Supreme Court debates Bong Hits 4 Jesus

When Joseph Frederick stood across the street from his Juneau, Alaska, high school displaying a 14-foot banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," the principal responded by suspending him. He appealed, and the case got all the way to the high court this week.

By all reports, the justices had a lively debate about whether the banner constitutes a pro-drug message. If they decide Frederick's banner was indeed advocating drug use, the Court will likely side with the principal. But Frederick has contended from the beginning that his message is a valid expression of his First Amendment rights, and his lawyer is trying to keep the case about free speech rather than drugs.

Kenneth Starr, the attorney arguing the side of the high school principal, told the justices "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" is a blatantly pro-drug message, and it is perfectly appropriate for school officials to curtail such kinds of student speech. Starr and the Bush administration have asked the Court to consider making a broad ruling to give public schools authority to limit any student speech with which they disagree.

Luckily, the justices didn't like that idea much. It doesn't seem right that young people should have to check their speech rights at the door of their schools. Controlling speech that advocates drugs is one thing, but schools should mirror democratic societies and allow students to explore and exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly.

The court is expected to return a decision in the Frederick case by July.

Unhappy Anniversary

Last weekend in this country, protesters in cities across the nation took to the streets to protest the war.

Here's an audio clip from one of the speakers at the Denver protest last Saturday and a few phtots. The turnout was modest (I'd say about 300-400 people), but those who did attend were encouraged by the considerable support they received from passers-by and motorists.

The fifth year of the war in Iraq begins this week, and the occasion was marked, not surprisingly, by scattered violence throughout the country.

Four years after he delivered a cocksure speech announcing the American invasion of Iraq, President Bush has toned down his rhetoric on the subject.

It appears the on-going sectarian violence there, the Democrats' mounting campaign against the war, 3,200 dead American soldiers, and a disapproving American public are finally forcing Bush to revise his talking points and abandon his favorite catch phrases. For example, NPR noted that he no longer uses the word "victory" when referring to American involvement in Iraq.

To be sure, on this fourth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, there is scant little to celebrate for the Bush administration, but more importantly, for the Iraqi people, many of whom continue to live in constant fear of violence and without basic services like running water and electricity. The most conservative Iraqi death toll estimate is in the tens of thousands, while the real number is probably in the hundreds of thousands.

The suffering of the Iraqi people since the American invasion has hardened Iraqi public opinion and turned many against the coalition forces. To coincide with the war's anniversary, an Iraqi public opinion poll was released this week, and the survey clearly documents the deteriorating image of American forces through Iraqi eyes.

Of the 5,000 people surveyed, more than a quarter believes live under Saddam Hussein was better than life now. More than half of the respondents believes the security situation in Iraq would improve if the American forces left. Nearly a quarter of respondents believes the purpose of the American "surge" is merely a front to enable the U.S. to attack other countries in the Middle East.

The poll was based on in-person interviews conducted last month with randomly selected Iraqis in all 18 of the country's provinces. It was paid for by a London market research firm, Opinion Research Business.

Another poll commissioned by media groups painted a similarly gloomy picture of life in Iraq. This one found only 39 percent of respondents felt life was "going well," down from 71 percent in November 2005.

The media group poll found only 18 percent of people trust the U.S. troops, and more than half the respondents thinks it is "acceptable" to inflict violence on American forces.

Happy Anniversary.

Russia: nice for tourists, deadly for journalists

Russia has a lead role in global economic affairs, as evidenced by its chairmanship of the G8 group of industrialized nations. Yet the state of Russian democracy is much weaker than its economic power. The Kremlin has a choke hold on broadcast news and aims to up the controls on print and internet journalism. Russia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a reporter, in fact, 13 journalists have been murdered since President Vladimir Putin took office in 2000.

The shooting death of prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building in October 2006, caused a renewed international outcry and sparked demands for Putin to address the issue of journalist safety. Initially, Putin downplayed the importance of Politkovsyaka's work, who had traveled dozens of times to war-torn Chechnya and reported on Russian government abuses there. Last month Putin finally acknowledged the need to protect journalists and vowed to do more to end the execution of opposition writers and commentators.

"The issue of journalist persecution is one of the most pressing. And we realize our degree of responsibility in this...We will do everything to protect the press corps," Putin said in a press conference last month at the Kremlin.

But Putin's promises are likely to be little consolation to most journalists, who don't trust the Russian leader as far as they can throw him.

Just before the July 2006 G8 Summit kicked off in Saint Petersburg, the Russian parliament approved a bill that expands the definition of "extremism" to include media criticism of government figures. Despite loud objections from press freedom and human rights groups, Putin signed the measure into law. And this is just one manifestation of Putin's crackdown on dissent. Months before the G8 Summit, Putin signed a law restricting the activities of NGOs operating in Russia; the legislation tightens the reins on financing, registration and operational activities for NGOs within the Russian Federation.

So even if concrete measures are taken to protect Russian journalists, it might be an empty gesture, for by that time the Russian government will have legislated away any notion of a free press

Read more about the state of the press in Russia on the Committee to Protect Journalists website.

