Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) used to figure out which sex-ed
programs worked and which ones didn’t by measuring stuff like teenage pregnancy
rates. CDC even described some actual “Programs the Work” on their website,
so that other schools could borrow successful models.

Was that a good thing? Not for the Bush and his right-wing-religious supporters.
Because it turned out that not one single program that worked in the real world
was abstinence-only. Programs that worked also taught kids about condoms, information
that schools now promise not to teach if they want money from the CDC.
CDC pulled its description of “Programs that Work” from its website–after all,
if ignorance is good thing for high school kids it must be doubly so for the
schools that serve them.**

Will kids who take abstinence-only drivers’ ed have a hard time passing actual
driving tests?The Bush model solves that problem–replace the old-fashioned
driving test with a new CDC-approved quiz–and, if kids say they think they
can drive, just give them a faith-based license.

The Bush model means we don’t have to keep any records of accidents and injuries
suffered by students who get faith-based licenses. But let’s hope emergency
room physicians didn’t train in med schools that use the same kind of testing…(“You
think you’ll make a good doctor? Okay, you pass,–here’s your M.D. degree and
have a nice day.”) And let’s hope HMOs don’t figure out that the only sure way
to keep people from dying in hospitals is to close those hospitals down and
lock the doors.

* Do abstinence-only programs work? They are to be tested by these
criteria only:

• Proportion of program participants who successfully complete or remain
  enrolled in an abstinence-only education program.

·

• Proportion of adolescents who understand that abstinence from sexual
  activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually
  transmitted disease.

·

• Proportion of adolescents who indicate understanding of the social, psychological,
  and health gains to be realized by abstaining from premarital sexual activity.

·

• Proportion of participants who report they have refusal or assertiveness
  skills necessary to resist sexual urges and advances.

·

• Proportion of youth who commit to abstain from sexual activity until
  marriage.

·

• Proportion of participants who intend to avoid situations and risk, such
  as drug use and alcohol consumption, which make them more vulnerable to
  sexual advances and urges.

** “Thank you for your interest
in Programs that Work (PTW). The CDC has discontinued PTW and is considering
a new process that is more responsive to changing needs and concerns of state
and local education and health agencies and community organizations”

What’s wrong with “abstinence-only” sex education–programs that don’t mention condoms except to say they can break? Bush claims such abstinence-only programs are all kids need to protect them from AIDS and unwanted pregnancy.

Hey, if abstinence-only works so well for sex-education, why don’t we use
it for drivers’ education?

What, because research shows that kids who take drivers’
ed have fewer accidents and fatalities than kids who don’t learn such skills?
Well, Mr. Left-wing “Scientist,” the Bush team has changed the way we measure success.

From now on, drivers’ ed is a success if 1) kids attend classes, 2) kids learn
that the only sure way to avoid accidents is to stay off the road entirely,
and 3) kids tell you they now have the skills they need. Yes, criteria just
like these are being used to prove that abstinence-only sex education works.

If these criteria work for sex-ed classes, why aren’t they used by med schools? (“You
think you’ll make a good doctor? Okay, you pass,–here’s your M.D. degree and
have a nice day.”) And let’s hope HMOs don’t figure out that the only sure way to keep people from dying in hospitals is to close those hospitals down and lock the doors.

Lots of us talk the talk about blogs as a political force, but Dave and Halley went walking the walk yesterday. That is, they car-pooled up I-93 to hear Senator Bob Graham address the Rotary Club of Manchester, NH (my old home town.)

Now, I don’t agree with everything Dave and Halley say*–but that’s not what matters! What matters is that I got an eyewitness report from fellow-bloggers on a real-life political face-to-face event. (Rich-kid favorites prefer attack ads on tv and push-poll telemarketing.) Dave even got pictures!

And you too can be part of this, as Dave points out:

The key point, the one not to miss, is that anyone can do this. Today’s Rotary session was open to the public. We paid $10 each so we could eat, but if we didn’t want to eat the cost would have been $0. The candidates want to talk to you.

And, bloggers, when the candidates talk to you, they talk to us all! Yee hah! Come all ye bloggers! Put your feet where your mouth is (I always do) — or your carpool where your mouth, or whatever–and blog this primary!

Some little elves armed with modern technology just intercepted a long-distance conference call, to which I added names completely at random…

Bush: Let’s make this snappy. I am on vacation.
Rove: Yes, sir, but we have to deal with this blackout problem.
Cheney: You woke the President up for that? Get Halliburton!
Rove: Sir, our goal is not to improve the US infrastructure–it’s to find a scapegoat for the current blackout.
[Hubbub and confusion. Voices say “Lightning!”–“Power overload!”–“Canada!”]
Rove: Mmmm, we tried all those. None of them worked.
Rice: Tony Blair–no wait, that didn’t work on the WMDs did it?
Bush: Maybe that CIA guy would do it again–you know who I mean….
Rumsfeld: George Tenet, sir.
Tenet: With due respect, sir–no.
Rove: Sir, I have prepared the usual list of loyal allies now willing to take a bullet on this issue. I remove one name at random from this hat–the slip reads [pause] “Dick Cheney.”
Cheney: Hey, you promised me….
Rove: Hmmm, ahhh, there seems to be some mistake…
Ashcroft: Why not Cheney? He’s the guy with the secret Energy Panel….
Rove: …so I’m drawing another slip of paper…
Rice: Hey, this is an emergency! The papers are starting to blame deregulation…
Rove: …and this one says…..[long pause]
Rumsfeld: Well?
Ashcroft: Well?
Cheney and Tenet: [together] It better not be me….
Bush: Well, what does it say?
Rove: It’s a picture of President Truman with his sign–the famous sign that says, “The buck stops here.” [pause]
Bush: Fine, blame Truman. Good-bye. [click]
Ashcroft: You know what this means? Terrorists have infiltrated our scapegoat hat…
[Further transmission was obscured by static.]

