Daily - The Austin Chronicle (2024)

National Round-Up

Her First House

Durant Named Big 12 Rookie of the Week, Again

On The Road (But Never On the Pill)

Annie's List Loses Director

Kelly White can say "mission accomplished" without having to eat her words. The executive director of Annie's List is leaving her post after breathing new life into the group in less than a year's time. White, the former E.D. of SafePlace, took over the reins of Annie's List in early 2006, replacing former director Sherry Boyles, who left the organization under a cloud of controversy. White and her staff rebuilt Annie's List from the ground up through fundraising, training, and recruiting pro-choice Democratic women to run for legislative seats. This year, the group focused its resources on five competitive House races and won all five, including Travis Co.'s HD 47 seat won by Democrat Valinda Bolton. In a special election earlier this year, the group helped Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, win a special election in HD 47 to replace former GOP Rep. Todd Baxter. White, who narrowly lost to Baxter in 2004, says she will enjoy some down time with her family before deciding her next mission.

No Medi-Pot for the Feds

The first federal prosecution of a California medi-pot patient-caregiver in three years began last week in federal court in Fresno, Calif., with the trial of 60-year-old former Marine Dustin Costas, former president of the Merced Patients Group, a private cannabis club formed in the wake of the 1996 passage of California's Proposition 215, which legalized medi-pot use, cultivation, and possession by seriously ill patients. Costas was arrested and charged in 2004 on state marijuana trafficking charges, but the case was handed over to the feds for prosecution since under state law Costas would be able to use medi-pot law in his defense. Under federal law, however, Costas will be barred from doing so - to the feds, marijuana use, possession, and cultivation is always illegal. Indeed, U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii ruled that Costas may not use the state's medi-pot law as part of his defense, reports the Fresno Bee, unless Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Escobar raises the issue first - and that ain't likely to happen.

The Big D is for Discrimination

Pro-Lifer to Oversee Nation's Family-Planning Program

In a bold screw-you move, made either in ignorance of or despite of the recent elections that saw a spate of extremist legislators tossed out of Washington, D.C., on their self-righteous cans, President George W. Bush announced on Nov. 16 that he had chosen pro-lifer Dr. Eric Keroack as his new appointee to oversee the nation’s family-planning program at the Department of Health and Human Services – from where nearly $300 million in federal funds is distributed annually among the states to fund, in large part, the providing of reproductive health care – notably, including access to contraceptives – to poor and uninsured women. While one might think that appointing someone expert at providing these critical health services would be a good choice to head up that office, Bush has tossed logic to the wind and has instead tapped Keroack for the job – an ob/gyn best known for his staunch support of abstinence-only education and as the medical director for the outfit A Woman’s Concern, which operates a string of crisis pregnancy centers in Boston – a group that, amazingly, openly espouses the notion that widespread use and distribution of birth control is actually “demeaning to women.”

OSU Chimps Leave Primarily Primates

The ongoing legal battle that will decide the fate of the Bexar Co. animal sanctuary Primarily Primates Inc. and its hundreds of animal inhabitants heated up Nov. 16 over a decision to move seven Ohio State University chimpanzees that were brought to PPI earlier this year to the federally funded primate sanctuary Chimp Haven in Louisiana. The decision to temporarily relocate the chimps caused a stir at PPI Thursday morning, says PPI President Stephen Tello. Tello told the Chronicle that he got a phone call that morning from PPI employees who told him receiver Lee Theisen-Watt and a handful of others – including attorneys from the controversial group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, whose involvement in the PPI controversy seems to be fueling distrust between the sanctuary and the state – were preparing to move the chimps. The employees told Tello they feared the move was being done in violation of a court-ordered stay requiring Watt to receive court permission before undertaking any action to permanently move or to euthanize any of the animals living at the 75-acre sanctuary, he said.