...to be reminded of how dangerous it can be to be a woman who displeases a man/men. I swear, I was reading news links sent to me, and here are three of the first five:
Doctor guilty in wife's cyanide murder:[Yazeed] Essa laced his wife's calcium supplements to escape a loveless marriage.
Man killed ex-lover over Facebook photo with new man:A woman was stabbed repeatedly by her ex-lover after he saw a picture of her with her new boyfriend on Facebook.
Bartender says exotic club demoted her because she was pregnant:
Paul Bristol, 25, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Camille Mathurasingh, 27, at her east London home in April 2009.
The IT technician, who lived in Trinidad and Tobago, flew to London within two weeks of seeing the picture and killed the accountant. Due to the tough economy, [Jennifer] Paviglianiti says she needed this specific bartending job and feared she'd soon be out of work. To protect herself, she decided to secretly record her boss on tape.
I know this woman could possibly lose her livelihood, not her life, like the other cases, but imagine losing your job, with a new baby in this economy. And if you have never had a workplace environment that you felt was hostile, let me tell you it can be one of the most draining, self-doubt-inducing, literally depressing things in the world.
On those recordings [John]Doxey can be heard saying, "Customers don't wanna come in and see a pregnant woman behind the bar!"
[snip]
In other recordings, Doxey is heard suggesting that Paviglianiti's appearance is hurting business. "Maybe they don't go there because the bartender is pregnant and doesn't look sexy."
In addition to the second story, I also received two links to stories about how Facebook can work against women wrt their lives and their jobs:
Teacher killed herself after ex-boyfriend posted naked photos on Facebook:A British teacher working in the Middle East killed herself after an ex-boyfriend posted naked pictures of her on Facebook, an inquest heard yesterday.
And lots of female colleagues have been circling this one, warning each other to be on guard:
Emma Jones, 24, drank poisonous cleaning fluid after confiding in friends that she feared she could be jailed in the Muslim country [UAE] over the explicit images.
Professor Fired for Disgruntled Posts on Facebook: Last week Gloria Gadsden, an associate professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania who had been telling her FB followers stuff like "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day," was put on indefinite paid leave when the school found out about it.
When I first heard of it, I thought, "Why is she even using language like that?" then wondered about the risque things I say (not violent, but my friends and I discuss "sexy" topics all the time). Of course, that FB account is under my pseudonym, but it's not like I'm all that well pseudonym-ized. What really has my colleagues and me cautious is this observation that Gadsden made in another article that reported on the case:Gadsden... says that university officials have been discriminating against her ever since she wrote an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education saying universities don't do enough to retain minority faculty.
Those kinds of political games are what terrify me about this profession.
Now, I hope I made your morning as bright as mine :-(.
Too Early in the Day...
Open Thread
'Cause you've landed in a place where anything can happen!
Now we've given you fair warnin'
It's gonna be that kind of morn... for being wacky!
For getting nutty! Golly, it's cuckoo!
At Pee-Wee's Playhouse!
Shakesfilk!
With apologies and much love to the women of Bikini Kill, and to a woman I've come to love better than any blood relative:
Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain (to the tune of "Rebel Girl")
That girl thinks she's the queen of the blogosphere
She's got the hottest site around
That girl she holds her head up so high
I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I think I wanna take you home
And do your taxes for you oh
When she talks, I hear the revolution
In her hips, there's a revolution
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her words, I read the revolution
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
And do your taxes one more time oh
That girl thinks she's the queen of the blogosphere
I got news for you, she is!
They say she's a dyke, but I know
Iain is her best friend, yeah
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
I wanna do your dishes too
Love you like a sister always
Soul sister, Rebel girl
Come and be my best friend
Will you Rebel girl?
I really like you
I really wanna be your best friend
Be my Rebel girl
Open Thread
Conky's still snoring,
there's a flashing Magic Screen!
The Cowntess is so classy,
Randy's kinda sassy,
A nuttier establishment you've never seen... spend a day with Pee-Wee and you'll see what we mean! (Come on!)
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: Feminist Prime. lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Today in Just Like Jesus Would Do!
Gay couple's child denied re-enrollment at Catholic school (via):
A preschool student at a Catholic school in Boulder will not be allowed to return next school year because ... the student's parents are two women and the Denver Archdiocese says their homosexual relationship violates the school's beliefs and policy.This is particularly laughable, not to mention ironic, given that it was also reported today the Vatican has been "rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting."
...In a statement sent to 9NEWS, the Archdiocese said, "Homosexual couples living together as a couple are in disaccord with Catholic teaching."
...The Archdiocese also told 9NEWS, "Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment."
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood."The Catholic Church (by which I mean the institution and its leadership) needs to get the fuck over itself and stop pretending it's some kind of paragon of virtue. Of course they have the right to deny a child an education based on the fact that her parents are queer, but, you know, maybe it's time to draw a line under two millennia of bigotry, posturing, hypocrisy, theft, human rights violations, and other sundry failures, and instead replace the patronizing, marginalization, and exclusion with a spirit of, "Hey, whoa, who are we to judge?!"
Let me also just take a moment to note that, even granting the Catholic belief that homosexuality is a sin, it's interesting that a special dispensation is being made for every other child whose parents are sinners. By which I mean all the other children, of course, since Catholic doctrine regards all humans as sinners.
Yet again, it's a special argument reserved especially just for the very special case of gay people and their specialized sin.
I Write Letters
Dear Cablevision and ABC,
I'll get right to the point.
I think both of you suck for trying to manipulate the New York tri-state area population to fight your battles. This bullshit standoff between the two of you will only hurt you in the long run. I know that corporations think they never have enough money, but the reality is that you have more than enough to solve our health care crisis five times over.
Cablevision: Get your shit together and figure out how to not have constant drama with networks threatening to cancel their broadcast. Heck, you are the only provider who can't even broker a deal to carry BBC America, so maybe there is something up with your company that gives networks reason to get pissed off. Perhaps FiOS is an alternative worth looking into.
ABC/Disney: After 10 more weeks, Lost will be done for good and I will have no further reason to watch your network, or any of your advertisers' shitty commercials. There's nothing more pathetic to me than a filthy rich company throwing a tantrum about how much more money they should be making than any other network. If the entire tri-state area dumped Cablevision and got a digital converter, you wouldn't be making dime one since you're already broadcasting for free. Stop being such a greedy piece of shit.
Now, both of you stop this immature nonsense or else it's Volcanus Eruptus time.
Love,
Space Cowboy
Hollywood Announces It's Officially Given Up*
New Line reviving 'Police Academy':
New Line is looking for recruits for a relaunched "Police Academy" movie. Original producer Paul Maslansky is back for the new iteration, which has no writer or director attached.In case you've not had the, ahem, pleasure of viewing any of the Police Academy canon, "lowbrow" means: overtly sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, disablist, ageist, xenophobic, fat-hating, and exploitative, with gratuitous naked titty shots.
