Yearly Archives: 2012

Virginia defies its reputation, embraces reality

Posted on April 30, 2012 at 11:41 am by Epluribusunum |

This is nothing short of a stunning accomplishment. We owe our thanks to the community members who did the hard, unglamorous, patient work of education. They are heroes. Education is really the only thing that can bring about a significant change in policy like this.

Virginia has adopted a simple, straightforward mechanism for correcting one’s gender marker on a driver’s license, one that comports with the reality of legal gender transition:

As of April 25, 2012, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) implemented a new, and much simpler, policy for changing one’s gender marker on a VA driver’s license. Individuals can now use the Gender Change Request form, known as DL-17, which requires only a signature from a licensed provider, including a doctor, psychiatrist, nurse practitioner, social worker, or counselor attesting to the fact that the applicant is a patient of the provider and that the applicant’s “gender identity” is either female or male and “can reasonably be expected to continue as such for the foreseeable future.”

Continue reading →

Links for Tuesday, April 24 (aka what I’ve read since the last links).

Posted on April 24, 2012 at 11:04 am by Liz Miller |

Links from Twitter, Facebook, and my blogroll.

Shakesville‘s “Primarily Endless” is HILARIOUS. I love this series of posts, I love the artwork Liss does.
Three from Think Progress: 1) Bradlee Dean, Rachel Maddow and Conservative Entitlement 2)Cantor ‘Puzzled’ That Obama Would Threaten To Veto The Latest GOP Tax Cut For Millionaires. 3) Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) advocates boycott of Coca-Cola to punish company for leaving ALEC
Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota tweets a graphic about VAWA: The Violence Against Women Act has had bipartisan support over the years. Let’s work together to reauthorize it
From HuffPo: Planned Parenthood Worried It’s The Target Of New Undercover Sting
Another from HuffPo: Facing the facts of high premarital sex and abortion rates, Evangelicals decide to really talk about sex
From AlterNet: How Darrell Issa and the Right Are Planning to Kill the U.S. Post Office
From Truth Wins Out: Pro-equality Catholics urged to stand with American nuns, oppose Vatican bullying

“The Vatican also reprimanded Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying group founded by sisters. Both Network and the LCWR were cited for spending too much time caring for the poor and fighting economic injustice (topics that Jesus had quite a lot to say about, if my memory serves me) and not nearly enough time opposing — in fact, being “silent” on — women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality (which, to my knowledge, Jesus never discussed at all).”

Amen.
From Mother Jones (warning, link is ad-heavy): Loudoun’s own Dominionist anti-LGBT Prison Fellowship Ministries (bleah) in the news!
From the NY Times: Lawyers Find Obstacles to the Disabled, Then Find Plaintiffs – whether or not you agree with the tactics, the truth is that enforcing the ADA is making NY City more accessible. As the population ages, the importance of this will come home to a lot more people.
Why does this matter? Landlords in Sarasota County Discriminating Against Disabled and Minorities. It’s hard to live your life if you can’t find a place to live. Sarasota’s powers-that-be are very clear that they don’t have enough staff to enforce the fair housing laws.
It’s even harder to live your life if you can’t make a living: Rising Unemployment Rate for People With Disabilities.
Access, housing, jobs: it all comes down to perception. From This Ain’t Living: Making Lives Valueless: People With Disabilities and Popular Perceptions
While we’re talking about accessibility, this comes from the University of Buffalo: Could Universal Design Be the Next Mainstream Movement in Architecture, Planning?
From the Girl With the Cane: Attn: Editor of the New York Post, re: Americans with Disabilities Act editoral.
From the Seattle Times: Designers add more personality to cutting-edge prosthetic limbs. Making prosthetics something to envy rather than pity.
And from Dave Hingsburger: The Benefits of Inclusion #116 (discussing his attendance at a performance of a mixed-mobility dance troupe)
From the National Partnership for Women and Families: Latest state to require cruel & medically unnecessary measures before an abortion: Louisiana.
From Blue Virginia: Loudoun Republicans Revealed Themselves in the 2012 General Assembly Session. Despite all their big talk about how they were going to focus on jobs and traffic, the Loudoun Republican Caucus focused mainly on guns and limiting women’s rights, and failed to bring home the transportation bacon.
From Same Facts: The Romneys “struggled” in college, living off the sale of stock! (via @dailykos). Having a reliable source of funds is not struggling.
From the Washington Post: McDonnell tries to Etch-a-Sketch his stance on abortion.
Also from the Washington Post: Loudoun is on the fringe of making a historic error. Please, BOS, vote Yes on Metro. We need it.
The Principal at PS 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn writes a letter to NY State Education Commissioner. (via @danielradosh)
From Dances With Fat: For Fat Patients and Their Doctors.
From Ms. Magazine: The UN has estimated that women do $11 trillion a year of unpaid work.
From Jezebel: For the Millionth Time: The Morning After Pill Is Not the Abortion Pill.
George Takei has a question for the Straight Folks.
And finally, a reminder to please just bookmark Jim Rigby’s blog.

