military | Stowaway Travel Writing & Editorial Services

The Good

Obama has finally removed most of the provisions of the infamous Bush-era “conscience clause,” so now pharmacists can’t say, “nope, sorry, no birth control for you, I don’t believe in it.” They’ll have to do their job instead, which is providing quality care to all their patients.

Some good news for LGBTs in Wyoming: a proposed constitutional amendment to bar the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed out of state was dropped in the House because it was unlikely to pass. (However, the bill to amend the constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman is still pending.)

Read this heartwarming story about how the military is tentatively stepping out into this new post-DADT world and treating same-sex spouses of deceased servicemembers with respect.

Women are an integral part of the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and northern Africa, and it is quite inspiring.

A great piece from the former state treasurer of Michigan on why Walker’s destroying his state by not bargaining with unions.

The Bad

Walker is instituting layoffs, smuggling in ringers to his budget speech, falling prey to crank calls that reveal his dastardly motives quite clearly, hides the even scarier provisions of his budget bill, and just generally is the worst. Kudos to all the Wisconsinites who continue to stick it to him, including the protesters, the few media people reporting honestly on it (ahemnotFoxahem — how is that legal?), and the Democrats who brought their desks outside in the winter weather so they could meet with their constituents after they were locked out of the Capitol.

Gaddafi is doing his damnedest to destroy Libya, and staging an all-out attack on his own people. That’s the bad part. The good part is that Obama has called for him to step down, and the UN is imposing sanctions on him. Vive la revolution! And thoughts for those who have died and those who have lost loved ones in the battle.

Bahrain is also not handling its people’s peaceful protests well.

Military servicemembers have sued the Pentagon for ignoring, downplaying, and otherwise mishandling the thousands of cases of sexual assault reported in military ranks every year (and this doesn’t even take into account the unreported cases). Good luck to them.

In the popular understanding, women trick their men into getting them pregnant so they can keep them and have control over them. But the reality is that it works the opposite way; recent studies show that reproductive coercion is a big problem. One study reported that 1 in 4 women calling a domestic violence hotline said they did not want to be pregnant but their partner removed their access to contraceptives, pressured them to get pregnant, or forced unprotected sex on them. Amanda Marcotte takes a look at this issue and its connection to the shelved (for now) South Dakota law allowing people to murder those who provide abortions to their family members.

Okay let’s look at all the states doing horrific things in the name of “pro-life”:

Virginia is now regulating abortion clinics as hospitals, which means even first-trimester abortions will become almost impossible to perform due to the huge increase in liability insurance costs, building and grounds modifications costs, etc. (oh and cosmetic surgeons don’t have to follow these new rules).
Rep. Franklin in Georgia wants to treat all women as criminals and have them file a police report when they miscarry so that it can be investigated and the miscarriages weren’t actually purposeful abortions (many horrific things here, not the least of which is that miscarriage is often a traumatic experience anyway). Jill Filipovic has a hilarious response to this horrifying suggestion–mail in a photo of your used tampon as proof that you didn’t kill anyone this month.
Americans United for Life is the group behind the expansion of justifiable homicide laws in South Dakota (currently shelved), Nebraska, and Iowa. The lawmakers agreeing to introduce the bills aren’t even always aware of what AUL stands for or how far their reach is, which seems like a troubling lack of research when talking about life and death.

The Silly

Happy National Grammar Day!

The Good

Okay, it’s not good that these wanted posters for abortion providers are making a comeback. But it is good that Flip Benham is being found guilty in a court of law for posting these dangerous, vile things.

Michelle and Barack get down in Indonesia! Love it.

I know I read in some Forster novel (I think it was Howards End) an argument among hoity-toities about the foolishness of just giving money to poor people, instead of attaching strings to tell them how to spend it. But those characters may have been on to something — apparently giving people even a dollar a day that they can spend any way they like is more effective than any other program at getting more poor kids in school, for example. Sure, some people will spend that money on drugs or drink, but so will some people who work in an office, and you don’t see us stipulating how salaries are spent. Most of the time, though, people just want money to feed, shelter, and clothe their families, and this is one way to help them do that.

The Bad

Damn it, government officials who knowingly destroy evidence of government wrongdoing should be prosecuted for their crimes, not given a free pass. But the Obama administration disagrees.

This is a month late, but it’s still worth seeing this compilation of hateful, untrue, and dangerous things that Tea Partiers have said. You know they’ll be back in 2012. Know your enemy, etc.

Oh don’t worry, John Shikmus (R-IL), who hopes to chair the House Energy Committee, reassures us, “The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.” I’m so very comforted.

The organization that Thurgood Marshall called the “uptown Klan” is funding some schools in Mississippi. Take action to ask the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools why it accredits those schools and encourage the corporations that donate to the MAIS to make sure their donations aren’t being funneled to white supremacist, anti-gay schools.

Ask the Obama administration to change its policy on not sending condolence letters to the families of servicemembers who died by suicide. (I especially like Melissa’s point that there are many deaths in the military that are called suicide that may be anything but.)

The Silly

Here’s a cool interview with Brian Eno, a man more equipped than most to coax new and interesting sounds out of any machine on hand. I like what he says about how different forms of listening to music affect how we listen to music and also the music itself, and how he’s getting more and more interested in studio sessions that don’t sound quite so perfect.

Leave your interesting links in the comments, as usual, and have a great weekend!