Hosted by a bluejay.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
(See what I did there?)
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Welp
Putin Halts All Talks with White House:
Since the invasion of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have had regular phone calls in an often half-hearted attempt to deescalate the ongoing crisis inside Ukraine. But as the U.S. and EU prepare to unveil new sanctions against Russia, Putin has decided the interactions should stop. The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. The move signals an end to the diplomacy, for now.I don't even know what to say. I'm just watching this unfold with wide eyes.
"Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure," said Igor Yurgens, Chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Development, a prominent Moscow think tank, and a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. "It does not mean forever."
...On Friday, Kerry warned that new round of American financial assaults on Russia were on the way. "We are putting in more sanctions, they will probably come Monday at the latest," he said in a private meeting in Washington, according to an attendee. Russian businesses and individuals close to Putin would be on the sanctions list, he added.
Diplomatic sources close to the process confirmed that Putin is not interested in speaking with Obama again in the current environment. The two leaders might talk again in the future but neither side is reaching out for direct interaction, as they had been doing since the Ukraine crisis began. The failure of the agreement struck last week in Geneva between the contact group of the U.S., EU, Russia, and Ukraine has made further direct Washington-Moscow interactions moot.
...That leaves the channel between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as the only semi-functioning high-level diplomatic channel between Washington and Moscow. But even that often-frosty relationship has further chilled as the two sides hurled insults and accusations this week.
Important Jem & the Holograms News
Last month, I shared the news that Jem and the Holograms was getting its own live-action film, and said I hoped that Aja, Shana, and Carmen would not be whitewashed. So, the film has now been cast, and the good news is that Aja and Shana have not been whitewashed.
Aubrey Peeples, best known for a role on TV's Nashville, will play Jem. Disney star Stefanie Scott is Jem's sister Kimber, Aurora Perrineau (Pretty Little Liars) is Shana and Hayley Kiyoko (Lemonade Mouth) is Aja.
Jon M. Chu is directing from a script by Ryan Landels. The director posted a photo of the full Jem and the Holograms movie cast, which you can check out below.
It's still not set in the '80s, though! But I'll take it.
Discuss.
The Jury Is Still Out on Climate Change
[Content Note: Climate change; fat bias.]
Here are two things I read today:
1. Drought Now Covers Every Last Inch of California: "According to the April 22 release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, every last inch of California is in a state of 'moderate' to 'exceptional' drought—the first time in the monitor's 15-year history that's occurred. Indeed, the vast majority of California's territory is now either at 'extreme' or 'exceptional,' which are the two most severe levels."
2. The First Week of May Will Be Decidedly Un-Springlike for Much of the Country:
A significant multi-day severe weather outbreak is looking increasingly likely for this weekend. The powerful low pressure system associated with those storms will push temperatures up into the 80s (or even 90s) across much of the south until Monday or Tuesday.If we have snow next week, I am going to— I'm gonna— well, there's nothing I can really do about it, so I'm prolly gonna do this!
After the storm system slowly moves through, blocked in place by an impressive blob of high pressure over Canada, a sharp north-to-south elongation of the jet stream will usher in some seriously frigid weather. The first week of May is looking decidedly unspringlike, especially for the Gulf Coast. Low temperatures on May 1st could be in the 30s from Dallas to Birmingham—challenging hundred-year-old record lows—with cold weather of nearly that magnitude spreading to the East Coast by next weekend.
There's even a (slim) chance of snow as far south as St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and Boston next week. There hasn't been measurable snowfall in St. Louis in May since 1929.
[Video clip from Pretty in Pink of Duckie, having just tried unsuccessfully to beat up Blaine, bouncing off a locker and then running down the hall, tearing down a prom banner.]
Rrrwahh!
Meanwhile, this article about #1 climate change activist Al Gore starts out with an observation about how much weight he's lost: "Al Gore is richer and skinnier than ever." I'm sure that's definitely what Al Gore was hoping would be the lede of an article which later describes him as "steamed...about the lack of clear progress in combating global warming, a failure that clearly eats at him."
Daily Dose of Cute
Cat nap.
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 is brought to you by naps.
Recommended Reading:
Save Wįyąbi Project: [Content Note: Rape culture; racism] #DecolonizeSAAM Week 4: Anti-Blackness
Health At Every Size® Blog: [CN: Fat bias; discussion of intersectional oppression] HAES® Matters: Understanding the New HAES Principles
Jes: [CN: Fat bias; body policing; disordered eating] Six Things That I Understand about the Fat Acceptance Movement
BYP: [CN: Racism; misogyny] Study: Faculty Members More Likely to Respond to White Males
The Mary Sue Staff: [CN: Sexual violence; other forms of violence] A Frank Discussion of Game of Thrones's Rape Scene and Its Epidemic of Sexual Violence
Prison Culture: [CN: Carcerality] Data Visualization: Rise of U.S. Incarceration 1978-2012
Dayvoe: The Right Wing Web. Again.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Here Is Just a Great Video of a Man Finding Out That's He's Going to Be a Grandpa
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww blub!
An older white man with a mustache, wearing a blue Cubs jacket, sits in a booth at a restaurant. He opens a little package and pulls out a pacifier with a note attached. At first he doesn't notice the note.Congratulations to the whole family and best wishes for an uneventful pregnancy and safe birth!
He laughs. (He has a great laugh.) "This looks like something you used to suck on when you was little," he says.
"Yeah?" says his daughter, from behind the camera. "You should probably read it."
He reads the note, which is a note from his only daughter, 20 years after her mother and his wife died, informing him that he's going to be a grandfather. His eyes widen and his entire face lights up. He laughs. "All right!" His daughter and (presumably) her male partner laugh.
He reads the note again, cradling the pacifier in his hands, then clutches it to his chest and smiles. "Really?" he asks excitedly.
They laugh. "Yeah!" says his daughter.
"Aw!" he says. He looks down at the pacifier cradled in his hands. His eyes well up. He clutches it to his chest again, grinning. His daughter laughs happily as he wipes away tears.
"Told you he was gonna cry," she says, though joyful laughter. He cries. "I'm ten weeks," she says. He puts his hand to his mouth and looks at her.
[Via Marisa.]
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Queen & David Bowie: "Under Pressure (Classic Queen Mix)"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by David Bowie,
possibly the coolest human being on the planet.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
A judge has struck down as unconstitutional Arkansas' voter ID law. Good.
[Content Note: Racism] Not good: A federal judge in Atlanta has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Teresa Ann Culpepper against Atlanta police and Fulton County officials after she was wrongfully arrested and held in jail for 53 days, "because she had the same first name as another woman wanted by authorities in an aggravated assault case." Even though, at the time of her arrest, Culpepper, a black woman, "provided officers with her driver's license that showed she did not have the same name and was not the same age as the real suspect" and showed that she "did not have a gold tooth that police were told the real suspect had," Culpepper was taken in custody, charged, and was only "cleared of the felony charges weeks later when the victim in the case saw Culpepper in court and said she was not the person who committed the crime—yet Culpepper was returned to jail and remained there for several more days before being released." Just a big misunderstanding, apparently, as a result of which none of the authorities must face consequences. Bullshit.
[CN: Guns; violence; police brutality; racism] Explicitly being called a "misunderstanding" by police is the shooting of Philippe Holland, a 20-year-old black man who was delivering pizzas when he was stopped by plainclothes police. Deputy Police Commissioner Richard Ross says: "As I understand it, they asked the male to stop. The male, in quick fashion, got in his car and he drove at a high rate of speed towards the officers. The officers then discharged out of fear for their lives. ...We are getting information that he is a pizza deliveryman, so it is a possibility he may have thought he was being robbed. We do know the police officers announced themselves as police officers; he may not have heard that. Again, what I stress is this is all preliminary at this point. It may just be an unfortunate set of circumstances all the way around." Holland is in critical condition. You may note that the police version of events sounds a lot like other stories we've discussed in this space, the contentions that Holland "drove at a high rate of speed toward the officers" and that the officers "feared for their lives." What's missing from this account, also familiarly, is any justification for why police were approaching Holland in the first place.
