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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

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Beyond Dr. Tiller

By Taylor Marsh on 26 July 2009

–updated–

Not only did she fear the protesters, she also worried about whether Dr. Tiller would be gruff and cold, “only in it for the money,” as his critics alleged. It was almost a shock, she said, to instead meet a slightly nerdy doctor who gently explained every step and kept asking, “Are you doing O.K.?” – An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death

I don’t write much about this subject. I still can’t figure out why in an age where science has offered up the antidote to abortion, we’re still talking about it. The Morning After Pill combined with birth control should render this discussion closed. In fact, the article today in the New York Times Magazine illustrates why traditional media is failing so spectacularly. Instead of Dr. Tiller’s story, why isn’t the Times focusing on the health care debate and women’s reproductive rights, including abortion?

A group of 20 House Democrats signed a letter sent last Friday to House Democratic leaders stating they “cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.” The House health-care bill doesn’t explicitly mention abortion, but the Democrats who signed the letter are a guarantee that it wouldn’t allow the federal funding of abortions or require that private health-insurance plans pay for abortions. – WSJ

But yet, the pro selective life crowd keep on with their 19th century mantra, with zealots among them winning on access and lynch-mob mentality for anyone who dares to provide women the legal health care rights we deserve. The pro selective life crowd hell bent on scuttling women’s civil rights for which women have fought and died over decades and decades. Their theory when applied to health care today is simple, as is their advice to Pres. Obama:

You will infuriate abortion-rights activists. But to be blunt, where are they going to go? – The Week Magazine

The “where are they going to go” theory of women’s civil rights shrouded in the “call their bluff” talking points of putting in language against poor women, so that the majority gets health care, etc. etc. Read the piece, you’ll get the picture.

But even as bad as the piece is, it’s where the New York Times should have gone today. Proving that even this newspaper can’t reject passed events over the importance of covering a critical current event in today’s health care debate.

The pro choice crowd not singularly focused on engaging these anti civil rights activists on the one issue that renders the issue solved: reproductive health care products, including when it comes to health care reform. Some Democrats fighting for health care reform seem to think the Chris Matthews philosophy against abortion access the most moral fight.

The whole debate revolves around civil rights (which should never be predicated on whether you are rich or poor).

Back in May, I did an interview with Women on the Web about whether there is a “pro-life feminist movement.” I can barely write those words without laughing out loud. I explain why fully in the interview below. It seems like a perfect moment to share the importance of women’s civil rights, which includes full reproductive health care access. Today Women on the Web’s lead story is on “The Bathing Suit Chronicles.” Anyway, I tape all my interviews, so I’ve got the back and forth, which I thought I’d share today, because it adds a broader context to The New York Times piece. Though we might have missed some things here and there, the text is as close to verbatim as we could get. I hope it will give everyone something to think about. We’re beyond Tiller today.

_________________________

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … As I told you this is for a piece on the pro-life feminist movement.

TAYLOR: Oh, that’s an oxymoron.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK, well we’ll get into that in a second. First of all you describe yourself as pro-choice, basically. Can I ask you why you . . . you’re pro-choice?

TAYLOR: Well I don’t describe myself as pro-choice, actually.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: How do you describe yourself?

TAYLOR: I’m pro women’s civil rights.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: That’s what I’m for.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And what’s . . .

TAYLOR: Civil rights begins with what we do with our own bodies. If you cannot have . . . if you don’t have control over your own body, there’s . . . there are no civil rights. It doesn’t exist. I mean, I happen to believe that privacy is part of that, but that isn’t the only issue. The issue is my body is nobody else’s but my own. And what I . . . and my decisions that affect my body and my life, whether it’s diet, health or something as monumental as ending a pregnancy or deciding to go forward with a pregnancy, that is ultimately my decision. And this is a civil rights issue.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Well a lot of people, certainly like in your ideological camp for people who would define themselves as pro-choice, discuss the fact that, you know, being able to choose what to do with their body is an empowering decision for women. Marjorie Dannfelser, who runs the Susan B. Anthony List, and that’s a group that campaigns for pro-life female candidates, as well as pro-life male candidates, argued to me that . . . …But she said, “Well, you know, people can be empowered to do lots of things. We can be empowered to abuse our children, we can be empowered to starve ourselves, we can be . . .

TAYLOR: Oh, good grief.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: . . . empowered to steal. What do you make of that sort of counter argument from her?

TAYLOR: Well it’s . . . it’s changing the subject. It’s kind of like a non sequitur argument, and I disagree with their whole . . . they’re pro-selective life. They’re not pro-life. A woman in the throes of a difficult choice, especially someone that’s younger, this is . . . this is a life issue for her. And some women can’t afford it, aren’t emotionally prepared. I mean, there’s a million reasons. I’m not going to, you know, delineate people’s choices there. But this is . . . their platform is a pro-selective life, because if they really were pro-life then these individuals that want to curtail a woman’s civil rights would also be for preventing pregnancy, they’d be fore contraception, they’d be for RU-486. We could get into the stem cell debate and what that does for quality of life and pro-life. Their argument is morally bankrupt and most . . . and a lot of these people are also . . . you know, they’re the proponents for torture, they’re the proponents for the death penalty. So their pro-selective life. It’s . . . it’s . . . their argument is morally bankrupt and it . . . it really doesn’t . . . if you follow the through line you just gave, it makes absolutely no sense and I really feel sorry for them because in the 21st Century, if you really want to be an agent for changed, whatever it is, but especially when it comes to the abortion issue, you have to put everything in the mix. You have to want to help young women, you have to want to go beyond abstinence – which doesn’t work. That’s been proven a million times. And you have to not only teach abstinence, but you have to also give them the tools of what happens our emotions and our physical urges smack int . . . you know, run into the wall of a situation that is leading you down a tough road. You have to be prepared and be willing to stop unwanted pregnancies, not just through abstinence but through every means we have – scientific, medical, all of it. You have to bring all of it to bear if we’re going stop the number of abortions, which we actually have the power to do. We can bring this down if everyone would agree. You know, my side – pro civil rights – will agree, OK teach abstinence, but abstinence plus. Their side won’t come to our side. They will make no compromises whatsoever. So we’re not able to curtail the number of abortions. Then if you want to go to what we can do in the world, and AIDS and what is happening with our policy in the gag rule around the world, you know, we have a moral obligation to use every . . . every scientific means at our method, plus the moral means, plus abstinence. The only way to get abortion down is to use them all.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … Hmm, interesting. I like the pro-selective life argument. I had not heard that but I think it’s, you know, very . . .

TAYLOR: You know, it’s absolutely what it is. It’s . . . and too many people . . . that’s why I reject wholly being put in the pro-choice. It’s far larger than that, and they get pro-life. Their sloganeering makes them sound like their on a higher plane. But when you dissect it down, and even the argument you gave me, if you dissect it down it’s creepy what their saying – that you can inspire people to be . . . I mean, that’s their argument? This . . . I’m not just . . . it’s not just about being pro-choice. I think women have a tremendous responsibility, especially in the modern era. There is no excuse for an “unwanted pregnancy.” There’s no excuse for it, with the scientific methods we have, the medicine we have, planned parenthood. And I’m not a . . . you know, I’m not a member of any of these groups, but there’s just no excuse for it. We have the means for . . . for every, single young woman – and young man, by the way. It’s not just about women, it’s men too. We have the means to stop “unwanted pregnancies.” There’s no excuse for it. And the pro-selective life community won’t engage on all these methods. And that’s why we’re still having this ridiculous argument. We should just go about . . . we should be in the solution phase, period. I mean, it’s the 21st Century. We should . . . none of these other things are valid. They are old. They are out-worn. It is putting us on a hamster wheel of this argument that gets us nowhere. And I’ve seen what this does when someone is faced with these things, when they have parents that . . . that, you know, don’t allow . . . don’t allow their own daughter’s civil rights to be acknowledged. This is a problem, and we can’t just close our eyes and say, “Oh, we’d love this all to be abstinence and every . . .” I mean, who wouldn’t love that to work? But it just doesn’t. You know, it’s just not practical. It’s just not practical. And we are . . . we all are guilty if we don’t fight for every tool we have to be on board. This is a very serious issue. This is very serious and it deserves . . . it deserves solutions, not just a rolling debate that leads us back to the 20th Century, to things that have already been solved by science.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my next question is a simple enough question, but of course the answer can be quite complicated. What . . . how do you define a feminist?

TAYLOR: Boy, well I’ll start by saying that for a long time the Conservatives have said that the feminist era is over, and that is because they look through a very myopic lens, and they think that feminism is just about the United States, and just about what women in the United States have. I cover foreign policy. That is my main thing, especially since I moved to DC. It has always been my passion and I look at it through a really wide lens, covering Afghan women, covering what is done to women in honor killings. Being a feminist is about . . . and you don’t have to be female to be feminist. Being a feminist is insuring that every woman has the God given civil rights that we were born with, to be totally free to envision her life as she wants without restriction, except obviously by law and certain things of that nature; not the law of a country, but the law of . . . the Golden Rule law, let’s say. And I think as long there is one woman being stoned to death in some country, if young girls are having acid poured on them because they want to go to school, it is every woman’s duty to fight for that woman to be free to make those choices to educate herself or educate children. And I . . . and this does not involve getting in the midst of religious differences. It has nothing to do with what clothing some woman wears, whether she wants to wear a (abaya or hajib). That is a choice of her religion that is none of our business. But it is the world’s business that women’s rights are human rights, and a feminist fights for those rights whether they’re in the United States of in Kenya – wherever it is. That is the goal, is to spread the importance of women’s rights as human rights, as Hillary Clinton so eloquently said back in China in the ‘90s as First Lady. This is very critical because we are learning, and we have learned, that the more women have a say in a nation the more stable their government. That is in our interest as Americans, and that’s in our interest as we go forward to try to have relationships with countries, to stabilize the world we live in.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Going over . . . I mean, doing my work for this piece I’ve encountered to many different definitions of feminist. There is the free-market feminist, the pro-life feminist, feminist feminist, progressive feminist… … I mean, you have a very . . . I’m not going to say strict, but you have a very definite definition of what a feminist can and should be. So you . . . do you not believe in a spectrum of feminism?

TAYLOR: What do you mean by a spectrum of feminism?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, you know, some people argue you can be a feminist and pro-life, you can be a feminist and pro-choice, you can be . . .

TAYLOR: No, I don’t. No. Absolutely not. I don’t believe in that.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: I absolutely don’t believe that. You know, femin . . . no, I don’t. It’s a civil rights issue. It’s what I just explained. No, I don’t. I don’t think you can dissect it. I think they want to dissect it because that makes it easier and the responsibilities less onerous. You know, the responsibilities that we have to fellow people on our plant, it makes it easier. And they can also say, “Well, in this small section I really am a feminist. But if I go out of this section I’m not.” You know, that . . . that doesn’t wash. Whether progressive or conservative, you know, I could care less, when we’re talking about getting something done around the world – helping women . . . The Clinton Global Foundation and how they help keep down AIDS, they make deals to get drugs to communities to help, women, their children, stop the AIDS virus. I mean, this is all our job as feminists… . . . . . …You know, we each have tribes, but we can all agree that quality of life is imperative, especially with women… whether you’re Israeli Palestinian… Israeli Arab women there do not . . . are not able to work. I mean that is our job. There is no . . . there is no subset. You either are involved in dragging this world forward to a place of more enlightenment, peace and civil rights for everyone, or you’re not. Period.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: You know what’s interesting, Taylor, is that I’ve been approaching all sorts of people for this story, but Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority declined to comment.

TAYLOR: Huh?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Isn’t that weird? I thought it was weird.

TAYLOR: Well, I . . . I’ve got to be honest, as I said before I don’t belong to any of those groups.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right.

TAYLOR: And so . . . and there’s a reason… You know, there’s a reason. I just . . . I push away from the group think stuff and it’s what gets me in trouble all the time.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, I mean, I have the same thing with organizations like Human Rights Campaign.

TAYLOR: Yeah. . . . . . Well it’s another . . . it’s another form of tribalism. And I don’t want to get down into smaller tribes. I want to be part of a big tribe.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Right.

