This is part six in a nine-part series on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. A full TOC, complete with links for easy navigation, is included at the bottom of each post.

Spoiler alert: Danger ahead, oh the horra! Plot spoilers abound! If you haven’t yet read the book, consider yourself warned. In fact, back away from this blog asap, go borrow The Handmaid’s Tale from your local library, and come back when you’re done. We’ll still be on the internets, promise.

Hypocrites, Egotists & Apologists: Who’s Sorry Now?

This blamer was just a wee little babycake when Margaret Atwood was penning The Handmaid’s Tale. Yet twenty-plus years later, the characters and political climate still ring true. Has our society progressed so little?

Serena Joy, who receives relatively little attention in The Handmaid’s Tale, is perhaps the most engrossing character aside from Kate. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Beverly LaHaye, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly (she of “it is legally, morally, and technically impossible for husbands to rape their wives, because women have consented to a lifetime of sex-on-demand through marriage” fame) and the like. In “the days before”, Serena Joy was an evangelical preacher on the teevee. The type of woman who made a living by scolding other women for working outside the home. In other words, a hypocrite:

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LD and I have a tradition. Every year, I ask him what dishes he’d like me to make for his birthday, and every year - without fail - he picks mac salad.** That’s it. Just mac salad. A huge frikkin tub. Which he feasts on for like the next week.

And I have to admit, it’s pretty good. Probably not the healthiest meal I’ve ever blogged, but really effin yummy. Plus it’s a great dish to end the summer with.

Don’t let the photo scare you. I know it looks like some scary radioactive science project, but orange macaroni isn’t all that photogenic. That, and my gourmet food critic photographic isn’t all that gourmet.

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I’ve been sitting on this story for a few weeks now, trying to find the words to convey how furious, how disillusioned, how heartsick, these seemingly never-ending cases of police brutality (against non-human animals, against activists, against women, against people of color, against gays and lesbians, against transgendered persons, against bicyclists, fer chrissakes!) make me, but to no avail.

There just aren’t enough words in the English language to explain how cruel and unnecessary are incidents such as these:

Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple’s two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

In it were 32 pounds of marijuana. But the drugs evidently didn’t belong to the couple.

Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients. [...]

A furious Calvo said Thursday that he and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, are asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the July 29 raid.

“Trinity was an innocent victim and random victim,” Calvo said outside his two-story, red-brick house in this middle-class Washington suburb of about 3,000 people. “We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us.”

Calvo insisted the couple’s two black Labradors were gentle creatures and said police apparently killed them “for sport,” gunning down one of them as it was running away.

“Our dogs were our children,” said the 37-year-old Calvo. “They were the reason we bought this house because it had a big yard for them to run in.”

The mayor, who was changing his clothes when police burst in, also complained that he was handcuffed in his boxer shorts for about two hours along with his mother-in-law, and said the officers didn’t believe him when he told them he was the mayor. No charges were brought against Calvo or his wife, who came home in the middle of the raid.

The Washington Post describes the dogs’ murder in greater detail:

“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs,” Calvo said. “They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don’t think they really ever considered that we weren’t.”

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he — wearing only underwear and socks — and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs’ carcasses and pools of the dogs’ blood, Calvo said. [...]

Moments later, just after he had undressed, Calvo said, he heard his mother-in-law scream that someone was coming toward the house. He looked out his bedroom window and saw officers in SWAT gear running across the lawn.

“I heard a loud crash and then ‘bang, bang, bang,’ ” he said, recalling the sounds of the police shooting the dogs. “I hit the floor.”

As the police came in, Calvo said, they shot his 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, Payton, near the front door and then his 4-year-old dog, Chase, also a black Lab, as the dog ran into a back room. Walking through his house yesterday, Calvo pointed out a bullet hole in the drywall where the younger dog had been shot.

“I understand they have a job to do, but it didn’t have to go like that,” Calvo said. He said the police could have knocked on his door and asked him about the package. [...]

Berwyn Heights Police Chief Patrick Murphy said county police and the Sheriff’s Office had not notified his department of the raid. He said town police could have conducted the search without a SWAT team.

“You can’t tell me the chief of police of a municipality wouldn’t have been able to knock on the door of the mayor of that municipality, gain his confidence and enter the residence,” Murphy said. “It would not have been a necessity to shoot and kill this man’s dogs.”

As was the case with dear Jax and Scarlet, one of the dogs was shot as he ran away from the police officers. No warnings or deterrents were employed before the officers murdered two dogs in cold blood. All this despite the premeditated nature of the raid; given that the target was a public official, officers should have known that dogs would be present in the residence beforehand, and planned accordingly.

And, while I don’t think that public officials should be treated better than us lowly citizens, the simple fact is that they usually are. Thus, if something like this can happen to the mofo mayor, imagine how the cops might treat your dogs, or mine (or you and I, for that matter).

Rest in peace, Payton and Chase. It’s times like these, I wish I believed in an afterlife, or karma, or somesuch form of divine retribution.

