Hosted by a Space 1999 lunchbox.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
11 Things That are Wrong With Jezebel's "Defense of Gay White Men"
Here are 11 things that are wrong with Thursday's Jezebel post about why everyone in the gay community is mean to white, gay, cisgendered (obviously one gender), American, middle-class men:
1) The title, "In Defense of the Gay White Man." (Sorry, has someone in the progressive community denied your right to exist?)
2) This sentence: "Race, gender, and gender expression conspire to strip a person of their freedom just as much as any outside prejudice or hateful legislation." Is. Just. Wrong. The fact that black people want you to actually listen to their experience is equivalent to Jim Crow? The fact that you don't feel heard at conferences for gay minority women is the same as transgender folks wanting inclusion in the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell? No. False. Wrong.
3) As a white man (who is, incidentally, paraphrasing someone else's words---presumably in the least flattering way possible), you don't get to get mad when other people talk about their personal experiences being oppressed by white male privilege. Or you do---you just don't get to turn around and call yourself an ally.
4) The claim that people of color and other minorities are constantly trying to force him to "make frequent and loud apologies for the crimes of his ilk." No. No one has accused you, personally, of "crimes," or even asked you to make an apology. What they have asked is that you listen to their experiences without making it about you. Which brings us to...
5) Guess what? IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT YOU. Believe it or not, people with less privilege than me isn't about me, any more than a "very butch Latino [sic] lesbian" is about him. As a white American relatively middle-class cisgendered straight woman, I have a hell of a lot of privilege. That doesn't negate the lack of privilege I experience being a woman in a sexist society, but it's something I'm obligated to recognize if I want to consider myself an ally of people who don't enjoy my privilege.
6) This: "I don't think it's fair for another person to label me an oppressor without the barest knowledge of what I have done in my life or what kind of person I actually am." And this: "I end up having to do what no one of any identity should have to do: Apologize for what I am."
7) "In any community people should be proud of who they are." This reminds me of so-called "men's rights" advocates who claim they're just trying to reclaim their masculine identities from their evil female oppressors. Hey, they don't hate women---they just think "male pride" (and the ensuing crusade against women's equality) is something to embrace.
8) "If men are deemed too privileged to fit in with the lesbian community, how can there actually be a dialogue?" I think, here, what he means by "deemed too privileged" (love that passive voice. See also, two paragraphs down, his "fear of immediate chastisement." By whom, he doesn't say) is something more like "asked to listen instead of talking." If I don't understand someone's experience, the best way to get to understand it isn't a "dialogue," it's to listen before you speak. The writer seems to want people who've had experiences he never will to thoughtfully listen to how he thinks they should feel.
9) Back to the conference and the imaginary people asking to apologize for being white and male. "Do I fight back, respond with bile that white men have feelings too and that we don't like being denigrated in public?" No. Amazingly, perhaps, other people's systematic oppression (or, conversely, the massive advantages, material and otherwise, you enjoy for being a white male in America) isn't about your "feelings." That's like saying black Americans don't deserve an apology and reparations for slavery because some individual white people were and are really, really nice to their black friends.
10) The author acknowledges he's "privileged," but never says what rewards he thinks that privilege gets him. Given his self-centeredness in other matters ("why won't my black/trans/lesbian friends let me make their struggles about meeeeee?"), I'm guessing his gesture to "privilege" doesn't have much basis in self-reflection.
11) Finally, Mr. Gay White Guy wants to know why, oh why, his trans friends won't just spend the time to tell them all about their experience being trans. Instead, they suggest he do some research himself. He thinks this is unfair and "it makes me uncomfortable." Maybe they're telling him what they actually think he should do, instead of telling him what he wants to hear. Maybe being subjected to invasive questions about their identity makes them uncomfortable.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of Deeky W. Gashlycrumb's Guide to the Movies: Let Me Tell You How Much I Love Bruce Willis Movies.
Recommended Reading:
Quinnae: Raiders of the Lost Etiology [TW for transphobia, gender essentialism]
Michelle: Fat/Counterfat [TW for discussion of diet/exercise]
DeeLeigh: Paul Campos et al on Whether the "Obesity Crisis" Is a Public Health Crisis or a Moral Panic [TW for fat hatred and discussion of diet/exercise]
Ezra: Too Young Not to Work; Too Old to Get a Job [TW for ageism]
Andy: Fight Erupts at Ugandan LGBT Activist David Kato's Burial as Pastor Decries Homosexuality, Villagers Refuse to Bury Body [TW for homophobia, violence]
kirbybits: Here is a thought: Why I'm Not Speaking at PAX East 2011 [TW for rape culture]
Leave your links in comments...
How DARE You
Former President Mondo Fucko has said and done a lot of terrible things in his day, but perhaps none quite so terrible as this:
Former President George W. Bush is landing a stinging jab at his former longtime aide and press secretary, Scott McClellan, saying the man who served as the public face of his administration for three years was irrelevant.*gasp*
In an interview with CSPAN scheduled to air this weekend, Bush says he deliberately didn't include McClellan – who held the high profile post longer than anyone else during the administration – in his memoir, "Decision Points."
"He was not a part of a major decision. This is a book about decisions," Bush told CSPAN. "This isn't a book about, you know, personalities or gossip or settling scores."
"I didn't think he was relevant," added Bush.
I'm sure this new attitude of haughty indifference for the man who valiantly stonewalled the damnable questioneers with class and integrity for nearly three years has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he wrote a book calling Bush a liar and then said the same thing while testifying before Congress.
I still love you, Scottie.
An Open Letter to NPR
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
Dear NPR news,
Thank you for Richard Gonzales' coverage of the Berkeley city council's proposal to fund health care for transgender municipal employees during this Thursday's All Things Considered.
Because it's so routine and careless for media organizations to bungle coverage of issues pertaining to trans and gender non-conforming people, I tend to respond to inaccurate or transphobic reporting with some combination of silence and weary sarcasm. However, NPR News has a well-earned reputation as a responsible journalistic organization, so I actually trust that you'll take my remarks into consideration.
Transsexual is an adjective, not a noun (e.g., transsexual person, transsexual woman, transsexual man).
"Sex Change" is an inflammatory term. There are a jumble of terms referring to trans-related surgeries that would be more appropriate for your coverage, including sexual reassignment surgery, gender reassignment surgery, and sexual/gender confirmation/affirmation surgery. The easiest (and likely least controversial) thing to do would have been to listed the actual medical terms for some of the surgeries in question (mastectomies, vaginoplasties etc.,)
It is inappropriate to refer to a trans woman as having been "born a boy." This serves to undercut Lynn Riordin's point that "When [she] was 5, [she] realized [she] was a girl [and that she] never thought [she] was a boy."
Lastly, as I writer, I appreciate your effort to frame this story within a larger context. However, I wasn't impressed that you chose to portray the funding of health care as merely the pet project of leftist residents of a "liberal bastion."
Kindest Regards,
Kate
Chipping Away at Roe...and the Definition of Rape
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia, victim auditing.]
The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape:
Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.Read the whole thing here.
For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.
With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)
Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.
...The bill hasn't been carefully constructed, [Laurie Levenson, a former assistant US attorney and expert on criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles] notes. The term "forcible rape" is not defined in the federal criminal code, and the bill's authors don't offer their own definition. In some states, there is no legal definition of "forcible rape," making it unclear whether any abortions would be covered by the rape exemption in those jurisdictions.