[CN: Police harassment; sex work shaming] In Louisiana, the House is considering legislation that would ban panhandling and solicitation, and the Democratic legislator who introduced it is unapologetic about his intent to empower police to harass sex workers: "New Orleans lawmaker Rep. Austin Badon said his legislation could cut down on the number residents begging motorists for money, but he proposed the bill for another reason. Badon said House Bill 1158, which prohibits solicitation, was answer to a call by law enforcement groups to help them crack down on prostitution. 'They needed something to be able to stop (prostitutes), question them and find out what they're doing,' said Badon... The legislation would allow for prostitutes to be 'hassled by the cops,' he said, likely prompting them to move on to another place or another state." Jesus Jones.
[CN: War on agency] This is what happens when you restrict access to abortion. Spoiler Alert: It doesn't stop abortions.
[CN: Rape culture] Fucking hell: "Penn State removed an iconic statue of late coach Joe Paterno from outside Beaver Stadium in 2012. Now State College residents are planning a new statue to honor the former Nittany Lions coach." Of course they are.
Baby zonkey. I repeat: Baby zonkey.
234 Girls
[Content Note: Terrorism; abduction; violence.]
On April 14, there was a major terrorist attack on a Nigerian bus station, killing 75 people and injuring many more. The jihadist organization Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bombing, and, later that same day, Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, abducted 234 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.
The girls are still missing.
And as the search for them continues, Boko Haram are threatening "to kill the abducted students, should the search to recover them continue."
At the Guardian, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani describes the mood in Nigeria:
More than a week since they disappeared, the girls' whereabouts are still unknown. About 44 escaped by jumping from the back of trucks used to ferry them away or by sneaking out of the kidnappers' camp deep inside the Sambisa forest. This latest tragedy has dominated national conversation and consumed columns in our newspapers. At Christian and Muslim gatherings prayers have been offered for the girls' safety.The international media has not given the attention to this story that it deserves and needs, the kind of attention that creates pressure to make things happen and get questions answered.
In the days since they went missing, almost every friend or colleague I have spoken to on the phone has devoted the first minutes of our chat to expressing their horror at the abduction. Despite what one would imagine is the bottomless capacity of Nigerians to absorb catastrophe – what with the series of carnages that have steadily erupted in the country over the past year, at least – people here seem particularly affected.
Perhaps it is the audacity with which the crime was perpetrated, the innocence of the victims, or horror at what the children might be going through wherever they might be – Boko Haram has abducted women and girls in the past to serve as sex slaves and chars.
The Nigerian military interrupted the national mood of grief when its spokesperson announced two days after the incident that the missing girls had been rescued. But national jubilation quickly deflated when the school's principal and the students' parents revealed the story to be false. Now our collective horror at the abductions is almost equaled by our revulsion at the military's brazen deceit. What on earth could they have been thinking?
Additional claims by some of the parents have led to more criticism of the military. Fathers and mothers, who in desperation marched into the Sambisa forest to search for their missing daughters, say they saw no trace of military presence in the area; no sign of any search and rescue operation. Some of these parents have now hired motorcycles to help their search.
Beyond grief, many Nigerians are also bewildered by the abductions. How many trucks were required to transfer well in excess of 200 girls? Was the convoy not spotted by anyone as it left the school? Were there no security agents along the route?
Right now, it's crucial to amplify this story, to actively care about the missing girls. It is the best thing we can do in the hope that they will be found and make their way home. Share this story; talk about what's happening; if you're on Twitter, follow and participate in the hashtags #helpthegirls and #bringbackourdaughters.
UPDATE: Here is a petition to "bring this situation to the notice of the UN, UNWomen, UNIFEM, and other international organization that can put significant pressure on the Nigerian Government. These 234 girls need to be found and returned to the safety of their families and homes."
Parks & Rec: WHUT.
[Content Note: Bullying. Spoilers for last night's season finale of Parks & Rec.]
Even though I'm not regularly recapping Parks & Rec anymore, I thought that we might want a thread to discuss last night's really weird season finale. Which felt like a series finale, but was not. Because there's at least one more season.
So here's a thread to talk about it. And here is an interview [CN: disablist language] with the show's executive producer Michael Schur, which answers a lot of questions about the episode and the show's future.
The only thing I will note here (though I'll join the discussion in comments) is that my eyes nearly rolled right out of my fucking head when I heard Gary (aka Jerry) (aka Larry) being called Terry in the future. Jesus Jones.
Have at it!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker jenjay: "What word have you picked up recently, intentionally or unintentionally, that you find yourself using a lot?"
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Blah blah republicans blah blah women blah blah misogyny blah blah fart:
"Men, by and large, make more because of some of the things they do," [New Hampshire] state Rep. Will Infantine (R) said during a speech on a paycheck fairness bill. "Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don't mind working nights and weekends. They don't mind working overtime or outdoors."Provided Infantine's stats are actually accurate, and I've no idea whether they are, it's specious to suggest that women (all of us! the whole monolith!) object to working nights and weekends, as opposed to not being able to, either because we're not given the opportunities or because we are primary child- or eldercare providers or a number of other reasons.
Infantine's colleagues protested almost immediately, to which he responded that he pulled all of his information from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
"This is not me," he said before continuing to explain why women make less.
"Men work on average more than six hours a week longer than women do," he said, adding that even among business owners, women earn less. "Women make half of what men do because of flexibility of work, men are more motivated by money than women are."
At the end of his speech, Infantine defended himself one last time.
"Guys, I'm not making this stuff up," he said. "My apologies if I have some people upset."
Many men are able to work more hours than women because they have wives or mothers or girlfriends who are providing the childcare and housekeeping and food preparation (for many more than six hours a week), whereas a majority of working women don't have a partner or family member who does as much or more family and home maintenance as they do.
The same is true whether women are employees, self-employed, or business owners.
That ain't about being "motivated by money." It's about necessity.
Which is not to erase the number of women who are, for whatever reason, not keen to work as much as they could possibly work and have other priorities. Those women certainly exist. But their choices to opt-out of MAXIMUM WORKITUDE do not account for the pay gap.
This Is So Weird
Mount Baldy is the largest "living" dune at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, at about 125 feet tall. It has, for decades, been a major attraction of the national park, but, in recent years, it's started moving inland at an increased pace and has developed inexplicable holes.
Officials at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore announced Thursday that scientists still do not know what caused holes to appear in Mount Baldy last summer, and the popular attraction will remain closed for further study.What's causing the holes?!
Nathan Woessner, 6, of Sterling, Ill., was swallowed up by a hole on July 12, 2013, and rescued by firefighters.
Two additional holes have appeared since last July, park officials said on Thursday.
Ground penetrating radar studies performed by the Environmental Protection Agency have identified a large number of anomalies below the dune's surface, but scientists from the National Park Service, Indiana University and the Indiana Geological Survey still do not know how these holes were formed.
...The two additional holes and a number of depressions have been found since July. Officials said report that the holes are short-lived, remaining open for less than 24 hours before collapsing and filling in naturally with surrounding sand.
Officials at the National Lakeshore on Thursday announced more testing will be conducting this summer, which will include mapping of openings and depressions, and studies that will allow scientists to develop a better understanding of the overall internal architecture of the dune.
There is a theory that it's a lack of sufficient dune grass and erosion caused by people who veer off the designated path, but I'm guessing that's not the whole story. I'm eager, and a little fearful, to see what they find.
Not that I think it's, you know, a dune monster or something. I rather suspect it's something altogether more mundane and more terrifying, like an unexpected effect of climate change.
