by someone who may or may not be mentally ill (the youtubes are--IDEK, something). Surprisingly, I'm politically and socially aware enough to realize that yeah, Palin's truly inspired use of gun rhetoric is pretty questionable and the entire rhetoric of violence currently permeating political thought is something that should have been curtailed or hell, at least acknowledged as more than extreme right wing rhetoric when the extreme right has controlled conservative thought for so long I'm not sure they even remember they used to be so much more. It's human nature to want to make sense of what goes pear-shaped and human nature to want it to be prevented. It's human nature to blame and to defend and to be really douchey in the name of politics because politics is the decider of a lot of how we live our lives. It's kind of how we even get to live our lives.

OTOH, there's a very thick and easily-visible line between political consciousness and outright douchery; it's not hard. If within five hours of the attempted assassination of a sitting United States Representative to Congress, your biggest worry is making sure those liberals don't blame you, you're a douche. If within five hours of the death of a nine year old child you're already exploding self-righteously about the evils of guns, do I need to repeat this? It's not like the spectrum of political behavior is moderate or assassin; there's a wide and surprisingly unpopulated in between that can be navigated that balances preventing future tragedies and tracing relationships between rhetoric and reality without fodderizing a woman being shot for her politics and a child dying.

Extremism is dangerous, but it's not just militias and assassinations. Moderate does not mean "Does not shoot people for opposing beliefs" or even "Does not pull a Henry II about meddlesome Democrats." That's not a standard of behavior; that's a fairly clear sign the baseline needs to change. This list does not need to be expanded.

*****

At Huffington it is reported that Representative Gifford has not yet woken up nor spoke to anyone.

In more uplifting news, Daniel Hernandez's role in Representative Gifford's survival is documented here. I'm pretty sure most college interns don't sign up with this in mind, and his actions in the wake of the shooting are everything you hope to see in someone who might one day serve the public.

Health Care Reform has passed.

It's not everything. This won't be where it ends, but it's where it starts. I didn't expect I'd get to say this, that I'd mean it.

Dear Democratic Party,

This is why I say I'm a Democrat, not an Independent, not undecided. This is why when I'm asked, I don't say I'm not sure, that I'm thinking about it, this is why I never skid around the word like it's dirty when it's anything and everything but. This is what we are, what we're supposed to be, and what we do. I worked over two thousand cases when I was a caseworker and I denied people Medicaid until I hated myself when I went to bed and got up to figure out how I could reconcile the flagrant immorality of what I did when I followed the law with living with myself.

That's what got me through my day. That and fucking google and 211 and the thousand stopgaps created to help a system so broken that it felt impossible it could ever be fixed.

That, and thinking, one day, it would be better. I just had to wait, and I had to hope, and I had to believe that we could do better, because God knows, we couldn't get much worse.

I'm a Democrat and you didn't disappoint me. You did, however, change our world. Well fucking done. Now keep doing it.

Seperis

For the few people who haven't gotten a chance to see this:

On ONTD, pictures of the returning journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling at the reunion with their families, and video of the reunion and their statement.

Hands up--you are told you are going to a meeting, probably thinking you are about to find out what camp you will be living out teh next twelve years, and you see Bill fucking Clinton? I'm not sure I'd be verbal for a few months.

Yes, I cried three times looking at pictures, then again at the video. I have no shame.

Update to my post about that Sacramento radio show that encouraged beating of transgender children:

Bank of America is fourth advertiser to pull out, a list that includes Chipotle, Dr. Pepper, and Sonic.

Found on Unfunny Business at Journalfen - everything you need to know to keep up and make contact and be a drop of water in the bucket. An awesome bucket of social justice and non-stupidity.

Adding: so I googled the news on this one, in that way I hope for chocolate falling from the sky, I really wanted to see them fired.

Well, I didn't find that. From 98Rocked:

"You guys imply that all you have to do is...whack my non-existant child with a shoe if he goes clopping around the house in high heels," commented a listener who identified herself as a male-to-female transgender who previously had served in the US armed forces for 22 years. "Don't you think that all the abuse that I took in school would have changed that basic nature in me?"

"Thank you for your service, but let me just say this right now," quipped an angered States. "You fought (in the armed forces) for nothing! With the opinions that you have right there, you fought for absolutely nothing!"

I'm so glad Arnie States clarified that for us. Also, he just baited a 22 year military veteran.

....yeah. Good luck with that.

For those who haven't seen this yet and have a problem with low blood pressure, so skyrocketing it would be a good idea:

GLAAD calls for apology from "Rob, Arnie & Dawn Show" for encouraging the beating of transgender or questioning children

( venting )

I didn't think anything could preempt in my heart the one hundred cases! of hotdog flu that were announced, but lo.

Specter Bats For the Other Team! which is a euphemistically filthy way of speaking of a Republican converting to the Democrats.

...okay, granted, this is not technically on the Apocalypse To Do List. I'm just saying, maybe it should have been.

Anyone seen any--say, rapturing? Just run and check around your offices, please. Just to make sure. I'll wait.

Joe The Plumber - In the Line of Fire (Or, First Sign of the Apocalypse, Continued)

“I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting,” Wurzelbacher said. “You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘well, look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”

*points* I'd like us all to ponder these words of wisdom. By the Not-Plumber Who Evaded Taxes. And became a reporter. In Israel. About the conflict in Gaza.

Italics aren't making this less insane.

Continuing news that only marginally affects me but continues to fascinate....

Anyone but me wildly torn on the Burris in the Senate issue? One one hand, the appointment's not just tainted fruit, it's fruit that has been danced on by a diarrhetic bear with hygiene issues. On the other, the guy seems okay, and God knows, if he had laundry to show, considering circumstances, it would be out there by now.

Well, and there's this:

The first Democratic aide said if Burris tries to enter the Senate chamber on Tuesday, the Senate doorkeeper will stop him. If Burris were to persist, either trying to force his way onto the Senate floor or refusing to leave and causing a scene, U.S. Capitol police would stop him, the aide said. Watch efforts to keep Burris from the Senate Video

"They [police] probably won't arrest him," but they would call the Senate's sergeant-at-arms, the aide said.

*facepalm*

Keeping in mind the fact the senatorial appointee is seventy....

Now I don't know if the Senate watches television, or you know, realizes they exist, but just a thought; blocking the nice older gentleman from the Senate will not look good unless he's carrying a dead body.

I'd like to thank the second day of 2009 for continuing to bring the facepalming lulz.

Okay, is it just me that is following along with the trials and tribulations of Illinois' Blagojevich with a kind of obsessive addiction? I don't even need to set alerts; I can sense when there is going to be New(ish) Relevations (sort of), in that way that there's a new one every thirty minutes, so call this less sixth sense and more basic pattern recognition.

What will that crazy guy have done next? *utterly riveted*

(Also, I'm with everyone else. His hair is bothering me. Like, to the point where I want to assign it a name and it's own part in this entire thing. Could totally happen.)