U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza

By ETHAN BRONNER

GAZA — The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.

A letter was sent by e-mail to the students on Thursday telling them of the cancellation. Abdulrahman Abdullah, 30, who had been hoping to study for an M.B.A. at one of several American universities on his Fulbright, was in shock when he read it.

“If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society,” he said. “I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?”

Some Israeli lawmakers, who held a hearing on the issue of student movement out of Gaza on Wednesday, expressed anger that their government was failing to promote educational and civil development in a future Palestine given the hundreds of students who had been offered grants by the United States and other Western governments.

“This could be interpreted as collective punishment,” complained Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Parliament’s education committee, during the hearing. “This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules.” Rabbi Melchior is from the Meimad Party, allied with Labor.

The committee asked the government and military to reconsider the policy and get back to it within two weeks. But even if the policy is changed, the seven Fulbright grantees in Gaza are out of luck for this year. Their letters urged them to reapply next year.

Israel’s policy appears to be in flux. At the parliamentary hearing on Wednesday, a Defense Ministry official recalled that the cabinet had declared Gaza “hostile territory” and decided that the safety of Israeli soldiers and civilians at or near the border should be risked only to facilitate the movement out of Gaza for humanitarian concerns, like medical treatment. Higher education, he said, was not a humanitarian concern.

But when a query about the canceled Fulbrights was made to the prime minister’s office on Thursday, senior officials expressed surprise. They said they did, in fact, consider study abroad to be a humanitarian necessity and that when cases were appealed to them, they would facilitate them.

They suggested that American officials never brought the Fulbright cases to their attention. The State Department and American officials in Israel refused to discuss the matter. But the failure to persuade the Israelis may have stemmed from longstanding tensions between the consulate in Jerusalem, which handles Palestinian affairs, and the embassy in Tel Aviv, which manages relations with the Israeli government.

The study grants notwithstanding, the Israeli officials argued that the policy of isolating Gaza was working, that Palestinians here were starting to lose faith in Hamas’s ability to rule because of the hardships of life.

Since Hamas, a radical Islamist group that opposes Israel’s existence, carried out what amounted to a coup d’état in Gaza against the more secular Fatah party a year ago, hundreds of rockets and mortar shells have been launched from here at Israeli civilians, truck and car bombs have gone off and numerous attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers have taken place.

While Hamas says the attacks are in response to Israeli military incursions into Gaza, it also says it will never recognize Israel.

“We are using the rockets to shake the conscience of the world about Israeli aggression,” argued Ahmed Yusef, political adviser to the Hamas foreign minister in an interview in his office here. “All our rockets are a reaction to Israeli aggression.”

The Israeli closing of Gaza has added markedly to the difficulty of daily life here, with long lines for cooking gas and a sense across the population of being under siege. Israel does send in about 70 truckloads per day of wheat, dairy products and medical equipment as well as some fuel, and it permits some medical cases out.

But Israel’s stated goal is to support moderates among the Palestinians so that Hamas will lose power, and even some security-conscious Israeli hard-liners say that the policy of barring students with grants abroad is counterproductive.

“We correctly complain that the Palestinian Authority is not building civil society, but when we don’t help build civil society this plays into the hands of Hamas,” said Natan Sharansky, a former government official. “The Fulbright is administered independently, and people are chosen for it due to their talents.”

The State Department Web site describes the Fulbright, the American government’s flagship program in international educational exchange, as “an integral part of U.S. foreign relations.” It adds, “the Fulbright Program creates a context to provide a better understanding of U.S. views and values, promotes more effective binational cooperation and nurtures open-minded, thoughtful leaders, both in the U.S. and abroad, who can work together to address common concerns.”

Sari Bashi, who directs Gisha, an Israeli organization devoted to monitoring and increasing the free movement of Palestinians, said, “The fact that the U.S. cannot even get taxpayer-funded Fulbright students out of Gaza demonstrates the injustice and short-sightedness of a closure policy that arbitrarily traps 1.5 million people, including hundreds of Palestinian students accepted to universities abroad.” She said that their education was good not just for Palestinian society, but for Israel as well.

