Suggested by Shaker Ledasmom: What author do you wish could go on writing forever, assuming they kept writing quality books?
Quote of the Day
"When we get fat, we fool ourselves with every kind of lie imaginable. By 2008, my weight started creeping up and I said, 'Oh, I still look good at 150. I still look good at 155. I still look okay at 165. Some of my clothes still fit at 175.' And nobody was saying 'You're fat.' I was like a bank robber who was getting away with it."—Kirstie Alley, equating being fat with being a criminal, and just generally, as per usual, really not helping.
A Grumbles Extolment!
The finest book for young-men and boys alike since Struwwelpeter is at long last alighting upon Book-store shelves, after too long in dormancy! Yes, I am speaking of Exercises for Gentlemen: 50 Exercises to Do With Your Suit On (Orig. Pub. Date 1908) by my good friend, the sterling and upright Alfred B. Olsen (MD). As you are doubtless aware, Alfie is superintendent of the Surrey Hills Hydropathic Sanitarium, the superior establishment for procuring a milk-and-egg colonic purge or, as my ship's yeoman Bruce is keen on, a relaxing afternoon in the baths, in the company of other physique-minded chums.
As Alfie's masculine words remind us, "as a general rule, flabby muscles may be taken to denote a general mental, if not moral, flabbiness." All the wondrous exercises in these pages can be performed in the comfort of one's parlor, or even the cramped confines of one's Airship. All without the need to disrobe! That last tiddly-bit has not penetrated the wavy tufts haloing Bruce's skull, as I repeatedly find him lounging about the dormitory sans undergarments.
As one-time Head Detector of Potions, Elixirs, and Poisons for the US Government and Its Occupied Territories it is with great assurance you can accept my mustache-bristling endorsement of Alfred B. "Alfie" Olsen (MD)'s book. Send the houseboy out for your copy today!
[Previous Grumblings: Benjamin H. Grumbles, Progress: Dagnabbit!, A Day in the Life of Benjamin H. Grumbles, What in the Sam Hill Are You Rascals Thinking?, Friday Cat Blogging, Damnable Milkshakery, Grumbles' Gashouse, Dash It All, McCain Is Off His Trolley, I Say, Somebody Bet on the Bob-Tailed Nag, Grumbles Writes Letters, Hosiery Is No Laughing Matter, Fear Not, Shakesvillians!, Bunsen's Balderdash!, Taint a Good Man, A Hearty Yawp of Well Wishes, The Grandest Male Organ, Bully for Science!]
Today in Still Not Terrorism
[Trigger warning.]
FBI arrests man for threatening Pelosi: "Several federal officials said the man made dozens of calls to Pelosi's homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband's business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted."
Paging the Clean-Up Crew
[Image is the cover of this week's issue of Newsweek, with a picture of the Virgin Mary accompanied by the text: "What Would Mary Do? How Women Can Save the Catholic Church From Its Sins. By Lisa Miller."]
Shaker MJ emails that the question which emerges from "the depths of my escaped-Catholic brain [is]: Women haven't been good enough to be considered anything but second class in the Catholic world since Mary gave birth—and now we should fix your mess?!"
Totes.
The cover story itself, in fairness, is not so much about "how women can save the Catholic Church" as much as it is about how shaking up the insular, hermetically-sealed, all-male leadership can allegedly save the Catholic Church.
Also in fairness, the article is shit, riddled with tiresome stereotypes, strawmen, and the laughably trite invocation of Lynndie England as a Requisite Sober Reminder that "women in power can be as ruthless and self-serving as men." Margaret Thatcher is positively livid that she's gone out of fashion as Exhibit A in any respectable Requisite Sober Reminder, and the female equivalent of Pol Pot paces anxiously as she waits to be born into her long-overdue existence.
I'm no apologist for England or her condemnable actions, but in an article detailing the inherent corruption in insular, hermetically-sealed, male-dominated institutions, picking as evidence that women are Just As Bad a woman on the ass-bottom rung of an insular, hermetically-sealed, male-dominated institution who served as a scapegoat for her male leadership is just bad goddamn writing, apart from anything else.
As is this: "The problem is not, as so many progressives claim, the fact of their celibacy. Nor is it their costumes—the miters and capes—though these vanities do serve as reminders of the great distance between the men with power and the people without." Uh-huh. When was the last time you heard a progressive (or anyone) claim the genesis of institutional sex abuse was the robes? I'm gonna go with...never.
It's too bad, really, because the thesis of the story isn't wrong—institutions in which power is exclusively concentrated in the hands of a highly privileged class are generally rife with corruption and abuse. That is one of the primary arguments in support of diversity and multiculturalism.
But the execution was not awesome. And the cover is in a class of FAIL all its own.
I Get Letters
... From Jesus!
From: JesusGod bless me indeed!
To: deeky@gashlycrumbenterprises.com
Subject: Discover the love of God; Jesus Christ wants to give you salvation and eternal life
Date: Apr 7, 2010 12:15 AM
DID YOU KNOW THAT JESUS LOVES YOU AND DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS?
He has already paid the price for you.
You just need to receive Him into your heart and confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life and your Savior.
Invite Him today to enter your heart. ¡Dare! And now follow this prayer:
Lord Jesus:
- I confess I am a sinner and I invite you into my heart.
- Forgive my sins.
- I give in to you.
- Thank you for this eternal life that you're giving me right now.
- I now confess you as my Lord and Savior.
- Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
- Make your will in my life; help me to find you and obey you.
Read the Bible and find a Christian church to be taught the Word of God.
Go to: http://www.realjesusywebsite.com/
God bless you.
[X-posted.]
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.]
This is a real thing in the world.
Via email...
Liss: This is a real thing in the world.
Deeky: Please tell me that was published April first.
Liss: NOPE! And I am already planning a JAZZLING SESSION where I shave my ladybits and you shave your head and then we get MATCHING JAZZLE!!! It'll be like a girls' spa day, but SPARKLIER!!!
Deeky: LOL! I can't shave my head. It's too lumpy and misshapen.
Liss: I hear that lumpy and misshapen heads make PERFECT HEADDAZZLING CANVASSES so you, my friend, are in LUCK. Sweet, sweet luck.
Deeky: LOLOLOL!!!
On Collective (and Selective) Memory
You know, I am not at all surprised by the fact that Virginia's Governor Robert McDonnell proclaimed April Confederate History Month. My (Louisiana) parish has done it before and I'm sure it's not an anomaly in the South.
But what gets me, what always gets me, when I see people loving on the Confederacy and declaring that their flags and memorials are all about heritage, is the selective, largely one-sided memory they have. The "Old South" may have been all moonlight and magnolias in their recollections, but there were four million or so people who, I'll bet, remembered it quite differently.
