Umm. Okay [PDF].

Last month, I wrote a story on why the government won’t fund local youth AIDS prevention group WAIT (or Washington AIDS International Teens). WAIT’s problem was this:

a. Their goal was stopping the spread of HIV.

b. Their methodology was abstinence.

c. The government only funds one or the other.

Last week, President Obama proposed to add another roadblock to their fight for funding by cutting abstinence-only cash from the budget altogether.

Now, groups like WAIT, which represent the most practical side of abstinence eduction—delaying sex only to prevent an uncurable deadly disease—will remain, well, pretty much unaffected. As I detailed in my piece, federally-funded abstinence-only education was always itself too much of a “comprehensive” strategy. In order to receive federal funding, abstinence groups couldn’t just work against AIDS—they also had to teach prevention of “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

So while proponents of comprehensive sex education rejoice at the White House rule, some abstinence advocates, at least, aren’t lamenting the move: abstinence’s realists have always been left behind.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

In a blog post entitled Sigh . . ., El Guapo in DC makes his triumphant return by lamenting the mass exodus of high-heel wearing ladies from the district. “Ballerina flats,” he writes. “Si, ballerina shoes. The women of DC have for some reason turned to wearing ballerina shoes. Have they done this to spite me? I think so. Is this their way of telling me that I’ve mistreated women in the past? Lo siento. En serio, I’m sorry. Please, por favor, put the heels back on. I cannot take this anymore.”

El Guapo shies from outright blaming the return of “the footwear equivalent of sweatpants” on “that Latino president that is in the White House (Yes, he’s part Guatemalan. No black man is that smooth).”

“I don’t want to point fingers,” he writes. “No fingers pointing at Obama. But there were no ugly ballerina shoes when Bush was in town. All heels. All the time. . . . Please bring the heels back. You look horrible. Seriously.”

Okay. I’ll bite. Are Democratic women more likely to wear flat shoes? I voted for Obama, and have never worn any shoe north of a half-inch heel for more than a very uncomfortable afternoon. Coincidence? Probably.

But aren’t Democratic women more likely to be hippies, who are more likely to ride bikes, which are more likely to require flat feet [Fig. 1]?

FIGURE 1:

OBAMA —> HIPPIES —> BICYCLES —> BALLERINA SHOES

Bushies, on the other hand, were rich enough to not have to care about the environment, OR to display their token hippiedom by using special lightbulbs and staging charity balls for trees, to which they traveled in taxis, which are far more accomodating of the high heel [Fig. 2].

FIGURE 2:

BUSH —> $$$ —> LIGHTBULBS/ CHARITY BALLS —> TAXIS —> HIGH HEELS

Proof.

Photo by Kekka

Today, Mike Madden published a piece on Salon about the conservative tea-bagging parties staged across the country to protest Obama’s first Tax Day. In it, Madden quoted Brian Smith, a Greenville, S.C., man who attended the Washington, D.C. Lafayette Park protest while in town on business. Writes Madden:

Another seemingly sedate protester, Brian Smith, a marketer from Greenville, S.C., who was in Washington on business and came by the rally, wandered equally off message. “I love my country and I don’t like what’s going on,” Smith said. “Government—to be honest with you, and this will probably be misquoted, but on 9/11, I think they hit the wrong building. They should have gone into the Capitol building, hit out, knocked out both sides of the aisle, we’d start from scratch, we’d be better off today.” I pointed out that “they” did try to hit the Capitol. “Yeah, I know, they missed,” he said. “The wrong sequence. If someone had to go, it should have been the Capitol building. On that day I felt differently, but today that’s the way I feel.”

I was curious: Did Smith feel he was misquoted? I called him to find out.

Read More ““On 9/11, I Think They Hit The Wrong Building” Protester Responds” »

PETA has written a letter to the Obamas asking them to neuter “Bo,” Malia and Sasha’s new designer Portuguese water dog. A White House rep responded immediately, informing PETA that Bo has already been neutered, of course, because Barack Obama does not need a famed animal cruelty organization to school him in the conventional wisdom of dog ownership.

It’s clear that now that there’s an animal at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., PETA will be able to target all its campaigns specifically at the President, using Bo as a scapedog for whatever issue it would like to further at the moment. Hey—at least it’s better than using hot chicks.

Expect a lot more press releases that tangentially refer to Bo before launching into a thinly veiled press release as to why the White House needs to employ vegan mouse traps, or whatever. In this edition, Bo helps us understand that purebred dogs are “disquieting,” that the overpopulation problem won’t benefit from monetary donations “unless you pour in as much as the Iraq war has cost us,” and animals are just like humans, “except that they are in a different type of body and have a somewhat different culture.”

The full PETA letter is after the jump.

Read More “PETA Encourages Obamas to Neuter Neutered Dog” »

Oh, stop making such a big deal about this non-issue.

In yesterday’s The Fix, Chris Cillizza poses the question: “Is Gay Marriage Still An Issue?”

Hey, let me take this one, Chris: Yes.

But let’s back up a bit and see why Cillizza labors over whether or not one of the biggest issues the states are grappling with today is simply a sneaky non-issue in disguise!:

Read More ““Is Gay Marriage Still An Issue?” Um, Yeah.” »

Tomorrow marks the end of the 30-day comment period on Obama’s proposed scrapping of Bush’s so-called “conscience rule.” Bush snuck the conscience rule in at the end of his godforsaken presidency to allow all healthcare providers to deny services (or “abortions”) to patients (or “women) based on their moral beliefs (or “misogyny”). Obama swiftly moved to resciend the rule; Shakesville has the deets on how to speak up as to  why it should stay that way:

Go to the ACLU Action Center here, or visit Planned Parenthood’s action page here, or Compassion & Choices’ action page here, all of whom have made it incredibly easy to make your voice heard by the Obama administration.

If all goes according to plan, the conscience rule will have accomplished nothing at all. Mwa ha ha.

The AP reports that President Obama has invited more than 100 gay and lesbian families to attend the White House Easter Egg Roll. The majority of tickets are offered online to the public (and sell out within seconds), but the President reserves a number for special guests. From the AP:

Read More “Gay Families to Attend White House Easter Egg Roll . . . Again and Again and Again” »

Notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church came to town on Monday to protest homosexual sin, George Mason University’s gay male homecoming queen, and “the Anti-Christ” (President Obama). When the protest moved on from GMU and Embassy Row to land in front of the White House, Westboro members were met by dozens of George Washington Univeristy students who had come to protest the protest with a punishment reserved for only the most insufferable of bigots: College girls kissing each other.

The counter-protest was organized by Colin MacDonald and Ian Goldin, GW students who were joined by “between 80 and 100 people” in raising signs, chants, and face-locks against the church. At the height of the action, Freshmen Paige Medley and Lauren LaMonte kissed “to show their support for gay rights.” It looks like there might have been some tongue, but it’s too close to call.

For those also interested in, ahem, showing their solidarity, check out Hatchet photographer Marie McGrory’s shot of the kiss here.

These guys, however, are probably hurting.

Cristina Page for Reproductive Health Reality Check wrote yesterday on one sector of the economy that hasn’t hurt from the economic downturn: Birth control sales. Page’s evidence of a contraceptive spike:

- Vasectomy.com has fielded a 30 percent increase in appointment requests since January

Read More “Birth Control Thrives During Recession” »