Entries for August 2009

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

One key element of our recovery is that oil prices remain relatively low. I was disappointed recently to see them rise above $70 per barrel, which is twice as high as the low point for oil last December and earlier this year. Today, they fell again due to a slow Chinese economy. But Americans had better realize that if they go back above the $100 level, our meager recovery will slow to a halt.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Virginia, my beloved home state, has produced yet another out-of-sync Republican candidate who is trying to lead the commonwealth. When will the religious right learn that when "true believers" are unmasked, their bizarre beliefs don't resonate with mainstream voters? Robert McDonnell, the GOP's candidate for governor of Virginia, was caught by the Washington Post expressing his true beliefs:

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. ...

During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.

McDonnell is singing that "I've changed my tune" tune. Somehow I'm not believing him. Reminds me a bit too much of a candidate who promised hope and change, and has failed to deliver much of either.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

A Virginia man is getting national attention for marital infidelity. He volunteered to do penance after his wife discovered his six-month affair. His wife suggested he go public. So he's been standing at a busy suburban intersection outside Washington, D.C., sporting a large sign that reads, "I cheated. This is my punishment."

Although the man's identity has not been confirmed and some speculate it may be a publicity stunt or some other kind of hoax, that has not stopped the media frenzy, as his penance has gone global on news Web sites, cable networks, etc. Some women say public humiliation could be a way to make men think twice about cheating. The Washington Post notes that the man is unemployed but his wife has a job.

Methinks I smell a motive.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Male contraception? Yes!

British researchers at Oxford University are on the verge of creating a male birth-control pill, and I say, Bravo!

From Science Progress: 

The dearth of male contraceptives, especially long-acting, reversible contraceptives, referred to as LARCs, contributes to an unjust arrangement in which women bear the majority of the social, economic, and health-related burdens associated with contraception. Today, there are eleven female contraceptive methods but only two male methods: condoms and vasectomy.[1] Women alone contracept 67.3 percent of the time. If we include shared methods as well as male condom use, which women often negotiate, then women are involved in almost 91 percent of all contraceptive use. Men, in contrast, only participate in contraceptive use one third of the time.[2]

When authorities first started prosecuting deadbeat dads for child-support payments some two decades ago, it was hoped this would act as a male contraceptive: one night of fun versus 18 years of payments. Who wouldn't weigh the consequences more seriously? Unhappily, however, it hasn't dulled Americans' appetite for out-of-wedlock births, which have soared since the 1980s.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Pardon me. I'm still reeling from the gut-punch stupidity of some members of the GOP. If they can't get away from antiquated, racist and race-based statements, they have no future as a national party.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

This is political correctness run amok. An Islamic rights group in Michigan and Raneen Albaghdady, a Muslim woman there are suing a judge in the state, claiming that he requested that she remove her hijab, or religious head covering,

when she was petitioning for a name change, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in a U.S. district court in Michigan ... The lawsuit says Callahan "insisted" that Albaghdady, a naturalized citizen, remove her hijab and that she eventually complied. It says the judge denied Albaghdady's petition for a name change, saying that she had filed her petition five days too early.

I have traveled the world and I've always observed local customs on dress. I can't imagine emigrating to Saudi Arabia and being able to dress there the way I do here. Constitutional experts and civil libertarians are throwing rotten tomatoes at me as I speak, I am sure. But I do believe in the power of the phrase, "when in Rome, do as Romans do."

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Go Wikipedia, go! But go even farther than today's news suggests. Finally, the wild West-like, Web-based encyclopedia is reining in some Internet cowboys. I take it as a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless. It means at the very least that I'm hardly alone in having dealt with Web-lurkers who take aspects of one's bio that are not major markers of one's accomplishments and turn them into signature events in that person's life.