Showing posts with label Milwaukee WI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milwaukee WI. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2007

Do you bite your hypocritical thumb at me sir?

Bouncing around ye olde blogosphere today, as I'm wont to do, I stumbled across a post by Milwaukee's own folkbum, who noted an article written by MJS editorialist Patrick McIlheran about the recently passed access to emergency contraception bill. Folkbum rightfully points out both the hypocrisy and plain old disgusting nature of the article, homing in on one passage in particular.

Jones-Nosacek points out that Plan B amounts to an extra-large dose of contraceptive drugs. If people worry about trace amounts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water, Plan B ought to be at least a little worrying, given that endocrine disruption is what it's all about, she says. Yet the law doesn't let doctors apply any medical judgment to the patient before giving the drug: It must be given on request to any woman of any age.
A man who has consistently railed against environmentalists who speak out against pollutants trying to use their own arguments against something he opposes? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Beyond that, the article argues that religious hospitals shouldn't have to make emergency contraception available to rape victims because it violates their right to refuse to do something that goes against their beliefs. It's a common argument, and one with some merit: after all, I'm a huge proponent of the separation of church and state, so just as I believe that no one should dictate what religion I should or should not follow, I also believe that no one should force someone to do something that goes against their beliefs (unless, of course, we're talking about life-and-death situations and cases involving abuse).

But here's the thing: those Catholic (and other religious) hospitals? They're getting something like half of their operating expenses from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Very little of their funding comes from churches or other religious sources. Here's the breakdown:

• Combined Medicare and Medicaid payments accounted for half the revenues of religiously-sponsored hospitals in 1998.
• In 1998, religious hospitals nationwide received more than $45.2 billion in public funds: $35.7 billion in Medicare payments, an estimated $8.8 billion in Medicaid payments and nearly $700 million in other types of government appropriations. In 1999, Medicare alone provided $41.3 billion of sectarian hospitals’ patient revenues.
• The other half of religious hospitals’ operating revenues came almost entirely from insurance companies and other third party payers, not from churches or other religious sources.
• By 1999, of all community hospitals, religiously-sponsored facilities were the most reliant on Medicare payments, with Medicare alone accounting for 36 percent of gross patient revenue (compared to 34 percent for all hospitals). Religious hospitals, like nonsectarian facilities, used federal funds from the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act (better known as Hill-Burton) to rapidly expand in the 1950s and 60s. Many of those same hospitals now utilize tax-exempt government bond issues to obtain low-cost financing of reconstruction and further expansion, the study found In two large states, New York and California, religious hospitals received at least $650 million from such government bond issues in 1998. Like other non-profit entities, religious hospitals enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status, including exemption from property taxes and eligibility for charitable donations.
If an organization is getting most of its funding from public, governmental sources, then it ought to be beholden to the rules and mores codified in state and federal law. Otherwise all the arguments for "separation of church and state" being thrown around by opponents to the Plan B laws are rendered the hideously hypocritical bleats we've long suspected they were.

A hospital wishing to turn their noses up at the law should cease accepting public funding, period. Otherwise, there is simply no excuse for forcing a rape victim to jump through a series of hoops to get EC. It's about as uncharitable and uncaring as you can get.


(image credit: ec.princeton.edu)

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Blogs Speak: Ziegler and Shoebat

My what an opinionated bunch we are (I guess that's why we blog):

Paul Soglin has a take on the UW-M/Walid Shoebat affair that's interesting and very reasoned. I do agree that they have every right to bring Shoebat in to speak, but I also still think Shoebat is an extremist who pays a lot of lip-service to being pro-Israel but is then prone to making statements like these:

Your third offense is your sheer stupidity, a thing the Jewish people cannot afford for their survival. It was sheer stupidity that cost so many Jewish lives. Many Jews tend to trust the wrong people, but when the right people come along they doubt. Jews trusted in Oslo and were sold, Jews trusted in Germany and were killed, Jews trusted their Arab employees and where slaughtered....

When will Jews ever trust the right people? Better then this question is this - why should rightous gentiles stand with the Jewish people, risk everything to get stung by so many Jews who doubt them?

Again, I'm trying to find his love and respect for the Jewish people, but it's hard to sort it out through the thick clouds of condescension.

Rick Esenberg weighs in on the Judge Ziegler conflict of interest debate and, despite his many typos (seriously, these things do have a spell check function), makes some valid points.

Now, while everyone else is wailing and gnashing their teeth over not being able to watch the Packers-Cowboys game tonight (well, everyone except those who live in the designated "home viewing areas" of Green Bay and Milwaukee and those with satellite), I'll be desperately trying to get my novel up to the 50k mark before midnight Friday, which will include a marathon writing session tonight. Wish me luck!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Mysterious Mr. Shoebat

Full disclosure: I'd never even heard of this guy until today when, during my pained perusal of various right-wing blogs, I came across several references to a one Mr. Walid Shoebat. A darling of the religious right and super pro-Israel organizations, Shoebat claims to be a former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) "terrorist," having committed any number of violent acts against Jews and Israel, who has since seen the light, converted to Christianity, and now travels the country praising Israel and denouncing Islam. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is hosting a talk by him on Dec. 4th, an event that the campus' Muslim Student Association is protesting against.

