By Nicholas Kristof, on his blog, On the Ground:
"My Thursday [New York Times] column is about the extraordinary failure of police around the country to test rape kits promptly. Many kits are never tested, and others wait for a year before they are tested. There are a range of reasons, including the cost, but I think the underlying one is a deeply embedded skepticism among many veteran police officers about many rape cases, a sense that often it isn’t a truly serious crime.
"From the point of view of a rape victim, she undergoes the evidence collection procedure and then waits and waits and waits. She never hears any result, so she assumes that there was no DNA found, or no match. But in fact, what often happens is that the kit was never tested.
Police forces are to some degree at fault, but the problem is broader: It’s also politicians who allocate money to DNA testing centers, which are invariably starved of funds in ways that lead to long delays. The aim of this column is to offer a nudge so that prompt testing of rape kits becomes a priority.
"You may remember that last year one of the issues in the presidential campaign was the way Wasila, Alaska, charged rape victims to have their kits tested when Sarah Palin was mayor there. In fact, that’s not unusual. A number of states and localities have provisions requiring victims to pay for rape kit testing, although typically it is their medical insurance that pays. In some states, the women can be reimbursed.
"Please comment beside the column. I’d particularly welcome comments by rape victims, police or anyone with an experience in this area."
4.30.2009
4.29.2009
4.28.2009
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
"The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be."
~~Konrad Lorenz, "Man Meets Dog"
~~Konrad Lorenz, "Man Meets Dog"
4.25.2009
OUR NEW GRANDDOGGY
This is Penny, our new granddoggy. She is 6-months old, and came from the Grundy County, IL, Animal Shelter. Isn't she a doll?
4.23.2009
GIULIANI ATTEMPTS DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE
By Shirley Frank, West Branch, IA, in a letter to the Editor of the Quad-City Times:
"Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has announced that he's going to lead a drive to block the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. Giuliani, a Catholic who is currently married to his third wife, apparently believes that marriage is the sacred union of one man and a different wife every few years."
"Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has announced that he's going to lead a drive to block the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. Giuliani, a Catholic who is currently married to his third wife, apparently believes that marriage is the sacred union of one man and a different wife every few years."
4.22.2009
4.21.2009
JORDAN
After a brave battle with lymphoma, our sweet boy Jordan was euthanized today, at 9:00 AM, with his mamas holding him. We miss him terribly. Your pain and discomfort are over now, sweetheart. Rest in peace, dear Jordan. We will always love you.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
~~Unknown
~~Unknown
4.19.2009
IT'S 2009. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SOUL IS?
By Bono*, Op-Ed Columnist for The New York Times:
"... A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.
"But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.
"Your soul.
"So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.
•
"Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.
"Not all soul music comes from the church."
*Bono is the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE.
"... A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.
"But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.
"Your soul.
"So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.
•
"Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.
"Not all soul music comes from the church."
*Bono is the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE.
4.18.2009
NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT
From Bark Bark Woof Woof:
"This has not been a good month so far for the anti-gay brigades. First Iowa strikes down the anti-same-sex marriage law, then Vermont passes same-sex legislation. Then the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) launches an ad campaign that sets the bar for self-parody, and now they've announced a national campaign called '2 Million for Marriage' -- or 2M4M.
*snort*
"For those of you who are not up on the acronyms used in gay chat rooms, M4M means 'Man for Man,' as in one man looking to meet up/hook up with another man.
"So either there's someone in NOM who has not been outside of their cocoon since the advent of the internet, or there's someone inside the organization with a wicked sense of humor and playing these folks for the fools that they are. Either way, this is the best example of an unintentional double entendre in advertising since 1969 when Ford came out with the Rim Blow steering wheel."
"This has not been a good month so far for the anti-gay brigades. First Iowa strikes down the anti-same-sex marriage law, then Vermont passes same-sex legislation. Then the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) launches an ad campaign that sets the bar for self-parody, and now they've announced a national campaign called '2 Million for Marriage' -- or 2M4M.
*snort*
"For those of you who are not up on the acronyms used in gay chat rooms, M4M means 'Man for Man,' as in one man looking to meet up/hook up with another man.
"So either there's someone in NOM who has not been outside of their cocoon since the advent of the internet, or there's someone inside the organization with a wicked sense of humor and playing these folks for the fools that they are. Either way, this is the best example of an unintentional double entendre in advertising since 1969 when Ford came out with the Rim Blow steering wheel."
4.16.2009
4.14.2009
TODAY IS JORDAN'S FIRST CHEMO TREATMENT
If all goes well, Jordan will have his first in a series of five chemo treatments this afternoon. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers and waymedowns.
Thank you.
Jordan's moms and brothers and sisters
Thank you.
Jordan's moms and brothers and sisters
4.13.2009
THOUGHT FOR A MONDAY
“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.”