Some Israelis disagree strongly.

“We are fighting the regime in Gaza that does its utmost to kill our citizens and destroy our schools and our colleges,” said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the opposition Likud Party. “So I don’t think we should allow students from Gaza to go anywhere. Gaza is under siege, and rightly so, and it is up to the Gazans to change the regime or its behavior.”

Hadeel Abukwaik, a 23-year-old engineering software instructor in Gaza, had hoped to do graduate work in the United States this fall on the Fulbright that she thought was hers. She had stayed in Gaza this past winter when its metal border fence was destroyed and tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt, including her sister, because the agency administering the Fulbright told her she would get the grant only if she stayed put. She lives alone in Gaza where she was sent to study because the cost is low; her parents, Palestinian refugees, live in Dubai.

“I stayed to get my scholarship,” she said. “Now I am desperate.”

She, like her six colleagues, was in disbelief. Mr. Abdullah, who called the consulate in Jerusalem for further explanation after receiving his letter, said to the official on the other end, “I still cannot believe that the American administration is not able to convince the Israelis to let seven Palestinians out of Gaza.”

Taghreed el-Khodary contributed reporting.

Nice job Israel. way to undermine a program designed to promote international collaboration, learning, and peace. Nicely played. The 7 students were probably all terrorists anyway, especially the guy trying to get his MBA. Probably studying how to help Hamas improve returns on its investments or how to get better 401Ks for their jihadists.

US chain drops 'terror scarf' ad

US chain drops 'terror scarf' ad

By James Coomarasamy BBC News, Washington

The US chain Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an advert following complaints that the scarf worn by a celebrity chef offered symbolic support for Islamic extremism.

The online advert for iced coffee featured the well-known US television chef Rachael Ray.

She was wearing a black-and-white checked scarf around her neck that resembled a traditional Arab keffiyeh.

This fashion choice incensed at least one prominent conservative blogger, who said it evoked extremist videos.

The blogger, Michelle Malkin, called the garment "a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos".

Stylist's choice

Other criticism followed and the coffee and doughnuts chain has now decided to drop the advert.

Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence - unintentionally or not - they matter Michelle Malkin

In a statement, Dunkin' Donuts said the silk scarf had been "selected by Rachael Ray's stylist and that no symbolism was intended.

"But given the possibility of misperception the commercial was no longer being used."

This has caused a fair amount of consternation in some quarters but the conservative blogger at the centre of the row has praised the decision.

"Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence - unintentionally or not - they matter," Ms Malkin has written.

Oh for the sweet love of crap...

Design revamp for '$100 laptop'

The XO2 looks and acts like an electronic book.

The wraps have been taken off the new version of the XO laptop designed for schoolchildren in developing countries.

The revamped machine created by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project looks like an e-book and has had its price slashed to $75 per device.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte gave a glimpse of the "book like" device at an unveiling event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first XO2 machines should be ready to deliver to children in 2010.

Mr Negroponte said he hoped the design would also be used by other manufacturers.

Dual use

"This laptop comes from a different point of view." he said.

The new version loses the green rubbery keyboard, sporting instead a single square display hinged at its centre.

This allows the device to be split into two touch screens that can either mimic a laptop with keyboard or the pages of a book.

"Over the last couple of years we've learned the book experience is key," he said.

The idea is for several children to use the device at once, combining the functions of a laptop, electronic book and electronic board.

"It is a totally new concept for learning devices." said Prof Negroponte.

It has taken a year to make XP compatible with the XO

The new machine will also be more energy efficient, half the size of the first generation device and lighter to carry.

It will continue to sport the XO logo in a multitude of colours so that children can personalise them.

"The XO2 will be a bit of a Trojan horse," said Prof Negroponte. Initially it will be promoted as an e-book reader with the capacity to store more than 500 e-books.

