By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Seems the far Right just can’t stay out of – or quit throwing – the muck. The Huffington Post reports that University of Rochester econ professor, Steve Landsburg, has launched his own attack on Georgetown law school student, Sandra Fluke, who had the temerity to speak her mind to a congressional committee discussing contraceptive services. Landsburg apparently dabbles in English grammar when his dismal graphs and computer models become tiresome. In his off-hours, he seems quite content to edit Rush Limbaugh’s right-wing attack pieces, adding some of his own insights. On his blog he felt compelled to share:
[Limbaugh] wants to brand Ms. Fluke a “slut” because, he says, she’s demanding to be paid for sex. There are two things wrong here. First, the word “slut” connotes (to me at least) precisely the sort of joyous enthusiasm that would render payment superfluous. A far better word might have been “prostitute” (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) She will, as I understand it, be having sex whether she gets paid or not. Her demand is to be paid. The right word for that is something much closer to “extortionist”. Or better yet, “extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement.” Is there a single word for that?
But whether or not he chose the right word, what I just don’t get is why the pro-respect crowd is aiming all its fire at Rush. Which is more disrespectful — his harsh language or Sandra Fluke’s attempt to pick your pocket?
Seems he may be on to something etymologically speaking but he fails
miserably in the free speech/separation of church-state class. I’d think he’s also getting a “D-” for comprehension in my class. Fluke made no claim on the public funds and instead merely advocated that private insurance cover contraceptive services to further women’s health rather than cater to religious convictions of a particular sect.
While Professor Landsburg doesn’t get it, the University’s students did. Thirty of them dressed in black and made a rather dramatic entry into his classroom passing out summaries of the professor’s musings and then opted to stand between him and his charges staging a pedagogical wall of separation between scorn and student.
Landsburg called security to disband the protest, but the students left of their own accord making their point for both civility and free speech. “We are appalled by how often women and their bodies have been used for political theatrics, and we refuse to remain passive on this issue,” Kelly Rickert, a Rochester student who was a part of the protest, told The Huffington Post. “To do so would be to condone the actions of Professor Landsburg.”
University of Rochester President Joel Seligman acknowledged his employee’s right to the academic freedom to express unpopular opinions but added:
“I am outraged that any professor would demean a student in this fashion,” Seligman said in a statement. “To openly ridicule, mock, or jeer a student in this way is about the most offensive thing a professor can do. We are here to educate, to nurture, to inspire, not to engage in character assassination.”
Well, Dr. Segilman some of you are. On the other hand, seems some in the ivory tower like to attack from the comfort of their office. Landsburg was undeterred, “[Fluke] deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered,” and “Rush stepped in to provide the requisite mockery” with a “spot-on analogy.” And in one of the most ironic statements I’ve heard from the academe in a long time said of the protestors, “in their contempt for the free exchange of ideas, they appear to be comrades-in-arms of Sandra Fluke.”
Comrades-in-arms by personal ridicule and thus chilling the free speech of another? In Rochester, it seems it takes one to know one.
In keeping with our academic theme, in a hundred words or less, pick the victim(s) and defend your answer:
a. Sandra Fluke
b. Professor Steve Landsburg
c. The University of Rochester
d. First Amendment
e. Academic Freedom
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Josh White,
Did not seriously think you were, too hip for that. They usuallly like jazz.
(got another group mad now!!!)
As for leverage helping the drug user, it’s better here, as the negotiations are done by a non-profit single-payer (Sweden). The cash prices, before subvention is drawn is much less that there, much less. If you like we can compare. But never mind, I prefer single payer as do not like that medicine became a profit industry, as it has there. Here, per person, med costs are half—-and that’s true for the whole of Europe.
As for your music, to each his own. I’m open to all, even Alice.
Just found the images disturbing—-which was the intent I assume.
You did not comment them.
I’ve gone for a lot of new things for me this last year: Classical indian in unusual instrumentation, no Ravi Sjankar, although at 90, he still plays better than his daughter., delta blues, discovering old but for me new artists (early Joni Mitchell, can you believe it Leonard Cohen—how quaint I am in my ignorance) , Mali music, etc. So why not yours too.
Have fun.
Yeah … fuck him.
anon 1, September 8, 2011 at 3:50 pm
@AY, I am just tired of @SM’s constant stream of misandry in thread after thread that goes unremarked, why? Because it’s not PC to do so. Because we think there is some progressive value in bashing men.
And In this thread she calls once more for a black and white vote against someone based on a single issue.
This is the strategy the Corporate Dems use to bludgeon us time and again into voting for Obama and other tools, because any alternative IS DEATH HITLER FASCISTS TEA PARTY RACISTS.