Numbers of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
67%: The percentage of male US respondents ages 8-18 in the Junior Achievement USA®'s annual Teens & Personal Finance Survey who said they get an allowance from their parents.
59% The percentage of female US respondents ages 8-18 in the Junior Achievement USA®'s annual Teens & Personal Finance Survey who said they get an allowance from their parents.
You might be thinking that's because boys are given more chores, but you would be wrong:
One study found that girls do two more hours of housework a week than boys, while boys spend twice as much time playing. The same study confirmed that boys are still more likely to get paid for what they do: they are 15 percent more likely to get an allowance for doing chores than girls. A 2009 survey of children ages 5 to 12 found that far more girls are assigned chores than boys. A study in Europe also found fewer boys contribute to work around the house.Welp.
And it's not just that boys are more likely to be paid by their parents, but they also get more money. One study found that boys spent just 2.1 hours a week on chores and made $48 on average, while girls put in 2.7 hours to make $45. A British study found that boys get paid 15 percent more than girls for the same chores.
Maya has some thoughts on "Why the Gender Gap in Children's Allowances Matters."
Here Is Just a Great Video of President Obama Getting Creeped Out by a Soccer-Playing Robot
President Obama is on an official state visit to Japan, where he visited the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Toyko. There, he was treated to a demonstration of ASIMO, Honda's humanoid robot, who said hello and kicked a soccer ball. Afterward, the President said: "I have to say that the robots were a little scary; they were too lifelike. They were amazing." I can't say I blame him. Traveling through the Uncanny Valley to the Singularity was probably not on his travel itinerary.
President Obama walks into the museum, and shakes hands with and says hello to a Japanese man and a Japanese woman who are waiting to greet him.
Cut to video of the small white robot running quickly across the demonstration floor. Offscreen, President Obama can be heard exclaiming, "Oh! Wow! He's movin'!"
Cut to video of the President smiling while the robot tells him, "I can kick a soccer ball, too."
"Okay, come on," says the President. The robot aligns itself with a grey soccer ball in the middle of the demonstration floor. "Watch carefully, please," says one of the President's male Japanese chaperones, offscreen.
"Yeah, I'm watching," says the President.
"Real, real fast," says the chaperone.
"It's gonna be pretty hard, huh?" says the President, as the robot backs up and prepares to kick the ball. "If it hits me, it'll be terrible!" says the President, to laughter. "Okay, come on, I'm ready."
"Here I go," says the robot, then runs toward the ball and kicks it toward the President, who quickly blocks it.
"Hey, good job!" says the President. "Excellent!"
Cut to footage of the robot jumping up and down, then hopping on one foot. President Obama watches and gives a little laugh. The robot says, "I'm in training every day, so that someday in the future I can help people..." The video ends.
I Get Letters
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
I just received a missive addressed to "Mrs. McEuwan" (close) which contained the following observation and helpful inquiry:
I have noticed that you write a lot about the negative consequences you experience as a result of being overweight. Have you ever considered that many of these negative experiences would be alleviated if you just lost weight?LOL FOR FUCKING EVER AND EVER.
My absolute favorite thing about this is that Amy McCarthy and I fat-troll each other on Twitter and Facebook all the time, just to amuse each other, and this email is literally indistinguishable from the fake fat-trolling that Amy and I do to mock anti-fat trollery.
The thing is: People are actually serious about this. They seriously suggest losing weight, and all the various ways that we fatties could totally definitely for sure lose weight if only we tried them—"Have you tried kale and yogurt smoothies?"—as the most logical alternative to fat harassment.
The possibility that maybe people could just stop harassing fat people never even enters their minds as a viable option.
It seems more reasonable to suggest that I try to make my body do something it's never going to do without killing me than to suggest that maybe the people who hate and police my body could simply shut the fuck up.
This is what I mean when I say there is an eliminationist campaign against fat people in this culture. People think it's more reasonable for us to die than to expect fat haters to keep their thoughts to themselves.
And, naturally, no one should have to be thin, even if they can be, in order to not be harassed and shamed. We don't owe anyone thinness, in exchange for basic human decency.
[Twitter exchange posted with the permission of Amy E. McCarthy, Supreme Troll Queen.]
Daily Dose of Cute
"What? I'm people!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Throwback Thursdays
Me, at 18 months old, on New Year's Day 1976, with my grandmother and grandfather at their home in Queens, NYC.
[Please share your own throwback pix in comments. Just make sure the pix are just of you and/or you have consent to post from other living people in the pic. And please note that they don't have to be pictures from childhood, especially since childhood pix might be difficult for people who come from abusive backgrounds or have transitioned or lots of other reasons. It can be a picture from last week, if that's what works for you. And of course no one should feel obliged to share a picture at all! Only if it's fun!]
Meanwhile on Twitter...
[Content Note: Misogyny; safety.]
While Aphra_Behn was visiting, she and I had an interesting conversation about the men who purport to be feminist allies, but Other women so thoroughly in the process of trying to be our "allies" that they don't actually engage with women in a safe or supportive way.
Last night, Suey Park tweeted an observation of a similar nature that prompted me to talk about this a little more on Twitter. So, here's what I said, for those who aren't on Twitter or who missed it:
The men who talk a lot of talk about being a feminist, but don't actually treat women very well. Because they're too busy trying to save us. (link)
The men in my life who make me feel safest almost never *talk* about being feminists; they just *are*. (link)
Chivalry isn't feminism. (link)
The men I trust are sensitive to the fact that I'm a woman, but don't reduce me to my womanhood. (link)
The men with whom I feel safe treat me like Liss: A Person. One significant part of which is my womanhood. (link)
And they understand that my experience of womanhood is just mine. Not the universal experience of all women. (link)
Sometimes, of course, the Guys Who Talk a Lot of Talk are just guys who think they "get it," but really really don't, and sometimes it's a much more aggressive and insidious predation under the auspices of allyship, e.g. Hugɸ $chwyz3r.
I'm guessing we all have a lot of experience with this dynamic (which is not unique to the male/not-male binary of privilege and marginalization, although that is the particular subject of this thread), so have at it in comments!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
The US Federal Communications Commission is giving the finger to net neutrality: "The principle that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows through cables and pipes to consumers looks all but dead. The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that allow companies like Disney, Google or Netflix to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for special, faster lanes to send video and other content to their customers. The proposed changes would affect what is known as net neutrality—the idea that no providers of legal Internet content should face discrimination in providing offerings to consumers, and that users should have equal access to see any legal content they choose." Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
[Content Note: Guns] Republican Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed legislation yesterday that allows "registered gun owners to carry their weapons into churches, schools, libraries and bars." At a press conference, Deal basically said straightforwardly that the law is designed to allow people to harm those by whom they feel threatened: "Today I will sign a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. While we still guard against tyranny, America today cherishes this right, so that people who follow the rules can protect themselves and their families from those who don't follow the rules." Absolutely fucking terrifying.
[CN: Police brutality] Ruth Hunter, a 75-year-old black woman who lives in Virginia, had her hands tied and restrained by police when they raided her house as part of a drug investigation of a man who lives two doors down from her. What the absolute fuck.
Once again, I will note, with no intent to absolve police of their mistreatment of Hunter or anyone else, that the gun laws like the one Deal just signed into law are objectively making everyone, including police, less safe and more likely to be shot, which means that police will be more inclined to restrain everyone they encounter, and some individual officers' fear about gun proliferation will inform an urge to use deadly force in situations where none is needed. These garbage gun laws are virtually ensuring that more people are harmed during police encounters.
Big surprise to no one but dipshits with a conservative martyr agenda: "New Records: IRS Targeted Progressive Groups More Extensively Than Tea Party."
A judge granted the petition for Chelsea Manning to legally change her name to Chelsea. Said Manning: "Hopefully today's name change, while so meaningful to me personally, can also raise awareness of the fact that [transgender people] exist everywhere in America today, and that we must jump through hurdles every day just for being who we are."