"Currently developing nations such as China and Brazil are spending $19 per student per year on books," he said.

Dual boot

The launch of the XO2 is being seen as an effort by OLPC to revitalise adoption of its machines. Initially, Prof Negroponte set a target of selling 100 million machines by 2008.

So far OLPC has only sold about 600,000 machines. Prof Negroponte said he expected a further 400,000 orders in the next "60 to 90 days".

Many countries have been reluctant to buy the machines because they did not run Microsoft's Windows operating system.

In mid-May OLPC announced a deal with Microsoft to make Windows available on the XO machine.

Previously the machines used a version of open source Linux operating system.

"There is no question that demand goes up when you offer dual boot," said Professor Negroponte.

The laptops which originally had a target price of $100 now cost $188 each.

The OLPC project believes the price tag for the new devices will be achieved thanks to falling prices for flat panel screens, the most costly of all laptop components.

At the MIT event, Prof Negroponte announced the resumption of the Get-One-Give-One programme to allow people in wealthy nations to buy two XO laptops and donate one to a child in a developing country.

The programme will be open to people in North America and Europe and start in August or September.

Prof Negroponte said the previous programme enabled OLPC to distribute 30,000 additional laptops to children in Rwanda, Mongolia and Haiti.

from: BBC.co.uk

I need to find out where to get one of these. It would be great for traveling when I usually just need internet and document storage. At one point Matt had told me about the organization that sells them, and how one could "purchase" one of the XOs for the price of two, the other of which would be donated. Not a bad deal at all. Get a laptop, give a laptop to a student in the developing world. Win-win.

Chris Mathews...uhm...rocks?

Wow...I have a new respect for Chris Mathews. And this brings up the great point that people should know what the f%*k they are talking about before they bandy about catch phrases and buzzwords like "appeasement." Talking to your enemy is not appeasement, it's diplomacy. Giving up the Sudatenland is appeasement. Talking to your enemy and attempting to negotiate a non-violent solution is intelligent policy. It doesn't always work, and sometimes leaders have to stand firm and say "God damn it No Adolf!, you can't have Eastern Europe." But sometimes they need to talk and try to find some solution instead of invading other countries and costing thousands of lives.

Shift in battle over voter IDs

Missouri measure fuels debate over illegal immigration, disenfranchisement

By Ian Urbina

The New York Times

updated 4:43 a.m. ET, Mon., May. 12, 2008

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.

In Arizona, the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, more than 38,000 voter registration applications have been thrown out since the state adopted its measure in 2004. That number was included in election data obtained through a lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates and provided to The New York Times. More than 70 percent of those registrations came from people who stated under oath that they were born in the United States, the data showed.

Already, 25 states, including Missouri, require some form of identification at the polls. Seven of those states require or can request photo ID. More states may soon decide to require photo ID now that the Supreme Court has upheld the practice. Democrats have already criticized these requirements as implicitly intended to keep lower-income voters from the polls, and are likely to fight even more fiercely now that the requirements are expanding to include immigration status.

“Three forces are converging on the issue: security, immigration and election verification,” said Dr. Robert A. Pastor, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University in Washington. This convergence, he said, partly explains why such measures are likely to become more popular and why they will make election administration, which is already a highly partisan issue, even more heated and litigious.

The Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who opposes the measure, estimated that it could disenfranchise up to 240,000 registered voters who would be unable to prove their citizenship.

In most of the states that require identification, voters can use utility bills, paychecks, driver’s licenses or student or military ID cards to prove their identity. In the Democratic primary election last week in Indiana, several nuns were denied ballots because they lacked the required photo IDs.

Measures requiring proof of citizenship raise the bar higher because they offer fewer options for documentation. In most cases, aspiring voters would have to produce an original birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport. Arizona and Missouri, along with some other states, now show whether a driver is a citizen on the face of a driver’s license, and within a few years all states will be required by the federal government to restrict licenses to legal residents.

