Hosted by a Fraggle Rock lunchbox.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay. Skadoodlies.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Careless, Cruel, and Unaccountable
[Content Note: Transphobia; harassment; self-harm.]
That is how Grantland writer Caleb Hannan shared his article about Dr. V, the creator of a new golf putter. To get access to Dr. V, Hannan agreed to "focus on the science and not the scientist." But during the course of researching and writing the piece, he discovered that Dr. V was a trans woman—a piece of information he found so interesting that he broke his agreement to focus on the science and not the scientist.
Before the article was published, Dr. V took her own life. The article was published nonetheless, complete with misgendering pronouns peppering the latter part of the narrative arc in which the author casts himself as Holmesian detective uncovering a great mystery.
Hannan distances himself from this tragedy by including in the story the report of a previous attempt at taking her own life made by Dr. V, as if to suggest that her suicide was inevitable.
Further, he catalogs her deception about her educational and professional background alongside the revelation that she is trans, in a way that suggests her failure to reflexively disclose that she is trans as part of any introduction to a new person is a lie, just like so many others she told.
When she does not agree to become the focus of his story, which was meant to be about the science, he pouts and tasks her with the responsibility for his aggressive invasiveness: "Dr. V's initial requests for privacy had seemed reasonable. Now, however, they felt like an attempt to stop me from writing about her or the company she'd founded. But why?" He reports disclosing that Dr. V is a trans woman to one of her investors. He publishes her birth name. He describes the scene of her death. And he concludes the piece by calling it a eulogy.
I have hardly detailed everything objectionable about this article. These are the barest outlines of one of the most cavalier, irresponsible pieces of journalism I have read in a very long time.
There are already legions of defenders, who are keen to make arguments that Dr. V's lies about her background are newsworthy, which is debatable, although I tend to agree that lying about her educational and professional history, which were apparently a central part of the pitch to investors and potential buyers, was unethical and worth reporting.* But her being transgender is entirely irrelevant—and if Hannan's research into the former was what led to his discovery of the latter, it doesn't mean each piece is equally appropriate to report.
One was about her professional life, and stood to potentially damage her career. The other was about her personal life, and stood to put her at risk for both professional retribution and personal harm.
Which is why, in one of her last communications with Hannan, Dr. V warned him that he "was about to commit a hate crime."
But it was just a strange story to the writer.
UPDATE: I urge you to also read Eastsidekate's piece, "What if 'Dr. V' was French?"
[H/T to Carolyn Edgar. You can contact the editors of Grantland here.]
Quote of the Day
"Some on the left have always tried to introduce a more class-conscious style of politics. These efforts never pan out. America has always done better, liberals have always done better, when we are all focused on opportunity and mobility, not inequality, on individual and family aspiration, not class-consciousness."—David Brooks, in his latest garbage column for the New York Times.
LOL. Shut up, David Brooks.
Dean Baker's response to this hogwash is perfect: "Funny, I thought Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act (i.e. the 40-hour workweek), the National Labor Relations Board, and other products of the New Deal were pretty big accomplishments. Much of this was done quite explicitly with a sense of class consciousness. These were all measures that were backed by mass movements that sought to ensure that working people got their share of the economic pie."
Brooks wants us to stop talking about class and start focusing on "individual and family aspiration," because then we can keep having terrific conversations about how some individuals and families aren't "aspiring" hard enough, or don't have the right aspirations, or whatever.
It's a lot tougher to victim-blame when you're not tasking individuals with finding solutions to systemtic problems.
Daily Dose of Cute
Little pink toesies through a DHARMA glass!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by knit hats.
Recommended Reading:
Miya: [Content Note: Worker exploitation; privilege; classism] In the Name of Love
Adrienne: [CN: Racism; appropriation] They Give out Oscars for Racism Now?
Bina: [CN: White supremacy; male supremacy; choice policing] Whitesplained and Mansplained
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism; white privilege] How I Met Your Mother Creators Sorry for All the Racism
Jamilah: [video] Watch Lupita Nyong'o Emotional Critics' Choice Awards Speech
Andy: [CN: Homophobia; misogyny] Top Gear Host Jeremy Clarkson Criticized for 'Gay Cunt' Twitter Pic
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Bernard Butler: "The Sea"
This week's TMNS brought to you by Bernard Butler.
Jezebel vs. Consent
[Content Note: Hostility to consent; body policing.]
Jezebel—the, ha ha, "feminist" web site—is offering $10K for unretouched photos of Lena Dunham's Vogue shoot. You know, to "start a conversation" about "real bodies" like Dunham's, and how the media distorts them to make them fit the "ideal" feminine image.
As if that conversation can't be started (and has been, um, all over the feminist blogosphere—and as if, for that matter, it hasn't been going on since airbrushing was invented) without denying a woman the autonomy to decide whether she wants those photos released.
Jezebel suggests that Dunham has implied her consent (oh, my) for the unretouched photos to be released, because she's "body positive," appears naked on Girls all the time, and "has spoken out, frequently, about society's insane and unattainable beauty standards." Therefore, anything goes!
Yes, she has. Dunham isn't kyriarchetypically "beautiful." She's made a point of appearing naked on Girls frequently, for, as critics frequently complain, "no reason" (that is, no reason that doesn't involve titillating a hetero male audience, a la Game of Thrones).
But all of that—all of it—is beside the point. Dunham has every right to speak for herself. In contrast: By inviting readers to contribute photos without Dunham's consent, so that Jezebel can publish them as clickbait (whether you're clicking to look at the funny fat lady or to tsk at impossible beauty standards makes little difference), Jezebel is mocking the entire notion of bodily autonomy, for fun and profit.
It's despicable. But I would expect little better from the same media empire that offered a "reward" for any reader who could out the person who gave Magic Johnson HIV.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
Happy 50th birthday, First Lady Michelle Obama!
[Content Note: Death penalty; torture] I can't even find the words to describe my horror at the execution of Dennis McGuire that took place in Ohio yesterday, during which the state tested a new cocktail of drugs that took nearly a half hour to kill the gasping McGuire. States keep looking for new alternatives, but the only alternative is to eradicate executions. The ACLU's Mike Brickner reports: "New Execution Methods Can't Disguise Same Old Death Penalty Problems."
[CN: Destruction; fire] Awful: "A fast-moving California wildfire, apparently started accidentally by three campers, roared out of control in the foothills above Los Angeles on Thursday, destroying five homes and forcing about 3,600 residents to flee, fire and law enforcement officials have said."
In case you needed another reason to support the Davis-Van de Putte ticket in Texas: "As sometimes happens at crowded political events with supporters standing long hours under hot stage lights, a woman had fainted. Van de Putte, a pharmacist who requires all her campaign staff to learn CPR, said it was instinct to step down into the crowd and assist EMTs, who were on site, to revive the woman."
The Polar Vortex is probably coming back. Oh for fuck's sake.
Janelle Monáe on Sesame Street. I repeat: Janelle Monáe on Sesame Street!
Google is working on a contact lens that will test the blood sugar of people with diabetes, as a less painful alternative to pricking fingers. Neat!
The CW abandons its Wonder Woman project. Boo.
RIP Russell Johnson, best known as the Professor from Gilligan's Island, and Dave Madden, best known as Reuben Kincaid from The Partridge Family.