It's all a little confusing. There appears to be very little official documentation on the guy to help back up his claims of PLO pedigree (though I don't suppose the PLO keeps very precise records of its membership), and his extremist views about Islam, humorously opposite but still similar to his old views about Judaism, are certainly cause for alarm.

It has been pointing out that Shoebat, though claiming to have once beat an Israeli officer into a "bloody gore," among other offenses, doesn't seem to have ever been investigated by the US. Palestinians (and Muslims in general) with far lesser black marks on their report cards have been deported, but this man was allowed to become a naturalized citizen and to move freely about the country. That seems odd to me. He should absolutely be allowed to be here, to travel freely, to give talks, etc. What I'm suspicious about is the stark contrast between his treatment and the treatment of other men with similar (or allegedly similar) backgrounds.

See, the thing is, Shoebat's fundamentalist Christian faith holds that Jewish domination of Israel-Palestine will lead to Armageddon (the Rapture), a time when those people/countries who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved and everyone else gets to roast in hell for all eternity, including (ho! ho!), those poor Jews he now professes to love so much. How is that not antisemitic?

Charlie Sykes, Jessica McBride, and others of their ilk are up in arms that anyone would have a problem with this guy, tossing accusations of antisemitism and racism around like hot cakes. I don't necessarily agree with the MSA's contention that this man shouldn't be allowed to speak on campus. Fair is fair. But if someone takes issue with his message and his credentials, they have just as much right to criticize and call him on his shit as he does to get up and talk.

Walid Shoebat seems to simply have gone from one extremist point of view to another. This isn't growth, it's a lateral slide where nothing is really learned. Calling for an end to antisemitism is good, but following up that call by claiming that all Muslims are evil is wrong. It should be simple. Anything less is hypocrisy.

Some folks on the far-right like to act all surprised and hurt when "those nasty liberals" call foul on their favorite mouthpieces and figureheads. Oftentimes, the tactic employed to silence the critics is to accuse them of the same kind of bigotry and bias that they, the accusers, are guilty of. It's a tried and true method, but extremely detrimental to the quality of the greater debate and just downright shitty. Both sides need to rise above such petty mud slinging and get to the real issues: working to promote understanding and unbiased education for and between rival groups, dispelling stereotypes and myths, and helping the next generation achieve some kind of meaningful coexistence.

It would help if some of them stopped pushing so hard for the Rapture, too.

No one religion should get to keep Jerusalem all to themselves. The land belongs to no man, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can make with the peace. All sides--Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, whatever--need to ante up and do their part to make it happen. No one is completely without blame. No one bears the full brunt of responsibility. We all share it, and it will take us all to make things better.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Who says bumper stickers are meaningless?

Remember that ridiculous post about liberal bumper stickers that came courtesy of Atomic Trousers? The one that then inspired an even more ridiculous alteration of the "Coexist" sticker by Tom McMahon (and my response)? Well, it keeps getting more and more interesting/ridiculous as the days pass.

Right-wing radio host Charlie Sykes featured the bumper sticker post on his own site, calling it "brilliant" and letting the self-congratulatory back-patting from the right side of the blogosphere roll on in. But then the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee chimed in, and Sykes didn't like the sound of what they were saying.

Here's his response to their letter (with the original letter included at the bottom of the post).

Plaisted has a very decent response to all of this, calling Sykes and his ilk on the hypocrisy inherent in them playing the role of victim on the one hand and preaching about the perils of false victimhood on the other.

I don't know if McMahon replaced the Star of David with the Nazi swastika with the intention of comparing Judaism to Nazism. I really doubt it. Still, the fact remains that it was a wildly insensitive thing to do, and warrants, at the very least, an apology. They can leave the altered bumper sticker up if they so desire because it is their right to do so. But for heaven's sake, take some responsibility for your actions and mistakes once in a while, will you? There's a difference between censorship and thoughtfulness that these folks seem to be missing outright.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Fair Trade in Milwaukee

Listening to Wisconsin Public Radio this morning, I was extremely pleased to hear that the Milwaukee Common Council has just passed a "fair trade city" resolution, making Milwaukee the first major city in the US to do so.

There are already a number of businesses that offer fair trade goods in and around Milwaukee, so having the support of the whole city is a huge boon. Hopefully this resolution will be a spring board for greater education about what fair trade is and means to a community, and also to more widespread adoption of the practice.

Being "Fair Trade Certified" ensures that:

...strict economic, social and environmental criteria were met in the production and trade of an agricultural product. Fair Trade Certification is currently available in the U.S. for coffee, tea and herbs, cocoa and chocolate, fresh fruit, flowers, sugar, rice, and vanilla. TransFair USA licenses companies to display the Fair Trade Certified label on products that meet strict international Fair Trade standards.

Fair Trade Certification empowers farmers and farm workers to lift themselves out of poverty by investing in their farms and communities, protecting the environment, and developing the business skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace."

Globally, Fair Trade certification is obtained through the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) and FLO CERT, an umbrella organization that sets social, economic and environmental standards and inspects applicants to make sure they're following them in order to become certified under the Fair Trade label.

By supporting businesses that follow the Fair Trade model, we help to decrease the demand for cheap sweat shop labor and unfair and often harmful practices. We pay the extra dime or two to help bring people across the globe out of poverty and into healthier, more sustainable lifestyles.

I hope that other US cities (cough Madison cough) follow Milwaukee's lead by passing similar resolutions, and then making sure to follow them up with solid, long-term action.
The Lost Albatross