I saw that Baculum King posted a diary yesterday about the federal prosecutor from Northern Florida who was arrested for soliciting sex with a FIVE YEAR OLD GIRL.

In deposition, detectives said Atchison suggested the mother tell her daughter that "you found her a sweet boyfriend who will bring her presents."

The undercover detective expressed concern about physical injury to the 5-year-old girl as a result of the sexual activity. Detectives said Atchison responded, " I am always gentle and loving; not to worry, no damage ever, no rough stuff ever. I only like it soft and nice."

The undercover detective asked how Atchison can be certain of no injury. He responded, "Just gotta go slow and very easy. I’ve done it plenty," according to detectives.

I know people were having trouble finding out more about this eminent Republican on the internet--it turns out that he goes by "Roy," which is a nickname rather than part of his given name (John David Atchison) and that when you search that way, there's all kinds of interesting stuff out there.

I have to say, I'm a bit disillusioned. I've been following Matt Bai's writing career ever since he started with the New York Times magazine several years ago. I'm disappointed with the latest turn his career has taken: the publication of his most recent book, The Argument. If you don't want to give Bai royalties--and I suggest that you probably don't--start by reading the reviews of his book by Kakutani:

http://www.nytimes.com/...

and Gillespie:

http://www.nytimes.com/...

I notice--apology in advance to OrangeClouds--that eating locally is beginning to emerge as a priority among the environmentally conscious among us. But I truly wonder whether it isn't just the idealistic  "back to the land movement" in a new guise--this time, an ideological refuge for rather bohemian people who have time and money on their hands and happen to live in parts of the country that can support an expensive locavore lifestyle.

I just finished reading the book "Plenty"--the story of two writers, seemingly in their twenties, without any children or full-time job commitments. Living in Vancouver, they adopt a rigorous, 100-mile locavore lifestyle for a year. This involves some great sacrifice on their parts: no bread for 9 months out of the 12 because the one bag of flour they can find has mouse turds and weevils in it; few sweetened products because sugar is off limits; and very little salt (they finally go whole hog and make their own sea salt in the final chapter). But mostly, they revel in their wine and cheese and nuts and apple pies and expensive organic salmon.

This isn't a diary about abortion, but rather about other reproductive choices that in turn have made me question whether we as a society are doing the right thing by allowing families to have certain, seemingly unregulated, options.

I'm pleased to report that cockfighting has finally been banned in New Mexico.

One great result of Bill Richardson's run for president has been his Wyatt Earpish attitude toward New Mexico's general backwardness. We were long one of only two states to tolerate cockfighing (Louisiana was the other). Richardson came in to office determined to eliminate the practice, and as of June 15, the law that he signed banning cockfighting takes effect.

In the wake of this past week's excellent diary about Snyder Drug, a Great Falls, MT pharmacy that is now refusing to dispense birth control pills, I wondered whether the pharmacy was acting legally by refusing to fill the prescription.

You can read the whole backstory and the excellent comments here:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

For the response I got from the Montana Board of Pharmacy, follow me below the fold.

In the wake of her retirement from the antiwar movement earlier this week, Cindy Sheehan appeared on the talkradio show of Alex Jones yesterday and had some 9/11 conspiracy comments that may marginalize her from the Daily Kos community and in any case, are certainly worth reporting and discussing. But the rest of the interview is relevant too.

If you'd like to hear the whole interview, you can listen here:

http://prisonplanet.com/...

If not, follow me below the fold for a summary of her and Alex's main points.

I'm about done with the whole "support our troops" idea, which I hold largely responsible for the outcome of yesterdays vote.

I had always found the "I oppose the war, but I support our troops" saying to be an untenable distinction. And as the war drags on into its fourth year, and even the Democrats seem unwilling to stop it, I think we need to reject that distinction. The troops and the war are INEXTRICABLE.

My son's school really relies on parent volunteers; and I volunteer once a week in my son's classroom for centers. Children rotate around through 3 centers and do math with me as one of the centers. I am not a trained MATH teacher but I am up to the task of second grade math as long as the kids are on a similar level as each other, abilitywise.

Most of the children have by now covered the second-grade curriculum and are working on some third-grade material, but there is one kid in the "low" group who can't even add easy numbers like 11+5. So when the other kids are working on patterns (+5, 15, +5, 15), for example, he is TOTALLY LOST.

It's May Day, the holiday that emerged out of labor's quest for the 8-hour day in the nineteenth century. "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will," workers sang. We lose sight of the fact that these workers brought us a decent night's sleep as well as the weekend!

I'm lucky enough to be in Santa Cruz, in the midst of the Reelwork festival, a film festival that is celebrating labor. Tonight, at our local Veterans' Hall, veteran labor folklorist and folksinger Archie Green will be leading the audience in songs out of the IWW songbook. I have to bring my son to this--even as labor unions only have eleven percent of the workforce unionized these days, I feel like this is a big and important part of history.

You can admire the Reelwork festival's schedule here:
http://www.reelwork.org/...

In the wake of yesterday's supreme court decision upholding the so-called "Partial Birth Abortion Act," and given Justice Anthony Kennedy's adoption of the framing of the so-called "pro-life" movement, it was only a matter of time.

The latest from the news wires suggests large Constitutional changes are in the offing.

I am totally flabbergasted at what I am seeing on the cable news networks: a constant dissection of the motives of Seung-Hui Cho for his massacre earlier this week, accompanied by still photos of Cho-with-hammer, Cho-with-handgun, and intermittent broadcasts of Cho fulminating against an unknown "you" in his signature low and monotone voice.

And yet, as a historian, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

For a while this winter I was suffering from reader's block.

Reader's block is even WORSE that writer's block. I love to read, but I was filled with anomie. I would walk into a bookstore and would admire the books that I have already read, but I literally could not think of what to read. I'd pick up a book, read the blurb, and set it back down again.

Norman Finkelstein is up for tenure at DePaul university, and some of my colleagues are trying to stop him from getting tenure. No matter what I think about Finkelstein, the attempt to interfere in the internal tenure process at another university makes me profoundly uncomfortable.

More beneath the fold.

Are blogs really destined to replace the mainstream media, as clammyc's recommended diary today argues? Personally, I shy away from this idea. As a former newspaper and magazine journalist, I know how training, a large investment of time, and the constant cultivation of sources blend together in journalism. Thus, although the nature of the news analysis on blogs is often really great, I can't imagine armies of unpaid volunteers blogging from their own living rooms being able to replicate the level of thoroughness that you see in really good journalistic investigation.

My mom has Stage IIIB lung cancer, and one of the first places I learned to look for good cancer information is the government's cancer information site, www.cancer.gov. The site is a great place to go to learn about treatment protocols.

I received an interesting email today:

President Bush's new head of federal family-planning programs believes that birth control is "demeaning" to women.

Did you have to read that twice? So did we.

More below the fold.

"I'm not a Democrat, and I'm not a Republican. But I was just so glad about the results of the election on Tuesday that I sat and watched TV all day yesterday,  my day off."

So said the friendly young grandmother sitting next to me at the sports-team practice. Let's call her Patricia.

Patricia isn't a policy wonk. She's not a political junkie. We are completely different in many, many ways. So it was very interesting to sit down and talk to her and hear what made her so ecstatic about the Democratic victory. What would make her vote Democratic, and proudly? Because to me she didn't seem to fit the profile I had in my head.