In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Homophobia] Kentucky county clerk and aggressive bigot Kim Davis is still all over the news. Now she's saying she "will not block the process but her name will not appear on the paperwork." I have nothing new to say about her that I haven't said already: She is a bigot hiding behind religion, and if she doesn't want to do her job, then she can fucking quit. Asshole.

In other news: Alice "Nonie" Dubes and Vivian Boyack, married last year after 72 years together, are celebrating their first wedding anniversary. Aww.

[CN: Refugee crisis] Fuck: "EU governments are expected to back radical new plans for the internment of 'irregular migrants,' the creation of large new refugee camps in Italy and Greece and longer-term aims for the funding and building of refugee camps outside the EU to try to stop people coming to Europe. A crunch meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels, called to grapple with Europe's largest refugee crisis since the second world war, was also expected to water down demands from the European commission, strongly supported by Germany, for the obligatory sharing of refugees across at least 22 countries. ...A four-page draft statement, prepared on Monday morning by EU ambassadors before the ministers met...said 'reception facilities will be organised so as to temporarily accommodate people' in Greece and Italy while they are identified, registered, and finger-printed. Their asylum claims are to be processed quickly and those who fail are to be deported promptly."

[CN: Rape culture; victim-blaming; hostility to sex workers] Mary Mitchell has written a column for the Chicago Sun-Times in which she argues that a case in which a sex worker was raped at gunpoint by a man who hired her is "making a mockery of rape victims" because "it's actually more like theft of services" and "minimizes the act of rape." It's a comprehensively reprehensible argument, and as a survivor of rape, I have to say that I categorically do not feel as though acknowledging that sex workers can be and are raped minimizes rape nor mocks victims, but I sure as hell do feel that Mitchell's column does both.

[CN: Misogyny] Here's just a real headline in the world: "In church address, Hillary Clinton pledges to be nicer to the media." Jesus Jones. Meanwhile, the media pledges to keep being utterly unfair and totally misogynistic toward Hillary Clinton.

[CN: Privilege] Today is the day that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at Liberty University, about which I wrote last month, noting: "Sanders doesn't have to weigh the cost of speaking at a university that is explicitly anti-feminist, or explicitly anti-gay, or has a Civil War 'mourning room' that contains among its decorations a cross made from the hair of dead Confederate soldiers. (No, I'm not joking.) He doesn't have to worry about sacrificing his dignity and checking his humanity at the door the way his fellow candidate Hillary Clinton would, or our current sitting president Barack Obama would." And he continues to elide social justice issues in favor of his "unifying" approach via class inequality: "Sanders says the 'massive injustice' of income and wealth inequality should unite people across the political spectrum. He's making that point to thousands of evangelical college students who usually support Republicans. The Democratic presidential candidate is speaking Monday at Liberty University." Sigh.

[CN: Sexuality policing; video may autoplay at link] Tom Hardy doesn't have any interest in participating in discussions of sexuality that are really unwinnable games that put people in the position of being accused of lying, denying, distancing, or upholding their own privilege. So his answer is "Are you asking about my sexuality? Why? Thank you."

In other critical Tom Hardy news: "Tom Hardy Regrets Nothing About His Sexy MySpace Profile Photos." NOR SHOULD HE!

And finally! "Couple Has 5 Cats and 2 Dogs That All Love to Sleep in Bed So They Made an 11-Foot Mega Bed." Obviously.