Indiana Republicans' Latest Ploy to Circumvent Democracy
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
Indiana already has a state law restricting same-sex marriage, but our Republican-controlled state legislature is nonetheless determined to codify discrimination into the state constitution, despite the fact that a majority of Hoosiers do not support the proposed legislation and in fact want the existing ban repealed.
So determined are they to pass this discriminatory and indecent legislation that they will resort to the most breathtaking fuckery: "House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, may take the extraordinary step of replacing members on the House Judiciary Committee to ensure the marriage amendment wins committee approval and gets a vote by the full House. ...At least three of the nine Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are believed to be considering voting with the four committee Democrats against the marriage amendment, which would kill it."
Got that? The Republican House Speaker will replace Republican members on the House Judiciary Committee in order to pass anti-gay legislation that a majority of people in the state don't even want.
Bookmark this story for the next time you see some smug fauxgressive jerk talking about how people in red states are all backwards hillbillies who deserve whatever we get. Because this is the kind of shit we're dealing with.
State Rep. Brian Bosma's contact form for Indiana residents is here. His office telephone number if 317.232.9677. His office's email is h88@in.gov. Please contact him and politely request that he stop pursuing passage of HJR-3 and instead support equality.
Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food
[Content Note: Class warfare; food insecurity.]
Republicans think people aren't entitled to food. Republicans think people aren't entitled to food. REPUBLICANS! THINK! PEOPLE! AREN'T! ENTITLED! TO FOOD! Republican Senator David Vitter thinks people aren't entitled to food:
Under a bill Vitter introduced Wednesday, beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) [also known as food stamps] would be denied their food if they are unable to show a photographic identification card at the register. For millions of low-income Americans who don't have an official photo ID and can't necessarily afford to buy one, Vitter's bill would mean being cut off from their primary food source.And naturally Vitter justifies this nasty bit of class warfare with garbage narratives about how the program is widely exploited by scam artists and lazies and takers and various other conservative caricatures of poor people:
[Vitter] says the legislation "will restore some accountability to the program so it's not ruined for people who use it appropriately," suggesting that "fraud surrounding the taxpayer-funded program" is part of why SNAP costs doubled since 2008.Rage. Seethe. Boil.
SNAP fraud rates hover at around 1%, "the lowest fraud rates of any public program." And the reason why SNAP costs have doubled is not because of increased fraud, but because of increased need. More people are dependent on food assistance programs because more people aren't earning enough money to meet their basic needs without help, as a result of a long recession with high unemployment and a "recovery" that has disproportionately favored the wealthy.
Those are demonstrable facts. But a Republican Senator will shamelessly tell fairy tales about the fraud and greed and low moral character of people in need of some help, so he can justify legislation to cut costs by denying food to vulnerable people. Because he thinks people aren't entitled to food.
Republicans think people aren't entitled to food. That is the most basic strategic move in class warfare. Let them eat bootstraps.
[H/T to @SoDevolved.]
Seen
A church sign in my neighborhood:
Stop Complaining and Gain Some PerspectiveNo, you stop complaining and gain some perspective.
PS: Freedom isn't free.
PPS: I talked to my friend who's a Passive Aggressive Studies major, and she agreed that that church sign totally counts as complaining.
President Obama Will Fix Everything
Reuters: Obama to announce overhaul to controversial NSA program.
President Barack Obama will announce on Friday a major overhaul of a controversial National Security Agency program that collects vast amounts of basic telephone call data on foreigners and Americans, a senior Obama administration official said."Aimed at restoring Americans' confidence in US intelligence practices." As opposed to: Aimed at halting illegal spying on people in the US and abroad.
In an 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) speech at the Justice Department, Obama will say he is ordering a transition that will significantly change the handling of what is known as the telephone "metadata" program from the way the NSA currently handles it.
Obama's move is aimed at restoring Americans' confidence in U.S. intelligence practices and caps months of reviews by the White House in the wake of damaging disclosures about U.S. surveillance tactics from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.
In a nod to privacy advocates, Obama will say he has decided that the government should not hold the bulk telephone metadata, a decision that could frustrate some intelligence officials.
In addition, he will order that effectively immediately, "we will take steps to modify the program so that a judicial finding is required before we query the database," said the senior official, who revealed details of the speech on condition of anonymity.
...Obama is balancing public anger at the disclosure of intrusion into Americans' privacy with his commitment to retain policies he considers critical to protecting the United States.
Oh, I'm so cynical. I know. But the reason I don't foresee meaningful change is not just because of a few lines in a single news story that make the Obama administration sound more interested in improving PR than improving their intelligence policies. It's because once these sorts of practices start, they never get rolled back. Not really. Despite lots of lipservice about accountability and oversight and warrants and balance and blah blah fart, once a piece of our privacy is gone at this level in service to "national security," it tends to stay gone.
That is one thing on which both parties are always able to agree.
----------------
UPDATE: Here is the full transcript of the President's address.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Modiano: "What is your favorite (or most memorable) documentary film or series?"
Mine still is and may forever be Baraka.
Fatsronauts 101
Fatsronauts 101 is a series in which I address assumptions and stereotypes about fat people that treat us as a monolith and are used to dehumanize and marginalize us. If there is a stereotype you'd like me to address, email me.
[Content Note: Fat bias.]
#23: Fat advocates want to force people to find fat people sexually attractive.
Nope.
I am tempted just to leave it at that, because, seriously: Nope. But I'll just briefly add: This is a pretty common accusation levied against anyone who advocates on behalf of fat people, and especially anyone who challenges the notion that fat is axiomatically ugly.
Brian has effectively addressed that crap here, from a fat man's and fat admirer's perspective.
I will just briefly add, from a fat woman's perspective, that the mendacious misrepresentation of my asking people to respect my humanity as, instead, my demanding that people find me sexually attractive is:
1. A useful red herring to turn a valid argument about basic humanity into a garbage debate about how unfair and unreasonable fat advocates are. Suddenly we're not talking about, say, an equal right to access healthcare but instead what "delusional freaks" fat people are who want to force thin people to be attracted to us.
2. Indicative of the pattern of any woman asking for recognition of her full humanity being audited on the basis of her sexual appeal and availability, because misogynists who view women as a sex class value us on the basis of our fuckability. So when they hear any woman saying, "I want to be valued," they hear, "I want you to find me attractive." Because women have no other conceivable value to them.
This, again, is why fat is a feminist issue.
[Related Reading: The Fat Body Visible and Beautiful.]
-------------------------
Previously:
#22: All fat people are lazy and/or weak.
#21: Fat bodies have no feeling.
#20: Fat people aren't that bright.
#19: All fat people hate/want to change their bodies.
#18: You can diagnose fat people's health issues by looking at them.
#17: Fat people's choices are always dictated by their fat.
#16: You are helping fat people by shaming them.
#15: Fat people hate having their pictures taken.
#14: All fat people are unhealthy.
#13: Fat people looooooooooove Twinkies!
#12: Fat people don't like/want to see media representations of themselves.
#11: No one wants to be fat.
#10: Fat people need you to intervene in their lives.
#9: Fat people don't know how they look.
#8: Fat people don't deserve anything nice.
#7: Fat people are permission slips for thin people to eat what they want.
#6: Any fat person eating a salad or exercising is trying to lose weight.
