Record player
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit Hawaii
"Tom," said the puppy, licking its nose, "can I ask you something?" And Tom said, "Of course you can." And the puppy asked, "Do you ever feel like you don't fit in?" And Tom said, "Sometimes I do. I think everyone feels that way at least sometimes, puppy." And the puppy sighed with relief and said, "Good. I mean, not good that everyone feels that way, but that I'm not alone." And Tom said, "No, you're not alone." And the puppy said, "Tom? Do you think it's strange that I take comfort from the fact that everyone feels that way, at least some of the time?" And Tom said, "No, puppy. I don't think that's strange. It's one of the most curious but also one of the most beautiful parts of existence that we can find a sense of community in a shared sense of alienation. The trick, I think, is finding people and puppies who share your island, you know?" And the puppy said, "Yeah. I'm glad you're on my island, Tom." And Tom said, "I'm glad you're on my island, too, puppy."
Quote of the Day
Perfect timing: Former President George W. Bush, in a new interview with Parade magazine, on whether the world is safer since 9/11: "I think it is."
I don't even. I never did with that guy.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by snow.
Recommended Reading:
Angry Asian Man: Sunil Tripathi is still missing. And is not a bombing suspect. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence and racism.]
Julianne: The Post-Boston Islamophobic Hate Crimes Have Begun [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence, harassment, and racism.]
Deepak: Being Brown after the Boston Bomb Blast [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence and racism.]
Fannie: Understanding the Power of White Maleness [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence, racism, and male privilege.]
Trudy: White Men Who Write about White Privilege
Tami: Leaning In While Black [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny and white- and class privilege.]
Angus: Yesterday's Senate Gun Control Vote Was Even More Undemocratic Than It Appeared
Zack: Boy Scouts Propose Allowing Gay Scouts, But Not Gay Scout Leaders [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of homophobia.]
Here, look at some pictures of baby seals! [My thanks to Amadi for passing along that link.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
And if you're more inclined toward kitty snuggles, Sophie the Virtual Therapy Cat has got you:
In The News
Friday:
One Direction met their wax likenesses at Madam Tussauds in London.
Check out Daft Punk's new single Get Lucky. Do it!
ABC has a new show about a family with two moms. It's called The Fosters.
This is basically the greatest blog ever.
Nathan Sykes was forced to spend his 20th in a Los Angeles hospital undergoing vocal cord surgery.
Here is a cat, dressed as a shark, riding a Roomba, following a duckling:
Programming Note
I've not had a chance to watch either Parks & Rec or Elementary yet. I will watch them over the weekend, and I'll post the threads on Monday.
ETA. There was no new episode of Elementary last night, anyway. NEVERMIND! But there were two episodes of Parks & Rec. So: Those.
West, TX Explosion Update
[Content Note: Death; injury.]
Background here.
There are now 12 confirmed deaths in the fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX. Among the dead is an off-duty Dallas fire captain, who lived in West, Kenny Harris. He was assisting the local volunteer fire department when he was killed.
There are 200 people with injuries, and searchers are still continuing to look for survivors. Or people who did not survive.
Country singer Willie Nelson has announced he will donate proceeds from his upcoming 80th birthday concert to the residents of West. "West is just a few miles from my hometown of Abbott. I was born and raised here and it was my backyard growing up. This is my community. These friends and neighbors have always been and are still a part of my life. My heart is praying for the community that we call home."
Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave links in comments for aid organizations and/or other support for West.
Boston Marathon Bombing Open Thread
[Content Note: Violence; terrorism.]
A lot has happened in Boston overnight. The two suspects were identified as brothers: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. They have been in the US for at least a couple of years. Earlier reports were that they are Chechnyan, or Russian from near the Chechnyan border; their uncle just said in a press conference that they spent their early life in Kyrgyzstan.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead, after a shoot-out with police. He was shot and had wounds from an explosion; it is thought he may have detonated a suicide vest he was wearing. An explosive trigger was reportedly found on his body at the morgue. (Some background on him here.)
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still at large, and police and feds are surrounding his residence in Boston. He is considered armed and dangerous and may also be wearing a suicide vest.
An MIT police officer was killed last night, before the brothers carjacked an SUV and went on the run, with police in pursuit. An MBTA Transit Police officer was wounded.
This is a good summary of events overnight.
Right now, I want to underline that these brothers have lived in the US for some time; they have family here and attended school here. It's not a simple foreign/domestic terrorism distinction, especially without any information on their motivation(s). We have no idea at this point how they view(ed) themselves or how they self-identify. Their perception of their relationship to the US matters; this can't be just externally defined by onlookers.
Andrew Rice: "So looks like Boston terrorists were both foreign-born Muslims and alienated American youths with too-easy access to arms."
No simple narratives.
I'll update as additional information becomes available.
UPDATE 1: Jeff Bauman, images of whom were widely circulated after he lost his legs in the bombing, helped identify the suspects:
"He woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, 'bag, saw the guy, looked right at me,'" Chris Bauman said yesterday in an interview.That guy. I am in absolute awe.
...While still in intensive care, Bauman gave the FBI a description of the man he saw, his brother said. Bauman's information helped investigators narrow down whom to look for in hours of video of the attack, he said.
UPDATE 2: Former classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are surprised and betrayed. He was not a loner. Which doesn't mean he didn't nonetheless feel isolated. Again: No simple narratives.
UPDATE 3: During this intensely sad interview, in which he's informed one of his nephews has been killed and tries to process the enormity of what they've done, the Tsarnaevs' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, says the brothers came to the US as war refugees.
UPDATE 4: I am not passing along anything that purports to be social media posts, videos, etc. created by the Tsarnaevs. Much of it will turn out to be wrong. I also urge everyone to be skeptical about that stuff at the moment. It is far too easy to create fake accounts or misidentify content creators. What will be informative will still be informative once there is time to verify.
UPDATE 5: Intense police activity in Watertown again. Reporters are being pushed back by police. The cops look so calm. I'm remembering asking my granddad (NYPD) if cops got scared. "Yes, we get scared. But we try not to show it."
UPDATE 6: During an interview with MSNBC, one of their uncles says that "being losers" was behind his nephews' actions. "Of course we're ashamed!" he exclaims. "He put a shame on our family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity." And: "Somebody radicalized them, but it was not my brother. He spent his life bringing bread to the table."
UPDATE 7: The Tsarnaev brothers were naturalized US citizens by way of asylum. I have a lot of feelings about that. None of them are "we should reconsider asylum." Offering asylum to war refugees is one of the best things the US does. My opinion on that has not changed and will not change, even despite my anger that someone offered asylum from harm would then commit such a heinous act here.
UPDATE 8: Actor Bradley Cooper, who stars almost exclusively in shitty movies but seems like a pretty nice guy in real life, visits Jeff Bauman in the hospital, along with Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman. And Bauman, giving a thumbs-up in the picture, continues to be awesome.
UPDATE 9: The Othering narratives I'm hearing on CNN & MSNBC are contemptible. Anything to create distance. Anything to make it "us" vs. "them." We don't even yet know their motivations, but we're sure that it has nothing to do with "us"! I am practicing patience.
