LaVena post at Crooks & Liars

Crooks & Liars returns to the story of PFC LaVena Johnson with a post by Logan Murphy:

Nicole and I have both written posts about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of PFC LaVena Johnson, and Democracy Now! had a heartbreaking interview with her family last week. LaVena’s family has worked hard to find the truth about her death and have finally had a breakthrough in the case. Unfortunately, the new details they uncovered are so disturbing that they could potentially make the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch stories pale in comparison. The above video from Cenk of The Young Turks captures my exact feelings about this horrific case.  What you’re about to read will sicken and enrage you.

Murphy references a June 2008 article on LaVena from the St. Louis American (last link in the quote), and mentions today’s Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing on sexual assault in the military.

Wishing won’t make it so

Got this in the e-mailbox today from concerned correspondent “Juanita Henley”:

Many women wish your penis was larger

True that! A lady in the checkout aisle at PetSmart told me that just the other day. I replied that I made up for the shortcoming with excessive personality.

One point nine percent

New York Times: Not much of a “stimulus,” was it?

Brief blog outage

Apologies to all who may have visited this blog over the past couple of days to find sweet bloody nothing in its place, or cryptic placeholder messages on the screen, or a website in various stages of digital undress. What began as a planned server migration in response to downtime issues turned into a full-blown immigration away from one webhost and to another. Waveflux has moved to the good offices of Steadfast Networks, and any bloggus interruptus was my own clumsy fault as I stumbled my way through various issues involved in the changeover. As you can see (I trust), however, all is once more right with the weblog. In the words of a noted philosopher: complications arose, ensued, were overcome.

Note to Blogger Nation: If you don’t have a consistent backup policy, thou art foredoomed. That bloggerly virtue is the reason I am able to speak to you - a bit smugly, to be sure - today.

I’ll expound a bit on the recent issues here and their denoument in an upcoming post. In the meanwhile, it’s nice to be back. I assume I haven’t missed much.

Hearing on military sexual assault

The parents of PFC LaVena Johnson believe that their daughter was murdered in Iraq - contrary to Army claims of suicide - and suspect that she may have been victim to a sexual assault. The Army has resisted calls for reinvestigation of the matter; public and Congressional attention are required in order to change military minds. Gina at What About Our Daughters? has alerted readers to an opportunity to bring LaVena’s case to legislators - a public hearing on sexual assault in the military held by a sub- of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

On Thursday, July 31 at 10:00 am, [the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs] will hold a hearing entitled, “Oversight Hearing on Sexual Assault in the Military.” The hearing will take place in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building and is open to the public.

It should be noted that the chairman of the parent committee - Representative Henry Waxman - is the named petitionee of a new public appeal for hearings on the LaVena Johnson case. This petition is authored by the advocacy group ColorofChange.

The chair of the subcommittee is Rep. John F. Tierney of the Sixth District of Massachusetts. The names of other subcommittee members, and suggestions on trying to put LaVena on their agenda for the day, may be found at the What About Our Daughters? post.

Feministing, BuzzFlash on LaVena

Apologies for coming late to the July 18 writeup on PFC LaVena Johnson by Ann Friedman of Feministing. The post asks readers to spare just a couple of minutes to sign the Danielle Vyas-authored petition to Congress and President Bush, which has (of this writing) 2374 signatures with a goal of 3000. Friedman references posts on LaVena by a number of feminist writers; some of them have been previously noted here, while others are new to me:

You may have read about LaVena recently on Feministing, or from Cara, Megan at Jezebel, Gina at What About Our Daughters, and Kate at Broadsheet…

I am very happy to add Friedman to the growing list of writers whom I owe thanks for support for a renewed investigation of LaVena’s death in Iraq.