#5: Fat is axiomatically ugly.
#4: Fat people eat enormous amounts of food.
#3: Fat people are jolly/mean, and fat people are shy/loud.
#2: I can tell how someone eats all the time, because of how they eat around me.
#1: Everyone who is fat is fat for the same reason.
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 16 January 2014: A male peacock displays his feathers at Sri Lanka's Yala National Park, in the southern district of Yala. [Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP]Stunning.
All Your Texts Belong to the NSA
NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep: "The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents. ...The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects 'pretty much everything it can,' according to [UK spy agency] GCHQ documents, rather than merely storing the communications of existing surveillance targets."
Neat!
I know this totally isn't How It Works, but I nonetheless love the idea of some poor put-upon NSA analyst sitting at a shitty desk in a garbage cubicle having to read every one of Deeky's and my terrific text conversations about buttholes, chemical peels, and Flowers in the Attic.
The Cardinal Rules
by Cristy Cardinal, otherwise known in these parts as Shaker masculine_lady.
[Content Note: Discussion of various failures around sex, sexuality, consent, and marginalized bodies.]
I am not a resolution maker, at the New Year or any other time. But, it is inevitable that I will review the year as it comes to a close and notice any themes that might inform my plans for the New Year. For example, I might notice that I spent a lot of 2013 ill with pneumonia, so in 2014, I am going to make damn sure to get a flu shot and a pneumonia vaccine (all true).
Two other things I noticed as themes of 2013 were: Dan Savage continues to be a dipshit, and people like to ask me for advice (I also enjoy telling people what to do, so it works out).
Dan Savage, who writes the advice column on sex, love and relationships called Savage Love, lucked into his job when he told the founder of the Seattle paper The Stranger to include an advice column in the fledging publication and was subsequently offered the job. Dan is also the creator of the It Gets Better Project and the alternative meaning of Rick Santorum's last name (please note the irony of creating both an anti-bullying project and bullying a public figure and everyone else who shares his last name, including his children, by making their last name mean something sexually explicit many people will consider vulgar).
He gives terrible advice. He tells rape survivors to "get over it already." He is actively hateful of bisexual folks. He hates on fat people all the time. He is not a big fan of women or trans* folks. He is invested in hegemonic masculinity and white supremacy because they benefit him. He is also a bit of an assimilationist gay man and would prefer that all the queer freaks disappear. It seems that Dan really only likes people who are exactly like him, and his primary advice to give is: Be more like me.
One of Dan's potentially dangerous advice tropes is his conviction that we owe our partners sex, as if it is some sort of bill we pay in order to be partnered whether we want to or not, rather than an expression of intimacy in a whole range of expressions we have available. This is an ongoing theme in his sex advice, so much so that I'll be featuring a whole column (what? keep reading!) on that in the near future.
Dan Savage's terrible advice kept showing up in my life in 2013, with the affiliated groans and complaints that this dude is just.so.terrible. There was at least a week in October or so where he was on my FB daily. And during that week, for the second time, I casually mentioned that I should do my own advice column, as an alternative. I could answer original questions, but also go back and re-answer questions that Dan had really screwed up.
This brings me to the second theme of 2013: People like to ask me for advice (and I like to tell them what to do). Friends of mine have joked over the years that they need t-shirts or bracelets that say, "WWCCD (What Would Cristy Cardinal Do)" so they could channel my insight when they were in a quandary. Last year, people really did ask me for advice a lot, and I discovered that I enjoyed the hell out of it.
So, when I did the 2013 review, I realized that now just might be the time for a person who practices intersectional feminism, well-versed in rape culture and the components of supportive egalitarian relationships, who values rather than discounts the differences in the people around me, who tries really hard to understand that there is more than one way to be a human being or have a relationship, and can see past the end of her nose, to write an advice column.
Oh—and, unlike Dan Savage, I'm actually a professional advocate and educator.
"Cardinal Rules: 21st Century Advice on Life, Love and Sundry Other Bullsh*t" is that advice column. I launched earlier this week, and the first column is up—a re-answer of a Savage Love question from 2010.
We all need advice sometimes, and we shouldn't have to ask a garbage nightmare like that dude for it. Seriously, he claims to be America's only advice columnist. I don't know if that was true last week, but it's not true now!
I know that when I've asked for advice, I felt pretty vulnerable. When it's our turn to seek answers, we should be able to trust that the advice giver will be compassionate and not a judgmental asshole (I considered "Not a Judgmental Asshole" as the tagline, but it didn't take).
You can ask questions, or submit a Savage Love column for review, here.
(Also, many thanks to Liss for suggesting the name "Cardinal Rules" because she rules.)
Daily Dose of Cute
Just a normal napping position.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
And the Guardian Weighs In
[Content Note: Choice policing; terminal illness; disablism.]
Part One: Emma Keller writes a terrible piece for the Guardian ostensibly pondering "the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness," which is really just a bunch of rank policing of Lisa Bonchek Adams' choices surrounding her sharing her lived experiences with cancer on social media.
Part Two: Emma Keller's husband, Bill Keller, writes a terrible piece for the New York Times, which is more of the same reprehensible garbage.
Part Three: The New York Times Public Editor responds with some weak sauce, and Bill Keller doubles-down on being a total nightmare.
And thus we come to Part Four, in which the Guardian's Chris Elliott explains: "Why an article on Lisa Bonchek Adams was removed from the Guardian site."
The subtitle pretty much says it all: "I don't think it is wrong to frame a question about how those with incurable illnesses use social media, but the Guardian was wrong in the way it went about it."
I mean, basically, if you don't think it's wrong to police how people use social media to talk about their own lives, then we're pretty much done here.
Although I do want to highlight this bit of fuckery:
One of the many difficulties in trying to resolve the complaint is that the complainant is undergoing painful treatment. While she has continued to tweet from hospital, she has made clear in the two emails the Guardian has received from her that she does not feel she should have to take time from her treatment to engage with the process of correcting what she believes is wrong in the piece. I entirely understand and respect her position.Really? Are you sure you entirely respect her position? Because I'm pretty sure you just implicitly accused her of either lying or having shitty priorities, by noting she is continuing to tweet from the hospital but isn't sending you detailed information about what Emma Keller got wrong in her contemptible piece.
And in case it wasn't clear enough the first time:
I have written to Adams to suggest we put up a fresh piece dealing with all her issues when she is able to engage with us, and to offer to publish a response entirely from her point of view. However, it is only right that this should be in her own time and that she should be allowed to get on with her treatment without any pressures. Therefore I do not anticipate that I will have fully resolved all issues for some time, and I think that we should not restore Keller's original article to our website until I can do so.How magnanimous. You know, that might have seemed a lot more compassionate if Elliott hadn't noted several paragraphs earlier that Lisa Bonchek Adams "has continued to tweet from hospital."
Essentially, this piece is just a replay of the original objections: The public shaming and auditing of how Lisa Bonchek Adams spends her time and energy.
This time, with an added dose of tasking her with the responsibility for Emma Keller's original piece still being removed from the site.
That is an extraordinary deflection of accountability for publishing and subsequently removing Keller's piece. Disgraceful.
This is a real thing in the world.
