Sebelius appoints Lawrence's own Denise Low as Poet Laureate of Kansas

By Diane Silver

In a more personal and wildly enthusiastic vein, I take note today of this week's appointment of Denise Low as the new poet laureate of Kansas.

This is personal because Denise is a member of my writing group and a friend. More than that, though, Denise is a wonderful poet.

She will do a great job in her new post. Kudos to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the Kansas Arts Commission for recognizing her talent. As poet laureate, Denise's job will be to develop a greater appreciation for the writing and reading of poetry in the state. Denise's term runs from July 1,2007, to June 30, 2009.

"I want to celebrate the many readers and poets across the state who sustain a life of the mind as well as deep love for the land," she said.

"During these next several years, I hope to share my own excitement about poetry with our libraries, colleges, public schools, arts centers and alliances and reading groups."

Denise is the interim dean of the College of Humanities and Arts at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence. She has been published numerous times and has been honored by, among many others, the Academy of American Poets, the Newberry Library, the Landon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Publisher Bob Woodley says in an essay about Denise that "she gives us Kansas memories." However, you can't know any poet without reading her work. This poem can be found on the Kansas Poets web site.

Mornings I Never Leave You

Mornings a misted road opens
its slow arc through floodplain.
The Wakarusa River tosses
somewhere south in the midst
of willows and osage orange.
To the east, Blue Mound rests
from its slow erosion as air
filters over it. The sun illumines
each hill, each piece of stone.

These mornings I rise from bed
and leave the solid shape of your back.
I leave the warm skin you fold
over me against cold
and the blotting of night.
Sun consumes the tail-end
of darkness. I leave your eyes
and drive into small changes--

grackles ornamenting a tree,
grass winnowing the wind.
White dew sifts back into sky.
Traced by distant branches
the Wakarusa,
a small river I never see,
loops through wet silt,
holding Earth in place.

Originally published in Helicon 9 Anthology

Kansas: The political obituaries of social conservatives Jim Ryun & Phil Kline

By Diane Silver

The top leaders of the state's social conservative movement -- a Republican congressman and the state's attorney general -- are now history, and it's time to dig into exactly what felled Jim Ryun and Phill Kline.

Rep. Ryun jumped into the discussion today by noting that the REAL reason for his loss was that his campaign volunteers were overconfident. Ryun also noted that everyone from his victorious, Democratic oponent Nancy Boyda to the news media were out to get him. My only comment is, ah, OK.

Oh, and Ryun finally noted for the first time that as far as the war in Iraq goes, "things are not going well."

Meanwhile, Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty summed up Kline's defeat at the hands of Democrat Paul Morrison.

"What I think we're seeing is that voters were wanting an alternative to Kline, and as soon as Morrison gave it to them, the election was over."

AP writer John Hanna went through a lot of words before he got to Beatty's quote, which I think is the heart of the matter. Even the GOP agrees.

"We anticipated by time election day rolled around that (Kline) was going to lose by double digits," Republican State Chairman Tim Shallenburger said in an interview. "He was plagued by missteps and misstatements and people who disliked him picking at him for four years."

And so it goes...

Meanwhile, it looks like Ryun's political career is probably over. However, rumors continue that Kline will rise again, perhaps in 2008 to challenge Boyda in the 2nd Congressional District.

Stay tuned.

So many people, so little space

By Nancy Jane Moore

Recently I found myself on a Virginia-bound subway car at the height of rush hour, packed like a sardine in the aisle, and taking deep breaths to avoid screaming at all the people around me.

"Why are they running short trains at rush hour?" I grumbled to the guy next to me. He said, "Metro likes it crowded like this -- they want every train to be this full." And I shuddered -- if the subway I usually take to work was that crowded every day, I'd end up driving instead. I hate being crammed into too little space with too many people.

Turns out that I'm not just a cranky old curmudgeon: Most people feel this way. There's even an academic field that studies the amount of space people need: Proxemics.

