Latest in Nuke News

Last week, we interviewed Mary Olsen (of Nuclear Information and Resource Service) on Occupy the Microphone. (For the best in recent nuke news, check out NIRS.org)



Some of the news Mary shared with us:

[] In March, the NRC denied a third reactor to Calvert Cliffs nuke in Maryland:

The five-member commission [that oversees the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] upheld an earlier Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruling on the Calvert Cliffs 3 new nuclear reactor application, which had denied UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC’s application because of its failure to meet NRC foreign ownership requirements for US power reactors.

On Aug. 31, the three-judge ASLB denied a license for the proposed Calvert Cliffs unit 3 project because UniStar was bought out by Electricite de France in November 2010, resulting in 100-percent French ownership of UniStar.

[] In April, the Crystal River nuke in Florida was permanently shut down due to cracks in the containment dome and other problems; it has been offline since 2009 and has been a long-term headache for Duke Energy ever since:

The Crystal River plant in Citrus County, Florida, is operated by Progress Energy Florida. A failed repair to its thick reactor containment building led to repeated problems with cracking concrete in the structure.

Duke cited differences with merger partner Progress Energy last year over Crystal River’s condition. Progress CEO Bill Johnson, who was fired as chief executive of the combined companies, had favored repairing the 36-year-old plant.

But a Duke-commissioned engineering report late last year concluded that, while repairs were feasible, they could cost up to $3.4 billion in a worst-case scenario.

[] In May, the Kewaunee nuke in Wisconsin was permanently shut down:

The Kewaunee plant, which opened in 1974, was sold in 2005 to Dominion, based in Richmond, Va., by its owners, the Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Wisconsin Power and Light. In the past, the lengthy decommissioning process that nuclear power requires was in the hands of local companies, which have had the option to go to a public service commission and ask for a rate increase to pay for the job if it proved unexpectedly difficult.

But Kewaunee was a “merchant” plant, a sort of free agent on the grid, selling its electricity on contract, at a price set by the market, not by the government.

...

Earlier this year, [Rep. Edward Markey] pointed out, the owners of the Crystal River 3 plant in Florida decided to retire it rather than repair its containment structure, because of unfavorable economics. Industry experts say that several reactors are operating at a loss while their owners wait for the glut of natural gas to disappear. How long that will be, and how many will last, is not clear.

“Once these old nuclear reactors shut down — as we’re seeing now — it will take 60 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to decontaminate them,” Mr. Markey said in a statement. “Taxpayers should have assurances that these nuclear relics don’t outlive their corporate owners and their ability to fund nuclear cleanup costs, leaving ordinary Americans to foot the bill.”

[] The NRC denied a license to Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for their proposed South Texas 3 & 4 Project (a joint venture between NRG Energy and Toshiba) because Toshiba owns a controlling interest in the nuclear reactors, in violation of US law:

The federal regulator denied the application of Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for a license to build the reactors, noting that Toshiba’s ownership stake in and “overwhelming financial contributions” to the project afford it a degree of control over the nuclear power plant that exceeds the limits of the Atomic Energy Act.

“The staff has determined that Toshiba, a Japanese corporation, through Toshiba American Nuclear Energy Corp. … its American subsidiary, is the sole source of financing for NINA,” the commission said in a letter denying the license.

[] Nuclear plant San Onofre 2 & 3 in California, has been shut down permanently, due to one disaster after another:

[The] nuke plant’s two operating reactors had already been shut down since January 2012. Southern California Edison’s decision to give up the ghost can be traced to its pattern of extreme mismanagement of plant operations, consequent huge financial losses, and the tenacious opposition that rallied local communities to take action to keep the unsafe plant shut down.

San Onofre is the largest nuclear power plant to be shut down in the US. One reactor was retired in 1992. The other two, just cut loose, formerly generated 2200 Megawatts of electricity to 1.5 million households. Located between San Diego and Los Angeles, the plant supplied power to 1.5 million households. 8.7 million people live within 50 miles of it. The two reactors at San Onofre had been scheduled to operate until 2022.

...

Long before Fukushima, San Onofre had already been having its own problems.
Reactor Unit 1, started up in 1968, had to be shut down in 1992 after problems with equipment that came back to haunt Edison with a vengeance in recent years at its other reactors.

In 2006 workers found radioactive water under Unit 1 that was 16 times more radioactive than EPA permitted levels for its presence in drinking water. And this was 14 years after that reactor had been shut down.
In August 2008 the Los Angeles Times reported “Injury rates at San Onofre put it dead last among US nuclear plants when it comes to industrial safety.” Later that year it emerged that a battery system, key to providing backup power to pump water to flood Unit 2’s reactor in case of a potential meltdown “was inoperable between 2004 and 2008 because of loose electrical connection,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported.

And also in 2008, the Radiation and Public Health Project reported, in the European Journal of Cancer Care, that the counties nearest San Onofre, had the highest child leukemia mortality rates, of counties near nuclear power plants studied for the years 1974-2004.

...