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Let's count just a few of the ways this cover is a piece of shit:
1. As I have previously observed, after first being told to GTFO during the 2008 election, then being admonished for the past year that she HAS TO run, now we're back to wondering if there is any way to stop her. That sound you hear is my mirthless laughter reverberating through the entirety of the known universe.
2. That image. Oh my god that image. Can anyone stop Hillary from smashing all the tiny, helpless men who want a shot at the presidency but are too tiny and helpless to stop her?! Even when a woman reaches something resembling parity with men, at least in terms of access to power, suddenly she is MONSTROUS. A destroyer of all things.
3. That image. Blue slacks. Black shoes. Where have I seen that before? Oh right.
4. That image. Of Hillary Clinton's giant feet and a tiny, helpless man. Where have I seen that before? Oh right.
5. The accompanying story opens with a novel new way to assert that Hillary Clinton is a totes big liar about whether she's made up her mind about running in 2016—by saying it's probably true, but ha ha you know how those tricksy Clintons are!
Hillary Clinton has not decided whether to run for President again. I have this on good authority, despite a recent barrage of reports detailing the many moves that signal a campaign in the making. People close to Clinton and familiar with her thinking insist that she hasn't made a decision.Can anyone else think of any problems with using this sort of "I know what she really wants despite what she's saying" narrative about a female candidate? Because I can think of one!
Perhaps it all comes down, in Clintonian fashion, to definitions. It depends on the meaning of the word decide. And on the meaning of the word run. In Hillary Clinton, the United States of America is now experiencing a rare, if not unprecedented, political phenomenon; she requires a new lexicon.
Although I'm sure I'm just being a hypersensitive, over-reactionary, hysterical feminist who's just looking for things about which to get mad again. You know me.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: Profiling] Here is some good news (contingent upon whether the change is actually implemented): "The Justice Department will significantly expand its definition of racial profiling to prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their investigations, a government official said Wednesday. The move addresses a decade of criticism from civil rights groups that say federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations."
[CN: Rape apologia] Another Republican genius on rape: Virginia congressional hopeful Richard Black "opposed criminalizing spousal rape while he served in the Virginia state legislature. His reason? It would be impossible to prosecute a man for rape 'when they're living together, sleeping in the same bed, she's in a nightie, and so forth,' Black said in 2011. He also argued that men should not have to live with the 'emormous fear' of facing a false spousal rape accusation." He sounds terrific.
[CN: Gun violence] Last night in northern Indiana, a man shot and killed two people in a grocery store before he was killed by police: "Elkhart police received a call about a gunman at Martin's Super Market about 10pm Wednesday, Indiana state police sergeant Trent Smith said Thursday. The 22-year-old gunman used a semi-automatic handgun to shoot and kill a 20-year-old employee and a 44-year-old shopper, Smith said. The victims' bodies were found about 12 aisles apart." The shooting appears to be random, and "a large knife was also found near the gunman's body." Fucking hell.
An amazing cat saved his neighbor's life by warning him he was about to have a heart attack. Cats, man.
[CN: Rape] A woman who survived being raped and then was accused of lying by police who subsequently interrogated her into confessing to false charges has been exonerated and awarded a $150,000 settlement. The man who raped her, Marc O'Leary, "is currently serving a 327 1/2-year sentence in Colorado for raping multiple women."
(Just yesterday, I was talking to Lauren Chief Elk on Twitter about how one of the most detestable thing about Law & Order: SVU and similar police procedurals is that they give the erroneous impression that virtually all cops and prosecutors are keen to pursue rapists. This is, unfortunately, not the case.)
A funeral home in Clinton, Arkansas, is training a two-year-old King Charles Spaniel named Mollie to be a grief therapy dog. I love this idea!
[CN: Gun violence] Newtown shooter Adam Lanza reportedly called into an Oregon radio show, "Anarchy Radio," to discuss mass shootings a year before he went on his shooting spree.
Do you want to see Flula beatbox in slow motion? I can't imagine why you wouldn't!
Nope
[Content Note: Regionalism.]
This is a regularly scheduled reminder that talking shit about "red states" and telling progressives there that we should "just move" is hostile garbage.
It's incredibly demoralizing for progressive activists who live in states with conservative governments (which, as a reminder, often are governing in direct contravention of the will of the people) to be told constantly that we should leave or homes, or that our home states are terrible places.
Not everyone has the privilege of being able to move, which is to say nothing of not everyone having the desire to move—and those of us who could move, who choose to stay and fight on behalf of our values and in solidarity with those who can't pick up and leave, have a rough enough time of it without being written off by ostensible allies.
Knock it off.
[Note: For Shakers having a rough go of it on social media and elsewhere with this kind of nonsense, please feel absolutely welcome to cut and paste as needed.]
The Oscar Nominations Open Thread
[Content Note: Racism; appropriation.]
The 2014 Oscar Nominations have been announced. The complete list can be viewed here.
Not a single woman of color was nominated in the Best Actress category. The only people of color nominated for acting awards were Chiwetel Ejiofor (Best Actor) and Lupita Nyong'o (Best Supporting Actress) for 12 Years a Slave, and Barkhad Abdi (Best Supporting Actor) for Captain Phillips.
While white actors and actresses were nominated for playing roles like stock broker, astronaut, patient advocate, pursuer of justice, random white person living hir random white person life, black actors were nominated exclusively for playing enslaved people and a pirate.
That is not to demean, at all, the fine work done by the nominated black actors. It is merely to observe that the type of roles for black actors, especially those likely to garner award nominations, is vastly different from those available to white actors.
On Twitter, Amadi observed:
Welp.
And in a nation where most of these films were made, the US, which has a population that is 17% Hispanic or Latin@, not a single Hispanic or Latin@ actor can be found among the nominees.
In other news, of course Jared Leto was nominated for his portrayal of a transgender woman, because why wouldn't he be. *thatface*
Discuss.
--------------------
UPDATE: On Twitter, Flavia noted that the Razzie Nominations, which purport to nominate the worst films, filmmakers, and actors of the year, seemed to have nominated more people than the Oscars. And, in fact, just in CNN's coverage of the Razzies, there are mentioned four people of color nominated for worst performances: Jaden Smith, Tyler Perry, Halle Berry, and Selena Gomez.
That's one more than the Oscars.
Which is to say nothing of nominations for writing, directing, etc. Worst films include Tyler Perry's latest as well as After Earth, starring & directed by men of color.
UPDATE 2: Michael K has the complete list of Razzie nominations here, and there are even more nominated people of color, including Salma Hayek, Chris Brown, and Will Smith.
Tweet of the Day
If you missed Aaron Bady's piece "Freedom Industry" linked in Monday's Blogaround, I will recommend it again.
See also: Critics Say Spill Highlights Lax West Virginia Regulations.
I am reminded once more of a post Mannion published approximately one hundred years ago, in which he wrote:
Americans have a habit of talking about politics as something apart from the normal doings of our lives. Kind of strange of us, considering that the normal doings of our lives are only possible because of politics. Turning on the tap to get a drink of water is a political act if only because the water flows and is relatively clean because of decisions made by politicians who owe their jobs to political decisions made by us.We often hear admonishments to not "politicize" events like this, but a clean glass of drinkable water is political even when no one is looking.
[Crystal Good's tweet via @SoDevolved.]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War on agency.]
