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Feb

25

[UPDATE] Loony Ladies of the Left vs. Profiteering Poptarts of the Right

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The 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference takes place in Washington, D.C. later this week. I suppose it’s divine intervention that moments after I finished browsing the three day agenda, Al Gore won the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth (no link anywhere yet it’s so new) (yeah, okay, it’s the movie that won – I wouldn’t want to start a rumor like Al Gore discovered the Internet).

But what I wanted to note, out of all the things I could note about CPAC, is that 1) nearly all the book signings are by women, and that includes Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and 2) there’s an entire hour dedicated to “Loony Ladies of the Left: How to Combat the Radical Feminists on Your Campus.”

Wow. Someone is really worried. Or just into name-calling.

Way to show those traditional family values to upcoming generations, CPAC organizers.

UPDATE
Seems as though this entry received a visit from the sponsor of Loony Ladies, the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute.

Here’s how the session is described on their website:

Christina Hoff Sommers—author of Who Stole Feminism and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men—will discuss how to deal with wacky feminists at a special CBLPI event at CPAC. The event will be held during the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, March 2 at 4 p.m. in the Chairman’s Room at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

What kind of women does the Luce Institute hold up as the gold standard? Pat Buchanan‘s sister:

Bay Buchanan is president of The American Cause, an educational foundation dedicated to advancing traditional conservative issues.

She began her political career as the national treasurer of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. This position catapulted her into a distinguished career beginning in 1981 when President Reagan appointed her to be treasurer of the United States.

Ronald Reagan called on her again in 1983, this time to chair his Commission on Women Business Owners.

Bay served as the campaign chairman for all three of her brother Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns. During the 1996 presidential primary season, she emerged as a national figure steadfastly championing the right to life of the unborn child.

Currently, Bay is a regular political analyst for Inside Politics on CNN, where she debates Donna Brazile. A native of Washington, DC, Bay has a masters degree in mathematics from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and has further studies at several universities, including the University of New South Wales in Australia.

She lives in Virginia and is the proud mother of three sons.

What’s The American Cause? This is just what Wikipedia says, so take it FWIW, but Wiki-pee calls it a paleoconservative foundation. And I can tell you, I’m not real fond of how paleoconservative is described.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:45 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments 

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Feb

25

[UPDATE] Loony Ladies of the Left vs. Profiteering Poptarts of the Right

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

The 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference takes place in Washington, D.C. later this week. I suppose it’s divine intervention that moments after I finished browsing the three day agenda, Al Gore won the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth (no link anywhere yet it’s so new) (yeah, okay, it’s the movie that won – I wouldn’t want to start a rumor like Al Gore discovered the Internet).

But what I wanted to note, out of all the things I could note about CPAC, is that 1) nearly all the book signings are by women, and that includes Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and 2) there’s an entire hour dedicated to “Loony Ladies of the Left: How to Combat the Radical Feminists on Your Campus.”

Wow. Someone is really worried. Or just into name-calling.

Way to show those traditional family values to upcoming generations, CPAC organizers.

UPDATE
Seems as though this entry received a visit from the sponsor of Loony Ladies, the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute.

Here’s how the session is described on their website:

Christina Hoff Sommers—author of Who Stole Feminism and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men—will discuss how to deal with wacky feminists at a special CBLPI event at CPAC. The event will be held during the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, March 2 at 4 p.m. in the Chairman’s Room at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

What kind of women does the Luce Institute hold up as the gold standard? Pat Buchanan‘s sister:

Bay Buchanan is president of The American Cause, an educational foundation dedicated to advancing traditional conservative issues.

She began her political career as the national treasurer of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. This position catapulted her into a distinguished career beginning in 1981 when President Reagan appointed her to be treasurer of the United States.

Ronald Reagan called on her again in 1983, this time to chair his Commission on Women Business Owners.

Bay served as the campaign chairman for all three of her brother Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns. During the 1996 presidential primary season, she emerged as a national figure steadfastly championing the right to life of the unborn child.

Currently, Bay is a regular political analyst for Inside Politics on CNN, where she debates Donna Brazile. A native of Washington, DC, Bay has a masters degree in mathematics from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and has further studies at several universities, including the University of New South Wales in Australia.

She lives in Virginia and is the proud mother of three sons.

What’s The American Cause? This is just what Wikipedia says, so take it FWIW, but Wiki-pee calls it a paleoconservative foundation. And I can tell you, I’m not real fond of how paleoconservative is described.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:45 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Feb

25

Delta Zeta Blech (rant alert)

Filed Under Politics | 8 Comments

Okay – advance apologies to any DeeZees who are nice and normal. The only DeeZees I’ve known, however, fit the stereotypes advanced in this New York Times article today. And it’s incredibly sad to learn that since I had my first run-ins with DeeZees, nothing has changed.

