The atheist "Reason Rally" that will take place in Washington on Saturday, March 24 symbolizes the growing strength of atheism in American culture and politics. Events of this kind are meant to get our attention and to generate media interest and articles such as this one. 

So as people prepare to gather on the National Mall to celebrate their belief in nothingness, we might reasonably wonder what they want.

In the last decade there has been a spate of books denouncing religion and the religious. Leading this crusade are men like Oxford University?s professional atheist Richard Dawkins. 

Finding abuses of religion is low hanging fruit?the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, self-detonating Muslim extremists, snake-handlers, etc.?and Dawkins and his ilk have made a fortune peddling it. 

Dawkins has even turned it into a movement. His minions organize conferences, evangelize the believing, and even gather for Sunday meetings. 

Paradoxically, it has become a kind of religion, a Church of Unbelief complete with a saint (Christopher Hitchens), a high priest (Richard Dawkins), and holy writ (anything Dawkins writes). And now, with the political nature of this rally, Dawkins is set to become the Pat Robertson of atheism.

But there is something not quite right about all of this. Christianity, whatever the faults of its adherents, has a rich intellectual tradition that has a comprehensive view of life. 

It has given rise to the West as we know it. Our laws, arts, governments, and the very framework of our thought find their meaning in Christianity. Take for example the central premise of the Declaration of Independence: ?We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.? 

As Indian philosopher and social reformer Vishal Mangalwadi points out, there is nothing self-evidential about the equality of men. 

Indeed, that most of the world believes in the inequality of men finds expression in many of the oppressive laws and governments in non-Western traditions. The only way such a statement makes any sense at all is in a Christian context.

Atheism, by contrast, has no creed, no principles, no philosophy, and can give no guidance. It is but to have a settled disposition on a single question: is there a God? 

As my friend the late atheist and journalist Christopher Hitchens conceded, ?atheism is nothing in itself.? 

That not withstanding, atheism does have a history?a bad history. By conservative estimates, the twentieth century, an experiment in secular governance, witnessed the deaths of more than 100 million people. That is more than all the religious wars in all previous centuries combined.

One gets the impression, however, that these so-called ?new atheists? listened to John Lennon?s ?Imagine? in the black light a few too many times and really believe that a godless society would be utopian in nature.

How we answer the question of God?s existence or non-existence will largely determine our view of man and that, in turn, will determine our view of government. 

If, for instance, you do not believe in God, you are likely to conclude that man is a temporal being meant to serve the state, an eternal institution. This is the view of the communist world. Sacrificing a few million people for the sake of building socialist paradise was always deemed an acceptable price to pay. 

If, on the other hand, you believe in a just, benevolent God who made man in his own image, you will likely draw a very different conclusion: man is an eternal being that the state, a temporal institution, is meant to serve.

Proponents of a society free from religious influence can point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheism that we might call even remotely good. The story of those regimes is well documented and may be summarized in a word?murderous. 

What they can point to are secular societies that are still running off of their accumulated Christian capital. But beware. When the fumes in that tank are spent, tyranny cannot be far away.

In his farewell address, George Washington offered a sober warning: ?Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.? This he deduced without the benefit of seeing the twentieth century. The eighteenth, it seems, was enough.

So as the rally for nothingness meets to celebrate, well, nothing in particular, reflect for a moment on the world they would give us. One need not imagine it. It has been done.

I'm sure there are other articles out there but this one from Forbes was the first one to come up when I googled (I hope it's in one piece as I had to delete a lot of pics).

Obamacare at the Supreme Court: The Pre-Game Preview

 

As everyone knows, from March 26 to March 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in one of the most important cases to come before the court in our lifetimes: Florida v. HHS, the case that will determine the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Lest you think I?m exaggerating, the High Court has assigned six hours, over three days, to hearing arguments in the case: something it hasn?t done in 45 years. In this article, I?ll preview the key aspects of the case, and what to look for in the courtroom.

 Florida?s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy ? and it is. And it?s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations.

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida?s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC?s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin?s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society ? and our democracy.

 What is ALEC? Despite claims that it?s nonpartisan, it?s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn?t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written billshave been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

 Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization ? that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

 What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC?s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn?t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatization ALEC promotes isn?t in the public interest; instead of success stories, what we?re getting is a series of scandals. Private charter schools, for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the way of educational achievement.

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it?s the same old story ? the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It?s neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.

And ALEC, even more than other movement-conservative organizations, is clearly playing a long game. Its legislative templates aren?t just about generating immediate benefits to the organization?s corporate sponsors; they?re about creating a political climate that will favor even more corporation-friendly legislation in the future.

Did I mention that ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote?