"I would suggest that it is very much the case that those of us in the majority support [the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act"] because it is the morally right thing to do, but it is also very, very true that having a growing population and having new children brought into the world is not harmful to job creation. It very much promotes job creation for all the care and services and so on that need to be provided by a lot of people to raise children."—Republican Virginia Representative Bob Goodlatte, during a House Judiciary Committee session on HR 7, which would "dramatically restrict women's access to affordable abortion care by imposing restrictions on insurance coverage and tax credits for the procedure. ...In reality, denying women autonomy over their reproductive lives is not a wise economic policy."
In addition to Goodlatte being straight-up factually wrong that restricting abortion is wise economic policy and also just being an indecent, autonomy-hostile creep, this is another example of what I call cultural reproductive coercion. He is literally suggesting that women et. al. be compelled to give birth against our wills because it's our patriotic duty.
There can be no meaningful choice when the context of choosing whether to parent is a space in which elected representatives of your government imply that one of the potential choices is traitorous.
Ugghhh
I am tired of reading about how much people love Lena Dunham. And I am tired of reading about how much people hate Lena Dunham.
Just to be abundantly clear: When I say "hate Lena Dunham," I'm not talking about legitimate criticisms of her show Girls, a show with which I have a heapload of criticisms myself. I'm talking about vicious personal trashing.
There's this saying that goes: If you radically polarize people, you're doing something right. But I don't see Lena Dunham doing a lot of stuff right. What I see is a culture that is totally fucking incapable of having a nuanced conversation about anyone from a marginalized population, because we can't stop designating them as avatar for an entire monolithized group of people.
It's Okay to Cry
[Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing.]
Everyone in the multiverse (and thanks to each and every one of you!) has asked me if I've seen this tweet from Gabby Sidibe, responding to people fat-shaming her on the night of the Golden Globes:
I saw it care of my friend Elle soon after Sidibe had tweeted it, and my thoughts were, in order:
1. LOL! I love her!
2. I love recalling all the nasty critics who said she'd never have a career after Precious and thinking about what awful specimens they are. The best revenge is living well indeed.
3. I can't wait to see a bunch of thin people who don't really give a fuck about the harm fat hatred causes fat people reposting this.
Responses to fat hatred like this one are like catnip to people who want to give the illusion of agreeing that fat hatred is A Terrible Thing, but never actually expend any effort on fat advocacy. They love evidence of fat people who don't care, who rise above fat hatred. It's a consoling thought that victimization is down to personal choice and the will to overcome. Fat bootstraps.
That tweet is awesome. Full stop. And it is also something more.
#JK. Just kidding.
Gabby Sidibe, even in her private jet on her way to her dream job, knows that a fat woman can't be too serious about defending herself against fat hatred. Even as she conveys that she doesn't care, she is caring. She is aware that to be unyieldingly strident in rejecting fat hatred is to be marked as angry, oversensitive, unlovable.
To be marked as vulnerable. To show that it's gotten to her.
#JK.
I don't know how Sidibe was feeling in that moment, although I have every reason to believe that she really didn't give a flying fuck what people were saying about her. Survival as a fat woman of color depends on nurturing some ability to process a lot of this shit in a way that it passes through without lasting harm.
I am not remotely a subscriber to the belief that a person who sniffs haughtily in the direction of hatred is masking a secret pain. Sometimes, there is truly nothing to express but contempt.
But I wonder how many thin people who have enthusiastically shared this tweet understand that, even if Sidibe was breathing fire with confident disdain in this moment, she might not feel that way in every moment.
Which matters at least as much as one killer tweet.
And I wonder how many thin people understand the enormous pressure on visible fat women to convey strength and tenacity and resiliency; to model an impervious armor of deflective wit.
And I wonder if they understand how it's so much easier to conform to the expectation of brash indifference to the hatred constantly aimed in our direction than it is to talk about how much it can hurt.
Hurt to admit it, and hurt to have thin people respond with pity disguised as compassion. Who seek to cheer and console us, because they cannot abide the discomfort our pain brings them. Who elide our reality that, even though we may be writing about harm this day, we're writing about something that happens every day. Who don't understand: I'm not in a funk—this is my life, and sometimes it's hard.
#JK.
I don't know if Gabby Sidibe has ever cried because of fat hatred, and I wouldn't presume to speak for her.
I have cried.
There are days when I am breathing fire with confident disdain, and there are days when I cry. Sometimes those days are the same day.
It's okay that Gabby Sidibe wasn't crying. And it would have been okay if she had been.
But I suspect if she said, "This fat hatred hurts. I am crying." that tweet would not have gone 'round the world. Because we are prepared to deal with evidence of fat people not being harmed by hatred, and not with evidence of fat people being harmed by it.
Which puts fat women especially in a position where the only acceptable response to hatred is to say it doesn't matter.
#JK.
Gabby Sidibe's tweet was important and empowering to me as a fat woman. I want thin people who want to act as my ally to understand that her tweet is, genuinely and profoundly, awesome. But it also doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia has some important blogging to do.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by stardust.
Recommended Reading:
Deeky: Taking the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test
Renee: Living Tiny and how Small Changes Mean Big Things
Kyler: [Content Note: Homophobia] Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Signals Support for Anti-Gay Amendment, Will Speak to Hate Group
BYP: [CN: Violence; racism; sexual assault; police bruality] 16-year-old Suffered Serious Injuries During Stop-and-Frisk, Arrest
Matt: [CN: Misogyny; harassment; sexual violence] This Guy Couldn't Last Longer Than 2 Hours as a Woman on OkCupid
Edna: [CN: Racism; misogyny] Racial/Gender Homogeneity in Corporate Board Leadership
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism; yellowface] What's up with the Yellowface on How I Met Your Mother?
Monica: [CN: Trans* bias; appropriation] Jared, Those Trans Women Are the Reason You Have a Golden Globe Award
Mannion: Political Fiction 101
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
My Obesity Came from the Andromeda Galaxy!
[Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing; privilege; dehumanization.]
"Where Does Obesity Come From?" wonders Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.
Such a perfect question, and a terrific complement to all those articles wondering where thinness comes from, amirite? Ha ha whooooooops those don't exist!
This article is terrible for a whole lot of reasons, starting with the headless fatty image at the top of the post. It's a ubiquitous image, the headless fatty, and it's an unintentionally ideal image to accompany the vast number of articles that discuss "obesity" as as abstract thing that exists in the world as a problem to be solved.
A dehumanizing picture of "obesity," rather than the image of a sentient, consenting, identifiable fat person, alongside a discussion of "obesity," rendered asunder from fat people. As if our fat exists separately from our humanity. As if our bodies are somehow separate from the consciousnesses that inhabit them.
But perhaps the worst thing about this piece is its author's insistence on attributing to "obesity" what is actually attributable to prejudice against fat people.
If there is there is a close relationship between weight and poverty, it is strongest among women, from the peak of the 1 percent to below the poverty line. At the top, corporate boards appear severely biased against larger women in a way they don't discriminate against larger men. Cawley's research found that obesity lowers wages for all workers but particularly for white women. Women who are two standard deviations from normal weight (64 pounds for the typical woman) earn 9 percent less, he writes. Obese women are half as likely to attend college, 20 percent less likely to get married, and seven times more likely to experience illness, depression, or death from being overweight.None, not one, of those things are the result of simply existing as fat, as opposed to existing as fat in a profoundly fat-hating culture.