TAYLOR: Because big tribes can make better change.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: I think so, too. Another argument that has come up from the so-called pro-life feminists is the idea that the ability to have a child, that maternity is an essential part of a woman’s being. What do you make of that, that it’s like a woman’s duty to have a child almost?

TAYLOR: That’s propaganda placed on someone else because you want to control them. Its guilt, it’s marketing, it’s making it laudatory without . . . without considering the personal woman’s own life. Again, pro-selective life, the life they want you to lead has nothing to do with her civil rights and her willingness to find her own soul’s journey. Each person is not in it for . . . as much as I want to move the collective forward, each of us is not in this world to simply be part of a collective. Through our own soul journey we find answers and our own bliss, which leads us to a higher place that makes us more valuable in that group that can push forward and make change. But the first thing you’ve got to do is go through your own soul journey. And they want to cut that off and make it . . . make women feel a duty to do something other than they’re being called to do. It’s coercion.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my final question for you, and I . . . I mean I pretty much know how you’re going to answer this, but I need to ask. Is it anti-feminist to fight Roe vs. Wade?

TAYLOR: Roe vs. Wade is . . . is settled law. I’m going to come back to it. This is a civil rights issue. And if you’re against women’s civil rights, you’re on the wrong side. Anything that impedes a woman’s civil rights is wrong, it is antithetical to everything that I know, even about my own Christian faith. It’s . . . it’s cutting off freedom and it’s cutting off your own soul journey. Part of the tough choices we make in life, the tough decisions, what we create on our own . . . by our own mistakes, is the challenges that make us better people. And all this is part of a civil rights journey that makes you who you are and hopefully you learn from them and get better. And it’s all down to civil rights. Anyone who fights against a person’s civil rights – women, man, gay, lesbian, whatever you want to call it – anyone who stands up against a person’s civil rights is on the wrong side.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Alright. Well you have been very informative . . .

TAYLOR: Well thanks for this. I appreciate the opportunity. I really do.

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J. Stephen Simon, The Exceptional Oil Man

By Taylor Marsh on 11 July 2009

Cross-posted and featured on Huffington Post, Business Section.

J. Stephen Simon, Director, Senior VP of ExxonMobil (now retired) dies. That will be the official line. But he was simply the man who married my sister; the man who was always there for me.

From the time I was old enough to remember, when I thought of my sister Susie, it was always in conjunction with Steve. That’s because they fell in love in 9th grade and stayed together the rest of their lives.

That is until this past week when this dynamo of a man had a massive heart attack, leaving his family, his beautiful daughters, all of us in slack-jawed disbelief. Gone.

J. Stephen Simon didn’t start at the top. He worked his way up, all the way. When he married Susie they definitely couldn’t afford some fancy honeymoon. It was a quick celebration after an amazing December wedding, then off to work Steve went. Nothing given, all earned, with Susie by his side every step of the way. The noble quest of acquiring all you have through hard work, dedication, love of family, and staying true to your humble Missouri roots. Steve never forgot where he came from and always remembered how hard he and Susie worked to get what they achieved. With the only thing that ever really mattered to him was making Susie happy. That he did, more than they could ever have dreamed might manifest.

Others might remember J. Stephen Simon from congressional hearings. Let’s just say his testimony was animated, which is why I chose this shot. Steve was larger than life.

Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corp. reiterated that point. “Imposing punitive taxes on American companies will discourage the investments needed to safeguard our energy security. The pursuit of alternative fuels must not detract from investments in oil and gas,” he said.
Markey hammered Exxon’s Simon over the company’s investment in renewable energy. “Why is Exxon Mobil resisting the renewable energy revolution?” asked Markey.
Simon said Exxon has given $100 million to Stanford to study renewables. “$100 million?” said Markey. “But you made $40 billion last year.”
When pressed, Simon said Exxon believes the current generation of renewable energy options will not be able to significantly meet demand.
… ..Exxon has long said it is in the business of oil, and that it prefers to leave renewable energy up to the renewable energy companies. Although the company has received some praise – even from its critics – for its investments in cutting-edge battery technology.

I remember when I wrote to Steve and my sister about working on the side of Al Gore on climate change (also Robert Redford). He respected my decision, then sent me an information packet filled with data. We never engaged in a fight over energy or ExxonMobil. As was fitting given my conflict of interest on the subject, I didn’t cover anything that incorporated ExxonMobil and little on the oil industry, writing disclaimers about it to explain the emails asking why I wasn’t. Knowing Steve, it taught me why demonizing people through politics on issues because of what they do, especially when it’s a commodity that’s been instrumental in our country’s history and national security, never tells the full story when it’s a man as good as Steve. I learned that story through my family.

ExxonMobil has many enemies on the progressive and activist side, but I can say with pride and without equivocation that J. Stephen Simon was one of the most honorable, decent, dedicated American patriots you’ll ever find. Yes, even an oil man can be a patriot.

Steve and I had several conversations on politics, though not nearly as many as I would have liked. It was tough given his position and my work. I’ll cherish what he told me in confidence, because you can imagine the access he had. I don’t think he’d mind now me saying this much on one subject. Thumbs up on Hillary. On John McCain…. um… not so much. But you had to know Steve to appreciate the color he added when politics was the subject. Steve’s mental brilliance made for a razor sharp wit.

Yes, he graduated number one from his class at Duke; and number one when he got his MBA from Northwestern. … .. Served in the Army.

However, this isn’t what I’ll remember most about Steve.

It’s the moments Steve was there, like when I was a little girl and dad had died, and he stepped up (as did my hero bro, as always). Then there was Steve’s unending understanding when a rift turned into a divide until I flew to Italy, where he was president, Esso Italiano, Rome. Telling the story of a personal family tragedy, Steve crying along with me as he helped us put the past where it belonged. What he did for me throughout my life, his generosity, the sibling trips he and Susie treated us to, where we all landed in a city taking in the best theater, then barnstorming the best restaurants, where the good food and wine flowed, with so much laughter you cried. Treating me to a fabulous, first-class ticket to Venice on the train, as well as one of the finest hotels on the Grand Canal. It also didn’t surprise me when I walked into my room to see long-stem red roses waiting. That was Steve… and Susie.

So, the loss… it’s all so crushing.

It just seems wrong that “life goes on.” It should stop. Everyone should stop. … .. if just for a moment when someone this good, this remarkable, this dedicated to his family passes from the earth plain.

Steve and Susie. From the time I can remember, there wasn’t one without the other. It was simply the greatest of love affairs.

___________________

The Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University has established the J. Stephen Simon Scholarship Endowment Fund. Memorial contributions to the J. Stephen Simon Scholarship Endowment Fund may be made to Duke University in care of Judge Carr, 305 Teer Engineering Building, Box 90271, Duke University, Durham, NC 27702.

____________________

TM NOTE: I’m off to the wake and funeral. I’d so appreciate everyone pitching in and putting important stories “In the News”. I’ll check in when I can. You can can follow me on Twitter, which will be a bit easier for me than posting over the next couple of days.

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a moment, please…

By Taylor Marsh on 09 July 2009

We’ve had a shocking family tragedy, so forgive me for being a bit tardy in posting this morning.

I’ll have something up to talk about soon… as for the tragedy, an explanation will come on another day. Thanks for bearing with me this morning a bit.

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New Media is Different from Blogging

By Taylor Marsh on 14 June 2009

The fundraiser is going great.

But I still haven’t met the goal. We’re stuck on $300 still needed in order for me to break even up to this point in 2009. Thanks to the amazing people who have jumped in, many first time financial supporters.

The last inch is always the hardest. But I need to get over this line, because I’ve still got the reality of my financial nut going forward.

NEW MEDIA is having a tough time this year. The economy has hit traditional media hard, so you can imagine how it’s hit NEW MEDIA.

To make an important point by way of a distinction, there is blogging and then there is NEW MEDIA. What’s the difference? Your sister might have a blog, which is important to you and her world, as well as her readers, all of which matter, no doubt about it. NEW MEDIA does reporting on events that have a wider impact and we devote our life to this purpose, and independent NEW MEDIA outlets like mine don’t have a base of financial support, except through you, the reader, and advertisers. As a way of thanks, I am so grateful for the people at Common Sense Media (and regular advertisers like SEIU, as well as Al Gore’s climate group, to name just two). Because BlogAds isn’t exactly successful when it comes to drumming up any advertising at all. I cannot thank the people at Common Sense Media loudly enough.

Everyone needs to consider sites that offer valuable reporting and other critically important news coverage that only NEW MEDIA provides worthy of financial support. It’s tough because we started out on a free information platform, so getting people to see us as requiring the same financial support that, say, a monthly or weekly subscription supplies isn’t easy. That includes advocacy groups and politicians who want to reach the activist base of the Democratic Party. Don’t just invite us to events to cover, support your issue by reaching our audience through advertising. Don’t tease us with access, then make us pay for the privilege when you’re also asking us to cover your issue through making us foot the bill; when you’re not reaching out to our readers through advertising yourself that helps us pay for expenses, including trips to do the reporting you want done. Make it possible for us to cover important news that the traditional media ignores.

Like any subscription to a newspaper or magazine, like paying for cable, NEW MEDIA sites can’t succeed without financial support.

Other sites have obviously done amazing work too, like Firedoglake’s coverage, to name one.

And just look at the foreign policy live reporting I’ve done, taking the Twitter posts as just one example: covering an important Saudi Arabia forum, the Middle East (covering it like few others), invite only meeting with David Miliband, journalists on Afghanistan-Pakistan, lunch with Mustafa Barghouti, even Cuba, Iran pre election polling, and a CATO event on whether the Pentagon can be fixed. …and that’s just a brief summary of what’s been going on around here since I moved to Washington. Sorry to bore regulars around here, but many don’t know what’s been going on.

Here’s the mailing address people have asked me to post:

Taylor Marsh LLC
P.O. Box 8303
Alexandria, VA

(Also see the “support independent journalism” donate button below the ad box up on the right that is always there.)

So please donate and support NEW MEDIA. We earn it.

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My Blue Collar Husband and Terry McAuliffe

By Taylor Marsh on 08 June 2009

cross-posted on Alternet and Huffington Post

We’re new to the D.C. area. So when we started paying attention to the Virginia governors race it was late in the game. But because I don’t write about these issues, I wouldn’t have even commented on the race if it hadn’t been for McAuliffe being attacked for backing Hillary Clinton in ’08. That’s how petty it’s gotten.

It didn’t take long, however, for my blue collar husband to take sides. I haven’t, except that Brian Moran isn’t an option for me, because he’s still fighting ’08 primary fights against Terry McAuliffe through Clinton. That turned us off from the start. So it’s between Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe, though not for my husband. There’s only one choice for him. That’s McAuliffe. I’ll explain in a minute. For those of you not familiar with the race, here’s where it stands today, according to FiveThirtyEight:

[...] Most public polling is showing Deeds and Moran gaining and McAuliffe dropping, but the numbers are close enough that a good GOTV operation could make the difference for any one of the three candidates. I see the most likely outcome as a Deeds win, but McAuliffe could still win if Deeds and Moran continue to split the “non-McAuliffe” vote. If Moran’s supporters begin to defect to Deeds then there is probably no way for McAuliffe to win what would then be functionally a 2-person race against Deeds.

As with all close races, it’s about GOTV.

People must be a little worried, because a couple of posts have lately picked on Terry McAuliffe. One post a bit earlier took issue with something I’d written and even goes so far as to completely misrepresent a post I wrote in order to target McAuliffe. The post I wrote was about Moran targeting McAuliffe through Hillary. Believe it or not, this post takes out after McAuliffe for backing Clinton too.

What does that have to do with Virginia? As my husband looked for work, he wanted to know that too.

After having the same job since he was in his twenties, when we moved he took early retirement, which meant my husband was looking for work once we landed. Even as talented as he is it was daunting. He can build anything; give him two beams and you’ll get yourself a shopping mall; he can also fix anything. He was offered a couple of jobs, then landed a really good one, but the hunt had an impact. That’s when McAuliffe’s ads started showing up. He also heard Creigh Deeds, coming to the judgment that he “sounds like a solid guy.” But McAuliffe’s ads had a bigger impact on him. What my husband heard from McAuliffe was a man who can widen his job options if he goes hunting again. He also heard enthusiasm and someone who he believes has the dynamic optimism to convince businesses to choose Virginia.