It was the summer of 1983. My four roommates filled their spaces for the summer with subrenters. Four girls. Two from Ohio University, one from Brown and one from Minnesota (I don’t remember what college). The OU girls were DZ sisters. And just like the picture on that link, they were pink and green and pink and green and pink and green, all over.

One of them was also possibly the nastiest, meanest, racist, bigoted person I’ve ever met in my life. Their antics became so bad that I moved out with only a month left before the summer ended. And it was my on-campus GU apartment.

And P.S. to anyone who thinks, because of St. Elmo’s Fire, that Georgetown had Greek houses? Nuh-uh. Those scenese were filmed at University of Maryland because GU has no Greek houses, not a one. That was one of the main reasons I chose to go there.

What exactly did they do? I’ll leave it at this one example: they made over $400 in 1-900 calls – you all remember 1-900 calls before the days of the Internet? That’s the pornline exchange from the mid-80s. And $400 was a lot of phone time even back then.

Oh – why did this bother me? As sublettees, they had no responsibility, legally, to the phone bill. Just me.

NAHstay alright.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:36 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | 8 Comments 

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Feb

25

Bloggers, commenters in trouble – but could easily be you or me

Filed Under Politics | 15 Comments

Two stories to note:

1) I’ve been following a story about someone who is trying to force Google to provide information that will unveil an anonymous blogger, Orthomom, because the person seeking the information feels that she’s been defamed by comments on that blog. Because I stumbled upon this lawsuit, I’ve had a hard time getting caught up. But after Jack’s Shack left a comment on this post, I delved into Jack and that brought me to Jameel’s blog and this summary post about the lawsuit (if you want to know more about Jameel – who isn’t really named Jameel, you can go here to learn more about that).

The situation involves a Long Island (Lawrence) school board member who has sued this well-known but anonymous Orthodox Jewish blogger for a comment left on the blogger’s blog, though very obviously not written by the blogger. It’s a circuitous story which, for newcomers, Jameel makes understandable.

How well-known can an Orthodox Jewish anonymous blogger be? The New York Times referenced Orthomom as a news source in September 2006 (Times Select but you can get a preview free if you go to NYT’s search) for its story about tensions in Orthomom’s community on Long Island due to the increase in Orthodox families in the five towns area.

Here’s a recent local (to Long Island) MSM news story that also describes what’s going on. From it:

Hofstra University Law Professor Eric M. Freedman said Greenbaum’s action of seeking Orthomom’s identify has little to no chance of moving forward since derogatory language against a public official like a school board member is protected under the first amendment. Professor Freedman, an expert on the First Amendment and other civil liberty issues, said in order to seek the identity to pursue a lawsuit there needs to be a chance that the grievance would be successful which is not the case in Greenbaum’s action.

“If the courts are behaving appropriately this filing will go absolutely nowhere,” said Professor Freedman. “If she knew who Orthomom was and sued her directly it would be thrown out.”

It could happen here, that’s all I’m saying. Although the main issue of the lawsuit has to do with the plaintiff Pamela Greenbaum’s desire to unveil the anonymous Orthomom, it also has to do with people speaking out for and against public funds being used for private schools. Free speech. Is a school board member enough of a public figure to allow people to besmirch them anonymously when blog debates over how to use public funds for schools occur?

These issues are only going to multiply. So we need to watch and see what’s happening. And it involves big kahunas like Google who hold our identities.

2) I can’t believe that not a single blog I follow has written about the 22 year old Egyptian law student who was sentenced by an Egyptian court to four years in prison because his writings are interpreted by the court as insults to Hosni Mubarak and Islam. Maybe I’m not following the right blogs, or I missed it.

More from The Guardian here.

What’s most interesting to me is the following:

Two US congressmen have previously expressed deep concern about the arrest of Nabil and called for the charges to be dropped.

“The Egyptian government’s arrest of Mr Amer simply for displeasure over writings on the personal weblog raises serious concern about the level of respect for freedoms in Egypt,” representatives Trent Franks and Barney Frank, said in a joint letter to Egypt’s ambassador to the US, Nabil Fahmy.

The Bush administration has not commented on Nabil’s trial, despite its past criticism of the arrests of Egyptian rights activists.

Guess our government doesn’t want to increase its appearance as hypocritical beyond where it already is, hoping to preserve the possibility that it may one day want to do the same thing to American bloggers?

Amnesty International has started a campaign called Irrepressible.info. Go take a look and think about how you can contribute. This is a nonpartisan issue when it comes to blogs.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:55 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | 15 Comments 

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Feb

25

Delta Zeta Blech (rant alert)

Filed Under Politics | 8 Comments

Okay – advance apologies to any DeeZees who are nice and normal. The only DeeZees I’ve known, however, fit the stereotypes advanced in this New York Times article today. And it’s incredibly sad to learn that since I had my first run-ins with DeeZees, nothing has changed.

