I've worked in the gay porn industry for over a decade -- producing, distributing, and making hardcore sex films. Two years ago, an unusual proposal came across my desk. A young filmmaker named Travis Mathews was looking to direct his first feature, a frank meditation on gay life in San Francisco called I Want Your Love, and he thought I might be able to help. He was looking for backers. It turned out, I could do a lot more.
We took on the project because we liked it. And because we were familiar with the gay market. But we also knew that we could give something to I Want Your Love that another, more traditional distributor couldn't: freedom.
From its early days, gay filmmaking has faced constraints when finding an audience that straight filmmakers don't. Earlier gay filmmakers, like Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger faced obscenity prosecution for even broaching the subject of sexuality. In the late '60s, even featuring someone in drag could result in an X rating. The culture has changed dramatically since then, but in some ways gay filmmakers still face challenges in bringing their movies to a market. Just this week, Australian censors banned I Want Your Love from screening at all in the country -- even at festivals.
It's too bad for them. I Want Your Love is a tremendous film, part meditation on gay identity, part love letter to San Francisco. It also happens to include segments with explicit gay sex. Watching the film evolve it struck me as to the difference between gay film and straight films. Unlike straight filmmakers that tend to play up the heat, gay filmmakers tend to de-sensationalize the sex, to make it seamless within a story, to play it down. Sex is an integral part of our lives, but that doesn't stop outsiders -- or traditional distributors -- from labeling it obscene or pornographic.
I Want Your Love has much in common with those early gay filmmakers -- and I think it also offers a way forward. Part of the reason I was so intrigued by the film as a producer was because I don't shy away from sex. And I knew that unlike mainstream distributors, we could help allow Travis to produce a version of the film that wasn't compromised by outdated ratings codes or theatrical discomfort. I Want Your Love screened at festivals across the country last year -- including a packed house at Lincoln Center, but when it's released this Monday, it's main distribution platform will be VOD -- video-on-demand.
Video-on-demand, a platform pioneered by porn companies like NakedSword, holds the possibility of a new era of gay filmmaking. Gay film festivals in places like New York, San Francisco and Provincetown will remain cultural events, but distribution -- the lifeblood of filmmaking -- will be increasingly virtual, allowing them to reach a larger and more targeted audience, and hopefully to finance their next project.
You see, porn hasn't had a theatrical revenue base for almost forty years. And what we've done in the meantime has been to build up email lists, to learn audience behaviors, and find ways to bypass the gatekeepers. We've always been the insurgents of the film community, with more in common with Roger Corman than any Burbank studio exec.
What does this mean for gay film? It means that our lives can be told in more varied, complex stories -- and still be profitable. It's like the difference between CBS and Netflix. To make a program successful, CBS needs to reach a broadest possible audience. Netflix, on the other hand, can create a successful production just by targeting a very specific segment of a larger audience. In many ways, this is what porn has been doing for years.
We're eager to help I Want Your Love find that audience, so that more stories like it can be told. People always ask me about the unlikely partnership between an indie filmmaker and a porn company. After all, if it were just about the money we could have made a more explicit film much more cheaply. So I tell them that it's not so much about the sex as it is the love -- for the audience, for the community, for the future of gay filmmaking.
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Follow Tim Valenti on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NakedSwordTim
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea vowed on Thursday to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a vote by U.N. diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.
An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.
Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.
Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested the U.S.-South Korean war drills and sanctions.
"Now our enemies are trying to make additional sanctions against us, but we can never accept this," said Ri Kum Il, a Pyongyang citizen at the rally. "We will make a preemptive nuclear attack against our enemies wherever they are and turn their strongholds into a sea of flames."
The U.N. Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council would vote on the draft sanctions resolution Thursday morning.
The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea's closest ally. The council's agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.
The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
It accused the U.S. of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take "powerful second and third countermeasures" against its enemies. It hasn't elaborated on those measures.
The statement said North Korea "strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950."
North Korea demanded the U.N. Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command that's based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.
In anticipation of the resolution's adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.
U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the proposed resolution, to be voted on at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT), would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations.
The final version of the draft resolution, released Wednesday, identified three individuals, one corporation and one organization that would be added to the U.N. sanctions list if the measure is approved.
The targets include top officials at a company that is the country's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.
The success of a new round of sanctions could depend on enforcement by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.
The United States and other nations worry that North Korea's third nuclear test pushed it closer to its goal of gaining nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. The international community has condemned the regime's nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.
The draft resolution condemns the latest nuclear test "in the strongest terms" for violating and flagrantly disregarding council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests "or any other provocation," and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns all of North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.
But the proposed resolution stresses the council's commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution" and urged a resumption of six-party talks with the aim of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula "in a peaceful manner."