When I told him I hadn’t decided whom to vote for, though neither of us will vote for Moran because of his negativity, he looked at me like I’d just insulted him. “How can you not vote for the guy?, meaning McAuliffe. “He’s so optimistic. You just know he’ll tell businesses they have to come to Virginia and they’ll come.” Of course, my husband doesn’t know a thing about the progressive push against Terry McAuliffe, so when I told him he just laughed. After looking for work and seeing the job market after so long, he’s looking for someone who can pitch big companies, get them to Virginia and help people like him have more choices. As far as he’s concerned it’s McAuliffe. “You’ve gotta vote for him,” he now simply says.

I just don’t know. With Moran hitting me wrong from the start, looking at Creigh Deeds, he seems solid, his record a good one. The Washington Post endorsement was impressive. But…

I’m just not convinced he can beat Bob McDonnell, who is slick. He’s also got serious right-wing tendencies, and the guy he picked to run his campaign proves McDonnell’s judgment stinks.

“One of the underlying concerns that many thoughtful Virginians have about McDonnell are his ties to the Christian right,” Sabato said. “I can’t tell you how many times senior people have asked, ‘Who will Bob McDonnell appoint to the 4,000 appointments he gets?’ ‘Who will run the college boards of visitors and the state agencies?’
“The reasons these questions matter to the people asking them is they fear it will be the far right and the Christian conservatives,” he said.

So, it gets down to who can beat McDonnell for me. Nothing else matters. I’m just not sure it’s Creigh Deeds.

“The other big issue is electability, and Bob McDonnell has already beaten Creigh Deeds.” – Terry McAuliffe

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‘Pro Life Feminism’ is a Fantasy

By Taylor Marsh on 01 June 2009

–updated–

Today on Women on the Web, an interview about “Pro-Life Feminism” takes a walk through the whole feminism debate. The irony that it appears the day after a right wing fanatic murdered a women’s health care doctor is not missed, though this event is being ignored by some. Did you check out “Morning Joe” this morning? Dr. Tiller’s murder was reduced to the “Daily Grind” segment and the crawler. It further drives home the point of the pro selective life crowd, which simply do not want to deal with where reality is leading. According to Women on the Web, “an entirely different group of women are reclaiming the F word: ‘the pro-life feminists.’”

I was one of the people interviewed. One excerpt is below:

Like Ellen Malcolm, Taylor Marsh, a blogger who describes herself not as “pro-choice” but as “pro-civil rights,” also described “pro-life feminism” as an “oxymoron,” but goes one step further:
[The pro-life feminist] platform is a pro-selective life, because if they really were pro-life then these individuals that want to curtail a woman’s civil rights would also be for preventing pregnancy, they’d be for contraception … And then we could get into the stem-cell debate and what that does for quality of life and pro-life. Their argument is morally bankrupt.
Marsh has equally harsh words for “maternalism,” which she calls “propaganda placed on someone because you want to control them. “It’s guilt,” she asserts.

Full stop. (See update below)

I want to address the part regarding my supposed “equally harsh words for ‘maternalism’”. The response above was to a question that had nothing to do with “maternalism,” which is traditionally defined as a mother’s innate instinct to care and protect her child, something that is real and to be respected, which I assure you I do.

The author’s question to me, verbatim (we tape all interviews), which inspired the response I gave, was actually as follows:

ANDREW: “I think so, too. Another argument that has come up from the so-called pro-life feminists is the idea that the ability to have a child, that maternity is an essential part of a woman’s being. What do you make of that, that it’s like a woman’s duty to have a child almost?”

As is obvious, my response was to his question “that it’s like a woman’s duty to have a child almost.” Here’s my complete response:

TAYLOR: That’s propaganda placed on someone else because you want to control them. Its guilt, it’s marketing, it’s making it laudatory without . . . without considering the personal woman’s own life. Again, pro-selective life, the life they want you to lead has nothing to do with her civil rights and her willingness to find her own soul’s journey. Each person is not in it for . . . as much as I want to move the collective forward, each of us is not in this world to simply be part of a collective. Through our own soul journey we find answers and our own bliss, which leads us to a higher place that makes us more valuable in that group that can push forward and make change. But the first thing you’ve got to do is go through your own soul journey. And they want to cut that off and make it . . . make women feel a duty to do something other than they’re being called to do. It’s coercion.

The reason this is very important is that when feminists are asked to speak on issues of life, including motherhood and abortion, we’re often cast in a light that is harsh, projected as being anti motherhood, etc. I have no doubt that this was not the author’s intent at all, so perhaps it morphed in editing. But nevertheless, by turning the definition of “maternalism” on its head and following it with a quote of mine that had nothing to do with the actual definition of “maternalism,” that’s exactly what happened.

However, the premise of the article, that is that “pro-life” women are reclaiming “feminism,” is not only absurd, but a bizarre fantasy. It seems Ms. Malcolm and I have joined in sisterhood on this one:

“[Pro-life feminism] is a bit of an oxymoron,” says Ellen Malcolm, the IBM heiress who founded Emily’s List, a political machine designed to elect pro-choice female lawmakers. “To say that women should be able to make decisions about their own lives, except when it comes to their bodies — that seems contradictory to me.”

Evidently, the site Women on the Web is working to give voice to a new type of feminism:

Reproduction as Political Action
Preferring to call herself “feminine” rather than a “feminist,” Giroux explains that she and her peers hope to save the nation by “encouraging women to again have more children.” A mother of nine who’s also a registered nurse, Giroux feels American women were duped into thinking they could find happiness at the workplace, thereby leading many to choose to stop reproducing after a couple of offspring. WIN’s website describes the phenomenon as a “China mentality,” and states, “Mothers today carry an enormous burden. We live in a world where it is now a luxury if one is able to stay home full-time with her children. Yet we truly believe that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world’.”
… She and her allies, says Giroux, are intent on undoing “the severe damage that has been done to women through contraception and abortion by the pro-abortion feminist movement.” And that damage can be repaired through reproduction, an assertion at odds with many “mainstream” feminist activists.

Offering at least a beginning definition of feminism helps:

Marsh characterizes feminism as “insuring that every woman has the God-given civil rights that we were born with, to be totally free to envision her life as she wants without restriction, except by law … and the Golden Rule.” Carrie Lukas of the more conservative-minded Independent Women’s Forum, seems to have a similar definition and describes feminism “as the belief that women are men’s equals – the ideal that women should have the same opportunities, responsibilities and protections as men.”

One would hope in the 21st century we could at least agree what feminism is not: “encouraging women to again have more children.”

Feminism isn’t about somebody else, including creating something else. It’s about a woman finding her own expression of how to manifest her own life, which could include the joys of motherhood, but also could be something that has nothing to do with this. Instead, choosing to expand her own individuality through work, study and accomplishments. Both choices are equally valid. It’s up to each woman to conclude what suits her soul journey best.

Feminism at it’s core is about freedom and civil rights to do what we choose while being rewarded equally for those choices and taking responsibility for them as well. Everything else is about your intent to create.

TM NOTE: Thanks to Women on the Web and Andrew for correcting the article, taking out the portion that I felt was a misrepresentation of my views.

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Easter in the Nation’s Capital

By Taylor Marsh on 12 April 2009

Whether you believe in something greater than your physical self or not one thing is certain. To be part of the journey of It is to embrace doubt, because what is part of discovering is personal, private, and cannot be proven.

Be Infinitely Patient… Being infinitely patient means having an absolute knowing that you’re in vibrational harmony with the all-creating force that intended you here. You know that everything will happen at just the right time, at just the right place, with just the right people. – Dr. Wayne Dyer

Daily meditations have been a way of life for me for too many years to count.

Organized religious participation and I have an even longer history, though as a liberated, modern female it’s impossible to reconcile some of the tenets of The Church, except, that is, of those of the Episcopal faith. For instance, the Vatican weighing in on Mrs. Caroline Kennedy, or Notre Dame’s leaders trying to block Mr. Obama from giving a speech, all seem utterly ridiculous to me. As if the Catholic church has any moral authority on which to block these people. It’s like the Southern Baptist convention telling women to genuflect to their husbands. The Taliban yet another step beyond, many religions keeping women away from our rightful place, which is anywhere a man can be, including leading the church and its followers. We aren’t even represented on the Sunday shows when religion is the topic, men still being seen as having the magic key and wisdom, something that is wholly hypocritical considering what man has wrought.

For evangelicals, Christ is risen today, which is the only thing that matters.

For atheists, all of this is just silly.

For people who find solace in the traditions of church, but who adhere closer to the energy and purpose of what Dr. Wayne Dyer and others of his calling attest, well, it’s a day to hook into a powerful energy vibrating that is Easter to raise your own level of possibility. After all, moving matter isn’t just a myth. It’s a state of mind.

After many years, I will be attending service at the National Cathedral (Twittering perhaps, as I do on the weekends these days; who knows who will attend). Tickets purchased weeks ago, I can only imagine the masses, the traffic, the fashion. Yes, Easter brings its own trappings, of course. But as I endeavor to place my traditional religious upbringing amidst my modern meditative awakening about the power and energy of attracting, I only hope that everyone can take a moment to connect to whatever is beyond their own mortal being to something larger. Not some guy in the sky to whom you ask favors, but to something within you ignite that leads you to greater possibilities.

Blessings at Easter to you all.

–comments are closed–

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For Uncle Dick

By Taylor Marsh on 11 November 2008

The photo here is my Uncle Dick. It’s inscribed, “To my sweetheart. Love, Dick.” That would have been Maxine, his drop dead gorgeous wife. Today, I always think of him …oh, and also my jarhead brother who got me into this political racket in the first place. Hu-rrrrrah.

I was way too young to know him well, but I remember Uncle Dick as incredibly handsome, larger than life personality, with one of the most beautiful women as his wife I ever saw. The two of them were dynamite together, good and bad, hot and dangerous, all rolled into one. At least that’s what I remember.

Then something happened. He sort of fell apart. That’s when the “battle fatigue” set in. But that was long after he played his part in WWII, flying mission after mission, which eventually caught up with him. He was one of the many ordinary heroes of that war. I say “ordinary” because there were so many stories of bravery, cunning and denying death that heroism weaved through that war over and over again in the stories.

Today, we have new heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many SOF that go unsung.

Uncle Dick is gone, but I will never forget what he did for this country, flying consecutive sortie as so many pilots did during WWII. My father, Dick’s brother, is long gone, too. I didn’t learn the real story behind why daddy didn’t fight in the war until May 2007, believe it or not. My big brother read a post on my blog one day and wrote me this email.

Read your blog and didn’t know if you knew why Dad didn’t serve in the military. He was working at Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, an essential industry, during the war and they wouldn’t accept him in the service because he was needed at Boeing. At least, that’s what I was always told and have no reason not to believe.

There are so many ways to serve. But around home mom always gave me the impression that for daddy his service just wasn’t the same as what uncle Dick had done. Maybe to a man those days, but everyone was needed to pitch in and help and all efforts towards the war were critical. I hope daddy knew that.

So many, many have died serving this country honorably, others sacrificing their bodies, limbs, and normal lives for this country, along with their families who serve through their support of the family soldiers. Today we salute you all.

This post, a kind of tradition for me at certain times of the year, is for my Uncle Dick, who is a bonafide hero to me.

However, for many others, heroes only come in the movies. Otto Preminger made one of the best war movies ever, “In Harm’s Way.” No doubt you have your own favorite war movie, too.

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These Days, McCarthyism is Big on the Web

By Taylor Marsh on 08 April 2008

Are you or have you ever been a Hillary Clinton supporter?

If you are, beware. Mwaaahhaaaa. The sexist screed merchants are going to get you. We’ll “discover” who you are and divulge everything about you! Regardless that it’s already been known for years. It’s the new McCarthyism. We’ll smear your name and reputation in hit posts, too, with progressive diarists copying the crap to spread it around. It’s enough to make you want to take a big nap.