As Stephanie Rosenbloom writes in a New York Times article entitled "In Certain Circles, Two Is a Crowd":

Chances are that in the last week someone has irritated you by standing too close, talking too loud or making eye contact for too long. They have offended you with the high-pitched shrill emanating from the earphones of their iPod or by spreading their legs unnecessarily wide on a packed subway car.

Oh, yeah. Though it's not the high-pitched squeal from the iPod but the thundering bass line that drives me nuts. Not to mention the people who have their belongings strewn all over two seats when people are standing.

As the world becomes more and more overpopulated, we run into more of these overcrowded, stress-producing situations. As a result, the study of proxemics has taken on new importance and a lot of scientists are looking into it.

Among the things they've discovered: People don't just like their space in the real world; they want it in virtual worlds too. A recent study (PDF) by Stanford University grad student Nick Yee and others from his department shows that avatars in Second Life exhibit the same kind of behavior in staking out personal space that people do on the subway or in the office.

Rosenbloom goes on to say in her article:

But whether people have become more protective of their personal space is difficult to say. Studies show people tend to adapt, even in cities, which are likely to grow ever more crowded based on population projections.

Personally, I don't find myself adapting. And Rosenbloom does note that lack of space is the major complaint of airline passengers. As someone who does everything in her power to get an aisle seat, I second that.

Rosenbloom's article is light-hearted, and overcrowding may not seem like a major problem when contrasted with war, famine, and the various idiocies emanating from the White House. But it's another symptom of overpopulation. And while some cultures don't need as much space as others, there's a limit for almost everyone, especially when the people they're standing next to are complete strangers.

The truth is, this is a bigger problem than it used to be because there are so many more people than there used to be. The world population has doubled in the past 40 years and the US population tripled over the course of the Twentieth Century.

Maybe future generations will more or less adjust to overcrowding, but I'm willing to bet that they'll have more examples of road rage and other sudden violent outbursts. Me, I don't plan to adjust to overcrowding at all. I intend to continue complaining about it every chance I get and to do everything in my power to avoid it.

For starters, I will never take the subway to Virginia at rush hour again. And if I ever get on Second Life, you can bet my avatar will keep her distance, too.

This weekend Muslim women take matters into their own hands

By Pamela K. Taylor

This weekend in New York 100 Muslim women activists, artists and scholars, including myself, will meet with the express purpose of developing forums and structures to empower Muslim women to play a greater role in their societies worldwide.

Called WISE: The Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity, the conference is a forum for Muslim women leaders to:

• discuss global Muslim women's issues
• assert our rights through the use of and in accordance with Islamic law
• build a coherent movement that empowers and connects Muslim women everywhere.

One item on the agenda is the formation of an International Shura Council of Muslim Women. A Shura Council is an advisory body that interprets Islamic law for the political and religious leaders in its region of authority. Also under discussion will be the creation of a global fund to provide scholarships for Muslim women to be educated in Islamic jurisprudence, thereby qualifying them to serve on the Shura Council of Women.

I have some concerns about this council. The current plan is for it to be made up of six women. That's not very many. I would have gone for 10 at least and preferably 12. With only six, it is more difficult to ensure a diversity of opinions, which as far as I'm concerned, is essential to the operation of any such body.

Also, when the proposal speaks of being educated in Islamic jurisprudence and qualified to serve on the Shura council, that raises alarm bells for me.

Will a degree in theology from a Western university count, or does the woman have to go to a Middle Eastern country for her education? If a Middle Eastern trip is required, that would make it virtually impossible for most of us to qualify. Few women can just drop family and career for two or three years to study overseas, even with scholarships. Furthermore, will self-educated women be seen as qualified as are self-educated men -- men like Jamal Badawi who is an internationally recognized scholar despite having no Islamic degrees?

And if you have to be qualified at an accepted Islamic university, then what is the likelihood that this Shura council will challenge standing interpretations that are terribly prejudicial against women?