The proposed resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs and strengthen existing sanctions and the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country. It would also ban countries from exporting specific luxury goods to the North, including yachts, luxury automobiles, racing cars, and jewelry with semi-precious and precious stones and precious metals.
According to the draft, all countries would now be required to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to North Korea's nuclear or missile programs.
To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The draft resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.
The proposed resolution also bans all countries from providing public financial support for trade deals, such as granting export credits, guarantees or insurance, if the assistance could contribute to the North's nuclear or missile programs.
It includes what a senior diplomat called unprecedented new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.
The draft also requires states to inspect suspect cargo on their territory and prevent any vessel that refuses an inspection from entering their ports. And a new aviation measure calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be aboard.
___
Lederer reported from the United Nations. Foster Klug in Seoul contributed to this report.
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science are on the decline in Korea
Seoul, March 7, 2013 In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in others, including the United States. South Korea's low ranking in the study results reflects a substantial underrepresentation of females in public and economic life.
South Korean ranks last of the countries in the study in female economic status, access to resources, supportive policy, and participation in the knowledge and STI sectors. While it shows strong participation of women in education at all levels, the country is failing to adequately support women to participate in its growing economic success. A low level of female participation in the knowledge society overall demonstrates a clear lack of correlation between a country's GDP and gender equality.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. The study was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The research was led by Dr. Sophia Huyer, Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
Despite efforts by many of the countries in this study to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. In South Korea:
Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields less than 30% in most countries and less than 15% in South Korea.
Overall science and engineering enrollments (including bio and health sciences) are under 21%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board, dropping to 11% in South Korea.
Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.
In Korea, the share of women in professional fields remains substantially lower than men, and at less than 50%, is well below the average for member countries of the OECD.
Women make up less than 18% of IT workers.
In the private sector progress has also been slow, with women making up less than 1% of corporate board directors, and the percentage of women-run businesses with more than one employee at 21%.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being participation in the labour force, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
###
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings, the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each country studied, can be found at http://www.wisat.org Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com) for more information or to arrange an interview with lead researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is a international non profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New gender benchmarking study finds women greatly under-represented in South Korean STIPublic release date: 7-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science are on the decline in Korea
Seoul, March 7, 2013 In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in others, including the United States. South Korea's low ranking in the study results reflects a substantial underrepresentation of females in public and economic life.
South Korean ranks last of the countries in the study in female economic status, access to resources, supportive policy, and participation in the knowledge and STI sectors. While it shows strong participation of women in education at all levels, the country is failing to adequately support women to participate in its growing economic success. A low level of female participation in the knowledge society overall demonstrates a clear lack of correlation between a country's GDP and gender equality.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. The study was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The research was led by Dr. Sophia Huyer, Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
Despite efforts by many of the countries in this study to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. In South Korea:
Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields less than 30% in most countries and less than 15% in South Korea.
Overall science and engineering enrollments (including bio and health sciences) are under 21%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board, dropping to 11% in South Korea.
Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.
In Korea, the share of women in professional fields remains substantially lower than men, and at less than 50%, is well below the average for member countries of the OECD.
Women make up less than 18% of IT workers.
In the private sector progress has also been slow, with women making up less than 1% of corporate board directors, and the percentage of women-run businesses with more than one employee at 21%.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being participation in the labour force, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
###
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings, the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each country studied, can be found at http://www.wisat.org Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com) for more information or to arrange an interview with lead researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is a international non profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? Arkansas lawmakers overrode a veto Wednesday and gave the state the most restrictive abortion law in the country ? a near-ban on the procedure from the 12th week of pregnancy onward that is certain to end up in court.
A day after the Republican-led state Senate voted to override Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's veto, the GOP-controlled House voted 56-33 to do the same. Only a simple majority was needed in each chamber.
The vote comes less than a week after the Legislature overrode a veto of a separate bill banning most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy. That bill took effect immediately after the final override vote, whereas the 12-week ban wouldn't take effect until this summer.
Abortion rights proponents have already said they'll sue to block the 12-week ban from taking effect. Beebe warned lawmakers that both measures are likely to fail in court and that the state would end up wasting money defending them if they became law.
The measures' supporters, who expected court challenges, were undaunted.
"Not the governor, nor anyone else other than the courts, can determine if something is constitutional or unconstitutional," Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Hot Springs, said in urging his colleagues to override Beebe.
Bill sponsor Sen. Jason Rapert, a Republican from Conway, watched the vote from the House gallery and said a number of law firms have offered to help the state defend the laws in court, if it comes to that.
"I'm just grateful that this body has continued to stand up for the bills that have passed. The eyes of the entire nation were on the Arkansas House of Representatives today," he said.
Beebe rejected both measures for the same reasons, saying they were unconstitutional and contradicted the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion until a fetus could viably survive outside the womb. A fetus is generally considered viable at 22 to 24 weeks.