Hey, but that’s what happens when a woman decides to back Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Obama fans go berserk, finding it fun to ramble on about my radio show, which I launched via a buy-time effort in Las Vegas, or my years writing about relationship, marriage, as well as the sex industry, the latter wild ride I chronicled in a book I proudly self-published, because no one would buy it as it didn’t contain any sex (I was brought in to organize the biz side of the site). Considering my picture was plastered inside USA Today at the time, standing with the creator of the once all-female site (one male), it’s not like I’ve ever tried to hide anything I’ve done professionally. Oh, and smearing me through scurrilous lies by saying I wasn’t disclosing for whom I was writing is another whopper. Obviously, a lot of people have way too much time on their hands.

Funny how all of this only became interesting 10 years after the fact, when male Obama supporters got upset because a feminist female writer was telling the truth and raising hell in the process. But it’s time to address it after the latest screeds, which are being copied in diaries across political new media sites.

The question at the top of this essay was posed by one commenter over at Democratic Undergound, amidst the vile that has become the “progressive” blogosphere during Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy. That’s the foundation on which some people have decided to come at me, on the premise of revealing something that has been in the public arena for years. That these people didn’t know these simple facts proves that clicking on “about” on my nav bar is just too much for some. That they stole copyrighted photos may come back to haunt them, however, because if the photographers find out their agents will indeed pounce. But that’s not my problem. What was the final tipping point that inspired this overblown blogging?

If I weren’t effective they wouldn’t be targeting me. By the way, thanks for it. Being a Clinton supporter has certainly brought attention and vilification, but it’s added more entries to my hate mail page. I wear the insults as a badge of honor.

I self-published a book. I did radio interviews across the country when the book was published. From my “about” page at the time of this essay, which was available if the amateur assassins had done their homework (that gets regularly updated):

Additionally, Taylor’s investigative work into the sex trade business, prostitution and phone sex spanned over 10 years and included interviews with real desperate housewives, single, married and divorced women, religious of all stripes, and lots and lots and lots of men (well over 1,500) and women (when she was relationship consultant and columnist for alt newsweekly LA Weekly). Taylor’s experience, research and expertise was excerpted in Net.SeXXX: Investigating Sex, Pornography, and the Internet by Dennis Waskul, a Utah professor who calls Taylor’s book “a great gutsy story about something that is normally written about from a distance.”

Working as managing editor to the first soft-core porn site to make significant money on the web, which consisted almost entirely of model’s pictures and couples’ stills when I was there, run by women, was a wild ride, believe me. (The place I worked was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, because of the financial angle, because she beat “Playboy” online, inside US News & World Report, and beyond.) I went to the site to establish an “editor’s desk,” as it was named, to write about politics, endeavoring to be the first female to do on the web what Hugh Hefner had done in “Playboy.”

See, I had good political instincts and was forced to create my own spot if I wanted to take them out for a spin. So that’s exactly what I did.

I was among the first female political editors at the dawn of the internet boom. That it was on a women-run soft-core site just meant I’d have a huge audience. Hefner proved people care about politics and issues, so I hoped to take a page from him (especially since Playboy wasn’t cooking online yet).

I took on Ken Starr when he arrested Susan McDougal, ranting about the unfairness while getting emails from all over the U.S. (and beyond) on the subject. It was a gas. But it ended very badly, as I thought it would. One of the strippers submitted her “column” for one of the site’s news magazines, which was my job to edit and produce, that created a fantasy to go along with pictures of her disrobing at an elementary school playground in broad daylight. I refused to publish the column or the pictures, which caused a shitstorm with my boss overruling me. So, I walked out.

What made a former Miss Missouri to the Miss American Pageant (and Miss Friendship to the Miss Teenage America pageant) want to investigate the world of relationships, dating and sex in the first place, let alone becoming a political editor through carving a place on a female-run soft-core pictorial site? Well, the politics was in my blood because of my brother and because I grew up when the modern feminist movement exploded.

The adult industry has always been adventurist where new technology is concerned, take the VCR, and so when I saw an opportunity to exploit this chance to create my own political editor spot I jumped at it.

The job was a continuation of the curiosity into relationships, marriage and sex, which began at the LA Weekly, where I was a very successful “relationship consultant” and lovingly called personal ad goddess. I operated out of the classified department and also had an “advice” column where I wrote about politics whenever I could, though my primary writing job was to sell the personals and give “advice” about how to hook a mate. After a while the LA Weekly political shop decided they didn’t like what I was writing, maybe because they didn’t control it, so they demanded my columns be slapped with an “Advertisement” label. I couldn’t have cared less, because I loved writing and was just thrilled to have found a way in to do it.

I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but politics has always been my passion. I write about some of it here. It was my big brother and sister who really got me started, when I spied them crying over John F. Kennedy’s death. That’s where my one-woman show began, which I performed in L.A. back in 2005.

People in politics start from different places. I started out as a performer, making it to Broadway, to L.A. to do a little acting, always playing activist when I could, loving every single minute of my life. I don’t regret a move, a day, a job or one minute. I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished.

Don’t like my writing. Don’t read it.

Don’t agree with me. Fine.

Don’t think I’m sufficiently accredited. Life’s been the best teacher I know.

The expertise I’ve gained has come the hard way, because I’ve never had the money to do it any other way. I’ve lost everything more than once and would stack my judgment against anyone else. Foreign policy research also is solid, though I consider myself a student of the experts.

I was born a Missourian.

Harry Truman became president after starting as a haberdasher. Simple beginnings can be the stuff of great things for hard working people. That’s my story and it’s nowhere near the end.

So, if you have any questions about where I come from or what you’ve heard on the web serve it up. I’m an open book for anyone who’s fair and honest, which is in short supply in this primary season.

But if I’m the target, I must be doing something right.

This essay has been edited, links corrected and added, graphic replaced.

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Progressive Misogyny meets Clinton Derangement

By Taylor Marsh on 07 April 2008

Take it away, Melissa McEwan, with the help of this screen capture.

Ah yes, Clinton is a ball breaker, or something like that, so how fitting that
her former chief strategist is now a gelding.

The Democratic primary race has revealed a secret sexism among some of the
biggest and most elite male-run blogs that has obliterated their credibility.
Let’s just say, ‘Clinton derangement syndrome’ is no longer simply confined
to conservatives. That’s exactly what I told the Washington Times last week.

“The Democratic primary race has revealed a secret sexism among some of the biggest and most elite male-run blogs that has obliterated their credibility. Let’s just say, ‘Clinton derangement syndrome’ is no longer simply confined to conservatives,” Ms. Marsh said yesterday.

Josh Marshall is exhibit A, though he by no means stands alone. That said, parts of his team has been revealed to be visibly sexist and sometimes overly so.

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Free Elections

By Taylor Marsh on 18 January 2008

reported from Las Vegas, Nevada

Can the Culinary hold its membership to its Obama endorsement (and turn it out) by acknowledging members might support Clinton but urging them to put union loyalty above their candidate affinity? The “It’s the union above all else” pitch began Wednesday when Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor announced the Obama endorsement. He praised all the candidates but made it clear that his members value union solidarity above all. Or do they? – Power of Culinary Union hangs in balance as its protege Kihuen tries to break Obama hold, by Jon Ralston

The Las Vegas Sun has called into question a post I wrote regarding union intimidation. Being a strong believer in freedom of the press I would normally not respond to such an article. However, they have called into question my credibility and I feel compelled to respond. Under no circumstances did I receive any money from AFSCME prior to posting the blog about union intimidation, nor did money have anything to do with it. It was about free elections, fundamental to our American way of life. I was told a union had intimidated one of its members and I posted on it. People are free to express their opinions and support whomever they choose. However, if their support is gained by intimidation, that crosses the line, in my opinion. We each should have the right to make our voting decisions without intimidation by anyone and cast that vote based on our personal belief about the individual candidates. Hopefully, no one disagrees with that. That the Las Vegas Sun chose to couch their attack on my credibility by accusing me of taking money in the form of a question shows how far they were willing to go to target me without any evidence whatsoever. It’s through that prism you should view their entire piece.

Second, the story on the worker intimidation at Paris was an important story. The woman to whom I spoke would not allow me to use her name and would not give anyone else’s name to me either. My post came out before the Sun’s piece, and since the woman would not give names when asked, I covered the story as given. Union intimidation is a serious charge. Whether someone is supporting Clinton or Obama does not change the facts. I believed the woman’s story after talking to her and decided to post on it. Period. I followed it up with an update of someone who saw the event, which was put in the comment section of the Sun’s article.

I did not call the Culinary union, because as is shown in the Sun piece, they’re not going to admit intimidation. Anyone who has ever covered issues like this or has any experience knows that unions answering questions on the record will never admit such coercion or intimidation.

I didn’t respond to the Sun’s request to talk because I simply didn’t get the email, which ended up in my junk mail folder. Simple as that, though I realize people want another explanation more involved, but hey, it’s the truth.

Obviously, Obama’s fans across the web are attacking the messenger, me. It’s been going on for a very long time. They need to attack my credibility because I’ve obviously hit a nerve. It’s also not the first time the Obama camp decided to target a progressive voice. They attacked Paul Krugman on a “fact check” page when Krugman dared to criticize Obama’s policies, never mind that Krugman is one of the only leading progressive voices in traditional journalism today. There were also rumblings that the Obama camp was readying an attack against one powerfully effective blogger during the Donnie McClurkin dust up. Chris Bowers wrote:

It is certainly disturbing that Obama is attacking a leading progressive voice in a media system where progressive opinion journalists are few are far between. What is even more disturbing is that this is not the first time the Obama campaign has considered doing this. Back during the Donnie McClurkin fiasco, it has been confirmed to me from multiple sources that the Obama campaign was preparing opposition research papers of this sort against some one of the progressive bloggers who were speaking ill of him at the time (Update: I have edited the previous sentence for the sake of clarity and accuracy. I know two separate things, and conflating them is a bit of speculation on my part. First, I know that about a year ago, someone was conducting oppo research on most major progressive bloggers, but I don’t know who. After I heard about oppo being prepared against one blogger a couple months ago, I speculated that meant the earlier oppo was conducted by the Obama campaign as well. That is purely speculation on my part. Take it for what it is worth).

The “speculation” Bowers is talking about is just that, but when you combine it with the continual attacks on me and others, it’s clear the truth isn’t the target, dissent is.

Today, the Las Vegas Sun took it a step further by impugning my credibility through question marks and by insinuating I not only might have taken money from a union that supports Clinton, but that if I did so I wouldn’t disclose it. And they did it without one single shred of evidence.

The message is simple from the Obama camp. They want to intimidate and silence me, because I’m effective. They are now willing, using Markos’s site and the diaries at DailyKos, to call me a liar. This is what Obama’s supporters do whenever anyone dares to print critical pieces on Obama’s record or stories they don’t like. Today, the Las Vegas Sun played along.

UPDATE: Rolling Stone found another incident the Las Vegas Sun ignored, as did Obama supporters who want to make this story about me, because the campaign has been caught doing just what’s been charged.

The first instance involves a food server at the Luxor who is also a shop steward for the Culinary Union and disagreed with the union’s Obama endorsement; she asked that her name not be used for fear of reprisal. The worker says she was told by the union that she would not be given time off to caucus if she did not pledge to vote for Obama. Ultimately, she complained to Luxor management and was assured she would be allowed to attend.

UPDATE 2: The double standard at progressive blogs backing Obama is clear, with DailyKos allowing defamatory diaries against pro-Clinton supporters to stand, while “editors” send warning notices when pro-Clinton bloggers post diaries challenging Obama.

UPDATE 3: An epilogue to this story is also available.

This post has been updated.

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War at the Movies

By Taylor Marsh on 28 May 2007

VIDEO: From Here to Eternity

I was born in red state Missouri and raised on John Wayne. I grew up on war
movies. Lots of them. Maybe it was just that my family, by the time I came along
which was very late in the game, had some experience with sending their men
off to war, including uncles and cousins. My dad didn't get to go to war* (see note below), something
I always believed bothered him, though I really never knew my dad very well.
But before I lived through the Vietnam era, I saw war through the movies. It
was the lens by which I learned the nobility of this sacrifice. A lot has changed
through the years.