Encouraging people to remember the Confederacy includes encouraging them to remember that those states left the Union largely because of their fear that Abraham Lincoln would not just stop the expansion of slavery, but abolish it all together. Remember that these people were willing to go to war to protect their right to own and exploit other people. That dims the moonlight a little bit.
The irony is, it is "heritage" to remember the Confederacy, but we are never supposed to talk about slavery. McDonnell urges people to "to recognize how our history has led to our present," but when we talk about how slavery has very real effects on our present, that is dismissed. It ended a century and a half ago, after all, and to talk about it is to search for grievances and dwell on the past or however that argument goes. The proclamation itself makes no mention of slavery, just vague allusions to "a time very different than ours today." McDonnell himself suggested that slavery was not important enough to merit mention in a proclamation about remembering the Confederacy.
That is not the only contradiction in that proclamation:all Virginians can appreciate the fact that when ultimately overwhelmed by the insurmountable numbers and resources of the Union Army, the surviving, imprisoned and injured Confederate soldiers gave their word and allegiance to the United States of America, and returned to their homes and families to rebuild their communities in peace
No, they didn't. They fought like hell to reinstate and then maintain their previous control over every aspect of southern life, at the cost of thousands of lives and the continued denial of the most basic civic rights.
And then, the admonition that "this defining chapter in Virginia’s history should not be forgotten," as if that has ever been a possibility. (Some) white southerners and their sympathizers have been busy since the end of the Civil War making sure we never forget their noble "Lost Cause" or how near-perfect the South was before the intrusion and unwarranted intervention of the North. Confederate flags haven't just been on people's bumper stickers or their back windows. They've flown over state capitol buildings and been woven into new flags. We are not in danger of forgetting "this defining chapter."
I think what we are in danger of forgetting--and I say this as a history teacher in Texas absolutely appalled at what the Texas Board of Education is doing to the social studies curriculum--is that not everyone has had the same experiences of every event in U.S. history and that those "defining chapters" have tended to be interpreted very differently by people forced into the margins of society. That doesn't make those interpretations any less valid or real or "American."
It is enraging and hurtful to me that people expect us to learn, to teach, to glorify history in a way that disappears us, our experiences and our contributions. The history of this nation is not composed solely of the experiences and opinions of the dominant group(s).
Neither should its collective memory be.
ETA: I was in such a hurry, I neglected to give hat tips to Shaker Koach, Liss, and Spudsy, who all provided links.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the joint memoir Deeks & Liss: A Couple of Real Sad Bums.
Recommended Reading:
Bri: 23rd Down Under Feminist Carnival
Renee: Dr. Phil Takes on the Fatties
Echidne: On The Death Threats Against Senator Murray
Fannie: The Heterosexist Agenda: Separate and Inferior
Cara: Texas Prisons Have Nation's Highest Rates of Sexual Abuse
Ouyang Dan: The Importance of Being Bellatrix Lestrange
Julianne: Is This a Trick Question?
Leave your links in comments...
Not Trenchant As Hell: NYTimes.com Features Exclusive Sexist, Racist, Transphobic Content
by Shaker EastSideKate, a feminist teacher/scholar/mother/partner/derbygirl from Upstate New York.
[Trigger warning for voyeurism, transphobia, illusions to trans panic.]
I still haven't figured out the New York Times' "Opinionator" section. As far as I can tell, it's a catch-all for material someone at the Times thinks readers might like, but doesn't want to take responsibility for. While the section has had its highlights, Alec Soth's April 1 photo essay [warning: creepy] "Ash Wednesday, New Orleans" (part one in a dude-part series) was not one of them.
Here's my quick summary. According to the text, "Soth explores cycles of sin and redemption in the aftermath of Mardi Gras." In the opinion segment, we learn that Soth will spend the afternoon in his hotel room. There's a photo of his bare legs spread on a hotel room bed, followed by shots of the TV, followed by a photo of cans of lite beer in the hotel sink.
Soth goes out after midnight, where he shoots photos of "the aftermath." Many of these photos consist of passed out people, including several photos of women's disembodied legs. The photos look like they might have been shot by a guy who just spent the day in a hotel room drinking beer.
Soth follows this with a series of Wednesday afternoon portraits of people with ashes on their foreheads. The last segment includes photographs of a Latina woman he re-encounters that evening. He invites her up to his hotel room, where he takes some awkward video. The montage ends with the text "while I was taking her picture, I realized R. was a man."
Okay then.
Shorter summary: Soth is a dudely dude, here are drunk and/or poor people, here's some Jesus stuff (which is totally profound), here's a Latina woman (how exotic!) who turns out to be a Latina trans woman (too exotic! ewwwwww....)
First, as someone who plays with cameras, I have to say I'm unimpressed with most of the photographs (maybe it's a hipster thing). Then there's the whole "cycles of sin and redemption" thing. How do the passed-out folks fit into this? Did Soth get their consent? If they were drunk, could Soth get their consent? Why do I get the sense that this is the point? It's like hipster, rape-culture inspired, poverty porn.
The setting in New Orleans (or at least the French Quarter) doesn't strike me as particularly original or comforting, either. BTW, the audio during the hotel scene included a segment of a newscast about Haiti's infrastructure. Get it?
And the trans woman. In the hotel room. Who Soth proceeds to out. This apparently also has something to do with "sin and redemption"? What, precisely, am I supposed to make of a photo essay that ends with a trans woman in a hotel room with a strange man who is eerily fascinated with taking her picture, and then is shocked to discover that she is, in his words "a man"? I've heard stories of that sort of thing happening, and, yeah... I really didn't need to see that.
In any case, the whole thing was very hip and edgy and profound and not at all sexist, racist, transphobic, or otherwise exploitative.
I can totally wait to see the next installment of Soth's project. Also, I'll be asking the Times what the hell they were thinking, and requesting that they reconsider Soth's place in Opinionator lest I cancel the subscription I cancelled years ago.
[Via Helen and Gina.]
I Just Don't Know What to Say Anymore
Greenwald (emphasis original):
[In January, The Washington Post's Dana Priest reported] that Obama had continued Bush's policy (which Bush never actually implemented) of having the Joint Chiefs of Staff compile "hit lists" of Americans, and Priest suggested that the American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was on that list. The following week, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, acknowledged in Congressional testimony that the administration reserves the "right" to carry out such assassinations.
Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.
...No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.
Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. ...Barack Obama is claiming the right not merely to imprison, but to assassinate far from any battlefield, American citizens with no due process of any kind.