If (disproportionately male) corporate boards are biased against fat women, that is the result of the members of those corporate boards' prejudice against fat women.
If fat women (of any race) are subjected to lower wages, that is the result of prejudice against fat women.
If fat women are less likely to attend college, perhaps that's because expressed bias against fat women starts early and because school is a terrible experience for lots of fat girls.
If fat women are less likely to get married, perhaps that's because the pool of available partners who neither view us as someone to exploit by virtue of presumed low self-esteem nor fetishize our bodies is small, and we would prefer to be alone than married to a creep.
If fat women are more likely to experience depression, perhaps that's because we spend our lives navigating a world that admonishes us to hate ourselves and upholds eliminationist campaigns against us.
If fat women are more likely to be ill or to die, perhaps that's because we experience profound discrimination in healthcare.
These are not issues whose origins are in "obesity." These are prejudices whose origins are in fat hatred. The fact that the same discrimination is not leveled against fat men is evidence that it's not strictly about being fat.
A better question would be: "Where Does Fat Hatred Come From?" But of course that sort of article might inadvertently concede that fat people have a right to be fat, and a right to be treated like human beings, even despite our failure to conform to the aesthetic requirements of the privileged.
[Related Reading: Proposed.]
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today.
[Content Note: Guns; violence] There was another school shooting in New Mexico yesterday, during which a 12-year-old boy "pulled a sawed-off shotgun from a bag and opened fire" on his classmates. He seriously wounded two students, one of whom is still in critical condition, before social studies teacher John Masterson talked the shooter into putting down his weapon. I honestly don't even know what to say anymore.
[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Today, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in McCullen v. Coakley, a case about buffer zones about reproductive health clinics meant to ensure patient and staff safety from anti-choice demonstrators and terrorists. The case is a challenge to Massachusetts' buffer zone law, "brought by seven Massachusetts anti-abortion protesters, who...say the buffer zone is unconstitutional and violates their right to free speech." Buffer zones decrease violence and harassment and increase patient and staff safety. Tara Culp-Ressler has more on why abortion clinics need buffer zones.
[CN: Racism; harassment] Marissa Alexander will be allowed to remain free on bail, after Florida State Attorney Angela Corey (currently one of my least favorite people on the planet) alleged Alexander violated the conditions of her release, despite the fact that Alexander's corrections officer "had authorized and given Marissa Alexander permission for each of the trips and stops alleged by the State to be willful violations of Marissa Alexander's bond."
I love this headline: "Scientists find ridiculously huge canyon beneath Antarctic ice." The canyon is "about two miles deep and 25 miles wide, in places, nearly twice the size of the Grand Canyon." Yowza!
The ACLU has more on yesterday's net neutrality ruling.
Did you like the film Avatar? I was not a fan myself! But if you liked it, I bet you will be pretty excited about this news: "Sam Worthington & Zoe Saldana Returning for 3 More Avatar Sequels." That is a lot of sequels!
The Republican Healthcare Plan
Republicans think people aren't entitled to food—but ARE entitled to very expensive campaigns against the Affordable Care Act:
Since September, Americans for Prosperity, a group financed in part by the billionaire Koch brothers, has spent an estimated $20 million on television advertising that calls out House and Senate Democrats by name for their support of the Affordable Care Act.What if the millions and millions of dollars that conservatives are spending to defeat Democrats who support the Affordable Care Act were instead poured into charitable organizations that cover healthcare for uninsured people? I mean, that's the conservative principle, right? Charity should fill in the gaps, not government.
...Building on the success, the deep-pocketed organization disclosed on Tuesday that it was expanding its Senate efforts with $1.8 million in airtime to attack Democratic House members running for the Senate in Iowa and Michigan, where Democrats are viewed as holding an early advantage. The group was also moving into Montana, a state where Democrats may struggle to defend a seat, on behalf of a Republican House member running for the Senate.
...The group has poured millions of dollars — amounts more typically spent during the closing stages of Senate races — into attacks on the health care stances of Democratic senators such as Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
Ha ha just kidding. They don't have any real principles. They only have talking points about charitable giving in communities while they scream "BOOTSTRAPS!" directly into the face of anyone who actually needs help.
They'd rather spend millions of dollars defeating Democrats using healthcare as a wedge issue than actually providing healthcare to anyone.
The Republican Healthcare Plan remains and will forever be FOAD.
"He was a friend to everyone. I don’t care who you were."
[Content Note: Police brutality; guns; violence; racism.]
The family of Jonathan Ferrell, the North Carolina man who was fatally shot ten times by a police officer after Ferrell crashed his car and sought help at a local residence, has filed a wrongful death suit against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Randall Kerrick, Police Chief Rodney Monroe, the city of Charlotte, and the county.
The family of Jonathon Ferrell said autopsy results, showing a downward trajectory by most of the bullets, suggest that Ferrell was either on his knees or already on the ground when Officer Randall Kerrick fired most of his shots.There is always a lot of victim-blaming in cases like this. First Ferrell's family had to watch their loved one be blamed for his own death, with shit like "he should have complied with police instruction," even though there's every indication that he did. And now they will have to weather accusations that they are seeking to "get rich" from their loved one's murder, even though this lawsuit is the only potential avenue for full accountability for the crime.
They say Ferrell never posed a threat to Kerrick or the two officers who showed up with him after a woman called 911.
"This was a murderer who was acting while on duty. Taxpayers were paying him, and he murdered someone," Christopher Chestnut, a lawyer for the family, told NBC News. "We all deserve answers. The department needs answers."
...It seeks monetary damages, but Chestnut said another goal was to use subpoena power to force police to turn over records that have been withheld from the family. That includes police dash-cam video of the Sept. 14 confrontation, which has not been made public.
And why should they not seek damages for their incredible loss, anyway? They deserve compensation as much as they deserve justice.
"If he met you only once, you would love him forever," said his mother, Georgia. "He was a friend to everyone. I don't care who you were. He didn't care about color, creed. He didn't care if you had a bad attitude — he'd love you anyway."The officer who killed Ferrell has been charged with voluntary manslaughter. In the meantime, he is on unpaid leave, but has not been fired.
...[His family] said the pace of the [criminal] investigation has been agonizing.
Georgia Ferrell said she hopes the civil suit might push the criminal case forward. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, she clutched a Winnie the Pooh toy that she said her son treasured all his life, and she talked about what she missed.
"Just to hear his voice," she said. "When he would see me, he would embrace me so tight. So much love that I would have to say, 'Jon, let go.'"
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Merkohl: "What topic or subject do you like so much, you often find yourself SO EXCITED to share about it with other folks, and you are EVEN MORE EXCITED if it organically comes up in conversation and gives you an excuse, rather than you deciding to offer it as a topic for discussion? And, "Nothing gets me THAT excited" is a perfectly understandable and reasonable answer. :)"
I love this question!
For me, it tends to be subjects about which I'm learning, new ideas or experiences I've just recently had for the first time, or something that is in some way new to me. So, a never-ending series of topics, rather than one constant.
Photo of the Day
A sleepy polar bear nestles down on a rocky hill for the night under the looming full moon in Northern Svalbard archipelago, Norway. [Marco Gaiotti/HotSpot Media/Via]Love.