~~Erich Fromm
~~Erich Fromm
4.12.2009
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
"No matter how little money and how few possesions you own, having a dog makes you rich."
~~Louis Sabin
~~Louis Sabin
4.10.2009
IOWA'S FAMILY VALUES
By Steven W. Thrasher, Op-Ed Contributor for The New York Times:
"IF it weren’t for Iowa, my family may never have existed, and this gay, biracial New Yorker might never have been born.
"In 1958, when my mother, who was white, and father, who was black, wanted to get married in Nebraska, it was illegal for them to wed. So they decided to go next door to Iowa, a state that was progressive enough to allow interracial marriage. My mom’s brother tried to have the Nebraska state police bar her from leaving the state so she couldn’t marry my dad, which was only the latest legal indignity she had endured. She had been arrested on my parents’ first date, accused of prostitution. (The conventional thought of the time being: Why else would a white woman be seen with a black man?)
"On their wedding day, somehow, my parents made it out of Nebraska without getting arrested again, and were wed in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 1, 1958. This was five years before Nebraska would strike down its laws against interracial marriage, and almost a decade before the Supreme Court would outlaw miscegenation laws throughout the country in Loving v. Virginia.
"When the good state of Iowa conferred the dignity of civic recognition on my parents’ relationship — a relationship some members of their own families thought was deviant and immoral, that the civil authorities of Nebraska had tried to destroy, and that even some of my mom’s college-educated friends believed would produce children striped like zebras — our family began. And by the time my father died, their interracial marriage was seen just as a marriage, and an admirable 45-year one at that.
"That I almost cried last week upon reading that the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state law banning same-sex marriage will therefore come as no surprise. I’m still struck by one thought: over the years, I’ve met so many gay émigrés who felt it was unsafe to be gay in so-called flyover country and fled for the East and West coasts. But as a gay man, I can’t marry in 'liberal' New York, where I’m a resident, or in 'liberal' California, where I was born, and very soon I will have that right in 'conservative' Iowa.
"Of course, the desire to define relational rights and responsibilities with a partner, to have access to the protection that this kind of commitment affords, is rather conservative. But it’s a conservative dream that should be offered to all Americans. Though it takes great courage for gays to marry in a handful of states now, one hopes that someday, throughout the nation, gay marriages, like my parents’ union, will just be seen as marriages.
"It’s safe to say that neither the dramas of our family, nor its triumphs, could have been possible without the simultaneously radical and conservative occasion of my parents’ civil marriage in Iowa. And so when the time comes, I hope to be married at the City Hall in Council Bluffs, in the state that not only supports my civil rights now, but which supported my parents’ so many years ago."
"IF it weren’t for Iowa, my family may never have existed, and this gay, biracial New Yorker might never have been born.
"In 1958, when my mother, who was white, and father, who was black, wanted to get married in Nebraska, it was illegal for them to wed. So they decided to go next door to Iowa, a state that was progressive enough to allow interracial marriage. My mom’s brother tried to have the Nebraska state police bar her from leaving the state so she couldn’t marry my dad, which was only the latest legal indignity she had endured. She had been arrested on my parents’ first date, accused of prostitution. (The conventional thought of the time being: Why else would a white woman be seen with a black man?)
"On their wedding day, somehow, my parents made it out of Nebraska without getting arrested again, and were wed in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 1, 1958. This was five years before Nebraska would strike down its laws against interracial marriage, and almost a decade before the Supreme Court would outlaw miscegenation laws throughout the country in Loving v. Virginia.
"When the good state of Iowa conferred the dignity of civic recognition on my parents’ relationship — a relationship some members of their own families thought was deviant and immoral, that the civil authorities of Nebraska had tried to destroy, and that even some of my mom’s college-educated friends believed would produce children striped like zebras — our family began. And by the time my father died, their interracial marriage was seen just as a marriage, and an admirable 45-year one at that.
"That I almost cried last week upon reading that the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state law banning same-sex marriage will therefore come as no surprise. I’m still struck by one thought: over the years, I’ve met so many gay émigrés who felt it was unsafe to be gay in so-called flyover country and fled for the East and West coasts. But as a gay man, I can’t marry in 'liberal' New York, where I’m a resident, or in 'liberal' California, where I was born, and very soon I will have that right in 'conservative' Iowa.
"Of course, the desire to define relational rights and responsibilities with a partner, to have access to the protection that this kind of commitment affords, is rather conservative. But it’s a conservative dream that should be offered to all Americans. Though it takes great courage for gays to marry in a handful of states now, one hopes that someday, throughout the nation, gay marriages, like my parents’ union, will just be seen as marriages.
"It’s safe to say that neither the dramas of our family, nor its triumphs, could have been possible without the simultaneously radical and conservative occasion of my parents’ civil marriage in Iowa. And so when the time comes, I hope to be married at the City Hall in Council Bluffs, in the state that not only supports my civil rights now, but which supported my parents’ so many years ago."
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