There are so many things wrong with this proposed legislation, I hardly know where to begin: The implicit redefinition of what constitutes rape, the ramifications of that redefinition for all survivors of sexual violence (not just the pregnant ones), the revictimization of survivors, the policing of women's bodies and choices, the auditing and ranking of survivors of rape, the auditing and ranking of various acts of rape itself, the condescending and infantilizing paternalism that Other People know what's best for a pregnant woman and survivor of rape, the virtual impossibility of being able to "prove," presumably in a court of law, that one was raped (forcibly or otherwise) in time to secure an abortion... There are so many rape culture tropes being served here, I could frankly spend the entire day documenting the innumerable manifestations of misogynistic fuckery at work here.
But instead I'm going to focus on but one truly shocking aspect of this proposed legislation which probably won't get a whole lot of attention: The proposed law effectively, if not by design, gives veto control over terminating pregnancies resulting from rape to the rapist.
At least in cases where the victim/pregnant woman is dependent on government assistance for abortion, i.e. poor women. (Which underscores the obvious classism of this legislation, too.)
These are facts: Most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. There are men who use violence, including sexual violence, to control their partners. There are men who use reproductive coercion to control their partners. There are men who rape their partners with the explicit objective of forcibly impregnating them to control them and create a lifelong connection with them.
This law communicates to those men that as long as they drug their partners before raping them, the government will deny funding for an abortion, should a pregnancy result.
Because, you see, raping an unconscious women isn't "forcible rape."
Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes.This legislation exists because of a pernicious straw-narrative about the legions of women who will supposedly create stories about having been raped to get the government to pay for their abortions. There is no evidence that these legions of women exist.
There is, however, evidence of the existence of men who use violence and contraceptive sabotage to try to control intimate partners: "About a third of women reporting partner violence experienced reproductive coercion, as did 15 percent of women who had never reported violence." And this legislation pretends those men don't exist, despite the fact that young women and poor women are disproportionately victimized by both reproductive coercion and rape, and disproportionately in need of federal funding to secure abortions.
It's not likely that there will be huge numbers of men who would be aware of and take advantage of such a loophole in the law (though more than 15% of women experiencing reproductive coercion isn't a small number, either), but how many do there actually have to be for this law to be total garbage?
Even in theory alone, giving potential rapists a road map on how to limit their victims' rights and access to abortion is fucked up in the extreme.
Daily Dose of Cute
So, the other day, my Beloved calls out from upstairs: "Portly! Come up here right now!"
I run up the stairs, urged on by the urgent urgency in her tone. She points toward the sliding door to the second-story balcony -- "Do you see the Snowy Owl in our tree?"
I look. I see:
[image: Something white high in a tree]
I shake my head in confusion. While it is not utterly impossible that we might have a Snowy Owl appear in this region, it's highly unlikely that I'm going to see one in the day.I look again. Then I realize that I'm seeing this:
[image: White Cat butt]
Which is also this:
[image: Floofy goofy white cat on stairs playing with Beloved's head]
I live with two scamps.
[image: Beloved and White Cat in tree together]
Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt
I don't have any incisive commentary at the moment; right now, I'm just watching it all unfold. Here's some recommended reading:
The Guardian—Protests in Egypt: Live Updates. This is an excellent resource.
AP—Egypt imposes night curfew after day of riots: "President Hosni Mubarak imposed a night curfew and signaled he was about to send the military out in the streets for the first time to quell an unprecedented challenge to his regime by tens of thousands of protesters who rioted on Friday. One demonstrator was killed and even a Nobel Peace laureate was placed under house arrest after joining the protests."
The Guardian—Egypt cuts off internet access: "Egypt appears to have cut off almost all access to the internet from inside and outside the country from late on Thursday night, in a move that has concerned observers of the protests that have been building in strength through the week."
Al Jazeera—Fresh protests erupt in Egypt:
Before Egypt shut down internet access on Thursday night, activists were posting and exchanging messages using social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, listing more than 30 mosques and churches where protesters were to organise on Friday.The Atlantic—Egyptian Activists' Action Plan: Translated.
"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," a page with more than 70,000 signatories said.
The Associated Press news agency reported that an elite special counterterrorism force had been deployed at strategic points around Cairo, and Egypt's interior ministry warned of "decisive measures".
The Guardian—Egyptian government on last legs, says ElBaradei: "The Egyptian dissident Mohamed ElBaradei warned President Hosni Mubarak today that his regime is on its last legs, as tens of thousands of people prepared to take to the streets for a fourth day of anti-government protests."
David Dayen—United States appears perplexed with how to address this issue: "While President Obama said in a YouTube interview yesterday that activists should 'have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances,' and that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, while an ally, should move forward on economic and political reform, Vice President Biden said that Mubarak was not a dictator and highlighted the strategic relationship between Egypt and the US. Meanwhile, the New York Times dug into its cache of Wikileaks cables and revealed how the Obama Administration took a non-confrontational approach to Egypt during the early days of the Presidency."
Abdulrahman El-Sayed—President Obama, the Egyptian people must hear your voice: "If you meant [that you will support human rights everywhere], and and if you believe in the cause of 'political reform' in Egypt which you spoke of on Thursday, there are 80 million people who need to hear you say them loud and clear. As an American, I ask you to support these freedom fighters because not only is it in our American self-interest to promote democracy in the Middle East, but this is the only avenue our ideals will allow us. As an Egyptian, I ask you to support them because I know, firsthand, the injustice that the Mubarak regime has inflicted, and because I dream that some day my 80 million Egyptian brothers and sisters will enjoy the same dignity and freedom that my 300 million American brothers and sisters do."
Also: Waves of Unrest Spread to Yemen, Shaking a Region.
Cable "News" Network
This morning, CNN has a story up about segregation. Well, not segregation-- actually, "segregation."
What, you ask, is CNN referring to when it talks about "segregation", once in the title of the story, and again in the text?
Well:
A Pennsylvania high school says some students are separated by race, gender and language for a few minutes each day in an effort to boost academic scores.
In other words, segregation.
Look, if administrators at this high school (or anyone else) want to defend segregation as a tool for increasing academic success, I suppose they're welcome to discuss their idea, even if they're really not entitled to do so as public school administrators.
But they don't get to pretend that this policy isn't real segregation. I know the term segregation in reference to schools brings to mind things like Brown vs. Board, Little Rock Central, and Governor Wallace. But, uh, that's because those are also things that involved actual, yes literal segregation.
Responsible news media wouldn't enable folks' claims that polished versions of the same old shit are fundamentally different from past policies that many people (including :ahem: these guys) acknowledge to have been horribly wrong.
Let's be clear here, racial (and economic) segregation is still a problem in the United States, and public schools are no exception. We are not in a post-racial, post-feminist, post-civil rights era, and no amount of scare quotes changes that fact.
Whoops I Barfed on Your Time Magazine
The cover story, "The Role Model: What Obama Sees in Reagan," will open in a tab on your computer labeled "Obama's Reagan Bromance." Seriously.
Oh, Time. What are we going to do with you?
Question of the Day
What or who would you like to see hosting an open thread(s)?
There have been a couple of weeks recently where I forgot to set up the Open Thread on Sunday night for Monday morning, and Melissa has kindly filled in. She likes to challenge me to build a theme around weird stuff, which is great, because after doing this for a while I've been running out of ideas. So what would you like to see?
Without a Trace of Irony Dept.
In an altogether too familiar story, a Harps Supermarket in Mountain View, AR received "several" complaints from customers regarding the cover of a US Weekly magazine. They therefore placed a "family shield" over the magazine, to shield young, impressionable eyes.
Here's the cover:
So, let's recap, shall we? Harps used a "family shield" to "protect young Harps shoppers" from the sight of... a family. A family with a child.
Of course, they're not the right kind of family, and children must be protected from those.