...All of this underscores the principal point made in this excellent new article by Eli Lake, who compellingly and comprehensively documents what readers here well know: that while Obama's "speeches and some of his administration’s policy rollouts have emphasized a break from the Bush era," the reality is that the administration has retained and, in some cases, built upon the core Bush/Cheney approach to civil liberties and Terrorism.
I Don't Think You Understand...
Dear Jami Bernard,
When writing an article about the ableism on display in Burger King's "Crazy King" ads, it is not clever or hilariously pun-ny to state "Mental health advocates are not too crazy about" the advertising campaign. Neither is it somehow better to use "crazy" in the following context:
But perhaps what they should be complaining about is how crazy it is to tout such cholesterol-laden food to a public that is collectively headed for a heart attack.It is not cool to equate peoples' outrage over the campaign with "political correctness"... twice.
And I know you might not have chosen your headline, but really? "Mental health advocates not so nuts about cheesy Burger King ad?"
Jami, maybe you should've passed this one on to someone else.
Sincerely,
elle
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...
Imus Strikes Again
Yesterday, Elle sent me this article under the bitterly amusing subject line "Newsflash: Don Imus is a jackass." Bitterly amusing, you see, because it's really, really, really not a newsflash that Don Imus is a jackass. Though he is most famously a jackass for referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos," an incident for which he was fired by NBC (later landing on his feet at CBS), he's an equal-opportunity bigot, with as much homophobia and transphobia and disablism and fat hatred under his belt as his more well-known racism and misogyny.
But, in fairness to Imus, misogyny really does seem to be his favorite toy in the box.
[Emmy-award winning journalist Cokie Roberts] made the point that women in public life are still spoken about in a demeaning way that men rarely are. She was responding to a point I raised, about an exchange on Imus' radio program.What rakish rapscallions! Boys will boys, amirite?!
Imus asked Fox News host Chris Wallace, who was looking forward to interviewing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, if he would conduct the interview with Palin while she sat on his lap. Wallace replied, "One can only hope."
I made the point that Palin is also a Fox contributor and a member of the "Fox family" as it were, but that didn't spare her from being subjected to this sexist palaver, and Cokie made the point that the lure of the boy's club often trumps ideology.
It seems that Imus and Wallace did not appreciate our remarks: Imus accused Cokie of being "hysterical," and Wallace — whose office was next door to mine and down the hall from Cokie's when we all worked at ABC News together — pretended not to remember who she was.
It's actually difficult for me to even write anything serious about this infuriating exchange, because I just can't even get past WHY THE FUCK DOES DON IMUS STILL HAVE A GODDAMN FUCKING CAREER?!
I quite genuinely wonder if there exists a level of misogyny that can cost a white man his job. I don't think there is.
Broadcasters like Imus, talkshow hosts like Jay Leno, professional athletes like Ben Roethlisberger, actors, comedians, authors, politicians, any highly privileged white man in a public career can literally talk about women on a daily basis as nothing but fuckholes, as second-class citizens, as hysterics and sluts and sexual objects, as less than men in every conceivable way, with special condemnation for women who deviate from the white thin straight cis young able-bodied neurotypical Beauty Standard in any way, can make rape jokes and domestic violence jokes and murder jokes and Lorena Bobbitt jokes and deceptive tranny jokes and feminazi jokes on a nonstop basis, can malign men by comparing them to women, can demean women day in and day out, using gendered slurs right on the air because "bitch" is just A-OK according to the FCC, and he can even personally rape or hit a woman, maybe a couple, all without any fear of consequence in his professional life.
Post-feminist society!!!!!!!!11!!!1!!eleventy!!!!1!!!111!!!
Understand, I'm not playing the Oppression Olympics here. This isn't an argument that racism, or any other bigotry, is dead—or even that the same people can't get away with a heaping fuckload of other kinds of bigotry, too.
Quite the opposite: Much of the bigotry expressed in these same venues is tied to misogyny. "Nappy-headed hos." "Tranny or Fatty." Militant Michelle. Ann Coulter is a man. John Edwards is a woman. Feminists are dykes. Brown-skinned immigrant women are breeding machines. Welfare queens. Fat bitches. Dumb sluts. White women are all this. Black women are all that. Latinas are all this. Asian women are all that. Bitches are all crazy! Heather Mills doesn't have a leg to stand on HAR HAR. Et cetera et cetera ad infinitum.
If I were a more cynical type, ahem, I would suspect that the dirty little secret of broadcasting bigotry with impunity is: Just make sure it's intersectional bigotry—tie your hate to a little high-larious sexism and you'll get away with it a lot easier.
But back to Imus.
The objectification here is so simple. The idea that an interview of a famous woman would be conducted while she's sitting on the male interviewer's lap. And the retribution is so simple, too. The pretense that an incredibly successful woman is invisible, forgettable, nobody, nothing at all.
It is nothing but the message: Remember, Ladies—You can spend your entire life working at something, learning, practicing, training, honing your skills, building your talents, giving every piece of yourself, your nights and mornings and weekends and every spare minute you have, keeping a laser-like focus on your ultimate goal, inch by inch making your way to the top of your field, becoming the best there ever was, maybe the best there ever will be...and whether you're a presidential candidate or America's best female skier, we can still put you in your place with a single slur, a single touch, a single image, a single shared chuckle over your nothingness.
And now I'm once again back to: WHY THE FUCK DOES DON IMUS STILL HAVE A GODDAMN FUCKING CAREER?!
Fuck.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
With special guest star: Spudsy!
Deeky: I love ginger fucking ale.
Spudsy: Me too.
Deeky: I like to get nekkid and pour it on my head and have sexxay ginger times.
Spudsy: Hawt. Put it in a turkey baster and squirt it in your butt.
Deeky: Okay, that made me LOL for real.
Spudsy: Fizzy!
Deeky: That sounds dangerous.
Spudsy: Yeah, dangerously AWESOME!
Deeky: If you're into carbonated ginger farts!
Spudsy: LOL!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker themiddlevoice: What moment has changed your life—either good or bad?
I can pinpoint two moments that fundamentally changed my life for the better: 1. Exactly nine years and 22 days ago on March 15, 2001, I sent a private message on a now-defunct community site to a random stranger in Scotland about an Oscar Wilde quote in his profile. 2. On October 5, 2004, at 12:54 PM, I posted the very first post at this blog.
There are moments that ostensibly changed my life for the worse, several of them well-known to readers in this space, but I don't feel inclined to talk about them at the moment—in part because I'm not actually certain they changed my life for the worse. I'm still working that out.
Make lemonade, and all that.
OMGOMGOMG
[Image of a tweet from Lost producer Carlton Cuse reading: "Tonight a new chapter in the season commences."]
OMG You Guys
I just woke up in a parallel dimension in which the internet already existed in the 1950's and the archives are still available online!