NPR recently did a great series about modern Russia under Putin - listen to it here

The crossfertilization of hate

Last week NPR ran a story about how hard-core hate groups like the KKK are experiencing a resurgence of energy and membership through the issue of illegal immigration. Racist and nationalist groups are rallying around the issue and amping up the extreme rhetoric on illegal immigration. The propaganda we hear blames undocumented immigrants for all of society's problems. While there are legitimate strains on schools and hospitals as a result of illegal immigration, there is simply no rational basis on which to blame immigrants for rising crime rates, unemployment and disease.

According to NPR's report, there has been a 40 percent rise in the number of documented hate groups in the U.S. since 2000. And more than 250 anti-illegal immigration groups have formed in the past two years, representing nothing less than an explosion in anti-immigrant sentiment among the American public.

But what is even scarier than the resurgence of the KKK, is the fact that extreme and irrational rhetoric on illegal immigration has been cropping up in the mainstream media since the immigrant-rights marches of last spring. A jaw-dropping example of this was recently when pundit Lou Dobbs spent time on his CNN program outlining the extremist theory that Mexicans are trying to reconquer the American Southwest through immigration. Dobbs, a real anti-illegal immigration crusader, showed a map of the region of the supposed reconquest credited to the Council of Conservative Citizens, an unabashedly racist organization. Here's an excerpt from their statement of principles on the website:

"We believe that the United States derives from and is an integral part of European civilization and the European people and that the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character. We therefore oppose the massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime." -Council of Conservative Citizens

Extreme anti-immigration groups often sum up their hateful and misguided campaigns with a simple question: "Do we want to keep America as it is, or do we want it transformed into a third world country?" For people who claim to be sufficiently informed on the issue of immigration to speak publicly, the ignorance of this rationale boggles the mind.

The flow of migrants from Latin America to the United States used to be circular, and the flow of migrants out of the U.S. to their home countries almost completely offset the flow of migrants into the U.S. However, the beefed-up border security that came with the passage of the Immigration and Reform and Control Act of 1986 utterly failed in its mission to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants. The IRCA-mandated border security made it too difficult and costly for migrants to cross the border multiple times in a year as they had in the past due to the seasonal nature of their work in the U.S. As a result, the circular nature of male labor migration was replaced by the permanent settlement of migrants and an influx of undocumented family members seeking to reunite with their migrant relative. Border security tactics have largely backfired, and we never hear this point of view on the news. Mexican migration to the United States was once limited to a few states with populations of temporary migrant laborers, but now all states are home to significant, permanently settled undocumented immigrant populations, and the U.S. government has only itself to blame.

Reference: Durand, Jorge and Massey, Douglas S., Eds. 2004. Crossing the Border: Research from the Mexican Migration Project. New York: Russell Sage Foundation

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Naomi Wolf in Boulder

Activist and feminist Naomi Wolf spoke in Boulder Tuesday night to an overflow audience in the student center on campus. Hundreds of women and a handful of men listened to the bestselling author explain the oppressive, profit-driven consortium that operates to hold women down – something Wolf has famously termed “The Beauty Myth.”

Wolf began her talk by pushing away the podium and strolling casually up and down the stage to admire the crowd gathered before her. Being from San Francisco, Wolf said she felt at home in a progressive town like Boulder. As she put it, “Boulder is one of those places where change happens.”

This is obviously a very familiar shtick for Wolf. It’s clear she has given the same talk many times before. And while she is an engaging speaker, her lecture lacks freshness and nuance. Wolf published her book, “The Beauty Myth,” in 1991, and it doesn’t appear she has updated her lecture since. As an audience member pointed out on Tuesday, Wolf ignores the growing myth of masculine beauty (strength, toned body, buffness) that oppresses men and makes them feel ugly and inadequate.

In order to frame her argument, Wolf outlined the tremendous gains made by women in the last 15 years. Sexual harassment laws with real teeth have been passed; women were elected in record numbers to national government; violations of the human rights of women were brought into the spotlight, including female genital mutilation and honor killings.

“It was as if the feminist fairy godmother had waved her magic speculum and given us everything on our feminist wish list,” Wolf said.

Because of the great advances in women’s rights and since women of all ages represent 53% of the world’s population, modern women should be more confident, determined and powerful than ever before, Wolf said. But there are psychological constructs blocking the way of women seeking to realize their full potential, and this is what Wolf calls the Beauty Myth.

Women are bombarded in fashion magazines and on TV with images of the feminine physical ideal, which is thin, young, large-breasted and usually blond and Caucasian. Because this pornographic ideal is constantly presented as the only desirably, sexy body out there, women’s self-esteem is tied up in how they compare.