 Yet that?s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex ? prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its ?life preserver.?) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it?s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona?s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn?t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

Now, ALEC isn?t single-handedly responsible for the corporatization of our political life; its influence is as much a symptom as a cause. But shining a light on ALEC and its supporters ? a roster that includes many companies, from AT&T and Coca-Cola to UPS, that have so far managed to avoid being publicly associated with the hard-right agenda ? is one good way to highlight what?s going on. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to start taking our country back.

Trayvon Martin Attacked George Zimmerman According to Sanford Police Witness

What do you think? What does the information that Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman make you think about this situation now? Does it change anything for you? 

Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, was taken off life support Saturday, said the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that advocates for Muslim civil liberties.

She had been on life support since Wednesday when her teenage daughter found her unconscious in the living room of their home in El Cajon in San Diego County.

"During the initial stages of this investigation, a threatening note was discovered very close to where the victim was found," Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police said.

Authorities would not specify what the note said. But Alawadi's daughter said it threatened the family to go back to Iraq and called them "terrorists."

Police said a similar note was left outside the family home earlier in the month, but the family did not report it.

"A week ago they left a letter saying, 'This is our country, not yours, you terrorists,'" the daughter, Fatima Al Himidi told CNN affiliate KGTV. "So my mom ignored that, thinking (it was) kids playing around, pranking. And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing."

Hanif Mohebi, executive director of CAIR's San Diego chapter, said the family came to the United States from Iraq in the mid-1990s. He did not know when they moved to El Cajon, which has one of the nation's largest Iraqi community.

Alawadi and her husband have three daughters and two sons, ranging in age from 8 to 17, Mohebi said.

Fatima Al Himidi said nothing was stolen from the house, leading her to believe the attack on her mother motivated by hate.

"Why did you take my mother away from me? You took my best friend away from me," she said, choking with tears, in an interview with CNN affiliate ***. "Why? Why did you do it? I want to know. Answer me that."

Police would not say whether they were treating the case as a hate crime, saying they were "exploring all aspects of this investigation."

"Evidence thus far leads us to believe this is an isolated incident," Coit said in a statement.

But social media users quickly compared Alawadi's death to that of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, calling both hate crimes, and drawing a parallel between a hijab and a hoodie.

Martin was killed last month as he walked back to his father's fiancee's house in Sanford, Florida, after a trip to the convenience store. Police say he was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who said he was acting in self-defense and has not been charged.

The teen was unarmed, carrying a bag of Skittles candy and an iced tea, and was wearing a hoodie.

On Sunday morning, the authors of the parenting blog, Momstrology, tweeted: "A teen murdered for wearing hooded sweater. An Iraqi woman beaten to death for wearing a head scarf. Our hearts ache for you."

The Outsourced Party

Who speaks for the Republican party? The answer is that everyone does ? and therefore, no one does.

Much air time and many trees have been wasted trying to explain the division, rancor and lethargy that have beset the Republican nominating campaign, now into its second year and threatening to run all the way to the party?s national convention in late August. But it?s no great mystery. Republicans have fallen prey to one of the favorite tactics of just the sort of heedless, improvident, twenty-first century capitalism they revere. Their party has been outsourced.

Mark Pernice CLICK TO ENLARGE

For decades, Republicans have recruited outside groups and individuals to amplify their party?s message and its influence. This is a legitimate democratic tactic that they have carried off brilliantly, helping to shift the political spectrum in the United States significantly to the right.

When Republicans came to believe in the 1960s that they were up against a ?liberal biased? media that would never give them a fair shake, they began the long march to build their own, alternative information establishment. As chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Mark Fowler, led the fight to abolish the ?Fairness Doctrine? in 1987, further empowering what was already a legion of right-wing talk radio programs.

In 1949, drawing on a long history of court decisions; on public hearings; and on legislation mandating ?equal time? for political candidates, the F.C.C. ruled that holders of radio and television broadcast licenses must ?devote a reasonable percentage of their broadcast time to the presentation of news and programs devoted to the consideration and discussion of public issues of interest in the community,? and that this must include ?different attitudes and viewpoints concerning these vital and often controversial issues.?

The Supreme Court repeatedly upheld the F.C.C.?s power to make such a rule ? but never gave it the power of law. In 1986, a pair of Ronald Reagan?s judicial appointees on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, ruled that the Fairness Doctrine was not ?a binding statutory obligation.?

Armed with this verdict, Fowler, who insisted on viewing television, in particular, as not a finite and supremely influential broadcast medium but ?just another appliance ? it?s a toaster with pictures,? persuaded his fellow commissioners to abolish the Fairness Doctrine. Furious Democrats in Congress passed legislation to codify the doctrine into law in 1987 and 1991, but these attempts were vetoed by Reagan and George Bush, respectively; Democrats have gone on trying to make the Fairness Doctrine law to this day, but have always been stymied by adamant Republican opposition.