The shields have since been removed, thanks to a lot of squeaky
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: Sophie lies in the crook of my arm, grooming herself and purring away.
This video is two years old now, but Sophie still loves to leave her perch on the monitor to come snuggle in the crook of my arm at least once a day. It makes writing difficult, but I think that's sort of the point. "Take a break, Two-Legs!"
Important Announcement
I like Helena Bonham Carter and I like her mismatched shoes.
I rented Lady Jane on VHS from Blockbuster Video when I was 13 because I liked the picture on the cover. And it was this revelation, a movie about a girl not so much older than I was who became the Queen, and she was smart and progressive and wouldn't compromise her religious or cultural beliefs and holy shit they killed her for it.
That's a simplification of the film, and the film itself is an embellishment of a largely undocumented nine days.
But I didn't get all that when I was 13. I got that being smart and uncompromising and progressive, especially while also being a woman, was controversial and sometimes dangerous, but that it's worth doing anyway.
Which is all an aside to my main point, which is that I fell in love with Helena Bonham Carter while she was playing Lady Jane Grey, who I imagine would have thought wearing two different colored shoes was kinda cool.
LOL UR Mendacious Arithmetic
Yesterday, the Republican controlled House passed a bill to eliminate public financing of electoral campaigns.
In light of Citizens United and President Obama's decision to turn down public funding in his 2008 campaign, this certainly strikes me as an opportune time to revisit the federal government's role in campaign spending. Unfortunately, if this bill was to become law (it won't in the immediate future), it would signal a further step towards cementing the United States' position as a corporatocracy.
That said, permit me to talk about math.
One of the prime arguments the Republicans are making about this legislation (indeed, about virtually all legislation) is that the US needs to reduce government spending to get our budget deficit under control.
So.
Yesterday, on the same day Mitch McConnell took up the flag in the Senate, saying:"In a time of exploding deficits and record debt the last thing the American people want right now is to provide what amounts to welfare for politicians."
the Congressional Budget Office announced that it expects the federal budget deficit to reach $1.48 trillion this year. CBO estimates that the decision to extend the Bush tax cuts (which Republicans pushed for) is responsible for $390 billion of that deficit. Indeed, the interest payment on the tax cut extension will be around $50 billion per year.
Eliminating public campaign financing would save the federal government about $62 million a year.
To recap:
2011 deficit: $1,480 billion
2011 cost of the Bush tax cuts: $390 billion
2011 cost of interest on the Bush tax cuts: $50 billion
Potential savings of eliminating public financing: $0.062 billion
I call bullshit.
DADT Update
Pentagon to outline training for post-DADT life:
Pentagon leaders will roll out a plan Friday that is expected to give the military services about three months to train their forces on the new law allowing gays to serve openly, officials said Wednesday.Indeed so.
The plan, they said, will outline the personnel, recruiting and other regulations that must be changed. It will describe three levels of training for the troops, their commanders and the key administrators, recruiters and other leaders who will have to help implement the changes.
Under that training schedule, full implementation of the law could begin later this summer. Once the training is complete, the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won’t hurt troops’ ability to fight. Sixty days after certification, the law would take effect.
...According to officials, the training will be broken into three categories. One will be for administrators and other leaders who will have to be able to answer detailed questions about the new policy. The second will be for senior commanders who will have to enforce the policies and also be on the lookout for signs of unease or problems among service members. The third group will be the general training for the troops.
...The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, however, wants officials to hurry along certification that the change won’t hurt military effectiveness.
“We think there should be certification from the president, [Defense] Secretary Robert Gates and [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Chairman Michael Mullen in this quarter,” the group said in a statement Wednesday. “We need to make ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal a reality sooner rather than later.”
Yikes
[Trigger warning for unethical sexual behavior, possible sexual assault and stalking.]
So, CNN has this big exclusive on misconduct at the FBI, and I'm not especially surprised that there is some percentage of agents who are creeps, but I am certainly intrigued by the FBI's position on what constitutes an appropriate punishment for unethical sexual behavior (which may actually be sexual assault, depending on context like some element of coercion, unclear in the article) and borderline stalking (or legal stalking, also depending on context not made explicit in the article).
I mean, how did the agency know, for example, about the supervisor who watched "pornographic movies in the office while sexually satisfying himself" during work hours unless somebody saw him (which was quite possibly the whole point) and/or he talked about it? That's sexual harassment at minimum.
Which seems it ought to warrant a more serious response than a 35-day suspension.
I'd really like it if the US government started taking sexual harassment, assault, and violence seriously, because I'm really tired of reading about sex crimes in various federal agencies (and Congress), sex crimes in the military, sex crimes in the Peace Corps, sex crimes by subcontractors, etc. etc. etc.
If anyone at the White House is interested in making rape prevention a priority, there's a lady at the State Department who might have some ideas about how to do that.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence and homophobia]
"When we called for hanging of gay people, we meant ... after they have gone through the legal process...I did not call for them to be killed in cold blood like he was."—Giles Muhame, editor of the Ugandan tabloid The Rolling Stone (no connection to the American publication) [TW] speaking about the murder of gay rights activist David Kato.
In late 2010, Muhame's paper published the names, addresses, and photos of "[the] top 100 homosexuals" (including Kato) under a banner that included the phrase "Hang Them."
Blog Note
I've been feeling a little under the weather, nothing to be alarmed about, just the same old shit, so I'm taking it easy and posting may be a little lighter than usual over the next few days.
No need to feel obliged by this post to wish me well (and the usual suspects can hold the tiresome emails accusing me of attention-seeking); I just wanted to post something informational for the Shakers who tend to worry when I deviate from my routine.
Question of the Day
What's the worst back-handed compliment you've ever received?
I don't know if this is precisely the worst, but, not terribly long ago, someone said to me, "You're a really great female blogger." Oof.
An Observation About Bootstraps
In the conservative lexicon, ownership is good, and there's no dirtier word than entitlement. In last night's GOP response to the State of the Union, the idea that entitlement programs like Social Security and universal healthcare (to which we unfortunately do not have anything close) are THE WORST and individualism and self-governance are THE BEST was a rather prominent theme, because BOOTSTRAPS.
Which are the thingies conservatives wave around to distract our attention primarily from the existence of privilege and prejudice, but also from the reality that entitlement programs are not, actually, the "wealth redistribution" programs they assert them to be. To hear conservatives tell it, entitlement programs are some kind of wealth-punishing equalizer, as opposed to components of a fraying safety net that is often the only thing keeping low- or no-wage earners from falling off the edge.
I'll leave aside for now the tropes about the legions of straw-people who could be earning a livable wage at an awesome job but inexplicably choose not to work, living high on the hog off our generous welfare system. Suffice it to say, that is abject nonsense, and being poor is one of the most difficult things to be in this country. Poverty is not for lazy people.
My present concern is with the working poor, and the way they are regarded by the architects of the Ownership Society.
Those men—and they are indeed almost all men, most of whose lives have been dictated by inherent privilege and family connections, which we're not meant to note while admiring their shiny bootstraps—believe quite firmly, and without seemingly a trace of irony or compunction, that one gets what one deserves in life. From the imposing height of their handsomely recompensed sinecures, they will assert with the particular condescending authority bestowed only by unearned success that, with a little hard work, anyone can be a productive member of their magnificent Ownership Society.
Now, I don't feel inclined to get into a whole Marxist discussion about the means of production here, but what these insufferable, vainglorious, classist captains of self-aggrandizing bullshit seem never to grasp, or possibly just acknowledge, is that if you want to live in a capitalist society that gives you the opportunity to get nasty rich, then we can't all be wealthy. And if you want to be the kind of person who doesn't pump your own gas, or make your own sandwiches, or clean your own house, or manicure your own fingernails, or drain your own dog's anal glands, then there are going to have to be people who fill all those jobs.