Wolf points out that the feminine ideal has not always looked the way she does now. Wolf argues the look has to do with three powerful industries that are the primary advertisers (money talks) on TV and in fashion magazines. The average fashion model weights 30% less than the average American woman, and the feminine ideal is that skinny because the $300 billion-dollar-per-year dieting industry insists on it. Wolf maintains women wouldn’t buy dieting products – which are almost entirely ineffective - if they were comfortable with their curves. Only when women are bombarded by images of gaunt waifs do they begin to question their own bodies. And when the questioning starts, the pocket books open up to the dieting industry. The dieting industry – using their advertising dollars as weapons – insist the networks and magazines show only skinny women.

The second racket operating to maintain the Beauty Myth is the cosmetics industry. Women spend billions on anti-aging creams, which are proven ineffectual, Wolf said, but since young, wrinkle-free women are the only ones on TV and in print, normal women feel compelled to try and stave off the normal signs of aging. Again, Wolf maintains that if we saw women of all ages on TV, we’d be comfortable with getting old and therefore, we wouldn’t spend money on worthless creams. (Wolf mentioned she isn’t opposed to the use of cosmetics - she uses them herself - but she uses only sheep lanolin on her skin)!

The third part of the Beauty Myth is the cosmetic surgery industry. Since most of the bodies we see in the media are skinny and enlarged with artificial breasts, if women don’t look like that, they don’t feel sexy or desirable. (By the way, someone should check this out, but Wolf said 100% of the Victoria’s Secret models have breast implants). So to sum up, the dieting, cosmetics and plastic surgery industries cooperate to keep the feminine ideal unrealistically skinny, wrinkle-free and buxom so that normal women will feel compelled to spend their money on the industries’ products.

To make matters worse, young men are often introduced to pornography (and thus the same pornographic, feminine ideal) at a young age – many years before they have their first sexual encounter with an actual human being. The result, Wolf said, is that men have a hard time relating to real women because they’ve spent so many years relating to a fantasy woman in magazines and videos.

But in surveys, men always choose a curvier, more voluptuous body type over skinniness, so for Wolf this is proof the ideal comes from the industries mentioned above and not from real men’s expectations. She concluded her lecture by saying that the ideal serves to hold women back and prevents them from building the confidence they need to achieve their goals.

I have no doubt Wolf’s arguments are strong and sound, but I think there are other processes at work that she ignores – like the power of peer groups and the cumulative causation of eating disorders and body image problems. My favorite part of the lecture came at the end when Wolf was describing the importance of the subcutaneous fat layer. According to her, a person’s libido is regulated there.

“There’s a reason women have curves,” Wolf said excitedly. “So they can be orgasmic; So go and eat that donut for your sex life!”

"Why I Hate Blacks" column rightfully lambasted

The story only got muted coverage in the mainstream national press, but for those who caught it, it was hard to believe. Kenneth Eng, a regular contributor to the San Francisco weekly newspaper, AsianWeek, who calls himself an “Asian supremacist,” penned a ranting column entitled “Why I Hate Blacks,” and inexplicably, the editors allowed it to run. Not surprisingly, the column provoked anger and outrage not only among African-Americans but also from the very community of Asian-Americans the newspaper claims to represent.

The Feb. 23 column was taken down from AsianWeek’s website and replaced by a lengthy apology for offense caused by its publication. But the managing editors initially refused to comment in the press about their role in allowing the opinion piece to run.

Finally in a Feb. 28 news conference, editor at large Ted Fang apologized publicly and announced the decision to fire the columnist, Eng. “The failing of our editorial process in allowing this piece to go forward was an insensitive and callous mistake that should never have been made by our publication,” Fang said.

Are you convinced? I’m not sure that I am. That’s a hell of a mistake for the paper that calls itself “The Voice of Asian America.”

I hope the advertisers will “punish” the paper for its stupidity (it’s distributed free so people can’t cancel their subscriptions in protest) by cancelling ads. It’s hard to respect a publication that allows hate and ignorance to parade as legitimate opinion. I think the credibility of the paper is irreversibly damaged, and rightfully so.

The story of Mayor Jim West

Jim West was a conservative Republican mayor of Spokane, Wash., caught living a double life by journalists at the local newspaper. West was discovered to have an online identity which he used to chat with young gay men on a site called Gay.com.

Articles in the Spokane Spokesman-Review outed West for his sexually explicit chatting and accused him of abusing his power by offering internships to men he met on the site. The paper also accused West of molesting two young boys in the 1970s and 80s when West was a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader. West refused to step down after the scandal broke, and eventually he was recalled in a popular vote. West died of complications from colon cancer last summer.

Frontline did an excellent piece on the Jim West sex scandal; watch it online here.

The Frontline report highlights some of the ethical issues raised by the reporting techniques employed by The Spokesman-Review in its efforts to uncover West's secrets. Journalists from the paper posed as young men in online chat rooms and tried to lure West into disclosing his identity.

In this digital age there are countless ways to gather information and as a result, there's a greatly increased potential for invasions of privacy. While West's actions were surely hypocritical - he had sponsored several anti-gay bills in his political career - the local paper's efforts to out him smack of entrapment and violation of privacy. The Frontline report does a great job of capturing all sides of this complex ethical case.