"Academy" was a seven-film lowbrow comedy series from Warner Bros. that saw a city throw open the doors of its police force to any recruit, much to the chagrin of its serious officers. The misfit officers band together and, of course, save the city.
..."It's going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV," Maslansky said. "It's going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It'll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we'll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme."
Have I mentioned in the last six seconds that we're in the middle of a heinous backlash against anything that doesn't conform to the kyriarchy's rigid standards...?
* Again.
"Hilarious Detail"
[Trigger warning.]
Isn't it just HILARIOUS for children to be talking about all the different kinds of "bitches" there are in the world?!
Fuck.
This cheesy bread will fuel the rebellion.
A photo of the positively scrumptuous cheesy bread Shaker RedSonja and I were eating on Monday while plotting the Feminazi Cooter Revolution during our hang-out day at Shakes Manor:
Made by RedSonja's lovely husband, Shaker KarateMonkey, who kindly provided a link to the recipe.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Murderphat Denim Jumpsuits. Available in I Am Spartacus Indigo, Steampunk Abortion Robot Rose, Testerical Taupe, and Brown.
Women's Voices for Change: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Author Rebecca Skloot on Race, Medical Research, and Ethics
meloukhia: I Critique Because I Care
The Medical Small Business Blog, via Prof-like Substance: 15 Female Scientists Who Changed the World
Dr. Isis: The Mythical Sunshine and Unicorns of University-Based Childcare
Samia: overpersonal rant, ACTIVATE
But you're going to be hard-pressed to make me feel guilty about genuinely not finding something entertaining. I mean, not laughing-- that's pretty passive, as far as criticism goes. What's the big deal? People tell me I shouldn't be taking offense at shit, but they're offended at my non-reaction? Interesting.
[snip]
I want to ask people sometimes: if I'm such an oversensitive, hysterical snob, why do you care what I think or feel about anything at all? Why are you so upset?
abby jean at FWD/Forward: How to Frame the Accommodations Debate
The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia: Life at Zaytuna: Closing the Loop
NeuroLogica Blog: Treating Migraine with Magnetic Stimulation
The Band Next Door: The Night Terrors
When a band pulls out a theremin, you start paying attention, and that’s exactly what I did when I saw the The Night Terrors in Melbourne in June last year.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Utah Abortion Bill Update
The Utah abortion bill, which would have sentenced women to up to life in prison if the caused "the death" of a fetus by "intentional or reckless behavior," has been withdrawn, but only so its sponsor, Republican State Representative Carl D. Wimmer, can rewrite it.
Wimmer, a Republican, said he had removed a key clause that would have allowed prosecution under Utah's criminal homicide laws for a "reckless act of the woman" that resulted in death to a fetus. Language will remain, he said, that makes a woman's "intentional" actions, if resulting in the death of her fetus in an illegal abortion, a felony.Basically, Wimmer is seeking to address the concerns raised that "the language about 'reckless' acts could open the door to a witch hunt where every miscarriage was potentially subject to police questioning."
Which will leave a bill criminalizing illegal abortion in a state that increasingly discourages legal abortions.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning.]
Shaker Amanda sends one of the most cynical, exploitative articles I've read in a long damn time, in which columnist Logan Jenkins uses the gruesome rape-murder of Chelsea King, a high school student who was killed while running on a local trail, to victim-blame women: Female runners who run alone, female runners who aren't trained in self-defense, female survivors of attacks who don't "follow up" sufficiently with police...
Should women, especially young women and girls, ever venture out on trails alone? Is the spiritual reward worth the bodily risk? To be perfectly safe, no. But I can understand how women bridle at the prohibition. Isn't it one's right to run through fear?Mr. Jenkins ends his column with: "How grateful would we be if it were all a bad dream, Chelsea is still running in the open field, and sitting in jail today is an evil man with a missing eye," thus tacitly blaming Chelsea herself for getting murdered, instead of taking out her assailant's eye, and causing Jenkins the temporary discomfort of feeling bad.
With bravery, however, comes relentless responsibility.
If a woman goes for a lone run, she must be a warrior, too.
Ears and eyes always tuned to danger. No spacing out to music, either recorded or internal. (Chelsea reportedly was a "purist," eschewing an iPod.)
The lone runner must keep her head on a swivel. The slightest abnormality should trigger an adrenaline rush to flight or fight.
She must be willing to make noise, lots of it, if she feels in the least threatened. Blow a whistle, scream. (Who cares if she's wrong and hurts an innocent's feelings?)
Perhaps she should carry a weapon — Mace? pepper spray? — and know how to use it. If she can't flee, she must be willing to do serious harm.
...Last December, in the same general area of Lake Hodges, a 22-year-old college student was roughed up by a man with a football players's build whom authorities believe was John Albert Gardner III, Chelsea's suspected killer.
The college student fought off her attacker, injuring him and escaping. In what appears to be a tragic failure to follow up, the woman left for college before a composite sketch of her attacker could be drawn and circulated by San Diego police.
I'm not sure I can adequately express the profundity of my contempt for a man who sits in judgment of a raped and murdered girl, who sighs wistfully that she wasn't better prepared or able to protect herself and save us all the inconvenience of mourning her death.
Who is so thoroughly ignorant and impenetrably arrogant that he thinks writing a column admonishing women to stop getting themselves attacked, raped, and killed is fucking helpful.
Where is his advice for men who hurt women? Nowhere to be found, naturally, because Jenkins is just another passive recipient of rape culture narratives who lazily accepts that there will always be monsters in the world, oh well whaddaya gonna do?, and thus regards the only solution as exclusively tasking victims with rape prevention.
Look how helpful he is, lecturing women on keeping themselves safe.
I just positively adore how Jenkins gormlessly puts forth his ideas about how women should be more responsible for their own safety, as if no one's ever fucking said that before, as if no one has ever suggested that the burden of rape prevention should be on women. (And as if women aren't socialized from birth to be intimately familiar with rape prevention, from their behavior to their clothing choices to their attitude, etc. etc. etc.) Hardly a week goes by that I don't read an article saying the same goddamned thing, whether women are being admonished to "learn common sense" or "be more responsible" or "be aware of barroom risks" or "avoid these places" or "don't dress this way" or whatfuckingever.
If Jenkins wants to make a serious contribution to a conversation about rape prevention, he could try writing something that answers this question: Why is it always more important to lecture women on what they should be doing to avoid rape than to talk to men about the fact that they do not have the right to women's bodies without express consent?
But of course he doesn't want to make a serious contribution. He wants to lecture female runners about taking responsibility for their own safety, and then pat himself on the back for caring about victims of sexual violence, despite not making the merest effort to understand the first thing about its perpetrators.