There's “From Here to Eternity,” a very small part of which I've captured for you to watch
today.

But my favorite is Otto Preminger's “In Harm's Way.” This is a classic
quick clip of Wayne blowing
his lines while doing a scene with Patricia Neal.

There's also “Command Decision,” with Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon.

Modern war movies include “Saving
Private Ryan,” but also “Platoon,”
a movie that haunts you long after seeing it. Both movies taking war into the
realm of the real.

Obviously, I can't name them all.

There is death and destruction in all of the war movies, but also great heroism
and purpose, along with sacrifice and sorrow. But something else, the possibility
of victory and the obligatory parade for those who have fought. If there is
anything that is lacking today in what our soldiers are experiencing in Iraq
it's that the lack of purpose for America and the reality that the mission has long ago
been obliterated, with “victory” an illusive mission on some forward date
ten years out. This curse of fighting wars Congress doesn't declare has been
around for decades, but from Vietnam into Iraq we have continued to repeat lessons
we long ago should have learned.

The worst thing a commander in chief can do is put men and women in harm's way,
then lose the mission on which we have sent them to fight. “Freedom”
doesn't cut it because we've got it and if the Iraqis are to have it they must take
it for themselves. It's the very nature of being free. WMDs long ago vanished
in the president's pre-war propaganda. Bringing democracy to Iraq was a joke,
because that is something that has to rise up from the public. The urge was
never there in Iraq, because the region is shackled to yesterday's feuds. We're fighting
“terrorists” is always used, then overused, but our soldiers are in
the middle of it so they're not easily fooled.

The nobility of war has been lost through Vietnam and Iraq, the necessity of fighting very hard for many to grasp, but without
a righteous cause and a valiant call to arms war gets worse and just becomes a bunch of shooting,
death, dismemberment, psychological cracking, and unending expense that costs
the warring countries their very souls.

Frank Rich (subscription
required) said something yesterday that rightly puts us squarely in the center of the fierce storm that will rage whether we stay or leave.

The new White House policy, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has joked, is “blame
and run.” It started to take shape just before the midterm elections
last fall, when Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memo (propitiously leaked after his defenestration)
suggesting that the Iraqis might “have to pull up their socks, step
up and take responsibility for their country.” By January, Mr. Bush
was saying that “the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt
of gratitude” and wondering aloud “whether or not there is a gratitude
level that’s significant enough in Iraq.” In February, one of
the war’s leading neocon cheerleaders among the Beltway punditocracy
lowered the boom. “Iraq is their country,” Charles Krauthammer
wrote. “We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war.” Bill
O’Reilly and others now echo this cry.
The message is clear enough: These ungrateful losers deserve everything that’s
coming to them. The Iraqis hear us and are returning the compliment. Whether
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is mocking American demands for timelines and
benchmarks, or the Iraqi Parliament is setting its own timeline for American
withdrawal even while flaunting its vacation schedule, Iraq’s nominal
government is saying it’s fed up. The American-Iraqi shotgun marriage
of convenience, midwifed by disastrous Bush foreign policy, has disintegrated
into the marriage from hell.

This is the second time in my lifetime we've walked into a country and blown
it apart. Good intentions aren't enough when whole countries are obliterated.
Bush was at the helm, but it's Congress who declares war, though that once great
institution long ago forgot that charge. So here we sit amidst the slaughter
of our own making yet again.

But the story of this war is not being told, at least not in visuals.

Photographs and other images of casualties have always been a delicate matter and most media outlets have shown restraint, particularly with pictures of the dead. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the ground commander in Iraq whose own son was seriously wounded in action, is said by reporters to be particularly alert to the depictions of casualties.
Working reporters say the soldiers in the field are not overly concerned with media coverage â€” they have more serious matters in their gunsights. The journalists also suggest that the current regulations have allowed the military to take concerns for the privacy of soldiers and their families and leverage them into broader constraints on information.
Not to See the Fallen Is No Favor

Bush and the Republicans have indeed midwifed a new type of war; this one fought
on slogans and hyperbole, fear and fiction. If, or maybe I should say when the
movie is written and produced it won't look anything like “From Here to
Eternity,” though the title certainly fits.

TM NOTE: My big brother read this post and sent me an email on my dad. My brother, sister and I are so spread out in age that there is much of our family history that is sketchy to me, which I've been trying to paste together for decades. This is what he wrote. It's news to me, so I thought I'd share it. It's amazing what you learn about your parents and your family as time goes by. I only hope I can put it all together before it's too late.

Read your blog and didn't know if you knew why Dad didn't serve in the military. He was working at Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, an essential industry, during the war and they wouldn't accept him in the service because he was needed at Boeing. At least, that's what I was always told and have no reason not to believe.

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Obama’s Kumbaya

By Taylor Marsh on 14 May 2007

It wasn’t nearly as contentious as the interview with the Edwardses. No Republican talking points from George Stephanopoulos yesterday, you know, like when he accused Edwards of abandoning the troops with this beauty: “Do you think the Democrats should be saddled with the idea of completely cutting off funding for the troops?” Or this one: “You know, a lot of Democrats still in the Senate think that your position here is cynical political theater.” This week, George and Barack had just a nice, polite little chat. Likely because Edwards is more of a fire breather when it comes to getting out of Iraq. Obama is not. He is also not an ideologue, which is an understatement with frightening ramifications.

“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama (on ABC’s “This Week”)

Now I think bringing people together is very important, especially after the scorched earth years of George W. Bush. But there’s one alarming issue I’ve raised before that continues to bother me about Obama. For one, if he’s our nominee we’ll likely get another convention like 2004, which wasn’t nearly as illustrative in the us versus them differences department as it needed to be. But considering the utter and complete collapse of not only the Republican Party but conservatism itself under George W. Bush this matters a great deal. In fact, nothing is more important than finishing off this gang, along with the myth and mystique that has strangled this country since Reagan. We’ll never have a better opportunity than in ’08.

Rudy is digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself while giving us sound bite after sound bite on his ever evolving views on abortion.

Slick Mitt is flip flopping on the same issue, while telling tall tales about his hunting escapades, no doubt while reading the next installment of Battlefield Earth or some other Scientology sci-fi novel, as his sons regale us all on thinking of serving in the military without actually serving.

You’ve got John McCain recovering a bit from his cratering collapse just in time to say he’s ready to go back to Bahgdad without a military escort. D’oh!

As three of ten Republican candidates admit that they don’t believe in evolution. They don’t believe in evolution. Seriously, that’s a Wow! moment if ever one was created.

All of this coming after an election that had more Democratic veterans running and winning elected office than ever before, as we reassert our FDR-Truman-Kennedy national security legacy. But Mr. Obama hints that he will employ his “capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other” in his potential presidency. Fine. Groovy. Let’s all join hands. But is it too much to ask that we do it while also asserting, even stressing that the Democratic Party has the policy answers that those other people should get used to? Because when we take the White House back and have a majority in both houses of Congress we’re going to put into action Democratic Party principles and the policies that follow, because our principles and policies are way better than what those other guys have to offer.

Cokie Roberts and George Will were thrilled with Obama’s lack of vitriol. Cool.

But not once in the Stephanopoulos let’s-all-get-along interview did I get the feeling that Barack Obama wants to be president to install the beliefs of the Democratic Party, or that we even had the ideas that will take this country where we need to go after the most disastrous presidency in modern times. Or that Obama wants to take advantage of the Republican collapse to drive a stake through conservatism’s very heart. Instead I got the distinct “capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other” impression. I don’t want any Democratic leader, especially a Democratic president, seeing conservatism in themselves.

Democrats are facing an opportunity that comes once in a generation (if that) because of the utter and complete collapse of the Republican Party and conservatism, which has failed utterly. Frankly, I want our nominee to finish the job. That can only happen if we elect someone who is hell bent on making sure the Democratic Party ideals are understood and held high, while contrasting them with the complete bankruptcy of the Republican Party and conservatism. Otherwise, this once in a generation Democratic ascendancy moment will come and go as just another personality politician takes charge in the White House, with American voters not really understanding the importance of the policies Democrats represent and bring to the table, because we aren’t telling them. It will be a moment where the kumbaya candidate wins, with the policy principles secondary, because Candidate Kumbaya can’t alienate the other guys.

In the midst of all of the Republican Rudy-SlickMitt-McCain-Neanderthal gifts that are sheer political manna from wingnut heaven, the last thing I want to see is a convention where all of the Democratic speeches that have any fire and contrast are relegated to off hours because they are considered not kumbaya enough for primetime.

Again, I’m all for getting along to get things done. However, when Democrats are in charge the Republicans need to know it. Otherwise, why get elected in the first place? With George Will actually saying that there’s something Reaganesque about Obama’s sunny disposition and lack of vitriol, excuse me, but can anyone argue this wouldn’t be a gift to conservatives? Or maybe the torch is going to be passed to a different kind of politician ushering in a new kind of politics to America. Someone that brings consensus and kumbaya to the White House so Democrats and Republicans can join hands and finally walk side by side, with deals made so everyone is happy. If that’s the case there will be one outcome. The Republican Party will get up off the mat, dust themselves off and then the conservatives will stab us in the back with a smile on their faces, and this once in a generation opportunity to finish off the wingnuts so they’ll truly have to start a twenty year rebuilding process will pass us by. If Obama is president when it happens it’s likely he won’t know what hit him until it’s too late for us all.

Tell me how a Candidate Kumbaya would be good for Democrats, because right now I’m just not seeing it at all.

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Censored by Two Mormons

By Taylor Marsh on 05 April 2007

Freedom.

At last.

I can finally write what I want without some Mormon censoring me. In fact, if I hadn’t switched tech teams I couldn’t even use the graphic above. It’s been a harrowing six weeks and it’s all the General‘s fault. Actually it’s not, but it all started with one little, measly link from the General.

The trouble started with this post, “Malleable Contender,” which was about Mitt Romney. In one portion about Mormonism I talked about it “not being a mainstream religion” and then linked to the General’s post entitled “What Mitt Believes… (Volume 2),”. Later in the day, during my radio show, I interviewed my husband who was a good Mormon for decades, but who has since left the church and taken his name off the roles, which is a very big deal. He had to petition the bishop, send in certified letters, but we still got visits from LDS prodding him to stay. I had nothing to do with his choice, but I watched it play out. Anyway, on the show that day we talked about Mitt and Mormonism, but were very respectful. I knew little about Mormonism until I moved to Nevada to do radio. It’s been an eye opening experience. Mitt’s run had me looking into it further, because my husband and I don’t talk about it. Anyway, the discussion on my show with my husband was very light, because he didn’t want to appear to be bashing anyone’s religion. We went out of our way to be respectful. After the show and much to my surprise I received the following email from my tech team. It’s signed by them both but it came from the wife’s email address.

Taylor,
We realize that you do not like Mitt Romney or his religion, but his religion is also our religion.We do not expect you or anyone else to agree with our religion. However, when you link to sites like this, it makes us think that you have little respect for us. Our name is on your site. We sponsor your radio show. When you link to people who have absolutely no respect for things we hold sacred, our name is put on that too. You have a right to your own opinion, but so do we. We take our religion seriously. We will not put our name on or sponsor something that shows no respect for it. We know that Mark is an ex-Mormon, we have no problem with him personally. He has a right to believe or not believe as he wishes. We feel he still has ill feelings towards our church. Therefore, we feel that he is not the most reliable source for information on our church. I realize what I have said has probably angered you. This is not my intention. I only wish to impress upon you how serious this is to us. We have had a good long professional and personal relationship with you. We would like to continue this relationship, but will not if things like this are going to be on your site. It would be very unfortunate for our relationship to end this way, but we feel very strongly about this.
Sincerely,
Rachel & Jason Frey

I honestly didn’t know my crime. These are people I’ve worked with for around four years or so, had into my home, taken them to dinner, given them baby gifts. But they didn’t even bother to pick up the phone and call me to tell me what I’d done. The emails that flew back and forth from that point escalated gradually. However, I was so caught off guard by them that my first response was angry and indignant, especially to their charge about the Mormon religion.