Amazingly, thousands of women demonstrated in support of the sheikh who compared women to uncovered meat and hundreds of women protested Pakistan's recent decision to remove rape from a legal code that allowed women who were raped to be prosecuted and imprisioned for the crime of committing extra-marital sex. (!!) These women insisted that rape deserves the same punishment as voluntary fornication! As if rape weren't a punishiment to begin with!! If the council works to maintain male hegemony and traditional interpretations, then it could quite possibly do more harm than good.

However, I am hopeful that all of these concerns will prove fruitless, especially as they are shared with quite a few other women who I know and who are attending. The very fact that progressive Muslim women who buck traditional interpretations have been invited is a good sign, indeed!

Other discussion items will be:

• the major obstacles facing Muslim women and the creation of strategies to address them
• how to increase women's religious & political leadership via faith-fueled activism
• challenging local customs that impinge on women's rights
• developing effective methods to change negative perceptions about Muslim women.

I'm even more hopeful on these fronts, though I don't expect there to be any overnight changes. Still, organizations such as this can be very empowering to Muslim women. By focusing the community's attention on some very basic issues which plague many parts of the Muslim world, I hope we can be agents for positive change.

At the very least, it's absolutely essential for Muslim women to stand up and say: "Enough is enough. Women deserve better, and I will not stand by idly while my sisters are harmed."

The last gasp of the Kansas anti-evolution school board

By Diane Silver

In January the new moderate, pro-science and -- dare I say -- pro-public education majority will finally take over the Kansas Board of Education. The changing of the guard can't come a moment too soon.

This week the anti-evolution, hooray- for-private-schools old board showed once again why voters made the right move in changing the balance of power.

First, the outgoing conservative majority handed over $42,000 to the Kansas Association of Public Charter Schools. While state education officials claimed they had to give out the grant as part of a federal program, moderate board members said the process smelled a tad fishy. What reeked? Only two groups applied.

What's worse is that this latest grant goes to a group run by a Topeka woman who earlier received another grant from the conservative-led board. Other members of the woman's family and even her friends received money from the conservative board. All of which might lead one to wonder if perhaps it's time to change one's relatives.

Meanwhile, recently ousted board member Connie Morris is getting the most out of the end of her term. She plans to take two out-of-state trips, including one that will occur after she attends her last board meeting.

I am feeling snarky today; I'll admit it. I so wish, though, that I had a job like that. Get fired (as Morris was by the voters), work your last day and then have the boss pay for you to take a little vacation. What a deal!

Morris, by the way, says she will write a report and turn it into the board about what she learns on her trip. She wants, by her own words, to be "a person of intregity." Here's Morris' full quote, and no, I'm not making this up.

"I want to be a person of integrity -- often I miss the mark -- but that's what I strive to be," she said.

By the way, that's smilin' Connie in the photo.

Think the arguments against gay marriage are garbage?

Well, you're not alone. Suzanne B. Goldberg of Columbia Law School has written a marvelous paper for the American Constitution Society called And Justice For All? Litigation, Politics, and the State of Marriage Equality Today.

Michael Savage, gays & building the rationale for genocide

By Diane Silver

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm gay. When I heard what radio host Michael Savage told his listeners about us, I was chilled to the bone.

No matter what motivation led Savage to say these things on Monday, the result is simple. What he is doing is creating the rationale for the destruction of me and my people.

If his listeners believe him, then at some point shouldn't they consider imprisoning us, or even worse?

Could we call such a thing genocide if it ever happened? I don't know, but I do know that genocides are built on statements just like Savage's.

Media Matters reported Savage's attack.

And I want to tell you something, and I'm going to say it to you loud and clear. The radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this country. Make no mistake about it. They're all not nice decorators. You better get it through your head before it's too late. They threaten your very survival. They went after the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is now caving into the homosexual mafia. They will not stop until they force their agenda down your throats. Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda. Now, if you want that and if you don't think it's a threat -- believe me, that is what's going to occur in this country.