All this led to 2009 and 2010, when Edison found it necessary to replace the four massive steam generators in San Onofre’s units 2 and 3. The original steam generators lasted over a quarter century, though they were supposed to last for the life of the reactors, 40 years. Steam generators facilitate the creation of steam to turn turbines to generate electricity in the type of nuclear plants most common in the US. Water pipes run through reactors and are heated by nuclear fuel. But this water also picks up lots of radioactivity. The steam generators have tubes that pass on the heat to another set up pipes that make the steam, while not passing on the radioactivity, which otherwise would escape into the environment and contaminate it. Thus the steam generators are key to keeping these nuclear plants running safely. Edison reportedly spent $680 million on the replacement steam generators. Since the plant was not originally designed to need replacements, the utility had to cut huge holes in buildings to get them inside.

And then they turned to junk in just a few years.

In a March 2012 report , Arne Grundersen, of Vermont’s Fairewind’s Associates, a former nuclear industry engineer, described the decisive moments when San Onofre’s shut down began in January 2012: “Unit 3 was operating at full power and experienced a complete perforation of one [steam generator] tube that allowed highly radioactive water from inside the reactor to mix with non-radioactive water that was turning the turbine. As a consequence, an uncontrolled release of radiation ensued, and San Onofre was forced to shut down due to steam generator failure.”

[] And finally, Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy has shelved all plans for a nuclear reactor in Iowa, opting for wind turbines instead:

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa’s second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant: “We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers,” MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register.

Mid­American will focus on its plan to build up to 656 wind turbines in a $1.9 billion project across Iowa, which also will trim power bills by saving fuel costs.

Thanks to Mary for coming on our show; she will be revisiting us soon.

Haley Watch: Nikki and Michele have a slumber party!

At left: BFFs Nikki and Michele trash the NLRB and foment anti-union sentiment at a recent SC Town Hall meeting.




I debated whether that was a sexist title, and then I thought, wait, WHO am I talking about here? Two of the most pernicious political women in the country. Therefore, I reserve the right to invoke sexist slumber party jokes! (Sorry about that yall, but I just can't be politically correct ALL the time.) And seriously, it does sound like that to me. Can't you just imagine all that right-wing giggling, as they huddle together in their jammies, popping popcorn and conspiring to deny even more rights to labor unions and gays?

Makes me slightly nauseous to think about it:

Michele Bachmann had some face-time with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Sunday night, dining with the governor and coveted endorser and staying over at the governor's mansion, according to a source familiar with the get-together.

It's not the first time of late that Haley has appeared with Bachmann — she recently made a surprise showing at the presidential candidate's town hall forum in the state.

The latest get-together came as Rick Perry, who is crowding out Bachmann in attention and with tea party activists, is holding a town hall in the Palmetto State with Rep. Tim Scott.

Rick Perry notably missed Jim DeMint's Tea Party Extravaganza in Columbia yesterday, since much of Texas is currently in flames. I respect his decision to stay in his home state to deal with the wildfires, even if he is nervous about debating. As Texas governor, he really needs to do his ELECTED JOB first.

And besides the slumber party (Aside: Since they are both so pro-war, maybe I should call it Slumber Party Massacre, which I'll bet you feminists didn't known was written by none other than Rita Mae Brown), there is plenty more where that came from.

((drum roll)) THIS is the big enchilada we have all been waiting for!!!

Yes, I know. I roped you in with vague promises of Republican girl-romps, and now, I get all economically-serious on your asses. More apologies. Things can't be girly fun all the time, you know.

Or maybe it can! Let's go to EUROPE on the people's dime! Yee-ha!

I KNEW she was a fiscal fake (since she has never held a real job), and now we have proof of it. I am printing the following article from the Charleston Post and Courier in its entirety, for emphasis. (And thanks to SC Progressive Network for always being on the case; damn, I loves you guys!!)

European vacation or legitimate business? Haley's fiscal priorities under fire as summer 'jobs' trip detailed
BY RENEE DUDLEY
rdudley@postandcourier.com
Monday, September 5, 2011

Gov. Nikki Haley's weeklong trip to Europe in June in search of "jobs, jobs, jobs" cost South Carolinians more than $127,000. But the governor and her entourage of more than two dozen returned without any finished deals to bring new employers to the Palmetto State.

Daisy pauses to scream: TWO DOZEN? Christ, Hillary didn't even take that many people to freaking Bosnia.

Haley, who captured the governor's office preaching fiscal restraint, spent the cash so she, her husband and the rest of the state's contingent could stay in five-star hotels; sip cocktails at the Paris Ritz; dine on what an invitation touted as "delicious French cuisine" at a swanky rooftop restaurant; and rub elbows with the U.S. Ambassador to France at his official residence near the French presidential palace.

The South Carolina group also threw a soiree at the Hotel de Talleyrand, a historic Parisian townhouse where they feted foreign employers in hopes they'd set up shop in South Carolina. The Department of Commerce billed the $25,000 event as a "networking opportunity for members of the South Carolina delegation."

"It was a great party," Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt said in an interview last week.

Expenses from the trip still are being submitted, Hitt said. The $127,000 figure represents spending only by the Commerce Department, which covered many but not all of Haley's expenses, he said.

Daisy is hereby reduced to sputtering. (This hardly ever happens.)

This is a nakedly greedy, self-serving and self-involved politician who is zealously cutting services to disabled people, so she can eat nice food in France. Where, if I am not mistaken, Marie Antoinette was from.

Nikki needs to go read about what happened to HER.

It's unclear exactly what Haley accomplished during the taxpayer-funded excursion. Many documents released Monday to The Post and Courier in response to a July 7 Freedom of Information Act request were heavily redacted.

