So, this Bizarro cartoon made me laugh:
What's your ideal imaginary iPhone app?
I'm a big fan of "Pie on demand," but I'd also like a "Fast Forward through boring meetings and awkward moments" app, please.
Question of the Day
What's your ideal imaginary iPhone app?
I'm a big fan of "Pie on demand," but I'd also like a "Fast Forward through boring meetings and awkward moments" app, please.
If You Needed Further Evidence
...that the Tea Party is host to some of the worst people to leave the Republican party, look no further. Witness this (now scrubbed) Facebook exchange between Montana Tea Party leader Tim Ravndal and some of his good buddies:
(TW for homophobia and anti-LGBTQ violence.)Tim Ravndal: "Marriage is between a man and a woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my own rights"
I don't have words.
Keith Baker: "How dare you exercise your First Amendment Rights?"
Dennis Scranton: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."
Tim Ravndal: "@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"
Dennis Scranton: "Should be able to get info Gazette archives. Maybe even an illustration. Go back a bit over ten years."
Meanwhile, if you think these sparkling examples of humanity are referencing the murder of Matthew Shepard, you're so, so wrong.When reached for comment Friday, Ravndal apologized for the post, saying he "never made the connection" to Shepard's murder until after national bloggers picked up on it and his phone started ringing earlier this week.
Ravndal also has a bridge he would like to sell you.
"I wasn't even thinking about the tragedy that happened in Wyoming," Ravndal said. "I made a mistake and I apologize to anyone I offended. I do not condone violence to any human being."
UPDATE: Oops, just saw that Ravndal has already been removed from his position. Funny how the Tea Party is constantly performing damage control when their representatives speak in public forums.
(Energy Dome tip to Amplify Your Voice.)
Wow. Sincere.
So as you may recall, about a year ago Kanye West ruined the Video Music Awards for Taylor Swift (and, as Melissa pointed out, Beyoncé as well).
Well, apparently he's still feelin' kinda bad about it a year later, so he's decided to apologize. Via Twitter.
Now, leaving aside how ridiculous an apology via twitter is, I'd like to point out the completely narcissistic big, huge, wonderful gesture Mr. West has made to Taylor Swift to show how very, very sorry he is:
He then explained, "I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that's so beautiful and I want her to have it." He added, "If she won't take it then I'll perform it for her."Can anyone else see how this is going to play out?
If she rejects the song he wrote for her or refuses to perform it, she's a total bitch.
If she rejects it, he takes her choice of having the song performed away from her and performs it anyway. He does it "for her," forcing her to "accept" this apology song. He gets to be the good guy, and she's still a total bitch. Unless she does what he wants, and performs the song, of course. She can't win.
Meanwhile, does the entertainment press focus on Taylor Swift's "choice" and make it all about her, or do they take Kanye West to task for manipulating her into a situation where she has to accept his song whether she wants to or not?
Yeah. They're all over that.
Today in Milquetoast
The Times has a lovely piece up today looking at the Democrats' current non-platform.
The NYT found some guy (Micah) to go through the websites of Democratic and Republican candidates in the US' 33 most closely contested Congressional races to see what issues the candidates took a public position on. Mind you, nobody's evaluating the intelligence or nuance represented by these policy positions, merely that they exist.
Out of the websites of 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans:
3% of Republicans (I believe this amounts to one candidate) and a whopping 0% of Democrats said something about organized labor. Base? What's a base?
52% of Republicans and 14% of Democrats said something about abortion, meaning that no more than 4 of 29 Democrats said that they favored abortion rights. It could be less than 4, depending on what the candidates actually said.
Do you hear that? I think it's the sound of Liss gnashing her teeth down in vacationsville.
"Gay Rights"? (I prefer LGBTQ rights, but wev). You want to talk about gay rights? So do 2 out of 29 Democrats. 21% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats said something, anything about gay rights on their websites.
I understand that the web is merely one place for candidates to make positions public, and that not all candidate websites are equal. However, there's no excuse to ask to run the country whilst having a shitty website. These candidates have staff-- some of them should be htmling their asses off ATM. Not having a website and running for election is a lot like not reading the news and running for Congress, and we all know how that turned out.
Another thing: I don't care if you're William Jennings Bryan (if I only had a nickel for every time I said that), you're not going to have time to mention all of your policy positions in your stump speeches. One of the nice things about the Internet is that you can get a 2 GB website for free. That's like, 2 billion characters or so to get your point across, plus-or-minus a picture of you with your wife, kids, dog, and lawn.
In other words, if the Democratic candidates had a position on any of these issues, there's no excuse for them not to say so on their websites. Sure, opinions may offend some folks, but so did that Bryan guy. As for me, I'm sitting here fuming at the lack of an opinion over my full membership in society. As far as I'm concerned, this silence is not just a sign of a crappy political [non-]strategy; it's a personal failure to embrace the humanity of the electorate.
Question of the Day
What's your favorite lunchtime food? If you don't eat lunch, what do you most enjoy eating in the middle of the day?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a sandwich guy. Preferably a hot sandwich, on a pretzel roll, please.
Daily Dose o' Cute
In honor of Labo[u]r day, the cats of eastsidehouse take a well-deserved break:
Richard Parker
Tillamook
Blog Note
I'm taking today and tomorrow off. Many of the other contributors and mods won't be around, either, or will be on reduced schedules, because of the Labor Day weekend.
I'll be back Wednesday. See you then!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Blog Note
Hey, Shakers. Iain is off today, so we're going to start our weekend a little early. The pub, will, however, still be posted later this afternoon, of course!
To all the USian Shakers: Have an enjoyable and safe Labor Day weekend!
Roethlisberger's Suspension Cut Short
[Trigger warning.]
The NFL has cut Ben Roethlisberger's suspension from six games to four.
In a letter to Roethlisberger, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said "You have told me and the Steelers that you are committed to making better decisions. Your actions over the past several months have been consistent with that promise and you must continue to honor that commitment."
Swell.
Q&A at Shakes Manor
Last night...
Liss: How many balls do you think Andrew Zimmern has eaten?
Iain: Seven thousand varieties. Fifty thousand individual balls.
Liss: [laughing] That's very specific.
Those aren't balls; they're squirrel brains—an Appalachian delicacy!
[Image Description: Andrew Zimmern, host of "Bizarre Foods," sits at a table at Embers restaurant on Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia, and holds up a plate of some unusual-looking meat, in a still shot from his Appalachian episode.]
You know, I always say, "Try everything once!" and I'm pretty adventurous. But some of the stuff he puts in his mouth...? No. Fucking. Chance.