Right-wing radio was dominant on the airwaves before the Fairness Doctrine was abolished. But now it had the field of public discourse virtually all to itself. It provided conservatives with a direct outreach to the public, free of any intercession by the ?elites? Newt Gingrich is still denouncing in this season?s debates. Right-leaning media networks such as Pat Robertson?s Christian Broadcast Network and especially Clear Channel Communications soon became major media conglomerates, with no obligation to broadcast any conflicting views.

The biggest media coup of all for the Republican party, though, was the advent of nakedly partisan Fox News, created by Roger Ailes, former media advisor to the Nixon, Reagan and George Bush administrations. It was Ailes who thereby managed to throw the entire weight of Rupert Murdoch?s worldwide media empire behind the party ? and it was Ailes, reportedly, who kept it on the conservative straight-and-narrow when Mr. Murdoch toyed with the idea of putting the empire behind Barack Obama, the new Democrat, in 2008, much as it had backed Tony Blair?s New Labour for a time in Great Britain. Instead, thanks to Ailes, conservative politicians and advocates saw both their ideas amplified and their wallets fattened by a dizzying array of Murdoch television shows, books and newspapers.

But it wasn?t just in the media where the Republican party proved ingenious in outsourcing its rhetoric and shifting the national dialogue. In 1971, during Richard M. Nixon?s first term in office, Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Republican corporate lawyer from Virginia, summoned the resources of the business community to the cause with his famous memorandum to the National Chamber of Commerce, ?Attack on American Free Enterprise System.?

Powell wanted ?American business? to fight back everywhere it could against what he saw as the many enemies of free enterprise. Tactics would include demanding ?equal time? on the nation?s college campuses and ? ironically enough ? on the nation?s airwaves, by appealing to the fairness standards of the F.C.C. Yet more importantly, Powell?s memorandum inspired the founding of the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and other conservative think tanks. Wealthy businessmen and other individuals from Richard Mellon Scaife to the Koch brothers stepped up, pouring millions of dollars into right-wing magazines, books and political campaigns.

Powell won himself an appointment to the Supreme Court ? and the nation?s capital won itself a major new industry. It may seem as if lobbyists in Washington have always been more numerous than locusts, but in fact when Powell wrote his memo just over 40 years ago, there were at most only a few hundred. Today, there are tens of thousands ? leaders of a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right, and one mostly interested in ?freeing? business from regulation and taxes.

The Republican effort to rally every conceivable outside entity to the party?s cause was wildly successful. Again and again over the years, conservative policy institutes have armed the party?s candidates with intellectual arguments, while the conservative media barrage has blasted a way through to high office for even the most lackluster Republican nominees.

Yet increasingly this meant that the Republican Party was outsourcing both body and soul. Both what the party believed in and its ability to do the heavy lifting necessary to win elections was handed over to outside interests ? outside interests that did not necessarily share the party?s goals or have any stake in ameliorating its tactics.

This has become suddenly and painfully evident this year. Party leaders may not have liked Rush Limbaugh?s disgusting attacks on a Georgetown law student ? calling her a ?slut? and a ?prostitute? for advocating that insurance companies provide affordable birth control ? but what does he care?

If the Republicans lose the election, it will most likely mean all the more angry conservatives tuning in and driving up the ratings for Rush and his fellow radio ranters. Limbaugh is now facing a challenge from outraged liberals and others urging his sponsors to drop his show. But the most that the usually garrulous Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney would allow himself to say was that ?it?s not the language I would have used.? Rick Santorum averred that Rush was ?being absurd,? but implied that was O.K. ? ?an entertainer can be absurd. He?s in a very different business than I am.?

But of course, he?s not. Rush Limbaugh is in the very same business that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are in ? and guess who?s in charge? It?s not the radio calamity howlers who take their cues from the party leaders now, but the other way around.

This campaign season we?ve seen all the major Republican candidates for president adopt the bombastic, apocalyptic rhetoric of talk radio, insisting that we will ?lose America? if they aren?t elected, and filling their speeches and debates with ugly personal insults, directed at each other and at President Obama. The results are in the poll numbers. Unlike the sharp but generally civil 2008 primary fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton, which galvanized the Democratic base, the Republican struggle this year has been steadily driving down the party?s appeal and driving up the candidates? negative ratings.

Poll numbers for Republicans in Congress have taken a nosedive, too, as the party?s intransigence on Capitol Hill has allowed President Obama to appear reasonable by contrast. But what does that matter to the thousands of lobbyists who bring in more and more of the money for congressional campaigns? Sure, a Republican victory might afford them more closed-door sessions on rewriting federal regulations. But Democratic victories will serve their purpose just as well, making clear to the money men who send them to Washington that they are more needed than ever to resist ?job-killing regulations.?