Here's the thing about perpetrators of sexual violence: They hurt people. They hurt people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance. The only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is the bad fucking luck of being in the presence of a rapist.
Rapists are determined to rape. And if Chelsea King hadn't crossed John Albert Gardner's path, someone else would have.
Victim-blaming is based on the damnably fucked-up notion that people (and women in particular) allow themselves to be victimized by virtue of carelessness or stupidity, and they need to be warned and educated and lectured and hectored and cajoled and shamed into never being victims (again).
No.
No one has ever been a victim of sexual violence without someone determined to do it to them.
Enough victim blaming. Enough.
[Related Reading: Five Reasons Why "Teach Women Self-Defense" Isn't a Comprehensive Solution to Rape.]
Shooting at Pentagon; Gunman Killed
Luckily he didn't manage to kill anyone:
A California man killed in a shootout with Pentagon police drove cross-country and arrived at the military headquarters' subway entrance armed with two semiautomatic weapons, authorities said Friday. The shooter apparently left behind Internet postings resentful of the government and airing suspicions about the 9/11 attacks.Online postings made by someone with a similar name to the shooter, which have not yet been confirmed to be the same person, were about 9/11 conspiracy theories and Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991 and his death ruled a suicide, though "Sabow's family has maintained that he was murdered because he was about to expose covert military operations in Central America involving drug smuggling."
John Patrick Bedell, 36, of Hollister, Calif., was named as the gunman in the Thursday evening attack. Authorities said he'd had previous run-ins with the law.
Investigators have found no immediate connection to terrorism, and the attack that superficially wounded two police officers at the massive Defense Department headquarters appears to be a case of "a single individual who had issues," Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police, said in an early morning press conference Friday.
Keevill described Bedell as "very well-educated" and well-dressed, saying Bedell was wearing a suit when he showed up at the secure Pentagon entrance about 6:40 p.m. and blended in with workers. He was concealing two 9 millimeter semiautomatic weapons and "many magazines" of ammunition.
When Bedell seemed to reach into his pocket for worker identification, he instead pulled out a gun, Keevill said.
"He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting" at point-blank range, Keevill said. "He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face."
Bedell died Thursday night from head wounds received when the two injured officers and another officer returned fire, Keevill said.
The exchange of fire at the subway entrance in Arlington, Va., lasted less than a minute but numerous shots were fired, Keevill said, adding that investigators were "still counting." Bedell was not wearing body armor, he added.
The two officers injured have been released from the hospital. One suffered a thigh wound and the other was hit in the shoulder. Keevill said both were superficial injuries.
Keevill said he did not know what motivated the shooting: "I have no idea what his intentions were."
It quite genuinely does appear like Bedell was acting on his own. We'll have, nationally, the "terrorism?" debate again, but, at a certain point, trying to discern whether X number of lone gunmen (or kamikaze pilots, or whatever) is just going to be a way to avoid talking about the fact that extremist groups have grown 244% in the last year and we're in the middle of scary-ass backlash.
This shit doesn't happen in a void.
UPDATE: Think Progress has more. Thanks to Spudsy for sending that along.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker aproustian: If you could live the life of a fictional character, which would it be?
This is a real thing in the world.
Rocket Dog's Bello clog, in "Tribal Brown."
There is apparently a fabric in existence called tribal-brown, but, just to be clear, this selection does not refer to a fabric; the color of the shoe is "tribal brown."
Today in Lazy Fatasses
Gut Bacteria May Spur Obesity, Research Suggests:
Intestinal bacteria may contribute to obesity and metabolic syndrome, a new study in mice suggests.B-b-but...CALORIES IN! CALORIES OUT! CALORIES IN! CALORIES OUT! CAL! O! RIES! IN! CAL! O! RIES! OUT! AIEEEEEEEEEE!
"It has been assumed that the obesity epidemic in the developed world is driven by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the abundance of low-cost, high-calorie foods. However, our results suggest that excess caloric consumption is not only a result of undisciplined eating but that intestinal bacteria contribute to changes in appetite and metabolism," senior study author Andrew Gewirtz, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, said in a university news release.
He and his colleagues found that increased appetite and insulin resistance can be transferred from one mouse to another via intestinal bacteria.
It seems to me I read a similar study years ago about intestinal chemistry, if not specifically bacteria, affecting the absorption of fats.
It's almost like there's natural variation among humans or something.
Blub Alert: "The impossible is only the untried."
Jordan Verner, a blind gamer in Ontario, completed Zelda in November after a two-year project led by fellow gamer (but total stranger) Roy Williams, who saw Verner's request for help online:
[Full transcript below.]
[Video of young white man being blindfolded; he says, "Leave my ears open so I can hear." Video segues into man playing the video game The Legend of Zelda while blindfolded.]
Voiceover: Roy Williams will be the first to admit that playing a video game blindfolded seems, well—
Williams: Ultra-nerdy. [laughs]
Voiceover. Yes. It is unique. In fact, he's probably the only guy in Camden with this level of dedication.
Williams: When I was little, I played this game hours on end.
Voiceover: But on the internet, he's just one of many. And over the years, he's become pretty close friends with other gamers from around North America, all of them fanatic about Zelda, a fantasy adventure game. On YouTube, you'll find tons of fan videos; in some, players try to speed run, or beat the game as fast as they can. But it was another feat that stood out to Roy and his friends.
Williams: It was basically like a call for help to people online.
[Video of another young white man speaking on a YouTube video.]
Voiceover: It was a video like this one, by Jordan Verner of Ontario, Canada. He was playing small parts of the game—blind.
Verner: I was never encouraged, or even permitted, for that matter, to see blindness as a total roadblock.
Voiceover: Through Skype, Jordan says that he asked for help in completing the entire game—help that he didn't seriously expect.
Verner: I thought, "That's far from reality. That's more fantasy than the game itself."
Williams: When I was younger, a doctor told me that I was gonna go blind, which turned out not to be so, but [laughs]—and it scared me, and I was like, "I wanna be able to help this person get past, get through his disability.
Voiceover: So Williams and three other diehard gamers each took different parts and copied down every…single…move.
Williams: Every time we make a move—we roll, we jump, we do anything—we type down in the computer exactly what we're doing. [Williams reads from detailed script on computer screen.] Turn one hundred and eighty degrees; one back-flip; you'll hear the noise of a skulltula hitting the ground—
Voiceover: Verner would then take the script and have his computer read it to him as he played. An average gamer will take about a week to play through the entire thing, but this project took almost two years—and more than one hundred thousand keystrokes. Finally, in November of last year, Jordan beat the entire thing.
Verner: It felt great. It—I felt strong. I felt, you know, sky's the limit.