Critics say that when this level of documentation is applied to voting, it becomes more difficult for the poor, disabled, elderly and minorities to participate in the political process.

Excerpted from MSNBC.com

This article, Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship, first appeared in Monday editions of The New York Times.

I am really uncomfortable with requiring documentation to vote in general because it does work against the poor, elderly, and disabled--e.g. those people who are less likely to have a driver's license or other type of state ID. This, however, is going over the edge in big way. First, the whole ID thing bugs me because there is no Federally-issued ID card nor a law that requires anyone to have one. Until that is the case, requiring people to show state or federal ID for voting is more than a little troubling. I am fine with IDs to verify who someone is, but the polling places would need to accept any type of ID if they are going to be fair and just about whole thing. Second, and what is probably a larger problem, is that the creation and enforcement of these laws is and would be at the state level, leaving huge discrepancies from state to state--in NC one might need only a utility bill while in Missouri one might be required to show a passport or birth certificate?

I still don't see why election are a state issue and not a federal issue--this is the whole reason that Jim Crow laws were so successful in disenfranchising Black voters for so long. In federal elections, a federal election body should monitor and enforce voting regulations, including acceptable identification, regulations about which parties get on the ballot, and how votes are counted.

A Convention Quandary

John McCain's choice to manage the GOP convention this summer is lobbyist Doug Goodyear, whose firm once represented Burma's repressive regime.

Michael Isikoff

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 11:27 AM ET May 10, 2008

After John McCain nailed down the Republican nomination in March, his campaign began wrestling with a sensitive personnel issue: who would manage this summer's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.? The campaign recently tapped Doug Goodyear for the job, a veteran operative and Arizonan who was chosen for his "management experience and expertise," according to McCain press secretary Jill Hazelbaker. But some allies worry that Goodyear's selection could fuel perceptions that McCain—who has portrayed himself as a crusader against special interests—is surrounded by lobbyists. Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients.

Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing "falsehoods" by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses. "It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Goodyear told NEWSWEEK, adding the junta's record in the current cyclone crisis is "reprehensible."

Another issue: DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so–called 527 groups, precisely the kind of operations that McCain, in his battle for campaign-finance reform, has denounced. In 2004, the DCI Group led a pro-Bush 527 called Progress for America, which was later fined (along with several other 527s on both sides of the political divide) for violating federal election laws. Goodyear, however, says that DCI is "not in the 527 business anymore."

Ironically, Goodyear was chosen for the post after the McCain campaign nixed another candidate, Paul Manafort, who runs a lobbying firm with McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis. The prospect of choosing Manafort created anxiety in the campaign because of his long history of representing controversial foreign clients, including Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. More recently, he served as chief political consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the former Ukrainian prime minister who has been widely criticized for alleged corruption and for his close ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin—a potential embarrassment for McCain, who in 2007 called Putin a "totalitarian dictator." "The Ukrainian stuff was viewed as too much," says one McCain strategist, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter. Manafort did not return calls for comment.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/136321

I thought this was a nice addition to Pope's recent-ish post on McCain's lobbyist connections. Nice job John. Way to pick'em. Be a maverick; ally yourself with people who represented one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Classy.

********And an Update**********

The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar.

Doug Goodyear resigned as convention coordinator and issued a two sentence statement:

"Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign."

Goodyear, chief executive of lobbying firm DCI Group, resigned a few hours after Newsweek posted a story posted online that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Myanmar's junta.

"We respect Mr. Goodyear's decision, and look forward to the convention in September," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

from the AP wire.

Iran hardliners condemn Khatami

Members of Iran's parliament have made a formal complaint to the intelligence minister over remarks made by former President Mohammad Khatami.

On Friday Mr Khatami said the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, had not wanted to export the revolution by armed force.

The MPs accuse him of jeopardising national security and want to know if he had clearance to make the remarks.

