Glenn Greenwald has some good stuff this week, including on the hearings on some of the more seedy lying from the administration, underlining how -- rhetoric aside -- Bushies treat the troops. Note an early link on that entry, suggesting yet again "moral" means "my religion" to these people. As he notes, this sort of stuff is not surprising, if depressing, and if the Democrats didn't win in '06, Congress wouldn't have had the guts to have such testimony. And, unlike the award winning reporter who died in a car accident recently, he notes the press weren't much better.
GG has a new book coming out, so let's go on a book segue as well. A few books on tape. I have read Around The World In Eighty Days a few times, and enjoyed them all ... unclear how no movie (a t.v. and film version was attempted) really did it justice. It worked well on CD too ... Frederick Davidson did a good job narrating, getting the tones (a charm of such performances is the person doing different voices) right. A fun book with a nice touch of romance and honor. Since I'm a fan of all three, it's no surprise it is one of my favorites.
I read Bart D. Ehrman's book on Peter, Paul and Mary, enjoying the discussion of these three biblical characters (Mary Magdalene, not Mary, the mother of Jesus). The book surely was not all inclusive, but probably was better for it. Ehrman has various books out, including more scholarly works on non-biblical Christian writings. [Some very interesting stuff there, even though much of it is pretty late, so clearly not more "true" than the canonical gospels, at least as history.] So, he is a good choice to comment on the Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code (which I have not read/seen). [This too was on CD.]
Covering some of the same ground, including how a historian analyzes material, he notes there is a lot of fiction in a book he assured the reader that he enjoyed as fiction. Too bad the author tried to have it both ways. How's this for a segue ... Sherry F. Colb in her When Sex Counts: Making Babies and Making Law (a collection, with added notes and updates, of her Findlaw columns) cites Da Vinci Code commentary in one of her essays on the saint/whore stereotype. The collection, now that I read most of them, is worthwhile.
Still, she has a bit of a one track mind. For instance, consider her essay on Coker v. Georgia, the ruling that struck down the death penalty in cases of rape.* "This judgment, in turn, trivializes the suffering of rape." Colb notes a recent case where a state handed down the death penalty for child rape. Likewise, hmm, Justice White wrote the ruling. Why the focus on adult women? Didn't he also write Bowers, the ruling dismissive of the rights of homosexual men?
The dissenters in Bowers joined the ruling too. [Blackmun joined the majority in Coker, though he dissented in Furman v. Georgia, which set in place what amounted to be a few year stay of execution.] Why shouldn't harm to children (both men and women!) be deemed worse than harm to adults? Is rape really worse than death? And, is this "dismissive" to what is at stake?
We do not discount the seriousness of rape as a crime. It is highly reprehensible, both in a moral sense and in its almost total contempt for the personal integrity and autonomy of the female victim and for the latter's privilege of choosing those with whom intimate relationships are to be established. Short of homicide, it is the "ultimate violation of self." It is also a violent crime because it normally involves force, or the threat of force or intimidation, to overcome the will and the capacity of the victim to resist. Rape is very often accompanied by physical injury to the female and can also inflict mental and psychological damage. Because it undermines the community's sense of security, there is public injury as well.**
I think not. [As an aside, the ruling also referenced international practice in noting "it would be difficult to support a claim that the death penalty for rape is an indispensable part of the States' criminal justice system."] A related theme pops up in pregnancy essays. The idea is that it is sexist to treat bodily integrity differently when women are involved. Sure. But, some do think there are some limits when a pregnant woman is involved, when a fetus is affected. In practice, I probably agree with near absolutism on such matters, but realistically we need to understand the point.
But, she is not totally one track -- in an essay on a teenage girl who asked her boyfriend to "abort by baseball bat" (implications by some that it wasn't really consensual, but it is assumed so for the case) she notes that the law in question was probably meant for non-consensual cases. So, it wasn't not really a good application of the law to target him and him alone. Overall, worth a read, surely for free over at Findlaw.
[I'd add that the above quote from the ruling applies to all rapes really, in no way does it somehow suggest rape of women specifically warrants a less supreme punishment. As to Findlaw, another recent commentary piece by Michael Dorf questioned on free speech grounds the value of boycotting Imus. The final comment was basically "change the channel." But, as other critics of the media suggest, it is not like there is a true alternative to this style of independent minded elite news heavy show. It amounts to a monopoly of sorts. So, pressure to change is of particular value here.]
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* On a related subject, the Supremes recently handed down three death penalty rulings, all 5-4 deals with the usual suspects supporting the defendants. The Chief Justice, per the EPA dissent, threw in some more sarcasm, talking about "dog's breakfast" and the like. I don't mind some spleen, but this ridicule is really a bit tedious, especially coming from the CJ.
** The ruling cited: See Note, The Victim In a Forcible Rape Case; A Feminist View, 11 Am.Crim.L.Rev. 335, 338 (1973); Comment, Rape and Rape Laws: Sexism in Society and Law, 61 Calif.L.Rev. 919, 922-923 (1973).