What I’ve been reading since my last post about what I’ve been reading

Posted on April 20, 2012 at 10:00 am by Liz Miller |

These are from my Twitter and Facebook feeds and from folks on my blogroll at my blog.

Two more from Jim Rigby: Bible Bullies and “But What About Romans?” These are follow-ups to his post, What Part of “Thou Shall Not Judge” Do You Not Understand?
From Pandagon: Romney’s Going to Speak at Liberty University.
From The Infamous Brad: Sometimes, When “All the Facts are In,” It’s Worse: The UC-Davis Pepper-Spray Report. Can you count the number of errors the police made? The full text of the report can be found here. (via my friends Daniel Radosh and Kathy Withcats)
From USA Today: Vatican orders crackdown on American nuns (via Martha Plimpton).
Two from Think Progress: Undocumented Immigrants paid more in taxes in 2010 than General Electric and Cantor is actually suggesting raising taxes on the poor.
From Price of Oil: It’s Official: Fracking Causes Quakes according to a report commissioned by the British Government.
From Huffington Post: Jennifer Tyrrell, Boy Scout Den Mother, Forced To Resign Because She Is A Lesbian. Just a coincidence that,

“The revocation of my membership came shortly after I was elected treasurer of my pack and uncovered some inconsistencies in the pack’s finances.”

This comes less than a year since a similar incident here in Loudoun.
From The Girl With the Cane: Annie Clark Wins Penmanship Award by Writing with her Forearms. First she did better than anyone else in her school, all of whom have use of their hands.
From When the Flames Go Up: For This Divorced Mom, Traveling For Work Is No Big Thing.
From News of the Restless: Apparently, the Ukrainian abortion ban bill would also ban the missionary position and childlessness. (via @ClinicEscort)
From Talking Points Memo: Obama To GOP: Abide By Debt Limit Deal Or Else Face A Govt Shutdown Right Before The Election.
From CBS Baltimore: CPCs demand the right to mislead and manipulate women who want an abortion (via @NARALVirginia). Stevens tried to get a similar ordinance on the agenda here in Loudoun, but he couldn’t get any of the other Dems to second it. I don’t get why CPCs wouldn’t want to let people know up front that they don’t refer for abortions or birth control. Isn’t that something they’re proud of?
From Hoydens About Town: It’s about Health at Every Size!
From Mother Jones: 4 Things Grosser Than Pink Slime. Now I really really really want to raise my own chickens.
From Denver Biz Journal: Frontier Airlines fined over disabled-traveler incident (via Bill Shackleton)
From The New York Times: When Catholic hospitals merge w public ones, women’s health care takes a back seat to religion. (via @AisFor)
From The Guardian: Disability rights protesters bring Trafalgar Square traffic to a standstill.
From ABC News: The Romneys’ Dancing Horse Competes Without Them. Which leads Kos to ask, “Are the Romneys now ashamed of their horses?”.
From UpWorthy: 3 Reasons Why These Country-Lovin’ Pastors Are Pro-Gay Activists
From Jezebel: The Ten Scariest Places in America to Have Ladyparts
From Shakesville: Snapshots of a Week (or so) of Being a Woman Geek

Speaking of being a woman geek, I can’t get enough of OK Go. It helps that I think that one of the members of the band bears an uncanny resemblance to The World’s Best Campaign Manager, Bar None.

