Hosted by an Instant Martian (tm).
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!
Quote of the Day
"I'd like to praise the Governor for working to completely turn off the spigot of taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood."—Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R-Ealpieceofwork), praising "the work of Gov. Bill Haslam and the Tennessee Department of Health for moving to administratively defund Planned Parenthood." No vote. Full-tilt fiat.
The hat tip goes to Aunt B., who emailed (which I am publishing with her permission):
Tennessee Republicans just maneuvered to completely defund Planned Parenthood in Tennessee through backroom machinations. It's not up for a vote. It's not being legislated.I do know, because I live in fucking Indiana, which has also defunded Planned Parenthood, although at least Mitch Daniels and his merry band of miscreants had the decency to pretend they still care about our democracy and its legislative process before ramming it through.
But it's done.
I can't see that they're breaking any federal laws, since they're claiming to offer the same services through county health departments.
I'm in complete despair.
It's hard to live in a place that hates you, you know?
I'm sorry, Tennessee.
To my sisters across this nation, where it is getting to be a very scary place to be a woman, I reach out my hand in solidarity. We've got a real goddamn fight here, and we're going to need each other.
Abrasive Is Just Another Word for Bitch
by Shaker llewllew
[Trigger warning for misogynist tropes.]
Once again, CNN’s Entertainment Blog proves to be a dumping ground of misogyny with an article titled, "Christina Aguilera abrasive on 'The Voice'?" The title of the article should indicate the overall sexist tone of the piece, which includes this gem:
Christina Aguilera may need to take some lessons from Jennifer Lopez.Of course, Aguilera, one of the judges on The Voice, is compared to the female judge on Idol, who is praised for having worked so hard to mend her diva ways. No comparison is made to Idol alum Simon Cowell, who is as much praised for his abrasiveness (here, because he is a man, abrasiveness becomes "truthfulness") as he is criticized.
While "Idol's" Lopez has used her time on her hit singing competition show to transform her diva reputation to that of a supportive softie, Aguilera appears to be going in another direction.
The article also propagates the myth that women who work together must be in competition with each other:
And while Shelton [one of the male judges] appeared to allow his team to shine Tuesday night during their performance […] CNN's K.J. Matthews points out in her recap that "Team Christina seemed to be locked in a battle of its own between Beverly McClellan, Frenchie Davis and Christina herself, with all three of them bringing their A game and hitting those hard to reach notes."If you watch the performance of "Lady Marmalade" in question, you will see that it is true that each woman brings her A-game and sings her best. But what CNN's writer fails to mention is that Christina spends a lot of the performance literally encouraging each woman, with comments like "Sing it, Frenchie!"—so I don't understand why this writer would characterize the performance as a "battle," especially in light of hir comments about the male judge "letting his team shine." Except, of course, for the fact that five talented women obviously can't work together without trying to outdo each other. Because, no doy.
The article is especially shameful, given the authentic diversity of the women who make up Aguilera's team, including Beverly McClellan, an out lesbian, and African-American plus-sized singer Frenchie Davis, making her magnificent return to television after being unconscionably shamed off of "American Idol" because nude pictures of her surfaced on the web.
While there is legitimate criticism to be made of Aguilera for her fixation on contestant Patrick Thomas' trousers (the sort of thing for which male judges are rarely taken to task by the media: I'm looking at you, Nigel Lithgow), the evidence that she is abrasive is otherwise pretty thin.
The "Voice's" celebrity coach is coming across as a tad rude in her dealings with fellow judges as she talks over them, makes wisecracks and gets in a few eye rolls here and there at the expense of her male, fellow judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton.Oh, of course. She isn't demurring to the men.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud makers of something something I'm too tired to think of anything clever.
Recommended Reading:
rboylorn: [TW for discussion of body image; racism; colorism] Ode to Dark (Skinned) Girls
Tobi: City of Portland Gets Trans Inclusive Healthcare
Renee: [TW for racism] The Most Dangerous Place for a Latino Baby Is in the Womb
Andy: GLAAD, AT&T, and Net Neutrality: A Tangled, Sticky Web
Angry Asian Man: World War II Translator Denied U.S. Veteran Status
Happy Blogiversary (and thank you for the kind words) to Scatx!
Action Items/Teaspooning Opportunities:
Commission a Sketch to Help Pay Legal Fees of Girl Who Refused to Cheer Her Attacker. [TW for sexual violence]
Time to Act! Save a Million Lives From TB-HIV!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Awesome. Totally Awesome.
So, well-regarded co-host of the Today show Meredith Vieira (whom, by the way, I remember watching as a reporter on the local CBS affiliate when I was a kid and thinking she was sooooooo glamorous) left her anchor spot this week after five years. On Wednesday, her final day, the show sent her off with all sorts of treats and celebrations, the highlight of which was this amazing live flash mob, in which her colleagues, the Today crew, the ubiquitous inhabitants of the square outside Rockefeller Plaza, and special guest stars Abe Vigoda (yes!) and Jimmy Fallon serenaded Vieira with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," all while wearing We Heart Meredith t-shirts.
Video Description: As above. Vieira is led to a piano by co-anchor Matt Lauer, where they pretend to play and Lauer (badly) lip-syncs the opening lines, then Ann Curry leads Vieira out of the studio and through a series of corridors and down some stairs, at the bottom of which waits Abe Vigoda playing air guitar, with whom Vieira shares a dance, before she is led away, down more corridors and past lip-syncing crew members. As the tempo of the music quickens, Vieira, with a huge grin on her face, begins to hop and run alongside the ever-changing cast of people leading her through the building. Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb lead her up the lobby stairs and out into the square, where a huge crowd cheers. Al Roker grabs her hand and they run down the street. In a small courtyard, a group of people hold up signs over their head making a giant picture of Vieira; they flip them to create a giant sign reading We Heart Meredith. Vieira runs on with more and more people, until she meets up again with Lauer, who is now joined by Jimmy Fallon, who leads the mob on while pretending to play the guitar solo on an electric guitar. As they run-dance down the final stretch, people are lined up on either side of the path, cheering and clapping and dancing, as if it's the end of a marathon (and, considering this is all live, it kind of is). At the end of the path, where Abe Vigoda has rejoined the party with a silver baton, Vieira turns, and the whole crowd lip-syncs the final lines of the song, doing a choreographed dance. Vieira dances with Vigoda as they finish. At the end, everyone cheers, and Vieira is overwhelmed with emotion. Lauer and Vieira kiss Vigoda. "Thank you so much," Vieira says to the crowd. She hugs Vigoda. "I love you," she says. She turns and gives Lauer a hug. "I love you," she tells him. Blub.
On Tracy Morgan
[Trigger warning for homophobia.]
I've gotten a few emails about former SNL alum and 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan's viciously homophobic garbage rant during a comedy appearance in Nashville, so here's a thread for discussion.
I don't have a lot to say about it. I guess I'm a little surprised that it's suddenly news, since his stand-up act has been a fuckload of homophobic, misogynist, and disablist trash, littered with rape jokes, for at least a couple of years. But I'm glad it's getting attention now.
Yep, he's got cigarette butts where his decency should be, and he is one of the many reasons I don't tune in to 30 Rock. Insert here everything I have said in this space literally hundreds of times before about my profound and comprehensive contempt for homophobia and the people who gleefully engage in it. You're gross, Tracy Morgan.
I'll just note one other quick thing: While I support the urge (and need, IMO) to hold entertainment producers accountable for continuing to employ unapologetic bigots, I wonder why it is that Tina Fey is the only producer, among many, including her fellow executive producer of the show Lorne Michaels, who is nearly as famous as she is, and her co-star Alec Baldwin, who has himself received a producer credit on 61 episodes, of whom accountability is being demanded?