District Judge Rules Oklahoma's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Unconstitutional
US Senior District Judge Terence Kern's ruling is stayed pending appeal, which means that marriage licenses will not start being issued right away, but...the dominoes, they are falling!
The two couples who were plaintiffs in this case, Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin, and Gay Phillips and Susan Barton, filed their case in November 2004. This ruling was a long time coming. Let us hope the inevitable appeal upholds Judge Kern's decision!
"Life Is Better with You"
When I got my second tattoo, a thistle with a bee hovering hear it, I gave explicit instructions to the artist that the bee could not be touching the thistle. "They are two unique creatures," I explained, "with a complementary relationship but individual lives." The thistle, you see, is the flower of Scotland, which is Iain's home country, and "Melissa" is Greek for honey bee. It is about us, and I wanted it to represent what our relationship is. We complement each other; we don't complete each other.
It is hard to find odes to romantic love that feel like they reflect how I view our partnership, our entwined lives. Lyrical verses that speak of being "one," that talk about destiny and eternity with the certitude of permanence, that imagine love to be about deliverance or imagine there to be a love that is perfect, don't resonate with me. I long for love songs that feel like love feels to me.
So, it was with abundant joy I listened to a song on the radio, played on a local college station, during my drive to Detroit for the Forging Justice conference—a song that seemed to perfectly capture what I feel about Iain. By the time I'd reached my destination, all but one line of the chorus had fallen out of my head: These days, life is better with you.
When I got home, I searched high and low for it online, but I couldn't find it. I asked friends who have strong Google skillz, and friends who are reliably informed about new music, if they could help me find the song. They looked, and came up empty.
Last night, I was responding to email, with the TV on in the background, when I heard the song again—this time in a commercial, for what I don't even remember. I excitedly held up my phone to identify the track. Michael Franti & Spearhead. "Life is Better with You." I found it on YouTube, and discovered that the video had not been posted until three months after the conference. I had looked too soon.
The video is as lovely as the song, featuring a variety of people of different races, genders, sexualities, ages, and sizes; people who parent and don't; people are married and aren't; individuals, couples, and threesomes; living life, dancing, hugging, kissing. All against the backdrop of the beautiful words set to an upbeat tempo: I'm not afraid to be alone / But being alone is better with you / Life is better with you / Some days are better than other days / But these days, life is better with you.
Anyway. I thought some of you might enjoy it, too. So here it is.
[Complete lyrics here.]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny; heterocentrism; gender essentialism.]
"Women are racing all the time to try to have a perfect house and perfect kids and be a perfect cook. Men, somehow, for whatever reason, seem to be better able to pick and choose, to focus on things they like and that are important to them, and let the other things go."—Debora Spar, president of Barnard College, quoted in an article titled: "Juggling act: Why are women still trying to do it all?"
Ha ha FOR WHATEVER REASON. Who knows what that reason could be?! It's a mystery lost to the sands of time.
Runner-up for best quote from this article goes to the also-quoted Pamela Smock, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan: "[Women are] going to have to somehow get their husbands to do more. Come at the conversation with this kind of information. Don't come at it in anger. Talk about what they need to do as partners for the long-term." Try baking them cookies, and serving those cookies while you ask your husband to please not treat you like a servant!
[Note: I suspect, by the way, that Debora Spar and Pamela Smock are way more clued in than these quotes suggest, and that they have been quoted in a way that justifies being able to write an article about these issues in a way that fails to task men with any responsibility for them.]
WOWOWOWOW
Via Shaker Alison, here is video of 19-year-old US figure skater Jason Brown's long program at the National Championships, which earned him a second-place finish and a trip to the Winter Olympics. Says Alison (whom I am quoting with permission): "THAT VIDEO. Holy. Fucking. Fuck. I now believe in angels, magic, unicorns, and I'm pretty sure that dude can divide by zero if he wanted to." LOL!
I have no ability to do a meaningful transcript of this video, since I love ice skating but have NO IDEA what any of the jumps or moves are called, so here is my best attempt at conveying the wonderfulness that is this video: Jason Brown, a thin white teenage boy with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a sparkly green shirt, black slacks, and grey skates, hugs his white female coach on the side of the rink before taking the ice. They squeeze hands and he skates out gracefully onto the ice to the sound of cheers.
A male commentator notes that Brown doesn't have a quad jump in his routine, but he has a great ability to connect with the audience, "and, by extension, the judges."
Brown takes position and waits for his music, which is Irish stepdance folk music, to start. He raises his arms, and spins slowly. Swoosh. Spin. Backwards skating with flowy arms to pick up speed. Side splits! Double spinny jump! Backwards with flowy arms. Triple spinny jump! Another spinny jump! T-spin. Another t-spin. Grabby skate over head! Tra-la-la across the ice. BIG SPINNY JUMP! T-spin. Grabby skate behind back. T-spin jump crouch-spin combination!
The music picks up, and now comes the sass! Little skippy footwork. Bippity-bop. Tra-la-la. Kickity-kick the skatey feet! The audience claps in rhythm with the music. Shruggy arms sideways. Kicky spins! Ice cartwheel! Backwards with flowy arms. Shimmy hips! DOUBLE SPINNY JUMP! The audience roars.
Fast skating now. Air splits! Ta-daaaa arms! Another double spinny jump! He is landing all of the spinny jumps perfectly! Cheers! Big wide spin while reaching down to touch the ice. I OWN THIS ICE! Spinny jump. Backwards with flowy arms. Skating SO CLOSE to the wall! Side splits! Spinny jump! Cheeky hop. Arms-up spin. Shimmy hips! Backwards kicks. Hoppity-hop. Skate skate skate.
Here comes the big finish! The audience claps and cheers. Flowy arms. Shimmy hips. Spinny jump! Launching air split jumpy thing! T-spin! Crouch-spin! T-spin! Crouch-spin! ALL KINDS OF SPINS! Kickity-kick AND POSE! The end! Standing ovation!
Roses rain down onto the ice. Brown looks so happy, and he waves at the crowd and bows. He hugs his coach as he leaves the ice, and they wait for the scores to come in. THEY ARE AMAZING SCORES! 182.61. Brown squints at the monitor and looks thrilled and overwhelmed. He hugs his coach. They cut to the competitor he just knocked out of second, who applauds and grins and gives the thumbs-up. Brown mouths "thank-you" and waves to the crowd with a big grin on his face. He covers his face with his hands, still smiling.
Daily Dose of Cute
This face.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Erick Munoz Sues to Take Marlise Munoz off Life Support, as She Wanted
[Content Note: War on agency; misogyny; end-of-life decisions]
Last month, I mentioned the case of Marlise Munoz, a Texas woman who is currently brain dead and being kept alive by a ventilator, against her stated wishes, because she is pregnant, and Texas law "prohibits withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient, regardless of her wishes."
Marlise's husband, Erick Munoz, is now suing the hospital, but of course John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth has responded by saying it's complying with state law. Experts, however, "familiar with the Texas law say the hospital is incorrectly applying the statute because Munoz would be considered legally and medically dead."
Marlise Munoz's body is literally just an incubator being artificially kept "alive" against her and her family's wishes.