That must be the explanation for the existence of "6 Reasons Guys Might Think You're Easy," in which gracious and knowledgeable gentleman writer Rich Santos explains to ladies how they can avoid being thought of as "easy" by men, which is, of course, a negative thing because nothing is less attractive in a woman than sexual agency.
That's got to be the explanation. Because the alternative is just too horrifying to contemplate.
[H/T to Shaker Rainbow Brite.]
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 Which I Substitute an Email Conversation with Liss for a Post
elle: Have u seen the U by Kotex commercials?
Here (Transcripts at bottom):
and here:
and this one (from Australia, it turns out) with the actual BEAVER (it took me a moment to get it--don't tell anyone :-):
(not the one I showed list--turns out, these have been running for a while in Australia and there's a bunch of 'em)
Liss: I hadn't seen them! So, my awesome response is... On the one hand: YES. On the other: NO.
LOL.
It's like, yeah, I hate those "my period makes me spin in happy circles with my face to the sun" ads. But tampon makers *just not making them* is sufficient. Mocking them strikes me as just an attempt for women to distance themselves from something which has been, rightly or wrongly, associated with femininity and womanhood. Which comes across as just mocking womanhood.
Blurgh. Or am I overthinking this?
elle: you're not overthinking it at all! That second one especially gave me a similar feeling.
As a sidenote: I wonder if the whiteness of those commercials (backgrounds, clothes, etc.) is mocking the association of white with pure and clean OR just the white-ness of the old commercials. (I already know the answer, don't I?)
And that second commercial, with the "attractive," "racially ambiguous" woman taps into something I've seen black women bloggers and writers discuss, where "racially ambiguous" often serves as something other than/better than "black." I don't have the background to discuss this fully yet, but particularly in the hip hop world, with the racially ambiguous "video vixens," you can see it. Seattle Slim explains a lot more here:Every video or every movie role where a black woman is required seems to go to lighter skinned women. I have no hate towards these women. It makes no sense. I love all of our shades. We are all beautiful. My animosity is to the industry that attempts to pit us against each other and sends the message that anything mixed with white or some other "light-skinned" race is what is acceptable, and even beautiful; full on black is not.
One of the commenters there notes how (black) rappers often rap about their desire for women who are "half" something else.
And I won't even touch the fact that they used the phrase "good hair."
My attempts at transcripts:
Commercial One (Reality Check):
Opens with a young woman sitting in a room, ostensibly being interviewed about her period, while soft music plays in the background.
Woman One: How do I feel about my period? Uhh… We’re like this. (crosses her index and middle fingers)
Cut to a scene of a smiling woman, glancing at butterflies over her shoulder. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: I want to hold really soft things, like my cat.
Cut to a scene of a decidedly unhappy cat. Housecats don’t snarl, I know, but this cat is doing an impression of that. Back to Woman One, who now has her hand over her chest to indicate “emotional,” or something.
Woman One: Makes me feel really pure
Cut to a scene of a woman, dressed in white, releasing butterflies. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: Sometimes, I wanna just run on a beach.
Cut to a scene of a woman running and frolicking on the beach where the waves meet the shore. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: I like to twirl.
Cut to a scene of a woman, twirling in a white dress while clutching flowers. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: Maybe in slow motion.
Cut to a scene of a woman twirling in a white dress on the beach. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: And I do it in my white spandex.
Cut to a scene of a woman, dancing in white spandex. She’s holding a red ball while doing a standing split. Please note: the red spot is in her hands, not in her white-spandex-covered crotch (sorry, couldn’t resist). Back to Woman One.
Woman One: And usually, by the third day, I really just want to dance.
Cut to a scene of three women, dancing randomly. Everyone has on white bottoms. Back to Woman One.
Woman One: The ads on TV are really helpful. Cuz they use that blue liquid.
Cut to a scene of a side by side comparison, in which disembodied hands pour blue liquid on the seats of two pairs of white panties a la the old pad commercials.
Woman One (nodding): And I’m like, “Oh, that’s what’s supposed to happen!”
Screen goes black and the words: “Why Are Tampon Ads So Ridiculous?” appear. Then, boxes of the new U by Kotex products appear with the words “Break the Cycle”
Voiceover: U by Kotex. A new line of pads, tampons, and liners.
Commercial Two (So Obnoxious):
Open on a commercial with a woman, clad in white, walking amongst swirling white curtains.
Woman: Hi, I’m an unbelievably attractive, 18 to 24 year old female. You can relate to me because I am racially ambiguous.
More walking and swirling.
Woman: And I’m in this commercial because market research shows, girls like you love girls like me.
Cut to scenes of her bouncing around in white room with white curtains while wearing a white leotard, then a white cheerleading outfit (complete with white pom-poms).
Woman: (As images of her from several angles flash) Do all these angles make me seem dynamic? (Scene of her blowing bubbles and smiling) Now I’m going to tell you to buy something. Buy the same tampons I use. Because I’m wearing white pants… (The background steadily changes during this time, but it’s always all white) … and I have good hair. (She swings said “good hair.”) You wish you could be me. (said with an attitude and a head snap. Are we supposed to think she’s less racially ambiguous now?)
Screen goes black and the words: “Why Are Tampon Ads So Obnoxious?” appear. Then, boxes of the new U by Kotex products appear with the words “Break the Cycle”
Voiceover: U by Kotex. A new line of pads, tampons, and liners.
Commercial Three (from Australia):
Alarm clock goes off and starts playing a song with the words “New you” sung repeatedly. Camera pans to a dress and necklace on the floor. Camera circles the room long enough for us to identify it as “feminine” (Pink covers, pillow, pink and purple things hanging up, etc). Finally the occupant of the bed is revealed.
IT’S A BEAVER! AS SUBTLE AS THESE ALL CAPS!
Beaver is wearing a sleeping mask and resisting getting up.
Voiceover: Sleep easy with maximum protection. U overnight ultra-thins. For the ultimate care down there.
Beaver’s hand/paw/claw is slapping at the snooze button. A bag of “U” pads rests beside the clock.
Ungodly
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse.]
If someone had asked me if the Catholic Church's institutional sex abuse conspiracy could get any worse, I believe I would have been hard-pressed to come up with an answer—because how could it get any worse? Well. Once again, I despair to report that evil is more vast than my imagination.
Brendan Kiley has written a comprehensive investigative piece for The Stranger, which details the allegations by indigenous Alaskans that the Catholic Church used "their remote villages as a 'dumping ground' for [known pedophile] priests."