It's a texture thang. [/kblogz]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of How to Get Along with a Big Dog When You're a Little Cat, by Sophie McEwan.
Recommended Reading:
Digby: Message: They Care
Echidne: Christina Romer's Farewell Speech
Loryn: What's Wrong With "Regular" Black Girls?
Resistance: Watching Wo Ai Ni Mommy So You Don't Have To
Fannie: Quote of the Week
Mo Pie: Last Night on Project Runway…
Leave your links in comments...
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: Iain gives a huge belly laugh (in response to some ridiculously hyperbolic comment I made about how stupendously lovable Dudley is, just before I started filming), and then says himself: "Oh my god, Dudley, you're just so adorable."
All the while, Dudz sits in his dog bed, being totes cute.
[Yesterday's Daily Dose O' Cute was snapped either right before or right after this.]
My Breasts Hurt
Actually they don't (today), but that's another story.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about bras for small-breasted women and the ladies who wear them. It was fluff, in the same way that a restaurant review is fluff; not dealing with the most pressing issues of the day, not interesting to everybody, but most definitely the sort of thing that some readers might enjoy and find useful.
Certainly, the article had flaws. For one, it suggested that taking pride in one's small breasts is a symptom of fat people and OMFG ARE PEOPLE FAT. :sigh: Still, the article made some good, if fluffy points. But, because this was a story on women's bodies (and :gasp: one of the supposedly womanlier parts of many women's bodies) there was an immediate backlash.
To hell with that.
The Times article alluded to the marginalization of small-breasted women's bodies. Permit me to verify that this exists.
You know how in puberty pretty much all girls suffer teasing about their breasts? (You should have seen mine back in high school. Ugh.) That's pretty much how the grown-up world works. It's really the same world, if you think about it.
Flat-chested women supposedly aren't quite grown up. We're not that sexy, or certainly not as sexy as we'd be if we had bigger breasts. (Breasts that we could buy, btw, provided we were willing to put up with the blowback that plastic surgery gets you in some circles.)
Of course, we could get padded bras. Which, incidentally, are everywhere. And always improved. Revolutionary, even. Sometimes shit explodes. Breasts that appear to be of a culturally accepted size and shape are a big deal.
The Times piece actually mentions that some of us don't necessarily want padded bras. Or don't want to wear training bras designed for teens. It doesn't mention this, but those of us who are tall can't usually wear bras designed on the assumption that we're comparably short teens whose 36A breasts are growing to be of an appropriate size. The article mentions the rise of boutiques where one can get grown-up bras that fit. I noted the information on the chance that someday I have money to invest in nice bras.
Small-breasted women are real people with real experiences. I, for one, noticed that many people didn't really take my womanhood seriously until I was a full A-cup. That was kinda a big deal, because the alternative was pretty shitty. Did I mention this was a real experience in the real world?
But our experiences aren't enough to mollify folks who want to tell us what our lives, bodies, and experiences should be.
Like, I understand that bras are the devil and it can be hell on your back to have large breasts and I'm so lucky and why the hell would I ever wear a bra whatthehelliswrongwithme, but, uh.... Sometimes I don't like to show off my nipples at work. It can still be uncomfortable walking around with unsupported breasts, even smaller ones. Also, who the fuck is anyone to judge my choice in clothing, and why the fuck do they think I have to give an explanation of my attire?
I also understand that there are women with other body issues, you know, because I have empathy. Like, I know that fat hatred exists. I've been to the doctor with my partner. And the grocery store. And the sidewalk. Oh, and also we've shopped for bras together. Trying ain't the half of it. Oh! Have any of you seen the selection of sports bras for larger-breasted women? Telling of society, no?
Speaking of body issues and marginalization, do you want to talk about my penis? Me neither.
And why yes, at some point I would like to talk about other issues... about the economy, about health insurance, about public education, about crime. These are incredibly important issues that affect my household more than my breasts do. However, for these ten minutes we're talking about my breasts, m'kay? I promise the Arbitrators of Very Important Things that we can spend the next fifteen minutes discussing what's for lunch before y'all move on to puzzling out the one and only one true important issue in society.
Nobody who's oppressed can truly win the Oppression Olympics, because, well, it's oppressive. Not listening to the voices of small-breasted women and generally dismissing our experiences of marginalization is oppression. It's like we get a higher (or lower) score simply by virtue of participation in that cruel pseudo-sport with Calvinballesque rules and a constantly moving target.
Besides, I own my body. And frankly, I don't think that goes far enough. Mind-body dichotomy be damned, I am my body. My body is how I experience this world. So it's not really appropriate that my body, or anyone's body be treated as communal property to be judged against contrived standards. Yet this is precisely what society does to many bodies (women's bodies being one of many overlapping examples) all the time. Nuts to that.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Taken from an actual text conversation we had yesterday...]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
STFU, Jerry Lewis
[Trigger warning for violence and misogyny.]
Showbiz veteran Jerry Lewis, who is already well-known as a Grade-A misogynist, went off on an absolutely absurd rant this week about Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears (of course), detailing what he would do to set them straight:
"I'd smack her in the mouth if I saw her," he offered the interviewer when asked what he'd do if he saw Lohan. "I would smack her in the mouth and be arrested for abusing a woman!"And everyone knows the way to respond to a cry for help is with belittlement and physical abuse.
He continued, "I would say, 'You deserve this and nothing else' ... WHACK! And then, if she's not satisfied, I'd put her over my knee and spank her and then put her in rehab and that's it."
..."She doesn't have the right to do to herself what she's doing," he said of Lohan, who just did some time in jail and rehab. "She's not hurting my business. What she's doing is hurting herself, and that hurts me. It hurts me for her."
..."What they're saying is, 'I'm f*****d up, can you please help me!"
..."I think they need a f*****g spanking! And a reprimand!" he said. "It has nothing to do with [money and fame], it has to do that they have the intelligence of a box of rocks. A bag of snails will give you better answers than those people. I think a great deal of it is ignorance and crying for something other than love."
As I've had occasion to observe before, I've got no idea, and neither does Jerry Lewis, what it's like to grow up in the information age as a commoditized young woman, inevitably defining my self-worth by the amount of public attention I'm getting, and how that fucks with one's head.
I've got no idea what it must be like to feel equal parts exhilarated and scared when the paparazzi hounds you and equal parts relieved and lost when they don't, how that must compel people to seek out public attention even when it's the last thing they need, because it's all they feel like they've got.