During a press conference -- unrelated to the trip -- Friday afternoon in Charleston, Haley told the newspaper the state "closed two deals" while abroad. She referred further questions to the Commerce Department.

We'll be looking forward to hearing about those deals, Governor. Why no big-ass bitchin press conference, like the one you had to announce that Amy's Organics was moving here to the upstate?

Put up or shut up. Show us the money!

In a follow-up interview Friday, Hitt said the state, in fact, closed no deals. Two agreements involving foreign employers are in the works, he said. He provided no details.

Spending criticized

Critics called the mid-June trip an inappropriately timed junket: It took place at the zenith of legislative debate over the tightest budget in recent history.

Benefits of the trip for South Carolinians -- who confront an unemployment rate of almost 11 percent -- are unclear, said the critics, who include a respected state senator from the governor's own party and a Columbia Tea Party organizer.

John Crangle, executive director of South Carolina Common Cause, asked, "What did they bring home from the hunt?"

Crangle, whose organization is a government ethics watchdog, then answered his own question: "They came back with an empty whiskey bottle," he said. "Or I guess since they went to the Ritz it was an empty Champagne bottle. They had a good time at the state's expense."

S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said Haley was "channeling Marie Antoinette."

"Has the average South Carolinian ever stayed in a $650 a night hotel or spent almost $4,000 in one week on airfare?" Harpootlian said. "Her response to the people who footed the bill would be, 'Let them eat cake.' "

Like they say, great minds think alike.

Or is it just such an obvious comparison in these harsh economic times?

S.C. Sen. Tom Davis, a Beaufort Republican, called the logic of economic development trips "flawed."

"If you get the fundamental things right -- solid education and health care -- capital will come to the state," Davis said. "Those are the functions of government. Not creating jobs. ... It's a socialist state when the government's core function is to create jobs."

But Hitt, the Commerce secretary, defended the excursion as a "vital link" for attracting foreign employers to South Carolina instead of other nearby states.

"We have to go out and market ourselves," he said. "It's a tough game to play."

Following repeated requests, Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said Thursday he would "find three to five minutes" for a phone interview with the governor, but by Friday Godfrey said in an email "the governor is not available." Godfrey said in the email that the governor had offered the newspaper an "exclusive opportunity to accompany the delegation" to Europe to "cover, first hand, the productivity of the trip." The newspaper declined.

Godfrey had requested an emailed list of questions for this story, but he did not respond to them. In a statement, he said: "Governor Haley will never miss an opportunity to talk about our great state's business opportunities to companies across the world -- and that's what her trip to Europe was about."

The newspaper briefly spoke with Haley after finding her at the Charleston news conference Friday.

Accomplishments?

Haley and the two dozen-member South Carolina contingent traveled to France and Germany the week of June 18. They attended the International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget and toured BMW headquarters in Munich.

A daily itinerary shows the governor and her staff scheduled more than 20 meetings in France and Germany, but the details are heavily redacted because they contain "confidential proprietary information," the governor's attorney said in a letter. Among the only unredacted business meetings were appointments with Boeing and BMW, which already have large operations in the state.

Haley's office cited no expectations or results involving the mission, although the newspaper specifically requested both in its Freedom of Information Act letter.

The governor had planned to discuss economic development progress with the media during her trip. Her itinerary twice shows time set aside for "availability with South Carolina media." But the time slot was 10:45 a.m. Paris and Munich time -- that is 4:45 a.m. South Carolina time.

Actually, I think they call that being a garden-variety DUMB ASS.

Haley did, however, express her hopes in a YouTube video shot at the Paris Air Show on June 20. In it, she said Boeing's arrival in South Carolina has fanned the interest of "so many suppliers who are looking to do business here." She continued: "We will continue to work on jobs, jobs, jobs, but just know that everybody in this beautiful city is talking about our beautiful state of South Carolina."

The state's official overseas economic development missions date to the 1960s, when the textile industry's decline made officials scramble to find replacements, said Douglas Woodward, a professor at the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business.

"It laid the groundwork for the revitalization of the state's economy," said Woodward, who specializes in economic development studies. "German chemical companies and BMW put us on the map. Before that, I'm not sure that Europeans would know where we are. ... The benefits can be enormous, but it takes time."

Critics, though, are wary of vague benefits, saying state officials shouldn't waste taxpayer cash on overseas trips while simultaneously approving deep cuts in education and health care spending.

"It's hard to know whether or not there was any benefit to these trips," said Crangle of Common Cause.

Allen Olson, an organizer for the Columbia Tea Party, said he wants to know how the money was spent.

"If there was waste, we have a problem," he said.

Upgrading to compete

South Carolina has had a presence at the Paris Air Show each year since 2005. Gov. Mark Sanford, who took at least one major international trip each year he was in office, had attended.

The Commerce Department did not respond last week to a request for Air Show spending details for each of those years.

This year, though, the state had some upgrades.

For the first time, South Carolina abandoned the standard booth in favor of a "chalet," an area with shared conference rooms, business equipment, private bathrooms, a patio and a "beverage service," Hitt said.

"My view was that we needed something different. ... It's more professional," said Hitt, a former BMW executive who filled the Commerce post in January. "The things we did this year are the things we have to do to be successful."

By comparison, North Carolina's commerce department got a booth and sent seven people to the Air Show, spending about $112,000, according to a spokesman for that state. Georgia sent two people and had no booth, a spokeswoman for that state said.

