In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Tonight, President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address. It should be an interesting one, because both houses of Congress, which serve as the primary audience, now have a majority of Republicans. Talk about a tough room! Obama will reportedly "declare a full-on economic 'resurgence,' even as many Americans say it still hasn't affected them. 'America's resurgence is real. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise,' Obama said in Detroit Jan. 7, previewing his SOTU message."

Okay, well, on that note: Here is a story about the recovery as it has played out in Elkhart, Indiana, just down the road from me. Read it, and then note how the story never explains why, if everyone who wants to work in the recovering RV industry can, Ed Neufeldt is working three shitty jobs instead of having one good job again at an RV place. Why is that? Why is the owner of an RV place saying he can't find enough good workers, but Neufeldt is still making less than he was on unemployment? "Don't let anybody tell you otherwise," says our President, except there are plenty of people who are saying otherwise, because their lived experience is otherwise.

[Content Note: Fat hatred; disordered eating; abuse] Former Biggest Loser contestant Kai Hibbard speaks out (again) about the aggressively unhealthy and profoundly abusive methods used to coerce extreme weight loss on the reality show. "The whole fucking show is a fat-shaming disaster that I'm embarrassed to have participated in."

[CN: Fire; police brutality] A memorial to Eric Garner, who was killed by police, "caught fire" yesterday. "Authorities say the fire was not intentionally set and that criminality is not suspected." Huh. Imagine that. What a coincidence that the same thing happened to a Michael Brown memorial in Ferguson.

[CN: Environmental disaster] Holy shit: "Bridger Pipeline LLC said on Monday it has shut the 42,000 barrel per day Poplar pipeline system after a weekend breach that sent as much as 1,200 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana."

[CN: Death] Fuck: "An old bridge on Interstate 75 [in Cincinnati] was undergoing demolition late Monday when it collapsed, killing a construction worker and shutting down a stretch of the interstate for what could be days. ...The city said it would launch an investigation of what caused the collapse. According to an Enquirer review of federal bridge inspection data, the bridge did not appear to have any structural problems."

[CN: Misogyny] After 44 years of running pictures of topless women on Page Three, the UK paper The Sun is supposedly discontinuing the practice. But don't worry—they'll still be available online! Because of course they will.

[CN: Misogyny] Your progressive Pope: "Pope Francis also said that women should be included because they're able to 'see things with different eyes' than men. 'Women are able to ask questions that men can't understand,' he said." So far, so good—and then: "The pope made the comments after [sharing that, before he spoke] a young girl who had been a street child before getting help from an organization that helps abandoned children asked why God allowed bad things—like falling into [sex work] and drugs—to happen to her and children like her. 'She is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer,' the pope said. 'She was not even able to express it in words but rather in tears.'" Good fucking grief. Yes, why children fall into are forced into sex work and drugs is just a mystery lost to the sands of time. God works in mysterious ways! It has nothing to do at all with human policies and human decisions and shitty human priorities. This fucking guy.

[CN: Homophobia] So, Billy Crystal said that explicit gay sex in entertainment grossed him out, then tried to say he meant explicit sex of any kind, but the context doesn't really support that explanation. Shut up, Billy Crystal.

Kirby vacuum salesman Al Archie totally makes the day at 14-year-old Dylan Johnson's birthday party. And Jodie Greene is pretty much the coolest mom everrrrrrrrr.

And finally! Take a look at this cat paradise! WOW.