Even the argument that Fey has been an ally to the LGBTQI community, and thus must be held to a different standard, doesn't hold water, given the fact that Baldwin has been, too.
It seems as though Fey is being treated as the singular gatekeeper of Morgan's principles (or lack thereof), in an echo of the age-old stereotype that boys will be boys and it's up to women to soften them and control them and deliver consequences for moral failures, that women are the exclusive arbiters and protectors of society's morality.
Yeah, hold Fey accountable for employing a shit-head on her hit show, but hold the rest of the producers accountable, too. She isn't his mommy.
UPDATE: Morgan has issued an apology through his publicist: "I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I'm not a hateful person and don't condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context."
Ugh, that "equal opportunity jokester" stuff makes me barrrrrrrrrrrf. As Tami said just the other day in a great post: "No comedy is really equal-opportunity. Why? Because our society is not equal opportunity. We are not all the same."
I Case You Forgot, Rick Santorum Still Hates Women
In a recent appearamce at Informed Choices, a "crisis pregnancy center" in West Des Moines, professional misogynist, fetus cultist and 2012 Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum called health exceptions to abortion bans "phony."
When I was leading the charge on partial birth abortion, several members came forward and said, "Why don't we just ban all abortions?" Tom Daschle was one of them, if you remember. And Susan Collins, and others. They wanted a health exception, which of course is a phony exception which would make the ban ineffective.
So, you got that, ladies? Your health and well-being? Just a bunch of malarkey. Hokum to be used to kill babies or whatever.
As Think Progess notes, Santorum has previously "decried 'the selfishness, the individual self-centeredness' of legislators who were concerned about the health of pregnant women." Santorum, seemingly, has not wavered on his belief that you are less important than a fetus.
Well. This Should Be Interesting.
Sarah Palin's emails during her time as governor of Alaska are finally to be released in accordance with a Freedom of Information Act request:
Sarah Palin is braced for the release of tens of thousands of emails sent when she was governor of Alaska and which opponents say could damage a potential run for the White House.I am quite looking forward to (and fully expect) information that will further discredit Palin, even among her waning numbers of supporters, as a serious contender for the presidency. I am not looking forward to the enormous heaploads of revolting misogyny and classism which will indubitably accompany that information and the subsequent discussion.
The emails, copies of which will be obtained by the Guardian, date from her inauguration as governor in 2006 through to being propelled to fame as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. The controversial time saw her initial sky-high approval ratings plummet and ended up in a series of rows, including an ethics investigation and a falling-out with her running mate, John McCain.
...Her office is due on Friday to hand over six boxes containing 24,199 pages of printed emails to the Guardian and other media organisations that had applied for copies. Our reporters will immediately begin sifting the documents for stories but the Guardian plans to publish thousands of the raw mails as quickly as possible to allow readers to scan them for interesting material.
...Palin, in an interview last week with Fox, said she was relaxed about the emails because every rock that could be kicked over had been. But a note of caution crept in when she added that "a lot of those emails obviously weren't meant for public consumption".
...About 2,275 emails have been withheld and some of the 24,199 have been redacted.
Sarah Palin is totes the worst, but not because she's a woman, a beautiful woman, an ambitious woman, a mom, a mom to many children, a mom to a disabled child, a former beauty queen, an outdoorsy type with a middle-class background, nor even because she politicks with the mendacious, aw-shucks, insufferably affected demeanor that's been a central part of conservative identity politics since Ronald Reagan's carefully blushed cheeks.
She's the worst not because she says stupid things but because she says wrong things, because she's an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, anti-socialized healthcare, anti-social safety net, pro-social Darwinism conservative asshole, just another self-proclaimed bootstrapper who can be flippant about reproductive choice only because she has it, who fancies herself an anti-disability crusader despite laughable double-standards and routinely referring to US journalists as the "lamestream media," who belittles feminists and their advocacy for the programs and policies that help marginalized women and girls, and who trades on being a rightwing token while demeaning the very feminist activism that has afforded her the public platform on which she brazenly basks in the luxury of her disdain.
Those distinctions aren't all that hard, given a modicum of effort and the willingness to not lazily rely on misogynist and classist narratives as substitute for substantive critique of a terrible candidate.
Zell Miller Is Standing by His Man, No Doy
Despite the magnificent implosion of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, his campaign co-chair and BFF Zell Miller ain't going anywhere:
"Of course I'm not leaving him," former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a maverick Democrat and national co-chairman of Gingrich's campaign, said in an interview. "I'm as strong for him as ever, and that's strong."Miller will challenge to a duel, or an arm-wrestling match to the death, anyone who stands in the way of Newt Gingrich's ascent to the White House. Watch out, America!
Question of the Day
Of the dipfucks currently running or expected to run for president, which Republican do you think would make the worst president and why?
500 words or less. Please show your work.
Film Corner!
Everything about this sounds terrible:
Universal Pictures is in early talks with Jason Bateman to star with Vince Vaughn in The Insane Laws, a comedy that will mark the feature directorial debut of screenwriter Jeremy Garelick. ... Garelick co-wrote the Vaughn-starrer The Break-Up. Garelick also did uncredited script work on The Hangover.Okay, I didn't even watch Will & Grace and SPOILER ALERT! even I know that it ended with their kids falling in love at college, so kudos on stealing an idea from a sitcom that ended five years ago. Which itself probably stole the idea from the series finale of AfterMASH, but who knows because no one watched AfterMASH, no doy. But I'm guessing it probably stole its ideas from Homer's classic ancient Greek epic Willus and Gracus. What I'm saying is, that idea is tired.
The plan is for Bateman and Vaughn to play longtime best friends, who've shared everything, from college to the time both got married and had kids at the same time. Cut to when those kids are away at college, and, unbeknownst to their parents, falling in love. The best friend relationship is sorely tested when the daughter of Vaughn's character gets pregnant. The actors just did a read-through of the material, and it could be in production by the fall.
And adding in the zany pregnancy twist, so Vince Vaughn can get all "your son ruined my property!" with Jason Batman, does not freshen the concept. "Jason Batman, Imma totes get you AND your son for getting your dirty genes up in my daughter's business!" Nope. Get those purity balls out of your ass, Vince Vaughn. Gross.
Daily Dose of Cute
"I got your tail! I got your tail!"
Much like a honey badger, Matilda just don't give a shit.
Alabama's Got the Nation's Toughest New Immigration Law
[Trigger warning for racism and anti-immigrant sentiments.]
And by "nation's toughest new immigration law," I naturally mean the most anti-migrant racist piece-of-shit legislation in the country:
Republican Governor Robert Bentley on Thursday signed into law [a bill requiring police to] detain someone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the person cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason.Although progressive Alabama social justice groups protested the legislation and petitioned the governor to veto it, their efforts failed, and conservative Alabamans are singing the praises of the new legislation.
It also will be a crime to knowingly transport or harbor someone who is in the country illegally. The law imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly employ someone without legal resident status. A company's business license could be suspended or revoked.
The law requires Alabama businesses to use a database called E-Verify to confirm the immigration status of new employees.
"We have a real problem with illegal immigration in this country," Bentley said after signing the law. "I campaigned for the toughest immigration laws and I'm proud of the Legislature for working tirelessly to create the strongest immigration bill in the country."
Alabama is the latest state to follow the lead of a controversial measure passed in Arizona last year. ... Alabama's law is unique in requiring public schools to determine, by review of birth certificates or sworn affidavits, the legal residency status of students.