And most of those professional, hard-working people will put in at least 40 hours a week, or more, and even still, many of them won't be given healthcare benefits, and many of them won't earn enough money to feed a family, and many of them won't be able to save as much as they'll need for their retirement.
People who honorably dedicate their time, energy, and talents to jobs that might not pay well are indeed entitled to something—to not work their whole lives only to find themselves poverty-stricken, or hungry, or homeless after one small (or not small) medical crisis. And if we're not going to ensure that every job comes with a livable wage, access to affordable healthcare, and retirement benefits, then we've got to provide a robust and well-funded social safety net.
I don't think that's asking for much, in exchange for a lifetime of providing service to their chosen vocation.
Though I grant it's certainly easier to scream BOOTSTRAPS! and carelessly assert that people who don't have everything they need just aren't trying hard enough.
Funny how the Grand Advocates of Hard Work are always the ones making the easy arguments.
Daily Dose of Cute
I've heard there are people in the world who think greyhounds aren't cute.
Does not compute.
Don't cut me off, I'm heteronorrrrrrrmmmatttiiiiiiiivvvvvveeeee........
You know those car decals that you can buy to showcase how nuclear, hetero, and fecund your family is?
I'm gonna buy, like, fifty ladies and put them all over my rear window. Fifty ladies and four cats.
A Thought
Maybe a discussion about the "sinfulness" of a particular sexual orientation isn't actually a valuable contribution to the national discourse. Maybe it's not even news.
Technically that was two thoughts. If you count the embedded contempt and implicit commentary about what a homophobic wankstain Joel Osteen is and what a terrible journalist, even by CNN's increasingly questionable standards, Piers Morgan is, it's even more than two thoughts.
Whatever.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Deeky: I am sending you those Bieber cards when I am done with them.
Liss: LOL. Of course you are. Because you're a closet hoarder who just sends me his garbage treasures.
Deeky: No doy!
Liss: "I can't bear to throw away this 17-year-old porno mag with the centerfold who looks like Brian Bloom! Too many nice wankmemories! I know - I'll send it to Liss!"
Deeky: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! I can't stop giggling.
Liss: "I'll keep my house nice and clean and send my garbage treasure hoard to Indiana!"
Deeky: You love my treasures!
Liss: Your treasures, lol. Yes, I love them so much I put them in plastic treasure chests and put them out by the curb every week to be collected by the "treasure man" for safe keeping. He buries them at the "treasure dump" for me.
Deeky: LOL! How thoughtful!
Liss: It's like a safe deposit box, except EVEN BETTER.
Deeky: LOLOLOL! I wish I was back in Missouri. I would sooooo send you a mountain of treasures right now.
Liss: LOLOLOLOLOLOL! I bet you would.
[Click to embiggen.]
Above: An actual image of some of the recent garbage treasure that has been mailed to Liss by Deeky: A torn-out magazine photo of Brett Anderson circa 1993, a M4M phone sex ad, a random magazine photo of an eagle, New Kids on the Block trading cards, a doodle in colored pencil with a food stain on it, a Czech grocery specials flyer from 2001, an anti-McCain bumper magnet, and a glittery sticker featuring a cartoon of disembodied boobs being grabbed by hands reading "Free Mammograms."
Pennsylvania Senate Committee Votes to Ban Abortion Coverage in Private Insurance Plans
From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
HARRISBURG - A state Senate committee is advancing a bill to ban abortion coverage from policies obtained through health-insurance exchanges that are to begin in 2014. The bill passed the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on Tuesday, 12-2. No public hearing was held.
Last year's landmark federal health-care law requires states to set up the exchanges to provide a marketplace where small businesses and individuals can buy coverage.
However, some abortion-rights proponents say that federal law already restricts taxpayer funding for abortion coverage and that this bill goes further than federal law by restricting abortion coverage in private policies.
For more on yesterday's vote, let's go to Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates:
Senate Committee Votes to Further Endanger Women’s Health and Safety in Pennsylvania
January 25, 2011
Author: Sari Stevens
HARRISBURG – Two days after the November 2nd election, President Pro Tempore Senator Scarnati was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cautioning his colleagues to focus on statewide fiscal matters and avoid divisive fights over abortion rights. On just the second day of legislative session, that commitment to Pennsylvania voters was broken when the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee voted to ban private insurance plans sold in the Pennsylvania health insurance exchange from covering even medically necessary abortion services.
“Rather than focusing on job creation and stimulating the economy, the State Senate is pulling a bait and switch and has made clear that government interference in private medical decisions is their top priority,” said Sari Stevens, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. “Pennsylvania voters are not interested in reopening the debate around abortion. Our lawmakers should focus on improving our health care system and stop using women’s health as a divisive issue.”
The debate over private insurance coverage of abortion in the health insurance exchanges was settled by U.S. Senator Ben Nelson, a staunch opponent of abortion. The Nelson amendment stipulates that women who want to use their own money to purchase a health insurance plan that covers abortion services must send a separate payment so the funding for abortion coverage is completely separate and paid entirely by the individual.
Read the whole thing.
This vote comes just after the Kermit Gosnell case broke. Last week, Melissa wrote,
This case is already being used by anti-choice advocates as evidence for why abortion should be criminalized. But, in fact, the opposite is true: It is because of the increasingly limited access to safe, affordable, first-term abortion, as well as safe, affordable, late-term therapeutic abortion, that a heinous anomaly like Gosnell exists. He is an unethical opportunist who made lots of money exploiting desperate women without a better alternative.
And now the PA State Senate is acting opportunistically to limit women's reproductive freedom.
If you live in Pennsylvania, you can
Contact PA State SenatorsH/T to Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming Deeky's Guide to Smart Investing.
Recommended Reading:
Shani: Ask a Woman Who Knows [TW for gender essentialism]
scatx: Rape in the Peace Corps [TW for sexual violence]
Fannie: The Ignorance of Non-Feminists, Part Whatever
Renee: Toy Story 3: Lessons in Race and Gender
Dori: Thousands of Cuts [TW for discussion of circumcision]
Andy: Peruvian Catholic Bishop Uses Gay Slur; Apologizes "For Everyone Who Felt Offended" [TW for homophobia; Christian supremacy]
Living ~400lbs: Microagressions
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for anti-Semitism.]
"He's into history."—An anonymous Jesse James "insider," explaining why more pictures have surfaced of James playing around with Nazism: "In one pic, James grins and sits in a convertible alongside a pal who gives the infamous "sieg heil" salute [while wearing what looks like an SS cap]; another image features a children's book character, Flat Stanley, dressed as Adolf Hitler."
No, people who watch WWII documentaries are into history. People who play Nazi dress-up are anti-Semitic fucknecks.
"He's into history." Please. That would be fucking hilarious if it weren't so terrifying.
And by "terrifying," I'm not referring to Jesse James or his "anonymous friend," but to a culture that finds eliminationist anti-Semitism an acceptable position to hold.
This post sponsored by The Beaver, coming to a theater near you in March!
[Related Reading: No.]
Situation Normal
[Trigger warning for violence.]
If you are a rightwing extremist who advocates "repudiation of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision with mass bloodshed," you can still totally have a job as a CNN commentator, even sitting on a panel discussing the State of the Union.
And why not? It's not like the president even mentioned reproductive rights, anyway.