Williams: I'm glad that everyone can see and learn from this that just because a person has a disability doesn't mean that they can't do a normal thing, like play a video game.
Voiceover: So despite the fact that this [video of Williams playing blindfolded again] might look just a little weird, try and see things the way Jordan does.
Verner: Our school's motto, and I live by it, is: "The impossible is only the untried."
Voiceover: And suddenly this [video of Williams playing blindfolded again] seems pretty cool.
16 Senators Ask FDA to Lift Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood
Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), Kirstin Gillibrand (D-New York), Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Rolland Burris (D-Illinois), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), Mark Udall (D-Colorado), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), Al Franken (D-Minnesota), Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Carl Levin (D-Michigan), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) have all signed a letter asking Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to rescind the ban, in place since 1983, which prohibits gay men from donating blood.
We write today to express our concerns regarding outdated, medically and scientifically unsound deferral criteria for prospective blood donors. With hospitals and emergency rooms across the country in constant and urgent need of blood products, we believe certain blood donor deferral policies should be reviewed and appropriately modified and modernized while ensuring the blood supply meets the highest possible standards that we all expect in America.The Senators go on to address the double-standard that defers for only one year prospective straight donors "who have engaged in heterosexual sexual activity with a person known to have HIV" but bans male donors who have engaged in protected sexual activity with health partners for life. And they make note of how the blood supply could be made safer by revising the current policies, in addition to reversing the existing discriminatory policy.
The American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and AABB reported before an FDA-sponsored workshop on March 9, 2006 that the ban on men who have had sex with other men (MSM), even once, since 1977 from ever donating blood "is medically and scientifically unwarranted." Then in 2008, the Council on Science and Public Health at the American Medical Association also advocated modifying the lifetime deferral requirement for MSM.
The safety, availability, and integrity of our nation's blood supply are vital. For these reasons, we agree with the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, AABB, and others that the time has come for the FDA to modify the lifetime deferral for MSM to be consistent with sensible health and safety policy and with FDA deferral guidelines for high-risk heterosexual behavior. We request that you initiate a review of the lifetime deferral requirement for men who have sex with men wishing to donate blood and that you reexamine the deferral criteria for all blood donors to ensure all high-risk behaviors are appropriately addressed.Thank you, Democratic/Independent (and only Democratic/Independent) Senators.
Random YouTubery: A Dude Figure Skates to "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
"I hate you, Dad!"
The video is exactly as the title paraphrases: A male figure skater named Scott Williams, dressed in a bandanna, sleeveless flannel shirt, jeans, and black skates, performs in the "Champions on Ice" show to Nirvana's hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Thank you, Al Gore. Thank you for the internetz.
Quote of the Day
"If you were a Transformer, you'd be Feminist Prime."—Iain, randomly, as we were falling asleep the other night.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
In Other Things That Are Women's Fault, Too
Earlier, I wrote about women getting blamed for men's sexual, and sexually violent, behavior; relatedly, there is a new study (yay, science!) which claims that women (but only beautiful ones) are responsible for men hurting themselves:
Research shows that just looking at an attractive female makes [men] more likely to indulge in 'physical risk-taking' which results in embarrassing failure or even injury.Oh, evo psych. How I do adore thee—and your simple belief that everything we do can be traced along a single, inerrant, heterocentrist, gender-normative line back to our genitals.
The change in behaviour is triggered by a surge in the male hormone testosterone which makes men 'throw caution to the wind', according to psychologists at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
They made the finding after a studying young male skateboarders. ... Saliva tests confirmed they had 'elevated testosterone levels' while a good-looking woman was around.
Professor Bill von Hippel, who led the study, said there was an evolutionary reason for the behaviour, explaining it was a 'sexual display strategy' aimed at impressing a potential mate.
What I like about the juxtaposition of these two stories is that the first blames women for men hurting women, and the second blames women for men hurting themselves. And of course women are responsible for any hurt they cause themselves or others. Which I'm pretty sure means that women are responsible for all the pain in the entire world.
"That's what we've been trying to tell you for years!" said every MRA on the planet when reached for comment.
[H/T to Katy.]
o_O
Relevant Transcript:Free emergency room care? Well, then I guess we don't really need health insurance anymore if that's the case! Take that insurance companies!
Romney: Oh, sure. Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way.
Aside from that, there's still the end of Romney's argument that we need to dissect. It sounds like he's saying that people who are uninsured can get free care at the ER, no bill and no worries. However, if these uninsured people have sufficient means to pay their own way, then they have an even greater chance to get... umm... free care?
Zuh?
I Write Letters
Dear Highly-Decorated Winter Olympian Shaun White and Rolling Stone:
[Click to embiggen.]
Really? I mean...really?!
[If you can't view the image, it's the cover of Rolling Stone featuring USian snowboarder Shaun White, clad in a gold medal, US flag pants, and combat boots, yelling, and holding a container of lighter fluid at his crotch and squeezing it so that lighter fluid shoots out onto flames. It is exactly as embarrassingly garish as it sounds.]
Really?! For real?!
Love,
Liss
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning.]
In Bristol, Virginia, a religious group is handing out a leaflet entitled "Women & Girls" that blames women in tight-fitting or revealing clothing for men's sins and claims such clothing is why women are raped:
"You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed," it begins. "Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?"Oh dear. It's the Magical, Mysterious, Mighty Power of Uncovered Meatdom argument again: Women have a supernatural and inescapable power over men, wielded primarily through their bodies—a power so irresistible and total that men cannot be held accountable for their actions, because they are rendered helpless, defenseless, morally vulnerable (yet somehow have nonetheless managed to simultaneously hold the upper hand in virtually every culture since the beginning of recorded history). Don't try to understand it! It's magical! The black magic of wicked women!
It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. [Pam Yates, whose 19-year-old daughter Keshia Canter was handed the pamphlet by a woman who told her, "Even though nothing is showing, you're being ungodly. You make men want to be sinful."] was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:
"Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin," the leaflet states. "By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?"
The hand-out is signed "anonymous."
In a world where rape was properly regarded as a hate crime, and this sort of victim-blaming shit was seen for the hate speech it is, viewed as material that borders on the incitement of rape by virtue of its flagrant justification, content that has the explicit capacity to harass and trigger survivors of sexual violence, the people handing out this pamphlet would be committing a serious crime.
Anything else I could say about this truly despicable victim-blaming, I've said before: Rape is not a compliment, not only attractive women and girls are raped, women aren't to blame for their own rapes, the key component in every rape is the presence of a rapist... The truth is, anyone who genuinely believes that women are responsible for being raped based on anything they do is either unimaginably cruel or has the critical thinking skills of a gnat—and probably both.