You know how when people talk about Fox News, the first words that come to their minds are “fair and balanced“? I mean,we bloggers try to be fair and balanced, but, dang it, Fox News really just pushes that fair and balanced envelope so far out to the edge is isn’t really fair (let alone fair and balanced) to have to compete in the same ballpark with them.

That’s why Fox’s fair and balanced lawyers are
so upset with Al Franken for daring to use the words “fair and balanced” in the subtitle of his latest book,
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

It turns out Fox News has trademarked the words “fair and balanced”! Who knew?

Meanwhile, of course, sales of Franken’s book are soaring thanks to this unforeseen publicity. Rumor has it that Al Franken plans to show his gratitude for these windfall profits by buying a better trademark for Fox News: the phrase, “unfair, unbalanced, and really, really stupid.”

You gotta admit, the California recall campaign is opening up the political scene. Above, two of  the 6 or so million recall candidates attracted to the bright lights of this media circus.  

My brother-in-law Bill Fleece, a former Florida State Senator, just sent the following email to Congressman Darrell Issa of California.

“Your state is millions of dollars in the red. You have spearheaded a recall election slated to cost your state and counties over 66 Million Dollars!

You truly qualify for the slogan “Leave No Millionaire Behind—Vote Republican”.

At best you are a fiscal conservative. At worst you are a blooming idiot. History is replete with examples of narrow-minded, self-centered egotists e.g. Claude Kirk, Napoleon, etc. Welcome to history!

I got a copy with Bill’s comment, “Maybe you will find it amusing.” and I pass it on out to blogworld because I did–thanks, Bill!

I got an email from Dave Winer inviting me to a blogging conference at Harvard. I liked the varied list of speakers–the right-wing Instapundit balanced by Josh Marshall, one of my favorite lefties, and so on. Dave said:

We’re going to talk about how weblogs are used in politics, business, journalism, the law, medicine, engineering and education.

And yet, believe it or not, when you consider that there are at least 200 notable bloggers addressing any one of these topics, the evil elitists of Harvard have invited only about 10 people to address this one-day event. Shocking!

Still, the price tag is $500–more than my blogging budget for the decade. And–sour grapes time–with that price tag, I picture BlogCon as industry-oriented do–aimed at showing the business world how some of our most successful bloggers do things. That isn’t the part of blogging I do anyway.

Now there’s a mini-firestorm in blogworld.

One good result of the hubbub is that Andrew Orlowski has chimed in to praise the bloggers attacking BlogCon. Since this is the first time I’ve ever seen Orlowski express anything but contempt for bloggers, his change of heart must surely be a good thing.

To highlight the futitily of party politics, a retired Britisher is running for office as a Jedi Knight. His platform:

“There really is no place for the posture politics of Westminster at this very local level of government…If it is a job for council to cut grass, the question should not be whether to paint the lawnmower New Labour red, Conservative blue or Liberal Democrat gold but rather how often and how short do the people of Thornbury want their grass cut.”

(Thanks to Hetty W for the link.)

rubber duckies–and now there’s a $100 reward if you can find one.

Do you think they would give me maybe $5 for my old “Interactive Ducky animation” I made when I was learning Flash?

No, I don’t think so either. Oh well, tough duck, er, I mean luck.

The Concord NH Meet-Up for Howard Dean was awesome–for example:

1. I loved hearing people explain why they were there, many at their first meet-up. Several talked about ways the Bush team has damaged international cooperation. A lot were upset about the bad economy. One man talked about civil liberties. Another (a disgruntled Republican) talked about Bush’s big deficits. This was politics at a very local level, about 30 strangers, none of us experienced public speakers, trying to give a coherent account of what we wanted to change.
2. I met some interesting people there, including a Concord hairdresser and a graphic designer who gave me a pin she’d designed herself. The pin has a Union label and says:
   

   GIVE ‘EM HELL, HOWARD!

   I also ran into a couple of friends of friends, including my brother Mark’s fourth grade teacher. (She talked about how much fun he was in class, and how you could hear his voice even when there were 30 other kids singing the same exact tune. *)

3. Meet-Up was at the Green Martini (just across Pleasant St. Extension from local Dean for President headquarters.) I really enjoyed reading their list of drinks, including the Green Martini, and if I live to be 100 and go there every summer and try one, I will maybe eventually try them all. And they even serve breakfast (midnight to 2 a.m.)