Meanwhile, Fox News has become a special impediment to Republican order ? largely thanks to its own success. All the enticements of the Murdoch empire have produced a generation of reality show pols, at least as interested in landing their own TV series as winning office. Two of the most popular Republican candidates for president going into the race, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, both declined to run rather than jeopardize their shows. Newt Gingrich turned much of his campaign into book tours for himself and his wife. Ask yourself which was most likely: that Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann really thought they could be elected president or that they were looking to improve their ?brand.?

And after decades of trying to undo federal campaign-finance laws, Republicans at last succeeded ? only to watch the party?s wealthy sponsors diversify their interests from think tanks to super PACs. Why bother with all the time and expense of hiring a bunch of intellectuals to occupy some expensive piece of Washington real estate and hammer out policy positions ? when you can go out and make a straight cash exchange for a candidate?

Even as Rick Santorum was pleading that sometimes you have to ?take one for the team? in the last Republican debate, his candidacy was being kept alive largely by money from a single donor, Foster Friess, the conservative Christian multimillionaire with the Batman villain name. Gingrich has his own sponsors, the casino billionaires Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, hawkish supporters of Israel. Does what these individuals care about most fit in with the Republican party?s election strategy? So what?

It?s not that these individual donors believe in things ? conservative Christian stands on abortion, unmitigated support for Israel and so on ? that are so different from what much of the party?s base believes in. But political campaigns, especially national campaigns in America, are all about nuance and finesse ? about just how you say something and when and where you say it. Presidential candidates need to elide certain issues at times, either things they know that they cannot do, but are loath to tell their base; or things that they intend to try, but cannot tell the rest of the electorate until they have gained power and built up the necessary public support; or things that they have no idea how they will handle until certain events play out and force their hand.

The question of whether or not the United States or Israel should attack Iran to suppress its nuclear program is a good example of this last sort of issue. Just what Iran?s capabilities are of developing nuclear weapons, what its intentions are once it should have them, how successful any attack on them can be and what the consequences of such an attack might be are just some of the immensely complicated questions surrounding this debate.

Yet such complexities don?t seem to matter much to the ravenously egotistical Gingrich, so long as they don?t much matter to his sponsor. Money, it?s true, has always played a critical role in American politics. But in the past, presidential nominees did more than simply try to raise money. They tried to build consensus within their party. Fringe candidates like Gingrich and Santorum were generally eliminated from the start by their past defeats or by their extremist views ? college is evil ? but if they weren?t, our political system gave them the chance to take their arguments to the people in relatively small, manageable states and see if they caught on.

Now, none of that really matters so much. Forced to resign as speaker of the House by your own party? Handed the worst electoral defeat in your own state that anyone can remember? Way behind in the delegate count? In some circumstances, it might be good that even though you?ve failed previously you can still go out and make your case to the people. But now you can even fail at that, as well. It doesn?t matter. Just one billionaire can keep you on the campaign trail!

Thanks to their inventiveness, Republicans have stumbled into the brave new world of American politics. From primaries to photo ops, from direct mail to voter suppression laws, the Republican party has almost always been the real innovator in electoral politics, usually leaving their slower brother, the Democrats, in the dust for at least a campaign season or two.

Now they?ve achieved the political equivalent of shuttering that foul old steel mill and shipping the hard work off for others to do while they dabble in these fascinating new derivatives. Now their candidates and their ideas are seen as so many junk bonds, and they don?t seem to have the wherewithal to make the party over from within.

The Republican party has been moving to the right for half-a-century now and generally carrying the country with it. But in the past, even under the right?s greatest hero, Ronald Reagan, this movement came in fits and starts, as Republican candidates and officeholders had to accommodate themselves to real-world situations and the qualms of their constituents. This is the chastening role that elections are supposed to play. Participating in a democracy means more than simply insisting, over and over again, in as loud and arrogant a voice as possible, in as many venues as your money will allow, what it is that you want. It means listening, it means convincing, it means compromising ? all those things that political parties and their leaders used to be fairly good at.

At long last, Republicans seem to be finally coalescing around Mitt Romney?s candidacy, and he could still win the presidency if the economy slumps again. But the longer-term problem will remain: how to maintain a coherent, mass political party when so many individuals are empowered as never before to redirect it to their own, personal ends.

Kevin Baker is the author of the ?City of Fire? series of historical novels, ?Dreamland,? ?Paradise Alley? and ?Strivers Row.?

She has two friends named Mia. Both were at the party.

Her party was at the Y, they manage everything. We left the party with a bag of gifts.

We opened the cards and presents today (on her birthday).

There was one present from a Mia. No last name.

So... do I send a generic thank you card to both? Does that seem biatchy to the one who didn't gift her (I don't care that they didn't, I don't want to be embarrassing them, though)... is there a way I can try to feel this out with the moms without stepping in it?

Halp!

 link

IN the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid. By the time I was 10, though no one spoke of it, I knew what happened to boys like me in our impoverished society; they were designated victims, to be used, with everyone?s blessing, as easy sexual objects by frustrated men. And I knew that no one would save me ? not even my parents, who surely loved me. For them too, I was shame, filth. A ?zamel.?