His wife spoke through tears as she described an encounter with a girl who used to see the couple walking their dogs.

“She gave me a big hug and she said, `If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?’” Tomsic said.

Blub.

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Another zucchini recipe!

I made this dish for the doggehs, but it will work well for humans, too.

Kelly’s Applekin Tofu Soup

Ingredients

Applekin Base:
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
2 cups apple cider or apple juice
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/2 talespoons ground cloves

Veggies:
1 pressed brick of firm or extra firm tofu, diced into 1″ x 1″ pieces
1/3 large zucchini (or 2-3 smaller, store-bought zucchinis), diced into 1″ x 1″ pieces
1/3 cup TVP

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I’m not usually one for “feminine hygiene” commercials, but I’m totally digging Tampax’s newest ad, Waylei’d. I even YouTubed it, yo!:

I love how Mother Nature is played as a snarky saboteur, natch.

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Tagged: tampax commercial ad mother nature

John McCain, who at 63.8% missed votes has ditched out on work more than any other member of the 110th Congress, has taken to complaining that Congress should come back to session early in order to let him “drill here and drill now,” already. But he has “not missed any crucial vote.” Oh, the irony, it burns!

Liveblogging the McCain/Obama/Warren/skydaddy wankfest.

“Measuring the ‘Colbert Bump’: Do politicians raise more funds after appearing on “The Colbert Report” comedy show?”

Debra at RAN wonders, “Why don’t the environmental & animal rights movements work together?”

Meat Spaghetti? “You know how some parents resort to tricking their kids into eating certain foods when they’re little? Try not to gag: ‘Meat scientists’ have come up with a way to make meat into spaghetti to trick kids into eating meat.”

Look who’s in the April-June edition of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii’s newsletter, The Island Vegetarian! (Hint: jump to page 17.)

Last-but-not-least, via Black Canseco @ Racialicious: Why We Want Our Kids Back Too:

Nancy Grace doesn’t have an aneurysm on camera when LaToya goes missing. Dan Abrams doesn’t get outraged when Marcus or Jamar vanishes. Katie Couric and Barabara Walters don’t break down in tears when kids from South Central are murdered. Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann don’t interrupt your program when Jaunita is found chopped up into pieces. Magazines and newspapers aren’t tracking those cases. They’re just not news enough or “human interest” enough for all of that.

Ironically, according to the FBI, the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and other orgs, most of missing children (those under 18) in America are neither white nor female. In fact 33% of all missing children under 18 are African American girls; overall, it’s believed that Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans account for over 40% of all missing children under 18. As for missing adults (those over 18), the National Center of Missing Adults, FBI, and other orgs have report similar findings.

Lastly, the Amber Alert, which was originally designed for missing children under the age of 18, yet has no set national criteria for use (guidelines vary by state) has been under attack from critics claiming it’s used mostly for white female adults, many of whom haven’t been abducted but have “runaway” or have voluntarily left their environments.

These kinds of hypocrisies and disparities drove me to look for ways to help. That’s how I discovered great child advocacy sites like Missing Minorities, What About Our Daughters? and Black And Missing. Since I used to write ads for a living, I figured I could do something they could use—and the We Want Our Kids Back, Too campaign was born.

Read the whole thing, and then download a poster (or two or three) here.

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Tagged: link love link dump links john mccain barack obama 2008 elections racism race missing children msm environment animal rights movements activism meat spaghetti mad science colbert bump

My garden is overflowing, so methinks it’s time for more zucchini recipes!

This dish doesn’t call for much zucchini, so it’s actually not all that helpful in tackling my zucchini overload. But…it’s yummy just the same, and I’m jonesing for some bread, so there ya go.

Sweet Cinnamony Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

2 cups grated zucchini
egg replacer for 3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 C. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup raisins (optional)

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This is part five in a nine-part series on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. A full TOC, complete with links for easy navigation, is included at the bottom of each post. (An especially timely post, considering last night’s religious interrogation of “church chat” between Barack Obama, John McCain and Rick Warren.)

Spoiler alert: Danger ahead, oh the horra! Plot spoilers abound! If you haven’t yet read the book, consider yourself warned. In fact, back away from this blog asap, go borrow The Handmaid’s Tale from your local library, and come back when you’re done. We’ll still be on the internets, promise.

A Theocracy is Harmful to Believers and Infidels Alike

Just as the patriarchy hurts men as well as women, so too does a theocracy hurt believers and non-believers alike.

Although Atwood never identifies Gilead’s sect, we do know that it’s a Christian theocracy. We can eliminate Catholics, Quakers and Baptists, for Gilead forces young Catholic nuns to either renounce their religion and become Handmaids, or else face exile to The Colonies; fights against the Quakers, many of which are helping Gilead’s women escape via the Underground Femaleroad; and is engaged in open warfare with the Baptists. Given the state of current American religion and politics, Southern Baptist seems the best bet, however, all we can say about Gilead’s religion is that it is a fundamentalist Christian sect that is vehemently opposed by most of the other American religious sects - Christian or otherwise.