UPDATE 10: A doctor's interesting and sad account of trying to revive Tamerlan Tsarnaev after he was brought to the hospital last night.
UPDATE 11: Jeff Bauman reportedly has no health insurance. (And, even if he does, as we all know, health insurance does not cover everything. He will still be facing extraordinary bills.) If you'd like to donate to help cover the cost of his medical expenses, go here. Thanks to Shaker adamW for sharing the link in comments.
UPDATE 12: A man presumed to be Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is hiding in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, surrounded by law enforcement. He is reportedly bleeding, and is suspected of being armed with explosives. Things are moving quickly at the moment: I will continue updates in comments, and I will make an attempt to report only that which has been verified.
UPDATE 13: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is alive and in custody and being taken to a medic.
Question of the Day
We've done this one before, but not for a long while: If you were to have the good fortune of an admired singer/songwriter/lyricist offering to compose/sing a song just for you, by whom would that offer be made?
If hearing impaired Shakers, or anyone else, would prefer to answer what poet they would chose to write a poem just for them, please feel free to modify.
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Grand Canyon
"Tom," the puppy said, licking its nose, "do you ever think about how an intangible thing like love can be so powerful?" And Tom said, "Sometimes I do think about that, puppy. I think about how love is a thing smaller than the tiniest grain of sand, but can somehow fill a space as big as the glorious canyon in which we find ourselves." And the puppy said, "I think that's the secret to the resiliency of love, Tom. It is so small and so big it can never be crushed, and just when it seems to have disappeared from one space, it emerges in another, having taken a wholly different shape." And Tom said, "I think you're right, puppy. I think you're right." And then they turned, and, as if it had been choreographed by a schmaltzy hack with a gift for the accidentally profound, they both yelled into the canyon, "LONG LIVE LOVE!" and the words reverberated through the vast and ancient space carved from stone.
On Brittney Griner and Media Frames
[Content Note: Heterocentrism.]
Jess has a pair of great posts about the WNBA's #1 draft pick, Brittney Griner, the first on Griner talking about being a lesbian in women's sports and the second on the ensuing media coverage and its heteronormative frame, which, as I've noted before, is also intertwined with the entitlements we feel we are owed by public figures—as if someone isn't really "out" until they disclose that information on the cover of a magazine to "us."
Anyway. Read them!
I love this: "Okay, Nike. Word is that you are eager to endorse an openly gay athlete. You best get Ms. Griner on the phone." YES.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Violence.]
"The investigation is proceeding apace. This is not an NCIS episode. Sometimes you have to take time to properly put the chain together to identify the perpetrators. Everyone's committed to seeing that that gets done in the right way."—Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, pleading for the public to be patient with the Boston Marathon Bombing investigation earlier today.
This is not an NCIS episode. Truth.
Garbage Treasures: Now With More Ed Hardy!
As you may recall, Deeky collects and saves useless garbage like we're beyond Thunderdome and useless garbage is now a form of currency and he's a garbageaire. Then, instead of throwing it away, he throws pieces of his fancy detritus collection into an envelope and pays money to ship it to me, at which point I put them in plastic treasure chests and put them out by the curb every week to be collected by the "treasure man," who buries them at the "treasure dump" for me for safe keeping.
But not before taking a picture of the bounty so that I can post it, natch.
[Click to embiggen.]
Counter-clockwise from top left: The packaging itself, a shiny bright red envelope featuring a sparkly sticker of a tween boy who I can only assume is a member of One Direction; some helpful educational materials authored by John Stossel; a pamphlet on "How to Pray the Rosary," which will obviously come in very useful; a "Growing Pains" trading card featuring "Jeremy Miller as Ben Seaver"; a burned copy of the conservative film Last Ounce of Courage on which Deeks has handwritten OBVIOUSLY; a burned copy of the Sean Penn film This Must Be the Place (which I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH) on which Deeks has handwritten OF COURSE; a burned copy of (what I am guessing is the remake of) Red Dawn (which I can't wait to NOT WATCH) on which Deeks has handwritten NO DOY; and a packet of orange-flavored Ed Hardy Energy Sticks: "All Day Energy 3-Pack. Pour on tongue."
LOL FOREVER.
In The News
[Content note: Racism, homophobia]
Thursday Morning News:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-epugnant) warned Wednesday that "radical Islamists" are being "trained to act like Hispanic[s]" and cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Whut?
The Church of Scotland is going to debate allowing gay ministers to have sex.
Jeremy Irons: Still a douche.
The world's largest gay club is opening in Las Vegas.
An Islamabad court ordered the arrest of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on charges of illegally detaining dozens of judges while in power.
Research suggests that Tylenol may help to reduce existential angst. I wish I'd know about this decades ago!
The final season of Breaking Bad will premier August 11th.
Tweet of the Day
Tweet of the day:
English is my native language. My words mean what I intend. If you read them differently because of "social context" that's your problem.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) April 18, 2013
It's probably a total coincidence that we had this exchange yesterday:
Do you really not understand the social context in which you are making your remarks? @richarddawkins
— Ana Mardoll (@anamardoll) April 17, 2013
What I'm Listening To
Also: Angie Miller, who is from Boston, performs "I'll Stand by You" for her hometown:
Blub.
Daily Dose of Cute
Lord Dudlington
You can't see it in this picture, but his grody beef tongue was hanging out and draped across the chaise, too. For maximum silliness, obvs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
R.I.P. Rita MacNeil
[Content Note: fat hatred.]
Rita MacNeil, folk singer and Cape Breton icon, has passed away at age 68. Gifted with a beautiful voice, great stage presence, and what seemed to be a genuinely warm personality, she overcome extreme shyness to become a widely-beloved figure in Canadian music:
MacNeil was famously shy, but said her parents helped her overcome that trait by constantly reminding her to believe in herself.MacNeil's themes were frequently rooted in the experiences of impoverished Atlantic Canadians, but her sweet, church choir-like delivery gave her songs a distinctive sound in the crowded field of Canadian folk music:
"You can be shy," she said. "You can work through all kinds of struggle. But somewhere deep down, you have to have belief or nothing's going to happen."
...MacNeil recorded 24 albums and sold millions of records over the course of her career.
She hosted a CBC-TV variety program, Rita and Friends, which ran from 1994 to 1997 and drew regular audiences of one million viewers. MacNeil's Christmas variety shows drew loyal viewers.
MacNeil was a member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of five honorary doctorates. In 1986, she opened Rita’s Tea Room in her hometown of Big Pond, where she also gave performances.
Once she got onstage or behind a microphone in the recording studio, “she became a force of nature,” LeBlanc said, her crystal-clear alto sweetly delivering an often-anthemic mix of hard truths and sentiment that could soften the coldest heart.And, of course, there was the body shame and fat hatred lobbed at her, even by those who admired her music. Such a lovely voice...too bad she is so fat, etc. It must have hurt tremendously, but MacNeil persevered. I note that, even with her death the Globe and Mail tribute to her keeps mentioning that she was not attractive, a framing Rita herself rejected:
Yet as sweet as that voice was, “it had something in it that was more than just pleasant, a little bit extra,” said long-time Globe and Mail and CBC Radio music contributor Robert Harris. “What intrigues us in the pop world is ambiguity and contradiction … two things that should be separate from each other but are together.” So while a major MacNeil song such as 1982’s Working Man was about the tough lives of Cape Breton coal miners, it “was presented in this angelic, church-choir voice … The sound she [was] making [was] so different from the experiences being described. That’s moving because the brain processes the two.”