Gene Armstrong, mayor of Allgood, Alabama, a small community where the Hispanic population has grown to almost 50 percent, is not worried [that what happened in Georgia, "where farmers have complained that tough new curbs on immigration are creating a shortage of seasonal workers before they even go into effect," will happen in Alabama].Of course.
"We managed in the past without illegal immigrants to pick the tomatoes here, and I haven't heard anyone say that if we sent them all home nobody would be left to do that work," Armstrong said.
"When you have 9 percent unemployment, I think that some people who might not have wanted those jobs previously might reconsider."
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Alec Baldwin, Professor of Ethics at Calling Your Daughter a Pig University, explains that Anthony Weiner is just a modern human being, in the thoughtfully titled "Anthony Weiner Is a Modern Human Being."
Executive Summary: Kids today. So many gadgets! Gleep glorp. We had to walk uphill both ways to get laid. Men need to feel wanted sexually to take the edge off, no doy it's science. Time is money and porn isn't good enough. Wives don't put out on demand, so whaddaya expect? Weiner's crime was forgetting that women are lying whores who won't always keep it confidential when you publicly tweet pictures of your dong to them. Weiner is a busy, modern, high functioning man with needs. Hey, we all make mistakes, so shut up.
Well said, Mr. Baldwin.
Ba Da Ba Ba Baaaa! I'm Lovin' It!
In case my two earlier posts, and Misty's follow-up, weren't depressing enough for you, I just read this alarming tidbit at Mother Jones:
"Up to 30,000 of the 54,000 jobs created in May were the result of a hiring spree by the hamburger chain, analysts at Morgan Stanley told Market Watch on Friday." So hiring at McDonald's accounted for about half of the nation's job growth in May.Emphasis mine.
In addition to the economic implications of that scenario, while McDonald's is becoming US workers' best employment option, the First Lady is busily introducing her "Let's Move" campaign at fucking pre-schools.
Not everyone who is fat eats McDonald's; not everyone who eats McDonald's is fat; not everyone who eats McDonald's and is fat or not fat is unhealthy. But someone who eats McDonald's almost exclusively is very likely to have health problems irrespective of their weight as a result.
Does anyone else find it incredibly absurd to be investing money in a fat-shaming and ableist anti-obesity campaign aimed at children in a country where their unemployed parents are more likely to get hired at McDonald's than anywhere else, a job at which the compensation makes the dollar value menu a more affordable option for many meals than the local grocery store (that is, if they don't live in a food desert), and the likely lack of employer health insurance means that preventative healthcare will be a luxury the family cannot afford?
This country is so fucked up.
Whoooooooooops Your Presidential Campaign!
Senior Gingrich 2012 aides resign en masse:
Newt Gingrich's campaign manager and numerous other key aides have resigned together, a strong blow to his hopes for the Republican presidential nomination.One wonders if this has anything to do with the fact that the launch of his campaign website was a garbage disaster, that his campaign announcement video was a joke, that he is a lulz-quote spewing machine, that he thinks "awesome campaign strategist" and "Zell Miller" are synonymous, and that he is hostile to the media when they have the unmitigated temerity to ask him about things like his six-figure tab at Tiffany's during the nation's more dire economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Gingrich press spokesman Rick Tyler told The Associated Press that he's resigned along with campaign manager Rob Johnson, senior strategists and aides in key early primary states.
Curious.
Sorry about your campaign, Newt!
UPDATE: "Gingrich told the group he intends to stay in the race." Phew! That was a close one.
Consent Matters
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment; rape culture.]
There sure are still a lot of people arguing that Rep. Weiner's internet fuckery is a private matter between consenting adults, even though a Times article made clear yesterday that 21-year-old college student Gennette Cordova neither solicited nor consented to receive the tweeted picture heard 'round the world:
"I have not sent him any suggestive messages," Ms. Cordova said.Listen, there is no one (who doesn't know Weiner personally) who did not want to find out more than me that Congressman Anthony Weiner was sexually harassing women by sending them unsolicited pictures of his genitals. It grieves me. But just because I don't want to be true doesn't mean I get to pretend it isn't; and pretending it isn't doesn't make it so.
She said she was, however, surprised by his informal tone. "He was just very casual," she said. "It wasn't like talking to a U.S. congressman."
A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner did not dispute Ms. Cordova's account.
Mr. Weiner, at his news conference on Monday, said he had sent Ms. Cordova the underwear photo "as part of a joke." But Ms. Cordova said the image was not in keeping with the tenor of their previous interactions.
"I still didn't get the joke part of it," she said.
It matters that he sent unsolicited sexual images to women, because consent matters.
And the lack of consent matters.
Some will point to the fact that, at the end of the same article, Cordova is quoted as saying, "I certainly don't condone his behavior, but I think that's a personal matter between him and his family." But Cordova has a personal incentive for wanting this whole ugly mess to go away: She is personally involved. Weiner turned her life upside-down with that unsolicited tweet, and she undoubtedly would like to go back to a life in which her name is not known to the world because of a public figure with no impulse control.
Her reasons are not the same as the reasons of someone appropriating her words to argue that a public figure (either with whom they identify ideologically, or by virtue of their shared gender, or owing to a belief that sexual harassment should not be punishable) should be above criticism or consequences.
Members of the US Congress represent The People, and when we fail to hold to account a sexual harasser, for whatever reason, we're saying as a culture that we're pretty okay with that behavior. We're saying that consent doesn't matter.
Once upon a time, there was a Congressman who liked to point out that members of that legislative body should be held to rigorous ethical standards, because they represent a nation whose standards they reflect.
Now he's counting on the fact that the very people who admired him for those principles will jettison them in his defense.
Don't count on me, Weiner.
I'm no prude: I like a good dick picture as much as anyone. The thing is, I just like consent more.
[Related Reading w/ trigger warning for Polanksi stuff: Her Reasons Are Not Yours.]
"Those People"
Liss's posts below reminded me of something I've been meaning to share--this past Saturday I was at an event hosted by the Interfaith Committee on Homelessness. The event's point was to bring various business leaders together with the community and various community organizations to open a dialog about how "business" and "community" can work together on the issue of jobs, housing, and homelessness. It was a very interesting event and I learned a great deal, both positive and negative regarding the business community and its involvement with regards to working in the community.
However, there were two statements made--and stuck to and repeated (and that another CEO nodded along in agreement to)--by two members of the business community that really stood out. During the Q&A session, a gentlemen who runs a shelter organization trying to connect homeless men to jobs opportunities asked the panel of business leaders about issues surrounding the challenges of applying for work and interviewing. The gentlemen asked the panel what could they (the panel) do to make this process easier? Or what advice could they offer to potential applicants, especially in this economy? This, btw, was a very big theme among the Q&A: jobs. Many organization speakers stressed that the people they represent do, in fact, desire employment.
The first answer came from Jonathan Schlueter. Schlueter is the Exec Director of the Westside Business Alliance. What he said was that they (business) can only help so many people (in regards to jobs) and there are some people they just can't help: "the people who simply don't want to work." One example of people who "don't want to work" are those who "don't want to show up on time". Those people.
Now, I don't know about the other people there (I'm pretty sure I do) but I didn't hear anyone talking about "those people". That was his opening statement in his answer--to go first for the stereotype of "those people who just don't want to work".
It was the next comment that was very tell-tale. Bethany Bigelow is Director of Dining Operations for Aramark at Pacific University (and Aramark donates surplus food to shelters). Anyway, she was nodding along with what Schlueter said and when he was finished, she spoke up and said she wanted to build on it. She said that she believes that a major part of "the problem" (with people not getting work) is that too many people are not willing to take jobs they think are beneath them. She said (direct quote here) "People say I'm a CPA! Not a dishwasher!" and refuse job opportunities. Two other panelists nodded along with her statement (one, the CEO of Providence Health and Services actually looked appalled). I was left wondering: so just how do applicants compete, not just with each other, but with entrenched stereotypes by those doing the hiring?
