i recently blogged about the clean indoor air legislation that seems to be on virginia’s horizon, and on shepherd fairey’s artistic talents. i may have typed too soon on both accounts.

in an otherwise horribly slanted article in today’s post, the reporter notes:

The fight over the ban is far from over in Richmond. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) yesterday criticized the bill approved by the House, saying it violated and “weakened” the terms of the deal he worked out with House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford.) In addition to dropping the ventilation requirements for smoking sections, the House version exempts bars that do not serve minors and would allow smoking on outdoor patios. “We need to get the bill back to the deal,” Kaine said.

weakening is what happens when something gets worn down. the house bill pretty much guts any meaningful legislation, although i wasn’t too crazy about the terms of the deal as reported earlier. if you’re passing clean indoor air laws to protect employees, having “separately ventilated smoking areas” isn’t going to cut it. exempting bars is even worse.

and shepherd fairey? well, he’s pre-emptively sued AP over his use of their photo of obama as the source material for his obey “hope” poster, and looks like he’s seeking a declaratory judgment that it’s fair(ey) use. whatever. it’s his previous unattributed use of other artists’ materials that’s bothering me. in those cases, he treated prior works as a clip gallery, not bothering to change them at all before working them into his designs. now, there’s an argument to be made that he’s simply doing the electronic equivalent of collage, but the difference there is that in a traditional collage, it’s obvious what has come from a third party. the computer-assisted design output has no such visual cuing.

anyhoo.

almost two years ago, a good friend and mentor died of pancreatic cancer. she’d managed to beat the odds for awhile, enrolling in a treatment study out of california that seemed to knock the tumors back and raise the possibility that she’d be able to get a whipple that, it was hoped, could extend her life. in the end she didn’t, but at least she was able to leave on her own terms, in her own house, with her family around her.

and now wapo is telling me that ruth bader ginsburg, author of one of the most well-mannered tongue-lashing dissents¹ i’ve had the pleasure to read, lone remaining woman on the supreme court, has been hospitalized with the same disease. it appears the cancer was caught early, and she’s undergone surgery (although what type is unclear). but still. it’s an ugly cancer, and has a very poor prognosis.

i hate pancreatic cancer.

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in related news, obama is apparently trying to reframe the abortion debate. or, perhaps as the wapo put it, “appease both sides.” (yeah, like he tried to appease the house republicans by persuading the dems to drop a number of provisions in the stimulus bill, including expanded access to contraception for poor women? and how did that work out for him?) he seems to be trying to walk the “reduce unwanted pregnancies” tightrope with the establishment of a white house office on faith-based and neighborhood partnerships², but i’m wondering if he realizes that the antiabortion side also trends heavily toward anticontraception as well? if he starts pushing abstinence education as part of his agenda, i’m going to hurl.

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¹ gonzalez v. carhart. it should be required reading for anyone concerned about how the supreme court has consistently eroded abortion rights since roe.

The Court offers flimsy and transparent justifications for upholding a nationwide ban on intact D&E sans any exception to safeguard a women’s health. Today’s ruling, the Court declares, advances “a premise central to [Casey’s] conclusion”—i.e.,the Government’s “legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life.” Ante, at 14. See also ante, at 15 (“[W]e must determine whether the Act furthers the legitimate interest of the Government in protecting the life of the fetus that may become a child.”). But the Act scarcely furthers that interest: The law saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion. See Stenberg, 530 U. S., at 930. And surely the statute was not designed to protect the lives or health of pregnant women. Id., at 951 (Ginsburg, J., concurring);cf. Casey, 505 U. S., at 846 (recognizing along with the State’s legitimate interest in the life of the fetus, its “legitimate interes[t] … in protecting the health of the woman” (emphasis added)). In short, the Court upholds a law that, while doing nothing to “preserv[e] … fetal life,” ante, at 14, bars a woman from choosing intact D&E although her doctor “reasonably believes [that procedure] will best protect [her].” Stenberg, 530 U. S., at 946 (Stevens, J., concurring).