And I'll note, once again, that although it's feminists who have the terrible reputation as man-haters, but it isn't we who consider all men to be such psychological, emotional, and ethical lightweights that they can't stop themselves raping women. The holders of those views are the foot soldiers of the Patriarchy—which itself, after all, takes a rather unpleasantly dim view of most people.
[H/T to Shaker Mark.]
Bread and Teaspoons Twenty-Four
Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.
This is a (theoretically) weekly post providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some. Despite that it's only B&T 24, it occurs to me that this is about six months we've been running this. Hope it's still helpful to folks? Is there a way or ways in which it could be more useful/helpful? I'm explicitly inviting discussion on this topic this week.
***NB*** I have added a bit to the guidelines for what’s on-topic here, to allow the posting of useful job resources for progressives. See 2) for details.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, I might post a comment saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
In addition to that, I’ve decided to welcome also appropriate job resource sites for progressives, e.g. Canada’s Charity Village, which specializes in jobs with non-profits and NGOs.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
**NEW CATEGORY ADDED**
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-One. Twenty-Two. Twenty-Three.
Question of the Day
If the world were to suddenly and irrevocably split into three dimensional realities—one being Utopia, one being Armageddon, and one being something between those extremes—and you could choose which world you wanted to inhabit, which one would you choose (and why)?
Now, I'm a Utopian-leaning dyke, but believe it or not, this is the kind of question I have actually asked people I know, and the answers have not always been as unified as I expected. (One friend said they worried that Utopia would be boring.)
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.]
RIP Jon Swift
The great blogger Jon Swift, who, in addition to writing his own amazing blog, was a contributor to Shakesville and my colleague at newcritics, and whose real name was Al Weisel, has died.
I found out via our mutual friend Tom Watson, who reports that Al's mother posted a comment to the Jon Swift blog sharing the circumstances of his death:
I don't know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift's Mom and I guess I'm going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father's funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke. We, his 2 sisters, his brother, his partner and his best friend since he was 9 years old were with him as he took his last breath. We have all lost a shining start who warmed our hearts, tormented us and made us laugh as he giggled at our pulling something over on us. He passed away on February 27, 2010. My beloved child will live on in so many hearts. I miss him more than I can say. If you are on Facebook, go to organizations and join "Friends of Al Weisel, Unite!" It will give you just a taste of how special he was. Farewell, Jon (Al)I had emailed Al, Jon as I knew him, a few days before, and hadn't heard back from him, which was a little unusual, but not terribly so. He drifted in and out of blogging, when real life accommodated or got in the way. I was a genuine fan of his writing, and he was an absolutely delightful guy in every conversation I had with him.
I feel really fortunate to have known him and had the opportunity to read the work of someone so devilishly clever and enviably talented. And I feel so, so sad that he's gone.
My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.
RIP Al.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Deeky: You know what? MC Hammer is kind of a shitty MC.
Liss: He's 2 legit 2 quit!
Deeky: He's 2 shit 2 quit. He was just on the radio. And I think this was the first time I listened to U Can't Touch This all the way through. It was shit.
Liss: He's 2 legit 2 submit 2 ur crit!
Deeky: LOLOLOLOL!
Liss: He's 2 legit 2 submit 2 ur hit on his shiznit u nitwit!
Deeky: That's a better rhyme than anything he ever spit out.
Later...
Deeky: If the last six of your twelve albums suck, have you failed as an artist? I'm talking to you, Ministry.
Liss: And u 2, U2.
Deeky: LOL! Yesterday's frozen custard trivia question was what is Bono's real name.
Liss: Bono's real name is "The Edge."
Deeky: LOLz for real.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Deeky Brand Strap-Ons, preferred by Competitive Assfucking Champions the world over.
Recommended Reading:
Steve: First Same-Sex Marriage Licenses Issued in DC
Maha: Politicians Behaving Badly
Dorothy Snarker: A League of Our Own
Denis: Madison Paige Does Pull Triggers
Angry Asian Man: The Worst Movie Trailer I Have Ever Seen
And Happy One-Year Blogiversary to Akimbo!
Leave your links in comments...
Today in Fat Hatin'
Shaker cheezwiz emails: "Et tu, Salon?"
I'll leave you to fisk in comments, and simply point out that my favorite passage has to be:
If I'd heard someone making this argument four years ago, I probably would have rolled my eyes. What's changed between then and now is a 2-year-old (mine), two pregnancies (I'm currently in my third trimester for No. 2), and 15 pounds of excess weight that have made my second pregnancy a lot more uncomfortable than my first."Because my personal circumstances changed, now my position for everyone has changed! So now I totes support the shaming of women so that they'll lose weight after pregnancy!"
Where have I heard this argument before...? Oh, right. It's the same bullshit rationale used by self-loathing social conservatives who refuse to acknowledge innate characteristics and have absolutely no self-control over their own behavior, so they seek to legislate morality, as if criminalizing sodomy will magically make them straight or criminalizing abortion will stop them taking their knocked-up daughters through picket lines on which they stood the day before to get through the doors of the abortion clinic.
Though the author asserts "I take full responsibility for this predicament," she really doesn't; she blames society—if only you had shamed me, I wouldn't be so fat! Which may be true. For her.
But for all the rest of us who don't lose weight under the pressure of mountainous shame, and don't fucking need that shit, she can do us all a favor and STFU. Because the fact that her willpower is contingent on the critical judgment of perfect strangers really isn't our fucking problem.
Today in Transphobia
If you can't view the image, it's the cover (via Cover Awards) of pop culture rag Life & Style Weekly, featuring before-and-after pix of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt with longer hair and shorter hair, reading: "Why is Angelina turning Shiloh into a boy?" Beneath the large yellow headline, subtext reads: "A boy's haircut and clothes. Calls her 'John.' No girlie things. Is it harming the 3-year-old?"
ZOMG!!!eleventy! It's a girl-child with a gender-neutral haircut! O NOES! Let us all immediately commence upon BLAMING HER MOTHER!!!
(And her mother only. It's only her mother, Angelina Jolie, who is reportedly "turning Shiloh into a boy," but her father, Brad Pitt, has no parenting role, or at least no parenting responsibility, because of his very manly penis. Or something. I don't claim to understand how the minds of the jack-booted gender normative enforcers work. But luckily, Life & Style has EXPERTS! To weigh in! On this important subject!
Alana Kelen, who is a senior fashion stylist at VH1, tells us that "Shiloh is pushing the boundaries of a tomboy look and crossing over to cross-dresser territory."
Okay. And? If that were true it would be bad why...?
Well, maybe celebrity stylist Gili Rashal-Niv can shed some light on the subject: "I get that times are tough but does Angie really need to have Shiloh sharing clothes with her brothers? Hopefully we won't be seeing Maddox in one of Shiloh's dresses any time soon."
Oh Maude forbid! Not a BOY IN A DRESS! AIEEEEEEEEE!
