Much as I'd feared, there has been at least one other banishment. I received an email from Shadowthief this morning letting me know that he has found himself locked out of Duloc.

So what is the reason this time? Was he one of the amorphous "slanderers" Booman alluded to in his Ideas on Slander. I have yet to see a clear definition of either "slander" or "libel," because libel is what it is in a print medium such as this. If management is using a yardstick to determine what constitutes bannable offenses, I think that measure needs to be spelled out a little more clearly than the highly subjective word "prick" and accusations of "slander/libel" with no demonstration of how it interprets those words.

This started as a comment on the "Don't be a Prick" thread, but the more I think about it, the more perfect I find the analogy. My daughter is watching Shrek this morning; the first one, about Lord Farquaat and his attempts to perfect his kingdom of Duloc. Of course the hero of the movie is the ogre Shrek. Isn't it interesting how in movies it's the non-comformists who are always the heroes? Not so in life, I'm afraid. Every community moves towards conformity and group-think in one way or another. It's what Carolyn Myss and Stuart Wilde refer to as the "tribal" mind. Non-conformity invites shunning and shaming behavior from the enforcers of tribal norms.

I've actually been observing the shunning and shaming of Parker, with increasing horror, for some months now, and assumed she'd be banned sooner or later. Sooner it is. Parker certainly can be a bit of an ogre. No argument. I can see why she might push people's buttons. She's certainly pushed mine on occasion. But having one's buttons pushed is part of life. People abrade each other. I don't know how to break it you folks, but life was not designed to be comfortable.

Madman in the Marketplace's most excellent diary has alerted me to the recent stirrings amongst the "Man's Right to Choose" crowd. This deeply creepy movement has now found expression in one Dalton Conley. Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- his opinion is hidden behind "the wall" at the New York Times, but it's stench is now wafting through the blogosphere. Says Conley: "If you play, you must pay. But if you pay, you should get some say." In fairness to Conley, his call for equality does not go nearly as far as other proponents of "reproductive rights for men" I've encountered. For these "feminist" men, the message seems to be: Feminism is great. Equality and all that. Shaking off the shackles of thousands of years of oppression. Good for you! Now what's in it for me?

The argument over a man's inability to "choose" falls into two categories: 1) Men should be able to demand an abortion or be absolved from all responsibilities that ensue from the woman's choice to carry to term, and 2) Men should be able to stop an abortion if they want to be fathers and are willing to assume the responsibility for child-rearing.

On the short drive from my mother-in-law's house to her sister's, for our lovely Thanksgiving dinner, my husband noted a news report on the car radio that there was another car bombing in a busy Hilla marketplace. My husband checks icasualties every day. Sometimes he exclaims in despair, "Did you see these numbers?" Other times he just swears. Yesterday, he said, we were at 2097 American troops killed in Iraq. At that moment, in the family car, he knew we'd passed 2100. As of this writing, it's 2104. Well Happy Thanksgiving!

I grow weary of chipping away at the erroneous belief that Republicans support the troops, while anyone to the left of Toby Keith does not. If Republicans love the troops so much, why does the Pentagon, under Bush appointee Donald Rumsfeld, constantly shortchange them? The most recent slight-of-hand game played at our troops expense: promising re-enlistment bonuses, and then refusing to pay them.

As per America Blog, the Pentagon has reneged on the $15,000 bonuses for re-enlistment.

According the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Washington state Guard officials have taken on the fight with Pentagon Brass to restore money promised to soldiers while they were fighting in Iraq.

I rarely read Steve Gilliard's blog, but last night I saw that Buzzflash, a news portal I respect, favorably linked to his newest entry. Says Buzzflash, "The inimitable Steve Gilliard analyzes Maureen Dowd's withering takedown of Bushevik groupie Judy Miller -- in which she's essentially told not to bother returning to the NYT." I read MoDo's satiric paean to Judith Miller and enjoyed it very much. I thought the column pretty much spoke for itself, so I wondered what impressive insight had garnered Gilliard such high praise. I ask you, gentle reader, to please take a look at this, and tell me what his "analysis" brings to the table other than blatant misogyny.

Perhaps I view Mr. Gilliard through a very specific prism, because I only really became aware of him in a diary called Hating Women on this website. There I learned that he had been taken to task by another blogger for implying that everyone was responsible for the crime of rape except the rapist. The comment in the Gilliard piece in question that I found most offensive was that Natalee Holloway, who had recently gone missing in Aruba, must have been trying to "pull a train," when she left that bar with 3 men. But, there is much in the blog entry entitled Girls Gone Wild to offend.

I first learned about this occurring from a friend whose relative works in a New Orleans hospital, and I felt like I'd been socked in the gut. I was loathe to talk about it, because I didn't want to cause trouble for private citizens, but it's a matter of public record now. Doctors in New Orleans authorized the euthanasia of terminal patients, rather than subject them to worse deaths or victimization. They found themselves on the horns of a dilemma I can't even imagine, because of the hell New Orleans descended into. It's illegal, but it's arguably merciful.