I've got no idea what it must be like to have drugs pressed into my hand by strangers at clubs I'm allowed to patronize before I'm old enough to drink, and how confusing and infuriating and sad and insecurity-making it must be to not know whether people like you because you're you or because you're famous, how that must make clubs full of mind-altering substances and fawning fans an attractive place to be.
I've got no idea what it must be like trying to navigate one's way to adulthood as a woman—a difficult and confusing journey even when one isn't hyper-sexualized at a formative age, tasked with the responsibility of accounting for a professional image one doesn't even have the life experience to contexualize.
And neither does Jerry Lewis. So he should really shut the fuck up.
He has no idea what these young women are going through, and no interest in exploring why it is that young women are singled out for public excoriation for self-destructive behavior. He's just another sanctimonious toad who finds it easier to unilaterally condemn the women who fail to gracefully rise above a deeply fucked-up industry effectively, if not deliberately, designed to destroy them, than to question, challenge, or work to transform the industry.
And why would he? The source of their destruction made him a very rich man.
[Related Reading: I Write Letters, Bad Girls, Oh, For Crying Out Glavin.]
I'm So Glad We Elected a Democrat, Part One Billion
White House considers pre-midterm package of business tax breaks to spur hiring.
Of course they do.
With just two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks - potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars - to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.So now policy is being decided not on what will be most effective for the US citizenry, but based on avoiding mendacious GOP framing. Awesome.
...Permanently extending the research credit would cost roughly $100 billion over the next decade, tax analysts said. And depending on its form and duration, a payroll-tax holiday could cost more than $300 billion. While costing significantly less than last year's stimulus package, both ideas would be far more dramatic than anything the White House has so far acknowledged considering.
...More spending on infrastructure, particularly transportation projects, is also under discussion. But it would be easier for a package composed purely of tax cuts to "avoid the stain of a 'bailout' or 'stimulus' label," said one official familiar with the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations were private.
[S]ome Democratic candidates and political operatives feel the president is not doing enough to help them keep control of Congress, privately expressing frustration that Obama has recently emphasized issues other than the economy.I just don't even know what to say anymore. I really don't.
"We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?" said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke."
...Last November, Obama announced that he would turn his attention to unemployment, calling it "one of the great challenges that remains in our economy." ... But other matters - health care, the BP oil spill - continually stole the limelight, creating the impression, some Democrats complain, that the president was barely focused on the economy at all.
His advisers described his attentiveness - noting, for example, that he discussed the economy with New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) for 15 minutes before golfing - but got little traction.
Feel the Homomentum!
New South Wales passed a bill yesterday granting same-sex couples the right to adopt.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally supported the bill:
Speaking to the lower house on Wednesday night, Ms Keneally said she had considered her Catholic faith, observations of same-sex parents and her own experiences of parental love.
"In considering all of that, I must, in my conscience, support this legislation," she said.
Fine work, Aussies!
[Tip of the kookaburra to Shaker Michelle.]
Today in Analogizin'
"The federal government is basically a drug dealer trying to give out free samples, or give people a taste, get them further addicted."
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, comparing the Obama administration and health insurance "reform" to any number of people in my neighborhood who may or may not have health insurance.
"And I think we just say: 'No, thanks, we've had enough,' and get your own house in order, by the way, at the same time."
Speaking of interesting, word on the street (as the kids say) is that the President is black. Surely that couldn't have played into Pawlenty's insinuation that the White House is basically a drug house. *cough*
FWIW, I was unaware that drug dealers actually give out free samples. Maybe I need to rent New Jack City
Question of the Day
We haven't done a "desert island" question in ages, so here we go… As always, the desert comes equipped with a power source and kickass entertainment system.
Were you to be stranded for an indefinite period of time, which one book, one album, and one film would you want to have with you?
Book: The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Album: "Strangeways, Here We Come" by The Smiths
Film: Harold and Maude
This is a real thing in the world.
[Image Description: Two cake toppers photographed on a store shelf. On the left, a thin white bride dragging a thin white groom across the ground by his collar. On the right, a thin white bride grabbing a thin white groom to stop him from running away.]
Mama Shakes sent these charming cake toppers to me with the note (which I am publishing with her permission):
Hi, Sis. I didn't know if these were nice enough for your "This Is a Real Thing in the World" feature. I know you may find it surprising to learn I spotted them at Wal-Mart.I am shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background.]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Photo of the Day
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chats with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as leaders gathered to deliver a joint statement on Middle East Peace talks in the East Room of the White House in Washington September 1, 2010. [Reuters Pictures]
The Overton Window: Chapter Three
Chapter one introduced us to our hero, Noah Gardner. Chapter gave him a sidekick, Molly Ross. With chapter three comes our story's villain.
Arthur Isaiah Gardner: World's greatest PR man, head of Doyle & Merchant (the world's greatest PR firm, duh), Noah's father, atheist, mastermind behind the new order of things: The Great and Powerful Oz.
Like Noah, Arthur isn't described physically. We are again to presume he's white, since that's assuredly the default for Beck. He's seventy-four and silvery voiced and has a "taste for blood." Figuratively speaking, of course. Or not. Thanks to Joe Mande, Arthur Gardner is cemented in my mind as being portrayed by Jon Voight. (See image below.) So every time he speaks, and he speaks a lot, it's like watching Anaconda, or National Treasure 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold, but not as cleverly written.
I haven't quite got my head wrapped around Arthur Gardner. He spends the bulk of chapter three pontificating and speechifying. Part of what he espouses is Beck brand neocon nonsense: hatred of: Social Security, government debt, corporate bailouts. But Gardner's solution is to replace the U.S. government with his own system: "a new framework that will survive when the decaying remains of the failed United States have been washed away in the coming storm." And while Beck hates Social Security, government debt, corporate bailouts, his solution is "Restoring Honor."
Chapter three opens with Arthur Gardner reading a classified memo titled "Constitutionalists, Extremism, the Militia Movement, and the Growing Threat of Domestic Terrorism." The memo lists groups of fringe elements that the government needs to keep an eye on. Mostly Beck's target audience: "Militant anti-abortion or 'pro-life' organizers, anti-immigration, border defenders, 'Tea Parties', third-party political campaigns, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, tax resisters, 'End the Fed' proponents, gun rights activists." Then some more ... frightening ... elements are thrown in. "Christian Identity, White Nationalists, American Nazi Party, Holocaust denier, hate radio/TV/Web/print."