Neither state's governor attended the show.

Critics such as Harpootlian, the Democratic party chairman, said ancillary industries connected to Boeing and BMW would be unswayed by the governor's visit to Europe. Suppliers would follow the major industries to the state regardless, they said.

"At this point you don't have to go pitch them," the Columbia attorney said. "They will come here."

But Hitt said South Carolina must make a grand appearance at the show to compete with nearby states like North Carolina and Georgia for the new employers.

"It's naive to think people will show up no matter what," Hitt said. "Simply responding to emails and phone calls -- it's not the way it works."

Harpootlian countered that argument, saying, "You can recruit employers without staying in a five-star hotel."

Hitt, who originally denied the group stayed in five-star accommodations, said, "We have a special rate we worked out."

The average daily rate for the governor's hotels was $430, according to the Commerce Department.

More perks

When they weren't dining out, Haley and her entourage had "warm meals" delivered to their hotel rooms. They used the "VIP access" at the airport, according to an itinerary. Airfare to and from Europe cost about $1,530 per person, according to travel receipts from the governor's office.

Some members of the group also traveled by plane and train while in Europe, trekking to the German cities of Munich, Dresden and Stuttgart. Airfare from France to the German cities cost about $2,000 for Haley alone, the records show.

Michael Haley -- the governor's husband, who is a technician for the South Carolina National Guard -- paid his own travel expenses, according to Commerce Department. He traveled by train to the German cities, where he attended meetings with the U.S. Europe and Africa Commands. Hitt, the Commerce secretary, said those meetings also involved economic development.

Commerce officials said 27 people were in the South Carolina delegation, which included staffers and security agents from the governor's office, managers from the Commerce Department, S.C. Sen. Hugh Leatherman, a Florence Republican, and Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin. The group charged more than $5,100 in per diem expenses to the state, according to the Commerce Department.

About a dozen members of the group represented the state's regional economic development "alliances." Eight of those groups, which receive a share of tax dollars, contributed $8,000 apiece to help cover the trip's expenses.

Additional overseas economic development trips are on the horizon.

Hitt said last week he is planning a trip abroad later this month. He said the governor would not be attending, but he declined to provide any further details.

Haley's June trip, her first overseas trip as governor, is not likely to be her last.

India is one location she has considered. Haley met Meera Shankar, the Indian Ambassador to the U.S., in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, according to a March press release posted on the ambassador's website. At that time Haley said she wanted to "visit India along with a trade and business delegation," the release said.

Renee Dudley for Pope! Great expose of a TOTAL FUCKING PHONY.

Read and pass along please!

So here I am, unemployed, scrambling for peanuts, as my husband's taxes pay for Governor Haley to eat gourmet French foods and have warm meals delivered to her room. Why am I not surprised the Tea Party Queen is just another liar?

As one of my favorite modern philosophers once said, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I thought the French had class?

Photo from the UK Guardian.



Gerard Depardieu publicly pees on a plane:

A flight attendant told the French actor that he would have to wait to use the bathroom until after takeoff. So he just relieved himself on the plane's carpet. No biggie!

Another passenger went to French radio station Europe 1 with her eyewitness account of the urination, saying a visibly drunk Depardieu repeatedly asked to use the bathroom, but was told to wait 15 minutes.

"And then he did it on the floor..." the witness said. "No one said anything. It all happened with courtesy."

After the actor peed on the floor, the plane had to turn right back around and return to the gate, where a crew reportedly spent two hours cleaning up the peed-on plane.

A CityJet spokesman confirmed the incident to Agence France, but did not say whether Depardieu was kicked off the flight.

Depardieu, 62, has a history of drunken antics. In 2009, the actor beat up a car, smashing in the windshield with his bare fist. In 1990 he was convicted of drunk driving.

"It all happened with courtesy?" Say what? (I often do not understand Europeans, even when they speak English.)

Ask yourself some fun questions: what if a black hip-hop star, or even Courtney Love behaved like this?

There really ARE different standards of behavior for different people. A white European movie star who pisses on the airplane carpet is regarded as embarrassing and even amusingly gross. Other people acting similarly could be (and have been) regarded as a threat or as dangerously out-of-control. Even though Depardieu has a history of actual violent behavior, Anderson Cooper couldn't stop giggling while reporting this story on CNN. Would such a stunt be equally funny from an African-American NFL star? Just sayin.

It all depends on who you are. The laws are literally enforced differently, depending on what observers are feeling about who you are and the persona you project. That is what "profiling" means. It means you make people uncomfortable.

Make them comfortable, and as the world's most successful con-men will attest, you can get away with anything.

PS: Gerard apologizes, blames prostate.

Odds and Sods - St Rita's edition

A rather long time since I did an Odds and Sods post, so here we are.

I've dipped my toe back into the waters of Blogdonia with great trepidation, keeping my head down, minding my manners and decidedly not frightening the horses. See? Despite what you may have heard, I CAN behave myself when I want!

~*~

Today is the Feast of St Rita of Cascia, subject of many fevered novenas from Daisy in years past. Since she is also the saint in charge of the bees, I decided I'd include some links on what the experts have named colony collapse disorder. Believe it or not, as one connected to herbs in a personal way, I have stayed awake at night worrying over the fate of the bees. The poor bees could be signaling The End of The World As We Know It.

