AddieStan

In Damascus, the respectful non-Muslim woman wears In Vatican City, the respectful non-Catholic woman wears White House photo by Shealah Craighead, 2006 Now, can we call this thing settled? (And here your blogstress thought the best thing about Vatican II was no longer having to pin a tissue to one's head to enter a confessional after having forgotten one's doilie.)

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Holy Wednesday, Batman! The big, bad inside-the-Beltway media has, at long last, discovered your blogstress, via a far more august organ than that on which your eyes currently rest (namely, TAPPED , the Weblog of The American Prospect Online). Check out Conn Carroll 's post at The Hotline 's Blogometer , and scroll to the sub-head, "Obama: Bigger Than Jesus." Then kindly note that your Webwench never said Obama was bigger than anybody.

Melissa Silverstein of the Women's Media Center has posted a provocative piece about women in sports, just in time for the climax of the NCAA championships: Women's reluctance to embrace sports as fans may reflect one of the most disturbing issues in women’s sports—the hypersexualization of the female athlete. As a culture, we think it’s okay for a woman to be athletic as long as she is still feminine. Marie Harden finds it ironic: "The whole idea of athletic accomplishment is about respect for what the body can do, and the sexualization of the body undermines athletic power and accomplishment." Mary Jo Kane believes that turning women athletes into sex symbols has a powerful homophobic undercurrent. Covering women’s sports in a sexualized way, she says, may be thought to "reassure fans, corporate sponsors, officials, athletic administrators, parents and in many cases the women themselves that they are not too masculine." For similar reasons, when women ...

Fascinating post from John Aravosis at AmericaBlog on Joe Murray, the turncoat lawyer for the American Family Association . While that man's story is, in itself, an intriguing one, it's a bit of Arivosis's own story that caught my eye: As an aside, this is an example of something I learned from Senator Kennedy's staff in the early 1990s. Don't necessarily write someone off just because you disagree -- even if you disagree violently. There's a core of humanity in (most) everyone -- it's only a matter of finding it, or helping them find it in themselves.

photo © 2007 Adele M. Stan for Americans United Now it can be told; it was your blogstress who broke the news last month of Ann Coulter's bad night at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Your cyberscribe's story of threats and soul-searching in sunny South Florida now appears on the Web site of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the venerable organization that sent your écrivaine into the lion's den. With regard to the all-round Christian love and acceptance claimed by propagators of this particular brand of faith were the misrepresentations of Islam by Ann Coulter and Tony Perkins , lo, of the Family Research Council . Herewith, a taste: Both stirred the pot against Muslims, as well, with Coulter repeating her post-9/11 remark that the leaders of Muslim countries should be forcibly converted to Christianity, and Perkins complaining that the Muslim call to prayer is "now broadcast over American cities." (The use of the word "broadcast...

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- On Friday, Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman addressed a conference of feminist media types , noting the ability of those who stand against feminism to create faux crises, and to serve them up beautifully packaged for mainstream media reportage. As an example, Goodman told the audience at the WAM! conference a purported crisis in the academic achievement of boys being shunted aside by their schools in favor of girls -- essentially crating conditions that made it easier for girls to achieve than boys. Some scholars, notably Christina Hoff Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, charge that misguided feminism is what's been hurting boys. In the 1990s, she says, girls were making strong, steady progress toward parity in schools, but feminist educators portrayed them as disadvantaged and lavished them with support and attention. Boys, meanwhile, whose rates of achievement had begun to falter, were ignored and their problems allowed to fester ...

Long before R2D2 was a gleam in George Lucas's eye, there was the Hammond B-3. Okay, so it's not a robot per se, but I would venture to guess that we might get to hear a few more B-3s played live if someone could figure out a way to use robotics to move the dern things from place to place. The Hammond B-3 is the famous organ used in such R&B masterpieces as Al Green's "Take Me to the River". It's an electric organ that forces the sound through a sort of fan called a Leslie, affording it a lovely whirring texture. Tomorrow night, the sublime vocalist (and former Washington Redskin) Dick Smith will be accompanied by an all-star outfit at his gig at The Islander , including Hammond B-3 player and all-round keyboardist Greg LaMont . Throw David "Git" Cole into the mix, and you've got a hot night. The performance starts at 7:00 PM.

In response to Jim Dwyer's aforementioned piece on the NYPD's widespread spying on people who planned to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention, the New York Times has run some elucidating letters to the editor . To wit: To the Editor: I was struck by the dry statement that “many of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention were held for up to two days on minor offenses normally handled with a summons.” My daughter was among those arrested. She and the people she was with asked each police officer they passed whether he had any objection to their peacefully walking down the street and were reassured that there was no problem. They were herded into a trap surrounded by police officers (some embarrassed and apologetic). They were taken to a warehouse. The only water was one toilet and one water fountain. They were left chained together in groups overnight, sleeping without pads or blankets. Many developed rashes and other allergic reactions. Those whose medicati...

Your blogstress is most gratified to see that, two-and-a-half years after the fact , the extreme and unconstitutional level of surveillance and free-speech impediment resorted to by New York City Police during the 2004 Republican National Convention remains of interest. Today, Jim Dwyer 's page-one piece from yesterday's New York Times ranks among the paper's "most e-mailed" articles, meaning that it's making the rounds beyond the paper's usual (and significant) readership. Before anyone thinks wistfully of the possibility of a presidential candidacy by New York's mild-mannered Mayor Michael Bloomberg , your Webwench humbly asks such a one to reconsider in light of the news of the widespread and worldwide spying done by New York's finest in the year leading up to the convention. And beyond the spying was the nasty little tactic of detaining people just before they were to begin their protests, only to release them without charge some 24 hours...