On the morning of January 14 in Seattle, Ken Roosa and a small group Alaska Natives stood on the sidewalk outside Seattle University to announce a new lawsuit against the Jesuits, claiming a widespread conspiracy to dump pedophile priests in isolated Native villages where they could abuse children off the radar.Roosa, along with his associate Patrick Wall, "a former Benedictine monk who once worked as a sex-abuse fixer for the Catholic Church," know of 345 cases of sexual abuse in Alaska by 28 predator priests, which is a concentration of sexual abuse that is "orders of magnitude greater than Catholic sex-abuse cases in other parts of the United States."
"They did it because there was no money there, no power, no police," Roosa said to the assembled cameras and microphones. "It was a pedophile's paradise."
Kiley's article explains the historical context in which Catholicism came to be such a powerful force in the area, but the former fixer Wall succinctly sums up why the area subsequently became a dumping ground for sexual abusers: The predator priests were sent to the isolated Alaskan villages "to get them off the grid, where they could do the least amount of damage," defined by the Church in terms of its own public relations, not in terms of damage to children.
And the reason that the villages made such a spectacular waste containment site for sex predators is the same reason that the predators found themselves in a "pedophile's paradise":
[T]he villages of Northwest Alaska were only accessible by plane, boat, or dog sled. Many still are. For the most part, they didn't have public schools, cops, or telephones. Many of the houses were one room and lacked food and consistent heat in the below-zero weather. "The perps would soften up their victims with food and warmth," Wall says, "because that's what the kids didn't have. 'It was always warmer in the rectory,' they say. 'There was always food in the rectory. There was always candy.'"I just don't even know what to say about the depravity of the perpetrators, about the callousness of their enablers, who cared more for nurturing and maintaining a public image than about the safety of children. And many adult women, whose victimization is also discussed in this article.
Flo Kenny, a 74-year-old survivor who spent the morning of January 14 in Seattle, participating in a press conference announcing a new lawsuit, began her story thus: "I am Flo Kenny. I am 74 years old. And I've kept silent for 60 years. I am here for all the ones who cannot speak—who are dead, who committed suicide, who are homeless, who are drug addicts. There's always been a time, an end of secrets. This is the time."
May it be so.
[H/T to Shaker Museclio.]
Dear Divorce…
by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd, a writer, a performer, an American-Iranian, a nude art model and a soon-to-be-bride who is currently the author of the blog Naked Lady in a White (Silk) Dress, which looks at the engagement process and wedding culture from the point of view of a burgeoning feminist.
My parents are divorced. They separated when I was twenty-one, and the divorce was finalized about five years later. Worse than that, they had a very unhappy marriage. I remember growing up, knowing as a child that they were completely wrong for each other. I remember the day I realized their marriage was going to end. I was eleven at the time.
It took them ten years to finally end the misery, and by that time, it was old news to me because I had already seen it coming. Yet the fighting is still going on. And the mind games. Even though they live in separate homes and my mom now lives with her boyfriend. Still, sometimes it feels as if my parents are still unhappily married to each other. They keep on fighting over my younger siblings, as if these kids are live collateral for all the broken promises and hurt feelings that still rage between the two.
Their twisted marriage wasn't the only bad one I was raised by. In fact, when you look at all the marriages I grew up around, only one didn't end in divorce. My grandparents, on my mother's side. Theirs was an unconventional one. My grandma lived and raised the kids in St. Louis while my grandpa bounced back and forth every week between home and his job at the Pentagon.
My aunt on my mom's side is divorced. My uncle on my father's side is divorced. Even my father's parents are divorced, which was extremely rare during the Shah's reign in Iran, but the domestic abuse was severe enough that the divorce wasn't actually initiated by my grandmother, but by the state itself.
Most of my parents' friends in St. Louis were very much like them—American wife, Iranian husband. In each marriage, the husband was extremely religious (I did grow up thinking Khomeini was a superhero—that childhood myth has since been debunked), and the wives all converted from their Western upbringing, veiled themselves more severely than most women in Iran do, and some even gave up their birth names. Life would get so confusing, because in the women's sphere, they would be called their American names, and in the men's sphere, they would be called their Arabic names. Even the kids sometimes would go by different names, depending on the context.
I kept the same name, but my behavior was constantly changing in check with wherever I was. In my elementary school, which was about fifty-percent international, I could blend in as one of the other kids, and in my grandparent's house I could act like some vestige of an American kid, but in Iranian circles, I tended to either stick out or keep to myself, mostly because I couldn't keep all the behavioral changes straight. Kids would play tag around the mosque, but because boys and girls weren't allowed to touch each other, we would throw sticks or pebbles to "tag." It was absurd to me.
I remember practicing my violin in private, because playing music was okay with one parent, but to another, it was a ticket straight down the highway to hell.
My father even had a plan for me: Study engineering in college, get married to an Iranian boy of his choosing somewhere between 18 and 22, go to medical school, and then become a three-quarter Iranian baby-pumping housewife. When I was born, my father and his sister actually started orchestrating an arranged marriage between my cousin and myself. My actual engagement isn't acknowledged on that side of my family. Not only is Rene an artist, he's also not Muslim. When we start having children, I'll be pumping out three-quarter Catholic babies.
Slowly the couples began breaking up, and my mom was the last woman in our community to leave her husband. Of course, in each divorce, what everyone fought over were the kids. For the women, it was their maternal birthright to keep them. For the men, it was their paternal entitlement. In some ways, I lucked out, because I was already an adult by the time the custody mess happened, but sometimes, I wonder, because now I have to watch it all as I get ready for my own first marriage.
David Popenoe, a sociology professor at Rutgers University and co-director of the National Marriage Project, wrote:
Marriages of the children of divorce actually have a much higher rate of divorce than the marriages of children from intact families. A major reason for this, according to a recent study, is that children learn about marital commitment or permanence by observing their parents. In the children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined.
In Iran, there is such a thing as a temporary or pleasure marriage. For some women, it's a way to legally work as a prostitute; for some men, it's a way to have premarital sex and feel religiously okay. For some couples, it's the only way they can date and get to know each other before making a lifetime commitment without getting arrested for adultery.
This was how my parents began their relationship. They met in the mosque, went out on a date to see Gandhi, and then started a temporary marriage, I think so that my father could feel okay losing his virginity to an American woman. That night, I was conceived, and my mom was pregnant with me when they finally decided to make their marriage legal or permanent. The reasoning wasn't so much for love, but for obligation and to make my birth legitimate in their eyes.
What followed, of course, was the saga that I call their marriage, with many of its problems blamed on me by my father, because, of course, they wouldn't be in that situation if I weren't born. More kids kept coming, and of course they stayed together, even though they started sleeping in separate bedrooms when I turned fifteen, because good religious Iranian children don't have divorced parents.