And now, a big hole in the ocean and an oil leak the size of Madagascar, drilled by evil greedheads. No, I guess THIS will be our undoing, the meteor-to-the-dinosaurs. I am sick over this, and it has superseded my worrying over bees.

Too much to worry about.

Um, just a question, but what is Obama doing? Does he have his thumb up his ass or what? Is he actually WAITING for BP to fix their multi-billion dollar, environmental disaster? And why should he wait for them? It's not THEIR coastline!

I've heard this called "Obama's Katrina"--and that isn't precisely accurate (or fair), since this isn't a natural disaster, it's a thoroughly unnatural one. Nonetheless, it has the ring of truth.

Get off your ass, Mr President, and stop attending state dinners for five seconds. The future of the ocean and the coastline (not to mention people's livelihoods) is at stake and it doesn't look good when you are doing little more than photo-ops.

~*~

At left: The WWII aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, which we toured back in (I think) 1993. It's permanently parked down at Patriot's Point in Charleston Harbor.

Edit: My original photo was of a cruiser named the Yorktown, which was not the aircraft carrier Yorktown. Many thanks to the Eagle Eye of Ted Christian (who should have been in congress), a rocket scientist with attendant amazing and arcane areas of knowledge.




Mr Daisy has been reading about WWII and depressing me with talk of battleships blowing up and whatnot. As children, I remember that we all wondered when "World War III" would come, and none of us ever doubted it that it would. We asked our mothers when it would be, and few seemed to find the question bizarre or alarming... after all, they had lived through a World War, and it seemed reasonable to assume more were on the way.

Magic Lantern Show gives us beautiful photos of a French WWI memorial near Verdun, as Owen describes touring such a place:

[How] many people know that the largest American cemetery in Europe is in Romagne sous Montfaucon, or that it is from World War I and holds the graves of 14246 Americans, as well as the names of another 954 men whose bodies were never found?

I spent a few days this past fall wandering the area near Verdun looking for traces of World War I. One afternoon I stumbled on the American Cemetery near Romagne sous Montfaucon, and spent a couple of hours exploring the vast park that it is. Why had I never heard of this place? Why weren't we taught about it in high school? Walking the seemingly endless rows of white marble crosses I was short of breath, nearly gasping at the enormity of it, the tragedy of lives cut short in firestorms of flying steel and lead. The names of the dead cried out from each cross in silent pain, a name, a state, a military unit, a date of death. Who were these men who died between September 26th and November 11th, 1918, as they drove the Germans back northwards along a line to the west of Verdun? What actually happened there? What did the letters they wrote home say? What did their families and the women they loved experience in those terrible years?

We are approaching the 10th year of the war in Afghanistan, and we would do well to remember that war is hell.

Bring them home now, yesterday, last month, last year... wait, where's my new bumper sticker: I'm already against the next war.

~*~

Disturbing reading at this Feministe thread: On Hating Kids.

As of this writing, there are 632 (!) comments, and yes, I briefly commented, but (as stated previously) I minded my manners.

But truthfully?

Whenever I hear "I hate ___(fill in the blank)____" from anyone, I wince and my opinion of them goes down a notch or two, or 85. How can anyone say, I hate ____, when you simply haven't met them all?: I hate the Muslims, I hate the vegetarians, I hate gays, I hate kids. All sounds the same to me. Apparently, hating kids is regarded as different (oh, isn't it always?) since "we've all been children". Well, we will all be old someday too, but I see clearly how old people are despised in our modern culture. That may in fact be the crux of it; a hatred for the overwhelming lability of the human condition, a hatred of our own biological vulnerability. And even more than most people (a fact mentioned in the thread several times), Americans are instilled with bullshit notions of "independence" and agency. (All that pioneer/cowboy spirit, one assumes.) In the thread, it was notable how many (childless, child-free, whatever term we are supposed to be using now) people openly brag about how raising children necessarily means you simply can't do the "fun" SINGLE things anymore, so stop taking your kids to pricey restaurants (nobody cares if you take them to a poor place like McDonalds) and movies and having them kick up a noisy fuss. (Some Feministe commenters seem barely able to contain themselves: TAKE THOSE BRATS HOME, you breeder bitches!)

Hey, I totally relate to all that. I once turned around and cussed some parents out for bringing their ill-behaved tyke to an adult movie... and will be happy to do so in the future, if necessary. I can dig it, as we used to say. But proudly announcing you HATE an entire group of people is bigoted and wrong. Period. No exceptions. And I will henceforth regard you as an acknowledged hater and bigot.

As is true of all bigots, I doubt the hate stops there.

Renee has considerably more to say on the subject.

~*~

And Glenn Greenwald writes more about that wonderful Change We Can Believe In:

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. As everyone knows, one of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- and then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court. Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole."

...

Amazingly, the Bush DOJ -- in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention -- contended that if they abduct someone and ship them to Guantanamo, then that person [under Boumediene v. Bush] has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind. In other words, the detainee's Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged. One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as The New York Times put it, Obama lawyers "told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team."

...

So congratulations to the United States and Barack Obama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world and then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind.

If I may quote the very wise John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) at the infamous last performance of the Sex Pistols: Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? You should ask that question with a cockney sneer and punctuate it with spitting (or whatever bodily function you choose).

Yep. I sure do.

Barack Obama has brought the Rotten out of me.