[CN: Guns] Dr. Garen Wintemute, "a professor of emergency medicine who runs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis" and "by his own count, one of only a dozen researchers across the country who have continued to focus full-time on firearms violence," has donated about $1.1 million of his own money in order to keep his research going, since the CDC ended his funding. Here is an interview with him.
Amazon and HBO have struck a deal to stream some of HBO's older shows.
[CN: Misogyny] I know you're all shocked, but Aaron Sorkin has lots of misogynistic things to say about why there aren't more female protagonists.
I need this cat table immediately.
A Colossus of Nope
[Content Note: Racism; language policing.]
George Will, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, has repeatedly gone after President Obama using coded (or not so coded) racist language. In his latest, headlined "Barack Obama, the adolescent president," Will complains bitterly that Obama's rhetorical skills prove that he's "an adolescent."
Will is just savvy enough to realize it would be too obvious to call our first black president "a boy."
His column opens thus:
Recently, Barack Obama — a Demosthenes determined to elevate our politics from coarseness to elegance; a Pericles sent to ameliorate our rhetorical impoverishment — spoke at the University of Michigan. He came to that very friendly venue — in 2012, he received 67 percent of the vote in Ann Arbor's county — after visiting a local sandwich shop, where a muse must have whispered in the presidential ear. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had recently released his budget, so Obama expressed his disapproval by calling it, for the benefit of his academic audience, a "meanwich" and a "stinkburger."Those grown-ups. Unlike our current president, who is a boy.
Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan talking like that. It is unimaginable that those grown-ups would resort to japes that fourth-graders would not consider sufficiently clever for use on a playground.
Frankly, I can absolutely imagine any of those former presidents making a similar sort of joke at a similar sort of venue. Media coverage of those presidents, however, is different than media coverage of presidents and candidates today, so I'm not sure an offhand joke would have been recorded or remembered or considered evidence of anything other than the fact that most national politicians are pretty awkward with the relate-to-the-people humor.
What I can't imagine is a serious national columnist proposing that one of those presidents making an offhanded wordplay joke rises to the importance of a column in the Washington Post about how said joke reveals something meaningful about the character of the man who made it.
And, listen, I'm genuinely not one to play the "What about Bush?" game, because I generally see it being used to deflect legitimate criticism of Obama. But this is categorically not legitimate criticism of Obama, so WHAT ABOUT BUSH.
Former President George W. Bush, during a debate with then-Democratic nominee John Kerry: I own a timber company? That's news to me! Heh heh heh. Need some wood?That was not merely a stupid joke, but a deflection of the fact that Bush was, in fact, part owner of a "limited-liability company organized 'for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales,'" i.e. a timber company. Bush routinely used his "bad jokes" to lie, not merely to try to make the partisan audience in front of him chuckle politely.
Which is but one example of the many behaviors exhibited by Bush during his presidency, which might reasonably be called a wee bit immature. On balance, maybe referring to Ryan's budget on one occasion as a "stinkburger" isn't any worse than Bush nicknaming and routinely referring to his own closest adviser, Karl Rove, as "Turd Blossom."
Will wasn't publicly handwringing about Bush's immaturity while in office, because he wasn't trying to discredit Bush. And now Will can apparently find no viable critique of Obama, so he resorts to racist dog whistles about his being "an adolescent" rather than a man. Which is itself a further extension of the "manhood problem" meme.
The Washington Post should be ashamed to publish this despicable nonsense. But, clearly, they're pretty okay with continuing to pay a fine salary to a man who uses their space to make belittling racist attacks on the President of the United States.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker trinity91: "How did you realize you were a feminist/womanist? (I REALLY love hearing other people's stories about this!)"
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 23 April 2014: Agust Bjarnason took this stunning shot of Seljalandsfoss waterfall at sunset in Iceland. [Agust Bjarnason/HotSpot Media]Lovely.
I Get Letters
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Recently, after I said for the third or tenth or one biebillionth time "There's no neutral in rape culture," Shaker masculine_lady asked if she could make stickers with that phrase on it, to which of course I agreed.
Yesterday, in the mail, I received some of the stickers, because masculine_lady is awesome:
I am going to have some fun with those stickers. Watch out dudes who think skeevy bumper stickers are hilarious! Your stickers are about to get STUCK!
And because masculine_lady is also hilarious as well as a superhero anti-rape advocate, I received the stickers inside a card, personalized with this heartfelt note:
Further, the stickers were tucked inside this beautiful piece of modern art:
When masculine_lady and I met in person for the first time at the Forging Justice conference, we started an ongoing joke about a breakfast banana, and have been sending each other various images of bananas ever since, because of course we have.
Basically, this is a pretty good encapsulation of Shakesville for me: A serious commentary on social justice, wrapped inside a joke, delivered in a personal way between two friends whose friendship was forged out of shared passion and beloved community.
[All shared with masculine_lady's permission, including the use of her real first name.]
Whooooooops Your "Feminism"
[Content Note: Misogyny; reproductive policing; fat bias; transphobia.]
We all like problematic shows, and we all draw our lines about what is overwhelmingly problematic in different places. So I'm not judging or criticizing anyone who watches The Daily Show. I don't watch it anymore, and haven't watched it regularly for years, because the balance between valuable and objectionable material tipped toward objectionable for me a long time ago.
Anyway. Today, I've seen Jon Stewart getting a lot of credit for a segment in which he called out the double-standard regarding grandparenting in presidential politics. So I watched the segment, and it was a perfect reminder of why I no longer watch The Daily Show.
Here is a transcription of the relevant part of the segment, running from 1:10 to 2:45, and following an introduction that noted Chelsea Clinton has announced she's pregnant with her first child:
Stewart: News media! Set the 2016 presidential speculatron to behbee!From there, Stewart goes on to observe some other differences about how women and men are treated in politics.
Cut to a news clip of a white female anchor saying: "Everyone is wondering what impact it might have on Hillary Clinton's decision to run for president." Cut to a news clip of a white male anchor saying: "Does the fact that she's going to become a grandmother on top of the other considerations factor in?" Cut to a news clip with video of Chelsea Clinton, over which a female anchor offscreen says: "Could it put a bump in Hillary's 2016 plans? And is it sexist to ask?" Cut back to Stewart in TDS studio.
Stewart: No! No! No, sillybilly, of course it's not sexist. Even though it's a question that has never, ever, been posed to a male candidate ever. For god's sakes, Mitt Romney has like a litter of grandchildren. [an image of Romney with a bunch of his grandkids pops up onscreen, as the audience roars with laughter] Mitt Romney has, for god's sakes, if I'm not mistaken, Mitt Romney has like a grandchild petting zoo! [an image of the Romney family pops up onscreen, to more laughter] The guy added three grandchildren [another picture of Romney with his family] while he was campaigning!
He is the only candidate in history whose electoral college total is less than the number of chairs he has to put out at Thanksgiving. My point is, he, he got crushed in the election by someone with no grandchildren. Yet somehow the grandchild factor never came up in the race between Obama and Romney.
For god's sakes, when William Howard Taft was running in 1908, he was actually pregnant! [an image of Taft, famously the fattest president, comes onscreen, photoshopped so that Taft is holding his belly like a pregnant woman might hold her belly; uproarious laughter] He was pregnant! Nobody said anything! Nobody brought it up!
Okay, here's the thing: I am a firm believer in the simple principle that no type of bigotry, policing, or other kinds of harm are solved by more of the same.
So when Stewart seeks to criticize the policing and politicization of Hillary Clinton's reproduction, and her daughter's reproduction, by policing the reproduction of Romney and his kids, that isn't helping.
Yes, I get that it's a comedy show, and it's supposed to be funnier to say that Mitt Romney has a "litter" and a "petting zoo" of grandchildren, as opposed to just pointing out he's got grandchildren and it was never an issue.