It's almost clever. See what's he's done here? He's lumped in his own audience with the more dangerous elements on the right and tied it all in with "hate radio." It is designed to appeal to Beck's audience's sense of persecution. The government is out to get them, as they see it, and this plays right into their paranoia: Those in charge hate the right, from the "pro-lifer" to the Nazi, they're all the same. That's probably the most insidious part. It's that sameness in the minds of the cons that normalizes and mainstreams those dangerous elements. If the government hates them all the same, then maybe the American Nazi Party is no more dangerous than the average "pro-lifer."
There follows a bit on the "detention / rendition / interrogation / prosecution" of these elements:
With U.S. citizens suddenly in the news in the place of al-Qaeda terrorists, some level of psychological resistance must be anticipated and then defused when it arises. It is the opinion of the committee that such a reflexive populist reaction would prove to be a major obstacle to progress. In fact, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event (on the order of a Pearl Harbor / 9/11 attack), there is a potential that the government's reasonable actions in this critical area may be met with significant public outrage and even active sympathy and misguided support for these treasonous/seditious elements and their hate-based objectives.
Gardner throws the report aside and addresses his newest client. A government stooge named Purcell, who's hired Doyle & Merchant to fix the PR nightmare that is the leaked memo, due to hit the front page of tomorrow's Washington Post.
Much to Purcell's surprise, Noah's already got the memo blamed on an "overzealous local bureaucracy." Like Molly said, PR people just lie.
All of this leads to ten-odd pages of Gardner addressing the guests in his conference room. It's far too long, but kind of fun to imagine Jon Voight delivering it on-screen. I mean, that beats just reading it straight. (How long until ABC puts The Overton Window miniseries into production, you think?) Gardner tells how the 2004 tsunami ruined his Sri Lankan vacation, all if which he use as analogy for the destruction of the U.S. He also tells of how he was the guy who invented bottled water. His greatest PR scheme, conning folks into buying water in plastic bottles instead of drinking it relatively free of charge from the tap. All the while he rails on about the ills of the U.S. government's overspending. Highlights below:
Bear Stearns, a cornerstone firm of Wall Street founded when my father was a young man, a company whose stock had quite recently been selling at a hundred and sixty dollars a share, was bailed out by the Federal Reserve and J.P. Morgan at two dollars per share. That was the beginning, my friends.
We are in the midst of what will become the most devastating financial calamity in the history of Western civilization, and just this week—please do correct me if my figures are wrong—the Congress and the administration have committed to funnel almost eight trillion dollars to the very institutions that engineered the crisis.
Over the last century you've saddled your hapless citizens with a hundred thousand billion dollars in unsecured debt, money they'll be paying back for fifty generations if there are still any jobs to be had by then. Meanwhile you're up to your necks in misguided, escalating wars on two unforgiving fronts with no sign of the end. That's trillions more in unpayable IOUs.
For heaven's sake, you nationalized General Motors just to get your union friends off the hook. As you know, those union pensions you just took over are severely underfunded, adding another seventeen billion dollars to your tab. Seventeen billion, I might add, that you don't have.
Just to stay afloat the government is borrowing five billion dollars every day at ever-rising interest rates from our fair-weather friends in Asia. Sooner or later the truth will be undeniable, that these massive debts can never be repaid, and there'll be a panic, a worldwide run against the dollar, and through your actions you've ensured that the results will be fatal and irreversible.
And all this will lead to the collapse of the U.S.
But that's okay. Gardner has a plan. He also has a Powerpoint presentation. And some hand-outs. (Which I guess is what Churchill got his hands on in the prologue.)
"Because we must, we will finally complete what they envisioned: a new framework that will survive when the decaying remains of the failed United States have been washed away in the coming storm. Within this framework the nation will reemerge from the rubble, reborn to finally take its rightful, humble place within the world community. And you," he said, looking around the table, "will all be there to lead it."
A hand went up on the far side, a question from the senior member of the party, who'd so far only listened in silence.
"Mr. Gardner," the man said. "What about the public?"
"What about them? The public has lost their courage to believe. They've given up their ability to think. They can no longer even form opinions, they absorb their opinions, sitting slack-jawed in front of their televisions. Their thoughts are manufactured by people like me. What about the public? There's a double-edged sword by which the public can be sold anything, from a three-dollar bottle of tap water to a full-scale war."
And not only does Gardner have a plan, it's gonna be easy to implement:
"The misguided resistance that still exists will be put down in one swift blow. There'll be no revolution, only a brief, if somewhat shocking, leap forward in social evolution. We'll restore the natural order of things, and then there will be only peace and acceptance among the masses." He smiled. "Before we're done they'll be lining up to gladly pay a tax on the very air that they breathe."
Kind of scary, huh? No, not Gardner's plan, but Beck's audience, who believe this. This reads less like a cautionary tale, and more like a call to arms. "The misguided resistance that still exists will be put down in one swift blow." I fear, the only solution, in the eyes of Beck, is a preemptive strike.
[Note: I'll be in Baltimore all next week, so no Overton updates until I get back, mid-September or thereabouts. Enjoy your time off, Shakers!]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for discussion of body image.]
Many Americans Don't Even Know They're Fat.
Of course we don't. Because the DEATHFAT! has mememtoed our memories and shrunk the stuffin' in our brainpans!
You really expect my critically addled fatbrain to be able to remember that I'm a fatsronaut once I walk away from the scale or the mirror the closest stranger calling me a fat cunt when the DEATHFATZ ARE EATIN MY BRAINZZZ?!
For the record: I know I'm fat.
[H/T to Shaker Julie.]
Today in Ugh
The president's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, tasked with "identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run" and proposing "recommendations designed to balance the budget [and] meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government" is comprised of 18 people profiled here by TPM.
The president's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is very white, very male, and very terrifying.
I just bipartisaned in my pants.
This deserves a much more serious post, but I am too depressed to write it.
Ugh.
[H/T to Shaker Carol.]
Check Out This Tenured Professor of Feminism at Dipshit University
So there's this principled men's rights activist douchey anti-feminist fame-chasing self-promoter who, among pursuing other important legal issues involving feminists ruining the world for men, has been on this asinine crusade to challenge the constitutionality of ladies' nights at bars. But, sadly, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected his argument.
The court, with evident amusement, said it must rule against [Manhattan lawyer Roy Den Hollander] even though "without action on our part, (he) paints a picture of a bleak future, where 'none other than what's left of the Wall Street moguls' will be able to afford to attend nightclubs."Good luck with all that, Roy.
…"The guys are paying for girls to party. I don't think that's fair," Den Hollander said. "It's a transfer of money fom the wallets of guys to the pocketbooks of girls."
He vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The best part of his complaint, however, is that he doesn't lay the responsibility for ladies' nights at the doorstep of the money-grubbing club promoters who use the promise of cheap booze to lure women into their meat markets for the benefit of their horny male clientele, but instead "blames militant feminists for the ladies-pay-less door policies." He's really onto us, my Feminazi Cooter Cultists.
Shaker Tereska, who gets the hat tip, exclaims: "Of course ladies' nights were fought for and won by feminists. My top two issues are access to abortion and HALF PRICED MARTINIS!!!"
There's Good News and Bad News. And Fat News.
(TW for discussion of depression)
I went to the doctor last Friday (I went to see a couple of my doctors, actually, but this post concerns my visit with my internist). She recently replaced another doctor who had been part of that practice for several decades, and had been the only internist I had seen more than once as an adult. This new one, Dr. L., has had the unenviable task of taking on a lot of patients who were very attached to the previous physician, and earning their trust.
I went to see her a couple of months ago for the first time, to request a blood glucose test. My paternal grandmother, whom I never knew but from whom I seem to have inherited some unfortunate tendencies, had Type II diabetes, an illness which my "lifestyle" is quite conducive to. By "lifestyle" I mean that I suffer from great fatigue, difficulty focusing on tasks, and a lack of motivation.
"Lack of motivation" is a generally misunderstood symptom of depression. It does not mean that I sit around thinking, "Oh, I'm so depressed; why bother to do shit I don't want to do anyway." It means not that I lack discipline, but that there is a mental disconnect between my conscious mind, which says I want or need to do X, and the part of my brain which actually initiates activity. It prevents me from doing things I would very much like to do, as well as things I need to do, rather than indicating simply a lack of interest in doing things which are not immediately rewarding.
If you want or need to go somewhere, whether somewhere you're eagerly looking forward to going, or somewhere routine, or to the dentist for a root canal which you may be much averse to but have nevertheless decided will leave you better off in the long run, and you get in your car, turn the key in the ignition repeatedly, yet the engine sputters but does not engage, this is not an indication that you don't really want to go anywhere. It's an indication that something is wrong with the equipment you need to transport you there.
I am fully capable of sitting for hours, thinking periodically, "I need to pee," then, "I really need to pee," and eventually, "Damn, I need to pee," before being able to jump start the part of my brain which engages with the task of getting up and walking the ten feet to the bathroom, and initiates the movement which allows me to do that.
The more complex the task, the harder it can be, because a more complex sequence of actions must be, in some sense, imagined and targeted before the actions necessary to bring them about can be initiated. Most people are unaware that this process even takes place, because in a healthy brain, it occurs swiftly and automatically. In my brain, it does not.
I also have difficulty disengaging from tasks. Physical tasks are self-limiting, because my normal state is one of fatigue, and it escalates rapidly with any exertion. I can get sort of "stuck", though, doing fairly simple things on the computer, because the fatigue factor is low and it can require more energy to disengage, or mentally change gears to engage another task, than it does to just keep doing what I'm doing.
One result of these and other symptoms of my depression is that I get no exercise and my diet is terrible. Much of what I eat is dragged out of the freezer and shoved in the microwave. Many days I eat pretzels, cheese and my staple diet cola for breakfast, because it's what I can manage. For a "healthier" breakfast, I'll have a piece of fruit with that — when I have any, which is only a few days a month.
I cook occasionally, simple things, and occasionally make a salad, but even chopping vegetables is often beyond me. Since I have no car and have been unable for some time to manage grocery shopping by a combination of walking and buses, I order my groceries on the net and have them delivered. Because of the expense, I do this only every 2.5 to 3 weeks, which is therefore how often I get fresh produce, and only as much as I am likely to be able to prepare and eat within a few days. So my diet, as I mentioned, is monumentally crappy.
I spent a lot of years fighting my limitations. That accomplished nothing of lasting value, and actually endangered my survival. So I've learned to do the best I can to work with them. It does not create a healthy "lifestyle" but it permits me to survive. This is why the scare quotes around "lifestyle". That word is generally used to refer to something seen as chosen, preferred, as if selected from a menu of possibilities (you know, like being gay. You know you just love it 'cause it's naughty!).
I did not choose to live this way. I generally refrain from speaking for others, but I can say with bone-deep confidence that no one would choose to live this way. Whatever minor advantages it may seem to have to someone who never has lived this way, are far outweighed by the disadvantages, and no, I and others are not too stupid or childish to figure that out. It is also not the result of weakness. No one who has lived it could doubt the tenacity and power of endurance necessary to do so.
I have also been on every class of anti-depressant, anti-psychotic, mood stabilizer and anti-seizure medication in existence, have been through cognitive therapy and several courses of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), commonly known as electroshock. Only a couple of the drugs and the ECT provided any benefit, and it was short-lived. All of the preceding is meant to make clear that my "lifestyle" is not going to change.
I went to have my blood sugar tested because I like to see what's coming, even if I can't do anything about it. I prefer knowing what I'm dealing with. Not only was my blood glucose elevated (I'm "pre-diabetic"), my cholesterol and blood pressure are climbing as well. My doctor had briefly given me the usual recommendations about diet and exercise, which I listened to in silence, knowing she was obligated to provide me with that information, and after my follow-up visit two months later to check the progression of my various elevated numbers, (because this was the first time any of them had been elevated), had emailed me saying that medication was a possibility if lifestyle changes alone were insufficient.
Well, I gave that some thought. Dr. L. had engaged in no fat-shaming, no blaming of any kind, and seemed like someone with whom a patient could have a mutually respectful conversation. Also, Shakesville.
I spent the first three decades of my life hearing that all my problems, as well as those of the people close to me, were All My Fault. I saw, throughout my teen years, a series of therapists who were no help at all, who did not even provide me with a diagnosis, and generally treated me as if I were simply a rebellious teenager who wasn't smart enough to see that the person whose life was being destroyed by my inability to function was my own.
I only returned to mental health treatment in my thirties when it was clear that I would not live much longer without help. It was that which made me desperate enough to ask for the help I had always been told I did not deserve. I didn't find treatment which worked, but I did find a psychiatrist who treated me like a person with an illness who deserved whatever he could do to help, and that was enough to allow me to survive, although it has been touch-and-go at times. This doctor has been extraordinary, in my experience. I have had to deal with other mental health care providers as well, over the years since he became my doctor, which has only confirmed that view.
So I don't expect a lot, from anyone, including health care professionals. I learned somewhere along the way to say to people, "I won't accept that." I'm not sure I ever learned to say, "I expect this," or even just, "Would this be possible?" But I think the view insistently expressed at Shakesville that fat people are entitled to the health care they need, not only that which they earn by meeting the expectations of others, including health care providers, also influenced my decision to have a conversation with my new internist about whether medical treatment would be appropriate, given my unchanging "lifestyle".
