On February 11

On this day in ...
... 1964 (45 years ago today), reacting to news that France was extending recognition to the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, which since losing the mainland a decade earlier had been installed on Taiwan, broke diplomatic relations with France. Just this past October, The China Post reported that a French court had "stirred diplomatic tensions by recognizing Taiwan's right to make its case in a legal dispute" -- concerning land in Tahiti -- "despite Paris not having recognized it as independent..." In comments that bring to mind the Gaza situation on which we posted here, the Post elaborated that

in an interim judgement, the court ruled that Taiwan's case could be heard 'independent of the diplomatic situation' even given Taipei's status as 'a Chinese state not recognized by the international community'.

(credit for above French embassy image, circa 1964, of President Charles de Gaulle, far right, and unidentified Chinese official)
... 1964 (45 years ago today), a daughter was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, to Sarah and Charles Heath, a school secretary and a science teacher/track coach, respectively. The family moved to the 49th state in the Union. The girl competed in athletics and beauty pageants, and attended a number of colleges before receiving her bachelor's degree in communications/journalism from the University of Idaho. In 2006 Sarah Palin (left) -- having married and served as mayor of her hometown -- became 1st woman and the youngest person ever elected Governor of Alaska. Since losing her bid to be U.S. Vice President last November, Palin's remained on the media trail, most recently railing against "'anonymous, pathetic bloggers.'' Surely she didn't have IntLawGrrls in mind: We've signed all our posts about her.

Election Day in Atlanta, GA

It's a beautiful day here in Atlanta, GA and so far all reports suggest that there have been no difficulties or delays at polling places. We are here for this conference and have been wandering around Decatur this morning to get a sense of the atmosphere. So far we have seen no delays or lines at polling places and people we've spoken to have reported the same at the polling places around the city. Both yesterday and today we saw a number of people with Obama/Biden tshirts, buttons and posters and no McCain/Palin signs, but that may be a product of the area we're staying in which is very blue. Although Georgia is normally a red state the polls suggest a close race on the presidential ballot here, and there is a possibility that Saxby Chambliss will be a Senate casualty if there is a Democratic sweep today. We're heading into the CNN centre now, where we hope to get some photos, more atmosphere, and some more reports.

A Long Day's Journey Into Night

Well, here we are on the most important day in the 21st century so far. Today is the day we decide where this country is heading. The two presidential candidates could not present a more stark contrast: McCain's campaign devolved into an appeal to our most base human instincts. He relied on a fearmongering, divisive politics that so far has proved successful for the Republican Party. McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for a VP running mate was a calculated and cynical attempt at pandering to the most conservative elements of his party. Obama, while not a perfect candidate, represents a movement for real change in this country. His campaign emphasized the need for all of us to take action to change the status quote. He called out to the best within us rather than the worse. He focused on themes of personal responsibility as well as responsibility for our brothers and sisters. He asked us to sacrifice for our country and for each other. I disagree with Obama's trade policy and I strongly disagree with his position on gay marriage, but an Obama presidency promises to restore this country to a path more inclusive, more thoughtful, and more compassionate than the one we are currently following. The difference between these two candidates could not be more clear.

Which vision do you want for our country?

So, at long last, it is all over but the voting and the counting. It has been a long journey to get us here, and it will be an even longer night to come. Don't forgt to vote!

It doesn't always take a woman

In this video of yesterday's debate, proof positive, at 1:15, that you don't have to be a woman to show love for your family. Proof too, at 1:41, that not all women feel the pull of emotion.

... and counting ...

(Occasional sobering thoughts.) Where to start in reviewing war news since our last post on August 21? As we await a planned 1st Presidential debate this evening -- the focus of which is supposed to be foreign policy/national security -- a review of events seems very much in order.

Pakistan
Begin, perhaps, with what appears to be the uncovering of a 3d front for armed conflict involving the United States. It's in Pakistan, where, as IntLawGrrl Naomi Norberg posted on Sunday, a terrorist bomb so devastated part of downtown Islamabad that media there were calling it the country's 9/11. (Excellent posts on same may be found at Steve Coll's blog at The New Yorker website, which I've just discovered. Coll, as IntLawGrrls posted a while back, is the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of a masterful book on U.S.-Pakistan operations pre-9/11.). Today's news from that troubled part of the world, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: "U.S., Pakistan troops exchange fire on Afghanistan border. The Pentagon calls it a misunderstanding and denies that U.S. helicopters crossed the border into Pakistan's tribal regions." One fears the need soon for a website chronicling casualties there.
(Must say, too, that the man who replaced Pervez Musharraf does not instill confidence that things in Pakistan will improve. This week's flirting by President Asif Ali Zardari -- widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto -- with GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin was beyond creepy. (photo credit))

Afghanistan
Move, then, to Afghanistan. A core concern of this recurring feature, civilian casualties, continue to mount:

This year is on pace to be the deadliest for civilians since the Taliban were toppled by the American-led invasion in 2001. More than 1,445 civilians have been killed so far in 2008, and slightly more than half of those deaths, tallied by the United Nations, are attributed to insurgent forces.