Erick Munoz has said a doctor told him his wife is considered brain-dead. Munoz says that he and his wife are both paramedics and are very familiar with end-of-life issues. He says his wife had made her wishes clear to him that she would not want life support in this kind of situation. Marlise Munoz's parents agree.There are people who protest when I say, again and again, that fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them. But here it is.
[H/T to Dr. Jane Chi.]
Appeals Court Strikes Down Net Neutrality
On Tuesday, a Washington appeals court ruled that the FCC's net neutrality rules are invalid in an 81-page document that included talk about cat videos on YouTube. To cut to the chase, the court says the FCC simply doesn't have the authority to force Internet Service Providers to act like mere dumb pipes, passing data through their tubes with a blind eye and sans preferential treatment.The issue isn't over. The FCC is already promising to "consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans," and interested groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation will certainly pursue challenges to this ruling. But this isn't good news.
Unlike phone companies, broadband providers aren't classified as "common carriers"—and therein lies the root of the appeal court's decision. From the ruling [pdf]:
"Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order."The decision holds tremendous portent for the future of the Internet.
Net neutrality advocates fear that without rules in place, big companies like Netflix, Disney, and ESPN could gain advantage over competitors by paying ISPs to provide preferential treatment to their company's data. For example, YouTube might pay extra so that its videos load faster than Hulu's on the ISP's network.
We've already seen shades of What Could Happen in AT&T's Sponsored Data and Comcast's decision to have the Xfinity TV streaming app for the Xbox 360 not count against Comcast subscribers' data caps.
"We're disappointed that the court came to this conclusion," Craig Aaron, president and CEO of digital rights group Free Press, said in a statement. "Its ruling means that Internet users will be pitted against the biggest phone and cable companies—and in the absence of any oversight, these companies can now block and discriminate against their customers' communications at will."
It's also further evidence that the US court system is disinterested in mitigating privilege, and very interested indeed in servicing corporate interests above all.
Net Neutrality is an access issue. Who has access to information, and what kinds of information. One of the most dangerous potential outcomes of subverting net neutrality is that media with the broadest potential audience—i.e. kyriarchy-upholding garbage, which makes money hand over fist—will be the most cheaply accessible, while specialized media—i.e. kyriarchy-challenging material, which struggles to turn a profit—will be the most expensive, since media producers invested in social justice don't tend to get rich from their work.
Because Big Media doesn't have enough of an advantage already. Cripes.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
Lawmakers unveil massive $1.1 trillion spending bill in bipartisan compromise: "Congressional negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion funding bill late Monday that would ease sharp spending cuts known as the sequester while providing fresh cash for new priorities, including President Obama's push to expand early-childhood education. ...Despite the increases, the bill would leave agency budgets tens of billions of dollars lower than Obama had requested and congressional Democrats had sought. That represents a victory for congressional Republicans, who, after three years of fevered battles over the budget, have succeeded in rolling back agency appropriations to a level on par with the final years of the George W. Bush administration, before spending skyrocketed in an effort to combat the recession. ...'Compared to the sequester, this is obviously a big improvement. But compared to investments we should be making, it falls far short,' said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. The measure proves, he said, that 'this notion that the federal government is on a spending binge is just nonsense.'"
[Content Note: War on agency] The US Supreme Court has declined to rule on Horne v. Isaacson, a case out of Arizona which would have been a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. "Horne v. Isaacson is a legal challenge to an Arizona law that bans abortions 20 weeks after a woman's last menstrual period. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May that the law was unconstitutional and permanently blocked its enforcement." With the Supreme Court declining the review the Ninth's ruling, the ruling will stand. Good news.
[CN: Guns; violence] A retired police officer is in custody after he shot and killed another man at a movie theater because "the victim was using his cellphone, he was texting, he was making a lot of noise." Fucking hell.
Congratulations to Democratic New York Representative Sean Patrick Maloney and his partner Randy Florke, who will soon be married after getting engaged on Christmas Day. Yay!
[CN: Detention; torture] On the 12th anniversary of the US government first taking prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, after twelve long years of "indefinite detention without formal charge or trial, the use of torture and other abusive treatment, and unlawful and inherently unfair military commission proceedings," 155 men are still counting the days at Gitmo.
[CN: Sexual violence] Another terrific story about service dogs helping children testify in a rape trial: "A Summit County judge on Monday cleared two girls to testify against a man accused of rape. The younger girl, who is 7, also was afforded an unprecedented means of help. A specially trained dog, Avery II, who was brought in to serve the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office last summer in cases in which a victim has been emotionally traumatized, accompanied the girl into court. Avery sat at the girl's feet inside the paneled witness box throughout her pretrial testimony to the judge before the jury entered the court." Blub.
Do you want to see Mitt Romney try to dance "Gangnam Style"? Who doesn't, right?
NYT Public Editor Responds to Keller Column
[Content Note: Choice policing; terminal illness; disablism; privilege.]
Yesterday, I wrote about Bill Keller's column in the New York Times, in which he trolled Lisa Bonchek Adams' choice to blog her life with cancer, getting a bunch of facts wrong and using language LBA finds deeply objectionable in the process.
The Times' public editor, Margaret Sullivan, has now responded to the widespread criticism, under the terrific headline: "Readers Lash Out About Bill Keller's Column on a Woman With Cancer."
I just can't decide what I like most about that headline. Is it (mis)characterizing criticism as "lashing out," or is it naming Bill Keller while failing to name his target, Lisa Bonchek Adams? Let's call it a tie!
Sullivan's response is pretty weak sauce, which is par for the public editor's course, but there are a couple things worth comment in the quotes from Keller she chose to share:
Some of the reaction (especially on Twitter, which as a medium encourages reflexes rather than reflection) has been raw, and some (especially in comments posted to the article online, where there is space for nuance) has been thoughtful and valuable.It used to be that bloggers got all the guff from public commentators who didn't like criticism. And bloggers still get a lot, though it's increasingly more difficult to universally malign bloggers when so many Important People get paid to write blogs now. But Twitter has replaced "blogs" as THE WORST EVER.
It's funny, isn't it, that the most visible medium that costs exactly nothing to use and maintain, provided one has at minimum a phone with a data plan, is terrible. Reactionary. Reflexive. Coarse. Leave it Keller and his cohorts to be dismissive of and hostile toward a medium that is not only an equalizer in many ways (though privilege plays out on Twitter, too), but also values many voices without fancy credentials and mainstream media access above the likes of Bill Keller.
Every time I hear some blowhard being criticized talk about how s/he needn't bother listening to the rabble on Twitter, all I can think is: Well, I'd be happy to respond to you in the New York Times, if they want to give me the space.
Then, having dismissed many of his critics, Keller defends the nature of the piece while addressing the dueling pieces he penned with his wife:
I don't think either of the Keller pieces was a "slam" of Lisa Adams or her choices.Of course not. This is the same defense we hear from everyone who takes to the pages of a major media outlet to police other people's choices. I wasn't slamming anyone, oh heavens no! I was just musing about their choices. After all, they invited us to muse about their choices by making them publicly!
And this garbage defense will keep getting trotted out like clockwork until we stop tolerating the misrepresentation of auditing other people's personal choices in public forums as "debate," and the bullshit narrative that visibility is an invitation for scrutiny and judgment.