Repulsion (1965)

As my regular readers know, I am an old movie geek. I pepper my conversation with lines from old movies. I inspect old movies like old maps, old gems, old still-photographs...I wait for great moments, great scenes and great facial expressions. I know I have written about these hundreds of times on this blog.

I also look for mistakes; I find boom-mikes in the margins of the frame, I find hippies in movies supposedly set in the 40s (The Godfather has a hippie in one frame, if you are fast enough to catch him). Movies are like songs and records to me, I watch them over and over. I know them by heart, I know the climax and the resolution. I wait for the Jack Rabbit Slim's commercial to play on the car radio as Bruce Willis is running by in PULP FICTION. I wait to hear Luke Skywalker say, "Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138." (I love THX 1138 with a passion.) I eat that stuff up.

And I've watched Roman Polanski's movies over and over, too.

Years ago, I decided that REPULSION could be the subject of a feminist dissertation. The story of a woman's sexual disintegration and pathological fear of men (driving her to kill them), is simply a stunning, amazing film. The scene in which the incredibly beautiful Catherine Deneuve picks up her roommate's boyfriend's t-shirt off the bathroom floor, recognizes it as... a MAN'S shirt... and involuntarily gags... that is a great moment and a great scene, one of those I wait for. (There is also a moment of fun inside-trivia, wherein Deneuve receives a postcard from the roommate and her boyfriend in Italy, announcing that they are enjoying "La Dolce Vita"--the title of the Fellini film Deneuve's former partner, Marcello Mastroianni, made in 1960.)

The scene in which Deneuve thinks she sees a man behind her in the mirror is utterly terrifying, and has been used by every horror-movie director in the world... but as far as I know, Polanski was the first. When the church bells wake her up and she hallucinates a man in her bed, who overpowers her? Jesus H. Christ, people. And then, her famous nightmare, the hands descending from the walls. The maze of hands, groping, grabbing, seeking to hold onto her, to harm her.

Deneuve is being hounded, to say the least. MEN will not leave her alone. And don't lots of us feel that way, at certain times in our lives? That we are being forever hounded by men?

Which females in our culture are most likely to feel this way? Well, I know that when I did, I was about 13 or 14 and just becoming accustomed to being one of the hunted.

Put another way, I was the age of Roman Polanski's victim.

The last scene shows us a photograph of Deneuve as a scary-looking child, as if to say, the kid's always been strange, but even in this photo we see her jarring, uncanny beauty. By choosing a woman of such world-renowned beauty, Polanski is telling us that she deserves to feel hunted, because she IS hunted. Men throughout the movie, poor saps, want to party with her. She has been called one of the most beautiful women in the world. In a postmodern sense, we know who she is, she is Catherine Deneuve; and this pushes the film into a dreamlike realm. One can't help but think that she HAS been stalked and followed all of her life; of course she has. She is a famous beautiful woman. She has good reason to be afraid. Men all over the world have wanted her. Imagine, we are thinking, how that feels?

Doesn't feel good.

Deneuve stands in for all of us; her coveted beauty is suddenly frightening, a notable weakness. We realize there is no escape for her, because she is too beautiful. The "princess" fantasy is that every man will worship us, and Polanski flips this adolescent daydream on its head: Yes, every man will want you. See what it's done to poor Catherine? Her sanity is gone, gone, gone.

Now that Polanski has been busted in Switzerland, and both Hollywood and Blogdonia are ablaze with defenses and counter-defenses, let me make it clear that I believe Polanski is scum. Yes, a great artist, but total and complete scum. And this movie is how I know. Yes, right here in this stunning WORK OF ART, I see what a horrible man he is.

I see a rapist.

I've always seen him, the reflection in the movie-mirror.

It's like Woody Allen's MANHATTAN, wherein Woody is unabashedly involved with high-school girl Mariel Hemingway: How can you miss it? Certain film-directors let us know, in ways large and small, exactly who they are. And Roman Polanski projects his consciousness onto Deneuve in REPULSION. Polanski is the man who has created this character, after all. And it is his incessant interest and desire that has caused Catherine to flip out, to imagine men are everywhere. Polanski's arms are the arms that emerge from the walls; Polanski is the man who appears when the church bells ring.

Roman Polanski is the man Deneuve is afraid of.




~*~


Please read these threads for further Polanski discussion: Polanski Defend-a-Thon Part 1 and Part 2, and Getting Over It (by Lauren at Feministe, a must-read).

EDITED TO ADD: Her reasons are not yours (Shakesville)

~*~

Repulsion trailer (may trigger, etc)

Friday musings: death and virginity

Left: Tapestry on my living room wall. Mr Daisy thinks the sun looks like Mel Brooks.

The more I look at it, the more I agree with him.

~*~

It's been rather depressing around here lately, with the passing of souls near and far: Aunt Laura, Grand Old Man, Harriet McBryde Johnson, Sean Costello, and now...I am sorry to announce, Maya's Granny (Joycelyn Ward). She was one of my favorite bloggers and possibly yours, too.

You might want to pay your respects.

~*~

The "Secondary Virginity" movement (which brings derisive snorts from the DaisyDeadhead household) has gone surgical, if you can believe it. Yes, they are SURGICALLY REPLACING hymens.