What I’ve been reading since yesterday’s post

Posted on April 18, 2012 at 12:10 pm by Liz Miller |

From my Twitter feed*:
First up, my very favorite link of the day. From Jim Rigby (who, I am assured by a friend who knows him, is the smartest person you will ever meet and who is a minister in Texas): Ten Things I wish the Church Knew About Homosexuality

And now, in no particular order:

From Shakesville: Headlines of the Day
From Slate: Why do you have to fill out all these complicated forms at all? ‘Cause that’s the way conservatives like it.
From RH Reality Check: Now It’s Clear: “Pro-Life” means “Pro-Imprisonment”. Did you notice in the article that the folks who are pushing imprisonment for pregnant women are “The Liberty Counsel”? Talk about cognitive dissonance.
A video from Funny or Die: If you’re not mature enough to continue a candidacy to term, you shouldn’t engage in the risky behavior that begins it.
From Mother Jones: Red states get 30 cents more federal spending per tax dollar than blue states .
Also from Mother Jones: Study: All-White Juries More Likely To Convict Black Defendants (via @scaTX)
From The New Civil Rights Movement: 14-Year Old Suicide Victim Was Receiving Death Threats For Being Gay
Also from TNCRM: ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill One Step Closer To Law In TennesseeWhich leads us to a brief public service announcement from George Takei:

And now back to our regularly-scheduled linkfest.

From The American Prospect: Stop Blaming Dysfunction on Both Sides (Liss has said this for years)
From HuffPo: WORK Act Would Give Low-Income Moms the Same Option as Ann Romney (for 3 years) – via @ThinkProgress
From The Guardian: [UK] Protesters prepare to fight disability living allowance cuts – video
From REV-elution: Amendment 1 is the litmus test to determine who gets my vote (via @PamSpaulding)
From Think Progress: You know where we can find awesome female action heroines? THE TORAH
From Grist: Charming video explains where traffic comes from and how to fix it (Spanish with English subtitles) The Loudoun Board of Supervisors should be required to watch it.
From Dogs Against Romney: Common sense: activist responds to desperate spin from Romney’s campaign (via @gn)
From The New York Times: NEWSFLASH: Drug testing welfare recipients doesn’t save money. Just harasses our fellow citizens for being poor. (via @SallyKohn)
From The Maddow Blog: Clever use of Virginia’s “Trust Women, Respect Choice” plates: “The VRGYNYA license plate” (via @NARALVA) I especially like the bumperstickers. Speaking of which, what does YOUR “Trust Women, Respect Choice” license plate say? Mine says “DORBLQN”.
From Dave Hingsburger: Urine Nation (Please Read). A must read for disabilities activists and for people who are caring for people with disabilities.
Here are two from Mrs. Q: Here’s why many families rely on school meals to bridge the gap… and Sixth graders: Give us time to eat at school
From Jezebel: Paperwork Keeps Chicago Mother from Obtaining U.S. Citizenship for her In-Vitro Twins

*I may spend too much time on Twitter.

What I’ve been reading, links worth following

Posted on April 17, 2012 at 1:15 pm by Liz Miller |

These are links from my Twitter Feed from today*.

Childcare Isn’t Work According to TANF & Mitt Romney “And then the gov’t cut back on subsidizing low income childcare”
“Obese people with healthy habits had roughly the same risks as thinner people of dying young.” (via @meredithea and @KateHarding)
Nationally, black women make 61 cents for every $1 white men make. In DC, it’s 51 cents. (via @ElaheIzadi)
17yr old alleged rape victim is jailed to ensure her testimony against a serial rapist. (via many, many people)
The Board Chair of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, writes in to @DCExaminer about Sen. Phil Puckett’s comments on his forced ultrasound vote (3rd letter)
Female veterans kicked out of military, diagnosed with mental disorders after reporting sexual assault
House GOP would rather take away food stamps from hungry kids than raise capital gains tax? (via @DriveSwift)
From a conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Amanda Marcotte:

Ta-Nehisi said: “Teen pregnancy among blacks at historic low. It doesn’t fit into the pathology narrative but it needs to be said”.

and Amanda responded: Guttmacher crunched the numbers and found the drop was due to improved contraception use. Which makes perfect sense…Abortion isn’t much of a factor, since teens choose it a little less than slightly older women

When He Hit Me
What a successful program! Sign collection has been increased from 1800 signs per quarter to 300 signs per quarter!! (via Loudoun Insider at @TooConservative)
McDonnell’s Forced Ultrasound Bill Awakens a Sleeping Giant — Pro-Choice Virginians — And They Are Going to the Polls

*I may spend a smidge too much time on Twitter.

Gratitude, Community, and Eating Fresh/Eating Local

Posted on April 16, 2012 at 10:01 am by Liz Miller |

Two of the contributors to this site, Epluribusunum and Pariahdog, came over to our house for dinner Friday. And they brought with them a dozen eggs that had been laid by their very own chickens that very day. The eggs were things of beauty, all different colors and sizes. Most of them were a pastel blue. And Stevens and I and our son ate our way greedily through most of them over the weekend (as I write this there are 5 left).