I have to agree with Andrew Sullivan that the importance of this quote becomes clear if you substitute the word "Jew" for "homosexual."

Savage's words remind me far too much of what I learned in 2000 when I interviewed several social psychologists at the University of Kansas. The story was published in Catalyst Magazine and is long gone from the web. However, I still have a copy.

KU Professor Chris Crandall's studies are the most relevant to Savage's quote. Crandall studied the influence of social norms and leaders on prejudice and people's actions.

"People report almost exactly the amount of prejudice that the culture tells them is OK," Crandall told me.

The role leaders play is crucial, he said. With their actions and rhetoric they can either discourage prejudice or promote it. Ethnic groups in Yugoslavia and Rwanda had not only tolerated one another, but also had lived together peacefully for years until suddenly the norms changed. Leaders began to openly promote intolerance, even encourage discrimination against certain groups.

"When that happened," Crandall said, "the population changed its behavior very quickly."

I can't say how much of a leader Savage is. But if his listeners believe him, what will they do? Will they see themselves in a life and death struggle with me because I threaten their "very survival?"

Yet, all I'm doing is getting up, going to work and going home. I see my son once a week for dinner. I'm planning Thanksgiving and the celebration of my son's 21st birthday. I don't want to hurt anyone. I certainly don't want to take anyone's religion away, but what happens if people believe what Savage says?

Religion & meaning: How to talk about Islam and atheism

Let me call your attention to the fascinating exchange between Bill and our very own Pamela K. Taylor. Bill started with a comment on Pamela's post about the veil in Islam, and then a dialogue on Islam, atheism, religion, rigidity and meaning ensued.

It's good stuff, and it shows how people of very different perspectives can talk reasonably. Here are some snippets.

Bill:

I'm sure there is importance to these rituals, but I think when their observance is seen more important than the underlying reason for them, true meaning is lost in the religion and the religious leaders are capable of corrupting people into following their will instead of the actual religion.

Pamela:

I think you are raising really important issues when it comes to rigidity in faith...To me, it's not extreme at all to pray five times a day in a ritual format, rather the prayers are a beautiful ritual, that provide just the right balance -- short reminders throughout the day of your true place in the universe (something I think atheists can relate to very well, or I least I certainly did when I was an atheist...

Kansas: Kathleen Sebelius promises push for health care

By Diane Silver

Let's give a hearty round of applause for newly re-elected Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for declaring that one of her priorities is to provide health coverage for Kansas'300,000 uninsured residents.

That news came today from an AP report.

The fact that there is even one person in this state, or this nation, who doesn't have access to health care is ridiculous. And the facts are alarming. In the great Sunflower State, adults usually are not eligible for Medicaid unless their incomes are about $7,400 for a family of four, Sebelius said.

Less than $8,000 for a family of four?

Are you kidding? That's obscene. I can't imagine even feeding a family of four on a four-digit income, let alone finding extra money for health care.

AP reported:

Sebelius wasn't specific Wednesday about what she'll propose during the 2007 Legislature, beyond confirming that she'll renew her efforts to have the state ensure health coverage for all children though age 5. In attempting to help adults, she said, legislators, who convene Jan. 8, must consider a range of strategies, including stimulating the private insurance market.

The governor already has ruled out proposing a tax increase to finance new initiatives, an approach she took two years ago, with no success. She suggested Wednesday that she'll look seriously at reallocating some of the state's existing dollars.

I won't fault Sebelius for not giving specifics, at least not yet. What's most important, though, is that she has put this issue on the table.

It's time for the Kansas Legislature to get out of people's bedrooms (think the ban on same-sex marriage and obsessions with abortion). It's time for lawmakers to figure out how to actually help the people in this state who need help.