Tell us what's what, Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies for Focus on the Family (WTF?!): "They need help, they need guidance of what that looks like. It's important to teach our children that gender distinction is very healthy."
Why? BECAUSE GOD SAYS SO, THAT'S WHY, YOU FILTHY HEATHENS!
Our last expert to opine on the international crisis of a three-year-old's gender presentation is parenting coach Karen Deerwester, who says: "Giving preschool-age children the freedom and flexibility to experiment with how they want to be seen in the world is a wonderful gift."
Wow. How eminently sensible.
In addition to, and inextricably tied up with, the transphobia at work here, there's also the familiar stank of misogyny, and the curling stench of homophobia, all stewing in the fetid pot of gendered heteronormativity: Girls must look feminine, according to the rigid definitions of feminine beauty as prescribed by the kyriarchy, so that they may serve their primary purpose as sexualized objects of the male gaze.
And though it's not explicit, there is also an element of racism underlying the insistence that Jolie is "ruining" her white (biological) daughter by "turning her into a boy," an objection that wasn't raised when her Asian (adopted) sons have had longer ("feminine") hair, or when her African-American (adopted) daughter has worn her older brothers' hand-me-downs, as does Shiloh.
Further, we have yet another example of a child's agency being denied, or treated like it doesn't even exist.
Maybe Shiloh asked for that haircut. Maybe she likes dressing up like a boy, like lots of little girls with opposite-sex parents do, because it makes them feel close to their dads. Maybe she asked to be called "John" because it's her grandfather's name.
Or maybe zie asked for that haircut and dresses up like a boy and asked to be called John because zie's transgender.
And lucky enough to have parents who respect hir as an individual.
Either way, it's none of our goddamned business. And I resent being obliged to put an alternative to this shit out into the universe. Because it really isn't my business—but the notion that a child who doesn't conform to hir birth gender is somehow less than certainly is.
[Related Reading: To Tutu or Not to Tutu?]
New Must-Read Publication!
h/t my friend James -- also Here.
Not Terrorism in Texas
Following on the heels of Spudsy's post about the explosion of right-wing extremist groups in the last year, this story in the Texas Observer is even more terrifying: A conservative militant group called Repent Amarillo has spent the last year terrorizing a swingers club, gay bars, and liberal churches, among others. Led by David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility (!) who moonlights as a pastor, Repent Amarillo's "special forces" have protested and harassed everyone who makes their way onto the group's enemies list by virtue of being insufficiently right-wing conservative Christian (as defined by them, natch):
Jobs have been lost, families estranged, assault charges filed and businesses shuttered. So far, no public official has stood up to defend these businesses, which operate legally. To the contrary, Repent Amarillo has managed to turn the city's own laws and employees into an effective weapon. Amarillo, it turns out, doesn't have the stomach to stick up for gays, swingers, strippers or even Unitarians.Repent Amarillo's website (to which I won't directly link, but it's easy enough to find if you're so inclined) explains that the group is "comprised of two groups…working together to compliment [sic] and support one another for the purpose of spiritual warfare." The groups are the Intercessory Prayer Group, who are tasked with "do[ing] battle within the spiritual realm to prepare the ground for the planting of God's seeds, tear down demonic strongholds, and cast out demonic spirits that harass our efforts," and the Soldier Group, staffed with "bold believers willing to confront the world," and tasked with "plant[ing] God's seeds in the ground" after being "schooled in the 'Way of the Master' method of witnessing to the lost."
…Repent Amarillo became an almost-constant presence [at the swingers club, Route 66], shouting through bullhorns, blasting Christian music, haranguing club members, following swingers in vehicles and sticking video cameras into people's faces. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has been called out twice. Police records show that nearby businesses have called frequently with noise complaints. Repent even showed up on occasion when the Route 66 building was rented out for non-swinger events. "They have been here every time we open our doors, regardless of what kind of functions we have, whether I'm down here doing maintenance, cleaning, whatever," Mac [one of the club owners] says.
…Perhaps the most insidious tactic Repent uses is trying to destroy the reputation of the swingers. In Amarillo, people can be ostracized over a whiff of impropriety. On one tape, Grisham directs followers to get the license-plate numbers in the Route 66 parking lot. "A new couple can be here three or four hours," says Mac. "Whenever they leave, the Repent Amarillo group will call them by first and last name, know where they live, know where they work, just within a very few hours."
Randall Sammons says he was fired from his job of 13 years in August after his boss learned Sammons was a swinger from another employee, a Repent member. … Russell Grisham, David's 20-year-old son who has a conviction on his record for hacking the computer system at his high school, has posted the names, photos and workplaces of swingers on the Internet, including one man whose wife works for a school district. … In at least two instances, Repent members called swingers' employers.
The website goes on to list "some of the possible missions that these two groups may be called upon to work."
1. Gay pride events.I utterly fail to see how this is not being regarded as a terrorist manifesto.
2. Earth worship events such as "Earth Day"
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood
4. Breast cancer events such as "Race for the Cure" to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.
These large events may involve both the intercessory prayer AND the soldier groups. Some of the smaller events that can be accomplished in between the larger events may be:
1. Sexually oriented businesses such as pornography shops, strip joints, and XXX-rated theaters.
2. Idolatry locations such as palm readers, false religions, and witchcraft. Many of the smaller missions listed above may be just prayer oriented missions for tearing down demonic strongholds or they may involve more aggressive use of soldiers and prayer warriors. Some other missions occasionally employed may be "undercover operations" where the groups show up together but are not publicly visible together to effect the outcome of a public meeting such as city commissioners meetings, etc.
Except, of course, for the usual: It's not terrorism when it's white men committing it or only marginalized groups and their allies targeted by it.
Try to imagine, for one moment, a brown-skinned man with a foreign name being allowed to wage a campaign of intimidation of this scale, including openly hosting a website with militaristic rhetoric, against Upstanding Christian White MenTM for an entire year while working as a security guard at a nuclear facility, without the authorities paying him any mind at all.
Yeah. Try to imagine that for one moment without bursting into laughter at the absurdity of the proposition.
[H/T to CaitieCat, via email.]
Holy Shit
A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center states that right-wing extremist groups have grown 244% in the last year.
Repeated for emphasis. Two hundred forty-four percent. In the last year.
I'm sure the title of the report, "Rage on the Right," will cause the predictable mouth-frothing by the usual suspects, sending this straight down the memory hole to join the Department of Homeland Security's report.The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.
Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called "Patriot" groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose “one-world government” on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.
And then they can get right back to work.
(Via.)
Lost Open Thread
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
Meanwhile...