Assvertising
Kate's post about the manflu reminded me that I've been meaning to post about this obnoxious Vicks Dayquil advert for ages (it's the first of the two in this video):
A white man is lying on a couch, looking pathetic and coughing. His wifemommy walks in. "I can't reach the remote," he whines, looking at her plaintively. She tosses a box of Vicks Dayquil at him. Cut to a whitescreen with the text: "Thankfully, it even works on the man-cold."Whooooooooops I barfed on your Vicks Dayquil.
For The Fiscally Responsible Collector
Need some solid financial advice from Shakesville's resident Wall Street Insider™? (That's me, by the way!) Buy some of these! They are guaranteed to appreciate in value! It's practically like buying cash money at half off! It's all about the Benjamins! It's all about the Biebers! Yes! Get in on the ground floor of the Bieberdollar bubble!
[Image: Pack of Justin Bieber trading cards!]
5 cards! 1 sticker! No purchase necessary! (I have no idea! Shoplifting, what?) Stock up now! Rare and foil cards! And remember: After the Bieberpocalypse, the only currency recognized by the NBO (New Bieber Order; Glenn Beck's ghostwriters are already working on a new novel) will be the Bieberdollar! Don't be left behind! Don't be Left Behind! Ages 9+ only!
State of the Union Open Thread
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Speaker John Boehner. [Getty Images]
So the president gave a speech last night. So did Rep. Paul Ryan, who gave the official GOP response, as well as Rep. Michele Bachmann, who gave the Tea Party Caucus response. The Green Party response, which was not aired on television, naturally, is here.
Discuss!
Stock up on cold ones, it's a manmergency!
[Trigger warning for misogyny and gender essentialism]
We live in a world where it's still controversial to openly discuss the scale of the GRID AIDS crisis, where migraines, if the dominant culture is to be believed, are primarily caused by reading too many Danielle Steele novels, and where women are encouraged to squirt toxins down there into their vaginae to promote health. In this world, still reeling from a prolonged he-cession, I give you the latest public health emergency: MANFLU!
The Daily Mail (sigh):
"Women have suspected it for years – and finally, they have proof: when it comes to illness, scientists say men really are wimps.
According to research, the working man is much more likely to succumb to a cold than his female colleague when the pressure’s on."
Yes, men, why do you have to be so feminine and sick? Can't you learn to be fighters?
The Scotsman [Edinburgh] has a pretty good take down of the research and the accompanying Mail story. Since my sweetie tells me CBS' The Early Show covered this super serious story this morning (as of this writing, they don't have anything online), here are a few thoughts:
The study The Mail cited involved surveying workers from 40 South Korean manufacturing firms. So, the results are (as always) grounded in a specific cultural and socioeconomic context.
Researchers asked participants if they thought they had caught a cold in the past 4 months. I briefly worked for some epidemiologists, and this methodology is certainly, um, easy? It's like that time when NIH asked 50,000 bank employees if they suffered from any undiagnosed cancers. Except in this case, it actually happened.
Here's a fun fact: the South Korean study found that women were more likely than men to get colds. Whoops!
The manflu (or man cold, as The Scotsman helpfully points out) is all in the interaction between reported stress and reported illness. Men who reported being under more stress were more likely to report that they had a cold in the past four months. There wasn't a correlation between reported stress and reported illness in women.
This might be an interesting finding. I mean, why might this be the case?
Maybe women tend to be under more stress than men, what with that oppression business and all. That could overwhelm any effects of workplace stress.
Maybe men are more likely to be in management positions than women, which, if correlated with stress (positively or negatively), could make the statistics tricky.
Maybe (um,
Maybe (absolutely) there are gendered aspects of socialization that impact perceptions of stress and illness.
Or maybe men are a bunch of girls and therefore we should feel sorry for them, because unlike girls, they are more likely to get sick (except they aren't).
Tough call.
The State of the Union Pub Is Open
President Obama will be giving his State of the Union address tonight, starting at 9pm EST. (Find out how/where to watch it live online here.) The seating will be bipartisan, Obama will propose a five-year spending freeze on non-defense spending, and Michele Bachmann will deliver an unofficial rebuttal.
I just received an excerpt of the speech as prepared, and this is part of it:
Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist.Wait, what?! No. That should be "This is our generation's Apollo moment," right? Unless the president intends to suggest this is the moment we are surpassed by a burgeoning superpower who has the will to invest in better research and education. Which, admittedly, would probably be honest but not very inspiring, lol.
But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.
This is our generation's Sputnik moment.
It's gonna be a long night, Shakers.
Anyone got any suggestions for a good virtual drinking game? Deeky says take a shot every time he says "fiscal responsibility," and I say take a shot every time he says "bipartisan." If he says "people of faith," down the bottle.
Question of the Day
Pretending, naturally, that Hell exists, we're all going there (no doy), and it's comprised entirely of a screening room with a single uncomfortable chair molded perfectly to your ass, what movie, if forced to watch over and over on a loop for eternity, would constitute your personal Hell?
(I mean, I know any movie over and over for eternity would be hellish, so, for the pedants among us, please feel free to read the question as: What movie would you least like to watch three times in a row?)
My answer: Barry Lyndon, for sheer unsurpassed dullery. Ugh, Stanley Kubrick. UGH.
Whoooooooooops
Sexy News Anchors Distract Male Viewers.
Whoooooooooops! Straight Male Viewers' Ability to Concentrate Undermined by Lifelong Socialization to Sexually Objectify Women.
B-b-but it's in their BRAINZ!!! Blah blah evo psych blah!
Yes. That's true. And brains wired to see things one way will start seeing them another way within a matter of days when forced to do so. And brains that hold socialized biases, like associating dark skin with a lack of ethics, release those biases when exposed to counter-narratives on a regular basis. And brains that are remapped with cognitive behavior therapy can stop doing things they have done for years.
The thing about brains, and how they perceive things, is that they're adaptable based on the external factors to which we subject them. That's demonstrably evident, even granting that we may be predisposed to certain psychological patterns and processes.
But something about sex and gender makes us certain everything is hard-wired.
That's just how men are! You know what women are like! Boys will be boys. She's such a girl. He's a man's-man. She's a girly-girl. Men can't help it. Women can't help it. That's just how they're born.
We don't feel socialization happening, which is why it's so easy to believe that our brains are just built one way or another by biology and that's that.
Easy beliefs are often the most dangerous ones.
Photos of the Day
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (right) and Spain's Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez at a press conference after their meeting at the State Department in Washington January 25, 2011. [Reuters Pictures]
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (right) walks with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa (left) on a one-day trip to Mexico through the streets of Guanajuato, January 24, 2011, prior to lunch at Teatro Juarez. [Getty Images]
Saudi talk show host Hiba Jamal (left) takes a picture of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (right) with Lebanese presenter Rania Barghut after recording a special episode of the Arabic ladies' talk show 'Kalam Nawaem' at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi on January 10, 2011, to be broadcast on the Saudi-owned MBC-1 satellite channel. [Getty Images]When I was a little girl, I never saw images of women like this in the news. Even when I saw pictures of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she was almost always the only woman in the picture. More often than not, Clinton is still the only woman in the picture, too, wearing her brightly colored suit in a sea of pinstriped charcoal. When I see pictures like these, they make me blub with joy.
I long for the day when they don't, because they are so routine as to be totally unremarkable.
Chipping Away at Roe
On the 38th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Governor Rick Perry told the crowd at the "Rally For Life" that the Supreme Court's decision is a tragedy and Texas would no longer sit idly by.Because women are stupid babies who don't know what being pregnant means.
John Seago, Senior Legislative Associate with Texas Right To Life, says with the Republican supermajority, the bill [which would require women seeking abortions to undergo a sonogram] has a strong chance of becoming law.
...In addition to the sonogram, the bill would require women to hear a doctor explain the physical characteristics of the fetus as well as listen to audio of the heartbeat.