It was the summer of 1983. My four roommates filled their spaces for the summer with subrenters. Four girls. Two from Ohio University, one from Brown and one from Minnesota (I don’t remember what college). The OU girls were DZ sisters. And just like the picture on that link, they were pink and green and pink and green and pink and green, all over.

One of them was also possibly the nastiest, meanest, racist, bigoted person I’ve ever met in my life. Their antics became so bad that I moved out with only a month left before the summer ended. And it was my on-campus GU apartment.

And P.S. to anyone who thinks, because of St. Elmo’s Fire, that Georgetown had Greek houses? Nuh-uh. Those scenese were filmed at University of Maryland because GU has no Greek houses, not a one. That was one of the main reasons I chose to go there.

What exactly did they do? I’ll leave it at this one example: they made over $400 in 1-900 calls – you all remember 1-900 calls before the days of the Internet? That’s the pornline exchange from the mid-80s. And $400 was a lot of phone time even back then.

Oh – why did this bother me? As sublettees, they had no responsibility, legally, to the phone bill. Just me.

NAHstay alright.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:36 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | 8 Comments 

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Feb

25

Bloggers, commenters in trouble – but could easily be you or me

Filed Under Politics | 14 Comments

Two stories to note:

1) I’ve been following a story about someone who is trying to force Google to provide information that will unveil an anonymous blogger, Orthomom, because the person seeking the information feels that she’s been defamed by comments on that blog. Because I stumbled upon this lawsuit, I’ve had a hard time getting caught up. But after Jack’s Shack left a comment on this post, I delved into Jack and that brought me to Jameel’s blog and this summary post about the lawsuit (if you want to know more about Jameel – who isn’t really named Jameel, you can go here to learn more about that).

The situation involves a Long Island (Lawrence) school board member who has sued this well-known but anonymous Orthodox Jewish blogger for a comment left on the blogger’s blog, though very obviously not written by the blogger. It’s a circuitous story which, for newcomers, Jameel makes understandable.

How well-known can an Orthodox Jewish anonymous blogger be? The New York Times referenced Orthomom as a news source in September 2006 (Times Select but you can get a preview free if you go to NYT’s search) for its story about tensions in Orthomom’s community on Long Island due to the increase in Orthodox families in the five towns area.

Here’s a recent local (to Long Island) MSM news story that also describes what’s going on. From it:

Hofstra University Law Professor Eric M. Freedman said Greenbaum’s action of seeking Orthomom’s identify has little to no chance of moving forward since derogatory language against a public official like a school board member is protected under the first amendment. Professor Freedman, an expert on the First Amendment and other civil liberty issues, said in order to seek the identity to pursue a lawsuit there needs to be a chance that the grievance would be successful which is not the case in Greenbaum’s action.

“If the courts are behaving appropriately this filing will go absolutely nowhere,” said Professor Freedman. “If she knew who Orthomom was and sued her directly it would be thrown out.”

It could happen here, that’s all I’m saying. Although the main issue of the lawsuit has to do with the plaintiff Pamela Greenbaum’s desire to unveil the anonymous Orthomom, it also has to do with people speaking out for and against public funds being used for private schools. Free speech. Is a school board member enough of a public figure to allow people to besmirch them anonymously when blog debates over how to use public funds for schools occur?

These issues are only going to multiply. So we need to watch and see what’s happening. And it involves big kahunas like Google who hold our identities.

2) I can’t believe that not a single blog I follow has written about the 22 year old Egyptian law student who was sentenced by an Egyptian court to four years in prison because his writings are interpreted by the court as insults to Hosni Mubarak and Islam. Maybe I’m not following the right blogs, or I missed it.

More from The Guardian here.

What’s most interesting to me is the following:

Two US congressmen have previously expressed deep concern about the arrest of Nabil and called for the charges to be dropped.

“The Egyptian government’s arrest of Mr Amer simply for displeasure over writings on the personal weblog raises serious concern about the level of respect for freedoms in Egypt,” representatives Trent Franks and Barney Frank, said in a joint letter to Egypt’s ambassador to the US, Nabil Fahmy.

The Bush administration has not commented on Nabil’s trial, despite its past criticism of the arrests of Egyptian rights activists.

Guess our government doesn’t want to increase its appearance as hypocritical beyond where it already is, hoping to preserve the possibility that it may one day want to do the same thing to American bloggers?

Amnesty International has started a campaign called Irrepressible.info. Go take a look and think about how you can contribute. This is a nonpartisan issue when it comes to blogs.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:55 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | 14 Comments 

Print This Post Print This Post

Feb

25

Delta Zeta Blech (rant alert)

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

Okay – advance apologies to any DeeZees who are nice and normal. The only DeeZees I’ve known, however, fit the stereotypes advanced in this New York Times article today. And it’s incredibly sad to learn that since I had my first run-ins with DeeZees, nothing has changed.