Pennsylvania seems to be very close to establishing a single-payer health care system for the state:
They claim to have the best legislation, which will provide everyone with healthcare, pay for it, and in fact save people and businesses money, as well as getting around the federal restrictions Congressman Dennis Kucinich has attempted unsuccessfully thus far to waive for states. In Pennsylvania they have Democratic and Republican cosponsors. Imagine that in Washington, D.C.! And they have a governor ready to sign the bill into law.See HealthCare4AllPA for more info.
Important Announcement
I don't care how many people Megan Fox has slept with.
So much do I not care about it that I would not even mention it at all were it not for the media's obsession with it.
The latest item across which I've stumbled is the unintentionally hilariously titled "Megan Fox Has Had Limited Lovers," by which the writers mean limited in number, not in prowess, despite the fact that one might reasonably expect to find beneath such a headline an article about all the men who have failed to bring Megan Fox to orgasm, say.
The article is a perfect example of the tone routinely engaged to discuss Fox's sex life, or lack thereof:
The 'Transformers' actress, who is regarded as one of the world's sexiest women, insists she has only been intimate with long-term partner Brian Austin Green and her first boyfriend as she can only have sex with people she loves.Translation: "Megan Fox, who is SUPERHOT, dubiously claims to not be a TOTES SLUT.
Megan, who has previously claimed she is bisexual, insists she is nothing like her sex siren image and is happy living a quiet life with former 'Beverly Hills 90210' star Brian and his eight-year-old son, Kassius.Translation: "Megan Fox, who is SUPERHOT, dubiously claims to not be a TOTES SLUT.
The construction is always the same.
And what I find most interesting about it is that Fox is essentially navigating the exact balance that our cultural narratives suggest we expect of our ingenues: Be a willing sex object, but don't be a slut. And since she can neither be dismissed as a prude or viciously slut-shamed, she is instead called a liar.
Can't win. Can't fucking win.
[Recommended Reading: Sady's great piece "Megan Fox: Sex Symbol, Mouthy Slut, Or Something Else Entirely?"]
Perry Wins Primary in Texas
Our old friend Texas Governor Rick Perry has won the hard-fought gubernatorial Republican primary against our old friend Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Yay?
I'm sorry, Texas. That was gonna be a shit sandwich either way.
You know I can relate. I've got two words for you: Mitch Daniels.
Perry will now race for reelection against the winner of the Democratic primary, former Houston mayor Bill White.
Open Thread
And a genie who'll grant a wish,
Golly, it's awesome! At Pee-Wee's Playhouse!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Beo_Shaffer: What are some of your favorite movies/books/webcomics that pass the Bechdel test?
Actual Headline
Obama embraces GOP health care proposals.
Sigh.
President Barack Obama extended a bipartisan olive branch to GOP leaders in the health care debate Tuesday, stating in a letter that he is willing to consider several of their ideas in a compromise plan.That the GOP is unhappy with the concessions should not be mistaken for a commentary that the concessions are merely sops to bipartisanship. These are material proposals, and some of them are garbage. For example, the "high-deductible health plans" being referred to are Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and Obama's willingness to "help to encourage more people to take advantage of HSAs" is not a good thing.
Specifically, the president said he may be willing to:
– commit $50 million to fund state initiatives designed to reduce medical malpractice costs;
– allow undercover investigations of health care providers receiving Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs;
– boost Medicaid reimbursements to doctors in certain states; and
– include language in the final bill ensuring certain high-deductible health plans can be offered in the health exchange.
The president said his decision to consider the GOP ideas was a result of last week's health care summit.
"The meeting was a good opportunity to move past the usual rhetoric and sound-bites that have come to characterize this debate and identify areas on which we agree and disagree," he wrote. I "left convinced that the Republican and Democratic approaches to health care have more in common than most people think."
GOP leaders were unsatisfied with Obama's concessions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said the president's ideas were little more than a few items "inadequately addressed in a 2,700-page bill."
Bush was pushing HSAs for years, under that old conservative canard about having more control over one's own money, but the truth about HSAs is that they will inevitably result in more exposure to financial ruin at a vulnerable point in one's life. Ezra Klein has written extensively about the various problems with HSAs, and this Hilzoy piece is a good primer, too.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Deeky: That video you sent me is hilarious.
Liss: I laughed my tits off at figure skating being gayer than "competitive assfucking."
[Relevant transcript starting at 0:38: "Is Johnny Weir too gay for figure skating? Wait—is that even possible? Figure skating is the gayest sport of all time. In fact, let's take a look at where it falls on our official Sports Sexuality Spectrum: On the hetero extreme, there's football, then hockey, then baseball, then tennis, croquet, wrestling, ascot-tying, scented candle-making, competitive assfucking, figure skating. The sport is gay! Deal with it!" H/T for the video to Shaker Veace.]
Deeky: That may be my new favorite phrase.
Later…
Liss: It sounds like Leno's return to The Tonight Show was as totes awesome as we expected. [Sends Gabe's review of the horrendous disaster.]
Deeky: LOLOLOLOLOL!
Liss: "So the set is a low rent garbage disaster."
Deeky: Seriously, if I could figure out a way to put "low rent garbage disaster" and "competitive assfucking" into one sentence, I might explode.
Liss: "Deeky wanted to bring Matt Damon to the competitive assfucking tournament, but Damon was unavailable, so he brought that low rent garbage disaster Ben Affleck instead."
Deeky: LOLOLOLOL! Clean up on aisle five!
Important Announcement
This is how I look every Tuesday from the moment I awaken in anticipation of a new episode of Lost:
A True Thing: When Iain and I wake up on Tuesdays, the first thing we always say (okay, maybe the second thing, after "Morning, babesy!") to each other is: "Happy Lost Day!"
(Thanks to Shaker stakkalee for passing on that gif!)
How Charitable Is That?
It's either a lesson in irony or just plain bigotry, but the Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. is changing its healthcare benefits to exclude the possibility that one of their employees might want to cover a same-sex partner now that the District legalized marriage equality.
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.As the article notes, Catholic Charities is a private, non-profit organization, so they can do whatever they want when it comes to providing benefits to their employees. And they are free to pass along the impression that they're also a bunch of bigoted and sex-obsessed tight-asses who actually go out of their way to ostracize legally-recognized married couples. How charitable of them.
"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."
Catholic Charities, which receives $22 million from the city for social service programs, protested in the run-up to the council's December vote to allow same-sex marriage, saying that it might not be able to continue its contracts with the city, including operating homeless shelters and facilitating city-sponsored adoptions. Being forced to recognize same-sex marriage, church officials said, could make it impossible for the church to be a city contractor because Catholic teaching opposes such unions.
After the council voted to legalize gay marriage, Catholic Charities last month transferred its foster-care program -- 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members -- to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.
Orzechowski said Monday that the change in health benefits will be the last move necessary in response to the legislation.
"We do not anticipate any further changes whatsoever," he said. "Taking the action we have on foster care and spousal we feel has addressed everything the new law requires of us."