While this one panel is not Industry As A Whole (even if one of the people represents a whole lot of Business), it hardly seems atypical. Recall the recent news of companies not wanting to hire those who are unemployed? Bob Herbert recently wrote:
Twenty-five million Americans were unable to find full-time work in May. Nearly 14 million were officially classified as jobless. Millions more are outside the labor force and not being counted at all. We are surrounded by the evidence of a searing national tragedy. The crippling affliction of joblessness has become a way of life for millions.Yet, as Liss posted, the president is thinking about "seeking a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages" and NOT thinking about the government doing anything to help actual workers.
The average length of unemployment is a devastating 40 weeks, the longest since 1948, which was the first year such records were kept. Unemployed workers 55 and older are gripped with the very real fear that they may never work again.
It's not the business industry--the one who speaks of those people--that's going to fix anything, Mr. President and Congresspeople. But, sure, just keep giving them tax breaks. THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.
Blog Note
I've got some family stuff to attend to over the next couple of hours. I'll be back later this afternoon. In the meantime, please enjoy this inspirational yearbook quote.
"Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes."—Abraham Lincoln.
Random YouTubery: Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!
[Video transcript by Liss: A little white boy in a bike helmet is standing outdoors; he is very excited. "I feel, I feel, I feel—" A man (presumably his dad) behind the camera offers: "You feel alive?" The little boy continues: "I feel happy of myself!" Dad says: "I feel happy of yourself, too," then asks: "You got any words of wisdom? What about for all the other kids, trying to learn how to ride their bikes? Can you say anything to them?" The little boy steps up onto the curb as if it's a stage, positions himself, takes a deep breath, and says: "Everybody! I know you can believe in yourself! If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike! If you don't, you just keep practicing! You will get the hang of it, I know it! If you, if you keep practicing, you will get the hang of it, and then you can get better and better, and then you can do it!" Dad says, "Gimme some thumbs-up." The little boy gives two thumbs-up and shouts: "Thumbs up, everybody! FOR ROCK AND ROLL!" Dad laughs. Fin.]
Number of the Day
15.8%: The real unemployment rate in the US: "The official unemployment rate hit 9.1% in May. Including all of those who had part-time jobs but wanted to work full-time as well as those who want to work but had given up searching, the rate was 15.8%."
DO. SOMETHING.
Jobless claims are up again this week in the US, marking "the ninth consecutive week that claims were above 400,000," despite the constant predictions that unemployment was going to start falling. (Magically! Care of voodoo economics!)
It's a terribly grim landscape, and the only viable solution is government intervention, fast and serious, because whooooooooooooops the market is not solving this problem.
"I'm sitting this one out."—The Invisible Hand.
Problem is that we've got President Bipartisan unwilling to do what it takes (spoiler alert: national infrastructure investment), because the Republicans might whine at him for governing like a sensible person who gives a fuck about his country.
Instead, the Obama administration is considering "seeking a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages." A fucking payroll tax for corporations. You have got to be shitting me. We're in a national economic crisis, people all over the country are losing their jobs, their healthcare, their homes, their lives, and the best our president has to offer is some tepid, half-assed, pusillanimous gesture, which will starve the government of revenue it could be putting toward a real (and necessary) national reinvestment plan.
Krugman notes that the stupendously useless Tim Geithner has been a major opponent of stimulus, which he dismisses as "sugar," and advocate of austerity to achieve debt reduction. "Not what anyone should be saying in the modern world, least of all a top official in an allegedly progressive Democratic administration," says Krugman.
At this point, I can't imagine there is anyone left with illusions this administration is progressive.
Being a progressive means doing something, just for a start.
Question of the Day
What phrase, word, or situation evokes an entire family tradition or memory for you, or represents something that is an "in-joke" in your family?
Long ago, when my mother was raising four children, working full time as a high school teacher, AND getting her Masters by driving 90 miles each way five nights a week, she devised a way to save her children from my father's lack of cooking skills.
She got a book called "365 Casseroles" and she proceeded to march through the year, preparing and freezing five casseroles from the book on the weekends, and leaving detailed thawing/cooking instructions for my dad.
This went well -- for the most part.
Then, she prepared a casserole called "Chicken on a Cloud". It was some kind of dumpling-y, chicken-y thing.
I honestly don't know what went wrong -- whether the recipe was bad, or the chicken was bad, or she did something wrong, or what.
I only know that my father cooked it as ordered, dished it out onto our plates, and took a bite from his own plate. He looked up at us.
We all had the same expression as he had, our mouths full of "Chicken on a Cloud".
He stood up at the head of the table, silently took our plates one by one, and scraped them back into the casserole dish.
Then, he said to my older sister, in a terse, final tone:
"Marcia, get the weiners."
Oh Dear
Huma Abedin, wife of Rep. Anthony Weiner, is reportedly pregnant.
If indeed all of this did come as a surprise and betrayal to Abedin, I can only imagine how much more difficult it is to make decisions about the future with one's partner while expecting a child together.
I would hope that this news, even if turns out to not be true, would serve as a reminder there are humans at the center of this story and give pause to the people who are treating this entire story like one long dick joke and an excuse to make vicious misogynist attacks on Abedin. But I'm guessing it won't.
UPDATE: [TW for sexual harassment] In other news, conservative ethicist Andrew Breitbart went on the Opie & Anthony show today and showed the [TW] rape-loving shockjocks a photo of Rep. Weiner's naked penis on his cellphone, which has now gone viral on the internet. Weiner knew Breitbart had that photo; Breitbart blackmailed him with it; and then he whooooooops showed it to the world, anyway.
This entire thing has just made me absolutely sick.
Real Science: Men and Women Not Totally Different After All!
by Shaker Moderator and Navy Veteran Aphra_Behn
[Trigger warning for institutionalized sexism; gender essentialism; nonsexual and sexual violence.]
Just when I've learned from awesome evo-psych pseudo-science that Ladybrainz are totally hard-wired for crying and emotion and shit, while Manbrainz are from Mars, and hard-wired for aggression and sex and stuff, NO DOY...
...just then, some Real ScienceTM has to come along and do a university-sponsored, peer-reviewed, carefully controlled academic study that suggests something quite different:
In what is believed to be the first published study on the topic, researchers affiliated with the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) believe female military service-members from Operation Enduring Freedom OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) may be as resilient to combat-related stress as men.... "Contrary to our hypothesis that associations between combat-related stressors and post-deployment mental health would be slightly stronger for women than men, only one of 16 interactions achieved a conventional level of statistical significance and this interaction suggested a stronger negative association for men rather than women," explained lead author Dawne Vogt, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry at BUSM and researcher at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the VA Boston Healthcare System. "This finding is important because it appears to suggest fairly comparable levels of resilience to combat-related stressors for women and men, at least during the timeframe evaluated in this study," she added.This is very significant. Even before this study, VA researchers suggested that the apparent gender difference in rates of PTSD might result from non-combat factors, like previous trauma. But others predictably turned to things like tired old evo-psych to explain that women responded to combat differently because evolution!