It was the summer of 1983. My four roommates filled their spaces for the summer with subrenters. Four girls. Two from Ohio University, one from Brown and one from Minnesota (I don’t remember what college). The OU girls were DZ sisters. And just like the picture on that link, they were pink and green and pink and green and pink and green, all over.

One of them was also possibly the nastiest, meanest, racist, bigoted person I’ve ever met in my life. Their antics became so bad that I moved out with only a month left before the summer ended. And it was my on-campus GU apartment.

And P.S. to anyone who thinks, because of St. Elmo’s Fire, that Georgetown had Greek houses? Nuh-uh. Those scenese were filmed at University of Maryland because GU has no Greek houses, not a one. That was one of the main reasons I chose to go there.

What exactly did they do? I’ll leave it at this one example: they made over $400 in 1-900 calls – you all remember 1-900 calls before the days of the Internet? That’s the pornline exchange from the mid-80s. And $400 was a lot of phone time even back then.

Oh – why did this bother me? As sublettees, they had no responsibility, legally, to the phone bill. Just me.

NAHstay alright.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:36 pm February 25th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off 

Print This Post Print This Post

Feb

25

Bloggers, commenters in trouble – but could easily be you or me

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

Two stories to note:

1) I’ve been following a story about someone who is trying to force Google to provide information that will unveil an anonymous blogger, Orthomom, because the person seeking the information feels that she’s been defamed by comments on that blog. Because I stumbled upon this lawsuit, I’ve had a hard time getting caught up. But after Jack’s Shack left a comment on this post, I delved into Jack and that brought me to Jameel’s blog and this summary post about the lawsuit (if you want to know more about Jameel – who isn’t really named Jameel, you can go here to learn more about that).

The situation involves a Long Island (Lawrence) school board member who has sued this well-known but anonymous Orthodox Jewish blogger for a comment left on the blogger’s blog, though very obviously not written by the blogger. It’s a circuitous story which, for newcomers, Jameel makes understandable.

How well-known can an Orthodox Jewish anonymous blogger be? The New York Times referenced Orthomom as a news source in September 2006 (Times Select but you can get a preview free if you go to NYT’s search) for its story about tensions in Orthomom’s community on Long Island due to the increase in Orthodox families in the five towns area.

Here’s a recent local (to Long Island) MSM news story that also describes what’s going on. From it:

Hofstra University Law Professor Eric M. Freedman said Greenbaum’s action of seeking Orthomom’s identify has little to no chance of moving forward since derogatory language against a public official like a school board member is protected under the first amendment. Professor Freedman, an expert on the First Amendment and other civil liberty issues, said in order to seek the identity to pursue a lawsuit there needs to be a chance that the grievance would be successful which is not the case in Greenbaum’s action.

“If the courts are behaving appropriately this filing will go absolutely nowhere,” said Professor Freedman. “If she knew who Orthomom was and sued her directly it would be thrown out.”

It could happen here, that’s all I’m saying. Although the main issue of the lawsuit has to do with the plaintiff Pamela Greenbaum’s desire to unveil the anonymous Orthomom, it also has to do with people speaking out for and against public funds being used for private schools. Free speech. Is a school board member enough of a public figure to allow people to besmirch them anonymously when blog debates over how to use public funds for schools occur?

These issues are only going to multiply. So we need to watch and see what’s happening. And it involves big kahunas like Google who hold our identities.

2) I can’t believe that not a single blog I follow has written about the 22 year old Egyptian law student who was sentenced by an Egyptian court to four years in prison because his writings are interpreted by the court as insults to Hosni Mubarak and Islam. Maybe I’m not following the right blogs, or I missed it.

More from The Guardian here.

What’s most interesting to me is the following:

Two US congressmen have previously expressed deep concern about the arrest of Nabil and called for the charges to be dropped.

“The Egyptian government’s arrest of Mr Amer simply for displeasure over writings on the personal weblog raises serious concern about the level of respect for freedoms in Egypt,” representatives Trent Franks and Barney Frank, said in a joint letter to Egypt’s ambassador to the US, Nabil Fahmy.

The Bush administration has not commented on Nabil’s trial, despite its past criticism of the arrests of Egyptian rights activists.

Guess our government doesn’t want to increase its appearance as hypocritical beyond where it already is, hoping to preserve the possibility that it may one day want to do the same thing to American bloggers?

Amnesty International has started a campaign called Irrepressible.info. Go take a look and think about how you can contribute. This is a nonpartisan issue when it comes to blogs.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:55 am February 25th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off 

"));