They say his comments implicate Iran in events it has had no role in.

'Sabotage?'

Mr Khatami's remarks have been interpreted as suggesting that Iran supports insurgents in other countries.

"What did the Imam [Khomenei] mean by exporting the revolution?" he asked in a speech on Friday to university students.

"Did he mean that we take up arms, that we blow up places in other nations and we create groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? The Imam was vehemently against this and was confronting it," he said.

His remarks have been condemned in Iran's conservative media as an attack on the country's Islamist system of government.

Mr Khatami has said his words were not directed at Iranian policy.

from BBC.co.uk

Let me reiterate how much both Clinton and Bush II blew it when it came to Iran. Khatami was a reformist, willing to open dialogue with the West, and not keen on armed expansion of Iranian regional power (or beliefs). But rather than pursuing anything by way of diplomacy both presidents remained stalwart in their refusal to deal with the country and increased pressures on the regime. The Iranian Hostage crisis was 30 years ago--get the Hell over it already. Anyway, the point is just that the US missed a great opportunity to support reformists...and the window is now tightly shut since Amadinejad has been elected (along with scores of other hardliners throughout the government). Oh well, maybe in another 3 decades....

Abu Dhabi Aims to Build First Carbon-Neutral City

I posted about this project before, but the story on NPR this morning was pretty interesting. It gives some of the specs and details for how they plan to get 0 emissions and 0 waste. Particularly pay attention to the ad for the city made by the company building it (listen to the report to hear the ad). Dystopian sci-fi future here we come!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90042092

How to wrap your head around the pregnant man

By Steven Petrow

OK, I'll admit it. When I got my recent copy of People magazine in the mail (that's probably a horrifying enough confession right there), I did a little head-scratching as I read the story "He's Having a Baby" accompanied by a photo of Thomas Beatie and his pregnant belly. For those of you who might have missed the story, Beatie is a black belt in karate who can bench press 255 pounds; he drives a Ford truck and, at work, runs a 2-ton T-shirt press; he's also about 5 feet 10 inches tall and has a trimmed beard. Oh, and he's six months pregnant. He and his wife, Nancy, are expecting a daughter this summer.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one a bit confused. Almost immediately, my journalist listserv jumped to life. "Can a transgender person have his or her birth certificate changed after transitioning?" "Should he have kept it a private matter, if only because of the potential backlash?" Finally, a colleague from southern California seemed to sum up most of our thinking: "A pregnant man. It really does ... screw with your head—and with some people's political ideology, about that there can be no dispute. Because men don't get pregnant, of course."

Men don't get pregnant, right? Let me double-check that, stat.

Over the years I've spoken publicly—in my former role as president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association—about transgender nomenclature and issues as well as the difference between sexuality (male vs. female) and gender identity (masculine vs. feminine). Without doubt, I have found even educated groups (if you care to refer to journalists that way) somewhat confounded over the language: "male-to-female," "female-to-male," "transvestite," "transsexual," "transgender" and "intersex." More than ever in these discussions, language is crucial, and I know many of my colleagues worry about using the wrong word choice for fear of being pegged ignorant or, even worse, prejudiced. Just last week, a longtime leader in LGBT rights issues said to me from San Francisco in reference to Beatie: "I completely get the transgender thing, but this ... ?"

He's not alone. Frankly, it's taken many in the gay and lesbian community a long time to accept the "T" in our LGBT acronym. To be certain, there was a time when all this was new and uncomfortable for me. I thought back to my parents' generation, many of whom had had difficulty accepting their gay and lesbian family members and friends. Why? I'd say largely because of the shock of the new ("I don't know any gay people!") and our basic, almost genetic predisposition against anything different in the family of man ("difference = bad").