The whole dynamic really did a number on me in terms of relationships, and even though I started sneaking around and dating boys when I turned eighteen, I didn't really let myself really feel love for one until my senior year of college. Even then, as wonderful as he was, and as good friends as we still are, the timing was completely wrong, and it wasn't until I met Rene that I realized I had been attracted to guys who were as unavailable as my father was in his marriage. And I dealt with it by making myself just as unavailable.
I was happier in long-distance relationships than I was in local ones. I remember one long-distance relationship where I thought I was falling for the guy, but as soon as I saw him in person, I suddenly was over it and ready to ship him back to New York. Rene was the first guy I dated who actively and assertively pursued me, and I have to admit that every time he wanted me to take our relationship to the next level of commitment, I freaked.
It took a proposal for me to realize that he wanted to share his home with me, even though I was already living with him. Rene gave a great deal of thought into our relationship. At 45, he had other chances to propose or marry other women, but he waited, held out to the point where people were wondering if he would become a lifelong bachelor, because he wanted to make sure that his first marriage would be the right decision.
Why did I freak, and why was I so resistant? I think it's because, with the exception of my grandparents, I grew up around marriage after marriage where commitments fell through, and I began to see promises and vows as temporary fixes to legitimize whatever's going on in your life at that point. I was never really taught what it means to have a relationship where the people want to be committed to each other, not have to be.
I don't talk to my father anymore, but I am still close with my mom, and it's always been a mission of mine not to repeat the mistakes they made. Part of that means I have to visit their unhappy marriage and the disturbing memories that have partially shaped who I am today.
I keep telling myself that my marriage will be different, but let's face it, it's not like my family history really has the greatest track record. It's my greatest fear, to wonder if divorce is somehow genetic in my family, and if I'm going to wind up no different from my parents. I don't know how my father is, but I sometimes see my mom having to justify herself through her relationships now, and I want so badly not to feel like I need to do that in mine. I remember watching how easily she lost her self-identity in my father, and the idea terrifies me, which is probably why I'm so insistent on Rene and I complementing each other, not completing each other.
And yet I wonder—would I be this aware of the implications of commitment and marriage if I weren't raised by those consequences themselves? It's a toss-up sometimes to think if my generation of brides, who grew up around divorce in some matter or another might unconsciously use the immediacy of broken-up marriages as models for their own commitments or consciously as tools of how heavy of a decision their wedding really is.
[Cross-posted.]
You Know...
...David Brooks' last column was quite genuinely abysmal, but this week's might be even worse:
Relax, We'll Be FineA grown-ass man feeling obliged to write for the paper of record, to be read by other grown-ass adults, a column that could be shortened to "Turn that frown upside down!" without losing any of its meaning, is bad enough.
According to recent polls, 60 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction. The same percentage believe that the U.S. is in long-term decline. The political system is dysfunctional. A fiscal crisis looks unavoidable. There are plenty of reasons to be gloomy.
But if you want to read about them, stop right here. This column is a great luscious orgy of optimism. Because the fact is, despite all the problems, America's future is exceedingly bright.
But even worse is the reality that this educated, wealthy, white, straight, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, neurotypical, highly privileged American man speaks as though every resident of the US will equally benefit from the trends he believes will ensure the country's continued dominance.
When he says, "Relax, We'll Be Fine," what he really means is: "Settle Down, All You Malcontents, Lest You Upset the Apple Cart That Keeps People Like Me Doing Just Fine."
America being the best place it can possibly be for educated, wealthy, white, straight, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, neurotypical, highly privileged men does not de facto mean it's also the best place it can possibly be for an un/der-educated, poor, fat, disabled, trans lesbian of color. That seems like it ought to be obvious, but, as evidenced by Brooks' column, it's anything but.
Cloaked in his privilege of "normalcy"—male is the norm, white is the norm, straight is the norm, etc.—and fully invested in the idea that he is not merely the "normal" human, but a specimen of humanity to which everyone aspires, Brooks can do nothing but blink gormlessly at any suggestion that individual humans don't want to deny their intersectional identities and contort themselves to fit into the world that privileges him.
He doesn't understand (or won't) that the world was designed to his specifications, and trying to fit into his tailored culture is the emotional equivalent of wearing an ill-fitting suit every day for one's entire life.
"This suit which was tailored to my body's measurements fits me just fine! I don't know what your problem is!"
Brooks, like most conservatives and a hell of a lot of liberals and fauxgressives, don't understand that fighting for what's best for "America" (meaning the ideal America for privileged men) isn't the same thing as fighting for the equality of marginalized people.
In fact, they are frequently in direct opposition.
And Brooks' presumption that being "fine" for him does not take into account that "fine" is subjective—and even if it's true that America itself will be "fine," America rarely gives all its members equal consideration.
When we hear that something will be good for "everyone," it generally means it's going to be good for educated, wealthy, white, straight, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, neurotypical, highly privileged men—and hopefully lots of other people, too! The problem with this paradigm is that it's usually espoused by the people with the most existing freedom and opportunity, who are looking to procure more for themselves, or restore something they've lost, or protect that which they are anxious about losing.
This is the social counterpart to the conservatives' beloved theory of trickle-down economics: Make everything as splendid as possible for those at the top and the benefits will "trickle down" to everyone below.
Well, it's bullshit when we're talking about tax cuts, and it's bullshit when we're talking about equality and opportunity.
Great, swell, awesome that America will be "fine" and everyone like David Brooks will be "fine," as if that matters to people who won't be "fine."
As if it matters to the people who aren't fine now, and never have been.
"Relax—you're still going to be treated like a second-class citizen!"
Forgive me if I don't join in your "luscious orgy of optimism," Mr. Brooks. You privileged wankstain.
The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report – T100406
Time for another Teaspoon Report! Why? Cause I want to! Yay!
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
NQDTR Discussion Thread – T100406
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
Today in Just Like Jesus Would Do!
What would Jesus do if he were a parent living in Fulton, MS? He'd totally arrange a fake prom to send the "weird kids" to and secretly set up another prom for all the regular students. Yeah, so what if Jesus never had any kids and never lived in Fulton? He still spoke English (it's in the bible, people!) and was pretty fucking clear in his Sermon on the Mount when he said: "Fuck you, outcasts!"
Constance McMillen told The Advocate yesterday, "They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them."
McMillen was told by prom organizers last week that the event would be held at a local country club in Fulton. But only seven students showed up, including two students with learning difficulties. You see, Fulton parents arranged another prom in secret for all the student who were non-gay or without learning difficulties. Just like Jesus would do.
Of the developmentally disabled students, McMillen had this to say: "They had the time of their lives. That's the one good thing that come out of this."
She added "[These kids] didn't have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom]." Just like Jesus would have done.
Bread and Teaspoons Twenty-Eight
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.