MacIntyre’s best memory of MacNeil, date unspecified, happened on CBC-TV’s the fifth estate when the late Eric Malling asked MacNeil “if she might have been more successful were she, um, beautiful. She replied without hesitation: ‘But, Eric, I am beautiful.’ And from that moment on, if not before, she was.”Beautiful? Yes. She certainly was.
[VIDEO: Rita MacNeil and Men of the Deep perform 'Working Man,'
to a slideshow of mining images.]
[Note: If there are more negative things to be said about MacNeil, they are excluded because I am not aware of them, not because of any desire to cover them up. Please feel free to comment on the entirety of her life and work in this thread.]
The NY Post Is Reprehensible
[Content Note: Racism.]
This, right here, is why I am resolved to practice patience: The utterly contemptible NY Post has published an image of two young men (who appear to be men of color) on their fucking cover with the giant text "BAG MEN," reporting they are being sought in connection with the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Except: These are not the two men being sought by the FBI. They are high school runners.
YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS BACK, NY POST. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK. IT'S ON YOUR GODDAMN COVER.
I fervently hope for these young men's safety.
An Observation
Two observations, actually:
1. I am glad every single moment of every single day that Mitt Romney is not the US president. But I am especially glad this week.
2. Last night, as the news of the explosion in Texas broke, I thought about President Obama having to get this news. (And I thought about the person who had to be the one to tell him.) A lot of USians feel very overwhelmed right now—scared and sad and angry and emotionally spent. And I just can't imagine the weight of this on our President. I am sending him what strength I can offer.
In the late hours of the evening, watching grainy footage of triage in a football field where more than a hundred people needed medical attention, as the latest from Boston and updates about ricin-laced letters and quotes from parents of Newtown victims perplexed and disappointed and furious about the Senate's failure to enact even the most basic gun reform scrolled along the bottom of the screen, I texted Jess: "I just feel like the whole country is in need of care. Everyone needing it; everyone feeling empty. How can we fill each other back up when we're all running on emotional fumes? ...We need a national group hug. With President Obama in the middle. And that image just made me cry. I am a mess lol."
And that's pretty much where I stand. And I realize that aching from afar is a comparative luxury.
Major Explosion in West, Texas Last Night
[Content Note: Injury; death.]
There was an enormous explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, last night, which has left several people dead (there is no firm number on fatalities yet, although thankfully it looks to be far lower than original estimates of ~70 people) and hundreds of people injured, some seriously. Dozens of homes and business in the small town have also been damaged or destroyed by the explosion.
Right now, it does not appear to be anything but a terrible accident that began with a fire in the plant, followed by an explosion as the volunteer firefighters were working to extinguish the blaze.
And by "accident," I mean distinct from a deliberate action designed to cause harm—although I want to make clear that the investigation has only begun and has nothing has been officially ruled out at this time. It may be that it was not a deliberate action, but attributable to bad safety practices, in which case "accident" isn't a totally apt word.
The point is: We don't know yet, but it isn't currently being treated as a deliberate action.
I am not going to post pictures of the explosion, and I want to warn readers that there is a video being widely posted of the explosion, which is extremely jarring and potentially triggering. (It's generally described as something like "Man catches explosion on video from his truck" or "Dad and kid witness explosion," but sometimes as innocuous as "Explosion caught on video.") Last night, at least, it was being posted all over the place without any kind of content warning, so please proceed with caution.
This is an unfathomably enormous tragedy for the town of West, Texas. So, so many people injured. So much of the town destroyed. It is thought that many of their volunteer fire department may have been lost. People left without jobs and homes. Fuck. I hurt for the town. I am so sorry.
I will post additional information as it becomes available. Please feel welcome and encouraged to share info in comments.
UPDATE 1: The Dallas Morning News reports:
At a 10 a.m. press briefing in West, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said [he] still couldn't update the number of the injured and wounded but said three to five emergency workers remain missing. The confirmed number of injured remains at 160, and "we're still sticking with the number five to 15" dead, Swanton said.
Emergency workers, including crews from Burleson, Fort Hood and Texas Task Force 1, are still searching for survivors of the blast that devastated much of West. Oncor employees are accompanying rescue workers to make sure they don't step on downed power lines, and workers are "shoring up some areas before they go in," Swanton said.
"It's a very slow, methodical search," he said.
Arrest Made in Ricin-Laced Letters Case
[Content Note: Terrorism; intent to harm.]
An arrest has been made in the case of ricin-laced letters addressed to President Barack Obama and Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Paul Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., was taken into custody by federal agents last night.
His motivation is still not totally clear: It certainly isn't partisan politics, as Obama is a Democrat and Wicker is a conservative Republican. But apparently Curtis has posted pictures of guns and pro-gun/anti-reform material on his Facebook page, so it may be related to his views on guns.
I want to note that local law enforcement have told media that Curtis is believed to have some mental health issues. While acknowledging that information, I also want to underline that, if the report is indeed accurate, mental illness may or may not be a contributing factor to Curtis' crime. It is almost never as simple as "he's crazy, so he did this harmful thing," and let us be sensitive to that reality in this space.
President Obama's Statement on the Senate's Failure to Pass Background Check Legislation
Yesterday, in a vote of 54-46, the Senate voted down the Manchin/Toomey amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases at gun shows and online. Because of a Republican filibuster, 60 votes were required to overcome GOP obstructionism. The votes weren't there.
After the loss, President Obama delivered a brief but powerful address in the Rose Garden, in which he did not mask his contempt for the failure of Congress to enact legislation supported by 90% of the US public:
I've heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory. And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? All that happened today was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn't make our kids safer. Victory for not doing something that 90% of Americans, 80% of Republicans, the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the question: Who are we here to represent?!The above is just a brief excerpt. A complete transcript of the address is below the fold.
I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. "A prop," somebody called them. "Emotional blackmail," some outlets said. Are they serious?! Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions, their loss, is not relevant to this debate?
So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.
I am glad he is angry. I am angry, too.
See also this op-ed by former Representative Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting assassination attempt and supported this legislation.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker particolored: "Which famous (or not-so-famous!) author would you love to have a beer/coffee/water cooler drink with, and why?"
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Taj Mahal
The puppy licked its nose and said, "Tom, I love you so much that I would save one biscuit a day for my whole life to build you a Taj Mahal of dog biscuits. And, as you know, I am a puppy, so that is very impressive impulse control." And Tom said, "Stop it, you're making me all choked up and I can barely gaze with awe at the Taj Mahal through all these unfallen tears in my eyes." And the puppy said, "If only I had opposable thumbs. Oh well, guess I'll eat those biscuits. But I really do love you A LOT." And Tom said, "I love you too, puppy."