This month Robert Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, "express[ed] his 'sincere condolences'" to the Afghan people "and promis[ed] speedier compensation and investigation after such casualties." The apology came not long after Afghan leaders demanded a SOFA, or status of forces agreement, spelling out troops' responsibilities. They called for an end to aerial attacks as well. As for average Afghans, it's reported that "As Crime Increases in Kabul, So Does Nostalgia for Taliban." And in Washington, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in the works is said to be so "grim" on prospects in Afghanistan that the government plans to keep it secret till after the November 4 election.

Iraq

Shift to Iraq. Violence is by no means over, yet remains less than before. In the United States mainstream media attribute this to "the surge" of added U.S. troops. We've posted in the past that events before the surge might be the major cause. A newly released UCLA study supports that view, "suggesting that ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit." At the negotiating table, meanwhile, it seemed that the United States had reached an agreement that would allow its troops to remain with the Iraqis' OK -- on the condition that plans for eventual withdrawal be included in the agreement. That's stalled, however. Yesterday U.S. officials blamed Iran for the impasse in its talks with Iraq.

The Count

With this news in mind, we move, finally, to the casualty count. According to Iraq Body Count, between 87,643 and 95,664 Iraqi women, children, and men have died in the conflict in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. That's an increase of between 982 and 1,107 deaths in the last 4 weeks. According to the U.S. Defense Department, 4,172 American servicemembers have been killed in Iraq. Total coalition fatalities: 4,486 persons. That's 27 servicemember deaths in the last 4 weeks, all but 1 of them Americans. On the other established front, military casualties in Afghanistan stand at 605 Americans and 376 other coalition servicemembers. That's an increase of 27 and 16, respectively, in the last 3 weeks, and a total servicemember casualty count just shy of 1,000.

'Nuff said

(Occasional item taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'Disappointed that taxpayers are called upon to bail out another one. Certainly AIG though with the construction bonds that they're holding and with the insurance that they are holding very, very impactful for Americans, so you know the shot that has been called by the Feds — it's understandable but very, very disappointing that taxpayers are called upon for another one.'

-- The full and verbatim response of 1 of 4 persons vying to govern the United States beginning January 20, 2009.
► Core of the question?
Yesterday's news that the U.S. government had, as the Washington Post put it, "[i]nvok[ed] extraordinary powers granted after the 1929 stock market crash" and "seized control of the insurance giant American International Group to preserve a crucial bulwark of the global financial system."
Later in the day, a down-down-down graph in The New York Times bore the headline "Bailout Fails to Stem Global Stock Slump", while "Russian exchanges halt[ed] trading as shares plummet[ed]", according to London's Guardian. And in Paris, meanwhile, LeMonde's online edition gloomed about a "Nouvelle journée noire pour la finance mondiale". (photo credit)
► Source of the above quote, whose Bushian syntax obscures insight as well as clarity?
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who -- notwithstanding that 1 of the leading women supporting her ticket believes her incapable of running an American corporation -- has put herself forward as the Republican candidate to become the American Vice President.

'Nuff said

(Occasional item taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

“To any critics who say a woman can’t think and work and carry a baby at the same time,” she said, “I’d just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave.”

-- Sarah Palin, quoted in this morning's New York Times
Like Marjorie Florestal, I don't have much in common with Sarah Palin, and I agree with Gloria Steinem that Palin is generally the wrong woman with the wrong message. However, I have to hand it to Sarah on this one, and her decisions to "ease . . . back into work, first stopping by her office in Anchorage for a meeting, bringing not only the baby but also her husband to look after him", "install. . . a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one", and to carry "Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls."

Steinem draws a line

Months ago an IntLawGrrls post expressed discomfort with feminist icon Gloria Steinem's take on the Presidential campaign. Seems only fair to note the 2¢ Steinem's just offered, in her Los Angeles Times op-ed on "[w]rong woman, wrong message."
It's great, Steinem (left) writes, that "[w]omen have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap." But there Steinem draws the line, and proceeds to detail why she finds Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a faux feminist choice.
Check it out.