After that they censored my site. They didn’t tell me or warn me. They didn’t say, take down this link or we’ll take it down ourselves. Or take down the link or we will not host your site. Nothing. They pulled down the link to Jesus’ General without asking me, pulled my radio show from broadcast (at a time when they knew I was working with my team to get back on the air), because they “sponsored” it, which basically meant it went through their servers. Then Jason went into my admin section and and took down their advertising links without telling me beforehand that they were editing material from my site without permission. They basically entered my admin section because they felt they had the right to alter any content that didn’t suit them. Our exchange went like this after the General’s link disappeared..

The link is down, however. Did you or Rachel take the liberty of removing it, was it Divine intervention, or didn’t you notice? I would like your answer to this, but feel free to put it in an email.

Jason Frey responded:

You are absolutely right. You did deserve a phone call. However given the fact that the site you linked to is extremely disrespectful of our religion you should have called us to let us know that about it. You also could have asked us to be apart of your show about Mormons since we were partners in the show. Rachel was indeed very emotional when she sent that email but she had good reason to be. That’s still no excuse for your response or for linking to that site. As I’m sure you guessed, I am the one that removed the link. It was unacceptable I could not tolerate a site on my server linking to such a hateful and disrespectful site.

I was flabbergasted and I told him so.

Call them to let them know about a link?

Ask them to be part of my show since they were “partners”?

There was absolutely no written or verbal agreement between us that I had any obligation whatsoever to inform them of my guests or topics on my show. We were not “partners,” but they sponsored the site, which meant they hosted it on servers for free. And I would never give editorial control to anyone. As for inviting them on my show, as I told them in another email, I had planned on asking them both on to talk about Mormonism after Mark’s interview. Due to timing that wouldn’t be until the next week, but they never gave me the chance or the courtesy of a phone call after years of working together.

As for my first response, here’s the first email, which will give you an idea of what ensued thereafter.

You’re right, I don’t like Mitt Romney, but not because he’s a Mormon. It’s also not about him personally. It’s about his politics.
Frankly, I don’t care what you think of Mark, which isn’t the point. He was a member of the Mormon Church longer than you have been to this date, so he has every right to say whatever he wants without getting your permission because you host my site or radio show, and whether you approve of what he says or not. And let me add, just because you don’t agree with Mark doesn’t mean your opinion is loftier or more informed. Your arrogance in blasting out the email you did reveals your lack of religion, my friend, because ego is the enemy of anything godly. But you’ll have to look to your own conscience for what you wrote to me. It doesn’t make me mad. It makes me sad, for you.
That you think you can censor me or threaten taking my business down because I linked to a site that also considers my Episcopalian religion a “cult,” boggles my mind. You are also in effect saying that because you have a graphic and sponsor my radio show (or did) I have to police my links? Are you kidding? Can you imagine what Muslim sites will be saying about Mormonism? African American Baptist churches? Have you seen what they write about my religion? I’m not supposed to link to them either? Give me a break. My faith has been attacked throughout my life and I was never so thin skinned or egotistical that I thought I could control the speech of others. My faith runs strong regardless of insults, no matter their source.
In addition, your email is flat out ignorant in its charges.
I backed Senator Harry Reid from the start. I didn’t care if he was pro-life or Mormon. I sang his praises and still do, unless he’s wrong on an issue. But you are not interested in facts. You want to unjustly charge me with disrespecting your religion instead. You owe me an apology for the flatly false charge “you do not like” the Mormon religion. Frankly, I had no feelings one way or the other until you sent your email, Rachel. Now it has me truly thinking about what Mormonism stands for and exalts. Harry Reid’s Mormonism is humble. I’m not sure what to make of your representation.
I went after Mitt Romney over child brides, which is a sin, a moral outrage and a crime, hoping he’d do something besides make jokes about marriage being between “one man and one woman,” which is what he said, not me. If you ever knew any young girl who was molested against her will this wouldn’t be all about you. But Romney remained silent. I linked to Harry Reid’s letter to Gonzales, which was an effort by Reid to have the Attorney General look into child brides. Good for Reid.
I went after Mitt Romney today because he was pro-choice when running for Gov., but then decided he’d change to being pro-life for his presidential run. That, regardless of the religion involved, is hypocrisy. I will expose it and I don’t need and will not ask for anyone’s permission to do so.
On my show today, Mark and I were nothing but honest and respectful. Did you listen? If you didn’t, well, that says a lot. But if you did and didn’t like what we said, well, that’s what makes America great. It’s called FREEDOM OF SPEECH and FREEDOM OF RELIGION. Bill Maher of HBO, who is a comedian and an agnostic, brought up undergarments, which we talked about today, but we did not disrespect anyone’s religion in doing
so. I did quote Mr. Maher, but I also said no one should disrespect what Mormons believe. If you don’t like us talking about the truth, well, tough.
It’s going to get very rough, because I believe Mitt Romney will turn into a true frontrunner. Few people know anything about Mormonism. It will be under scrutiny. Welcome to the world of religion under the public light. But I don’t care about Mitt’s Mormonism any more than I would care if he was a Catholic. However, I do care about his hypocrisy. Becoming pro-life so he can get the evangelical vote is wrong. That needs to be exposed. I will do everything in my power to expose his hypocrisy.
Finally, just so we’re clear. I will link and talk about whatever I want.
I will also bet any amount of money that Senator Reid and Mitt Romney would protect my FREEDOM OF SPEECH and my FIRST AMENDMENT rights, as well as champion my AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL right to say and link to whomever I want, while also being strong enough Mormons in their own faith to keep their own counsel, without being somehow hurt by what appears on some website. I never disrespect anyone’s religion, not ever. I’ve linked to hundreds of sites that do, but you’ve never made a peep until today.
It is insulting in the extreme to get some email message from you, which in effect demands that I censor myself on a debate about the Mormon religion that will be happening everywhere, but is not allowed on my site if I do business with Rachel and Jason Frey. You’ve got a lot a nerve.
You should be ashamed of yourselves. Jason, I’m surprised at you.
Do not send me another email on this subject. Jason, you and I sat down years ago to decide to do business together. Give me a call. We can dissolve it together, too. But let me say this with all due respect. You are wrong in your assessments and judgments. But they are yours and you’re entitled to them.

I knew I was in trouble when Mitt Romney announced he was running for president, because I’d begun to see by living in Nevada just how sensitive and secretive Mormons can be. But little did I know how much trouble one man and his religion would be.

The first post that alerted me to the coming challenges was about FLDS and Warren Jeffs. Just read the comments, which include comments from the Freys that are not only defensive, but completely ignore that I spelled out the differences between FLDS and LDS in the post itself. It highlights the real issue.

Mormons don’t want to talk about the specifics of the Mormon religion.

People are also afraid of being labeled a religious bigot or worse if they reveal what Mormonism is about. Some fear for their livelihood. I know of radio hosts who talk on stations owned by Mitt’s company. Do you think they’re going to talk about Mormonism? Mormonism and censorship is real today. I have experienced it first hand. For five weeks, because it took that long to find the right hosts and web developer, I have had to watch every single thing I’ve said on this site. It was a very paranoid time, including the fact that they had access to my emails.

I have never fully appreciated what some writers and bloggers have said about the insidiousness of religion, because I come from a religious home and consider myself religious even though the practice of my spirituality is anything but conventional. However, the Freys taught me something about Mormonism and it isn’t good. What the General and other writers do by exposing, or maybe a better word is revealing, the truth about Mormonism is that it is a very different religion. Any fundamentalist religion is dangerous, especially for women.

Do you know about Kolob? Before I changed hosts and tech team I was not allowed to even write that word on this site. I couldn’t link to the General’s illuminating posts on Mormonism. Are they disrespectful? Mormons might think so, but if you’re ignorant and read what’s on the page it’s just information. Some may say it’s shocking, but to the unknowing it’s just a post. Not to Mormons.

I know agnostics and atheists likely think I’m wacky because I’m an Episcopalian. But at least I don’t believe in censoring religious discourse and discussion in order to protect my faith. Is it legal? A good question.

But after living through the last six weeks I’ve experienced it first hand. Word of advice, make sure you know who you’re hosting company is and what they think they’re entitled to do with your site. If you’re on radio, don’t be scared, know your legal rights. I never would have thought I could be censored by two Mormons over a link, but I was.

And it’s all the General’s fault. All I can say is thanks, General. Because of your writing and satire, especially on a topic that few will touch, Mormonism, I learned a valuable lesson. Oh, and by the way, Jesus’ General is now one of my husband’s favorite sites.

I had to wait a long time to write this post, after I was safe from the threat of censorship. No one will ever tell me what I can write or say again, least of all two Mormons.

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The Malleable Contender

By Taylor Marsh on 19 February 2007

**Please see very important updates at the bottom of this post.**

The Straight Talk Express has moved.

Literally.

Back up and check the link.

Does anyone else find that amusing?

Now it’s been replaced by Mr. McCain‘s presidential exploratory committee site.
But why do I feel that ship has sailed? McCain’s chances of becoming
president, that is. Hard to say, it’s just a feeling, which is shared by some others, let me add, but it’s still worth noting on occasions. Like when Mr. McCain decides that Roe v. Wade can be discarded as easily and conveniently as… well, as the Straight Talk Express.

But I’m not so concerned about McCain and Rudy has so many other issues.

So who’s the malleable contender?

When it comes to Republicans, the man that I hope gets taken out early is Malleable Mitt Romney. The man who will say anything to get elected. I know, I know, it seems they all will, but he’s got a special gift for it. He’s also just the type of person who seems to get elected president these days. I’ve talked to many people about ’08 and they all are shocked when I talk about Mitt Romney being the most formidable candidate. Again, he needs to be knocked off
early or he’s going to be trouble. Trust me.

Mitt Romney with his perfect TV looks, and his personable wife Ann were both on “This Week,” with George Stephanopolous. One word described the appearance: slick. I know everyone is touting that being a Mormon will knock him out of the running. I’m not saying that won’t be a hurdle, but not anymore than all his flip flopping and convictions of sheer convenience. But listen to him. He long ago figured out an answer to the Mormon question. In fact, it’s a response that just might work with many. When he talks to evangelicals, Malleable Mitt doesn’t get all tied up in religious details. Guess what he talks about. Oh, come on, you know. Malleable Mitt talks about values. Still married, all those handsome sons, with their beautiful wives — one wife each, that is (sorry, but Mitt jokes about it all the time and even Ann did too yesterday on “This Week”) — and all those kids, Mitt’s grand kids.
Values he shares with evangelical Christians.

Malleable Mitt and Ann are already preparing him to give his own version of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on his Catholicism.

But let me stress again that these are my views–for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters–and the church does not speak for me. – John
F. Kennedy

There’s only one problem with Mr. Romney trying this tactic, besides the fact that he’s no JFK. The problem is that religious groups are already deeply tied into the Republican Party; so much so that you can’t get through the primaries without passing their religious litmus test. In Kennedy’s day, politics intersecting with religion like it does today would have been unthinkable. No more.

I know there are many, many of you that don’t care if we’re talking Mormonism, Catholicism or my chosen faith, Episcopalian. It’s all rubbish to some. So it’s likely Malleable Mitt’s Mormonism doesn’t matter to you. I’ve got to tell you it doesn’t matter to me either. Spending time in Nevada has put me in contact with many Mormons. Like all religions, there are good Mormons. But there is a built-in prejudice in this country, with polls showing huge numbers against
voting for a Mormon. It’s for sure it’s not a mainstream religion. (UPDATE – also see below: This is where I linked to Jesus General, on the text “not a mainstream religion.” My tech team at the time, Orange Geek, removed it. More in update below.)

The there’s the “c” word smear.

“We evangelicals view Mormons as a Christian cult group. A cult group is a group that claims exclusive revelation. And, typically, it’s hard to get out of these cult groups. And, so, Mormonism qualifies as that.” – Ted Haggard (source)

Perfect coming from Ted Haggard, isn’t it?

It’s true that many evangelicals and other Republican primary voters are skeptical about Mr. Romney right now. But wait until everyone meets Mitt and his lovely wife Ann, who is fighting MS, after raising a beautiful family. Remember the common ground. Besides
winning, that is. It’s about values, not religious specifics, says Malleable Mitt.