Like everyone else, they urged me into a terrible, definitive silence, there to die a little more each day.

How is a child who loves his parents, his many siblings, his working-class culture, his religion ? Islam ? how is he to survive this trauma? To be hurt and harassed because of something others saw in me ? something in the way I moved my hands, my inflections. A way of walking, my carriage. An easy intimacy with women, my mother and my many sisters. To be categorized for victimhood like those ?emo? boys with long hair and skinny jeans who have recently been turning up dead in the streets of Iraq, their skulls crushed in.

The truth is, I don?t know how I survived. All I have left is a taste for silence. And the dream, never to be realized, that someone would save me. Now I am 38 years old, and I can state without fanfare: no one saved me.

I no longer remember the child, the teenager, I was. I know I was effeminate and aware that being so obviously ?like that? was wrong. God did not love me. I had strayed from the path. Or so I was made to understand. Not only by my family, but also by the entire neighborhood. And I learned my lesson perfectly. So deep down, I tell myself they won. This is what happened.

I was barely 12, and in my neighborhood they called me ?the little girl.? Even those I persisted in playing soccer with used that nickname, that insult. Even the teenagers who?d once taken part with me in the same sexual games. I was no kid anymore. My body was changing, stretching out, becoming a man?s. But others did not see me as a man. The image of myself they reflected back at me was strange and incomprehensible. Attempts at rape and abuse multiplied.

I knew it wasn?t good to be as I was. But what was I going to do? Change? Speak to my mother, my big brother? And tell them what, exactly?

It all came to a head one summer night in 1985. It was too hot. Everyone was trying in vain to fall asleep. I, too, lay awake, on the floor beside my sisters, my mother close by. Suddenly, the familiar voices of drunken men reached us. We all heard them. The whole family. The whole neighborhood. The whole world. These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: ?Abdellah, little girl, come down. Come down. Wake up and come down. We all want you. Come down, Abdellah. Don?t be afraid. We won?t hurt you. We just want to have sex with you.?

They kept yelling for a long time. My nickname. Their desire. Their crime. They said everything that went unsaid in the too-silent, too-respectful world where I lived. But I was far, then, from any such analysis, from understanding that the problem wasn?t me. I was simply afraid. Very afraid. And I hoped my big brother, my hero, would rise and answer them. That he would protect me, at least with words. I didn?t want him to fight them ? no. All I wanted him to say were these few little words: ?Go away! Leave my little brother alone.?

But my brother, the absolute monarch of our family, did nothing. Everyone turned their back on me. Everyone killed me that night. I don?t know where I found the strength, but I didn?t cry. I just squeezed my eyes shut a bit more tightly. And shut, with the same motion, everything else in me. Everything. I was never the same Abdellah Ta?a after that night. To save my skin, I killed myself. And that was how I did it.

I began by keeping my head low all the time. I cut all ties with the children in the neighborhood. I altered my behavior. I kept myself in check: no more feminine gestures, no more honeyed voice, no more hanging around women. No more anything. I had to invent a whole new Abdellah. I bent myself to the task with great determination, and with the realization that this world was no longer my world. Sooner or later, I would leave it behind. I would grow up and find freedom somewhere else. But in the meantime I would become hard. Very hard.

TODAY I grow nostalgic for little effeminate Abdellah. He and I share a body, but I no longer remember him. He was innocence. Now I am only intellect. He was na?ve. I am clever. He was spontaneous. I am locked in a constant struggle with myself.

In 2006, seven years after I moved to France, and after my second book, ?Le rouge du tarbouche? (the red of the fez), came out in Morocco, I, too, came out to the Moroccan press, in Arabic and French. Scandal, and support. Then, faced with my brother?s silence and my mother?s tears on the telephone, I published in TelQuel, the very brave Moroccan magazine, an open letter called ?Homosexuality Explained to My Mother.? My mother died the next year.

I don?t know where I found the courage to become a writer and use my books to impose my homosexuality on the world of my youth. To do justice to little Abdellah. To never forget the trauma he and every Arab homosexual like him suffered.

Now, over a year after the Arab Spring began, we must again remember homosexuals. Arabs have finally become aware that they have to invent a new, free Arab individual, without the support of their megalomaniacal leaders. Arab homosexuals are also taking part in this revolution, whether they live in Egypt, Iraq or Morocco. They, too, are part of this desperately needed process of political and individual liberation. And the world must support and protect them.

Hunger Games, Religion and Heroes

Alan Simons was enjoying a Sunday morning bicycle ride with his family in Asheville, N.C., two years ago when a man in a sport utility vehicle suddenly pulled alongside him and started berating him for riding on the highway.