But this is the problem with The Daily Show and Stewart, who constantly want to have it both ways by saying they're not a real news show even as they tackle serious issues: Criticizing the auditing of one family's reproduction is ineffective when you turn around and criticize another family's.
By joking about the quantity of Romeny's grandchildren, he's auditing their reproductive choices. Further, there is a long history of talking about large families with lots of children using animal imagery, especially families of color. To reinforce and legitimize those narratives will not marginalize the Romneys, but it will marginalize the vulnerable families against whom they're routinely used.
And, not for nothing, but Romney didn't give birth to any of those kids. The women in his family did. In taking a swipe at Romney, Stewart is calling his wife and daughters-in-law brood mares. Which is replicating the exact sort of sexism that he's purporting to criticize.
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And then there's the bit about Taft. Jesus Jones. The entire joke, such as it is, rests on the absurdity of a man being pregnant, which disappears the lived experiences of trans men who have been pregnant. And, of course, that old chestnut about how fat men's bellies are pregnancies.
Stewart's fat hatred is nothing new: This is, after all, a man who appeared in a fucking fat suit on the show.
Pregnancy humor at the expense of trans bodies and fat bodies is garbage, in and of itself. But the policing of trans bodies and fat bodies is a crucial feminist issue. To include such rubbish in a segment ostensibly designed to challenge misogyny is not just cruel; it's counterproductive.
* * *
Protip: When your segment on sexism obliges me to defend the Romneys, you are doing something wrong.
Daily Dose of Cute
In case there were any question (there is no question) whether Shakes Manor is a hub of nerdery, here is a picture of Sophie sitting on the box for Settlers of Catan, following the action on the television on which we were watching a video about The Impossible Game.
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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 cherry blossoms.
Recommended Reading:
Jamie: Eldercare: The Forgotten Feminist Issue
Andy: [Content Note: Homophobia] Federal Judge to Hear Challenge to Oregon Gay Marriage Ban Today with No Parties to Defend It
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism] Avril Lavigne's Latest Single Is Called "Hello Kitty" and the Music Video Is as Bad as You Could Imagine
Justice for Shanesha: WOW! The Petition to Bill Montgomery has Grown to Over 47,500 in only 3 Days!
Rebecca: [CN: Misogyny] Creators of WonderCon's "I Hate Fangirls" Shirt Defend It, Double Down on "Fake Geek" Bullcrap
Atrios: [CN: Misogyny] Advanced Trolling
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Privilege; bootstraps.]
"Believing in meritocracy is a manifestation of privilege. 'Merit' doesn't exist a priori. It's evaluated by people in power, according to expectations and standards set by people in power. How you gonna evaluate 'merit' when one kid has tutors and ballet, and another is going to school hungry? And how 'equal' are their schools? How much 'merit' does it take to just get through every day as a Black person in a viciously anti-Black world? People with privilege get everything handed to them on a platter from childhood—and get told they 'earned' it through their 'merit.' And when you're only surrounded by other people of privilege, that privilege becomes invisible, so believing in 'merit' happens."—Dr. Jane Chi, on Twitter this morning, addressing the garbage memes about "merit" so beloved by people who oppose affirmative action.
'Merit' doesn't exist a priori. Succinct, brilliant, perfect.
[Shared in this space with Dr. Jane Chi's permission.]
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Police brutality; images of police brutality at link] The New York Police Department had the swell idea of starting a #MyNYPD hashtag on Twitter yesterday, inviting people to share images of themselves with New York cops. Whoooooooooops! "An exercise in social media outreach turned #epicfail Tuesday when users flooded the Twittersphere with some of the NYPD's most infamous moments of brutality."
[CN: Domestic violence] This is a very interesting piece about the difference it is making for Native American survivors of domestic violence since the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act which included a provision giving "many federally recognized tribes the authority to prosecute non–tribal members for these crimes." In other words: Closing a loophole which, for a very long time, effectively meant that non-native men were allowed to harm native women with impunity. (Obviously, non-native women could harm with impunity, too, but the vast majority of perpetrators were men.)
[CN: Misogyny; ageism] Erick Erickson continues to be the fucking worst, telling Rush Limbaugh: "All my Democratic friends are salivating...at the idea of Hillary Clinton running in 2016. She's gonna be old. I don't know how far back they can pull her face; can I say that on the air?" Shaker Aphra, who sent this to me, says (which I am quoting with her permission): "I love how he asks if he can say that on the air. Hahahahahaha YEAH dipshit, you can say it, so please stop pretending there's some kind of feminist thought police who will arrest you. Now you might get CRITICIZED because you are awful, but that's not the same thing." This fucking guy.
[CN: Misogyny; worker exploitation] Fucking hell: "Four former cheerleaders for the National Football League's Buffalo Bills have filed a lawsuit against the team, alleging that it 'exploited the women by failing to pay them in accordance with New York State minimum wage laws.' ...The complaint asserts that 'between game performances, practices, rehearsals, and appearances, each individual Jill provides approximately 20 hours of unpaid labor per week,' which 'equals 840 hours of unpaid work per woman, per year.'" Meanwhile: How the fuck much do the players and coaches make?
[CN: Transphobia] Today, a judge will consider Chelsea Manning's petition to legally change her name to Chelsea. Manning is serving 35 years in prison for whistleblowing "espionage." It's fucking ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned, that a judge gets to rule on whether Manning has a right to legally change her name.
Lupita Nyong'o is People magazine's Most Beautiful Person of the Year. On the one hand, fuck "most beautiful people" shit. On the other, as long as this stuff exists, yay for expanding the boundaries of "acceptable beauty."
Relatedly: Meryl Streep says she once thought she was "too ugly" to be an actress, and advises young aspiring thespians to embrace whatever about their appearnace makes them unique.
[CN: Gender essentialism] Emma Stone calls out her boyfriend Andrew Garfield on gender essentialist claptrap at a promotional appearance. That cannot have been easy. Good for her.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Classism; victim-blaming.]
Two different-sex couples sit in a park having a picnic. One couple, both of whom appear to be white, is dressed in "fancy" sweaters and slacks; the other couple, a man who appears to be white and an Asian woman, are dressed down in a hoodie and cardigan, respectively. They are all young, thin, and kyriarchetypically attractive.Text indicates that the ad comes care of the Ad Council and AICPA, which is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Fancy Couple is drinking from glassware and a ceramic pitcher. Casual Couple is drinking from red plastic party cups and a plastic thermos.
"It's so good to see you guys," says Fancy Woman. "So, what's up?" Fancy Couple pulls lobsters from a picnic basket.
"Well," says Casual Woman, "we finally bought a place."
"Holy cow!" exclaims Fancy Woman.
"You seriously have enough saved to do that?" asks Fancy Man, holding a lobster in his hand.
"We've been putting a little aside each month," says Casual Man, and Casual Woman nods.
When we cut back to Fancy Couple, they're face-down in massage chairs getting massaged by handsome white blond masseurs, and they're eating the lobsters with their bare hands. "Geez!" says Fancy Woman. "By the end of the month, we have nothing left to save!"
"Yeah," says Fancy Man. "I have no idea where it goes!"
"Well," says Casual Woman, "you're spending a lot...? On—"
"Oh. Ah. Mm," groans Fancy Man, his mouth full of lobster, as he gets massaged, totally ignoring Casual Woman.
"Is it good?" asks Fancy Woman. He responds with more groans. Casual Couple exchange a WTF look.
Suddenly Fancy Couple are in a hot air balloon basket and start to lift off. "How is my account overdrawn?!" wonders Fancy Woman.
Over the image of a hot air balloon, a male voiceover says, "When it comes to financial stability, don't get left behind. Get tools and tips for saving at Feed the Pig dot org."