For example, male rats are more prone to develop memory impairments in response to stressors...In addition, women have been shown to ruminate over nontraumatic negative events more than men, who tend to use more distraction-based coping techniques. While these behaviors may pose evolutionary advantages for each sex, they also may contribute to the increased incidence of PTSD in women.(Disclaimer: I am not a behavioral scientist, but I do know that (a) humans aren't rats and (b) instead of saying that military women "ruminate" too much over "negative" events, we might consider that they experience negative events like rape and sexual assault at a higher rate than do military men. Just sayin'.)
It's been 110 years since the founding of the US Army Nurse Corps, and military women say with depressing frequency that they still get told "women don't belong here" and that they are "taking men's jobs." There's a Facebook group (sorry, not linking) named "Women Don't Belong in the Military." There's a tremendous amount of cultural energy in the U.S. and elsewhere devoted to conflating military service with essentialist masculinity, and that has shifted depressingly little over the 20th and 21st centuries.
But the military is an outcomes-based organization, and sometimes, just sometimes, enough evidence piles up to promote change. The argument against women's participation in ground combat has already been rendered ridiculous by the actual performance of women in combat situations. Military commanders routinely subvert the prohibition on ground combat, because, quite bluntly, they need women to do the job. When your patrol goes through a rural Afghan village, American women have a much better chance of talking to Afghan women than American men do. As for why this matters: Women on the frontlines still don't serve officially in combat units and that limits their careers and promotions.
Another harmful result of the old attitude that only cis men are fit for military service is that it stigmatizes men with PTSD, specifically by feminizing them. U.S. culture already has problems admitting that men need to tend to their psychological health; in the U.S. military there is even further stigma. To be blunt, a man with PTSD is "like a woman." This study helps remove some of the stigmatizing associations between feminized "weakness" and PTSD, and that's a win for both men and women who need treatment.
Real ScienceTM! It's pretty darn useful.
Daily Dose of Cute
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk / I'm a kitty cat—no time to talk.
Purring loud and snuggling warm / I've been looking cute since I was born.
And now it's all right; it's okay / And you may look the other way
While I knead my little paws / To the confusion of big dogs!
Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother / You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Feel the catnip breakin' and ev'rybody shakin' / And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
AH! AH! AH! AH! Stayin' alive! Stayin' alive! / AH! AH! AH! AH! Stayin' alive! Stayin' alive!
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
RIP Fairness Doctine
Really, the Fairness Doctrine has been dead since Reagan took a giant suffocating crap on it back in the 80s, so it's probably more accurate to say RIP All Hope of the Reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency will remove the Fairness Doctrine from the rule books in response to a recent request from House Republicans.It was perhaps not until the Citizens United decision that a ruling had more devastating consequences for the health of the US democracy than the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine.
"I fully support deleting the Fairness Doctrine and related provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations, so that there can be no mistake that what has been a dead letter is truly dead," Genachowski wrote in a letter Monday to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
Now, where the Fairness Doctrine used to be, there's just a giant hole in the shape of Rupert Murdoch.
I Get More Letters
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
Hey, remember this guy, my charming correspondent who had been banned or engaging in rape apologia and acknowledged having read in the commenting policy that people banned for violating that very policy are not welcome to bring their grievances about being banned to my inbox...? And remember how I pointedly explained that ignoring someone's clearly delineated boundaries is not just rude, but hostile to the notion of consent, and thus finds itself on a continuum at the other end of which is sexual violence...?
Well, I don't guess I need to tell you what colossal dipfuck has just sent me yet another email, the subject header of which is—I shit you not—"Sorry for invading your boundaries," that is, in fact, not (surprise!) an apology for disrespecting my boundaries, but is, instead, (spoiler warning!) a massive textwall manspalining to me how he TOTES IS NOT a rape apologist, even though he doesn't think it's victim-blaming to tell women not to drink so much if they don't want to get be raped, insisting that "rape apologist" is a slur (lulz), telling me that I'm being "hurtful," asking me to forward to him a copy of his original email (because he didn't bother to keep one, so now I'm his personal secretary), auditing my boundaries by telling me he can't figure out what my "publicly published Contact link [is] supposed to function as," if not a resource to whinge at me, and then concludes with this gem:
Apologies if you believe this e-mail also crosses any boundaries. If you do not wish to receive any more correspondence, please tell me (although I would appreciate my original e-mail if that is alright with you).No. None of this is all right with me. That's why part of my published comment policy, in big bold letters, is: Being banned from Shakesville is not an invitation to take your issues to the email inbox of Liss and/or any of the other contributors or mods. And fauxpologizing for disrespecting clearly-delineated boundaries is worth a squirtload of good to the person whose boundaries you must disrespect to deliver it.
Of course, my correspondent has audited my boundaries and determined them to be bullshit, which is why he is still emailing me to try to convince me how much not an apologist for a rape culture the cornerstone of which is a disrespect of boundaries he is.
Lest there be any confusion: I am not writing about this because I am scared or hurt or offended. (As the masthead says, I'm just contemptuous.) I am writing about this because, when I write about things like this ongoing exchange, there are men (and women), more interested in living a life truly respectful of consent than my correspondent, who email me to say they have learned something about how better to respect other people's boundaries in everyday ways, and there are women (and men) who email me to say they have learned something about defining and defending their own boundaries, and their right to do so.
I also write about it because sometimes people think the moderators here take too hard a line on rape apologia, that we don't give enough leeway. Well. This is where leeway lees to.
And I write about it because I write about the rape culture, and the rape culture starts with every person who says, "I know you said not to, but I'm going to do it anyway."
You can't claim to be anti-rape, unless you're pro-consent.
Culture of Control, Cruelty & Jackassery
[Trigger warning for misogyny; rape culture.]
Last Friday Kate posted about the current anti-abortion effort in Louisiana, noting that it is out to ban abortion all together. The LA House was supposed to vote on it yesterday but the main sponsor, Rep LaBruzzo, asked for it to be held off because of concern it would affect the state's Medicaid funding. It is scheduled for floor debate today (nearly all the way down the page, under #5).
I'd like to highlight some of the things said by the people behind this legislation. The main sponsor is Rep. John LaBruzzo and he's very upfront about his goals:
The bill by Republican state Rep. John LaBruzzo defines human life as beginning at the moment of conception and makes it a crime to terminate a pregnancy except when the birth would endanger the mother's life.This new legislation removes exceptions that had existed regarding cases of rape and incest. It only allows an exception for the health of the woman. Which, while not reasonable, doesn't sound as horrifying as it could be without the medical exception...right? Well:
"Our first intent is to save unborn babies' lives," LaBruzzo told Reuters. "Our second intent is to have an opportunity to mount a challenge that makes it to the Supreme Court."
Last week, a Senate committee passed state Rep. Frank Hoffman’s (R) bill that would further imperil woman’s access to health care by allowing anti-choice health care providers to summarily reject providing any kind of abortion service even if the woman’s health is at stake. In 2009, Louisiana passed a law allowing any health care provider to refuse abortion-related services if it “violates his conscience to the extent that patient access to health care is not compromised.” Hoffman’s bill would eliminate “the qualifier that a medical professional’s decision cannot threaten patient’s right to care.”Which makes the medical exception pretty much useless.