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.
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, if I were to comment - rather than taking advantage of my position by posting it up here in the OP! - I'd leave one saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with 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.
We also welcome 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. :)
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.
** "Theoretically", because sometimes my life or my depression interfere. :)
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Twenty-Two. Twenty-Three. Twenty-Four. Twenty-Five.
Twenty-Six. Twenty-Seven.
The Third Woman
[Trigger Warning for violence]
Yesterday's New York Times reports that the United States military has admitted killing three Afghan women during a special operations mission:
KABUL, Afghanistan — After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.
The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the nature of their deaths.
A NATO official also said Sunday that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. On Monday, however, a senior NATO official denied that any tampering had occurred.
So they are caught in a lie, and NATO officials continue to shift the story around, searching for a workable level of deceit.
I read more and more closely as the article progresses. A few paragraphs later, Richard A. Oppel writes,
NATO military officials had already admitted killing two innocent civilians — a district prosecutor and a local police chief — during the raid, on a home near Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan. The two men were shot to death when they came out of their home, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, to investigate.
Three women also died that night at the same home: One was a pregnant mother of 10 and another was a pregnant mother of six. NATO military officials had suggested that the women were actually stabbed to death — or had died by some other means — hours before the raid, an explanation that implied that family members or others at the home might have killed them.
Oppel identifies the men by their professional roles and two of the women by their reproductive status (a pregnant mother of 10 and a pregnant mother of six). What about the third woman—was she not pregnant enough to merit any specific mention of who she was? Please note that I don’t blame Oppel; I think he’s working with the information he has. I notice, though, that his words perfectly sum up women’s roles and most societies' attitudes towards us.
We know that when you have war, there will be war crimes, and the cover-ups that follow. What really strikes me about this particular case is NATO military officials' reliance on cultural narratives about misogynistic Afghans to inform their cover-up. They expect us to find it credible that the families of these three women stabbed them to death at home on the day of a party celebrating the birth of a child. Indeed, they expect us to find that more credible than the idea that the women died in the same special ops raid that killed the men. I can practically hear the hand-waving: "oh, you know those people—they mistreat their women. That's why we have to liberate them, and why you, little lady, should be grateful you are safe in the West!"
Nobody killed the three women just because they were women; it was not a crime of misogyny. But the cover-up relied in part on misogyny (their families must have done it! Happens all the time!), and on the denial of misogyny (we'd never kill innocent pregnant women—they must have done it).
The society that ducks, points fingers, and cries "but they're worse!"; the society that claims to be "liberating" women from tyranny even as it makes life less safe for them, is in deep denial of its own misogyny. And that denial is part of what allows such a society to be convinced of its own heroism. That conviction leads to statements like this:
The investigators, the official said, “alluded to the fact that bullets were missing but did not discuss anything specific to that. Nothing pointed conclusively to the fact that our guys were the ones who tampered with the scene.”
Our guys. Couldn't have been our guys. If crimes were committed, it must have been them.
There is a lot more in this article, of course, and I invite you to read the whole thing and discuss it.
Hey, This Seems Familiar
trigger warning
I have a new piece up at the Guardian's "Comment Is Free America" about that cartoon that depicts a scene after President Obama has raped the Statue of Liberty. I try to put that cartoon and so much of the related sentiment in historical perspective:
The juxtaposition of this cartoon and the violence/assassination threats [against Obama and his supporters] are significant, as well, in historical context. One of the primary reasons given for mob action that resulted in the death of black men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the accusation that a black man had raped a white woman. The cartoonist has accused President Obama, figuratively, of that crime – say what you want about Liberty's greenish hue; women who historically represented the US, from Columbia to other depictions of Liberty, were white. Obama, according to the cartoonist, has violated this symbol of both white womanhood and America. This serves as more justification for retaliating violently against him.Please check out the whole thing!
When You Have a War, There Will Be War Crimes
And there will be cover-ups of those war crimes, and then, sometimes, the ugly truth will come to light [trigger warning]:
The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad.Description of the content of the video, which may be triggering, is below.
A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic.
Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
At a news conference at the National Press Club, WikiLeaks said it had acquired the video from whistle-blowers in the military and viewed it after breaking the encryption code. WikiLeaks edited the video to 17 minutes.
On the day of the attack, United States military officials said that the helicopters had been called in to help American troops who had been exposed to small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in a raid. "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad, said then.The Pentagon flat-out lied about the unmistakable nature of what happened.
But the video does not show hostile action. Instead, it begins with a group of people milling around on a street, among them, according to WikiLeaks, Mr. Noor-Eldeen and Mr. Chmagh. The pilots believe them to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen's camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group, then revel in their kills.
"Look at those dead bastards," one pilot says. "Nice," the other responds.
A wounded man can be seen crawling and the pilots impatiently hope that he will try to fire at them so that under the rules of engagement they can shoot him again. "All you gotta do is pick up a weapon," one pilot says.
A short time later a van arrives to pick up the wounded and the pilots open fire on it, wounding two children inside. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one pilot says.
At another point, an American armored vehicle arrives and appears to roll over one of the dead. "I think they just drove over a body," one of the pilots says, chuckling a little.
So it's no wonder that, as reported by Think Progress, that "Wikileaks has been targeted by the Pentagon and related intelligence agencies for its cooperation with military whistleblowers. In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center put together a report outlining tactics to suppress whisteblowers, in which it cited Wikileaks by name as one organization it intends to "destroy [as] a center of gravity" for whisteblowing activity. Meanwhile, the Wikileaks founder has alleged that his organization is being intimidated and spied on by American intelligence agencies."
It's no wonder. But it's still appalling.
Digby notes that "the most trusted name in news" isn't covering themselves in glory with their coverage of this story, either.
We've got a government at war which refuses to be transparent, a military complex that covers up the crimes of its soldiers, and a media who are eminently willing to be complicit in the subterfuge and obfuscation.
I don't know if I can find words to properly convey how thoroughly angry this makes me.
One Man's Opinion
Late last night -- well, late for me -- the phone rang. It was an automated polling service.
"Do you consider yourself to be a Tea Party Patriot?" said the recorded voice. My response was terse, consisting of two words, the second one being "No." That was followed by, "Do you support Sarah Palin?" I issued the same response.
The call was abruptly terminated at the other end.
I think I got my point across.
Crossposted.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker molliecat: What's the weirdest thing you've seen beside the road?
When I was about eight, I was riding my bike around the block and found in some long grass beside the road a crumpled birthday card with the picture of a fuzzy duckling on the front. I mean, something really adorable, like this or this. Inside, it read, scrawled in all caps:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHORE.I quite honestly can't think of anything I've seen/found weirder than that!