Greenwald took that meme down a month or so back. We should all refuse to be bludgeoned by speech policing, gate keeping bullies insisting that if we don’t vote for their single issue, the result is HITLER.
So no, voting one issue, voting your vagina, is a losing way.
The Ladies Who Lunch have looong memories!
Swarthmore mom,
I remember that comment now. I was appalled when I read it. I’m posting the link to it:
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/08/galileo-and-the-gop-huntsman-takes-stand-for-science/#comment-265752
*****
This was my response:
Swarthmore mom has never focused on just one issue in her comments at the Turley blog as long as I’ve been a regular visitor to this blog–which is about two years. She often contributes much to our discussions. She also provides links to interesting articles.
I happen to agree with the following comment that she made in this thread:
“I do look distrustfully at those that do not consider women’s rights when discussing human rights. It has absolutely nothing to do with me personally. It has to do with lack of consideration for women in general.”
It appears that one of the individuals commenting on this thread has little consideration for those of us who lack penises.
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/08/galileo-and-the-gop-huntsman-takes-stand-for-science/#comment-265757
Hey Mike, don’t apologise. I recall the thread and thereafter referred to Anon as ‘vagina-boy’ on several occasions for his shameful, base attack on one of our female posters. He is what he is and no amount of feigned insult now will wash away his revealing behaviour in the past. He’s show-boating for the newbies. The folks that have been around for awhile know what you and I are talking about. I’m not looking the exchange up because vagina-boy isn’t worth the trouble. Or an apology. He knows. Fuck him.
SwM,
I remember that v-word comment and was going to go looking for it later for Mike was getting taken to the cleaners for no reason.
The above was posted by anon. It is kind of funny in retrospect and I am glad that I was out front in addressing the attack on women with AY and anon.
When I say it is time to turn up the heat, I mean it. All those conservatives who supported the Republicans War on Women should not be allowed to retreat from their avowed stance on contraception for that will only allow them time to regroup and and bring forth a new weapons to use against women.
@ay, @swarthmore mom,
“So as far as the statement you made: “Obviously women’s issues are of no concern.” It does not compute…people can disagree and still maintain a civil conversation….don’t you think…To disagree with someone does not mean that personal attacks are warranted….don’t you agree?”
swarthmore mom has always been a one trick vagina in the comments. Even her name emphasizes her vagina. You’re not going to knock her off her vagina stump.
Elaine and SwM,
This has probably already been posted and I missed it but the Republicans are finally beginning to feel the heat so it is time to turn up the flame another notch. (mind you, I put little faith in McCain’s words but women are winning in the polls and Republicans are losing big time due to their war on women.)
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/mccain-gop-needs-to-give-up-on-contraception.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
“Republicans need to “get off” the issue of contraception and “fix” the perception that the party has spurned women, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared Sunday.”
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER ECONOMIST:
Rush Limbaugh Is Right, Sandra Fluke Is A ‘Prostitute’
Grace Wyler
March 08, 2012
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-08/politics/31135191_1_contraception-congressional-testimony-rush-limbaugh-first
Excerpt:
Unsurprisingly, Landsburg’s arguments sparked a mini-firestorm at the University of Rochester, prompting the school’s president to issue a public dissent. Landsburg has resoundingly dismissed his critics as “contraceptive sponges,” and devoted another blog post to rebutting their arguments in favor of contraception access.
But Landsburg’s focus on the economic benefits and drawbacks of contraception have little to do with Fluke and her congressional testimony. Fluke was not, as Limbaugh and Landsburg have suggested, “demanding” that taxpayers pay for her to have sex; her testimony was originally part of a debate about whether religious institutions should be required to provide access to contraception. Her argument focused primarily on the medical (and non-contraceptive) uses of birth control.
“Otherwise, please have the intellectual honesty, if not the polite courtesy to take your claim and shove it so far up your ass.”
Anon,
I apologize unequivocally. I have not been able to Google specific misogynist quotes by you from last year. That being the case I was wrong to attack you and accept responsibility for that transgression.
Rush Scrubs ‘Slut’ Comment, Demand for Fluke Sex Tapes
Elspeth Reeve
3/8/12
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/03/rush-scrubs-demand-for-fluke-sex-tapes/49643/
Excerpt:
RushLimbaugh.com appears to have removed parts of his radio transcripts from February 29 and March 1 in which he called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and demanded a sex tape as a thank you to taxpayers for subsidizing her birth control. The links to “Butts Sisters Are Safe From Newt and Rick” and “Left Freaks Out Over My Fluke Remarks” now show blank stretches of white space. On March 3, Limbaugh posted an apology on his website. On March 5, he apologized at length on his show. In between, he was not apologetic at all. It’s the first round of insults and that bit of doubling down that appear to have been scrubbed.