So I went to see my doctor again. (She is aware of my history of depression, because I get all my health care from various departments of the physician's practice within my HMO, and they all have access to my complete medical record.) I told her that my diet is terrible and I get no exercise at all. I further told her that I have lived as I do for many years, well aware of the likely health effects, especially given my family history. (That diabetic grandmother? Also bipolar*. Thanks**, unknown Granny, for all the diseases!).
I told Dr. L. that realistically, none of that is going to change. I asked her if, given that reality, there was any value to my taking either of the medications she had suggested might be possible "if lifestyle changes were insufficient." She said matter-of-factly, "Well, medication is appropriate when lifestyle changes have been maximized." I said, "So there's no point in my taking any." She said, "Oh, no, I meant that if your lifestyle changes have been maxed out, and the condition remains, then medication is appropriate." So we discussed the nature of the medications she had in mind, and I left with two prescriptions. Deathfatz was not mentioned.
She knows how much I weigh. I was weighed each time I went, without fuss, and the result duly noted on my chart. Also, she can see me. I am "morbidly obese". But then, I'm generally pretty morbid. (Ha-ha! Little depressed person humor there! Yes, we have our own jokes, too. I will spare you them.) At no time did I get any fat-shaming, lifestyle-blaming, or air of disapproval from her. Most importantly to me, when I told her that I can't change the way I live, she took me at my word.
My allergist had previously tried to convince me how simple changes to my diet would be, based on how when he was divorced he used to just throw some stuff on the grill on the days when he had his kids. He's a nice man, really. His manner wasn't patronizing, and I actually appreciate his willingness to take the time to talk to me about something outside his own direct responsibility but which was intended to better my health, given that many people have doctors who rush in and out with barely a chance to discuss anything with them. But, doc, I'm not a divorced man who never learned to cook because a woman had always done it for him. I'm chronically ill. No, really. They are not similar conditions.
So telling a doctor that this is how I live, and that my own assessment based on the knowledge accumulated in living my particular life tells me that it's the best I can do under the conditions of my life, and having her accept my judgment on that point, and matter-of-factly go on to discuss what can be done, was . . . startling.
I have read the horror stories here at Shakesville and throughout the fatosphere, about health care professionals who appear to believe that fat people don't deserve to be healthy, and are by jiminy not going to get any help from them in becoming as healthy as they can be until they earn it by losing weight. I know I am really lucky to have the doctor that I do. Hell, I'm lucky to have the broad access to health care that I do, which is provided by a combination of Medicare and MediCal that I am very fortunate to have, and I don't forget that.
But having access to a building where health care is provided and a staff who provide it to those they feel are deserving (the right weight, the right gender, the right gender presentation, the right sexual orientation, the right religious beliefs, the right sexual habits — being the right kind of person, i.e., like me, the provider) is one thing, and having access to health care you can use, provided by professionals who respect the autonomy and judgment of the patient, is a whole other dimension. I have both, and I know that, in this respect, I am very fortunate.
*My depression is unipolar; unipolar depression is quite often also found in families where bipolar disorder is present.
**I couldn't resist the sarcasm, but obviously no one is responsible for the genes they have, much less who among their children and grandchildren inherit them, and given that these conditions certainly caused her suffering as well, unknown Granny merits only sympathy from me.
H/T to CaitieCat and eastsidekate, who jump-started my motor to write this post. :)
Top Chef Open Thread
[Image from last night's show: While chefstronaut Buzz Aldrin regales his dinner companions with Tang-affirming stories about Tatooine, all celebrichefjudicator Anthony Bourdain can think about is Jawas.]
Last night's episode will be precisely batonneted, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your knives and go...
Quote of the Day
"The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist. ... The only evidence for Obama's Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years."—Ann Coulter.
Ann, sweetie, you've got to dial back the hyperbole. I know your readership will always treat as earnest anything you write, no matter how absurd, but the rest of us are starting to cotton on that this is just sustained performance art, designed to expose the profundity of ignorance among the American Rightwing.
[Related Reading: On "Real" Christians and Christian Privilege.]
It's About Time . . .
. . . that my personal spammers started getting a little more creative with their names. I am so over m#rwzna;eodnf.
This morning I got a very important communication by electronic mail from Mrs. Rhoda Kammel. Ok, it's not exactly Wildean wit, but it beats m#rwzna;eodnf all to hell.
Open Thread on Discovery Eco-Terrorist
[Trigger warning for violence.]
Yesterday afternoon, as you've no doubt heard, a 43-year-old man named James J. Lee entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD, took hostages, and, after a four-hour standoff, was shot and killed by police.
Lee, who identified as an environmental activist, though his activism seems largely to have consisted of protesting the Discovery Channel, said he was inspired to action by "An Inconvenient Truth."
Thus has the meme that Lee was a leftwing terrorist begun.
But, of course, it's not quite that simple. Lee's manifesto is indeed leftwing insomuch as environmental protection has become associated with the left since conservatives haven't been particularly interested in conservation since Nixon started the EPA. Lee's eliminationist views on immigration, however, are closely aligned with several prominent rightwing anti-immigration groups, and his position on human population control ("NO MORE BABIES!") is, suffice it to say, profoundly anti-choice.
Like most of the other domestic terrorists who have struck recently, there's not a totally cohesive ideology underlying his actions. He is certainly more left-leaning than, say, Joseph Stack, but, like Stack, it's a mixed bag of grievances.
I don't have much to say about the situation other than that note of my typical "shades of gray" stuff.
[Commenting Guidelines: This thread is not an invitation to wax ponderous about Lee's psychological health.]
Question of the Day
What's your favorite holiday destination?
I am a vacationer of extremes: I either like to be in the center of a big, bustling city (London, New York, etc.) or in a small, quiet place along some body of water big enough in which to swim, even if it's the time of year where swimming isn't advised.
The Indiana Dunes, L.A., Nova Scotia, Siesta Key, Door County, Leith...I don't care. Just get me next to the water, and I'm happy.
I have but one question.
[Image Description: A picture of actor Tony Danza in a shirt and tie, next to a trailer for his new A&E reality TV show "Teach: Tony Danza," accompanied by the following show description: "Long before his iconic acting career, which includes roles in 'Taxi' and 'Who's The Boss,' Tony Danza received a degree in History Education. During the 2009-2010 school year, he took on his most challenging and rewarding role yet as he stepped into the classroom as a full-time teacher at Philadelphia's Northeast High School. 'Teach Tony Danza' follows the first year-teacher as he instructs a 10th-grade English class with 26 students."]
