Seven months after a newspaper reported that Mayor Jim West, one of this state's most prominent conservative Republicans, was a closeted gay man who had used his city computer to troll for sex with young men, nearly two-thirds of voters here decided to oust him in a rare recall election, according to results released Wednesday.
But while the ballot had only one name on it - that of the 54-year-old mayor, a former leader of the Legislature - the vote-by-mail election was somewhat of a referendum on changing attitudes in Spokane, while also upsetting the balance of power in this city of 200,000 people. Mr. West, who will leave office on Dec. 16, has a long history of opposing gay rights, and he once backed a measure to prevent gay men and lesbians from teaching in public schools.
"There have been a lot of lessons out of this, to tell you the truth," Mr. West said at a news conference on Wednesday. "It's helped me straighten out my personal life."
The excerpt above is from the article Marcia says is the must read in this morning's New York Times, Timothy Egan's "Spokane Mayor, Caught in Gay Sex Sting, Is Ousted in Vote That May Advance Gay Rights." Best moment in the article? Jim West holds a press conference and notes that he has "regrets for things in my personal life. I wish those things had never occured, and I'm embarrased by them." When reporters asked for examples, he replied, "It's none of your damn business."
West who actively supported legislation to deny gays and lesbians rights (such as teaching at schools) is kicked out of office. The article argues that it was due not to his sexuality but due to the vast differences between his private life and his public statements.
Brenda e-mails to note Yifat Susskind's "African Women Confront Bush's AIDS Policy" (CounterPunch):
In fact, any successful prevention strategy has to promote women's social and economic rights. Yet the dominant approach remains the Bush administration's ill-conceived "ABC" strategy: "Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms." Abstinence is not a choice for women who are raped or coerced into sex. Faithfulness is irrelevant for women whose husbands have multiple partners (for African women, marriage is actually a risk factor for contracting HIV). 4 And condoms-presented by the Bush administration as a "last resort" in the fight against AIDS-depend on men's willingness to use them and both partner's willingness to forgo having children. Moreover, by placing the burden for prevention on individual behavior, the ABC strategy allows policymakers to ignore the poverty and inequality that form the breeding ground for AIDS.
As 2005 draws to a close, it's clear that the UN's "3 by 5" initiative to provide anti-retroviral drugs to three million people by the end of the year will fail by a two-thirds margin. 5In Africa , nine out of ten people with HIV/AIDS are still denied these drugs, now almost universally available in wealthy countries. 6 The reason? Lack of political will and high drug prices. Universal access to treatment is an achievable goal, but it requires the United States and EU to act at this month's World Trade Organization meeting to respect poor countries' right to import cheaper generic versions of AIDS drugs.
Effective programs that combine HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention have been implemented in Uganda, Tanzania, Thailand, and elsewhere. But rather than support the best of these efforts, the Bush administration has put AIDS policy into the hands of Christian fundamentalists (who have pushed their ideological ABC approach to prevention) 7 and drug-company lobbyists (who have prioritized industry profits over ensuring access to life-saving medicines). Today, the White House is issuing reminders of President Bush's "compassionate" $15 billion program to fight AIDS, particularly in Africa . But that promise was made over three years ago and most of the money has never materialized. 8 In fact, Bush's initiative actually undermined effective international efforts to combat AIDS through the UN Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Instead of paying its fair share to the Fund ($3.5 billion, or one-third of the total), the United States has pledged just $0.6 billion for 2006-2007.
Dallas asks if we can note something and yes, we can. Randi Rhodes, host of The Randi Rhodes Show on Air America will be on C-Span Sunday, December 18th at 8:00 p.m. eastern time with a repeat of the show at eleven p.m. the same night. (For podcast and transcripts, see http://www.QandA.org.)
Dallas also has a gripe about The Randi Rhodes Show. He can't listen to it on radio. Not at the regular time. His local Air America has imported Ed Schultz and decided that Schultz is perfect for Randi Rhodes' time zone. Dallas states that he has to listen online and that the result is he doesn't listen to Air America on his local radio station at all because Randi's shoved back several hours as is The Majority Report.
Dallas feels that his city (Dallas, TX) might as well not have an Air America station because by pushing the programming back for a non Air America program, the schedule's screwed up and he has no interest in listening. Dallas isn't the only one who's complained about that. Eddie wrote about this two or three weeks ago and noted that if anyone else had complained to note him as well. In addition to Eddie and Dallas, three other members from that area have complained. (If they want to be noted, just e-mail and say so.)
I'll note that I believe that after the December 20th broadcast of The Randi Rhodes Show, Randi Rhodes will begin her holiday vacation. I believe that will last until the new year. So if you're a fan of the show and busy (as we all are), you should be listening right now since you'll be waiting awhile before the new shows start back up.
I'll also note the complaint that came in last year re: Air America Radio. All repeats on talk radio that deals with current events did not please listeners. Hopefully, all shows that are on vacation will bring in substitute hosts. That would be a perfect time, for instance, to bring on a Hispanic guest host and more women since the complaints on the lack of color and lack of women have only increased since last year.
People have every right to take a vacation but talk radio depends upon topical and reruns all day last year were a problem many members noted.
Rod advises us to what's scheduled for today's Democracy Now!:
On the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon we discuss his life and politics with historian Jon Wiener, the author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files."
That should be a very interesting show. Pru suggested a similar book, Phil Strongman and Alan Parker's John Lennon & The FBI Files, and it was a fascinating read. Why doesn't Tony Blair want the files on John Lennon released? I'll grab the book and do a quote from it for the next entry.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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the randi rhodes show
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