I don't know how many different ways I can say this, and I've already said it what feels like 3,000 times in the last six years, but forcing a woman to stare at an ultrasound and listen to a heartbeat will not change the fact that that woman does not want to have a child. Even if it changes her mind about terminating the pregnancy, it doesn't change whatever circumstances brought her to an abortion clinic in the first place.
She'll still walk out just as devoid of choices, just as un- or underemployed, just as broke, just as in debt, just as uninsured, just as lacking daycare, just as unable to care for herself and/or her existing children, just as in need of medication that she can't take while pregnant, just as enmeshed in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, just the same as she was when she walked in.
She'll just have been guilted into making sacrifices she doesn't want to make, to honor someone else's mistaken perceptions about her morality.
All of these "LOOK IT'S A BABY!" barriers to termination are utter hogwash, rooted in the damnable fairy tale that women are incapable of making the best decisions for themselves and their own bodies (and, frequently, for the children they already have).
The reality is this: There is an inextricable link between the economy, the funding of social services, and abortion. If "pro-lifers" really wanted women to want to have babies, they would stop forcing them to look at ultrasounds and start arguing for universal healthcare, just for a fucking start.
[H/T to @PeterDaou.]
"Let's Talk"
by Shaker Superior Olive
So, if you've been watching Canadian TV lately, and I know you have, then you've probably seen this commercial (transcript at end) starring Clara Hughes, 6-time Olympic medalist.
(There is a another, longer video here, for which there's a transcript at the end of the post, as well as a French version here for which I apologize for not providing a transcript, but my French isn't that good, lol!)
The commercial is Clara Hughes for Bell Canada, talking about mental health, and introducing the company's Let's Talk initiative. On February 9th, for every long distance call and text message its customers make, Bell Canada will donate 5¢ to mental health related programs across the country. The initiative was launched last fall, but this is the first I've heard of it, through this commercial. More information on their initiatives and goals can be found on their website under the Gain Perspective and Bell Initiatives links.
(Note: By the way, all of Bell's commercials are structured around the blue "Bell" in a white space like this one, and the music at the end is the same as in their other commercials, if you were wondering why it's so chipper for a mental health commercial, lol.)
What caught my attention was someone as well-known and high-profile as Clara Hughes as the spokesperson. I've been reading about her for years, but I was quite surprised to hear that Clara Hughes had battled depression.
For those unfamiliar with her, here's what I know about her: She's from my hometown, Winnipeg; she won two bronze medals in road cycling at the Atlanta Olympic games; she switched to speed skating, a sport she had previously tried as a teenager, and won bronze in the 3000k in Salt Lake City, making her one of only a handful of atheletes to win medals in both summer and winter Olympics; at the Torino Olympics she won silver in the team pursuit and gold in the 5000k, making her the only athelete to ever win multiple medals in both summer and winter Olympics; and finally another bronze in Vancouver in the 5000k. After winning gold, she also donated $10,000 of her own money (i.e. not a medal bonus) to Right to Play, announcing it in an interview hoping to inspire Canadians to donate to the organization. She's a highly recognizable and beloved Canadian.
I'm not sure when it was, in relation to her professional timeline, that she was, in her words, battling depression for two years.
She's an interesting choice of spokesperson, because the image I, and I think most Canadians who've watched her, have is that of a bubbly, smiling, generous, and overall happy personality. To hear that someone so successful and with such a seemingly sunny disposition has/had depression can be surprising to those unfamiliar with depression, in a good way. Part of the stigma of depression and other mental health issues is that nobody ever thinks that someone like that would have to deal with it. Clara Hughes challenges stereotypes about mental illness.
I admit I'm a bit biased, as I admire and have had a huge crush on her for ages, but I'm pretty impressed with this initiative. It's rare to see a company doing their philanthropic work in the area of mental health, and Clara Hughes as a spokesperson is an excellent choice. I'm interested in seeing where this initiative goes, if it does ease some of the stigma around mental health issues (or not).
What do you think?
Transcripts:30-Second Commercial:
A shot of Clara Hughes standing on top of the "e" in Bell, tall and confident.
Clara Hughes: Hi! You may know me as a six-time Olympic medalist in both the summer and winter olympics. What you might not know about me…
camera pans down the "e" to another Clara sitting down, in a different shirt, this time a head and shoulders shot, leaning forward, elbows on knees pose.
…is that for two difficult years I battled depression. One in five Canadians is affected by mental illness, and many will not get the help they need because they're afraid to talk about it. And this has to change. So, on February 9th, let's talk.
Clara holds up an iPod or other large-screened phone in front of her mouth: the phone has a proportional picture of her smiling mouth. music plays as camera zooms out to show both Claras, one standing on top of the “e”, the other sitting in front of it text reads: Bell Let's Talk bell.ca/letstalk
---------------------------
Longer Video:
A shot of Hughes standing against a white background
Being committed to sport for over 20 years and being an Olympic athlete, I've obviously had to overcome a lot of obstacles, including countless crashes and lots of bumps and bruises along the way. But that's just the physical side, the kind of injuries that often heal on their own. Mentally, it's a different story. Sport can be difficult on a person, but so can everyday life. No matter what we're doing, it's important that we have support mechanisms in place. And that means making sure that we're up to the tasks and challenges before us, and if we're not, then turning to others for the help that we need.
It's not by accident that high-performance athletes depend on physiologists and psychologists as part of what I like to call the Circle of Strength. All of those people who, as an athlete, I rely on for comfort, courage, technical support, and on and on. I think the same can be said for society overall. At times we need others, including leaders in the business world like Bell, to be part of our larger Circle of Strength. There are a lot of organizations around the world that are doing tremendous good through their philanthropic programs, and I count Bell among them.
Mental health is a perfect case in point. It affects everyone, yet it impacts each of us differently on an individual basis. And, all too often, the stigma surrounding it prevents people from getting the help that they need. Bell understands that mental health is a huge issue, and I applaud them for doing something about it.
text appears: Bell Let's Talk bce.ca/mentalhealth
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for discussion of eating habits and associating morality with eating. Also: Classism.]
Kurt Gray never actually says in "Self-control from Helping Others" that fat people are immoral and lazy. He only says that doing good deeds helps people increase their self-control so they can "dodge the cheesecake" and "resist the office donuts better" and "stick to their workout routine."
And he never actually says that poor people are immoral and lazy. He merely suggests over and over that being able to provide financial charity to others is a good deed that make you physically stronger: "Those who donated a dollar to charity could hold up a weight significantly longer than those who kept a dollar." Never mind that he fails to provide any context for why those people kept their dollar. Greed, as is the implicit suggestion? Or were the people who kept dollars people who had experienced poverty in their lives, or were currently in poverty?
Is there any possibility that people feel physically weakened by the stigma of accepting charity...?
I mean, after all, we live in a culture where Harvard-trained social psychologists write articles that tacitly marginalize the already-marginalized and more deeply entrench narratives that fat/poor people are immoral and lazy, while privileged people are told that their privilege is evidence of morality and hard work.
That seems like maybe it could get demoralizing. Ahem.
Pharmacist update
A week or so ago I wrote about an Idaho pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription for methergine, a bleeding control medication, as ordered for a patient by a nurse practitioner from Planned Parenthood. To recall: the NP ordered the meds, the pharmacist asked if it was needed to due an abortion, NP refused to disclose, pharmacist refused to fill medication. Planned Parenthood filed a letter of complaint against the pharmacist with the Idaho Board of Pharmacy. The Board has now said:
BOISE -- The Idaho Board of Pharmacy has concluded a Nampa Walgreen's pharmacist did not break any state laws when she allegedly refused to fill a prescription last year.Planned Parenthood is now considering reporting the pharmacist to federal agencies in regards to the attempt at HIPAA violations.