Mr. Simons, his 4-year-old son strapped in behind him, slowed to a halt. The driver, Charles Diez, an Asheville firefighter, stopped as well. When Mr. Simons walked over, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

?Go ahead, I?ll shoot you,? Mr. Diez said, according to Mr. Simons. ?I?ll kill you.?

Mr. Simons turned to leave but heard a deafening bang. A bullet had passed through his bike helmet just above his left ear, barely missing him.

Mr. Diez, as it turned out, was one of more than 240,000 people in North Carolina with a permit to carry a concealed handgun. If not for that gun, Mr. Simons is convinced, the confrontation would have ended harmlessly. ?I bet it would have been a bunch of mouthing,? he said.

Mr. Diez, then 42, eventually pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.

Across the country, it is easier than ever to carry a handgun in public. Prodded by the gun lobby, most states, including North Carolina, now require only a basic background check, and perhaps a safety class, to obtain a permit.

In state after state, guns are being allowed in places once off-limits, like bars, college campuses and houses of worship. And gun rights advocates are seeking to expand the map still further, pushing federal legislation that would require states to honor other states? concealed weapons permits. The House approved the bill last month; the Senate is expected to take it up next year.

The bedrock argument for this movement is that permit holders are law-abiding citizens who should be able to carry guns in public to protect themselves. ?These are people who have proven themselves to be among the most responsible and safe members of our community,? the federal legislation?s author, Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, said on the House floor.

To assess that claim, The New York Times examined the permit program in North Carolina, one of a dwindling number of states where the identities of permit holders remain public. The review, encompassing the last five years, offers a rare, detailed look at how a liberalized concealed weapons law has played out in one state. And while it does not provide answers, it does raise questions.

More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun.

Among them was Bobby Ray Bordeaux Jr., who had a concealed handgun permit despite a history of alcoholism, major depression and suicide attempts. In 2008, he shot two men with a .22-caliber revolver, killing one of them, during a fight outside a bar.

More than 200 permit holders were also convicted of gun- or weapon-related felonies or misdemeanors, including roughly 60 who committed weapon-related assaults.

In addition, nearly 900 permit holders were convicted of drunken driving, a potentially volatile circumstance given the link between drinking and violence.

The review also raises concerns about how well government officials police the permit process. In about half of the felony convictions, the authorities failed to revoke or suspend the holder?s permit, including for cases of murder, rape and kidnapping. The apparent oversights are especially worrisome in North Carolina, one of about 20 states where anyone with a valid concealed handgun permit can buy firearms without the federally mandated criminal background check. (Under federal law, felons lose the right to own guns.)

Ricky Wills, 59, kept his permit after recently spending several months behind bars for terrorizing his estranged wife and their daughter with a pair of guns and then shooting at their house while they, along with a sheriff?s deputy who had responded to a 911 call, were inside. ?That?s crazy, absolutely crazy,? his wife, Debra Wills, said in an interview when told that her husband could most likely still buy a gun at any store in the state.

Mr. Wills?s permit was revoked this month, after The Times informed the local sheriff?s office.

NYT link to pg 2 & 3

Facebook has weighed in on a practice by some businesses asking employees or job applicants for their passwords to the popular social-media site.

In a nutshell? Facebook says don't do it unless you want to get sued.

"This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends," Erin Egan, the site's chief privacy officer, wrote Friday on the site's Facebook and Privacy Page. "It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability."

Egan said that Facebook has seen a "distressing increase" in reports of job candidates being asked for their passwords over the past few months. She notes the practice violates not just the user's privacy but also that of his or her Facebook friends.

It also might violate employment laws, according to the post.

"(W)e don't think it's right the thing to do," she said. "But it also may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating. For example, if an employer sees on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don't hire that person."

Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union spoke out against the practice. The group said they've gotten multiple reports of people either being asked for their passwords or required to "friend" managers when they were applying for jobs.

Robert Collins of the Baltimore area testified before the Maryland Legislature in February that he was trying to reapply for his corrections officer job after taking a leave of absence when he was told he needed to hand over his password to prove he had no gang affiliations.

"I did not want to do it, but because I really needed my job and he implied that this was a condition of recertification, I reluctantly gave him the password," he told Maryland lawmakers, who are considering outlawing the practice.

In her post, Egan said that Facebook will consider going to court if it hears of the practice continuing.

"Facebook takes your privacy seriously," she wrote. " We'll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges."

It is already against Facebook's terms of service to share a password.

"You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account," the agreement reads.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1151386--miss-universe-canada-yanks-transgendered-contestant-from-pageant?bn=1#article 

?She was excited about the competition. Just because she can?t compete doesn?t mean we stopped loving her.? 

I will post birthday pictures later. Right now, I am skipping church to set up for this afternoon's party.  

http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/64536623.aspx

A congressional report detailing the value of major tax breaks shows they amount to more than $1 trillion a year?roughly the size of the annual federal budget deficit?and benefit wide swaths of the population.