"The Arkansas Legislature has once again disregarded women's health care and passed the most extreme anti-women's health bill in the country," said Jill June, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. "With this bill, the Arkansas Legislature will force many women to seek unsafe care."
The 12-week ban would prohibit abortions from the point when a fetus' heartbeat can typically be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. It includes exemptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and highly lethal fetal disorders. The 20-week prohibition, which is based on the disputed claim that a fetus can feel pain by the 20th week and therefore deserves protection from abortion, includes all of the same exemptions except for fetal disorders.
Six Democrats joined with Republicans in voting to override the veto of the 12-week ban. Last week, only two Democrats voted to override the veto of the 20-week ban.
"I think a lot of people felt some pressure after the last vote," said House Minority Leader Greg Leding, a Democrat from Fayetteville.
The measure is among several abortion restrictions lawmakers have backed since Republicans won control of the House and Senate in the November election. Republicans hold 21 of the 35 Senate seats, and 51 of the 100 seats in the House. It takes a simple majority in both chambers to override.
Beebe has signed into law one of those measures, a prohibition on most abortion coverage by insurers participating in the exchange created under the health care law.
Rep. Ann Clemmer, a Republican of Benton serving her third term in the House, asked her colleagues to support the override attempt, saying her votes on anti-abortion bills this year were the first time she could fully express a pro-life stand at the Capitol. When Democrats held control, such bills never made it this far.
"If I say that I'm pro-life, at some point I have to do something about what I say I believe," said Clemmer, the bill's sponsor in the House.
Unlike the 20-week ban, which took effect immediately, the 12-week restriction won't take effect until 90 days after the House and Senate adjourn. Lawmakers aren't expected to wrap up this year's session until later this month or April.
In vetoing both measures, Beebe has cited the costs to the state if it has to defend either ban in court. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas has vowed to sue if the state enacts the 12-week ban and the group said it was considering legal action over the 20-week restriction as well.
"I think today, for whatever reason, the Arkansas House turned its back on the women of Arkansas and said we don't think you're capable of making your own decisions," said Rita Sklar, ACLU of Arkansas' executive director. Sklar said the group planned to file suit in federal court in the next couple weeks.
Beebe noted that the state paid nearly $148,000 to attorneys for plaintiffs who successfully challenged a 1997 late-term abortion ban.
The original version of Rapert's bill would have banned abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, but he changed the measure after facing resistance from some lawmakers worried that it would require the use of a vaginal probe.
Women who have abortions would not face prosecution under Rapert's bill, but doctors who perform abortions in violation of the 12-week ban could have their medical licenses revoked.
___
Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
Rand Paul took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to (so far successfully) filibuster President Obama?s nomination of John Brennan for CIA director. Why? He wants the White House to rule out killing Americans on U.S. soil without first providing them the due process promised by the Constitution.
Odd. Right?
The U.S. government has killed four Americans that we know about under its sometimes-covert targeted killing program. (One of those four was the actual intended target, officials say.) All of those killings happened outside of the United States and, according to the administration?s legal reasoning, were allowed under the same war authorization Congress provided after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Sure, U.S.-born America-haters who volunteer with al-Qaida and become operational terrorist leaders are fair game, most folks would agree.
But common sense might lead some of those same people to think the White House would easily concede it does not have the right to kill an American in the United States. After all, under its own criteria for adding U.S. citizens to the kill list, the administration says capture of said bad guy must first be deemed infeasible.?
Still, no dice.
For weeks, Paul demanded answers from the Obama administration on whether it believes its targeted-killing program could apply within this country before the senator would allow a vote on Brennan?s nomination. Attorney General Eric Holder--a man who previously has said due process does not equal judicial process--replied with a letter that said simply the U.S. government has not carried out drone strikes in this country and has no intention of doing so.
Oh, and, the administration is reserving the right to kill an American inside the country in an "extraordinary" circumstance, Holder noted. Something on the order of Pearl Harbor or Sept. 11.
The vote on Brennan was supposed to have happened Wednesday, but Paul?s filibuster has at least delayed it.
It?s an irritant to Obama, but many on the Hill think it?s a short-term problem.
While Paul?s not the only one to wonder why the administration won?t say it does not have the right to kill Americans in America--many in Congress have posed the same question--he is one of the very few who seem unwilling to take a long-winded "no comment" for an answer.
William Jelani Cobb, associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies, comes to UConn from Rutgers. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)
William Jelani Cobb brings an unrepentant curiosity about how the past influences the present to his role as a teacher and social commentator.
Cobb came to UConn from Rutgers University in January, as an associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies (IAAS). His appointment is part of UConn?s expansive hiring initiative designed to attract up to 500 professors in four years.
This semester, his first on campus, he is teaching a course in African American History to 1865. Yet Cobb?s inclination to ?say what needs to be said? about contemporary issues is never very far from the surface, and he is as much at home in front of the media as he is in the classroom or in his office in Wood Hall.