In debating the bill during a hearing, LaBurzzo was questioned regarding the efficacy of banning abortion in reducing abortion rates. Labruzzo responded:
It’s not our stance here to say, “Just because people smoke pot and break the law, or people use heroin and break the law, that then we should legalize it.” There are many who say we should. But we don’t agree; we don’t think so. We think it’s wrong and it’s best to keep it illegal … and that’s where I am with this bill. If we believe this is wrong, this is the ultimate question you are going to have to ask yourself. It doesn’t matter if you’ve voted for every pro-life bill that’s come to this committee. This is the pro-life bill. This is the pro-life bill. And I think you’d be in a difficult situation if you voted against this bill and tried to convince everybody that you are ardently pro-life. And I would not want to be in that situation.Women who need or want medical procedure = just like heroin addicts. Gotcha. In this same hearing, Personhood USA (remember them?) had a lawyer who also testified saying:
During the hearing, Keissling [Rebecca] said that abortion “protects the perpetrator,” and that if rape or incest victims have their baby, the rape will likely stop on its own: “We know with incest, it is the perpetrator who is protected by the abortion. Not only does the rape typically end after she gives birth, but also for all the other young women in the household who are being raped.”I cannot believe someone is testifying at a congressional hearing that a rapist is protected by abortion. WHAT. That a person who is a victim of incest should "keep the baby" to protect anyone else in the home who may be raped? WHAT. No. No. NO. How about "we" convict the fucking rapist and not force his victim to carry a pregnancy as a way to protect others in the house? Then there's everything else she said. Just...what. I don't even. The depths of cruelty are astonishing.
According to Keissling, “all the major research on abortion” shows that, after an abortion, women are ”four times more likely to die within the next year. They have a higher murder rate, higher rate of suicide, drug overdose, domestic violence, divorce, abuse throughout their lives, depression and on and on. … So if you really care about a rape victim, you would want to protect her from an abortion and not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim. An abortion is.”
Speaking of illogical bullshit, let's go back to LaBruzzo who said, when questioned about how declaring a fertilized egg to have full person rights may affect contraception use/ability since some forms of contraception can prevent implantation:
This is not about interfering with anyone's ability to receive or participate in birth control," he told Reuters. "What the bill says is that life begins at conception, and a baby who is pre-born should enjoy all the rights that a 1-day-old baby does."*headdesk*
This person, this person who said THAT, is trying to pass legislation he wrote to control the autonomy of women in Louisiana--and all over the country. And he's far from alone.
Cruel and Usual
[Trigger warning for transphobia, self-harm, and prisoner abuse]
I've been spending a good deal of time thinking about the intersection of trans*ness, gender, class, race, and healthcare lately. It's an occupational requirement, I suppose.
Anyhow, I came across [TW] this story about a woman incarcerated in a Virginia men's correctional facility who is suing the state over her right to sexual reassignment surgery (or whatever one chooses to call it). All I can say is that I was utterly unsurprised. Hey look, it's Tuesday!
That's pretty much the most damning indictment of this country's treatment of trans* people that I can think of.
So:
1) A trans* woman of color does not have access to adequate healthcare.
2) At a very young age she begins stealing, in hopes of securing healthcare.
3) She is subsequently arrested, and locked up in a men's prison for a long, long time.
4) She is not allowed to grow her hair out.
5) She is not allowed to have SRS/GRS.
And we have:
Republican Virginia Del. Todd Gilbert says he would seek state legislation if De'lonta's lawsuit is successful.No. You sir, are ridiculous.
"The notion that taxpayers are going to fund a sex change is just ridiculous," says Gilbert.
...and
Harold Clarke, who became Virginia's corrections director last year, says it would be a security risk to allow the surgeries because Virginia's inmates are housed according to their gender at birth, not anatomy.Oh! If only there were a solution to this dilemma. (I have a solution to this dilemma.)
The article itself is pretty sorry. I definitely award bonus points for framing Ms. De'lonta's cutting as central to the issue. If there's one thing I've seen over and over and over again, it's people (trans and cis alike) framing self-harm as a central reason why trans* people should have access to medical care. False. Our shared humanity is reason enough.
Via
[Commenting Note: Comments will not be open on this post. Given the principles of this space, the story should be considered self-evidently awful, and given the nature of transphobic trolls, we're disinclined to open up this particular story to their bullshit commentary. On rare occasions, we share something because of its newsworthiness that we do not feel needs public comment.]
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud distributors of Lissie's Spatulars.
Recommended Reading:
I had the very interesting and intense experience of reading these two pieces back-to-back this morning [TW for discussion of sexual violence]: karnythia's "Don't Be a Rapist: Of Survivor Parenting & Young Males" and SuperMommy's "It Wasn't My Fault."
Shark-fu: [TW for violence] A Community in Sorrow…Standing for Peace
Tami: A Conversation with New Black Woman about Who Gets the Blame for Sabotaging the Image of Black Women on TV
Amber: Something Interesting Happened at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards
Resistance: [TW for racism and misogyny] These People Are Educators
Andy: Ann Coulter Won't Say How She Would Feel if Her Child Was Gay
Melissa: Hillary Clinton Supports Women's Sports as the US Women Prepare for the World Cup [If anyone locates a transcript for the video at the link, please drop a note in comments.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
"I was born with [a thick New York accent], frankly. And then I went to school to get rid of it. And then I've been hired to do it again about 400 times, so it's kind of funny."—Edie Falco, stage and screen actress best known as Carmela Soprano and Nurse Jackie.
Hee.
My love for this observation may or may not have something to do with the fact that I thought the word "spatula" ended in an R until I was about ten years old.
Why Santorum is a Comprehensive Dipshit
[Trigger warning for torture]
While I may not be a fan of John McCain, I dare say his first-hand knowledge of torture would make him more of an authority on the subject than other members in Congress, certainly more than any GOP presidential contenders.
Still, that doesn't stop the hopeless wonder that is Santorum from coming up with this award winning disagreement with McCain on how torture enhanced interrogation works:
"He doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works," the former Pennsylvania senator told Hewitt. "I mean, you break somebody, and after they're broken, they become cooperative. And that's when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that's how we ended up with bin Laden."FAIL.
Let's set aside for a moment Santorum's ponderous logic that someone who has experienced torture doesn't understand how it works. We can break this one down rather simply.
If, for example, you are repeatedly forcing someone to experience the sensation of drowning until they produce information, that person will tell you anything to make you stop, which could very well include false information that the person being tortured believes to be true.
Which, totally aside from the many, many ethical problems with torturing people, is just one of many reasons why torture doesn't work.
However, in Santorum's infantile mind, it always works just like it does in TV and the movies.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
An Unrested-Upon Laurel Gathers No Moss
Weren't you just thinking it was time for Professor James Franco to release an album? Yeah, me too.
Franco and his creative partner, drag performance artist Kalup Linzy.
Kalup and Franco is the duo of Kalup Linzy, a video/performance artist who frequently performs in drag, and James Franco, an Oscar-nominated movie star (127 Hours, Spider-Man) who has quickly become one of Hollywood's biggest weirdos. The partnership formed after Franco invited Linzy to perform on "General Hospital" during Franco's stint on the soap opera, and they've since become a performance duo and a musical act. On July 12, they'll release their debut EP Turn It Up on Dutty Artz, the label co-founded by the globe-trotting, genre-mashing theorist DJ /rupture.Please let one of the surprise guests be Rip Taylor. Please let one of the surprise guests be Rip Taylor. Please let one of the surprise guests be Rip Taylor...
The EP will be available as a digital download and as a limited-edition 7". It features two songs, "Rising (Both Sides Now)" and "Turn It Up (So We Can Turn It Out)", co-produced by DJ /rupture and his Nettle bandmate Brent Arnold, and "Rising" also features production from /rupture's Dutty Artz partner Matt Shadetek. Linzy produced a third track, "Fly Away". The duo intends to make music videos for each of those three songs, which will feature "surprise guest cameos."
Know why any super-awesome megastar (like Rip Taylor) would agree to make a surprise guest cameo in one of Kalup and Franco's videos? Because James Franco, no doy.
Blog Note
It's not you: Comments are now taking around a half hour to post to the blog. Unfortunately, it's nothing that we can control, and hopefully Disqus will resolve it soon.
My sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.
UPDATE: Seems to be working again now. (Thanks, Disqus team!) If you're still having problems, fire me a(nother) email.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2!
It's live, folks! I'm talking about the Atlas Shrugged Part II website. Okay, so there's not much there yet except for a too-pixilated slideshow (stills from the first film?) and the text "in theaters fall 2012."
But hey, it shows a real commitment by the producers to plunk down $4.99 at godaddy and get the ball rolling. Or the train rolling. Or something. Not sure what the best Randian metaphor is. Wevs.
No word on a DVD release yet. As soon as I know, you'll know. Because I know you want to know as much as I know. You know? I'll be at Redbox the moment it arrives. And no, I will not park in the fire zone. You shouldn't either!
I suspect the producers are waiting on the theatrical run to wind down. It's still playing in seventeen theaters. Seventeen! Huh? Okay.
Oddly, it is running in Austin, which I had thought, you know, according to legend, was some weird lefty outpost in the red and dusty state of Texas. Maybe not. It's also in "Cape Girandeau" (sic), Missouri, birthplace of Rush Limbaugh. Go, Missouri!
Also, the Ayn Rand vs. Jesus debate is heating up. Check your local listings. I hope George Stephanopoulos hosts. "Why don't you wear a flag pin?" I'd wear a flag pin if it were made of Reardon Metal™. (Take that, Lacoste shirt!)
p.s. Link.
I Was Just Thinking...
Question of the Day
What movie do you love that everyone else (with whom you usually agree about movies) seems to hate?
I love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (The '05 version. Wow, was it really that long ago?)
I understand that many people dislike this movie because it deviates quite a bit from the book. And I totally get that. I just don't care, in this case. Even Douglas Adams considered the book unfilmable, and as he wrote the screenplay to make it more "movie friendly," that satisfies me. If it's got his stamp of approval, who am I to argue? Besides, it's just so much fun. I thought the casting was absolutely brilliant; could Martin Freeman be more perfect as Arthur? I also really liked the outside-the-box casting of Mos Def. And Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast? OMG, I wish he was in the whole movie. I even love the added bits with John Malkovich. Alan freaking Rickman!
I thought the design of the film was fantastic. I loved the look of the Heart of Gold. When Deep Thought first appeared on screen, the Spudsband and I burst out laughing. And the creatures on line waiting through Vogon bureaucracy... brilliantly done, especially the Lucha Libre monster and the white, fuzzy, horned thing.
Lastly, the Vogons. The Vogons were so 100% accurate as to how I always pictured them in my head, it was absolutely uncanny. (And bless them for using practical effects, rather than CGI!) Not only did they look fantastic, and this may be my bias as a performer/voiceover artist, but the vocal casting for the Vogons was spot on. Not only did the voices match the character's role perfectly, but physically, if that makes any sense. Watch any scene with a Vogon; you know that's how it would really sound.
Like I said, I understand why many people dislike or were disappointed by this movie. I love it.
Howzaboutyou?
Imagine That.
Third-graders in Tramway Elementary School (Sanford, NC) engaged in a civic exercise and wrote letters to elected officials requesting that they do not slash the education budget--as deep cuts are expected as gov't officials hash out the state's budget.
One state legislator, Mike Stone (R-Of Course) is very upset about this. Very upset. Why? Because one of the letters he received came from his very own daughter:
"I was extremely disappointed, but I tried not to show that in front of my daughter," Stone said. "I don't know that at any time we should use our third-grade students as lobbyists."The education system is turning her against you, you say? ORLY?
The teacher outlined what students should include in the letter, he said, noting his daughter mentioned the loss of two teaching assistants, field trips and science experiments and more difficulty in learning multiplication and reading comprehension.
She ended her letter, "Please put the budget higher dad."
"As I read through this (letter), anger completely shot through me, and I was trying to hold myself together," he said. "(It's unconscionable) to know any education system would use a daughter against her father."
Superintendent Jeff Moss said letters were also sent from students in other local schools to their representatives and to Gov. Beverly Perdue. Letters weren't written to "Mike Stone, the father" but to "Mike Stone, the representative," he said.It seems for Rep Stone that he's afraid of the chickens coming home to roost:
"If you're not interested in receiving letters from people in your district, don't run for public office," Moss said.
He said he doesn't see a problem with a writing exercise that has students supporting public education.
Stone said he fears his daughter's classmates will blame her if the teaching assistants lose their jobs.Well, hello Action. I'd like you to meet Consequence. This is what happens when you are an elected official: you are held responsible for the votes you cast for various pieces of legislation and the repercussions of those votes in your community.
[ETA: I feel I should clarify the above because it was admittedly phrased poorly, to a degree, and has caused no small amount of confusion--and it's distressing to me that anyone would think I'd want a child bullied. My point to do with Stone potentially being held accountable within his community that he represents. Via this exercise (more) people will be aware of him and how he votes (esp. now that he went to the media!)--and to show that he is aware that people will be aware is why the quoted is there. Well, it made sense to me when I was typing the post at the time. But, anyway, it really didn't have anything to do with his daughter. I am sorry about the confusion.]
Photo of the Day
[Click to embiggen.]
First of all, I love that there's a German news story comparing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's midsections, in order to point out they both wear pantsuits and position their hands in a similar fashion while standing.
Secondly, I love that there's an American news story about Merkel presenting Clinton with a framed copy of the German news story, before a state dinner.
Thirdly, I love that Merkel and Clinton are laughing their tits off about it.
[Via @scatx.]
Number of the Day
$7.8 trillion: The cost of GOP presidential wannabe Tim Pawlenty's proposed tax plan, which is triple the size of the Bush tax cuts.
Great idea!
True Fact: Tim Pawlenty is not only the former governor of Minnesota, but is also the current Professor Emeritus of Smartology at Genius University.
A Thought
I believe there is a place in which the Weiner story can be discussed as neither THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVAR IN THE HISTORY OF EVARYTHANG!!!!!1!!!eleventy!! nor a story of no conceivable consequence at all.
I am unhappy, though unsurprised, to discover how vanishingly few people agree with me.
Random YouTubery
A Canadian news segment in which an SPCA rep brings two older puppies to the studio for what was supposed to be a pretty typical adopt-a-pet piece (if seeing dogs jump on people bothers you, skip it):
Video Description: Two women, an anchor and an SPCA rep, introduce two dogs—one a young male German Shepherd and one a young female pitbull. The dogs, from an overcrowded shelter in which kennels can hold up to four dogs, are delighted to be out and about, and they get increasingly playful and affectionate with the two women, prompting the entire newsroom to erupt into laughter.
Honestly, this video just made me laugh so hard. It's when they cut back from the screen with the SPCA's contact information to the studio, and the anchor has just completely succumbed to Ginger the Pitbull in a heap of giggles—
—I just totally lose my shit.
I know not everyone likes to be jumped on and licked by big dogs, but clearly these ladies don't mind. And, possibly because I have such a calm dog at home myself, I don't mind, either. I'm always the lady at the dog park who's happy to be jumped and rubbed and drooled on by the biggest four-legged slobberchops in the vicinity.
[H/T to a friend at a local pitbull rescue.]