-- story below the fold --

Now that the press has been barred from photographing the dead, remaining New Orleans residents are being driven from their homes, and the city is under military rule, it turns out there aren't so many bodies after all. If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a body floats up from its watery grave, and there are no reporters there to see it, does it exist?

-- more philosophical musings below the fold --

Listen... It's sound is carried by the wind, wafting through conversations wherever people gather, surging through the blogosphere, and erupting onto the pages of major newspapers. It's even glanced across the surface of our corporate controlled TV news shows. Like the levees bursting from the mounting pressure of Lake Pontchartrain, the teflon coating that has protected the Bush Administration from the consequences of everything from ignoring the terrorist threat before 9/11 to its violent quest for mythical WMD, is cracking apart.

We are witnessing a massive, collective shift in awareness. These things do not happen over night, but as a cumulative process. The bad news for this President has gathered momentum over a politically disastrous summer. It may too early to tell if the storm headed Bush's way is full category 5, but it's clear that the hundredth monkey has noticed that Bush is an ineffectual and detached leader, unprepared for the "hard work" of dealing with reality.

A casual reading of some of the major press organs tells me that the dam has truly burst for Bush and even his titanium reinforced bubble won't protect him.

-- scathing media commentary below the fold --

There have been a lot of discussions on this board about morals and judgment over the last week -- some with disastrous results. That such discussions got ugly comes as no surprise to me. I would have been far more surprised if they hadn't. I have commented very little on these threads, because, I've realized, I have more to say on this issue than can be reduced to a few sentences, and that I needed to sit with the feelings that some of this emotionally charged language has brought up for me. For my part, I strive not to judge others. I'd like to lay out why I believe judging other people or their behaviors is unconstructive and why I believe it takes us out of integrity to do so.

First, a little background about me and the foundation for my beliefs. The cornerstone of my belief system is "mystical thought." I studied for several years with a Cherokee Mystic. (This term is capitalized because it is a tribal designation, not to aggrandize her needlessly.) I am a psychic intuitive and healing facilitator. I am also a caring nurturer and a member of many of twelve step programs, but not a licensed therapist, to borrow from my fictitious hero Stuart Smalley.

One of Stuart Smalley's oft quoted aphorisms, which I think is very much on point, here, is, "When you point the finger at someone else, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you." While this is a little precious, there is much truth in it. When we form judgments about other people, what we say is really about us, not them. It's about our beliefs, our values, and our unhealed wounds. When we criticize other people, it is what John Bradshaw calls "acting out our shame" and what Jungians refer to as "projecting the shadow." It is easier, in the short run, to point to what we perceive as flaws in other people than to undertake the work of rigorous self-examination.

Some time ago, on another site, in no way affiliated with this one, I got into a scrap over abortion rights. The argument presented was that since women can choose abortion, they are now responsible for all consequences of their decisions. A woman can abort. A man can't. Therefore, women who choose to have the child, should absorb all financial obligations and exempt unwilling fathers from child support costs. It amazes me how much women are expected to absorb. We really haven't come very far, have we? No matter what options a woman has, it still comes down to "You play, you pay." No matter how many rights we acquire, our costs and responsibilities still exceed them.

An article in today's Chicago Tribune underscores one of the many injustices that still confronts women of child-bearing age. While women, across the board, make less than men, working mothers make less than anyone. And, the more children we have, the worse the pay gap gets.

-- some stats below the fold --

[Bumped up by pastordan]

[promoted by BooMan]

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

This historic exchange between Ron Suskind and a Bush aide, published last fall in the New York Times Magazine and well-excerpted here, alerted those of us who still live in the world of consensual reality, to just how far off the rails the White House had gone.

Like Icarus watching the wax drip from his magnificent wings, the reality of gravity is becoming apparent even in Bushworld. Stubborn "facts on the ground" in Iraq are becoming impossible to ignore. Today's front page of the Washington Post announces that the, "Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion..."

-- more reality below the fold --

Former Senator Fred Thompson, who plays the head of the District Attorney's office on "Law & Order," has now been cast as the point man on Supreme Court nominees.

U.S. President George W. Bush has named Fred Thompson, an actor and former senator, to help shepherd his yet-to-be named Supreme Court nominee through the Senate, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

Thompson, an actor on the television series "Law & Order," agreed to accept the post in a telephone conversation with the president on Monday, McClellan said....

More of this bizarre AP story, below the fold.

Something has been gnawing at me since I read Lawrence O'Donnell's blog entry in the Huffington Post, earlier today.

Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week.

Exactly how many people are we talking about? Just how many inside-the-beltway bum-sniffers have been sitting on the Karl Rove as Plame identity leaker story. Dare I say it? What did the press corps know and when did it know it?