The Progressive Muslim Union and the great Niqab Debate

By Pamela K. Taylor



As many of you may know, I'm Co-Chair of the Progressive Muslim Union. A lot of people ask me what does that mean. Are we political/economic Progressives who happen to be Muslim? (Yes.) Muslims who are progressive about our Islam? (That too.) Or some weird mix? (No doubt.) Are we excited to see the Republicans lose a bit of power. (Yahoo!!!)

As the debate about niqab (the face veil that leaves only eyes showing, or sometimes not even those) rages in Britain, there has been a small murmur here in the States. A few op-eds, but mostly heads stuck in the sand. Meanwhile, there have been challenges in various states to laws requiring that a woman's face be visible on her driver's license. What the point of an ID where you can't identify the person is, I'm not sure, but that these challenges are being seen here in the US means we should not ignore this issue.

The radicalism of Britain's Muslim community is caused by a lot of factors, many of which are absent in America. As a result, the American Muslim population tends to be a lot more moderate than that of Britain. But there is also an intensive proslyetizing effort on the part of the most conservative elements going on in the US. We should be thinking about issues surrounding the niqab such as can a public school teacher be required to remove her face veil during class. Or can a theater or sporting arena demand to verify one's identity before one enters? What about a police officer stopping a woman for a traffic violation?

Anyway, I wanted to post the Progressive Muslim Union's position (penned by yours truly with help from members of the Muslim Canadian Congress) to open some dicussion on these issues before they get dumped in our lap. We don't want to be reacting on an instinctive rather than rational basis. Here's our position.

The Progressive Muslim Union urges Muslim women to reject the Niqab

It's neither required by Islam nor is it a mark of civil society

The Progressive Muslim Union acknowledges the right of a woman to dress as she sees fit, but we maintain that the use of the face veil as an expression religious identity or as a symbol of political defiance is neither in the best interests of Muslim women and the Muslim community at large, nor is it a requirement of the Islamic faith. We also remind the Muslim community that the religious rights and freedoms of an individual have to be balanced with the rights of the wider society and measured by the impact it may have on Muslims in North America.

Religious grounds

For Muslims, what is prescribed in the Quran is obligatory, with the proviso, also from the Quran, that "there is no compulsion in matters of faith."

The following verse prescribes modesty of dress, demeanor, and conduct:

"Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that would make for greater purity for them and God is well acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) thereof, that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons or their husbands and sons ortheir sisters sons or their women or their slaves whom their right hands possessor male servants free of physical needs or small children who've no sense of theshame of sex and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments and O ye who believe turn ye altogether towards God that ye may attain bliss."- (Quran 24:30,31)

The Quran, we see, is explicit in asking women to cover their chests, but nowhere does God ask women to cover their faces.

This is confirmed by a narration from the Prophet's life. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 74, Hadith Number 247 reads:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Abbas:

Al-Fadl bin 'Abbas rode behind theProphet as his companion rider on the back portion of his she camel on the Day of Nahr (slaughtering of sacrifice, 10th Dhul-Hijja) and Al-Fadl was a handsome man. The Prophet stopped to give the people verdicts. In the meantime, a beautiful woman from the tribe of Khath'am came, asking the verdict of Allah's Apostle. Al-Fadl started looking at her as her beauty attracted him. The Prophet looked behind while Al-Fadl was looking at her; so the Prophet held out his hand backwards and caught the chin of Al-Fadl and turned his face in order that he should not gaze at her...

Clearly the woman's face was uncovered, and, equally clearly, the Prophet did not ask her to cover it, not even when the young man began staring at her.

Even conservative scholars such as Dr Yousuf al-Qaradawi, agree that the niqab is not mandatory according to Islam. He recently said in a Friday sermon, "It is not obligatory on Muslim women to wear the Niqab (full face veil)." He went on to tell his congregation, "The majority of Muslim scholars and I do not support the Niqab in which women cover their faces."