Honest-to-goodness fresh eggs from real chickens.

This is what I did with three of the eggs.

I mixed them with flour, yeast, salt, honey, and milk into a dough. Then I set the dough into a greased bowl to rise.

Letting the dough rise

When it had risen for two hours, and was doubled in size, I punched it down, divided it in three equal portions (yes, I weighed it, I’m a geek), made them into balls and let them rest for 15 minutes.

Then I made each ball into a long rope and braided them together.

Dough braided together.

Then I let it rest for another thirty minutes while the oven preheated to 375.

I brushed it with a mixture of egg yolk and water, and put it in the oven for 40 minutes.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:

Beautiful Challah Bread

Looks delicious, doesn’t it? And the picture doesn’t do the flavor justice. YUM.

Better than the bread, better even than the eggs, was the intense, fun, and unfailingly interesting conversation that we shared Friday night over dinner, and late into the night.

My dear friends, I am so grateful for the eggs, but way more than that, I am grateful for your friendship.

On Constitutional rights

Posted on April 9, 2012 at 11:12 am by Epluribusunum |

Perfect.

Not an IT glitch

Posted on April 6, 2012 at 11:35 pm by Pariahdog |

[promoted by Liz]

I work in IT and deal with all manner of glitches; network glitches, server glitches, database glitches, application glitches and human glitches. IT professionals fix glitches, and I can say with 99.995% certainty that this wss not an an IT glitch.

The first image is the original letter to the editor of the Loudoun Times Mirror from John Mileo, a conservative who now serves on the Courthouse grounds committee.

John Mileo LTE, original link destination

The second is the the content after the Loudoun Times Mirror site was “fixed”.

Link destination after alteration

The link was apparently altered in response to the comment exchange below. My browser contained the content before and after the alteration in two different tabs. You can see the URL fragments and the timestamp in the images. If you thought that you could trust the press to preserve history, you may want to rethink. Who asked for the alteration and who approved it? More will follow.

Comments

Fri, Apr 06 at 11:49 AM by Jonathan Weintraub | Report this comment

jplegend,

The SPLC and the journalists have done a very careful job. Remember that the LTM endorsed Supervisor Delgaudio and MC Dean is a large donor. Even conservative citizens see the fraud. For example, see John Mileo’s letter below.

http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/letters/article/eugene_delgaudio…a_case_study_in_hypocrisy12/

The Supervisor’s words speak for themselves. The journalists reported his own words. Although the honorable Eugene Delgaudio claims that his day and supervisor jobs are separate, the last two times this paper reported on his political gaffs; blood door, and calling people ‘it’, he was representing the Supervisor/candidate, not the hate group.

Fri, Apr 06 at 09:36 AM by jplegend | Report this comment

ok, got it…Loudouners aren’t necessarily bigots and homophobes, just “the thick and the dim”. It must be difficult living among a vast majority of Neanderthals who cling to such outdated values. They hate gays. They hate women. They hate atheists. They hate minorities. They hate the elderly. They hate puppies. Thank God we have the SPLC to keep it all straight for us.

Navy Jet Crashes into Apartment Building in Virginia Beach.

Posted on April 6, 2012 at 12:33 pm by Liz Miller |

Stay tuned to CNN for more reports.

Land of the thick, home of the dim

Posted on April 5, 2012 at 7:03 am by Pariahdog |

Promoted by Epluribusunum.

Eugene Delgaudio - Eugenica's glorious leader

America was once called the land of the free, home of the brave, but we have been transported to Eugenica, Eugene Delgaudio’s America. In Eugenica, the citizens support Eugene and defend everything their glorious leader says or does. Eugenica is pure. Teh gays have not penetrated the worldview force field. The throbbing throngs of homosexuals have not entered the gates. The liberals have failed to shove their agendas down the throats of the Eugenicans.

Everybody wears a large Eugenican flag pin for identification, and they have a million supporters across the universe who send money when there is trouble, like when somebody from the outside world tries to “tell them what to think“.

The Eugenicans are a hard-working lot. They don’t need government for nothing because government can’t do anything right. They all carry guns and drive around in Eugenican-made trucks with “Border Patrol” bumper stickers to keep the riffraff out.

And when there is a threat or a disaster or a catastrophe, the one, singular, mighty member of the government who actually can do something right is called to the rescue. Here, the quintessential paragon of government excellence-in-action rises to the challenge, any challenge. For example, we have this on-the-scene report from uber-patriot David Dickinson. Continue reading →