Shaker speedbudget sent me this advertisement with the following text, which I am sharing with her permission: "I saw this horrible ad about saving money last night, and I was ready to throw something at the dang TV. I am living paycheck to paycheck, and it's not because I'm out spending money on lobsters and massages. It's because I don't make enough money to last me from paycheck to paycheck. I have student loan debt and credit card debt from when I was in said school just trying to feed myself. This ad also completely elides the fact that wages have been stagnant for 30 years now while the cost of living has gone up."
This ad is shitty for a whole lot of reasons, not least of which is because it evokes the trope of the irresponsible, extravagant spender living well beyond hir means, which became ubiquitous in public discussions of bankruptcies and home foreclosures at the height of the recession, as a means of redirecting accountability onto individuals and their frivolous spending habits while deflecting corporate responsibility for spiraling healthcare costs and predatory lending, just for a start.
And, yes, it is a big universe, and within it there are people who are financially irresponsible, but mostly these failures are the result of systemic problems, and tropes about failures of "personal responsibility" are the way in which we collectively continue to task individuals with finding solutions to those systemic problems.
It's important to call this bootstraps bullshit out every time we see it.
Anti-Choicers Are Exhausting Jerks
[Content Note: War on agency. NB: Not only women can get pregnant.]
Everything about the anti-choice movement is terrible, and there are things much more terrible than this, but one of the terribly exhausting things about anti-choicers is their intractable assertion that people who seek abortions haven't thought it through. Study after study has found this is categorically not true, but still we get legislation like fetal heartbeat bills (IF ONLY THESE WICKED WOMEN HEAR THE HEARTBEAT...!) and mandatory ultrasound bills (IF ONLY THESE WICKED WOMEN SEE THE BABY...!) and required waiting periods (IF ONLY THESE WICKED WOMEN ARE FORCED TO THINK ABOUT THEIR DECISION...!) and shit like this:
Louisiana lawmakers are currently advancing a measure that would require women to receive biased information about the mental health risks of abortion before being allowed to continue with the procedure. Opponents warn that the anti-choice measure is simply designed to dissuade women from exercising their right to choose — particularly since the information will be written by abortion opponents.Again, multiple studies have found that people who terminate pregnancies overwhelmingly do not regret their decision, and that negative emotions following an abortion are typically the result of social stigma around abortion.
Under House Bill 1262, which passed the Louisiana House of Representatives on Monday, abortion providers would be required to distribute a pamphlet that includes information about the "alleged psychological effects of abortion," and lists names of mental health resources for women who are seeking assistance. Patients would be required to sign a form confirming that they received the pamphlet, and then wait at least 24 hours before returning for abortion care.
According to the APA, the "most methodologically strong studies...showed that interpersonal concerns, including feelings of stigma, perceived need for secrecy, exposure to antiabortion picketing, and low perceived or anticipated social support for the abortion decision, negatively affected women's postabortion psychological experiences."That is, anti-choice bullshit is responsible for whatever negative "psychological effects of abortion" people experience. This legislation is a snake eating its own tail—warning about potential negative consequences that are caused precisely by warnings that seek to deter abortion-seekers and undermine their confidence in their choice.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker everestmckinley: "Share a 3-sentence version of one of your favorite stories to tell."
Okay, technically not a question, but whatever! *wink!*
Orrery Mission: Complete
As promised, here is a picture of my completed orrery tattoo, now that the color has been added:
The detail on the planet is extraordinary:
The little white flecks are reflections of the goop that's still on my shoulder, since I literally just had it done. The lines look smoother and the color looks solid when it's not viewed through a prism of goop.
I am completely in love with it. Lui is basically a genius. The end.
Working Poor and Mendacious Narratives
[Content Note: Class warfare; food insecurity.]
Anyone who has been paying attention to the world around them and the people in it almost certainly already knows this, and anyone who is resistant to facts that might undermine their self-aggrandizing cruelty won't fucking care, but here it is anyway:
A report from Feeding America on food insecurity and food costs in the United States sheds new light on the real targets of the conservative media's crusade against food stamps.I know I'm the brokenest of all the broken records that have ever been broken, but the incessant yammering about "bootstraps" and "takers" and "moochers" and people who can't be "convinced" to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives" is FUCKING GARBAGE.
...[The reality is] that almost 41% of recipients live in a household with earnings, and according to the USDA program fraud is below one cent on the dollar.
Feeding America's report on the county and congressional district level food insecurity and county food costs in the United States paints a startlingly different picture of the food insecure than the one the right-wing media typically pushes. Feeding America found that more than 47 million people in the United States are food-insecure, meaning that they have "limited or uncertain access to adequate food," and that 16 million of those people are children. On average, about 71% of the food-insecure throughout the country fall below 185% of the poverty line, making them eligible to receive SNAP benefits.
Indecent, dishonest, execrable, inexcusable garbage.
I have nothing but voluminous contempt for anyone who barfs up this resoundingly discredited garbage, who scapegoats working people who don't have enough to eat as lazy, system-gaming scoundrels, in a futile bid to mask their reprehensible agenda of "reducing dependence on government"—a gross euphemism for vile social Darwinism justified by bullshit beliefs about bootstraps and fairy tales about how people earn what they deserve, designed to ensure that the wealthiest fuckers in the wealthiest nation don't have to pay a penny more in taxes in order that the workers they exploit to become billionaires might have enough food to stay alive and drag their exhausted, malnourished asses to jobs that won't pay them a livable wage, because profits are more important than people.
This isn't, and will never be, about whether people are working hard enough.
This is about the fact that Republicans think people aren't entitled to food. And they're too cowardly to say it plainly. So they tell lies about lazy people who game the system—a breathtaking bit of projection that would be laughable, if only it weren't so fucking tragic.
An Observation
[Content Note: Fat shaming.]
I have touched on this previously, but it bears repeating: If you are a person who shames fat people under the auspices of concern for our health, you are not only a bully but a liar. Fat shaming does not improve fat people's physical health, and in fact is extremely likely to have a deleterious effect on our psychological health.
Just stop. Stop.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Privilege; racism.]
"The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities."—Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her impassioned dissent to the Supreme Court ruling today which "upheld a Michigan voter initiative that banned racial preferences in admissions to the state's public universities," i.e. upholding Michigan's ban on affirmative action.
Fuck this court.
Please note that we will not be debating the value of affirmative action in this space.
[Related Reading: Number of the Day.]
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogynistic tropes; rape culture.]
Shaker Cafeaulait0913 forwarded this Excedrin ad, which features a collection of thin, white, kyriarchitypically attractive women being relieved of their headaches:
A thin, young, white woman and a thin white man in an office approach a mountain of disorganized files. "Aw, this audit will take days," complains the man. The woman sighs. "What a headache," the man says. "Actually," the woman replies, "I don't have a headache anymore. Excedrin really does work fast."So, the thing about this ad is that it's clearly geared toward (white, straight, thin, privileged) women, and yet:
Two very young white children, a boy and a girl, are playing in a well-appointed home. The boy knocks over some toys, which clatter noisily to the floor. "QUIET! MOM HAS A HEADACHE!" yells the girl. Mom, a thin, young, white woman, leans forward from her overstuffed chair. "Had a headache. But now, I don't!"
Over generic graphics of a male head in silhouette showing the medicine "working," a male voiceover says, "With two pain fighters plus a booster, Excedrin ends headaches fast. In fact, for some, relief starts in just 15 minutes."
A thin, young, white, different-sex couple lies in bed. The man is holding a book. The woman says, "Wow, my headache is gone." The man quickly closes the book and turns out the light. The room goes dark. The woman turns on her bedside light, to reveal the man hovering over her eagerly. "Not gonna happen," she says, to the man's chagrin.
Male voiceover: "Excredrin. Headache: Gone."