Social Issues

Security:

Every society has a legitimate need to know a person's identity under certain circumstances - on public transportation and in public venues such as theaters or sporting arenas. We need to be able to identify an individual when he or she is voting, completing banking transactions, or being pulled over for a traffic violation. Increasingly retail outlets are requesting photo IDs when customers use a credit card due to the raging epidemic of identity theft. Veiling of the face makes such identification impossible, especially when the wearer refuses to remove the veil even temporarily, or demands photos for driver's licenses and other id be taken with the face veil in place.

The needs of a society to be able to identify its citizens in some circumstances outweighs even religious rights and freedoms.

Economic Impact:

A face veil will invariably close the doors for most professions where face-to-face human interaction is absolutely essential. A man or a woman in a face mask is unlikely to find employment in North America as a police officer, a physician, a retail clerk, a nurse, a school teacher, an airline pilot, a journalist, an elected official, a taxi driver, a judge, a lawyer, a bank clerk, or even as an office receptionist.

Virtually any job that requires face to face interaction will be unavailable to women who wears a face veil. Wearing niqab thus virtually ensures that women are forced to retreat from the workforce and to remain within the home, being permanently dependent on their husbands, fathers or brothers. While raising children is a serious endeavor which should not be discounted, neither should the importance of an economically vibrant community, nor women's needs for intellectual stimulation outside of the home, economic independence, and in many instances a job simply to feed, clothe and house their children.

The face veil adds another obstacle to the economic empowerment of the Muslim community, which already faces ethnic and religious discrimination in the workplace. Instead of trying to overcome the hurdles and fight discrimination, advocates of the niqab are creating additional obstacles in the path of progress for North American Muslims.

Social and Familial Pressures:

The Progressive Muslim Union is aware, that like members of any minority group, Muslim women can come under intense pressure to conform to certain norms of behaviour and dress, to overtly display community patriotism, and to remain silent regarding the organized, institutional disenfranchisement of Muslim women.

We are gravely concerned that although many North American women choose of their own free will to wear the veil, that their choices are effectively limited by social and/or familial pressure. The Saudi Arabian clerical establishment, with access to oil wealth and the patronage of the Saudi and American governments, has been aggressively exporting the notion that niqab is required in Islam.

This phenomenon is the product of the 20th century accession of the family of Ibn Saud to power in the states of Nejd and Hijaz where the showing of a female face was determined to be a punishable offence. Historically, from the early Arab Ummayads and Abbasides to the Persian Safavids, the Indian Moghuls and the Turkish Ottomans, at no time have Muslim women ever been required to cover their faces as an act of religiosity and piety, or national law.

In defiance of religious teachings and Muslim history and heritage, the proponents of Wahhabi Islam are today targeting young Muslim women, convincing them of their own second-class status.

The Progressive Muslim Union urges all Muslim organisations to refute the myth being spread that the Saudi sponsored face veil is a matter of piety, individual choice and religious practice.

We also remind all Muslims that the relgious freedoms we call upon so freely in supporting women who wear niqab and hijab, extends equally to Muslim women who choose not to wear the niqab or the headscarf. Women who do not wear scarves or face veils, for whatever reason, should not experience discrimination within the community, or pressure to change their practice or their point of view. It is sheer hypocricy to demand freedom of religion for the most conservative of Muslims, while declining to extend it to another subset of our community.

Topeka Capital-Journal misses the point on Kansas Congressman Jerry Moran

By Diane Silver

This weekend The Topeka Capital-Journal gave a good example of why the mainstream media is often the subject of hoots of derision.

In a worshipful article that called Republican incumbent Jerry Moran the "avalanche man" for posting a huge victory over his Democratic opponent, the newspaper failed to note an important point: Moran's "opposition" was a no-name, no-experience, never-run-before unknown. Democrat John Doll has never even run for dog catcher before, as far as I know.

If Moran had not been able to beat Doll, that would have been news.

The fact that Moran won a sixth term with 79 percent of the vote -- even in a banner year for Democrats -- doesn't prove a thing, except that Kansas Democrats needs to recruit better candidates. Moran's district is also the most conservative in the state.