The site still has the March 1 transcript “The Dumb Don’t Know They’re Dumb,” in which Limbaugh plays a clip of CNN, which itself plays Limbaugh’s “prostitute” line (a clip inside a clip, essentially). So the “slut” slur still appears on the site in some form. Limbaugh’s now infamous words:
“What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.”
The deleted sex tape demand was caught by Think Progress. Limbaugh said:
“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”
Attacks on Fluke sign of US misogyny
By Jason Darensburg | New Mexico Daily Lobo
http://www.dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2012/03/attacks_on_fluke_sign_of_us_misogyny
Excerpt;
Why is the greatest nation on earth still debating sexual politics? U.S. political discourse is becoming dominated by bitter debates over personal morality and “family values” at the expense of real, substantive issues.
The recent controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh’s comments regarding the testimony of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke at a House Oversight hearing is another classic example of American prudishness and religious ideology attempting to disrupt the democratic process.
It’s also a troubling indicator of how much backlash still exists in this country over the sexual revolution of the late sixties.
Ms. Fluke’s testimony unleashed a firestorm of hate and condemnation from shock-jock Rush Limbaugh and others — an illuminating example of the deep, lingering misogyny so prevalent among the country’s neo-conservatives.
Despite Limbaugh’s pathetic attempt to apologize for his “choice of words,” his latest hate screed is, unfortunately, yet another case of “he’s just saying what we’re all thinking” for many Americans.
There was nothing shocking or even mildly controversial about any of Fluke’s testimony, but originally she wasn’t even permitted to speak before the committee.
Three Democrats walked out of the hearing to protest Republican chairman Darrell Issa’s initial refusal to allow any women to testify in favor of the Obama administration’s contraception rule.
The panel was made up exclusively of men representing conservative religious organizations: Lutheran and Baptist clergymen were joined by an Orthodox rabbi and a Roman Catholic bishop.
This is 2012. Birth control is used by the vast majority of American women, whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, college students, doctors, professors, Catholics, Jews or atheists.
Yet Limbaugh spent three days defaming Fluke just because she believes that birth control should be considered basic health care.
“What does that make her?” Rush asked his audience. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”
If Rush Limbaugh and his listeners consider Sandra Fluke a slut for simply advocating birth control, they obviously have a pretty low opinion of women in general. No surprise there. It wasn’t just Limbaugh on the attack, however, and, sadly, it wasn’t just men.
—Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin called Fluke a “femme-agoge tool.”
—Jawa Report posted a story about Fluke with a picture of a tattoo that reads “Semen Demon.”
—Popular hate-blogger Pam Geller was even worse than Limbaugh. She wrote that Fluke is “banging it five times a day” and that “calling this whore a slut was a softball.”
—Don Irvine from Accuracy in Media called her a “skank.”
—Blogger Ace of Spades called Fluke a “shiftless rent-a-cooch from East Whoreville.”
Does anyone really think that attacking women is a viable political strategy? And since when have so many women joined the misogynist cause? Is there such a thing as a “self-loathing female”?
Case in point: the odious Liz Trotta, one of Fox News’ most outspoken pundits. Last month, she attacked the Department of Defense for proposed spending increases on support programs for victims of sexual assault — the majority of whom are women.
Later in the broadcast, Trotta reacted angrily to a Pentagon report showing a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults in the military since 2006.
“Well, what did they expect?” she asked. “These people are in close contact.”
Public statements like this — while always quickly retracted — reveal a lot about the mentality of the ideologues currently waging the war against women. Trotta later tried to blame “feminists” for blowing her comments out of proportion.
Huh?
It’s depressing that women are the target of hate and suspicion simply because they possess wombs. Suppressing the rights of women is morally wrong — whether it’s the Taliban or Christian fundamentalists. America could be entering a new dark age where women’s reproductive rights are once again a political battlefield.
The impassioned, tearful arguments used to be over a woman’s legal right to have an abortion. Now they’re going after contraception? How can birth control still be an issue in this day and age?
I find it ironic that politicians who are so viscerally opposed to “big government” have absolutely no problem with the government’s intrusion into the most intimate, personal business of its citizens when it comes to women’s reproductive choices.