2006 © NoVaRon D.C. denizens won't want to miss bluesman David "Git" Cole tomorrow evening at The Islander , one of the great, authentic U Street establishments. If you've never seen Cole with his band, Main Street Blues, you really can't call yourself a blues fan. Consider the gauntlet thrown, mes amis . For a taste -- more a tease, really -- of Cole with his big, red guitar, check out his MySpace page .

Your blogstress finds herself most charmed by the use of this term, with its French-like construction, and one with which she has heretofore been unfamiliar (the term, that is; not French construction, to which the bowing stays of her bustier will readily attest). These days in medialand, of course, "a date certain" refers to a provision in legislation making the rounds on Capitol Hill that calls for the "redeployment" of those U.S. troops now quagmired in Iraq, legislation that very well may pass both houses of Congress, only to be vanquished by the mighty presidential pen. [It's apparently a common legal term . As for your Webwench, she'll settle for un rendez-vous certain (et chaud) ce fin de semaine .]

photo by David Guard/Stop the Drug War Looks like Ken Starr , author of the titilating Starr Report , has gone all butch 'n' everything, apparently taking a page out of the Jack Abramoff sartorial playbook. Alas, Starr, even in his black hat -- which would look much more sexy on a hatstand, thinks your blogstress* -- can't hide his kill-joy spirit as he tries to vindicate, via the Supreme Court, the high-school principal who expelled a student for unfurling a banner that read, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Mr. Starr appears to have missed the part of the New Testament known as the Semon on the Mount, wherein Jesus tells his followers: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. No...

It's hard to know just what to make of the confessions gushing out of Guantanamo this week. First, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad , who allegedly took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, and now Waleed bin Attash , whom AP's Pauline Jelinek reports as having taken responsibility for blowing up the U.S.S. Cole. Your blogstress knows nothing of bin Attash, and has no reason to doubt his confession other than the fact that it may have been coerced by torture-like methods. But that doesn't mean it's not true. More to the point, thinks your écrivaine , are the remarks of Jamal Gunn , a 26-year-old in Virginia Beach who lost his brother, a U.S. sailor, in the Cole attack: "The thing is, we want accountability from all levels, not just the foreign nationals who pulled off the attack, who masterminded the attack, but those who let it happen within our government as well," said Jamal Gunn, 26, of Virginia Beach, Va., whose brother, Cherone Gunn, was killed aboard the Cole...

You have the right to remain seated -- or do the Macarena -- while you watch your blogstress's omni-instrumental compadre, Steve Messina , man the mallets .

Beware the Ides of March, a day on which rendering unto Caesar bode not well for Rome's commander-in-chief. As for our own top gun, though less fatal, it's not such a great day , either.

Your blogstress agrees most heartily in principle with The Nation ’s Patricia J. Williams and Brother Ben Adler , your Webwench’s colleague on TAPPED, that the parents of a nine-year-old with the brain of three-month-old should not have to choose between institutionalizing her or subjecting her to a hysterectomy. However, there’s one bit of Williams’ argument your écrivaine finds a bit faulty, and it’s quoted by Brother Ben in this TAPPED post : “Who of us, with full capacity to consent, would undergo the painful invasiveness of a full hysterectomy just to prevent cramps or as a prophylactic against rape's violations? Why then should it be permitted in the case of someone who has no capacity to protest?” The answer to this question clearly depends on one’s perspective, and it’s one, I think, that an adult woman with full capacity to consent should be permitted to decide on her own, but she is not. Your cybertrix, you see, would have gladly undergone a full hysterectomy for the...

While hordes of New York's finest once followed Rudolph Giuliani to City Hall for something of a race riot against then-Mayor David Dinkins , New York's bravest apparently have no intention of helping Dinkins' successor into the White House. According to the Associated Press , the fire-fighters' union today accused Giuliani of ordering the desceration of the remains of firefighters buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center after 9/11: The International Association of Fire Fighters, in a draft letter, excoriated Giuliani for his November 2001 decision to cut back the number of firefighters searching the rubble of Ground Zero for the remains of some 300 fallen comrades. The 280,000-member union accused him of expediting the clean-up process with a "scoop-and-dump" operation after the recovery of millions of dollars in gold, silver and other assets from the Bank of Nova Scotia that had been buried. For those too young to remember (your blogstress was a ver...

Your blogstress finds it rather disheartening to see her fellow liberals, in a rather mean-spirited manner, questioning the gender identification of Ann Coulter , a self-described straight, Christian woman. Just today, your cybertrix read a comment on a liberal site from a reader who said that he had always "read" Coulter as a "trannie." Tsk, tsk, says your Webwench, who has several trangendered friends, all of them kind, funny and smart people. (After all, there's a reason why they're your net-tête 's friends.) To borrow a construction from Mlle. Coulter, why would you want to insult the transgendered by counting Ann Coulter among them?

Melissa Silverstein of the Women's Media Center offers this take (quoting your blogstress's fabulous former colleague, Mary Kay Blakely) on the new media war between right-wingers and the feminist bloggers who were hired by the John Edwards campaign, only to relinquish those appointments after the noxious Bill Donohue -- a first-rate mysogynist and anti-Semite -- made great hay out of the posts of Pandagon 's Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister : As the drama unfolded, others enthusiastically joined the attack, and disturbing sexualized comments flooded into the women’s blogs. "Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man," read one posting. Another was, "It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little." Sexualized threats against women, and especi...