As far as I can tell, Doll's only claim to fame is posting a diary on Daily Kos. That's an interesting idea, but it doesn't have much to do with campaigning in the huge 1st District of western Kansas.

The incredible shrinking president

By Diane Silver

I know this is a tad old. After all the poll came out on Saturday, but this is the first time I've had a chance to take note of Newsweek's new survey showing that our really and truly not-so-beloved president has an approval rating of 31 percent.
To put that in perspective, Newsweek notes:

Bill Clinton's lowest rating during his presidency was 36 percent; Bush's father's was 29 percent, and Ronald Reagan's was 35 percent. Jimmy Carter's and Richard Nixon's lows were 28 and 23 percent, respectively. (Just 24 approve of outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's job performance, and 31 percent approve of Vice President Dick Cheney's.)

Worst of all, most Americans are writing off the rest of Bush's presidency; two thirds (66 percent) believe he will be unable to get much done, up from 56 percent in a mid-October poll; only 32 percent believe he can be effective. That's unfortunate since 63 percent of Americans say they're dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country; just 29 percent are satisfied, reports the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Thursday and Friday nights.

Actually, a survey hardly matters now that we've got the results of the most important poll of all, the mid-term election.

When I first started calling George W. Bush our "not-so-beloved president," I said that because I personally didn't love his anti-civil liberties, anti-gay, Iraq disaster, incompetent, destroy-FEMA administration. In 2005 when I began writing that, I felt a tad alone in that opinion. Although millions of Americans agreed with me, many millions more didn't. Who knew they'd catch up so fast?

Unfortunately, the tide has turned because this administration has done enormous damage to this country. It's the citizens who are and will continue to pay the price, not Bush.

Sanity may have come to Congress, but there are still no good choices for Iraq

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Washington Post headline says it all:

Panel May Have Few Good Options to Offer.

The panel in question is the so called blue ribbon bipartisan Iraq Study Group -- ten high-profile people led by James Baker, secretary of state and general advisor to Bush Senior.

The Post says:

Those familiar with the panel's work predict that the ultimate recommendations will not appear novel and that there are few, if any, good options left facing the country.

No good options. What a surprise. Those of us who opposed the war from the beginning predicted just this outcome. I'd take more comfort in having been right if the fallout from this idiotic war would not be haunting the world for years to come.

The truth is, I can only think of one good solution to the mess in Iraq: Go back in time and stop the invasion. There's only one trouble with my plan: It's impossible. Time travel is a great plot device in science fiction, but there's no science involved, just fiction.

Meanwhile, The New York Times says the Democrats plan a push for troop reductions starting when they take power in January. There's certainly support throughout the country for bringing our troops home. Many experts also say that pulling out US forces could bring about an improvement, since they are the focus of many attacks. Given the current chaotic state of civil war, I suspect a US pullout won't make things worse.

However, it still troubles me greatly that the US government created this chaotic civil war. I can't get past the idea that our country has an obligation to make things right -- only I don't know how the hell we do that.

Meanwhile, Juan Cole tells us that three US soldiers died on Sunday and 100 Iraqis -- at least -- were killed in political violence. He also reports: "Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naef said Sunday that Iraq has become a major base for terrorism." Apparently idealistic young Saudis are being recruited to fight the US and Shiites in Iraq.

The US elections are over. There is the prospect of saner decisionmaking in Washington. But sane choices aren't going to give us much immediate relief: The fallout from the Bush years will haunt us for a very long time.

Keep Austin Weird: Travels in Generic Americaland

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Renaissance Austin is a high class Marriott hotel centering on a ten-story atrium. It's virtually identical to other luxury hotels built in cities across the nation in expanded malls featuring the same upper middle class stores and eateries. While it's in Austin, Texas, it has nothing to do with the city that gave us the Texas-flavored counter culture best known through the Austin music scene.

In the lobby gift shop, I found something completely out of context: a tie-dyed t-shirt reading "Keep Austin Weird." The Renaissance, of course, is the antithesis of what makes Austin weird.