Ellen Goodman writes on AlterNet:

This time the subject isn't spiritual revival but surgical re-virgin. The furor comes from Europe where there's a trend among women -- mostly immigrants and mostly Muslims -- to have their hymens restored for the marriage market.

This began with a recent case that has France in an uproar even by French standards. A Muslim groom who discovered on his wedding night that his wife was not what she claimed to be -- a virgin -- sued for and won an annulment. He claimed a breach of contract on the grounds that virginity was an "essential quality" of the woman he chose to marry.

This ruling outraged a country that bans headscarves in schools and has immigrants sign a pledge that describes France as a secular country where men and women are equal. It was described by a cabinet minister as a "fatwa against emancipated women" and identified by others as something that would pressure more women into hymenoplasty.

Now, why precisely one woman found guilty of fraud would drive other women into deeper fraud I'm not sure. But gynecologists in Paris report women coming to them for certificates of virginity, and medical tourist packages take women to places such as Tunisia where the surgery is cheaper. There is even a new Italian movie about an immigrant returning to Casablanca to "have her odometer brought back to zero."

All this is happening despite the fact -- Biology 101 -- that the presence or absence of a hymen may be unrelated to sexual experience.

And before we write this off as those-crazy-Muslims-are-at-it-again, don't forget the Promise Keeper faction here at home:

...American doctors are also offering to repair hymens in website ads promising privacy and like-a-virgin results -- thank you, Madonna.

Bioethicist Alta Charo squirms over the idea of hymen repair but then says we ought to "put it in the larger context of how far women will go to make themselves marriageable and sexually attractive." Just what will secular, modern women do to fit their own cultural stereotypes -- breast implant, anyone? What will they do to stay employable -- face-lift, anyone?

But there's something in the tale of fear, fraud and France that resonates with the darker side of the abstinence-only education movement here.

Government-promoted virginity lessons are not simply an attempt to protect our daughters -- and, oh yeah, sure, sons -- from a culture that sells sex like Pop-Tarts. Nor are they just about helping them delay and think twice about hooking up. They too are based on fear and control.

And consider the father-daughter Purity Balls dotting the country. At these deeply creepy events, fathers promise "to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity." How far is that protection from the protection racket where fathers oversee their female property until it's passed on -- intact or else -- to a husband?

And what, you may reasonably ask, is a Purity Ball? It sounds utterly horrid. Glamour magazine (of all places) ran a pretty good article about these balls last year, well worth reading:

Wilson’s voice is jovial [Pastor Randy Wilson, cofounder of the Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball], yet his message is serious—and spreading like wildfire. Dozens of these lavish events are held every year, mainly in the South and Midwest, from Tucson to Peoria and New Orleans, sponsored by churches, nonprofit groups and crisis pregnancy centers. The balls are all part of the evangelical Christian movement, and they embody one of its key doctrines: abstinence until marriage. Thousands of girls have taken purity vows at these events over the past nine years. While the abstinence movement itself is fairly mainstream—about 10 percent of teen boys and 16 percent of girls in the United States have signed virginity pledges at churches, rallies or programs sponsored by groups such as True Love Waits—purity balls represent its more extreme edge. The young women who sign covenants at these parties tend to be devout, homeschooled and sheltered from popular culture.

Randy Wilson’s 19-year-old, Khrystian, is typical: She works at her church, spends most weekends at home with her family and has never danced with a male other than her father or brother. Emily Smith, an 18-year-old I meet, says that even kissing is out for her. “I made a promise to myself when I was younger,” she says, “to save my first kiss for my wedding day.” A tenet of the abstinence movement is that having lovers before marriage often leads to divorce. In the Wilsons’ community, young women hope to meet suitors at church, at college or through family connections.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

----------------
Listening to: PJ Harvey - This Mess We're In
via FoxyTunes

The Feast of St Thérèse of Lisieux

Left: St Thérèse of Lisieux, the 33nd Doctor of the Church.

In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St Thérèse of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, creating a bit of a theological scandal. It has largely been forgotten now, since the voices of women throughout the world went up in a chorus of "amens"--drowning out the Vatican insiders (always men; I recall not a single female objection) who shook their heads and rolled their eyes heavenward. He did what? He declared her--(shocked silence)-- a Doctor of the Church?

I recall a few writers even suggesting it was further proof that he was senile, and what are we going to do with this pontiff? It's the Parkinson's. He's lost his mind.

Indeed, it was likely the Parkinson's. The razzle-dazzle papacy of JPII was coming to an end. The dashing actor and Archbishop, one of the dynamic intellectual architects of Vatican II, was a charismatic priest who once enjoyed hiking and skiing in his spare time. A multilingual diplomat, he unapologetically gave the finger to the Soviets, thereby garnering cultlike fans all over the Eastern bloc, as well as Western Europe. He was enthusiastically elected Pope and reigned with aplomb; my heart swelled every time I saw him. When he was shot, I wept. And then, as he suffered with Parkinson's, I remember feeling actual pain.

Of course, he would take refuge in this modest young woman's spiritual writings. Like him, she endured horrific pain and physical decline. She was ravaged with tuberculosis and died in 1897, at the age of 24.

The Little Way of St Thérèse, subject of endless novenas, prayer cards and pamphlets, was widely regarded as treacly women's stuff, rather like those little self-help books one might buy at the check-out counter at Walmart. Women loved St Thérèse; her philosophy was identifiably and obviously feminine and passive. Everything, every little tiny thing, all acts, all thoughts, all goals... must be offered to God. Even the smallest thing: sweeping floors, cooking beans, kind words. Everything is for God. Pain, too, must be offered to God: a living sacrifice, joined to the Passion of Christ, who also suffered, as we are suffering.