The figures could be useful to lawmakers of both parties and President Barack Obama, who are looking for ways to shrink future deficits and offset the anticipated cost of overhauling the much-criticized U.S. tax code, an effort likely to include tax-rate cuts. Both parties are looking to trim or eliminate tax breaks to achieve those goals.

Mr. Obama has suggested eliminating breaks for corporate jets and oil and gas companies to reduce deficits. He also has raised the possibility of reducing tax breaks for U.S. multinationals that ship jobs overseas, as a way to offset the cost of lowering the corporate tax rate to 28% from the current 35%.

House Republicans proposed in their new budget this week to reduce or eliminate an unspecified array of tax breaks in order to offset the costs of lowering top tax rates for both corporations and individuals to 25% from the current 35%.

The new report, by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, underscores how far-reaching many of the tax breaks are, which makes changing them a politically daunting task.

They include the exclusion from taxable income for employer-provided health insurance, the biggest break, at $164.2 billion a year in 2014; the exclusion for employer-provided pensions, the second-biggest, at $162.7 billion; and the exclusions for Medicare and Social Security benefits.

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Other big breaks include the mortgage-interest deduction, third-largest; taxing capital-gains income at lower rates than other income; the earned-income credit for the working poor; and deductions for state and local taxes.

The report, citing political opposition, technical challenges and other reasons, said that "it may prove difficult to gain more than $100 billion to $150 billion in additional tax revenues" by eliminating tax breaks. That likely would leave little for reducing tax rates, perhaps only enough for one or two percentage points in the top individual rate, while maintaining the same level of revenue, the report said.

House Republicans dismissed the report's significance, saying it only confirms that overhauling the tax code will be politically challenging. They pointed to the work of Mr. Obama's 2010 deficit-reduction panel, co-chaired by former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, as evidence that large-scale tax changes are possible. The Bowles-Simpson panel drafted a deficit-reduction plan that would trim tax breaks and lower to 28% the top tax rate for businesses and individuals, though the overall plan failed to draw enough support to gain congressional votes.

"Reports suggesting that tax reform isn't easy are greatly appreciated," a House GOP aide said. "Probably tomorrow there will be a report saying the Earth is round."

The top-ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, said the report foreshadows a difficult fight over tax breaks that will pit the interests of middle-class households against those of higher earners.

"Some of the most popular tax provisions?including the exclusion for health coverage and the deduction for mortgage interest?largely benefit middle-income families," Mr. Levin said in a statement.

House Republicans point to data showing that upper-income taxpayers benefit much more per capita from tax breaks than lower earners, so reducing breaks across the board would maintain a progressive system, they say.

Former Vice President *** Cheney received a heart transplant on Saturday, his office announced.

A statement from the former vice president's office said Cheney is now recovering in the Intensive Care Unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., outside of Washington.

The statement said Cheney had been on the transplant list for 20 months and did not know the identity of the donor.

"Although the former Vice President and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift," the statement read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/politics/rick-santorum-attracts-votes-of-conservative-women.html?_r=1&hpw

my neighbor posted that she considers it hate speech to say these women aren't thinking.

 I am DYING at how much they look like the real actors.

So I guess when you can't decide between Bailey and Kayla, you go with Bayla! 

 More than a decade before former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with more than 50 counts of child sex abuse, a psychologist warned university police that his actions fit that of a ?likely pedophile?s pattern.?

 The finding by State College, Pa., psychologist Dr. Alycia A. Chambers, the therapist for one of Sandusky?s alleged victims, was contained in the internal Penn State files of a 1998 police investigation of the former coach for showering and bear hugging her client and another young boy in the school?s athletic locker room.

 NBC News has obtained the complete file on the investigation ? the police report and assessments by two psychologists who interviewed the boys -- which provides new details about Sandusky?s behavior. It also could raise fresh questions about how school and local authorities handled his case. 

?There was very little doubt in my mind (Sandusky) ? was a male predator, someone that was in the process of grooming a young man for abuse ,? said Chambers, speaking publicly for the first time, with the permission of her client?s family, in an interview with NBC News. ?I thought?my report was strong enough to suggest that this was somebody who should be watched.?

 Chambers? detailed report is potentially significant because it was the first clear warning about the former Penn State coach?s actions ? nearly four years before a then-graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, reported to the late Coach Joe Paterno and other top school officials that he had found Sandusky in the Penn State showers one evening with another young boy, engaged in what he viewed as sexual contact. (Paterno testified last year he was unaware of the 1998 investigation and Gary Schultz, the former Penn State vice president who oversaw the school police, testified that he never reviewed the details of the case. A Penn State spokesman declined comment, citing pending investigations.)

 In her interview with NBC News, Chambers described her anguish when she was contacted by police last year and learned that authorities were again investigating Sandusky for allegedly molesting multiple other boys, 13 years after she first raised her concerns. 