Marriott is in the process of trying to build another Austin hotel on Congress Street just north of the river -- one that will replace the locally owned restaurant Las Manitas and its affiliated preschool with another large, generic hotel. You can't get much less weird than that.

The Daily Texan wrote and editorialized about the Las Manitas fight. Having eaten breakfast at both the Renaissance and Las Manitas, I can tell you for a fact that the food at Las Manitas wins hands down. And it's cheaper, too.

I was in Austin with a group of my friends attending the World Fantasy Convention. After we left, one of my friends asked why I liked Austin so much, since it was so ugly. She had only seen miles of highway and the generic hotel and mall where the convention was held.

My reply: We weren't really in Austin. We were in generic Americaland. There are still parts of Austin that are pretty and weird. But there aren't as many as their used to be.

I rant about this phenomenon in Austin because I'm a native Texan and I lived in Austin for eleven years. The change is obvious and ugly to me. But you can find this same kind of change in any city in the U.S., except perhaps for the cities that are so economically depressed that they can neither keep up their old culture or attract development.

Here in the Washington, D.C. metro area, the long-overdue upgrade of Silver Spring has brought in large quantities of chain stores and restaurants. Fortunately, that's not all that's happened: The American Film Institute has spiffed up an old art deco theatre and is showing classic and art films there. A few good hole in the wall restaurants survive. But you can still see the creep of generic Americaland.

I'm not adamantly opposed to large chain businesses. While I often hear the rant about how Borders and Barnes and Noble (not to mention Amazon.com) have run the locally owned bookstore out of business, I well remember the days when most areas of the US did not have a decent bookstore anywhere nearby. Those good locally owned bookstores were few and far between -- mostly located in downtown areas of big cities. If, like me, you lived in a small town outside the big city, your reading choices were pretty much limited to the twice-monthly bookmobile. Believe me, Borders gives you more options.

But as we build mall after mall, hotel after hotel, freeway after freeway, we are sacrificing the creative parts of our culture. Being a cook in a chain restaurant is not the same thing as being the chef in your own place. There's no room left to create your own dishes, to incorporate the local flavor. The same is true in any retail business.

So we get generic Americaland. And you need a car to get there: Parking and roads are a more important facet of modern development than the actual businesses and homes going in. The Renaissance is surrounded by a parking lot. Parking is free, whether you're staying in the hotel or just attending events there -- a real plus for those of us used to paying through the nose for parking here on the East Coast -- but that means that you have to dodge cars if you're trying to walk anywhere. Generic Americaland is not set up for walking.

If you're driving, you can only see the big signs -- especially if you're on a freeway. You'll pass right by the little bar where local musicians play for tips, the neighborhood restaurant renowned for its huevos rancheros, the tiny bookstore where local poets read.

You can travel to any major city in the US today and stay in the same hotels (spartan or luxury, depending on your budget), shop in the same stores (high end or big box), eat in the same restaurants (fast food to gourmet), even buy gifts for the folks back home from the same boutiques. Some of these places are really nice. Some are really practical. But they are divorced from the local character and they portend the loss of the local soul -- both the good and bad of it.

I don't know how we find the balance here. I may mourn the overwhelming incursion of generic Americaland in Austin, but I still remember that the opening of Red Lobster in Wichita Falls definitely improved the options for going out to dinner. Running your own bookstore is a nice romantic dream, but it's always been a difficult way to make a living. Managing a Borders is more likely to give you a solid paycheck and health insurance.

And rapid population growth -- which Austin has experienced -- means that whoever can throw up new homes and shopping the fastest controls development. That tends to be large companies, and they tend to build what worked elsewhere.

But the rugged beauty of the Texas Hill Country is not the same as lush forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains or awesome view of the Pacific off Highway 1 in California, and we don't want everything else to be the same when we travel from one to the other.

We need to fight the spread of generic Americaland, before there's nothing else left.