And we must do all things with love. She wrote: "You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love at which we do them."

This self-consciousness of the Carmelite, the constant spiritual self-interrogation of the contemplative life, therefore entered mainstream Catholic consciousness for the first time. The similarities to Buddhism are striking.

And as our dynamic in-your-face Pope lost strength and experienced his sharp physical decline, he embraced the young saint known as "the Little Flower"--who was so unabashedly popular with teenaged girls and housewives. He did MORE than merely embrace her. He decided she deserved to be placed in the same category as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.

Of course she does, but how unbelievable a man--a Pope!--would say so. Writer Stephen Sparrow relates this account of his visit to Lisieux:

Late afternoon I farewelled my new friends and started walking to the station to catch a train back to Paris. Being a hot day I entered a pub for a cold beer. The publican told me he had lived in Lisieux for only a couple of years having bought the business with redundancy money. He was curious about what a Kiwi was doing in town and asked if there was a religious significance to my visit and learning there was, proceeded to shake his head and say he couldn’t understand why people came from all over the world to visit a shrine honouring an obscure nun who did nothing except write down some deep thoughts. ‘She did nothing, nothing at all,’ he kept repeating. I refrained from pointing out that if his thinking caught on, the economic outlook for both the town and his pub would be gloomy to say the least and asked instead if he had ever read anything Thérèse had written. Not surprisingly he hadn’t, so I told him he might discover something important if he took the trouble to read her autobiography and urged him to make a start. The discussion was cut short by the imminent arrival of the train but it highlighted how much ill informed opinion exists about St Thérèse, even in the town in which she grew up and lived.

"Ill-informed opinion"? No, this man was correct. Her life was modest and austere; she was a simple nun. And that was the whole point.

~*~

Her proper title is Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte Face ("Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face"). Her book, which took the world by storm, was titled, simply, The Story of a Soul. (you can download it here) She seemed childish and quaint, and most theological heavies ignored the book at the time.

"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

Needless to say, this wasn't considered serious. But oh, how serious it is. It is the most serious thing of all.

~*~

As women have entered the world's discourse, we have brought our inspiration and our sensibilities with us. We have made Martha Stewart and Oprah rich; we have forced people to deal with women as Speaker of the House and candidates for President. We have made our own movies and our own art. And we have our own saint, too, who told us that "each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe" and reminded women that our work of love--childrearing, laundry, cooking, caring, vigils for the sick--is the living embodiment of the Gospels: "Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing."

Blessed St Thérèse, pray for us.

~*~

For more on St Thérèse:

Official website of Sainte Thérèse
Society of the Little Flower
National Shrine of St Thérèse of Lisieux
Tend your Garden of Moral Loneliness
St Thérèse of Lisieux - Catholic Online

Fantastic Planet

Left: Tiva and her pet Om (named Terr) in FANTASTIC PLANET (1973), original title La Planète sauvage.



As a vegetarian, I always assumed the little Oms in FANTASTIC PLANET were a method of tweaking our consciences. Look how the big nasty giants (Draags) treat the little Oms, who look just like us. They cruelly keep them as pets and even have mechanical toy rainclouds follow them around to rain on them. They exterminate them like rats. On one occasion I saw the movie (have seen it dozens of times), a girl in the audience sighed "Ohhh!" when they exterminated the Oms. I wondered if she worried about the mice and rats that periodically get exterminated by concerned Health Departments throughout the land? Did she make the connection? I did, and it bothered me. I was not yet vegetarian when I first saw the movie, but it was a building block in my consciousness.

The French/Czech team that produced FANTASTIC PLANET apparently meant the Draag/Om war to be a metaphor for the Cold War and the political repression of Eastern Europe:

French animator René LaLoux' first feature film, produced in Prague's Jiri Trnka Studios, is widely regarded as a metaphor for the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. The story is based on Stefan Wul's novel Oms En Serie (Oms By the Dozen), but the symbolism of a powerful technological culture subduing a (literally) smaller one, then thoughtlessly underestimating and abusing its people, is clearly nonspecific enough to apply to almost any situation of political inequity. As an act of political defiance, it's fairly vague, though considering its broad call for mass education and overthrowing the ruling class, it's surprising the Communists allowed it to be produced at all. (It was a struggle; the film eventually had to be completed with French financing.)

(From Classic SciFi)

Certainly, things turn very dramatic when the Oms start organizing an insurrection. Even so, the amazing, spiritually-based climax is a total surprise. I have always wondered if they stole the idea of mating on other planets from the Mormons; if so, good steal:

...the Oms launch their manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless statues. As bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. Each bubble seems to contain an image of an individual Draag in meditation; their "spirits" are what animate the statues.

It turns out that the statues facilitate "nuptial rites" between the Draags and entities from other galaxies, and from these, the Draags draw their life force. When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use energy weapons that shatter the statues. Pandemonium reigns supreme in the Council chamber, for it seems the two races will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together.

(From the Wikipedia link.)

If you've never seen it, check it out. Total magic! And there is a happy ending.

Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, we continue to treat our Oms as the Draags did. Will we end up learning the hard way, too?