Two Facts
1. David Brooks has written yet another garbage column for the New York Times, called "Where Wisdom Lives."
2. Where Wisdom Lives is not in David Brooks' brainpan.
As usual, there are a lot of things wrong with Brooks' column, but this in particular struck me:
Some Democrats simply want to do nothing as Medicare careens toward bankruptcy. Last Sunday on "Face the Nation," for example, Nancy Pelosi said, "I could never support any arrangement that reduced benefits for Medicare."Why do Brooks' editors allow him to get away with this mendacious horseshit? A failure to support reduced Medicare benefits is not axiomatically synonymous with "wanting to do nothing." There are various ways of addressing the potential shortcomings of Medicare that don't involve a reduction in benefits—raising taxes and/or creating a socialized healthcare system, for example, both of which Representative Pelosi has been known, ahem, to support.
Fortunately, more responsible Democrats are looking for ways to save the system.
Glenn Beck TV!
Recovering quickly from being fired by those liberals over at Fox News, our good friend Glenn Beck is already on his way back to the top. Did he get his own network? Even better: He's getting his own Youtube channel. Which makes him as awesome as every fourteen-year-old out there. So... You go, Glenn!
This Fall (just in time for sweeps week!) Glenn Beck is launching GBTV, an internet-only subscription-based service.
For $4.95 a month fans and detractors alike (so long as they have a credit card! Paypal coming soon!) can watch Beck's new two-hour show. For another five bucks you also get access to a simulcast of his three hour radio show and a show about the Glenn Beck TV network.
And if you have five-plus hours a day and ten bucks a month to dedicate to watching Glenn Beck, more power to you!
I guess it remains to be seen if people are now willing to pay money to get what they used to get for free. But Beck is promising lots of good things:
Eventually, Mr. Beck said, his goal is to have an array of scripted and unscripted shows alongside his own daily show, which will simply be titled Glenn Beck and will run for two hours on weekday afternoons.
"If you're a fan of Jon Stewart, you're going to find something on GBTV that you're going to enjoy," Mr. Beck said. "If you're a fan of 24, you're going to find something on GBTV that you're going to enjoy."
Yay! I guess. I dunno.
If people are willing to pay for this crap, good on them. I think. Who is willing to pay for this crap? Someone, I am sure.
Maybe the same folks who'd buy the young adult novel Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 from Beck's new imprint at Simon and Schuster. Also coming this fall, a new novel "by" Beck titled The Snow Angel. Just in time for Christmas. (And no, before you ask, I will not fucking read that thing.)
46 years
In November 1961 Estelle Griswold (left) partnered with Dr. C. Lee Buxton (of Yale's Medical School) to open a small clinic that would provide contraceptives. Mrs. Griswold was also the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. For two decades Planned Parenthood in CT worked mostly as a 'shuttle service' taking clients to states where contraception was legal (though in CT married women with private physicians might be able to get birth control but poor women--or women without connections--were SOL). Anyway, at their new clinic, they counseled married couples in regards to contraception and prescribed whatever would work best for that particular woman. This all sounds very normal today, almost boring. But then? It was revolutionary.
Connecticut had a law on the books, one that came about a result of Anthony Comstock, which said:
"Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned."Ten days after their clinic was opened, Mrs. Griswold and Dr. Buxton were arrested, found guilty, and fined ($100 each). The case went to the Supreme Court (there were previous cases attempting to challenge the law but they did not make it to this point).
"Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender."
In its opinion, delivered by Justice Douglas, the Court said (in part):
We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of "privacy and repose." These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.The ruling was delivered 46 years ago today on June 7th, 1965.
The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a "governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms." . Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.
Reversed.
The case of Griswold v. Connecticut has gone on to influence many other cases, notably: 1972's Eisenstadt v. Baird (which extended the right of contraception to unmarried women), 1973's Roe v. Wade and 2003's Lawrence v. Texas (which struck down Texas's sodomy laws).
Mrs. Estelle Griswold's 111th birthday would be tomorrow. She passed away in 1981.
Another Weiner Thread
There are some new developments in the Weiner story re: his possible use of government resources to carry on his internet affairs. TMZ is reporting that he offered one of his internet girlfriends help from his PR team to construct a cover story about their relationship, though it isn't clear if he meant a private PR team (which would be fine from a legal perspective) or if the meant members of his Congressional staff (which would not be fine from a legal perspective). Radar is reporting that that Weiner had phone sex with another internet girlfriend on a Congressional line.
TMZ and Radar are not genuinely what I would consider reputable sources, but the media outlets appear to have been given access to private communications between the women and Weiner. (For a hefty sum, no doubt.)
If the reports are accurate, despite Weiner's claim during yesterday's press conference that he did nothing that should put his job in jeopardy, this could indeed cause major trouble for him, as the use of official resources for private dalliances is obviously a serious ethical violation.
This is the sort of stuff that the Congressional ethics inquiry will clear up, one way or another.
In any case, one thing is always certain: Chris Matthews is an asshole.
I Get Letters
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
The latest from the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Trollcollector:
Just wanted to let you know I read your comment policy (even the part that said "Being banned from Shakesville is not an invitation to take your issues to the email inbox of Liss and/or any of the other contributors or mods.")Once again, I will note the irony of someone violating my comment policy and invading my personal space, despite an awareness of my request that my contact information not be used for such communications, to insist to me that he is not a rape apologist.
Not e-mailing to argue, and you have a "Contact" link...so not sure why this isn't an appropriate forum to explain myself.
Just wanted you to know that I was aware of your comment policy and didn't think that it was "rape apologia" to defend [the idea that women shouldn't drink if they don't want to be raped].
…I don't have a desire to continue posting on the site, but being immediately banned for something that didn't feel at all outside of your commenting regulations didn't leave me chance to defend the fact that I'm not a rape apologist, nor a troll who refused to read (or read and ignored) your comment policy.
For the edification of my correspondent, and anyone else who may be confused: The reason my inbox "isn't an appropriate forum to explain [your]self" is because I have said it isn't and explicitly detailed that it is unwelcome.
When someone sets up a boundary, they don't need to explain or justify it to you.
And when you ignore those boundaries, and someone's agency and right of self-determination to set and define those boundaries, you are an asshole who is hostile to the idea of consent.
That's it and that's all.
Blog Note
As many of you have noticed, Disqus is being wonky at the moment. It's taking comments awhile to appear on the page.
Please just be aware that this is happening, and you don't need to resend your comments multiple times. They'll show up in a couple of minutes.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence; institutional doubt of survivors.]
"I am betting nine out of 10 times, when a woman asks for a female detective the story is going to be untrue."—Lt. Adam Lamboy, commander of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad, in a story about how the NYPD Special Victims Division does its job, explaining that if a woman who reports being raped requests a female detective, the request is "taken as a sign of possible deception" because the "operative theory is that women who are lying think female cops will be more receptive to their stories."
Terrifying.
It is absolutely horrendous to think that there have been women whose allegations have been dismissed out of hand because, in the aftermath of having been brutally violated by a man, they mustered up the gumption to request a female cop with whom they'd feel safer discussing that most intimate of crimes against them.
[H/T to Shaker Ellen.]
Right to Free Speech vs. Right to Privacy
[Trigger warning for invasion of privacy; harassment.]
Attention, ladies: Do not date Greg Fultz—unless you want your private medical history advertised on billboards:
A New Mexico man's decision to lash out with a billboard ad saying his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes has touched off a legal debate over free speech and privacy rights.Seems to me that the same country puts a premium on privacy rights, and even has some additional specific considerations around privacy and healthcare. But who gives a fuck about that when a "jilted boyfriend" wants to have his say, right?
The sign on Alamogordo's main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!"
Fultz's ex-girlfriend has taken him to court for harassment and violation of privacy. A domestic court official has recommended the billboard be removed.
But Fultz's attorney argues the order violates his client's free speech rights.
"As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech," Todd Holmes said.
The decision will be appealed in District Court.
[H/T to KatherineSpins.]
