I wish I'd checked my e-mail sooner

Then I would've known that today is Native American Heritage Day!

It may be a small step, but a day meant to honor American Indians' contributions acknowledges a history and culture that many say is often overlooked.

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor American Indians in the U.S. Few celebrations are planned this year, but backers say they hope to make the commemoration annual.

Frank Suniga, 79, of Salem, Ore., a descendant of Mescalero Apache Indians, said he and others began pushing in 2001 for a national day that recognizes his and other tribes' heritage.

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Congress passed legislation this year designating the day as Native American Heritage Day, and President Bush signed it last month.

There's a bit of a question, though, of which day would be best. I think the day after Thanksgiving is a poor choice, myself, in that it would get overshadowed by everything else. But some advocates say that linking it with Thanksgiving, which is supposedly about European-Native American relations, is a good idea.

The Portland and D.C.-based organizations said they would support an annual commemorative day. It isn't certain, however, that all tribes would agree that the fourth Friday in November is the best day to recognize their contributions and traditions.

"The question is, should it be the day after Thanksgiving?" said Joe Garcia, director of the National Congress of American Indians. "Thanksgiving is controversial to some people."

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Recognizing American Indians the day after Thanksgiving, the Native American Heritage Day Act of 2008 says, emphasizes the nation's relationship with tribes now.

"I think the recognition is important," Garcia said. "The most important thing it does is give a little more perspective from the American Indian side."

I hope they succeed in making this an annual thing. That would be great.
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Interesting

This is old news, but I only just found out about it:

Interestingly, in September 1999, right around the same time as the Human Genome Project a retrospective study was published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure by Carson et al titled, "Racial differences in response to therapy for heart failure: Analysis of the vasodilator-heart failure trials." In this study, they analyzed data from two previous trials studying the use of ACE inhibitors, isosorbide, and hydralazine in the treatment of congestive heart failure. When the data was split apart by race, there was a statistically significant decrease in the response of African American patients to the drug enalapril, and a statistically significant decrease in the effectiveness of hydralazine/isosorbide in white patients. The conclusion of the analysis was that certain drugs respond better for some races than others. In response to this study, the drug carvediol was studied specifically in the African American and white populations to say conclusively that it benefited both groups equally, and this became a marketing point for the pharmaceutical company that manufactures carvediol.

This Wikipedia article has a little more info:

Isosorbide dinitrate/hydralazine is a fixed dose combination drug treatment specifically indicated for black people with congestive heart failure. It is a combination of hydralazine (an antihypertensive) and isosorbide dinitrate (a vasodilator). It is the first race-based prescription drug in the United States. The combination preparation is marketed in the United States by Nitromed under the trade name BiDil.

Originally rejected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997, the combination preparation was approved by the FDA in June 2005 for black use only based on the results of a clinical study. It was already known that black individuals with congestive heart failure (CHF) respond less effectively to conventional CHF treatments (particularly ACE inhibitors) than Caucasians. The study by Taylor et al. demonstrated that isosorbide dinitrate with hydralazine reduced mortality by 43%, reduced hospitalizations by 39%, and quality of life markers in black patients with CHF.

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"What did you learn in school today, dear little boys of mine?"

I learned that Robert Stacy McCain is a racist wanker. After recounting a "joke" about how all kids learn about today is Rosa Parks (I don't recall my math classes going this way, though: "What's the square root of 36?" "Rosa Parks?" "Good!"), McCain has to jump in with this:

The Historic Victimhood Narrative is virtually the only history or civics taught in American public schools today. "America The Beautiful" has been replaced by "America The Oppressive." Parents who send their offspring to these government-run indoctrination camps should be prosecuted for child abuse.

Apparently, teaching about people that were involved in movements that fundamentally and radically altered political and legal systems in this country that had been standing for nearly a century is bad. Why? Because telling kids about Jim Crow and slavery, that America did reprehensible things, amounts to "indoctrinating" them. Instead, we should completely gloss over anything bad that America has ever done so that kids get a completely non-biased education of how America is perfect and good and made of candy. Frankly, we do that all too much already. Sure, kids learn that there were slaves, and then there weren't, but then there was Jim Crow, until the '50s and '60s, but how much attention is paid to, say, the Philippine-American War, Manifest Destiny, and pretty much every other horrible atrocity committed by their country? Almost none, I'd wager.

Amusingly enough, McCain continued with an update:

Children are taught to reverence a pantheon of symbolic personalities whose biographies are didactically rendered in such a way as to ignore whatever fundamental reality might contradict their function as symbols.

Indeed! For instance, they're not informed that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slaveowners. They're not informed that Abraham Lincoln wanted to colonize the slaves in Africa. They're not aware that one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought that black skin was a form of leprosy. They're not aware of any of the racist attitudes all of our presidents held. But of course that's not what McCain had in mind, and the irony inherent in his words probably didn't occur to him.

Via LG&M.
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Although I loves me some schadenfreude, this actually makes for a better birthday present

Remember that case I blogged about a few days ago? Well, the ruling came down yesterday, and the judge declared it unconstitutional:

Lederman, who overseas Miami's juvenile and child welfare courts, is the second judge this year to declare the state's blanket ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians unconstitutional.

In August, Monroe Circuit Judge David John Audlin Jr. wrote that Florida's 1977 gay adoption ban arose out of "unveiled expressions of bigotry" when the state was experiencing a severe backlash to demands for civil rights by gay people in Miami.