I Am Practicing Patience
[Content Note: Violence; terrorism; racism.]
Earlier today, CNN breathlessly reported the "breaking news" that investigators in the bombing of the Boston Marathon had arrested a suspect who, anchor John King reported, was a "dark-skinned male."
This report, based on anonymous sources, turned out to be inaccurate.
No arrest had been made. No suspect was in custody. Law enforcement had merely identified a person of interest in video footage—a person who might merely be a witness—and there was no information made public about the person's identity.
Never in my life have I been so determined to practice patience. The clamoring expectation that this criminal act of violence is going to be solved immediately is only going to increase the number of people, especially people of color, who are wrongly identified by anonymous law enforcement sources as "suspects," and is only going to increase the amount of deeply harmful reporting.
I am practicing patience.
The bombing of Centennial Park at the Atlanta Summer Olympics took place on July 27, 1996. The person who eventually confessed to the crime, Eric Rudolph, was not even identified as a suspect until almost two years later on February 14, 1998.
In the intervening two years, Richard Jewell, the man who found the pipe bomb left by Rudolph—which exploded before it could be safely detonated, killing one person and wounding 111 others—had his life torn to shreds by accusations that he was the bomber. Those accusations were wrong.
I am practicing patience.
To this day, when I think of the name Eric Rudolph, it is this picture of Richard Jewell that accompanies the name. I swear to fuck that picture was everywhere for something like six solid months after the bombing. Just now, I had to go look up what Eric Rudolph looks like; I couldn't call him to mind at all.
I am practicing patience.
I remember Eric Rudolph's name, but I remember Richard Jewell's face. That is the legacy of irresponsible leaking and reporting, in the aftermath of a public act of violence. That is also the legacy of public impatience, during a time when care must be taken.
It is my job to follow and report news. I understand the urge to want to know, and the urge to want to share. But I am practicing patience.
Reproductive Rights Updates: Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, & Tasmania, Australia
Legislation is moving, moving around the country--and around the world. Side note: Liss posted about the big news from Mississippi yesterday.
In Oklahoma, the state senate has advanced three bills, two of which concern the need of young people (under 18) who must bypass parental notification:
Two of the bills restrict the use of “judicial bypass,” a procedure that allows girls younger than 18 to ask a judge’s permission to get an abortion without parental consent. The first would eliminate the exemption that allows a minor to avoid parental notification of they seek a judicial bypass.A republican legislator claims that the parental notification legislation is about the "sovereignty of the relationship between a parent and a child".
[...]
A second bill requires a judicial waiver be sought in the home county of the minor seeking an abortion, a move that Sen. Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said would prevent girls from “venue shopping” for a judge willing to grant the bypass. Treat’s bill also requires a parent granting consent of a minor’s abortion to present a government-issued identification.
A third bill adds more than a dozen questions to the list that abortion providers must answer, including several that are related to abortion-related measures that have passed in recent years. One example is a question that asks doctors at which hospital they have privileges at the time they perform the abortion, a requirement that was imposed by a recently approved law.
***
In Ohio, the committee is still debating about the new budget, which I noted last week would defund Planned Parenthood and refuse to expand Medicaid per the ACA. Yesterday republicans added in an amendment--to the budget!--that would ban comprehensive sex education and allow a parent to sue a teacher:
New sex education standards that would ban any teaching that condones “gateway sexual activity” and allows parents to sue if their child receives such instruction are among the Republican amendments added to the two-year budget bill today.So what is "gateway sexual activity", you may ask. Well, they use the same definition as the Ohio Criminal Code, which states it is: “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast.” Yes, that's right.
[...]
The sex education addition says that any instruction must not promote “any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity.”
It goes on to prohibit distributing certain materials, conducting demonstrations with “sexual stimulation” devices, or distributing contraception.
If a student receives such instruction, a parent or guardian can sue for damages, and a court may impose a civil fine of up to $5,000.
***
Richard Dawkins Remains Deliberately Ignorant
[Content Note: Hostility to Reproductive Rights, IVF]
I'm just going to leave these here. (As screenshots because the Twitter embed is acting funky at the moment.)
 |
| Thinking in unfamiliar ways is one of the things academics do. If you don't like that, hesitate before following an academic on Twitter (Link.) |
 |
| As D Barash pointed out, if a certain edible berry had strong contraceptive effect on our ancestors, we'd be phobic about it as if poison (Link.) |
 |
| If our Pleistocene ancestors had easy contraception, would natural selection have weakened sex lust at the expense of lust to give birth? (Link.) |
I could point out that this line of thinking only makes sense if you assume without evidence that early humans treasured a "reproduce all the time, as much as possible" paradigm, rather than -- as many humans have demonstrably done at many times throughout history -- seeking a balance between quantity of birthed children as well as quality of upbringing so that the children are more likely to survive to adulthood and accrue the necessary skills to survive as adults long enough to live their own lives, parent their own children, and build their own societies. And that these "reproduce constantly" humans which supposedly existed are therefore (again, without evidence) our evolutionary ancestors rather than their early human counterparts who reproduced at a lower rate but nurtured their offspring more effectively to ensure a higher survival rate.
I could also point out that there is no reason to assume without evidence that early humans didn't face the same concerns regarding the balance between adult providers capable of acquiring resources and child consumers incapable of fending for themselves that we still face today and which still drives many of us to adopt reproductive strategies other than "bear all the children", and that early humans didn't therefore devise their own reproductive strategies designed to cope with these challenges in order to ensure their own survival in the moment as opposed to some kind of "long-game" strategic attempt to position themselves as the ancestors of people on Twitter in the year 2013 A.D.
I could additionally point out that the concept of contraception is not a modern one; as far back as we have historical records to show, humans have been deeply concerned with controlling their reproduction. Abortions are not a new thing; hormonal methods of birth control are not new things; barrier methods of birth control are not new things; rhythm methods of birth control are not new things; reproductive abstinence is not a new thing. I could point out how foolish it is to assume that these methods only came into vogue with the existence of historical records, and that everyone who existed pre-historical recordings simply felt completely differently about the importance of reproductive control than most of their descendents did. (But their attitudes toward porn were obviously handed down to their Twitter descendents.)
I could perhaps point out that assuming our ancestors were stupid -- so stupid that they could not note cause and effect and would instead suspiciously treat a hormonal birth control berry as "poison" -- is a common error among people who have chosen to other our ancestors as fundamentally inferior to themselves, and that this error is commonly rife among (for example) religionists who seek to claim that the Bible must be divinely inspired because how else could a bunch of backwards pre-historical fools notice that people need to keep their blood inside their bodies if they want to survive? And I could point out that Richard Dawkins, as a professional atheist, would almost certainly have encountered this very same appeal to the supposed profound ignorance of our ancestors.
But I will instead point out only this: I am utterly amused at Dawkins' claim that he is an "academic" and that therefore he thinks in "unfamiliar ways" to his inferiors on Twitter.
Richard Dawkins, your way of thinking isn't unfamiliar to me, it's contemptible. I say this because you continue to deliberately choose to remain blissfully ignorant of the things you opine on as though they are nothing more than cutesy little brain-teasers even though you could easily research these topics and despite the fact that you know for certain that your ignorant opinings on birth control and IVF -- which you continue to trollishly repeat for attention and controversy -- adversely affect the lives of the women (and others with uteri) around you, as we daily struggle to maintain a hold on our right to control our own reproduction.