Lest anyone mistake my snark for bagging on teachers, I'm not. My parents were both public high school teachers, and two of my best childhood friends are public high school teachers; it is an honorable profession.
Particularly when it's done without the additional paycheck and glory that comes from doing it in front of the cameras of a reality television show.
[H/T to Deeks.]
Photo of the Day
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s hands rest on the railing of a boat during their tour of St. Andrews Bay in Panama City Beach, Fla., Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Michael Joseph Gross for Vanity Fair: "Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury."
It's terrible for a couple of reasons. One, because Sarah Palin is the worst. Except, and two, she's the worst for reasons that aren't even in this article.
No, she's not the worst because she's a bad tipper and reportedly has the unmitigated temerity to have loud fights with her husband. And she's not the worst just because she politicks with the mendacious, aw-shucks, insufferably affected demeanor that's been a central part of conservative identity politics since Ronald Reagan's carefully blushed cheeks. She's not even the worst because she, like pretty much every other politician who's angling for the presidency (not that that makes it right), consorts with political operatives who do shady things like set up questionable payment schemes for her speaking engagements.
She's the worst because she's an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, anti-socialized healthcare, anti-social safety net, pro-social Darwinism conservative asshole, just another self-proclaimed bootstrapper who belittles feminists and their advocacy for the programs and policies that help marginalized women and girls, who trades on being a rightwing token while demeaning the very activism that has afforded her the public platform on which she brazenly basks in the luxury of her disdain.
Gross' article, however, amounts to very little but "Sarah Palin is the worst because she's in politics...and is A WOMAN."
Sure, it's covert sexism. Gross doesn't talk about her boobs or use identifiable misogynist epithets to describe her, but it's sexism nevertheless, as the (frequently dislikable) habits of many major politicians, of both parties, are used to build the case that Palin is remarkably awful. But there is nothing particularly remarkable about a politician who requires family members get permission to grant interviews. Nor about a politician who ambitiously trades favors and ruthlessly gets people fired who cross hir. Nor about a politician who acts like an entitled ass.
What makes this article the worst thing I've read all day is the fact that most of what's in it is the sort of shit that is considered (rightly or wrongly) the mundane business of doing politics, and yet is somehow ZOMG SHOCKING when done by Sarah Palin.
Monika Bauerlein, the co-editor of Mother Jones, tweeted: "I didn't think anything could make me rear up in Sarah Palin's defense, but this VF profile is close."
It's a sentiment I share.
I remain constantly infuriated at the number of pieces written about Sarah Palin that compel feminist/womanist women to come to her defense, or, at minimum, point out the absurdity of the coverage. (Bauerlein also tweeted: "'Sarah, these aides say, seemed comforted by having the children around, and she seemed lonely when they were gone.' Truly a monster.") To have feminist writers mock the paucity of legitimate criticisms in a hit piece on Palin can't have been the point.
And yet here we are again.
I will continue to defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because I endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works.
But I'd prefer not to be obliged in the first place.
[Related Reading: Same Boat; Grab a Paddle, Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, Part 28, On Choice, Parity for Palin.]
False
CNN: Go shopping; change the world.
Basically, there's this new cell phone application (CauseWorld) that sends you advertisements in exchange for which corporations make tiny donations to [mostly] non-controversial charities. [Edit: Although see the comments concerning the very problematic Autism Speaks, one of the 29 charities CauseWorld lists on its website here.] You open the app and it tells you what stores are nearby. In the process, you earn "karmas" (I know, I know), enough of which will allow you to funnel money to pay to plant a tree, feed a chimp, support the Red Cross, or any other number of things that are good.
I'm going to go on record as being mostly in favor of [mostly] non-controversial charities (my slight hesitation comes from my concern that they may detract support from controversial groups that do important work, often with less money going to administrative salaries).
But yes, I like chimps and trees and Haitians and dislike cancer, earthquakes, and hunger.
I have a couple of problems with this story, though.
"Changing the world" strikes me as a bit overblown. Actually, Citibank (one of the app's sponsors) has done more world changing than I'd have preferred. You know, if large corporations did want to change the world, they could start by changing their own practices. That would actually be much more direct than paying folks to plant trees.
Second, I object to the headline, "Go shopping; change the world". It's a bit misleading, in that one accumulates "karmas" merely by viewing advertisements. I'm also not anti-shopping by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd hardly consider shopping in-and-of itself world-changing. The global economy is complicated, but there are plenty of purchases that neither change the status quo nor improve the world.
So sure, huzzah for charity. But let's call CauseWorld what it is, a cost-effective way for companies to increase advertising exposure while making relatively small contributions to carefully selected, corporate-friendly charities. This isn't a bad thing, but it's certainly not revolutionary.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Lissy's Pirate Gear, for all your deck-swabbing needs!
Andy: Should Obama Be Worried About Growing GOP Support for Gays?
Scatx: Girl, you are TOO tall to ride the school bus
Advocate: Tasmania to Recognize Marriages
Roschelle: Who Gets Credit For Iraq...
Joe. My. God: SAS To Host In-Flight Gay Wedding
Leave your links in comments…
lolsob
Elle sent me this article (which is about the failure of this summer's rom-coms to draw female viewers to theaters in large numbers) with the note: "Girl, I swear the last paragraph was written just for you." LOL!
The last paragraph:
"Women like today's bromances better than the movies aimed at them. They're funnier. They're smarter. Especially Judd Apatow's movies. He understands women. 'I Love You Man' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' did really well with women," [Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com] says. "We're selling women short just thinking they want traditional romantic comedies."lolsob.
Yes, that's certainly always been my complaint: Hollywood not assuming hard enough that I want MORE THE HANGOVER!
Today in Body Policing—Now in Blue!
[Trigger warning for body policing, gender policing, fat hatred, and dehumanization.]
by Shaker Erica
Approaching the newsstand this morning, I had a suspicion I wasn't going to like what I was about to read.
[Image Description: The cover of Metro with a "headless fatty" color photograph of a fat white man from neck to waist, with his arms wrapped around himself, covering his breasts. The headline and subhead read: "Ashamed of your moobs? …You're not alone." Below that is the text: "With obesity rates rising, more men are turning to surgeon's knife to fix man boobs. What was once a private shame and laughing matter has become a problem that's easily fixed."]
A full-sized image of a naked and headless body on the front page with big bold letters that say 'ashamed' never really leads to any good place.