"Disqualifying every gay Floridian from raising a family, enjoying grandchildren or carrying on the family name, based on nothing more than lawful sexual conduct, while assuring child abusers, terrorists, drug dealers, rapists and murderers at least individualized consideration," Audlin wrote, was so "disproportionately severe" that it violates the state and U.S. Constitutions.

In her ruling, Lederman said children taken into state care have a "fundamental" right to be raised in a permanent adoptive home if they cannot be reunited with birth parents. Children whose foster parents are gay, she said, can be deprived of that right under the current law.

"The challenged statute, in precluding otherwise qualified homosexuals from adopting available children, does not promote the interests of children and, in effect, causes harm to the children it is meant to protect," Lederman wrote.

The judge added: "There is no question the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing [foster] children a permanent family through adoption."

In a ruling that, at times, reads more like a social science research paper, Lederman dissected 30 years worth of psychological and sociological research, concluding that studies overwhelmingly have shown that gay people can parent every bit as effectively as straight people and do no harm to their children.

"Based on the evidence presented from experts from all over this country and abroad," Lederman wrote, "it is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent. Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender, socioeconomic class or any other demographic characteristic.

"The most important factor in ensuring a well-adjusted child is the quality of parenting," Lederman wrote.

The state is appealing, so this isn't fully settled yet, but it's still nice.

Via Feministing.
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Denialism kills

Gee, you ignore overwhelming scientific consensus on an important issue and things turn out badly. Who'd've thunkit?

A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.

The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki's denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it.

Coming in the wake of Mr. Mbeki's ouster in September after a power struggle in his party, the African National Congress, the report has reignited questions about why Mr. Mbeki, a man of great acumen, was so influenced by AIDS denialists.

...

For years, the South African government did not provide antiretroviral medicines, even as Botswana and Namibia, neighboring countries with epidemics of similar scale, took action, the Harvard study reported.

The Harvard researchers quantified the human cost of that inaction by comparing the number of people who got antiretrovirals in South Africa from 2000 to 2005 with the number the government could have reached had it put in place a workable treatment and prevention program.

They estimated that by 2005, South Africa could have been helping half those in need but had reached only 23 percent. By comparison, Botswana was already providing treatment to 85 percent of those in need, and Namibia to 71 percent.

The 330,000 South Africans who died for lack of treatment and the 35,000 babies who perished because they were infected with H.I.V. together lost at least 3.8 million years of life, the study concluded.

Epidemiologists and biostatisticians who reviewed the study for The New York Times said the researchers had based their estimates on conservative assumptions and used a sound methodology.

"They have truly used conservative estimates for their calculations, and I would consider their numbers quite reasonable," James Chin, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health, said in an e-mail message.

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Best birthday present ever

Not only has Ann Coulter pretty much disappeared from view lately, but it turns out she won't be opening that hate-filled mouth for some time:

WE HEAR...THAT although we didn't think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reactionary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut...

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Next up: America

For federal gay rights legislation, that is. After all, Australia did it:

The Australian government has passed legislation recognizing same-sex couples under a large number of laws, but the measure falls short of granting either marriage or civil unions.

The omnibus bill mounted its final hurdle Monday, winning approval in the Senate. The legislation passed the House in September. It still requires the signature of the Governor General, a formality, before going into effect.

The Same-Sex Entitlements Bill removes discrimination against same-sex partners in areas such as immigration, taxation, veterans' pensions and aged care. It also abolishes discrimination against children of same-sex couples by granting equal rights to both parents.

In total, it amends 68 Commonwealth laws.

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The word marriage has always been about unity, not gender

Alan Colmes, announcing that he's leaving the show Hannity and Colmes:

In announcing his decision, Colmes said, "I approached Bill Shine (FNC's Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it's bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I'm proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years."

See? 12 years they were gay married, and nothing happened!
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I'm glad the panda is recovering

D'awww... that's adorable!

A man has been attacked by a panda at a park in southern China, after he climbed into its enclosure hoping to cuddle the creature.

The 20-year-old student had ignored warning signs and scaled a two-metre (6.5ft) barrier to get into the pen.

State media say the panda bit him on his arms and legs, and he had to be rescued by the animal's keepers.

Speaking from his hospital bed, the injured man said the panda had looked so cute he had just wanted to hug it.

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"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him," he told Xinhua from his hospital bed.

"I didn't expect he would attack... I don't remember how many bites I got."

People should really learn that animals are not teddy bears.

Via Greg Laden.
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Political hesitation to do the right thing irks me

More retired admirals and generals are asking for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press.

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"As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality," the officers wrote.

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The list of 104 former officers who signed the statement appears to signal growing support for resolving the status of gays in the military. Last year, 28 former generals and admirals signed a similar statement.

Larson, who has a gay daughter he says has broadened his thinking on the subject, believes a generational shift in attitudes toward homosexuality has created a climate where a repeal is not only workable, but also an important step for keeping talented personnel in the military.

"I know a lot of young people now — even people in the area of having commands of ships and squadrons — and they are much more tolerant, and they believe, as I do, that we have enough regulations on the books to enforce proper standards of human behavior," Larson said.

The officers' statement points to data showing there are about 1 million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States, and about 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the military.

Really, who could possibly think that preventing gays from being in the military--or rather, preventing the gays who are already in the military from being open about it--is a good idea?

Oh, right.

Via Ed Brayton.
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