Swarthmore mom,
The latest GOP intimidation attack in the War on Women:
Tennessee Bill May Expose Identities Of Women Seeking Abortions
By Igor Volsky on Mar 19, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/19/446875/tennessee-bill-may-expose-identities-of-women-seeking-abortions/
Excerpt;
Tennessee lawmakers will consider a controversial measure on Wednesday that could intimidate women seeking abortions by requiring that the names of doctors who perform the procedures be published online. The legislation, known as the Life Defense Act of 2012 or House Bill 3808, would restrict access to the procedure in to ways:
The first would require doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital near where they perform abortions, while the second would require the Department of Health to release more information on abortions, including the name of the doctor who performed the procedure and demographics about the women who receive them.
The measure’s sponsor, Rep. Matthew Hill, R-Jonesborough, said at an initial hearing on the bill earlier this month that the reporting requirement writes into law a form that the Department of Health already asks providers to fill out whenever they perform an abortion.
“The Department of Health already collects all of the data, but they don’t publish it,” he said. “All we’re asking is that the data they already collect be made public.”
But the measure goes beyond existing reporting requirements and could undermine women’s right to privacy by allowing opponents to identify — harass and intimidate — patients who undergo the procedure.
The state’s Department of Health already reports information on the age, race, education, and number of children of women who receive abortions, and aggregates the data by region, “making it impossible for others to figure out who underwent an abortion procedure.” This bill, however, would require the department “to release patient data broken down by county” and could “reveal the identities of some women who receive abortions, particularly in small, rural communities.” “I think in some small communities that woman would be identified,” State Rep. Gary Odom (D) warned when a subcommittee advanced the measure earlier this month. “I think that by publicizing this, it would have serious consequences. … We know what has happened to physicians who perform abortions that there has been violence. … There could be violence against the women. … This is a dangerous piece of legislation. … I think this is full of meanness.”
*****
TN bill mandates publication of abortion data
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120319/NEWS0201/303190022/TN-bill-mandates-publication-of-abortion-data
Excerpt;
Doctors who perform abortions in Tennessee could see their names listed online, and women who undergo the procedures could be unintentionally identified under a bill pending in the state legislature.
State lawmakers are debating a measure that would require the Department of Health to publish more details about abortions, bringing Tennessee into a roiling, state-by-state battle over how to regulate abortion procedures.
Supporters say the bill, scheduled to come up Wednesday in a state House committee, only requires state health officials to post information online that they already collect. But critics say the measure is intended to intimidate women and doctors involved in abortions, even in emergency situations.
“I think publicizing this information will do nothing but cause serious consequences,” said state Rep. Gary Odom, D-Nashville. “This is dangerous. This is a dangerous piece of legislation.”
Known as the Life Defense Act of 2012, or House Bill 3808, the measure gives Tennessee lawmakers a rare opportunity to tighten regulations on abortion, which the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in 2000 is a right protected by the state constitution.
Hi Idealist,
No, I’m not a shill for the medical insurance profiteers. If you believe that all the leverage exercised ends up in stockholders pockets then you will have to explain to me why the medication is cheaper for women through insurance. Because, I don’t believe insurance is eating the cost that way. Do you?
As for Alice in Chains, I’ve enjoyed their music since I first listened to the MTV Unplugged set featuring them. That unplugged set was one of the top two sessions recorded by MTV only rivaled by Eric Clapton’s. You should listen to it sometime. You may be surprised.
Sincerely yours,
Josh White
By ROBIN BRAVENDER | 3/18/12 7:03 AM EDT
The sudden focus on contraception and abortion in the 2012 campaign has meant a surge in fundraising for abortion rights groups that support women as congressional candidates.
EMILY’s List — whose mission is to elect pro-abortion rights Democratic women — has raised nearly twice as much for candidates at this point in the 2012 cycle as it did during the entire 2010 cycle, according to spokeswoman Jess McIntosh.
Josh White,
Just wondering. You wield a good spiel on insurance. Are you a shill for med-insurance profiteers?
I in my turn am certain that the leverage exercised ends up in stockowners pockets, not in the insuree, as you say.
My visit to your Facebook shows weird, to me, taste in music: Alice in Chains,- Lesson learned (explicit version). Perhaps it is customary, as in IRL, to “show” in order to attract attention. As it was my first Facebook visit, I am there a novice, as in much else in spite of or because of my many years.
What do you find attractive in Alice?
Now this classes me as being not in the know. But that is a familiar and non-embarassing position for me.
Clue me in on Alice, please.
I disagree with Prof. Landsberg’s perspective. However…
I am also a believer in academic freedom. Furthermore, Landsberg’s comments were on his personal blog. I therefore think it was inappropriate for students to interrupt his class to express their disapproval of his views, however objectionable they might have been. If he had expressed the views in class, it might have been acceptable for students who objected to walk out, but I think a better response would have been to speak up and state their disagreement.