Fact Checking Sarah Haskins

I normally love Sarah Haskins' segments on Current TV. (I do post them here almost every week.) The one this week about Ricki Lake's new show Charm School was pretty good, but I have one factual complaint. The beginning of the video depicts Sarah asking a woman to "quilt" while she is holding a crocheted blanket and knitting needles. It's a bizarre conflation of different hobbies. Maybe it's insignificant, but my mom, who actually owned a fabric store for 25 years, would probably disagree. Please, Sarah Haskins, try to keep your crafts straight.

More Emphasis on Study Abroad?

I was surprised when the House passed legislation to expand the number of students who study abroad. Study abroad programs, as Campus Progress has written before, are programs that vary widely in standards. All too often a study abroad program is an excuse to travel and hasn't proven any kind of added value to a four-year education. There seems to be an assumption that studying abroad has some kind of intrinsic value. But study abroad programs are often fairly expensive, usually on par with a semester of schooling -- sometimes even thousands of dollars more.

There is an argument that encounters with other cultures can be of value, but programs like study abroad often don't supplement that experience with the pricey classes that program tuition provides. Especially if the student doesn't have fluency with the local university's language, it would be almost impossible to have a valuable academic experience beyond language learning. It can be valuable to learn languages, but one could almost take the money spent on tuition to take a semester off to travel in that country and experience the culture.

I'm not entirely opposed to traveling to other countries or even studying abroad. I just think there needs to be more study about the kinds of education such programs should reasonably be expected to provide, and we need to develop some kind of standards for these programs. Otherwise this bill might just be a waste of money.

Yet more Sarah Haskins Hilarity

On Double X

Yesterday Campus Progress put up my thoughts on the new Slate Double X site:

A bunch of feminists, myself included, were really excited about the May 12 launch of Double X, Slate’s new site “about politics, sex, and culture—that both men and women listen in on.” After all, the site features a long list of some of the top feminist writers, including The Nation’s Katha Pollitt, former Jezebeler Jessica Grose, Slate’s own Emily Bazelon, the illustrious E.J. Graff, and The Root’s Dayo Olopade. What’s more, after years of drivel-like articles that declared feminism dead and the journalism industry in crisis, it was a reassuring sign that Washington Post/Newsweek International saw potential profits in a woman-focused site.

Then, on Tuesday, Double X went live with articles titled “Whine, Womyn, and Thongs: How Feminism Has Failed,” “How I Got Bored With Feminism,” “Yes, Virginia, Feminism Really is Dead,” and “What’s the Problem Now? Feminism’s Dilemmas.” It’s enough to make all those feminists who eagerly anticipated the site’s launch—again, myself included—want to pull their hair out. What’s more, Double X seems to be trying with all its might to stoke a divisive generational flame war among feminists. This war, characterized in part by accusations from older feminists that younger feminists are somehow betraying the “true” spirit of feminism, is best summed up in the words of Deborah Dickerson in Mother Jones earlier this year: “Today’s feminists need to blog less and work more … I gotta say: Pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives ain’t exactly what we previous generations thought feminism was.”

Sotormayor on Abortion

Over at SCOTUSblog, Tom Goldstein actually reviews Sonia Sotormayor's opinions. First and foremost, he addresses her opinions on abortion:

Abortion Rights: Although Sotomayor has not had a case dealing directly with abortion rights, she wrote the opinion in Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, 304 F.3d 183 (2d Cir. 2002), a challenge to the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibited foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds from performing or supporting abortions. An abortion rights group (along with its attorneys) brought claimed that the policy violated its First Amendment, due process, and equal protection rights. Relying on the Second Circuit’s earlier decision in Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. v. Agency for International Development, which dealt with a virtually identical claim, Sotomayor’s opinion rejected the group’s First Amendment claim on the merits. Turning to the plaintiffs’ due process claim, Sotomayor held that they lacked standing because they alleged only a harm to foreign organizations, rather than themselves. Sotomayor held that the plaintiffs did have standing with regard to their equal protection claim, but she ultimately held that the claim failed under rational basis review because the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position” with public funds.

Sarah Haskins on Michelle Obama's Guns

Executively Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Aaron Belkin at HuffPo reports that there's a "middle ground" to Don't Ask, Don't Tell thanks to af forthcoming military law study. Obama can use his position as commander-in-chief to issue an executive order to stop enforcement of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Stopping enforcement is the same as repealing it, so there really isn't a "middle ground" so much as getting around the annoying process of actually passing a law.

This all comes about because the military fired yet another Arabic-speaking linguist because he came out as gay. The reasons for continuing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy become increasingly nonsensical. It is both wildly unpopular with the general public and actually serves as a detriment to the military's ability to attract the best and most qualified people.

Although legislation has been introduced to repeal the policy, not much has happened with it. Don't Ask, Don't Tell started as an executive order that was later codified into law. Perhaps the repeal will start the same way.