Today in Disablism
Shaker Laurakeet sent in the following advertisement for a thyroid surgical procedure from the University of Illinois Medical Center:
Image description: A smiling, blue-eyed, thin, young blond woman in a white camisole is at the top right of the ad, next to the words “Don’t let thyroid surgery take away your beauty”. Below is a series of three photos: one of the same woman with her arms around a young white man; a photo of a silver-haired white male doctor; and an image of the University of Illinois Medical Center.
This is the ad copy for those who can't read the image:
Don’t let Thyroid surgery take away your beauty.Emphasis is in the original.
Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti
The University of Illinois Medical Center understands that beauty is important to every woman.
The University of Illinois Medical Center is one of the few hospitals in the country offering thyroid surgery—without the need for a neck incision.
For more information visit uic.edu/com/surgery or call 312.355.5562
University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Surgery College of Medicine
University of Illinois Medical Center—Changing Medicine. For good.
Mention this ad for a FREE CONSULTATION to see if this procedure is right for you.
This surgery ad is failful on so many axes—impossible beauty standards, disablism, classism, racism, sexism, commodification of health care—that my brain shorted out for a bit and I put off writing about it.
But today, I hereby create a Today in Disablism tag and start peeling back the layers.
First, we see that “beauty” means a fairly young, thin, white, blond and blue-eyed woman with smooth, even-toned, flawless skin and no visible signs of disease or disability. We discover that what's at risk is not life or quality of life, but beauty. And we learn that the threat to that beauty is not disease, but surgery.
Thyroid disease can (note I say can) “take away” socially approved signs of beauty—thinness, smooth skin, firm eyelid skin, thick healthy hair and eyebrows, etc. in those who happen to have them in the first place. But those with illnesses requiring thyroid surgery may well feel that their looks are the least of their problems. For some patients viewing this ad, surgery may save their lives or quality of life, but they are admonished to prioritize their beauty, even under such circumstances. (If and only if they are women, naturally.) For some, avoiding a neck scar may indeed be important for psychological well-being at a difficult time, but this ad presents the surgery as a woman's obligation, not as a patient's option.
The ad assumes that all women are the same and should value their beauty first (“beauty is important to every woman”). In the middle row of small photos, though, it also shows us the purpose of that beauty: to please a man.
Women who don’t fit the beauty mold to begin with learn once again that they are worth less than those who do, and those who do get a reminder that they risk losing their only recognized value.Thanks, kyriarchy!
The surgery center emphasizes that the procedure is available at only a few hospitals in the country, yet implies that women who cannot obtain access to it have “let” their beauty be ruined and their worth reduced. This is an especially egregious message to send to women whose social worth is already decreased by illness. It is just one more way in which we are defaulting on the social contract, and we let it happen—how dare we?
Finally, direct-to-consumer marketing of surgery says a lot about our conception of health care as a commodity and not a right.
I'm sure there's more, so have at it in comments.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Quote of the Day
"With the valuable Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg endorsements in hand, Mickey Kaus' bid for a Democratic Party primary win is looking more solid than ever."—Matt Yglesias, waxing sardonic on the professional concern troll who's decided to run against Barbara Boxer in California's Senate Race.
The Kitchen Sink
Once upon a time, I took a quiz meant to discern what American accent you have. I was told my "accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington." Or...you've got a dad who was raised in Indiana and a mom who was raised in Queens, and you've spent some time in Britain and longer married to a Scot, so you have some weird accent all your own that unscientific quizzes say is Philadelphian.
Mama Shakes' accent is all but gone now, although when she speaks to her brother, or Aunt Gladys, who still live in New Yawk, it creeps back out, and I am reminded of why I thought for years that the word spatula was spelled "spatuler," and why my classmates always giggled at my pronunciation of the word horrible.
At home I was Lissa; at my grandparents' house, I was Lisser. "Lisser'n I aw gunna wawk down to the cawnaw stoah." It was almost a different language, but I spoke it—and I knew it meant I was going down to the corner store with my granddad, where he'd buy a paper and give me some change to buy 5¢ candies kept in big glass jars on the countah.
It was the language of summertime. When school let out, including for my parents, who were teachers, we went to New York, driving across the country—Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania…—and by the time the Verrazano Bridge was in view, I was giddy with anticipation of hearing that language again. Lisser, New York called to me. Lisser. All the mystery of a magnificent city wrapped up in a voice that made my name thrillingly unfamiliar to my own ears. I never got used to it, because I never wanted to. I preferred to let that language remind me always of the chance for exploration and wonderment that a city which wasn't my own provided.
I loved (and love still) Central Park, and the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. I loved the subway, and the ferry, and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel on the Long Island Expressway. But everything I loved the most could be found on one block on 68th Street in Queens. Cellar doors on raised cement porches, fuzzy white caterpillars in the narrow, kid-sized crevices between row houses, my grandmother's desk whose drawers were filled with outdated secretarial tools that fascinated me, my grandfather's closet with its old-fashioned hangers and shoehorns, the dumbwaiter that ran to the cellar, the pocket door between the living room and kitchen, intricate metal heating grates, an ancient wallphone with a phone number written on it that contained letters, the best junk room in the world stuffed with a working electric organ, a massive collection of Mad magazines, and a box of funny hats. And my favorite thing in the world—the giant, steel kitchen sink, that doubled as my bath when I was a wee thing.
Lisser, my mom would say. It's bath time. The cold sink would be filled with warm, soapy water, while I waited patiently in my toddler chair with its vinyl seat and cool metal arms. And then I would be undressed and lifted into the sink, where I'd slide against its smooth sides, and my mom would have to reach in and pull me upright again as we both laughed. My grandmother would tell me about how she and my mom and my uncle were bathed in that sink, too; We'll look at the pictures later, Lisser. Later…when I was wrapped in my big green terrycloth towel, complete with a hood, that was perfect for snuggling after a bath—or wearing to play Robin Hood any old time.
Once I was too big to be bathed in the sink, it became a benchmark for how grown-up I was from one summer to the next. I'd stand before it and stretch in my arms, to see if I could touch its deep bottom. Maybe next year, Lisser. My fingertips reached its depths the same year my grandfather died.
The last time I stood at that sink, my nephew was carrying the tradition of kitchen sink baths into a fourth generation. Look at your Aunt Lisser, he was instructed, for a photo. He giggled and slid across its bottom.
After my grandmother died, the house was sold, and I'm sure that antiquated old sink is now long gone, a victim to modernization. But the language that falls from millions of tongues reminds me of it still. Lisser, I hear—and it conjures sunny afternoons on Myrtle Avenue, the Four-Ones cab company, corner shop candies, the Hudson, my New York and everyone else's. And a kitchen sink.