?I was horrified to know that there were so many other innocent boys who had their hearts and minds confused, their bodies violated,? said Chambers. ?It?s unspeakable.?

Statement from Joe Amendola, Sandusky's lawyer (.PDF)

Joe Amendola, Sandusky?s lawyer, said he hasn?t seen Chambers? report, but that her conclusions will be disputed by other psychologists who will be called by the defense. ?I understand that there are some people who could look at this behavior and say it?s a pedophile problem. But there are others who will say, ?This is somebody who loves kids and loves to be around them? ? It?s the old story, you get your expert and I?ll get my expert.? Sandusky has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

But one of the investigators on the 1998 case, Jerry Lauro, then with the state Department of Public Welfare and now retired, told NBC News he was never shown a copy of Chambers? report and was stunned to learn of its conclusions. 

?Wow!? he said when he was read Chambers? conclusions by a NBC News correspondent. ?This is the first I?ve heard of this. I had no idea . If I would have seen the report, I would certainly have done some things differently. Boy, this is a shock. ?

Story: Lawyer seeks dismissal of charges against Sandusky 

Chambers was the psychologist for a then-11- year-old boy, who had met Sandusky through his Second Mile charity for troubled children and was later invited by the defensive coordinator to several Penn State football games. The boy is now known as Victim 6?one of 10 allegedly molested by Sandusky and one of the key figures in the criminal case against him slated to go to trial this spring. Amendola this week asked a judge to drop Victim 6 from the case on the grounds that his anticipated testimony ?will not establish that any sexual contact took place.? 

The police file provides a fuller picture than has been previously made public about Sandusky?s interactions with the boy as well as the transcripts of two tense confrontations between Sandusky and the boy?s mother. 
Chambers was called by the boy?s mother at 7:43 a.m. on May 4, 1998. The boy had returned home the night before, his hair wet, after spending two hours with Sandusky at the Penn State athletic room. 
After meeting with her client in her office and talking to his mother, Chambers described in her written report how Sandusky had coaxed the boy into the shower after a workout, telling him, ?All the guys do.? He then moved closer to him, squeezing him tightly from behind while they were both naked. The boy also told Chambers how, during their workout, Sandusky had kissed him on the forehead and told him, ?I love you.? He also invited the boy back to his house to ?sit on his lap? and go ?online? on his ?cool computer,? the boy?s mother told Chambers, recounting her conversation with her son the previous night.

Story: Penn State offers therapy to alleged abuse victims 

?My consultants agree that the incidents meet all of our definitions, based on experience and education, of a likely pedophile?s pattern of building trust and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a ?loving,? ?special? relationship,? Chambers wrote in her report. 

?One colleague, who has contact with the Second Mile, confirms that Mr. Sandusky is reasonably intelligent and thus, could hardly have failed to understand the way his behavior would be interpreted, if known,? Chambers continued. ?His position at the Second Mile and his interest in abused boys would suggest that he was likely to have had knowledge with regard to child abuse and might even recognize this behavior as a typical pedophile ?overture.?? 

Chambers gave her report to Penn State police Officer Ronald Schreffler on May 7, 1998, along with a cover letter that highlighted ?the gravity of the incidents.? Chambers had also reported the incident to the Pennsylvania ?suspected child abuse? hotline, where officials wrote up their own report identifying Sandusky as the ?AP? or ?Alleged Perpetrator.? Lauro, an investigator who specialized in abuse cases, was assigned to work the case with Schreffler. 

Investigators brought in a second psychologist, John Seasock, who had worked with the local Centre County Child and Youth Services, a local agency that had licensed Sandusky as a foster parent. After meeting with the boy for an hour, Seasock concluded that no sexual offense had taken place nor was there ?grooming? or ?inappropriate sexual behavior? by Sandusky.

Report of expert who concluded no abuse occurred 

?All the interactions reported by (the boy) can be typically defined as normal between a healthy adult and a young adolescent male,? Seasock wrote in his report.

Lawyer: Report helps defense 

Amendola, Sandusky?s lawyer, has said that he hopes to use Seasock?s report in his client?s defense. But the police files show that Seasock conducted his interview of the boy ?cold,? without reviewing Chambers? report or prior transcripts of interviews with the boy and that he failed to elicit some key details, such as Sandusky kissing the boy and telling him, ?I love you.?

 Seasock acknowledged to police there were some ?gray areas? and that investigators ?can?t walk away from the investigation.? But he also appeared to dismiss most of the concerns that had been raised about Sandusky in an interview with investigators. 

What do I see in my FB feed from - ya'll know who it is, I just need to name him something other than the Libertarian Friend ...

This:

 http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2862739/posts

 5 Reasons That Shouting "Racism" Doesn't Work Anymore

1. Barack Obama is President.

CANNOT.DO.THIS.TODAY.

*rocks self in a corner*