² headed by a 26-year-old, no less. wtf?

the wapo is reporting that virginia’s governor and speaker of the house have struck a deal to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

Kaine and Howell said they expect the legislation to sail through the General Assembly with bipartisan support. The Republican-controlled House General Laws Committee, which has repeatedly killed previous smoking bans, will take up the bill later today.

really? in virginia? home to philip morris altria? frankly, my dear scarlett, i’m surprised off my ass.

while if passed it won’t affect me much (most of the places i hang out in NoVA are voluntarily smoke-free, including the once-caliginous¹ bob & edith’s), this is potentially huge for the rest of the state where smoking rates are still high and clouds of blue are often seen accumulating near ceilings.
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¹ you like that, don’t you? i’m rocking out with the thesaurus.

according to the breaking news ticker on the NYT, daschle has withdrawn his nomination as secretary of HHS. no details as yet; could the nyt op-ed calling for him to withdraw his name have had something to do with it?

steven chu at energy.
john holdren directing the white house office of science and tech policy.
jane lubchenco at noaa.

and now the fda approving human trials of stem cell therapy.

i need to sit down. i’m getting a bit dizzy.

in what’s become the most common left-v-right policy pendulum in washington, obama will be repealing the mexico city policy. and not a moment too soon.

update from O’s statement on rescinding the policy:

It is clear that the provisions of the Mexico City Policy are unnecessarily broad and unwarranted under current law, and for the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries. For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.

For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.

while i’m not crazy about the “protect and empower” language (it rings a bit too close to patriarchal patronizing, if i may regress into undergraduate mode for a moment), i’m thrilled the policy is toast for the next four years. i also particularly like the “it’s gone, that’s it, it’s not open for discussion” tone of the second paragraph. the other particularly heartening bit is the good news for UNFPA:

In addition, I look forward to working with Congress to restore U.S. financial support for the U.N. Population Fund. By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.

i’m still giddy.

i was a bit worried i’d regret not having attempted to cross the rubicon potomac for obama’s inauguration. those worries have largely been put to rest, between the piles of garbage left by attendees¹ and the security snafu that kept many ticket holders outside the gates.

i bumped into a former coworker this morning, an ill-fated blue ticket holder, who related his nightmare trying to get in to the inauguration – it was pretty much what the post reported. it’s an understatement to say that he was unhappy that he, too, wound up watching the inauguration on tv after securing the coveted tickets and then spending more than two and a half hours in line in the chill.

another acquaintance of mine, also in possession of tickets, spent more than two hours in line in front of a locked gate, before seeking out another entrance with his wife. he managed to get in, but just barely – there was no signage, he said, and very few uniformed people who knew what was going on.

am i sorry to have missed the historic inauguration of the first black POTUS in person (and even if he weren’t, for a democrat, after the long, cold winter of cheney)? sure. regretful that i didn’t try? no longer.
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¹ according to the wapo, 130 tons of it, in fact.

obama’s cabinet seems to be coming along nicely:

• Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton? (Bill has agreed to disclose his foundation donors; looks like a move forward in the vetting process.)
• Secretary of the Treasury: no choice yet; the short list seems to be Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geitner, and Laura Tyson.
• Secretary of Defense: unknown
• Attorney General: Eric Holder
• Secretary of the Interior: Ken Salazar? mmmmaybe….
• Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack? Michael Pollan? (the botany of desire is a great book, btw) Charlie Stenholm?
• Secretary of Commerce: Penny Pritzker?
• Secretary of Labor: the short list still looks rather long
• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Daschle
• Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: several options
• Secretary of Transportation: Jane Garvey?
• Secretary of Energy:
• Secretary of Education:
• Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Tammy Duckworth and Max Cleland appear to be in the running
• Secretary of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano

on monday, the research advisory committee on gulf war veterans’ illnesses issued a report concluding that Gulf War syndrome is a distinct physical condition.

apparently this contradicts earlier findings of the IOM, and it may have an impact on the position taken by the office of the special assistant for gulf war illnesses. then again, it might not. from the website, GulfLINK “was established in August 1995 to provide on-line access to medical, operational, and intelligence documents from the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Its purpose was and is to provide Service members, veterans, and any interested person with information on what happened during that war that might have affected the health of those who served.”

inneresting.

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the nomination of Secretary of Health and Human Services to his close ally Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic Senate leader who was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s run for the presidency.

this is an interesting choice – my preference would be for someone with a more practical health background (but when was the last time we had that, really?), but at least daschle’s been involved in the ongoing discussion about our nation’s health care system.