In fact, Gilead considers every religious sect other than its own the enemy, and demands that their adherents submit and convert - or die. The only believers which were spared during the Civil War were practicing Jews, who could either convert or immigrate to Israel. (Not as lucky a fate as it sounds; according to our future scientists, Gilead “privatiz[ed ] the Jewish repatriation scheme, with the result that more than one boatload of Jews was simply dumped into the Atlantic.” KBR, anyone?)

Gilead’s fundamentalist reading of the Bible, coupled with their brute force and religious zealotry, proved harmful to believers and non-believers alike, who were forced to submit to Gilead’s dogma or die. Nor did being “Christian enough” placate the Sons of Jacob - all citizens must follow Gilead’s religiously derived laws, to the letter, or face draconian punishments. A woman caught reading, for example, might lose a hand. No matter whether that woman agrees with Gilead and views “reading while female” a Biblical sin; she must abide by her government’s reading of holy doctrine either way.

In a theocracy, there’s no guarantee that the government will share your interpretation of the Bible. Better still to enshrine strong civil liberties protections in the Constitution, along with a healthy respect for the separation of church and state - that way, no one can force their religious beliefs on others, or have their own religious beliefs taken from them.

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Dennis Kucinich
Date: Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 7:22 PM
Subject: Action Update: Make September 10th a day to change the world!

September 10th: The day before our world changed, a day to change the world!

Dear Friends,

On August 1st, I delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi; a petition bearing the names of over 100,000 Americans that, like us, feel that the President must be held accountable for abusing executive power and disregarding his Constitutional obligations.

Your voices have been heard and your support continues to send a powerful message to lawmakers. That is why I call on you again to help us in a new effort to deliver 1 Million signatures to Speaker Pelosi on September 10, 2008.

Together we can:

* Urge real Congressional action to hold President Bush accountable now
* Reinstate the authority of our Constitution
* Document crimes committed by President Bush for historical account
* Facilitate post-Administration law enforcement and prosecution
* Reset the standard for the incoming and future administrations
* Demand justice for the over 3,000 who died on 9/11and whose deaths were tragically exploited to take us into an illegal war in Iraq
* Demand justice for the estimated 30,324 U.S. military personnel who have been injured/wounded
* Demand justice for the estimated 4,138 U.S. military personnel who have been killed or died
* Demand justice for the 1 Million innocent Iraqis who have died*
* Avert another illegitimate looming war – this time against Iran

We need your active participation to deliver 1 Million signatures to Congress by September 10, 2008.

Please give at least ten of your friends the opportunity to stand up for our country - the way you and I have, by inviting them to sign the impeachment petition online at www.Kucinich.us. Send your friends an email invitation to sign the petition by clicking here.

Together we can make September 10, the day before the world changed, a day we change the world!

Thank you for your active and ongoing citizenship.

Dennis Kucinich

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Via Noemi @ Vegans of Color, PETA’s latest publicity stunt: pro-vegan ads on, of all places, the US-Mexico border fence:

While many view the contentious border fence as a government fiasco, an animal rights group sees a rare opportunity.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans today to announce an unusual marketing pitch to the U.S. government: Rent us space on the fence for billboards warning illegal border crossers there is more to fear than the Border Patrol.

The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: “If the Border Patrol Doesn’t Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan.”

“We think that Mexicans and other immigrants should be warned if they cross into the U.S. they are putting their health at risk by leaving behind a healthier, staple diet of corn tortillas, beans, rice, fruits and vegetables,” said Lindsay Rajt, assistant manager of PETA’s vegan campaigns.

The Department of Homeland Security is working to meet a deadline to complete 670 miles of fencing and other barriers on the Southwest border by Dec. 31. The fencing operation has run into stiff opposition by landowners fighting government efforts to obtain their land through condemnation.

PETA says its billboards would picture “fit and trim” Mexicans in their own country, where their diet is more in line with the group’s mission. Another image on the sign would portray obese American children and adults “gorging on meaty, fat- and cholesterol-packed American food.”

PETA’S offer to the feds is expected to arrive in a letter to Border Patrol officials today.

But a government spokesman in Washington said the request will be rejected because it would limit visibility through the fence. And Border Patrol does not allow advertising on its property or installations, the officials added.

“The fencing being put in place is, in many cases, mesh fencing to allow our officers to see what’s happening on the other side and to better secure the border,” said Michael Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

One property owner on the Texas-Mexico border laughed at PETA’s proposal.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” said Noel Benavides, who is contesting the construction of a fence dividing his family’s 145-acre ranch in Roma on the Rio Grande. “I can’t see the point of something like that.”

But Rajt said the rent money they’d pay would help offset the huge costs of the fencing — and the advertising message “might even be frightening enough to deter people from crossing into the U.S.”

PETA has often been criticized for its aggressive animal rights crusades. It’s used billboards to push many of its controversial positions such as “Buck Cruelty: Say NO to horse-drawn carriage rides” or “Feeding Kids Meat Is Child Abuse.”

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