Katrina’s Central American Twin: Hurricane Stan

I was on vacation here in Nicaragua last week, staying with friends in a gorgeous house at the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific beach town of San Juan del Sur. The house was built by an American expat who's been living and building in Nicaragua since the 1970s-today, he rents his houses out to gringos in search of a quiet vacation spot on the "undiscovered" Nicaraguan coast. The house was palatial, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't relish my stay there. But as we drove down the long, steep driveway and then along the road that leads into town, amidst the English-only Century 21 and ReMax signs advertising cheap properties for foreigners, I couldn't help noticing the wood and corrugated iron dwellings that crowd the ditches on either side of the road-where the real population of San Juan del Sur lives. The vacation houses in the hills are probably sturdy enough to survive a hurricane, but what of the families living in the valley below? September seems a particularly appropriate moment to contemplate the question, since it commemorates not only the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but also the anniversary of her lesser-known cousin, Hurricane Stan.

25 Years Later These Words Still Ring True

HBO debuted the special "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater" last night (see preview below). With all the moralizing we hear these days - especially about private human relations - I thought it was worth rereading these words that were spoken 25 years ago and yet are still relevant today:

"However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their [img_assist|nid=575|title=Barry Goldwater|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=80|height=100]religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

Restructuring the U.S. Foreign Assistance Program

Craig Lasher is a Senior Policy Analyst at Population Action International (PAI).

As a veteran foreign aid advocate, I was keenly interested when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced in January a major restructuring of the U.S. government's foreign assistance program under a new vision of "transformational diplomacy." Its lofty goal was described as "helping to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system." As the details of the new strategic framework for foreign aid begin to emerge, however, my cynical concern that short-term national security and democracy promotion objectives favored by the State Department would trump the traditional focus of U.S. foreign assistance on development and poverty reduction appears to be on its way to being confirmed. Such a shift could prove enormously detrimental to long-term development programs, including family planning and reproductive health.

Condom Video Sure to Be Ignored

[img_assist|nid=577|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=116|height=177]One of the two groups that formed to sue Montgomery County, Md. public school system over the sex ed curriculum has given the newly-revised condom video positive reviews. Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) thinks the latest version is more clinical and less MTV. The video no longer has "a cute little blonde with a cucumber," according to the president of CRC. Now the demonstration about the correct use of prophylactics only shows a pair of hands putting a condom on a wooden penis and is narrated by a male voice. Maybe the right-wingers substituted a woody...oops, i mean wooden model for the cucumber because they worried about engorged, ...er high expectations. Or, they thought the woman health education teacher was too suggestive (though I guess they aren't worrying about splinters).

Everything Is Bigger in Texas

Editorial Note: With this post, Rewire welcomes Dawna Cornelissen, who is a graduate student in Women's Studies at Texas Woman's University. She is also the president of Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood at TWU.

Everything is Bigger in Texas ...even parental consent forms for abortions. Earlier this month, the Texas Medical Board approved a six page form for minors seeking abortions. This form is a result of Senate Bill 419 passed in June 2005, which was intended to reauthorize the State Board of Medical Examiners, but additionally, made it unlawful for a physician to perform an abortion on a minor without written parental consent. Although a copy of the form is not yet available, Polly Ross Hughes, of the Houston Chronicle, reports that the form "warn(s) of medical risks and tout(s) ‘women's right to know' brochures backed by abortion opponents."

More Than a Choice

Finally, we have a vision! After years of asking what has regrettably been a rhetorical question, "We know what we're against, but do we actually know what we're for?" the Center for American Progress has provided an answer. In issuing "More Than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights" last week, the Center lays out a new approach to reproductive rights.

Kudos to the Center for prioritizing this issue[img_assist|nid=564|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=100|height=85] (it's still at the top of their website after three days!), and to author Jessica Arons, for laying out an agenda that can help us shift the debate and bring a new generation to our side. Arons moves us one step further down the path of broadening the discourse beyond its historic myopic focus on abortion.

Appeasing His Extremists

The Administration's decision to block the funding for UNFPA for the fifth year in a row is descriptive of its overall attitude: set your course and don't ever change. The standard operating procedure seems to be: make a decision, and no matter what the evidence shows, stay your original course.

What if there was a national ballot initiative?

There isn't one, but maybe there is something like it... I subscribe to the RSS feeds for Family Research Council’s (FRC) “Alerts,” and I was struck recently by the 6 new ones that appeared in my inbox:

  • “Volunteers for Virginia Marriage Amendment needed”
  • “Volunteers need to help pass marriage amendment in Wisconsin”
  • “South Dakota faces ballot initiatives on marriage, abortion, and gambling”
  • “Tennessee marriage amendment needs your help”
  • “Effort to defend traditional marriage underway in Idaho”
  • “South Carolina elected officials need to support the marriage amendment”

This is not the FRC PAC sending out these messages. This is FRC’s main office for the 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is legally bound from engaging in partisan electoral activities. Ballot initiatives are technically apolitical — after all, it is not inherently Republican to want to ban gay marriage and abortion (wouldn’t both be an exercise of “big government” intrusion?). They have been the means for political engagements for non-profit organizations in the past, but I don’t know that I’ve seen such a clear example of this scale of activism until this one.

Words of Wisdom from South Africa’s Sonke Gender Justice Project

Every once in a while, a piece of writing comes along that truly connects the dots, challenging us to think beyond the traditional ways in which we tend to divide up issues. "We must act on the lessons learned during the Zuma rape trial," co-authored by South African gender activists Bafana Khumalo and Dean Peacock (both men, by the way) of Sonke Gender Justice Project, is just such an article. It weaves together analysis of the now-infamous Jacob Zuma rape trial (wherein former Deputy President of South Africa Jacob Zuma was acquitted of raping a 31-year-old family friend) with the story of a colleague of the authors who was raped in her home by a stranger while the trial was unfolding.