Like I said, we need to knock him out early. Right now everyone is underestimating him. ~~Big~~ Huge mistake.

UPDATE: This is a post that caused my working world to change. After it was uploaded all hell broke loose, because I linked to a Jesus General post on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. I noted where the link originally appeared above. But once it was removed by the Mormon tech team who were running my site at the time, who did so without my permission, I have not replaced it. The whole nightmare is chronicled in “Censored by Two Mormons,” which I wrote once I got free of the tech team that censored my own site. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure. I never dreamed someone would censor me for providing a link to information on Mormonism. It was a very chilling experience to say the least. When you own your own business it is yours to do with an you see fit. Once I decided to cover Mitt Romney, however, the two Mormons hosting and doing all the tech for my site didn’t like my providing information about Mormonism, especially topics they deemed not only sacred but secret.

Mitt Romney is running for president. His faith is a huge part of his life and few people know anything about Mormonism. Providing information is not a crime. My former tech team had absolutely no editorial power or control whatsoever. They could have demanded I not cover Mormonism on a condition of hosting and working with me by also asking for a new contractual agreement, but they did not. Instead they censored me by accessing my admin section without my knowledge and pullling a link off of this post without my permission. They also pulled their sponsorship of my radio show, which was their right, of course. However, they also accessed my MySpace page and altered it by taking audio off of it as well. During this time I never knew what was going to happen next, as they also had full access to my emails. This post tells the sorry, chilling tale.

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Debbie Schlussel Threatens Me with a Lawsuit

By Taylor Marsh on 15 January 2007

–updates below–

Good morning to you too, Ms. Schlussel.

It has come to my attention that you posted a copyrighted photo of mine on Huffington Post. Unfortunately for you, I am the exclusive copyright holder of that photo, and I don’t recall licensing it out to you for use. Therefore, you are in violation of my copyright, and I give you 24 hours to remove it before I have my lawyers prepare suit. As you may know, federal copyright law provides up to $150,000 in damages per incident for wanton violation of a copyright. As you are now–and should have been prior to this letter–aware, you are in violation of my copyright, and any use heretofore is wanton. Please take down the photo immediately, and cease and desist from using it in the future.
Additionally, you note on your site that I was critical of Barack Obama’s last name. Reading is fundamental. And if you bothered to read, I’ve never said a thing about the surname Obama. Perhaps you have a problem with it and are projecting it upon me. Please stop that too.
I await your response that you have taken down my copyrighted photo.
Debbie Schlussel

First, the point I made that Schlussel “was critical of Barack Obama’s last name” charge. Early this morning I posted on last night’s “24,” citing Ms. Schlussel’s “PC 24.” In that post I referred to Schlussel’s attack on Obama, which I first covered in this post entitled, “Barack Obama’s Middle Name.” I also covered Schussel’s middle name attack in \”That Uppity Democratic Muslim!” Well, last night I mistakenly wrote “last” name. If Ms. Schlussel had bothered to click on any of the links offered, she would have seen that I was indeed referring to her attack on Barack Obama’s middle name, but wrote “last” name by mistake. Big whoop. Obviously Ms. Schlussel’s fingers couldn’t make it to click on the links. No doubt it was fatigue from all her bloviating on “PC 24″ that kept her from investigating further. It must be tough being a lawyer who can’t at least make the effort to investigate whether someone has indeed made an ignorant glaring error in fact or just a simple late night mistake, which could be proven by visiting previous posts linked by the author, that is, me, your humble blogger. “Reading is fundamental” is true, but considering I got it right in all my previous posts, the ones to which I linked, only mistakenly typing “last” name once, I’d also say that checking your charges and the history refuting and surrounding those charges is fundamental as well.

Hey, but wingnuts will be wingnuts.

The “violation of my copyright,” to which Ms. Schlussel refers has been remedied, because I simply took the photo I got off a simple Google search down on the Huffington Post column. The irony is, and what’s absolutely hilarious about this whole lawsuit issue, is that, again, the title of the column that Ms. Schlussel found objectionable at Huffington Post, because it appears with her picture, is “Barack Obama’s Middle Name.” She obviously didn’t look at that title before her kindergarten comment about my “last” name charge. Even a five year old could figure out the “last” name reference in last night’s post was a mere error. Hardly worthy of an off with her head assault.

One also assumes, if she’s going to threaten to slap me with a lawsuit, she’s done the copyright registration, or is doing that as you read this post. However, as copyright law would have it, it’s interesting, but this registration is not required. The simple action of my using her photo is enough, regardless of where I got it or that I didn’t know it was copyrighted. It is interesting, though not important legally, that Ms. Schlussel didn’t use any technical means at her disposal to protect her picture. As you can see if you peruse my blog, all the pictures are protected. They are all copyrighted by myself or photographers, so I make sure no one can copy them, as far as I can protect them. Ms. Schlussel didn’t bother to do this, though, again, she certainly doesn’t have to, either. She can just let fly a lawsuit threat when someone uses her copyrighted picture. But just take a look at all the pictures of Ms. Schlussel across Google: here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here.

She may have lawyers, but she’s one as well. But if this is what she spends her time on she must be a very busy wingnut.

I’ve spoken to my lawyer (my big brother) today, as well as a First Amendment attorney who’s familiar with these types of things, thanks to a referral from another progressive. In addition, my brother also spoke to a copyright lawyer. It remains to be seen if bloggers are protected for “fair use” with photos used in reporting stories, because much of what we’re seen to do is opinion, criticism and comment. However, as regular readers know, I actually do reporting and have broken stories before. Regardless, the minute I used Ms. Schlussel’s picture, well, I’ve said it all already.

Frankly, the publicity of a lawsuit would be great. As for what Schlussel will get, good luck. But talk about a frivolous lawsuit.

You’ve got to wonder if Ms. Schlussel is trying to intimidate me, or if she is trying to squelch my right to free speech. I can’t know for sure, but the inherent threat of a lawsuit seems to be focused on doing both, however unsuccessfully. Or maybe she thinks I’m stupid? Pity.

At any rate, Ms. Schlussel, you can quit waiting. Consider this my “response.”

Oh, and by the way, thanks for the chuckle. It’s a great way to start the week.

And just in case you’re wondering, I own the copyright of the stick figure at the top of this post. So don’t even think about using it.

UPDATE (10:35 a.m. – 1.17): …and the posts just keep on coming. A flat out hilarious tutorial from Chris of Creek Running North, which would have saved me a lot of trouble. But then again, then we wouldn\’t have had all this fun creaming Ms. Debbie. … oh, and now I see that \”the bastard,\” Heraclitus, over at Stickings’ blog has chimed in. It\’s now, officially, a party.

UPDATE (6:42 p.m. – 1.16): I’m linking to this post shamefully late, but I quite frankly just missed it. Wait until you see this picture! Eeew.

UPDATE (8:55 a.m. – 1.16): A blogger friend of Mash\’s came out of blog retirement to join in the art fun. Nice drawing, Robbie. …a late drawing entry from Wally, too.

UPDATE (11:33 p.m.): Reader Cujo359, who just launched a brand new blog, adds his own drawing. I\’d upload it, but then I\’d have to kill it.

UPDATE (6:35 p.m.): WHO THE HELL IS DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL? Many don\’t know, Roxanne.

UPDATE (5:00 p.m.): Bob Geiger\’s post, Little Debbie Schlussel – Just Another Candy-Ass Republican, sums it up perfectly.

UPDATE (4:03 p.m.): Joe Gandelman did a post entitled, \”Now Blogging is Getting Litigious Among bloggers,\” without even mentioning you know who. And you\’ve simply got to see Mash\’s post, complete with his own stick figure drawing! Priceless.

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What Do You Give a Peacock for Christmas?

By Taylor Marsh on 23 December 2006

His freedom.

As regular readers know, we have a peacock (Blue) and peahen (Missy) who visit us. Actually they now live at our place, but birds are never really anyone’s, so I like to refer to it as “visiting.” We also have a peacock chick from Blue and Missy whom we’ve raised and kept alive through all manner of challenge and adversity. See, the peacock’s goal when chicks are born is to kill them all, because they’re territorial and the fact that you can’t tell a peacock (male) from a peahen (female) for months. Peacocks are the very definition of alpha male. So, when the chicks hatched, my husband Mark and I fenced off an area for Missy and her two surviving chicks, one of which was an albino that didn’t live past 3 months. Sweet little thing. Very tragic, but she just wasn’t strong enough.

Anyway…

So once it was time to let Missy and her young male chick out of the wire pen, Blue starts stalking the young male peacock. It was a serious case of catch and kill for Blue. One day months later, after Jack had gotten his coloring, I peeked outside the back door to find him trying to hide behind our wood pile, with Blue towering over him ready to strike. I shooed Blue off, but Mark and I then had to make a big decision. What to do with Jack?

To make a very, very long story short, leaving out the first patio open, as well as the pea hen we got from a reserve as a buddy who tried to maim him, I’ll cut to the chase. Mark built a huge pen out back. You should have seen the sight of my husband trying to engage this growing, but still very young, male peacock to capture him! Squawking like you can’t imagine, with tale feathers flying everywhere, not to mention Mark trying to stay away from his very sharp claws.

So now our beautiful, young male peacock was safe. He had plants, sod, a soft bedding to walk on, a pond, with plants everywhere, plus shade and cover, with some sun as well and a nice perch and plenty of food. For instance, Jack began his day with walnuts. Getting the picture? Spoiled peacock.

It didn’t matter.

With Blue and Missy walking free, the young male was very unhappy. Peacocks can be content penned, but I believe seeing Missy and Blue walk free, as well as sit close to his cage, drove him crazy. When they were up around the house it made it worse. All Jack did was pace. However, he was still too young to fight off Blue.

Fast forward to just a few weeks ago. At a year and one-half, Jack was finally starting to grow his plume, which should be in full glory this summer. He’s an adult, and as I told my radio listeners recently, I looked at my husband and said it was time to let him out. So, we took a deep breath, walked out to his pen and opened the door.

Nothing.

Jack continued to pace.

Mark started tearing down the fencing.

Still nothing.

I tried to draw Jack out with walnuts.

He wouldn’t budge.

Jack continued to pace within the confines of the cage, jumping up to his perch, even though there was no cage left to hold him in.

We knew to stand back, but Mark got too close and all of a sudden Jack jumped on to the railroad ties then took off with a whoop. Up he went… He’ll land on our second story, I thought. Then up and up and OVER the house he flew.

We rushed to the front yard to see him perched on our neighbor’s roof across the street. Then, as sunset came, Jack took off.

We were crestfallen.

Would he come back?

We waited.

Then two days later Mark woke me up, “He’s back! He’s back!”

I stumbled out of bed and we went running down to the backyard like two kids on Christmas morning. Jack was back and they were all together again. There’s been some territorial issues, but Jack will have to learn to deal with it. Come spring we expect Blue and Jack will fight. That’s what male peacocks do.

Every sunset for the last couple of years, Blue and Missy wonder back over to our neighbor’s house where they were raised to sleep high in the trees. When Jack was young, before we realized the dangers of Blue, he did too. But since we let him out he doesn’t anymore. The first couple of sunsets after he was free I couldn’t figure out where he was perching at night. But then just a couple of days ago I saw him fly up into one of our backyard evergreens close to the house. We’ve never had a peacock call one of our big evergreens home.
We do now.

I’ve had a thing for birds my whole life. But now it’s on a whole different level. Being blessed with this experience has been something almost sacred to me. As I’ve said before, you never really own birds. You have to understand that your attachment is yours and will never be there’s. Get too close or threaten them, breaking the bonds of that trust, and you could lose them for good. Jack is still very leery of Mark. After all, he caught him twice and Jack doesn’t understand we were actually keeping him safe.

Giving Jack his freedom this Christmas gave us great joy. We kept him alive, sheltered him and now he’s on his own, though we still feel responsible. It’s an experience I will treasure the rest of my life, Mark too.

Last Christmas Jack was in his pen, safe and sound.

This year he is grown and now free, as it is meant to be. Merry Christmas, Jack. It’s a Christmas gift for us, too.