In 2002, I recall being approached by the first transgender person (male-to-female, Ira to Ina) I had come to know at an NLGJA convention. The topics she proffered: the importance of transgender-friendly bathrooms and the bias in transgender news coverage. Not surprisingly, our conference hotel had only "mens" and "womens" restrooms, and Ina explained to me how uncomfortable that made some of our transgender members, but how even more uncomfortable it made some of our non-transgender conventioneers. The answer? Gender-neutral restrooms or transgender-friendly ones. Mind you, this is easier said than done in a major hotel. But until that discussion, I can tell you I had never thought one second about the "restroom issue."

As for news coverage, Ina explained to me that most media outlets at that time still had no consistency in how they applied pronouns to transgender people, often identifying individuals by their gender of birth—not gender appearance or expression. Now, most newspapers have adopted a policy to use a transgender person's chosen name and pronoun. For instance, the San Jose Mercury News, after repeatedly failing in how it identified transgender individuals in the much-publicized murder of Gwen Araujo, adopted this much more fair and accurate policy:

We encourage you to ask transgender people which pronoun they would like you to use. If it is not possible to ask the person which pronoun he or she prefers, use the pronoun that is consistent with the person's appearance and gender expression. Also, please do not put quotation marks around gender pronouns, suggesting that the pronoun does not reflect the person's true sex.

If you think this is a case of "special" treatment, think again. We in the media often use the chosen names of celebrities as both a measure of respect and clarity rather than insisting on using their birth name. (For instance, Muhammad Ali is no longer referred to by his birth name, Cassius Clay; similarly, we all know the former Cherilyn Sarkisian as the one-syllable diva: Cher.)

"I'm not gonna look at this. Tell me when it's over. We don't want the facts. I can't handle the facts." —Joe Scarborough

But for all the change that has occurred, some members of the media, in what might aptly be called "the Beatie affair," have crossed the line in voicing their fear and loathing of the Beatie pregnancy. David Letterman referred to him as an "androgynous freak show" on his Top Ten list, while the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe vied for the title of most objectionable. Castigating Oprah for "legitimizing this" (the Big O had Beatie on for what is generally considered a thoughtful and respectful segment), Joe Scarborough, one of the anchors, would not even watch the "O" video: "I'm not gonna look at this. Tell me when it's over. We don't want the facts. I can't handle the facts." His co-anchor, the usually fair and balanced Mika Brezezinksi, added to the outrage: "I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick. I am upset. That was not only stupid and useless, but quite frankly, disgusting."

Many in the LGBT community have wondered whether the transgender community will see "some backlash" from the Beatie story and whether it will hinder the movement toward greater social acceptance of transgender individuals. When you have Letterman saying someone is a "freak show," you've got a bit of a problem. This reminds me, though, of another so-called problem. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as gays and lesbians sought greater visibility and acceptance, more conservative members of our "community" (which I put in quotation marks here because there was a decided lack of community in their views) argued vociferously that leather men, drag queens, porn stars and transvestites should go to the back of the lavender bus because they were not good PR vehicles for the gay rights movement. In short, we were urged to put our "best" faces forward: The Brooks Brother Homosexual.

Hunter Madsen (along with the late Marshall Kirk, both tidy young men, then) wrote the seminal treatise on this: After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s. They argued against shock tactics—like PDAs in the street—and in favor of a Madison Avenue-like public relations campaign that aimed to make gays more mediagenic (think Will & Grace). Looking back over the nearly two decades since their book was published, we can easily see that acceptance of gays and lesbians has been helped by our mainstream brothers and sisters: Ellen DeGeneres (TV superstar), Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City) and Greg Louganis (Olympian) as examples. Yet, don't mistake the power of our more outré companions in shaping the culture, in pushing the culture: the "divine" filmmaker John Waters; NPR's most famous "lisper," David Sedaris; and the androgynous chanteuse k.d. lang. Madsen and Kirk would likely have chosen to obfuscate this latter trio of LGBT heroes in their PR campaign for gay acceptance—and what a sadder, more narrow world that would have been for everyone. Similarly, Beatie might not be the poster child for transgender acceptance that some would like. Too bad, I say. He's one among many, and if we know anything from recent history, it's the importance of each of us standing up to be visible, recognized and accepted for who we are.