I HATE YOU,
STEVE.
Quote of the Day
"It's a total drag. I've been lucky to get interesting parts but there are still not that many out there for women. And everybody is so critical of women. If there's a movie starring a man that tanks, then I don't see an article about the fact that the movie starred a man and that must be why it bombed. Then a film comes out where a woman is in the lead, or a movie comes out where a bunch of girls are roller derbying, and it doesn't make much money and you see articles about how women can't carry a film."—Actress Ellen Page, on "the way women are treated in the movie business."
On Abortion Exceptions: "Rape, Incest, Threat to Life"
Because there is a growing and increasingly vocal "pro-life" contingent in the Democratic Party (see: Congressman Bart Stupak and his BFF Senator Ben Nelson), we are hearing ever more frequently about the Triumvirate of Acceptable Abortion Exceptions: Rape, incest, and threat to the life of the pregnant woman.
(It used to be life or health, but then a bunch of straw-ladies got late-term straw-abortions after changing their silly little lady-minds about having straw-babies and made up straw-lies about "mental distress" to get them, so now wise "pro-life" proponents limit the exception only to women who risk death due to an identifiable physical complication of pregnancy, and none of this bullshit about fake things like mental health, snort, that only exist in the fevered daydreams of Oprah guests.)
So. The Exceptioneers are Very Concerned about exceptions for pregnancies as a result of rape or incest—always with the two separate and distinct categories, never connected with the more appropriate "and/or," but treated as mutually exclusive possibilities, which might give someone who didn't know better the impression that the Exceptioneers think a father impregnating his property daughter is only icky because of the potential chromosomal clusterfuck to our otherwise pristine gene pool (!)—and threat to the life of the pregnant woman. And they are very proud of their Highly Principled Concern, shouting these exceptions at anyone who listen, as evidence of their magnanimous compassion.
They must trust that no one of any consequence will ever examine their position too closely, lest it become side-splittingly evident that they are merely mendacious opportunists attempting to straddle a compromise between the pro-choice and anti-choice positions that doesn't exist, trying to pretend into being their imaginary Principled Moderate Middle Ground with rhetoric that's absolutely nothing more than a classier way of saying, "Suffer the consequences, slut."
Only if you were raped (and provably so, in one of those infallible courts of law that never favors rapists, lest you think you can claim to have been raped and just handed access to an abortion like you have autonomy over your own body or something), or became pregnant as the result of incest, or you will probably die if your pregnancy continues, should you be allowed to have access to abortion. But if you want an abortion for any other reason under the sun, well, fuck you, you should have kept your legs closed.
Leaving aside that "I don't want to be pregnant" is all the reason any woman should ever need, the Exceptioneers' position also excludes a multitude of things that are just as out of any woman's control as any of their precious exceptions: If you were raped but can't prove it, if you had a contraceptive failure, if you just lost your job, if you found out the fetus will die as soon as it's born, if you're pregnant by someone who became abusive, if you've been diagnosed with a non-life threatening illness, if your existing child has become ill, if your spouse has become ill, if your parent has become ill, if your psychiatric medication is incompatible with pregnancy, if you lost your health insurance, if…if…if any of these things, tough shit for you. Should have kept your legs closed if you weren't prepared to RAISE A CHILD IN ANY CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCE IN THE WORLD!!!
It would be genuinely hilarious that there are people who believe "Don't ever have sex unless you will be absolutely prepared to parent in whatever circumstances you find yourself nine months from now" is a reasonable position, if those people didn't have so much control over reproductive and health policy.
What's rage-inducing about the Exceptioneers is that they obviously haven't given any thought at all to the inconsistency of their position (or spoken seriously to anyone who might inform their opinions with some "facts") if they're willing to concede that being forced to carry to term a pregnancy created by rape can totally fuck you up, but don't understand how being forced to carry to term a pregnancy that you didn't plan and don't want can totally fuck you up, too.
How ridiculously incapable of self-reflection can one be that one is able to acknowledge that rape (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Terrible Thing, but the denial of abortion (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Moral Imperative?
I'm really hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man who sits at a big mahogany desk in Washington making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of a man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.
Undoubtedly the Exceptioneers would be outraged and horrified to be compared, even obliquely, to sexual predators.
As well they should be. I am horrified to have to make it. But anyone who holds the position that zie should be able to legislate away my bodily autonomy and supersede my consent about what happens to my body shouldn't be too goddamned surprised by the comparison.
Still. Nothing would please me more than to never again have to worry about someone else having control over what goes into or comes out of my vagina, to never again have to worry about someone who views forcing me into doing something with my body that I don't want to do as an acceptable consequence, as the "just desserts," for behaving in a way they deem irresponsible, or unattractive, or inappropriate for a woman to behave.
The ball's in your court, Exceptioneers.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of Liss' Guerrilla Bookstore Reorganization for Dummies, which is filed under "cookbooks."
Recommended Reading:
Echidne: Benignly Neglected?
Andy: More Cases of Papal Negligence Emerge in Sexual Abuse Scandal
Tristero: Priest Accused of U.S. Abuse Still Working in India
Bree: The Growing Trend of Celebrity Weight Loss Program Endorsements
Susie: Life on the Edge
Bethany: Hitchcock Spot
Leave your links 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.]
Adventures at Barnes & Noble
This weekend, Iain and I were at Barnes & Noble, where I picked up a copy of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, because I can't find my copy (I probably lost it to the same place I lose most of my lost books—lending it to someone), and I haven't read it in a long time and Iain's never read it. It's now more than a century old, and the continued exploitation of workers makes it still-relevant. Depressing.
Anyway, as we were browsing, Iain sort of made a chuckle-gasp noise and then hissed at me, "Lisssssss! Look at this fooking fing!"
He held up the book and made an eesh! face, pointing at the cover art. History's Worst Decisions, featuring the image of a snake coiled around an apple with a bite taken out of it.
Was the worst decision depicted the acquisition of knowledge, or the Creation of Woman, I wondered…? Probably both, amirite, fellas?! HIGH FIVES!
Later, I decided to do some guerilla bookstore reorganization, and carried all three copies of Glenn Beck's Arguing with Idiots into the Humor section—which, not by coincidence, methinks, is directly across from the "Current Affairs" section, which is positively littered with trash from Beck, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, et al.
Liss lift us up where we belong / Where the eagles fly / On a bookshelf high…
I had a momentary pang of guilt about the 10 seconds of extra work I had created for a B&N employee, but then I remembered that I've returned to their rightful place countless misplaced books left on random shelves by lazy shoppers in that store over the years. It ought to be enough karma to ensure that any progressive who discovers that shit will find it hilarious, and any conservative who gets pissed deserves the aggravation.