My friend immediately pointed out the gender policing. Moob? (Man+boob.) Because having breasts (having female qualities) is a serious source of shame, right? Of course, being fat in and of itself is also obviously a 'private shame and laughing matter' according to whoever is writing cover copy for the Metro.
In the corner of the cover, there is a text poll ("WIN $250!"):
What's the biggest turnoff in a guy?What!? Is this really a front page story? What exactly is the point in promoting all this body shame?
a: Man boobs
b: Unibrow
c: Hairy back
d: Bad breath
That's rhetorical.
The next full page devoted to this story (yes another full page—accompanied by an image of another headless body) reveals that "men with full breasts like these can have them surgically removed with a simple procedure." The article (viewable online here) goes on to discuss how easy and cheap it is to have surgery on your lunch break. "They don't need to take a lot of time away—just a couple of hours in the afternoon."
Leaving aside the inherent problems in promoting plastic surgery as a quick and easy way to 'fix' your body, why why why are we always meant to feel our boobs are too small or too big? That we are too fat, too thin, too hairy, too bald, too pale, too dark, too whatever else to live without shame?
That's rhetorical.
Meanwhile, hidden in a short blurb elsewhere in the paper, we get the news that New York Governor David Paterson signed into law a bill that protects domestic workers' rights and affecting overtime, weekly time off, and protection from sexual harassment.
I guess that's not important as fat-shaming though.
Email the author of the piece, Heidi Patalano, here. Email the editors here.
I Write Letters
Dear Time:
Does the news that "unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities" and work full-time jobs have slightly higher salaries "than those of the guys in their peer group" really warrant the headline "Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top"?
Leaving aside your crass, thinly veiled sexual reference, I fail utterly to see how a very small cohort of working women making more than their male peers justifies the assertion that women are, at last, "on top."
Especially when said toppery has been achieved in large part due to the collapse of male-dominated industries or because of the institutional racism that disproportionately derails the lives of young men of color:
[James Chung of Reach Advisors, who has spent more than a year analyzing data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey] also claims that, as far as women's pay is concerned, not all cities are created equal. Having pulled data on 2,000 communities and cross-referenced the demographic information with the wage-gap figures, he found that the cities where women earned more than men had at least one of three characteristics. Some, like New York City or Los Angeles, had primary local industries that were knowledge-based. Others were manufacturing towns whose industries had shrunk, especially smaller ones like Erie, Pa., or Terre Haute, Ind. Still others, like Miami or Monroe, La., had a majority minority population. (Hispanic and black women are twice as likely to graduate from college as their male peers.)Not to take away from the individual personal accomplishments of any women, but, despite our reputation to the contrary, I don't know many feminist/womanist women who are anxious to celebrate women's successes that are built on economic clusterfucktastrophes and/or pervasive inequality.
And, given the number of caveats behind your misleading "on top" headline, a more cynical person than I, ahem, might suggest there is a deliberate mischaracterization of the sort usually found in the middle of a backlash against women's progress, to justify policies that bolster the male privilege such mendacity asserts no longer exists.
Just sayin'.
Love,
Liss
Quote of the Day
"I was asked recently which of the political leaders I had met had most integrity. I listed George near the top. He had genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I ever met."—Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on former US President George W. Bush, in his memoirs.
Blair also calls Mondo Fucko a "true idealist" who is "very smart" while having "immense simplicity in how he saw the world."
That sounds more like a description of Forrest Gump than the sneering warmonger who spent eight years endeavoring to run this nation into the fucking ground.
The Honorable Citizens Restoring Honor to America
Yesterday, I gave this New Left Media video a quick link, but didn't have time to do a transcript for it. Shaker Mudkip was kind enough to transcribe all the dialogue; this morning I refined it and now the entire transcript is available here. Thanks very much to Mudkip for the help!
[The hat tip goes to Gabe, whose commentary I'll just second.]
So, the President Gave a Speech Last Night
And he declared an end to the combat mission in Iraq. (Gee, where have I heard that before?) The full transcript of the speech is here.
My response is mixed. It was successful for the reasons Steve details here, and yet I still found the bile rise on the reiteration of the lie that "A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency." That there were no weapons in Iraq is not even a debated point anymore; if he'd even just said "A war ostensibly to disarm a state" that would have been something.
I grant my own bias, having typed my fingers to bloody stumps about the Downing Street Memo and other evidence the Bush administration cooked the case for war, but that is a bias of which I am proud, quite frankly. It infuriates me that the former president's lies are still having veracity breathed into them, no less by the current president, who ran on the claim that he was someone who knew better once upon a time.
There were a few other little (but not incidental) details like that, which stuck in my craw. But I won't belabor the point.
The war is (ostensibly) over. And the dirty hippies were right.
Good Morning! Ruth Bader Ginsburg Rules.
And Dahlia Lithwick explains one of the many reasons why:
The Ginsburgs not only prevailed at the 10th Circuit but also obtained—as Justice Ginsburg has detailed elsewhere—the solicitor general's Exhibit E, a "printout from the Department of Defense computer" that listed, title by title, every provision of the U.S. Code "containing differentiations based upon sex-related criteria." According to the brief filed by the solicitor general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Moritz, the 10th Circuit decision "casts a cloud of unconstitutionality upon the many federal statutes listed in Appendix E." And as Martin Ginsburg noted in his speech, that computer printout proved "a gift beyond price" in his wife's future litigation career.Read the whole thing here.
The Moritz case launched Ginsburg into her association with the ACLU Women's Rights Project, and Exhibit E offered a roadmap for litigation. She scored five victories in six Supreme Court appeals, using the 14th Amendment to slowly and systematically eradicate gender discrimination in one law after another, pushing the courts to scrutinize laws that classify on the basis of gender with a standard higher than the deferential "rational basis" standard.
...Those who like to believe they have picked themselves up by the bootstraps sometimes forget that they wouldn't even have boots were it not for the women who came before. Listening to Palin, it's almost impossible to believe that, as recently as 50 years ago, a woman at Harvard Law School could be asked by Dean Erwin Griswold to justify taking a spot that belonged to a man. In Ginsburg's lifetime, a woman could be denied a clerkship with Felix Frankfurter just because she was a woman. Only a few decades ago, Ginsburg had to hide her second pregnancy for fear of losing tenure. I don't have an easy answer to the question of whether real feminists are about prominent lipsticky displays of "girl-power," but I do know that Ginsburg's lifetime dedication to achieving quiet, dignified equality made such displays possible.
[H/T to Shaker Phyllis.]