Here's the kicker: The Beaties are a mind-bender. No, they're not "just a husband and wife who are having a baby," as Nancy Beatie has claimed. They've pushed our buttons and our boundaries about sexuality and gender identity because we're so used to thinking in binary terms: man/ woman, masculine/ feminine and gay/ straight. The world's more complicated than that, as Thomas Beatie is certainly showing us.

One of my journalist colleagues wrote about all this recently: "The best way I've learned to describe the transgender community is on a spectrum. Many young transgender people do not consider the dichotomy of gender to be a useful model ... [But] as we all know, there are plenty of times when we are forced to declare ourselves as male or female. Our society doesn't understand that gender can be more fluid."

So, yes, Virginia, men do get pregnant.

Steven Petrow is the past president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association and is at work on his memoir, Out of the Box.

Source: The Triangle Independent http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A257157

For anyone who skipped reading the article and just wanted to listen to my take on the issue, I will clarify the issue herein. Beatie is a transgendered individual who is legally recognized as a man by the state of Oregon. He is married to a woman and for all social intents and purposes is recognized as a man. However, he (obviously) still has biologically female sexual organs--this presumably being the only way one can give birth (at this point). Anyway, the point of this is simply to point out a very complex issue in sexual, gender, and identity politics. It is interesting (and important) to consider on both political and philosophical-psychological grounds. In the former, it is important because currently rights for transgendered persons are essentially non-existent; in the latter, we could all probably do with a little reflection (whatever the eventual outcome) on what it means to be a man or a woman and what it means to self-identify as one or the other (these might be different things after all) and how these roles are constructed (biological, social, etc).

It is an odd issue, and I can't say I am 100% comfortable with the transgendered persons I know. It's not at all that I don't respect them, I am just not ever quite sure about how they want to be perceived...I am also intensely curious about it. But I always assume asking about it is kind of rude.

Oh, and Scarborough and his buddy are ass-licks. MSNBC should be ashamed of both anchors and should issue a public apology. Of course, media persons have every right to be objectionable, juvenile douchebags, but come on. News program my ass. This is a serious issue, and acting like a bunch of uncomfortable 7th graders degrades the issue and the media itself.

U.S. gas: So cheap it hurts

By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: May 1, 2008: 12:18 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite daily headlines bemoaning record gas prices, the U.S. is actually one of the cheaper places to fill up in the world.

Out of 155 countries surveyed, U.S. gas prices were the 45th cheapest, according to a recent study from AIRINC, a research firm that tracks cost of living data.

The difference is staggering. As of late March, U.S. gas prices averaged $3.45 a gallon. That compares to over $8 a gallon across much of Europe, $12.03 in Aruba and $18.42 in Sierra Leone.

The U.S. has always fought to keep gas prices low, and the current debate among presidential candidates on how to keep them that way has been fierce.

But those cheap gas prices - which Americans have gotten used to - mean they feel price spikes like the ones we're experiencing now more acutely than citizens from other nations which have had historically more expensive fuel.

Cheap gas prices have also lulled Americans into a cycle of buying bigger cars and bigger houses further away from their work - leaving them more exposed to rising prices, some experts say.

Price comparisons are not all created equal. Comparing gas prices across nations is always difficult. For starters, the AIRINC numbers don't take into account different salaries in different countries, or the different exchange rates. The dollar has lost considerable ground to the euro recently. Because oil is priced in dollars, rising oil prices aren't as hard on people paying with currencies which are stronger than the dollar, as they can essentially buy more oil with their money as the dollar falls in value.

And then there's the varying distances people drive, the public transportation options available, and the different services people get in exchange for high gas prices. For example, Europe's stronger social safety net, including cheaper health care and higher education, is paid for partly through gas taxes.