[...]
Planned Parenthood said the pharmacist's actions were dangerous but the board said since the prescription was obtained from another pharmacy, no danger was presented.
Bush Administration Broke Elections Law
It's so fun to see all of us "unhinged liberal bloggers suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome" be proven right long after the fact about our continually-blogged contention that the Bush administration was breaking the law.
Did I say fun? I meant enraging.
The Bush White House, particularly before the 2006 midterm elections, routinely violated a federal law that prohibits use of federal tax dollars to pay for political activities by creating a "political boiler room" that coordinated Republican campaign activities nationwide, a report issued Monday by an independent federal agency concludes.Which means that the taxpayers were paying for Republican political activity.
The report by the Office of Special Counsel finds that the Bush administration's Office of Political Affairs — overseen by Karl Rove — served almost as an extension of the Republican National Committee, developing a "target list" of Congressional races, organizing dozens of briefings for political appointees to press them to work for party candidates, and sending cabinet officials out to help these campaigns.
...The Office of Special Counsel, a relatively obscure federal agency, is charged with enforcing the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Certain members of the White House political staff — including the top aides at the Office of Political Affairs — are exempt, as are the president, vice president and members of the cabinet. But the law still prohibits the use of federal money, even by these officials, to support political causes.
...The investigators also found evidence that the Bush White House improperly classified travel by senior officials as official government business, "when it was, in fact, political," and the costs associated with this travel were never reimbursed.
Now that the Bush administration has left office, the Office of Special Counsel has no jurisdiction to pursue charges, and will have to make a formal referral to the Justice Department, which is currently declining to comment on whether charges will be filed.
Given the Obama administration's eminent willingness to cover the Bush administration's ass on violations of the Presidential Records Act, and given that Obama's White House had "its own version of the Office of Political Affairs" until last week, I'm guessing we're not going to see a vigorous pursuit of justice, ahem.
Congratulations, BushCo. You got away with it again.
[Previously: Warrantless Wiretapping Program Ruled Illegal, No Charges in Destruction of Torture Tapes, Bush Admits Being a War Criminal.]
Visitors Welcome
[Trigger warning for sexist language.]
There was some good news on the healthcare front last week: any hospital that accepts Medicare or Medicaid has to allow the patient to put anyone they choose on their visitor's list. That means that no hospital can refuse to let anyone who is not part of what the hospital defines as "family" be at their bedside.
It's a radical step toward embracing an approach to "family" that breaks us out of the Dad, Mom, Bud and Sis configuration that still looms so large in the American imagination and in its laws despite the fact that fewer and fewer of us live in those family units. Now you can be by your best friend's side whether you're Carmelite nuns or used to play soccer together, or work together or look alike or not. It doesn't matter whether your aunt approves of you and your "shiksa whore" girlfriend or your transgender spouse, so long as your cousin wants you there.That means that situations like the story of Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond won't happen again. And I'm sure that as soon as the Family Research Council hears about this they will raise holy hell. Because, according to their name, they're the only ones who can define what a family is.
Of course policy is only as good as we are when it comes to enforcement: people should know about the new visitation rules and ask for them when they're not offered—and they won't always be, for a lot of reasons, ranging from administrators' lack of knowledge to prejudice.
But what a joy to know that the option now exists: that we no longer need to be afraid of letting down the people we love when they need us most.
HT to Balloon Juice.
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Oscar Nominations
They're here.
A couple of observations: No female directors, yet again. Too bad not a single person of color acted in any movies this year. How the fuck was True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld a supporting actress?!
I hope The King's Speech wins everything.
UPDATE: This email from Iain, with the subject header "Outrage," arrived just as I was posting the above, which I'm sharing with his permission:
Why the fuck is Jeff Bridges nominated for Best Actor and Hailee Steinfeld nominated for Best Supporting Actress for True Grit? She has more screen time than he does and is the main character. Also, in my opinion Hailee's performance was the most impactful, which is saying something as Jeff Bridges was on good form and he is a fucking legend while she is about three years old. If they were both nominated for Best Actor/Actress that would have been okay, but truly, it should be the other way around.Iain and I did, briefly, talk about The Kids Are All Right, after I wrote about it. But I don't blame him for forgetting, since it opened on seven screens in the US.
Also, as usual the Best Actress nominations are all for women who starred in small movies that very few people have seen. Other than Black Swan I don't recall seeing trailers for them, or even hearing anybody discuss them. I don't think we seriously talked about going to see any of them so they probably didn't have a wide release.
So the moral of this story is that women almost never land lead roles in large productions, and that when they do, they will be nominated for Best Supporting Actress while the subordinate male actors in the same movie get nominated for Best Actor.
The Academy is making even less sense than usual this year.
Question of the Day
What movie line do you quote most often?
I probably say "These aren't the droids you're looking for" more than anything else. When I'm in a situation over which I have no control, and I want to amusingly express my futile desire to change it, I wave my hand and say, "These aren't the droids you're looking for."
Or when I feel super-powerful and want to convey my (inevitably fleeting) sense of potency, I wave my hand and say, "These aren't the droids you're looking for."
This usually makes Iain laugh and say, "That is literally why I married you, right there."
[Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker pull up to an Empire checkpoint in Luke's hovercraft; R2-D2 and C-3PO are in the back. Two stormtroopers walk up to the hovercraft.]
Stormtrooper: How long have you had these droids?
Luke: About three or four seasons.
Obi-Wan: They're for sale if you want them.
Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification.
Obi-Wan [waving his hand]: You don't need to see his identification.
Stormtrooper: We don't need to see his identification.
Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.
Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.
Obi-Wan [to the perplexed Luke]: Move along.
Stormtrooper [waving them along]: Move along. Move along.
[Luke pulls away.]
Hey, No Strings Attached, I GET IT
So, there are like a zillion reasons that the new Natalie Portman-Ashton Kutcher film No Strings Attached looks like garbage farts, and I'm not even going to bother getting into a feminist critique of the plot as represented by the trailers, because we could be here all year.
I am merely going to say: I GET IT THERE ARE STRINGS ATTACHED.
There is no need to put balloons and tampon references and "I've Got the World on a String" (lol I am being hit in the head with string metaphors!) in your trailers. We're all adults here and we know that if there were REALLY no strings attached, there would be NO PLOT, not even the thin cardboard excuse for a substantial story upon which this terrible-looking film no doubt turns.
STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGS!
I can only guess now that No Strings Attached is #1 at the box office (where's my foam finger?!), we'll be getting the customary second round of trailers with new and even FUNNER clips to try to convince reluctant movie-goers to go drop their hard-earned
I only hope that I don't need to insert a SPOILER WARNING in front of my guess that Ashton Kutcher's character is a PROFESSOR OF STRING THEORY LULZ.
Good.
Washington Post—Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits: "President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday's State of the Union address. ... Over the weekend, the White House informed Democratic lawmakers and advocates for seniors that Obama will emphasize the need to reduce record deficits in the speech, but that he will not call for reducing spending on Social Security - the single largest federal program - as part of that effort."
GOOD.
Of course, the Wall Street Journal reported precisely the opposite this morning, so I guess it's possible we'll still be surprised/disappointed during the State of the Union tomorrow. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
I love mysteries!
I Write Letters
Dear President Obama:
I know everybody's writing barfmessages for Ronald Reagan because February 6 would have been his 100th barfday, so you were obliged to write some barfatorial saying something nice, and it is totally understandable that you would choose to highlight his alleged love of barfpartisanship, since that's your favoritest thing ever.