Please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up. If you absolutely must spout evo-psych bullshit, grab a hairbrush and American Idol that shit into your bathroom mirror. You'll get less Twitter drama out of it, but at least you'll still have your favorite audience.
In The News
[Content note: Terrorism, misogyny, rape, homophobia, gun culture, fat hatred, racism]
Wednesday Newsies!
The Secret Service intercepted a ricin-poisoned letter addressed to President Obama.
Arizona wants to mandate firearms turned in during gun buyback programs (designed to get guns off the streets) be re-sold. Whut?
A New Hampshire Republican refered to women as vaginas in an email to lawmakers. He sounds nice.
Nancy Reagan supports marriage equality.
For anyone who didn't get a chance to watch Ken Burns' Central Park Five on PBS, it is streaming on their website.
Rand Paul is considering a presidential bid in 2016. Swell.
Tyrese Gibson thinks fat people are nasty.
20th Century Fox is being renamed 21st Century Fox. Didn't they do that on Futurama years ago?
Blog Note
It's not just you. Disqus is being glitchy again. From their status page: "Disqus is currently intermittently available. We're working to resolve this as soon as possible and appreciate your patience."
Daily Dose of Cute
It's a bird... it's a plane... it's SUPERZELLY!
Y'all, this dog is so fucking cute 24 hours a day, I don't even know what to do. [Full Disclosure: I do actually know what to do. Give her ALL THE SNUGGLES FOREVER!]
I read a criticism of Shakesville a long time ago, which centered eyerolling about how I constantly post pictures of "that ugly dog." It has hung with me, not because I care if someone doesn't think Zelda is cute, but because the othering of Big Black Dogs is a Thing in the World, which devalues their lives. It's part of the reason that Zelly was on death row when we met her.
I do talk about how cute Zelly is because I love her, but also because I value her. (And because I valued the three all-black cats who have lived their lives with me, and all-black cats are judged by a similar prejudice.) I have seen this ugly dog settle into her new life in a way that makes our lives better; I have seen her manage her fear of other dogs to welcome visiting dogs into her home; I have seen her be gentle with children barely taller than she is and with adults who were fearful of big and/or black dogs. She is brave and indomitable, and she reminds me to be happy every day because IT'S A DAY!
She is a super dog, and a superdog, and I am the conveyer of her teaspoon.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Being a Marathoner
by Shaker TC, who has spent a career working for the QUILTBAG community at places like GLSEN, PFLAG, and SIECUS, and for the AAPI community at places like the South Asia Resource Action Center and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. He now gets to live out his dreams supporting the work of intersectional leaders at the Rockwood Leadership Institute. His personal best for finish the marathon was 5 hours 7 minutes and 41 seconds.
[Content Note: Violence; terrorism; racism; xenophobia.]
Jessica Luther's Being a Marathon Spectator was profoundly moving for me. You see, I'm a marathon runner. It's taken me two full marathons and four half marathons to say that without qualifications, but here I am.
Jessica's experience as a spectator highlights the beauty of marathon running—you are not alone. For those of us who run, marathoning can feel like a very selfish activity. It necessitates, at minimum, training runs of four hours which end up taking six when you count warming up and cooling down. We are acutely aware of the accommodations people in our lives make to ensure we are sufficiently trained to cross the finish line. Along with frequently taking on a greater share of the chores and child care, there's the scheduling that means regularly cutting evening short and going to bed early preceding morning runs.
I have completed the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC twice. The Marine Corps Marathon is known as the People's Marathon. There's no qualifying time you need to have. You just need to sign up and hopefully be trained enough to finish. Around 40,000 people run the Marine Corps and you get to run with members of Congress, Hollywood folks (hey Blaine from Glee!), and Olympians. In that throng of people, there is a real sense that we are all in this together. I once ran into one of the runners who actually had a chance of winning and told him that I was hoping to finish in around five hours, approximately twice the time it would take him to run the very same 26.2 miles. His response? "That's amazing you can run for so long!"
I am part of a running crew with someone who has run 18 marathons and folks like me who are on their third. Our motto is: We're all in this together. At each water stop, we all pause long enough for anyone lagging behind to catch up. We collectively know that if it weren't for the crew, none of us would have paced ourselves enough to finish. So we are all committed to finishing together no matter how long it takes.
That sense of "we" extends to everyone who put the race together and cheers the runners on. Whole cities are put on pause just for a bunch of people to run 26.2 miles. Hundreds of volunteers are clearing trash, handing out water and Gatorade, and directing runners. In Oakland (where I run the half marathon), the local welding group BUILDS A FIRE ARCH for the runners. Seriously, a FIRE ARCH, just so I can run.
My marathon t-shirt says: "My name is TC. I am fat, diabetic, and ahead of you." People who have never met me are yelling my name and giving me high fives. And without that encouragement, I would never finish. There have been so many times I've kept myself running just to get the next high five. Our pit crew of friends and family is there every five miles for us to hand off sweaty headbands, wipe ourselves down with towels, and give us powerbars. I say all of this to make the point that for marathoners, we are all in this together—runners, friends, families, and strangers.
I am sad about the bombing at the Boston Marathon for the immediate destruction of unity. But I am also sad at the thought that the bombing could have longer-lasting effects that undermine unity.
I'm upset how little it takes for racism and xenophobia to rear its ugly head. We're already seeing some pretty nasty racial profiling with an injured Saudi man being taken into police custody AS A WITNESS. As an injured victim of the bomb, he should have been helped, but instead he was chased and tackled by other bystanders who assumed that he was responsible.
What will it mean for people of color who want to participate in, or spectate at, future marathons, if the bomber is black or brown? It shouldn't mean anything for us, like it won't for white runners if the bomber is white, but that is not how these things go. Arab, Muslim, and South Asian runners and spectators shouldn't have to worry about being profiled—this should be OUR safe space, in which to run and to cheer.
Marathoning doesn't exist in a void, and the prejudices of the world already infiltrate marathoning in various ways; the unity of which I speak isn't perfect. But as I did my six-mile run last night, I kept thinking of the elite Arab, Muslim, and South Asian runners who might be made to feel like interlopers in a place they once felt welcome. I kept thinking of my Arab, Muslim, and South Asian friends who are always there for me, to splash a cup of cool water in my face.
I am a fat, diabetic runner of color in a sport where I am made to feel welcome. I want everyone to have the same welcome I have.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by horseradishes.
Recommended Reading:
Amy: The Saudi Marathon Man [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racial/cultural profiling; violence and injury.]
Digby: Pity the Poor Reporters
Trudy: Self-Care in the Aftermath of a Trauma/Tragedy
Veronica: Back to the #FemFuture
Seth: The Senate Immigration Bill Has Arrived! Here Are Its Basics
Jess: Major League Soccer's Zero Tolerance on Homophobic Language [Content Note: The post at this link includes quoted homophobic slurs.]