Gas price: It's all about government policy. Gasoline costs roughly the same to make no matter where in the world it's produced, according to John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute. The difference in retail costs, he said, is that some governments subsidize gas while others tax it heavily.

In many oil producing nations gas is absurdly cheap. In Venezuela it's 12 cents a gallon. In Saudi Arabia it's 45.

The governments there forego the money from selling that oil on the open market - instead using the money to make their people happy and encourage their nations' development.

Subsidies, many analysts say, are encouraging rampant demand in these countries, pushing up the price of oil worldwide.

In the U.S., the federal tax on gas is about 18 cents a gallon, pretty low by international standards.

But those relatively low gas taxes make it hard now for Americans to deal with gas prices that have risen from around $1 to over $3 a gallon in the last seven years.

"Everybody pays more, but the U.S. pays more in absolute terms," said Lee Shipper, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley's Transportation Center. If you're already paying $4 in taxes, said Schipper, then an extra $2 a gallon isn't that big of a deal.

Revenues from Europe's high gas taxes are used to fund a variety of things. One thing they have built is better public transportation, said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial, a Calgary-based private equity firm.

They gave people an alternative to driving, something we don't have in North America," said Tertzakian.

Low fuel taxes and prices sprung out of a national love for mobility going back generations, said Robert Lang, director of the urban planning think tank Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

In fact, the U.S. could not have had the western expansion it did without the cheap mobility railroads and horse carriages afforded long before it became an auto-obsessed culture, said Lang.

"You couldn't have Manifest Destiny unless you could move," he said.

The automobile, and its promise of personal mobility, only deepened the nation's love affair with travel.

"Nobody sang 'She'll have fun fun fun until her daddy takes the tokens away,'" said Lang. 'It's totally romanticized."

Gas consumption Europe vs. U.S. There is some evidence Europe's high gas taxes have capped its oil consumption.

Oil use in the United Kingdom has basically stayed flat from 1980 to now, while in France it's dropped 17%, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.

In the U.S., meanwhile, oil use is up 21% over the same period, although the country has added more people and seen its economy grow slightly faster.

Americans have taken advantage of cheap gas prices to do other things - like buy bigger cars and bigger houses further away from city centers, said Schipper.

On a per capita basis, Americans use three times more oil than Europeans, he said. That means Americans are more exposed to rising gas prices than their counterparts across the Atlantic.

"Five-thousand square feet in the suburbs, that's much rarer in Europe," said Schipper, referring to big homes. "We dug our hole."

Bogged down

Most expensive places to buy gas

Rank Country Price/gal 1. Sierra Leone $18.42 2. Aruba $12.03 3. Bosnia-Herzegovina $10.86 4. Eritrea $9.58 5. Norway $8.73 6. United Kingdom $8.38 7. Netherlands $8.37 8. Monaco $8.31 9. Iceland $8.28 10. Belgium $8.22 111. United States $3.45

Cruisin'

Where gasoline is cheapest

Rank Country Price/gal 1. Venezuela 12 cents 2. Iran 40 cents 3. Saudi Arabia 45 cents 4. Libya 50 cents 5. Swaziland 54 cents 6. Qatar 73 cents 7. Bahrain 81 cents 8. Egypt 89 cents 9. Kuwait 90 cents 10. Seychelles 98 cents 45. United States $3.45 155 countries surveyed between March 17 and April 1, 2008. Prices not adjusted for cost of living or exchange rates. Correction: A previous version of this chart showed Russia as the 8th cheapest country to buy gas. Russia is the 38th cheapest.

Just a little perspective...and an explanation. Gas prices can't stay low forever, and lowering the federal gas tax isn't going to fix a damn thing. And look were gas is the cheapest. I wonder how many Americans would trade the right to vote for gas that cost less than a dollar....hmmm. And all this makes me wonder what the Hell we are all going to do when gas here is the same price it is now in Belgium.