?A lot of times, people see a contradiction in the fact that I teach history, yet I write and speak about contemporary issues. But I don?t see it that way,? he says. ?To me, those two things are conjoined. The present is always rushing into the past, and an understanding of the past allows us to see how we got to where we are now. The past and the present reinforce each other.?
Cobb is a native of Queens, N.Y., where he first developed his interest in history. ?One of the most important things to me as a young person was that history helped the world make sense to me,? he says. ?It literally contextualized my surroundings. It allowed me to see the world around me in entirely different ways.
?I could see the community where I grew up in Queens ? which was made up of black migrants from the south and Caribbean immigrants ? and I could see how the community came to be populated by those people ? why people had come from the Caribbean ? why my parents had come from the Deep South ? why they had settled where they did. All of a sudden it clicked and it began to make sense. And that is the kind of experience I hope my students get when they study history.?
Before earning his Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University in New Jersey, Cobb studied English as an undergraduate at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He also worked as a journalist while in school, putting in time at the Washington City Paper and at various community and alternative newspapers. In addition to learning to meet deadlines as part of his job, he says, ?my dissertation advisor at Rutgers was David Levering Lewis and he gave us an absurd amount of writing to do. I learned to write fast because I had to!?
Raising UConn?s profile
Jeffrey Ogbar, vice provost for diversity and former director of the IAAS, was chairman of the search committee that selected Cobb. He says, ?We decided to reach out to people who weren?t necessarily looking for jobs. I knew Jelani had been a department head when he was at Spelman College in Atlanta, so he already had great administrative experience. He is also a public intellectual who has had a lot of visibility. I thought he would be a good colleague, so I asked him if he would consider applying. Once he did, his name quickly rose to the top of [the hiring committee?s] list and we made an offer. Fortunately, he accepted.?
Cobb was well established as a teacher of history and Africana Studies at his doctoral alma mater, so what made him consider a change of scenery?
?When I found out about the position here, there was an immediate sense that this would be an exciting time to be at UConn,? he says. ?When I talked to people, I kept asking, ?Where?s the problem? Where are the bodies buried?? but I really couldn?t unearth any deep dark secrets. What I found was an institution that was really committed to growing and developing and trying new things. It was something I wanted to be part of.?
Both Ogbar and Cobb say the various centers and institutes on campus play an important role in defining the University?s profile.
?The Institute [for African American Studies] and the other academic and cultural organizations such as El Instituto, or the Center for Judaic Studies, or the Rainbow Center all exist because they help us understand the human condition in a particular context,? says Ogbar, who is also a professor of history. ?That?s why they remain relevant to our understanding of the political and socio-economic landscape of the United States, and that?s why they are important to UConn.?
For his part, Cobb says he?s intent on developing the strengths of the IAAS with an eye towards making it more visible, on campus and off. ?I would like to see us putting on biannual conferences, being more visible nationally, and getting more recognition for what we do here, along with attracting more students to the African American studies major.?
Speaking out
During his career, Cobb has written many books including, In Our Lifetimes: Barack Obama and the New Black America; a monograph titled Antidote to Revolution: African American Anticommunism and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1931-1957; and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He has another book, dealing with the Cold War and the American Civil Rights Movement, which is scheduled for publication later this year.
But among his most visible and widely-read works are his blogs for The New Yorker magazine. He has dissected some of the country?s most compelling and contentious subjects as he has written about the murder of Trayvon Martin; Newark mayor Cory Booker and the dilemma of the new black politician; the lessons learned from Quentin Tarantino?s movie ?Django Unchained;? and the Obama presidency. A frequent commentator on National Public Radio, he also appears on CNN, Al-Jazeera, CBS news, and other national broadcast outlets.
Says Ogbar, ?It?s really exciting to have Jelani come to UConn, and it?s a reflection of the progress we have made as a University in bringing the best and the brightest to campus. When I see him on CNBC or CNN and he?s identified as being from the University of Connecticut, I get excited. I?m glad he?s bringing that sort of recognition to us.?
Bust out the Sex Panther: Paul Rudd and his "Anchorman" mustache were in fine form on TODAY Monday morning.
The actor was on to promote his new film "Admission," in which he stars alongside?Tina Fey for the first time, and talked about a "steamy" shower scene with the actress.
"We shot it at about 2 in the morning in a barn. It was freezing cold," Rudd said. Matt Lauer quipped that the actor is naked for about half the movie and Savannah Guthrie chimed in that Rudd must "feel naked without his mustache."
"I'm really just getting a look at it now," Rudd said of the facial hair he's growing for his role as Brian Fantana in the "Anchorman" sequel.?"I look like Yanni."
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Public release date: 7-Mar-2013
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