But was it really not possible to do it without LYING?
President Reagan did not, in fact, put the US "on a bold new path toward" accountability. See: Iran-Contra.
President Reagan also did not "work with leaders of all political persuasions," except by the very narrow definition of "conservative" and "less conservative," because he had no time for actual progressives, anywhere in the world.
President Reagan was not so much a believer "in the importance of reaffirming values like hard work and personal responsibility" as much as he was an unapologetic social Darwinist.
And this? "But perhaps even more important than any single accomplishment was the sense of confidence and optimism President Reagan never failed to communicate to the American people." That's just bullshit, right there.
When I hear the name Reagan, I think of two things—neither of which are "confidence" or "optimism." I am reminded that his sunny fucking optimism didn't do much good for the thousands of people who died of AIDS while he ignored its fucking existence. His indifference to a grave health crisis left an entire community in a state of panic, abandoned by their government.
And I am reminded of the abject terror I used to feel when I was 10 years old and scared out of my mind that I was going to be killed by a nuke, because my president was a wanton fearmonger, just like the son of his veep/successor was. The Enemy was different then, but the game was the same.
In Northwest Indiana, even the children knew we were a "Soviet target" because we were—were, also thanks to Ronald Reagan—one of the epicenters of US steel production. "If they launch them," I remember my father saying, "at least we'll be dead right away." The thin plywood of my desktop that was meant to save me in case of attack would not. I knew that. And that attack always felt imminent—because I listened to my president. I saw him on the television, solemnly intoning grave threat. Two decades later, I understand he needed money for his ridiculous space weapon. Then, I was petrified.
I associate the name Ronald Reagan with deadly indifference and fear.
And reflexively citing Reagan's cheery, rouge-cheeked mask of optimism to obfuscate the reality of his grim, corrupt, militaristic, corporate-serving, middle class-dismantling, social safety net-destroying tenure is a conservative trick in which I cannot believe I must see a Democratic president engaging, even if it is in a polite memorial.
That is a dangerous whitewashing of history, for the sake of honoring a man n the basis that he could be friends with a Democrat after 6:00—which really isn't all that impressive when you consider he didn't say the word "AIDS" publicly until 1986.
It's not difficult to be friends with someone who's like you in virtually every way. It's tragic to pretend people not like you don't even exist. Especially when you're a democratically-elected representative of those people, too.
I don't know what it is that compels you to sing Reagan's praises, Mr. President, but I really hope, for all our sakes, you let go of it.
Sincerely,
Liss
P.S. Barf.
The Return of George Allen
[Trigger warning for racism and violence.]
As predicted, George Allen, the jerk who lost his senate seat in '06 after referring to one of his opponent's staffers, S.R. Sidarth, a Virginian of Indian descent, as "macaca," which is a kind of monkey, is running for Senate once again.
"Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate," Allen said in the almost three minute video. "You know me as someone willing to fight for the people of Virginia, and I'd like the responsibility to fight for you again. Hire me on for six years and I pledge to work hard restoring freedom, personal responsibility and opportunity for all."Great. What the US Senate really needs these days is a douchebag with a Confederate flag fetish who hangs nooses in his office and calls it part of a "Western motif."
This guy's so awful he makes Jim Webb look good. Ugh.
Liss and Nana II, Or: Mil Was a Feminist
After I posted the picture and story about my nana last week, Mama Shakes forwarded a couple more she hadn't scanned for me previously:
My nana, whose name was Mildred, which she hated and made me promise never to name a child "or even a cat," even though I think it's a beautiful name, and who was called Mil, was a working woman. She worked as a secretary for a Lutheran high school, in a room with other secretaries who were ladies with names like Mildred, and I thought visiting her at work was the most exciting thing ever when I was a little girl.
Her workspace was filled with all kinds of office supplies and ancient office machines I found fascinating. This was long before computers, or even copiers, were commonly found in any high school office, no less that of a parochial school, and the secretaries did their work on typewriters, surrounded by mimeograph machines and slot-punchers for old fashioned student IDs, which seemed like the height of technological sophistication. The room smelled of correction fluid, montan wax, and Avon perfume.
I loved being there.
At home, Mil had an office, too, which served as my sister's and my bedroom when we visited. There were two desks in the room, and one typewriter, and a cup with pens and pencils, some of them old and mysterious. I asked her if I could keep a tarnished mechanical pencil with four different colored leads I found one time, and, when she let me, I was thrilled, wildly giddy, as if it were a priceless antiquity.
I still have it.
I spent countless hours at my grandmother's big wooden desk, investigating its huge drawers that seemed endless to tiny hands. It was full of the junk that adults stuff in desk drawers—free calendars from the bank, old checkbook covers, stamps that are a penny less than it costs to send a letter. Rubber bands and paper clips. Plastic rulers branded with a dry cleaner's business name and address. Scrap paper.
The scrap paper was always there for keeping score during a game of cards, or jotting down a grocery list. And it was there in case my sister or I wanted to pull out the crayons and have a little doodle when we were visiting. Just junk paper that would otherwise be thrown out, something on one side but clean on the back—dittos from work that went misaligned, overprinted inserts from church bulletins, half-page fliers and one-sided adverts pulled from the paper.
At about six or so, I wrote my first book on the backs of a stack of half-size yellow paper, on the other side of which was probably an expired list of specials from a local Italian take-out place. It was a multi-page story with words and illustrations, and I stapled the pages together and I sold it to Mil, or maybe my mom, for ten cents.
Mil, like my mom, was always encouraging of my writing. She told me my stories were fabulous, even when they weren't, and complimented me on my artistic talent, though I had none. She kept paying those dimes, as long as I worked for them.
Sometimes Mil was brusque: She wanted what she wanted, and wanted it the way she wanted it. I don't remember ever feeling hurt by her directness, but I do remember, when I was very young, occasionally being surprised by it. She spoke to me like an adult, like I heard her talk to other adults. She challenged me to live up to her expectations.
Which is not to say she didn't indulge me. She did. Mil, with whom I watched my first episodes of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, listened to my playing Weird Al Yankovic tapes for her way longer and with more interest (possibly feigned) than any lady owes any child. Just because it was important to me.
Mil was very determined that my mom would go to college (she did), and she was very determined that I would go to college (I did), because Mil hadn't, and that's why, in her words, she was "only a secretary." She insisted that I get "an education," and at least twice she referred to herself to me as "uneducated," despite the fact that she was cultured, curious, and well-read.
I tried to tell her once, when I was a teenager, after she'd told me not for the first time that she wasn't as smart as I was, that I thought she was one of the smartest women I knew. She told me exasperatedly that I didn't know what I was talking about, lol. Too stupid to know how smart I was. Classic. Mil was funny like that.
She would almost certainly have rolled her eyes at me and possibly even made a disgusted noise of some sort if anyone had called her a feminist. Mil was a Republican, you know. (When I was allowed one piece of jewelry from her box after she died, I declined her elephant brooch in favor of a simple necklace with a scripted letter M, since we shared our first initial.) But her example to me was of a feisty, opinionated working woman who pushed the women around her to do more, who encouraged them to develop their talents and to succeed, who could be independent and still generous with her time and herself.
That's a pretty good feminist example. Intended or not.
I feel lucky and proud that she was a part of my life, and is a part of me.
Mama Shakes, by email: These were taken in June, 1975, so you were just a little over a year old. What a doll! Even then you got a kick out of putting hats on people. I love the pin curls in Nana's hair in the one photo where she is wearing your hat. In the other, you are wearing yours in a very rakish manner, while Nana sports a white paper bag turned into a chapeau for the occasion.