Frank Lee: Dear Americans for Prosperity [Content Note: The post at this link includes description of racist imagery.]
Ana: Fat Acceptance: Compliments and Accusations [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of food policing, fat bias, and disablism.]
Angry Asian Man: I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story, Opening May 1
Lady T: Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in 'Game of Thrones' [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of misogyny and objectification.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
So Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of Letter From a Birmingham Jail
[Content note: discussion of racism and violence]
Yesterday, NPR ran a nice story of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
King traveled to Alabama in April 1963 to attack the culture of racism in the South and the Jim Crow laws that mandated separate facilities for blacks and whites....With racial tension high, King began nonviolent protests before Easter, but the campaign was struggling. King wasn't getting enough participation from the black community. So on Good Friday, he and several other organizers decided to get arrested. Police took King to the jail and held him in isolation.While King was in the Birmingham City Jail, he read an open letter from eight moderate white clergymen which, while claiming to support integration, urged patience and criticized protestors' disregard for unjust laws.
King wrote an open letter in response, which you can (and should) read in its entirety here.
Letter has always resonated with me for all the reasons that King's speech to the March on Washington doesn't.
Don't get me wrong-- King's "I Have a Dream" is masterful, and deserves its place among the most famous speeches in America. However, I've always felt that part of the widespread appeal of "Dream" is the way its eloquent plea for justice in the face of injustice plays into privileged narratives of civil rights.
King dreamed of equality for his children, just as good schoolchildren were asking for justice in the face of bad people with vicious dogs and firehouses. The fight against racial segregation included a lot of moments where the worst of humanity attacked the best of humanity. The firebombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The firing bombing of Freedom Riders' bus. Selma.
It's pretty easy to imagine one would be on the right side of history when the only other side is aligned with the Klan.
My problem with the ally narrative that emphasizes "I Have a Dream" is that it doesn't address the harm of apathy, indifference, or eight supposed allies begging for patience while privileged people prepared for the inconvenience of justice. I suppose this is one of the legacies of non-violent resistance to segregation-- it highlighted the monstrous violence of Jim Crow, leaving less and less cover for well-wishers on the sidelines.
Martin Luther King (and a hell of a lot of other people, but I'll leave that discussion for another day) spent most of the sixties tirelessly working to put enough pressure on white progressive to do what now seems like it was inevitable. Behind the scenes, there were shitloads of horrifyingly pragmatic discussions between the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, civil rights activists, and well, bigots.
And that's why I love Letter so damned much. It wasn't the inspiring parable that King wanted to tell, but rather the blunt rebuttal King need to make to would-be allies who insisted that the oppressed seek justice on privileged people's terms. A lot of Letter is specific to the church and to the effort to desegregate the US, but the sentiments King expressed are timeless.
I have so many objections to appropriative bullshit like this, but to the extent that we use the 1960's to frame the continuing struggle for social justice, let us not forget Letter and the lessons it holds for all of us.
Bi-Monthly Fundraising Reminder & Thank You
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.
It is also an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.
Running this strictly-moderated and independent space on donations rather than content-generated advertising, which is incompatible with safe spaces, means that my ability to keep it going depends on your support.
I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.
Women's service work, whether it's mothering, elder care, volunteering, philanthropy, social work, employment in any "pink collar" profession, or social advocacy, is gravely devalued, frequently to the point where it is unpaid work altogether. So, even though fundraising is not fun for me, not doing it is counterproductive to the work we do here every day. It's antifeminist.
This blog started as a hobby, a part-time interest into which I could put as much or as little time as I wanted. It's not a hobby anymore; it's a job. And regarding it thus is a feminist act.
You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Donation page, for even more options.
If you value the content and/or community in this space, can afford it, and want to see Shakesville continue to be managed as a safe space, please consider setting up a subscription or making a one-time contribution.
If you have recently appreciated getting content-noted information about important stories, distilled news about politics, reproductive rights, and other items of interest; the Fatsronauts 101 series; being able to discuss aspects of the rape culture in a space interested in dismantling that culture; finding out where to direct your teaspoon in support of social justice or in opposition to inequality, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.
I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, video transcripts, Film Corner, the community in Open Threads, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
My boundless appreciation as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways: Thank you to our regular contributors, our moderators, our guest contributors, to anyone who has provided a transcription, to those who have linked to, quoted, Tweeted about, and otherwise supportively recommended this blog, and/or to the people who have taken the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.
[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible. I also want to reiterate that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.]
Empathy! How the fudge does it work?
[Content Note: Misogyny; cissexism. Part Three in an ongoing series.]
"I'm a man." and "I've got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills." These are two things actually said, out loud, by Eden Foods founder and CEO Michael Potter, in explanation of his decision to sue the Obama administration over its rule that companies must cover the cost of birth control in their employee health insurance plans.
I [Irin Carmon] asked why he said he didn't care about birth control, since he filed a suit about it and all.HA HA PERFECT. I'd like to observe that this garbage argument is a natural outgrowth of narratives that wrench women's reproductive health from general healthcare and set it aside as some kind of special exception. He's fine with "being told" he's got to provide health insurance to his employees, but asking him to comprehensively fund women's healthcare is a step too far. Because he doesn't view women's reproductive care as a central part of women's health.
"Because I'm a man, number one and it's really none of my business what women do," Potter said. So, then, why bother suing? "Because I don't care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel's or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That's my issue, that's what I object to, and that's the beginning and end of the story." He added, "I'm not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don't tell me I gotta pay for it."
(And he certainly does not realize that there are other reasons besides pregnancy prevention that some women and other people with uteri/ovaries need and use The Pill, nor that there are even people other than women who need and use hormonal birth control.)
Obviously, Carmon took him to task on this curious argument.
But the federal government tells him to do a lot of things, I said. Why sue over this if he had no particular issue with contraception, as the suit — "these procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices," his court filing explained – clearly alleges he does out of religious conviction? Well, he said, he opposes "using abortion as birth control, definitely." But the mandate doesn't cover abortion, I reminded him, only contraception, and emergency contraception is not abortion.I don't even with this guy.
"It's a morass," Potter said. "I'm not an expert in anything. I'm not the pope. I'm in the food business. I'm qualified to have opinions about that and not issues that are purely women's issues. I am qualified to have an opinion about what health insurance I pay for."
I floated by him the fact that contraceptive coverage is cheaper to pay for than, say, maternity coverage.
Potter replied, "One's got a little more warmth and fuzziness to it than the other, for crying out loud."
And as annoying as every other bullshit thing he said was, perhaps this annoys me most of all: "[A]t one point he called himself 'a pretty simple guy, a Midwestern homemade-soup guy.'" Fuck off, man. I'm a pretty simple Midwestern woman, and I don't have any problems understanding what the fuck contraception is or why it's necessary.
This ain't about your being Midwestern. It's about your being a privileged dipshit.
[H/T to @RachelPerrone.]
New Zealand Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Congratulations, New Zealand!
New Zealand's parliament has voted in favour of allowing same-sex marriage, prompting cheers, applause and the singing of a traditional Maori celebratory song ["Pokarekare Ana"] from the public gallery.All the happy blubs! Yay!