1. It uses a male silhouette in the graphics.
2. It uses a male voiceover.
3. It uses, as a punchline, the tired old trope about women using a headache to get out of sex they don't want to have with their husbands. Which, you know, is not actually a funny trope, as it's a reflection of a rape culture in which women must feign pain to delay sex, because their agency and right to simply say no isn't respected.
This certainly isn't the worst entry in this series, but it still gets a thumbs-down. Do better, Excedrin. Thanks.
Discussion Thread: Grody Delicious
Sometimes, the dogs are completely pitiful about being outside in a little drizzle, but sometimes they love to run around in a storm. Last night, it was pissing down rain, and they were outside forever, then came back in totally drenched. And, of course, smelling like wet dog.
Wet dog is renowned for being a terrible smell, but I weirdly kind of like it.
I seem to like a lot of earthy smells that have reputations for being awful. Like cow manure, which I find to be a pleasant smell, too.
Anyway! I know I'm not alone on this. A lot of people like scents with bad reps. Gasoline seems to be a common smell that some people find awful and others find pleasant. And I know a few people who like the smell of skunk, which most people find to be terrible.
I don't hate the smell of skunk, although I don't really like it, either. It's just such an aggressive smell, and it just makes me laugh every time I think of such a big smell coming out of such a little creature!
So: Are there any smells that are reputed to be terrible that you enjoy?
Daily Dose of Cute
This is my favorite picture of Dudley.
Today is the fourth anniversary of our officially adopting Dudley. (He didn't actually come to stay until the 28th, because I had some terrible flu, so he stayed with his foster family for a few extra days.) But this was the day we met him; the day he first came to visit Shakes Manor and walked in looking all nervous and confused; the day he leaned his long self against our legs for the first time.
It was just supposed to be a meet-and-greet, and a chance to test him out with our cats. Iain and I were in firm agreement that we weren't going to make any decisions that night.
Two hours later, all the paperwork had been filled out and the check for the adoption fee had been written. He was our dog. There was no use even pretending otherwise.
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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Dispatches from the 99%
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
The LA Times has a piece today by Walter Hamilton about how the "number of Californians 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes has surged in recent years" as a result of the recession, long-term unemployment, and raising housing costs.
For seven years through 2012, the number of Californians aged 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes swelled 67.6% to about 194,000, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.I just don't know (I mean, I know intellectually; I just don't know emotionally) how the wealthiest and most influential USians look at stories like these and continue to disgorge epic amounts of horseshit about bootstraps from their filthy mouths. This is not about individual people making bad choices. This is about a system that is catastrophically broken.
The jump is almost exclusively the result of financial hardship caused by the recession rather than for other reasons, such as the need to care for aging parents, said Steven P. Wallace, a UCLA professor of public health who crunched the data.
"The numbers are pretty amazing," Wallace said. "It's an age group that you normally think of as pretty financially stable. They're mid-career. They may be thinking ahead toward retirement. They've got a nest egg going. And then all of a sudden you see this huge push back into their parents' homes."
Many more young adults live with their parents than those in their 50s and early 60s live with theirs. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 1.6 million Californians have taken up residence in their childhood bedrooms, according to the data.
Though that's a 33% jump from 2006, the pace is half that of the 50 to 64 age group.
The surge in middle-aged people moving in with parents reflects the grim economic reality that has taken hold in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Guns] The Centers for Disease Control's current funding for gun violence prevention research is $0. And it looks like it will remain that way for the foreseeable future, since Congressional Republicans refuse to fund it, with one Republican Congressman calling money for gun violence research a "request to fund propaganda." The depth of my contempt is cavernous.
[CN: War on agency] Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed into law a bill that allows "state health authorities to conduct surprise inspections of abortion clinics without a warrant. HB 2284 repeals an Arizona law that requires a judge to give approval for inspections of abortion clinics. Department of Health Services officials will now be able to inspect any clinic during business hours, even without reasonable cause." This is just state-sanctioned harassment of abortion providers and patients.
[CN: Homophobia] This is your regularly-scheduled reminder that same-sex marriage equality is not the end-all be-all of gay rights: "A Boy Scout troop in Seattle announced on Monday that its charter had been revoked after its church sponsor refused to fire the troop's scout leader because of his sexual orientation. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) withdrew the membership of Scoutmaster Geoff McGrath, 49, in March after he revealed to an NBC News reporter that he was gay. McGrath was widely thought to be the first openly gay scout leader after the organization voted last year to allow gay youths as of Jan. 1, but not allow gay adults to lead troops. The Rainier Beach United Methodist Church received a letter from BSA on Friday stating that its charter had been revoked, and an attorney from the organization told the church it could no longer host any troops under the Boy Scouts name." Fucking assholes. Seriously.
[CN: Homophobia] On the marriage equality front: States with conservative majorities tend to lag behind the national average in support for same-sex marriage, but a new poll out of Texas has found that 48% of Texans now support same-sex marriage while 47% oppose it. That sound you hear is another domino falling to the floor.
[CN: War on agency] Tennessee's Pregnancy Criminalization Law Will Hit Black Women the Hardest: "The bill, SB 1391, would impose criminal penalties on mothers of newborns who have been exposed to addictive illegal or prescription drugs in utero. While the bill appears race-neutral, prosecutors and judges will wield the law against Black women more so than white women, based on a long tradition of deeply embedded racial stereotypes about Black motherhood. Should Gov. Haslam ignore the growing outcry against SB 1391 from pro-choice and anti-choice advocates alike, the law would likely lead to Black women being thrown in jail for up to 15 years for aggravated assault should they choose to carry a pregnancy to term while struggling with an addiction to illegal narcotics."
[CN: Fat bias] Oh for fuck's sake: "Airlines look for ways to cut down on weight, squeeze in more seats: If you thought airlines could find no new ways to squeeze more passengers into each plane, you are underestimating the resolve of the airline industry. At this month's Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, many of the 500 exhibitors were promoting new ideas to cut down on weight—to save fuel—and innovative layouts to fit more seats per cabin. Among the concepts offered at the expo was a set of seats that put passengers face to face; seats that are installed in a staggered, diagonal layout, and lavatories designed to wedge in a few extra passengers in the back of the cabin." Meanwhile, fat passengers will be up for even more harassment and discrimination, because it's our bodies that are the problem, not the constantly diminishing space on airplanes.
And finally: Would you like some vegetable ice cream? Häagen-Dazs is debuting veggie ice cream in Japan next month. Sounds interesting! One of the best things I've ever eaten was a cucumber sorbet at Tom Colicchio's restaurant Craft. Delicious!
War on the War on Drugs
[Content Note: Racism.]
So, this is good news:
The Obama administration is beginning an aggressive new effort to foster equity in criminal sentencing by considering clemency requests from as many as thousands of federal inmates serving time for drug offenses, officials said Monday.This follows the decision of the US Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal judges, to vote "to revise its guidelines to reduce sentences for defendants in most of the nation's drug cases." In 2002, the commission "found that the [sentencing] disparity had created a racial imbalance in which harsh sentences had been disproportionately imposed on minorities, particularly African Americans."
The initiative, which amounts to an unprecedented campaign to free nonviolent offenders, will begin immediately and continue over the next two years, officials said. The Justice Department said it expects to reassign dozens of lawyers to its understaffed pardons office to handle the requests from inmates.
"The White House has indicated it wants to consider additional clemency applications, to restore a degree of justice, fairness and proportionality for deserving individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday. "The Justice Department is committed to recommending as many qualified applicants as possible for reduced sentences."
Ostensibly, this new effort should help address that disparity. But:
Holder has announced a series of initiatives to tackle disparities in criminal penalties, beginning in August when he said low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no connection to gangs or large-scale drug organizations would not be charged with offenses that call for strict mandatory sentences. He has traveled across the country to highlight community programs in which nonviolent offenders have received substance-abuse treatment and other assistance instead of long prison sentences.Emphasis mine.