'Nuff said

(Occasional item taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women.

-- Maureen Dowd, in her New York Times column.

Palin and the Politics of Gender

Sarah Palin and I have little in common. She is a moose-eating hunter who totes a gun in one hand and a bible in the other while declaring marriage the exclusive union of a man and a woman. Palin finds polar bears an inconvenience because they get in the way of oil drilling. She is unabashedly anti-choice when it comes to women's reproductive rights; but when Palin confronts the challenge of whether to teach our children the scientific theory of evolution or the biblical story that God created heaven and earth in seven days, why then she is all for choice. Just throw it all in the mix and let our children decide! (“Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information.") I am nothing like Sarah Palin. So, why do I find myself spending much of my time this last week defending McCain's rather unusual choice for a running mate? Well, because she is a woman.

The 2008 elections will go down in history not only for the barriers of race and gender that were broken, but also for highlighting the fissures on race and gender yet to be healed. First the Democratic primaries illustrated the indignities of Blacks and women arguing over who faces greater discrimination and stereotyping. Seriously? Now comes the gendered-hoopla over Sarah Palin. By this, I do not mean to suggest questions about her experience and competence are illegitimate. We are justified in asking whether the newly-minted governor of one of the smallest states in the Union (population: 670,053 as of 2006) whose prior experience includes a stint as the mayor of a town of 9,000 and an active member of the PTA is ready to be "a heartbeat away" from the presidency. What troubles me is the way in which questions of her competence have arisen. Is it relevant, for example, that she was a former beauty queen? It must be. You can hardly read an article or watch a news report about Palin without being subjected to pictures of her in long red prom dress complete with tiara. And have you seen the number of sites describing her looks--or worse yet, her status as a "VPILF"? (I refuse to tell you what the acronym stands for. I first saw it referenced in a blog I came across while Googling Palin, and I was innocent enough to ask "what's that?" And then, I was dumb enough to proceed to find out. If you can't figure it out, you are probably better off).

As I was writing this post, stories of the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year old unwed daughter hit the media circus. Is this yet one more example of a gender-based stereotype? I abhor the politicization of this child's life and wholeheartedly agree with Obama's statement "how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics." I think questions about whether Palin will have "enough time" to fulfill her duties as VP are thinly-veiled attempts to return women to their traditional role of chocolate-chip-cookie-baking mommies (and grandmommies). I respect a woman's right to choose that path, just as I respect the right of other women to choose differently. But I do find some relevance in Palin's current family situation: It reaffirms for me why she and her Republican compatriots should not be allowed to run this country. I want to live in a world where young women (and men) have access to safe and effective contraceptives not religious dogma on abstinence. I want a young woman who finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy to have all options available to her--including abortion if that is her choice. And I want a young woman "in the family way" to not feel pushed into getting married in order to make the rest of us feel more comfortable. Marriage is the union of two people in love not absolution for our past failings.

The Republicans--powered by the religious right in this country--would create a world vastly different from my vision. I hope they lose. But if these sexist attacks on Palin continue unabated, we all lose.

(Prior IntLawGrrls post on Palin here.)

Still "A Woman" in the mix

Turns out "Democratic Party unity" doesn't mean "no more women" in this year's Presidential campaign:

Today the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, tapped A Woman as his running mate.

Got nothing against Sarah Palin (left). Hard to; never heard of her. Do, however, have something against the identity politics that brought her to the fore.

Here's what pundits are saying to make sense of McCain's decision to place in the Presidential mix someone who's 2 years into her 1st term as Alaska governor, whose only other elective post was 6 years as mayor of a city of 9,000:

she gives women who are angry about Hillary being passed over another reason to vote McCain

and

she's an exciting, exotic (yet heartlandish) female pick

and

a pro-life working mom

and

self-styled hockey mom

We have been here, done this. Choosing a person solely because s/he fits "A" category seldom has done us much good.

One can only hope that Palin's better than pundits' soundbites augur. That, for example, it's the fault of this website -- and not a genuine deficit in her qualifications -- that Palin has "[n]o issue stance" on the critical issues of our time: Corporations, Drugs, Families & Children, Government Reform, Jobs, Local Issues, Principles & Values, Technology, Welfare & Poverty, Immigration, Free Trade, War & Peace, or Foreign Policy.

One can only hope.