Seventy-seven of 121 members voted in favour of amending the 1955 Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to wed, making New Zealand the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.
"Two-thirds of parliament have endorsed marriage equality," said Louisa Wall, a gay opposition Labour party MP who campaigned in favour of the bill. "It shows that we are building on our human rights as a country."
My thanks to a VERY HAPPY Shaker bekitty for the heads-up first thing this morning.
Question of the Day
If you have a mobile phone, what is your favorite thing about having it? If you don't have a mobile phone by choice, what is your favorite thing about not having one?
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the North Pole
For a moment, Tom Hardy and the puppy were all, "Oh shit—polar bears!" But then the polar bears were all, "Welcome to our home. We love you. Please tell the world to save us." And Tom Hardy and the puppy were all, "OMG, you guys. We totally will! We love you, too!" And then they all feasted on blubber. It was the best day ever.
Boston Marathon Bombing Updates
[Content Note: Terrorism; violence; racism.]
Here is some recommended reading:
The Guardian has the latest on where things stand.
In case it wasn't abundantly clear already: The injured Saudi man, who was questioned after being tackled while running away from the scene covered in burns, is a witness, not a suspect.
The bombs used "appear to have been fashioned out of ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, packed with nails and other fiendishly lethal shrapnel, and hidden in duffel bags left on the ground."
The first picture here may show one of the bags in which a bomb was hidden. Investigators are reviewing the image.
Peter Daou, with a bit of perspective. [CN for violence and war.]
Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave in comments links to things you've been reading/writing.
On Compulsory Security Screening in Australia
by Shaker Anonymous, a long time reader and some-time commenter on Shakesville and an avid traveler. She lives in Australia with her partner and infant son, and two cats who refer to the three of them as "staff".
[Content Note: Invasive security while traveling; sexual violence.]
For reasons of employment opportunity, I live in a different country than nearly my entire extended family. When my son gets sick, instead of asking my mother or another trusted relative if I should be worried, I call a nurse line. When my partner and I want to go out for a meal, we depend on the kindness of friends or paid babysitting. To see our families, and access (even for a short while) the kind of support it's nice to have when one has a new baby, we have to travel internationally: We have to fly. None of what I am about to tell you would be acceptable to me even if we were not in a position where we were under so much pressure to travel, but the fact that we are puts me in a position that feels almost untenable.
I am an avid traveler, and I have watched with dismay the roll-out of invasive security screening procedures. I have protested them in any way I can, spoken out about how they marginalise transgender passengers, ostomates, survivors of sexual assault, and other groups whose personal circumstances do not in any way need to be disclosed in order to fly. I have kept a close eye on the roll-out of the millimeter-wave and backscatter scanners, and decided two or three years ago not to travel to the United States because I did not want to go through one of them. I have a deep-seated fear or being seen, and of intimate images of my body stemming from a history of sexual assault. I am anonymous for this post because I am afraid—afraid that my ability to remain in Australia will be compromised if I speak publicly; afraid that I will be targeted by security personnel if they can identify me.
Recently, while my son and I were recovering from a bad cold, and I was desperately in need of some family time, we had a well-timed trip home booked. I looked forward to the trip with anticipation. While in the past I have had fairly aggressive pat-downs from airport security leaving Australia, they now use wands and, to the best of my knowledge, security screening in Australia was, while annoying, business as usual. Millimeter wave (MMW) scanners had been trialed, but that trial was optional. While travelling home at Christmas I had noticed the machines were in use again, but believed they were still optional, and families with small children were being directed through a standard metal detector anyway. My partner and I had been fortunate to be able to buy business class seats at a heavily discounted rate, and while we were not looking forward to the traveling portion of the trip, it did not seem to be anything to fear either. How wrong I was.
RIP Krystle Campbell
[Content Note: Violence.]
Jess noted earlier in her piece that the 8-year-old boy who died in yesterday's bombing at the Boston Marathon has been identified as Martin Richard. The second person who died has now been identified as a 29-year-old woman named Krystle Campbell.
"My daughter was the most lovable girl. She helped everybody, and I'm just so shocked right now. We're just devastated," [her father William A. Campbell Jr.] said. "She was a wonderful, wonderful girl. Always willing to lend a hand."The heart, it never stops breaking.
Campbell was at the finish line with a friend, Karen Rand, to cheer on her boyfriend, who was running the race. William Campbell said he doesn't know if Krystle's boyfriend finished the race before the bombs went off.
Karen Rand survived, but was in surgery for her serious injuries through Monday night. Cheryl Rand Engelhardt, Karen Rand's sister-in-law, wrote on Facebook that Krystle's parents at first believed that Karen was their daughter, and that she had survived the attack, because Karen was carrying Krystle's ID. Krystle's family was finally ushered into Karen's hospital room after one of her leg surgeries by hospital staff, only to discover their daughter's friend instead of Krystle. Krystle was then declared missing, and the family found out on Tuesday she was among the dead.
My condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.
I Am Thinking
[Content Note: Discussion of violence.]
In the wake of any public event of violence, there are the offers and promises and solicitations of prayer. I understand this: In times of crisis and trauma, religious people turn to prayer for solace and in hope of response, and I live in a deeply religious country.
But I am not a praying person. I cannot offer prayers.
I can say that I will keep people in my thoughts, which is generally received as a sufficient equivalent, but, for many religious people, praying constitutes an action, an asking for intervention, a hope that something will change; something will be done by someone.
Because I don't believe in a god, I cannot depend on intervention. I cannot ask anyone but myself to do something.
And so instead of offering prayers, I offer instead: I am thinking about what I can do better.
Violence doesn't exist in a void. Violent people and their violent acts happen in a culture that rewards domination, facilitates oppression, makes war profitable, maintains hierarchies of human value, devalues pacifism, glorifies brutality, abets cruelty, inequality, injustice, and tolerates colossal amounts of bigotry under the guise of "both sides" having a point in a false debate that equates the ache and effects of marginalization with the discomfort of having one's undeserved privilege challenged.
I am thinking about what I can do to dismantle the culture of violence.
Terrorism as a specific act of violence is effective because it is such an incomprehensible thing. It is an act that most of us cannot imagine, that many of us will never personally experience. While the act itself may be impossible to wrap our heads around, the context for terrorism—the circumstances in which terroristic ideas are born—can be better known. It is a difficult and discomfiting exploration, and we tend to avoid it.
I am thinking about what I can do to better contextualize and understand terrorism.
Talking about violence, especially acts of mass violence, as the work of a "madman," or any variation on attributing mass violence exclusively to mental illness, or as "senseless," or in any way categorizing these acts as existing in an unfathomable void torn from the culture in which they happen, comprehensively Othering people who commit acts of mass violence, is a way of giving ourselves permission to not feel obliged to change, ourselves or our environment. We thus exclusively task the people who want to do harm with harm prevention. In the same way we acknowledge we need to define and critique and dismantle a rape culture that abets rapists, we must define and critique and dismantle a culture of violence that abets violent people and their violent acts.
I am thinking about what I can do to speak about violence in a way that effects change.