My concern here is that men of color, specifically black and Latino men, are disproportionately likely to be accused of having gang or cartel affiliations during drug prosecutions, sometimes even if they have no meaningful connections to gangs or drug cartels at all. Gang activity by association is another level of bias, which will mean many of these offenders, including women of color whose "gang activity" might have been established simply by dating someone in a gang, won't benefit from clemency.
This article about the new effort [CN: sexual abuse] tells the story of a white woman who is serving a disproportionately long sentence "for her minor role helping her drug dealer husband." But if her husband had been involved with a gang, or could have been convincingly accused of involvement with a gang, hers might not be described as "emblematic of the harsh and inflexible sentencing regimes of the past," nor she a good candidate for clemency.
So, I am glad for this effort, but I am concerned about its application. Its parameters may simply entrench racial privilege in yet another way.
Blog Note
The blog may look a little weird this morning, because Photobucket seems to be having some kind of issue, so our images aren't serving properly. Hopefully Photobucket will resolve the issue soon.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Alison Rose: "What is something about you now—your life, your work, your personality, etc—that a younger version of you would be surprised by?"
Photos of the Day
Congratulations to Rita Jeptoo of Kenya, who won the women's Boston Marathon for the second year in a row with a course record of 2:18:57, and to Meb Keflezighi of the US, who won the men's Boston Marathon, making him the first US man win the Boston Marathon since Greg A. Meyer in 1983.
Rita Jeptoo
Meb Keflezighi
Um, Okay
Welp:
In a new national poll [by GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications] on America's scientific acumen, more than half of respondents said they were "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang."PIX OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
...Scientists were apparently dismayed by this news, which arrives only a few weeks after astrophysicists located the first hard evidence of cosmic inflation.
...Other polls on America's scientific beliefs have arrived at similar findings. The "Science and Engineering Indicators" survey -- which the National Science Foundation has conducted every year since the early 1980s -- has consistently found only about a third of Americans believe that "the universe began with a huge explosion."
In 2010, the NSF poll rephrased the question, asking whether the following statement was true: "According to astronomers, the universe began with a big explosion." When reworded, more Americans agreed, suggesting more respondents are aware of the science than originally suggested -- they just don't believe the science.
Naturally, the go-to explanation is always religious belief, but there lots of religious people, across religions, who also believe that the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang (based on what current science can tell us at the moment, with the caveat that new science and technologies may result in adjustments to the theory). There's a lot more going on than that.
There's no single universal answer, either, because individual people have individual (and sometimes overlapping) reasons for disbelieving science of the universe.
And, frankly, I wouldn't even care what people believed, except that disbelief in science of the universe is so inextricably intertwined with the garbage beliefs that are used to legislate oppression.
Fatsronauts 101: Fat in Public, Thin Allies, and the Veneer of Strength as Dehumanization
[Content Note: Fat hatred; abuse; harassment.]
This afternoon, I've been doing some tweeting about being fat in public and the obligation for fat people, especially fat women, to be impenetrably strong in the face of harassment. For those who aren't on Twitter, here is the Storify of that tweet session and a place for discussion.
If you have problems reading the embedded Storify, you can also read it here.
Discussion Thread: Democrats 2016
With Senator Elizabeth Warren saying definitively that she is not running in 2016, and with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still officially undecided, let's imagine that neither of them runs for the 2016 presidential election. Who would you like to see as the Democratic presidential nominee?
Please note the question doesn't presume you're a Democratic voter. (Or even a USian.) I wouldn't vote for a Republican candidate if you paid me all of Mitt Romney's money, but I still have some investment in who the nominee is, etc.
Your answer is not required to be someone who is likely to be able to get the nomination, e.g. Joe Biden, or people who have been named as potential contenders, e.g. Martin O'Malley or Deval Patrick. You are absolutely welcome to name a fantasy candidate, i.e. someone who is a terrific politician but unlikely to be a contender based on the usual stupid factors.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Rape jokes; disablist jokes; fat jokes; privilege.]
Shaker Rebekah forwarded me this piece about the series of adverts Ricky Gervais is doing for luxury car brand Audi, which have recently started airing in the US:
To launch its new A3 sedan, Audi of America is turning to Ricky Gervais to drive home the message that consumers should never compromise.I've seen the "Names" spot several times, in which a little girl reads shitty tweets about Gervais, and he says they mean he's doing something right. The other two, I've only seen online, and this "Uncompromised Portrait" ad is hilariously awful:
To hammer home the message, it cast Gervais, a comedian who is often blasted by critics for his acidic sense of humor and jokes.
Gervais is featured in an overall branding campaign called "Dues," and a separate shorter spot called "Names," as well as in a series of "Uncompromised Portraits," in which he discusses his process of telling jokes.
The ad, filmed in black and white because OF COURSE IT IS, opens with piano music and text onscreen reading: "Audi A3 Presents: An uncompromised portrait. Ricky Gervais, writer, comedian, actor, etc..."Good fucking grief.
Gervais, sitting facing the camera, says: "I cherish the gasps as much as the laughs and the cheers and the rounds of applause." He makes a gasping noise. "I like that. I didn't turn up to any audience and go, 'What do you like? What shall I do? I do requests.' You know? The reaction after the Golden Globes was weird." This monologue is intercut with images of an empty theater, a man walking in the snow, a train, and other random shit because ART. "You usually have to be a mass murderer for that sort of column inches. But then, you know, by the end, they sort of got it. They went, 'Oh, okay then. He's just telling jokes.' I don't really want to do safe, homogenized stuff that everyone likes a bit, you know? I sort of like doing it my way, 'cause that's the fun. Every day should be filled with doing what you love. That's more important. It's more important than anything." Gervais grins.
Text onscreen: "Whatever you do, stay uncompromised." Audi logo.
First of all: LOL FOREVER at the contention that people who criticized Gervais' garbage routine at the Golden Globes were somehow confused about the fact that he was telling jokes.
Secondly: LOL FOREVER at the assertion that Gervais isn't doing "safe, homogenized stuff" when he's a teller and defender of rape jokes, disablist jokes, and fat jokes (for a start), as if making fun of rape, disabled people, and fat people isn't so old it's got brontosaurus shit in the treads of its sensible shoes.
It is the height of irony that humorists who do bigoted humor are regarded as provocateurs.
I mean, sure, he's a "provocateur" if provocateur is broadly defined enough to encompass a playground antagonist who pokes other children with a stick. If anything designed to provoke any response can make one a provocateur, then give Ricky Gervais his trophy for Provocateur of the Year or whatever.That shit's about as edgy as an abacus.
But "provocateur" really should mean something loftier—not a person who engages in the tiresome bigotry of misogyny and ableism, of racism and xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, who tells and defends rape jokes, just to elicit an entirely predictable (and legitimate) negative reaction from people getting poked with the stick, who are then immediately dismissed with charges of "humorlessness" or a lack of sophistication required to get the nuances of a joke to which the punchline is, at its essence, you are less than me.
A provocateur, if the word is have real meaning, is someone who challenges existent paradigms and marginalizing narratives, who presents a radical thought that makes people sit rather uncomfortably in their privilege and urges them to wander off the well-worn path of their socialization. It's someone who changes minds.
It isn't someone who calls people "mongs" and pretends that it's brave.
Finally: All the mirthless laughter in the multiverse at another highly privileged person sagely dispensing the advice that "every day should be filled with doing what you love" because "it's more important than anything." EVEN EATING! OR SHELTER! So go ahead and quit your job at the factory and spend your days DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, because no matter what it is that you love, you can definitely get rich doing it, if only you work hard enough!
Jesus Jones. Everything about this advert is the worst. Except for the fact that it's probably a pretty great choice for selling a luxury car to privileged dipshits who think Gervais is a hero for bravely upholding kyriarchal norms and calling it radical.
