TeddySanFran; I can respect your position on this, BUT, it just seems pathetic to pick on Rice for who she sleeps with when there is such a target rich environment of things she has done, or at least enabled.

I wouldn’t call the way the Republican party has demonized gays and lesbians “pathetic.” I’d call it hypocritical and disgusting.

Sure there’s a “target rich environment” but let’s kick the bitch where she lives, OK?

No excuses, and no apologies.

ET, thanks for identifying my hyperbole ( I agree – not almost every thread) and I hope you are right about the following (I want you to be)

that the issue is becoming more important nationally and internationally, not less important.

OK, is process really an unknown concept for classroom teachers? Some people love spanish – when they spout spanish nouns during algebra class, how does that affect the group? And if they choose – everytime – to spout the spanish nouns most likely to disurpt the group and you object, does that mean you don’t support Spanish – or those who seek Spanish.

Please, for Scarecrow’s sake, let’s build more robust straw (wo)men.

Toby, one has to be a big man(nix) to see the world that way.

And Kathleen -

If the I/P issue is not dealt with nothing is resolved in the middle east. That conflict and how it influences the whole region and our foreign policy is woven into many issues.

No shit?

I guess that’s why Noam Chomsky was writing about it in the book I picked uu at UCSB in 1982 – and even read.

And now I can see why that’s why a nice woman from Skokie in UCLA’s graduate Middle Eastern Studies program who married me (for a while) and used to educate me on Palestinian rights.

While we were headed to her family’s house for the High Holy Days.

If that issue brings up anger confusion and resentment up for you, I’m sorry. I for one would like to see that conflict resolved.

Kathleen, I observe anger and resentment in the responses to your gratuitiously raising the I/P issue in wholly unrelated threads.

In projective identification, the “projecter” is often wholly unaware of the emotions they carry inside them and pour out for other group members to experience and thus identify.

The projected emotions are almost always uncomfortable, so the “projecter” is often isolated from peers by theis defense mechanism.

Kathleen, when I see such a behavior repeated over and over, I may feel frustration and pity, but (seeing the defense mechanism) my experience is generally not one of anger, confusion, and resentment.

So I appreciate the extent of your concern, but I’m fine on this front.

Kirk, maybe it’s just because I’m a lawyer, but I know that men get the short end of the stick in several common legal situations, and I think that is worthy of some discussion in what is an otherwise enlightened community. Why would your mind be closed to the possibility that after 50 years of female progress, there might not be some areas where things have gotten out of balance against some men?

Otherwise they constitute a threat to the institution of marriage. And who wants that in a Secretary of State? It’s… undiplomatic.

Sandia Blanca @ 305

“A bit player in GWB’s administration”????

Oh, didn’t realize “Secretary of State” was such a low-profile job.

No, no, I think Green was speaking of National Security Adviser when our National Security was, you know, breached. /s

Any Administration that makes its bones deriding my private and public behavior stands to lose its members’ own privacy regarding sexual “choices” — which they aren’t anyway.

TeddySanFran; I can respect your position on this, BUT, it just seems pathetic to pick on Rice for who she sleeps with when there is such a target rich environment of things she has done, or at least enabled.

(by “bit player” I meant, well, do you think she actually drives policy? She’s a flunky, not a leader, I’m just saying.)

Someday, some blog somewhere might be able to deal with that small but mightily troublesome niche of human rights, religious persecution, so-called preventive war, man-made environmental catastrophes, superstition, greed and stupidity called the i/P problem, the right of Israel to exist, the overhelming odds against the only democracy in the Middle East and whatever else one might want to call that set of issues in a way that really matters. I haven’t yet visited that blog.

But if some small chance exists that good people can contribute significantly to that solution on the web, this place will be one of the first to actually know it and acknowledge it for what it is.

I totally agree with you. I think this place is on the vanguard of something very important. We are community without seeing each other (mostly)…we share thoughts and feelings and sometimes free associate with each other. We regress in ways that are creative and sometimes in ways that are hurtful. It’s such an interesting, enriching and special place.

Laura @ 292

As this ‘issue’ is often encountered among people, even ‘progressives,’ could it be that it might be worthy of being the topic of a post?

I’m always for healthy debate, you know.

I think it would be an interesting thing to try to talk about. (Sorry for getting back late to this…I’ve been in and out, and missed your comment.)