Condemning violence is not sufficient, irrespective of its absolute rightness. Public violence is an action, undertaken by people who feel empowered by violent acts. Certainly, not every act of public violence would be halted by empowerment, by listening, by options. There are many ideas underwriting acts of violence that should not even be entertained as serious discourse. I don't know what to do about that, about the seemingly irreconcilable tension between people with reprehensible beliefs who turn to violence because they are not heard. I don't know how many violent people hold garbage beliefs as a mask over insecurities that aren't meaningfully or easily addressed, except by violent ideologies. I suspect early intervention with alternative ideological trajectories would be a deterrent, sometimes.
I am thinking about what role I can play in providing alternative ideas to violent ideologies.
I am thinking about these things, so that I may act. Because I don't want to feel helpless. Because I don't exist in a void, either. And because I do not pray.
[Note: This is not a criticism of people who do pray, nor am I suggesting that people who pray and people who think about what they can do are mutually exclusive groups. This is a first-person essay on my own experience in response to a common cultural meme.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, being all sophslike.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Spring
Spring has been more than a little reluctant this year. We've not had a string of beautiful days, and the temperatures keep creeping up, only to drop back down again. But the other night, Iain called me out to the front porch to point out the tiniest wee baby bunny, who was sitting just beyond the bushes along the front side of the porch, munching contentedly on the grass. Zie's so small, zie would easily fit in the palm of a hand.
This morning, the baby bunny was out again, and had been joined by a sibling.
Can you spot them?
They were very disinterested in the baby carrot I provided for them. They did, however, give a glance of passing interest to the baby squirrel who came darting across the lawn, pausing to consider running up a tree, but bounding off beneath my car instead. It's fun under there! Apparently. I always have to pause for a moment after starting, to make sure any lazy squirrels have time to make their exits.
Can you spot hir wee fuzzy red tail?
The emergence of the babies means spring has finally sprung.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War on agency.]
"Closing its doors would—as the state seems to concede in this argument—force Mississippi women to leave Mississippi to obtain a legal abortion... [This] would result in a patchwork system where constitutional rights are available in some states but not others."—US District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III, in his opinion after extending a temporary injunction which prevents Mississippi from closing the Jackson Women's Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in the state, "as it tries to come into compliance with a 2012 law requiring all doctors who perform abortions at the clinic to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The injunction was extended until the constitutionality of the law can be determined in a current pending lawsuit against the state. So far, no hospital within 30 miles of the clinic has granted admitting privileges to any of the doctors."
It is a temporary reprieve, but a crucial ruling.
Being a Marathon Spectator
by Jessica Luther, who can also be found at her own blog, Speaker's Corner in the ATX, and blazing trails of righteous fury on Twitter, among other places.
[Content Note: Terrorism; violence; injury.]
My husband, Aaron, has run 14 marathons over the last 8 years.
In many ways, our lives are structured around his running: He runs with a team on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings and they all do an ab workout on Wednesdays. I stay home, sleep, and take care of our child. He runs one to two marathons each year and we plan family vacations around them, trying to pick locations that are both good marathon spots (fast courses or fun courses) and nice places to visit. Our son is the unofficial mascot of the running group; they gave him a team running jersey when he was born and they all cheer him on now when he participates in 1K runs.
And so, over the last 8 years, one of the things I have become is an expert marathon spectator. I study the map of the course the night before, I calculate when Aaron expects to be at what spot and if I can beat him there taking whatever transportation is available, and then on race day I venture through cities I have never even been in before so that I can cheer him on as many times as possible. I have navigated the El in Chicago, pushed a stroller through the streets of Philadelphia, driven a long stretch of the coast of Lake Superior, volunteered at a water stop during our hometown race in Austin, dealt with a flat tire and bored child at mile 20 in Houston, propped Aaron up on my body and nearly carried him back to the car after he completed a poorly-organized marathon in Atlanta that left him severely dehydrated, stood in the pouring rain in Sacramento, and, while pregnant and exhausted, ran alongside him at the finish line in Arizona when he qualified for the first time to run the Boston Marathon.
And I went to the Boston Marathon with him five years ago, months into my pregnancy, and I stood in the spot where those people were yesterday when the explosion occurred.
I keep thinking about the spectators who crowd the finish line, waiting for a glimpse of their runner. When Aaron ran Chicago in 2007, it was so incredibly hot that they ended up cutting the race off because the city was running out of ambulances helping the dehydrated and sick runners. Someone died that day on the course. Everyone was running much slower than expected which caused concern, almost near panic, by the time I made it to the finish line area. No one knew where their runners were. I had seen him at mile 16, where I also saw an elite male runner wobble to a medical tent, barely able to stay on his feet under the intense glare of the sun that day. About .1 miles from the finish line, I pushed my way to the front of a tight, packed crowd. Everyone around me was trying to figure out why their runner wasn’t there yet. Marathoners who could run 26.2 miles in under 3 hours were walking in the final steps of the race. And then, about 100 feet down on the other side of the street, a runner went down. I'll never forget thinking over and over again as I bounced on my toes, trying to see past everyone, "please don't let that runner be wearing blue shoes, please don't let that runner be wearing blue shoes," because Aaron had on bright blue shoes that day. In the end, it wasn't Aaron and that man had needed an ambulance to remove him from the race course.
Marathoning is a brutal sport to which athletes give almost everything they have each time they attempt the race. And spectators at these races reward them with endless cheering, hand slaps, fun signs, clapping hands, and broad smiles.
I have taken our son with me to cheer on his father at the finish line. In St. Paul one year, as Aaron was just making it in under the cut off for the Boston Marathon qualifying time, I put my toddler on my shoulders so he could see over the crowds. As I began to jump and cheer for Aaron, our son began to cry and freak out. I had scared him with my jubilation.
Yesterday at Boston, a family of five was standing at the finish line, probably cheering, clapping, holding signs, and smiling. They were waiting for their friends to cross the finish line. The explosion killed Martin Richard, an 8 year old in the group. His mother has suffered a brain injury and his sister reportedly lost her leg. His father and brother were uninjured in the blast. Two others died in the attack, another 170 wounded, many severely.
We already have plans to travel to New York in November when Aaron will run the marathon there. He has waited years to run this race and we celebrated when he officially got in this year. I will be there, navigating through the boroughs, cheering him and other runners on, standing on the sidelines as I have done so many times before. I will be there in crowds, bumping shoulders with other proud family members and friends. We already planned to leave our son with his grandparents for our NYC trip and I feel a sense of relief that at least this time, as I wait to see my runner come by, my fear for my safety and the safety of those around me will not include a worry for my child. I will be glued to my phone for updates on the race to make sure there is no news. I am sure we will not linger at the finish line once Aaron crosses it.
For the rest of our lives, as we travel to marathons, we will think of Martin and his family, of everyone hurt and killed. We will never move past or forget the horror of yesterday.
But we will be in marathons and on the sidelines. Aaron will continue participating in the sport that has given him so much and at which he is very good. And I will continue to attend because it is a rush and thrill to watch so many people conquer such an amazing physical feat. There is little that gives me greater joy than seeing the person I love so deeply do something that he loves so much. He marathons, I spectate, as it was and as it will be.