Also on that list is Meg White for bringing LaVena’s story to the many readers of BuzzFlash in a news analysis piece posted today. It is a capsule of the Johnson family’s trials in pushing the Army to revisit the investigation of their daughter’s death, and the possibility that she had been the victim of a sexual assault. Like Friedman’s entry at Feministing, White touches on the CommonDreams.org article by retired Army colonel Ann Wright on other suspicious deaths of women in service, and references the recently-launched ColorofChange to Rep. Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Governmental Affairs Committee. Many thanks to White for this entry.

Server migration planned

Waveflux has experienced some unscheduled downtime this week - four times (that I know of) in as many days. This was caused by an overloaded server at my webhost, LivingDot. I have requested that the account be transferred to a more stable server. The move is scheduled for sometime this weekend; as a result, the site will likely be inaccessible for an indeterminate period. With luck, things will be back to normal here no later than Monday morning. Without luck…well, there’s always Plan B.

Misleading Roberts ad

Like many St. Louis voters, I got a billboard-sized flyer in the mail this week from Mike Roberts, Jr., scion of the Roberts political family and Dem candidate for State Representative in the 64th District (mine, incidentally). Roberts is looking to unseat Rachel Storch, a hard-working, award-winning, popular incumbent. Lots of luck with that! Roberts seems to have acknowledged that with no resume and little in the way of compelling ideas - with nothing but his last name, in fact - his only option is to go negative. Hence the unimaginative deception of the flyer -

Over the last few years Rachel Storch voted against funding healthcare programs while receiving Health Insurance paid for by YOU.

- in which Roberts complains that Storch opposed health care funding measures that were passed unaminously or nearly so by the State Senate…the Republican-controlled, Matt Blunt-allied, Axe Gang State Senate that was doing no favors for Missouri voters. Yeah, that’s a crowd I’d want my state rep to fall in with.

Arch City Chronicle calls out Roberts for his duplicity so I don’t have to:

Campaigns Go Negative, Lie to Voters

In 64th District, Mike Roberts Jr. has mailed this piece accusing Rep. Rachel Storch of voting against healthcare.

In truth, she voted against the Republican budgets which cut healthcare funding.

Oops. Guess Roberts forgot to provide context.

Not sure which notion is worse: that this flyer is Roberts’ own brainchild, or that he uncritically accepted bad campaign advice from some advisor. Either way, if I actually needed another reason to vote for Storch over Roberts, this would do it.

Note to Roberts: Next time around, stick to issues and to boosting yourself, rather than trying (and not very well) to drag someone else down.

Loves peanuts and baseball, hates children

Considering the kinds of news the Cardinals have been making of late - unreliable bullpen, sputtering offense, and that hole in the ground where Ballpark Village should be - this week’s Post-Dispatch story about the club’s setting aside a stadium section for fans with peanut allergies and their children no doubt came as welcome relief. But for every good deed, there’s always some selfish nutcase (literally) ready to spoil the fun and endanger a youngster’s health. Welcome to St. Louis, Frew family!

Armed with medication just in case, the Frew family from Sedalia, Mo., sat in the peanut-free zone as 2 1/2-year-old Colin tried to focus on his first-ever baseball game.

“We can’t even eat peanuts and touch him. He’d have a reaction,” said Denise Frew. “It doesn’t take much to send a child with allergies into distress.”

The Frews bought tickets for Monday’s game, thinking the entire stadium had been designated peanut-free for the night. When they initially sat in another section, a man was eating peanuts nearby. When they asked him to stop, he refused.

The Frews then realized they needed to move to the special section, where they found sympathetic section-mates.

Really, Cardinals fan? Your right to enjoy an overpriced bag of peanuts trumps a kid’s vulnerability to an ailment that could very well kill him?

A pity that P-D reporter Georgina Gustin didn’t identify the defiant legume lover. A guy like this deserves his full fifteen-minute allotment of fame.

A message to all such self-absorbed gooberists from the most famous Cards fan of all:

I may have to start reading comics again

Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog: Scroll down for the review of a comic featuring Helen Keller as a super-ninja bodyguard. Wow.

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