Big Sky Cairn

Glad Senator Reed could end the speculation before it ever started.

I wonder when Tester and Schweitzer will join in the circus of taking their name out of consideration for VP, despite never really being considered in the first place.

Wow.

For international law to have any moral force in cases like Slobodan Miloševi?, Augusto Pinochet, or even Saddam Hussein, the law has to apply to powerful countries as well as weak ones. Given that the architects of the Bush policy of detention and torture are unlikely to be prosecuted here, one only hopes that the international community will act.

These are the people that want to shape our foreign policy?  These are the people that want to negotiate on our behalf with enemies that want to kill us?

In what I can only describe as a procedural catastrophe, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee awarded the Michigan delegates 69 for Hillary and 59 for Obama, each with half a vote. Once the decision was made to seat delegates from Michigan, which I will mention at the end, the scheme in which these were awarded is truly mind boggling.

Hillary “won” the Michigan primary with 55% to Obama’s 0%, since he was not on the ballot. The rest broke down 40% uncommitted, 4% Kucinich, 1% Dodd. Those numbers, after removing candidates who have since dropped out, gives 73 delegates to Clinton and 55 uncommitted.

The Clinton camp argued, and rightly so in my opinion, that the stripping of 4 delegates Clinton earned by her percentage of the vote and then reallocating them to Obama is an unprecedented move. Think about it, the Obama majority on the Rules panel did not like how Michigan voted so they simply ignored the will of the people and apportioned delegates how they saw fit. Harold Ickes put it nicely that this is probably not how Democrats should go about building party unity.

Second, since Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot, the DNC elite hearkened their best Florida 2000 impression and declared voter intent by fiat. What percent of those uncommitted would have voted for Edwards and not Obama? I doubt anyone knows, but the DNC rules committee declared that number was approximately zero, and awarded all uncommitted delegates to Obama.

I am wondering what the Obama camp was afraid of that they resorted to these tactics? The delegate math would not have shifted all that much if the Michigan numbers were respected like Florida and 55 delegates, each with half a vote, went to convention uncommitted, Obama will still win the primary. This is the same party that gives us the superdelegate system and awards Puerto Rico more votes than 27 states, so maybe this decision is just business as usual.

As I mentioned at the top, if the DNC wanted to set a strong precedent to adhere to the rules set at the start of the primary, Michigan and Florida delegates should not have been seated at all. In my mind, that would have been the proper and orderly way to go.

Yale senior, Aliza Shvarts wanted an art project that would provoke debate and spur discussion. So, she chose a topic that was sure to piss off everyone.

Over the course of 9 months, Shvarts artificially inseminated herself multiple times and then used herbal abortifacient drugs to terminate the pregnancies. She then documented the resulting miscarriages using video and photo. She even preserved samples of the blood.

The display of Shvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Shvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Shvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Shvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

Though I have my doubts, Shvarts insists that the project was not done for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

So let me see if I have this straight. She violated her own body, risked her own health and killed her own children to incite a discussion about one of the most talked about issues of all time? But Shvarts argues that the conversation shouldn’t be about abortion. She argues that the project is about the relationship between art, beauty and the human body.

Sure it is.

The idea that a woman would recruit “sperm donors” and impregnate herself only to terminate those pregnancies is abhorrent. That she would then celebrate her lack of perspective, not to mention he lack of conscience, is deeply disturbing.

The only common ground in the debate about abortion is the understanding by both sides that a woman’s decision to have an abortion is not one to be taken lightly. Shvarts and her “art” trivialize not only abortion but demean the millions of women who agonize over the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Her exhibit is also a horrific insult to any woman who has had a miscarriage or is unable to conceive a child.

I am appalled by Shvarts actions, but I am enraged by how easily she can dismiss them as necessary and unimportant. Her actions demonstrate an unfathomable callousness. I fail to comprehend how a person could see this shocking display as art. And even though I am a pro-choice Republican, I find Shvart’s actions insulting to my very humanity.

The sick part is, she will probably enjoy that I wrote this post.

Update: Though Yale University is claiming that Aliza Shvarts project was a hoax, Shvarts is standing by “her work” even explaining her method further.  Hoax or no hoax, this chick is one sick human being.  Her callous disregard for the legion of women who read this story and were brought to tears by memories of miscarriages and abortions is truly mesmerizing.  The fact that she was and still is unable to comprehend the damage that this “art” could do to herself and others is astonishing.