TM NOTE: When we moved to D.C., saying good-bye to the glorious gift of our peacocks wasn’t easy. But at least we found them space where they’d be safe… and free, which is what matters most to birds. Same for our beautiful koi, which now reside in gigantic ponds at a water garden, taken from the 3,800 gallon, cascading pond that Mark built from scratch (a beauty truly astounding). What a cherished experience all of these amazing creatures were to care for, watch and share our property. I’ll never forget it… or the Golden Eagle, the hawks, the pheasants, and water birds, and all the other amazing birds that visited the land we owned for a time. It was magical.

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Climate Crisis, and Our Dead Koi

By Taylor Marsh on 27 June 2006

UPDATE: Pollution in overdrive

It’s been a tough day ’round our house. Our 4,000 gallon cascading pond was
poisoned and we lost six or so of our beautiful koi and one of our poliwags.
It may not seem important to you, but it was traumatic to me. You don’t have to live near a stream to realize the balance
required in nature. We’ve created an amazing Eden we call paradise, which was
disturbed in an alarming way today. We have come down to bug spray as the culprit. We have so many birds, including peacocks, that we have quite a bug problem unless we stay on it. We’ve been careful, but… We’ve been flushing the pond for hours and hours. We are now bathing our wounds
in good wine and fine chocolate.

Seeing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient
Truth” was powerful, as was speaking
to him. It drove home so many things. Seriously, see the movie. But Gore
isn’t the only Democrat who gets it. John Kerry understands the environment
too, especially when it comes to energy
independence. The Democrats are righteous on the
environment, as I learned meeting
Robert Redford in D.C.

So many people are trying to target Gore by massaging the science to match
their message. Good luck. Science doesn’t lie. Gore got it right.

Now, excuse me, because I need some more chocolate.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone
for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change
theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release,
or read the book.
But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed
the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making
caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“Excellent,” said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School
of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. “He got all the
important material and got it right.”
Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the slideshow presentation
that is woven throughout the documentary.
“I sat there and I’m amazed at how thorough and accurate,” Corell
said. “After the presentation I said, `Al, I’m absolutely blown away.
There’s a lot of details you could get wrong.’ … I could find no error.”
Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn’t surprised “because
I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right.”
Scientists
OK Gore’s movie for accuracy

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Meeting Robert Redford at the Apollo Alliance Event

By Taylor Marsh on 12 June 2006

(posted from Washington, D.C., 11:34 a.m. eastern time)

UPDATE: Robert Redford's speech at TBA.

Okay, so better late than never. I took this earlier, but had to come back to my hotel to load it. Frankly, the Hilton's connection for bloggers row sucks. Oh, and by the way, as to Redford's first line; everyone needed a brush, as it was raining cats and canaries this morning!
“Sorry 'bout that,” Redford said to me when our bags got tangled. All I could do was laugh.

“Anybody have a brush?”

That's the first thing I heard when Redford walked into the room. It was a little after 10:00 a.m. when he and Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance showed up. It was supposed to start at 9:30 a.m., but these types of things rarely if ever come off as planned.

I've been trying to blog it since then, but on bloggers row there's a lot of interruptions and distractions, because people actually are interested in what we do.

The Fox “News” crowd just hate when big celebs lend their name, reputation and passion to issues that matter. But when they do, especially when you're Robert Redford, it can make all the difference. After all, it's not like they need this aggravation, now is it?

They wanted all the bloggers up front during the Redford meeting, especially those with computers, because this meeting was schedule for us. How refreshing is that? Redford continued the welcome, because it was very obvious – he made a point of saying it – that he's a big fan of the blogs.

When Redford started off he didn't go to the podium. He and Jerome sat side by side, with Redford making a very brief opening statement. I live blogged it for content, just now getting it online, but this is how it went down. I don't use quotes, but Redford's statements are close to verbatim, the content
and tone exact.

Robert Redford and Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance. (Taken during Bloggers Meeting)

It's like the old west, the blogs. Taking something and running with it, said Robert Redford. Out of the gate he made it clear that he feels the blogs have a big part to play in getting the message on the environment out.

When I met him after the session, he looked in my eyes and shook my hand, strongly and very enthusiastically. In fact, he made an effort to turn and talk with me, however briefly. (Just to add, I'm drawing this picture, not because I saw into his soul, but because his sincerity to connect with me, one blogger, was real. It went to the whole reason he asked for the meeting with us.) I thanked him for what he was intending to manifest through his involvement in the Apollo Alliance, and he said, “No, thank you.” The picture we took together was a generous move on his part, because he wasn't taking pictures with people. ~~(I keep getting disconnected, so I'll upload the shots of Redford when I can.)~~ As it was taken our bags got tangled
and he apologized, which caught him talking and me smiling. We untangled and his handler moved him on a tight schedule doesn't begin to cover it.

In case you don't know what the Apollo Alliance is all about, this should give you a clue.

Why Do We Call It The Apollo Alliance?
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
–President John F. Kennedy

Obviously, with all the work I've done on John F. Kennedy, this organization
has simpatico sensibilities with what I'm doing.

Talking about the Apollo Alliance, Redford was passionate, but soft spoken, mentioning their 10-point solution. An announcement is coming later today on action, evidently. After opening statements, Redford and Ringo took questions.

Regarding the environment and how it was ignored in the 2004 elections:

“It was criminal what happened in the last election … It was pretty rough to sit there in the last election, seeing the issue ignored or shunned.” – Robert Redford

Continuing on, he was asked a question about the media and their coverage on the environment during 2006. The coverage was “down low” … “I'm hopeful,” he said about the next elections going forward.

In one comment that will delight many, Redford said bloggers play a part that the “mainstream media” does not. That's for sure. It's obvious he thought traditional media just doesn't get it.

There was no doubt that Redford believes that bloggers can, should and must play a critical part on the environmental front going global.

Jerome Ringo also announced that the Apollo Alliance met regarding independence meeting with Senators Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, as well as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Needless to say, former Vice President Al Gore was mentioned in a big way, as Redford talked about him addressing the issue and the solutions, all revolving around his new movie.

Redford had “some involvement” in Gore's movie, which he believes will have a “positive effect.” Then Redford launched into a brief summation of his involvement in the issue way back in the late 1980s global warming conference with the Soviets. The “solutions were the same back then. No vehicle back then to get the language out,” said Redford.

“As long as the public can see it's bad… here 's why it's bad,” and “here's what you can do.” You need to go the part of the solutions, because the evidence is “in their face.” “Solutions,” is where Redford wants to focus, not just scaring the public to death. The “Al Gore film has ended the debate,” according to Apollo Alliance president with Redford. Al Gore's film was an end and a beginning. It addresses the solutions. We must alternatives to fossil fuel and getting oil from foreign countries. – Robert Redford at Special New Media Meeting

Wind power, solar power and other energy solutions are obviously critical

Ironically, Redford worked in the fields for Standard Oil in El Segundo, California many years ago, as did Jerome Ringo, who is from Louisiana. That's their mutual connection to the passion to become energy independent. So, obviously when asked about Katrina, Ringo said the bottom line was “accountability.”

Of course, what would all this be without mention of impeachment? It was broached over Katrina.

That's when Robert Redford became very animated and leaned out to see who exactly answered the question. Then he smiled broadly and let go with a chuckle.

Check out the Apollo Alliance. We need to back this project.

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United Nations: Badge Story is Bogus – FINAL

By Taylor Marsh on 26 May 2006

The story continues to develop and not in a good way for Amir Taheri, the neocons, or for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which was instrumental in giving this story its legs.

I just heard about this and also received a heads up from Greg Sargent on this development.

A letter received today by Wiesenthal Center Dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier, written by Alicia Barnena, Acting Chef de Cabinet, on behalf of the Secretary General, said: “The Secretary-General, who is currently traveling in Asia, was disturbed by this report and asked me to look into this matter immediately. I have now done so, and an analysis of the law by the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tehran finds that there are no suggestions or clauses within the law that refer to religious minorities and their dress, or that would support the serious concerns raised in the National Post story.”
“We are pleased that the United Nations is now involved in the matter and has confirmed that the current law does not have any dress codes for minorities,” said Rabbi Hier.
U.N. Investigation Finds No Evidence Of Religious Minority Dress Code In Iran

Forgive me if I find Rabbi Hier’s statement a big skimpy, especially considering they were willing to confirm it outright last Friday.

On that note, I’ve learned through an impeccable source that Rabbi Hier and the Simon Wiesenthal Center deny that Aaron Breitbart said any of the things I quoted in my reporting. I’m shocked, aren’t you? Hier even denies that anyone ever told me he worked for four hours to confirm the story in Iran, which is exactly what Breitbart said that also included the emphatic statements that the badge story was “absolutely true,” a “throwback” to the bad old days of Hitler, and it’s “very true” and “very scary.” But as this source also suggested, I shouldn’t waste any time on rebutting these boys. I don’t intend to, believe me. My notes are accurate, the quotes verbatim, all the way down to Breitbart’s, “It’s on Drugde.”

After a request from a reader, I also sent an email to the New York Post’s Andy Soltis yesterday, who was one of the authors of the “Fourth Reich” fantasy article. No response from him yet on whether they’re going to back away from their hyperbole. I encourage everyone who is interested in tamping down the volume on Iran to email Mr. Soltis. They, too, should be held accountable for being so irresponsible. LATE UPDATE: I just got off the phone with someone who confirmed my thoughts, which is that Soltis had NOTHING to do with the headline, which comes from the top. Who is at the top? Rupert Murdoch. I’ll get right on having him clarify that headline (–snark alert–).

Powerline is still trumpeting the story, not to mention carrying Taheri’s water for him. That Taheri’s Iranian badge story broke at the same time Olmert was in Washington simply cannot be a coincidence. What Taheri, John Turley-Ewert and even, I’m sad to say, the Simon Wiesenthal Center didn’t count on is my interest and reporting joining up with renowned reporter Larry Cohler-Esses, who took the story to its fullest, so far, in his article, ‘YELLOW’ JOURNALISM!! – Anatomy of a hoax: False story alleging special yellow insignia for Iranian Jews spurred by Wiesenthal Center’s flawed confirmation, in which I am a source.

Frankly, there’s still more to uncover here, starting with who wanted the Iranian badge story stirred up in the first place? Amir Taheri is part of Benador Associates, a neocon pr firm. I also believe that the Simon Wiesenthal Center isn’t blameless in this story. Follow the posts I’ve done reporting this story. It will become clear, but the bogus badge story is done.

Finally, I want to thank all my readers, especially those who took the time to get the truth out that I have done original reporting on this story from the start. I’m not one of the gigantic blogs, doing this all alone, so people were quick to give larger name URLs credit on a story that I was investigating from the start. Without my readers and my own tenacity to get credit for my work, I would have remained in the background. It’s not about blowing my horn, but the importance of having important reporting by a blogger acknowledged, when traditional journalists could not have cared less. Also, it’s just a fact that even people in the blogosphere aren’t quick to credit you if you’re on a new, smaller blog, which I understand, up to a point. But if anyone had bothered to read what I was doing they could ascertain that I had the goods on this one. My wonderful readers did and you’ll never know how grateful I’ve been for your support, comments and emails.

As way of running down thanks, the first … (UPDATE: I slighted my pal, Skippy, who had the story up early.) … to call me was Larry Cohler-Esses of The Jewish Week. It took a while to get credit for being a source, but he didn’t stop until it was made right. Through my guest blogging for Jane at FDL, I was able to truly blast the story to a wider audience. I’m so grateful to Jane for these chances. Today, I’ve now got links from TPM, Glenn Greenwald, MyDD, Andrew Sullivan @ Time, Moderate Voice, Liberal Oasis, with John at Crooks & Liars giving me a headline fitting of what a mother would write, just today. Thank you to everyone. It means the world to finally get support (on this story) from such an amazing group of big blogs, all of whom, besides Jane, are MEN.

Has Bush’s Iran War Propaganda Begun?

The Iranian Badge Story Disappears… sort of

More on the Debunked Iranian Badge Story

Who Started the Iranian Badge Story?

Iranian Badge Story Follow Up

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