Following up on yesterday's question... What's your favorite board game?
I like all kinds of board games, particularly classic puzzle and word games. Top of the list are Boggle, Scrabble, backgammon, and mahjong.
A contemporary favorite is Apples to Apples.
Question of the Day
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: Scenes of Olivia and Sophie watching the sparrows playing in the vines out the office window. Set to Ennio Morricone's "Il Buono, Il Cattivo, Il Brutto."
Meanwhile, Tilsy and Mr. Doodles napped on the couch.
Birdwatchers.
Snoozers.
Teases.
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.]
Something Stinks
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
Mike Myers does not get a lot of love at Shakes Manor.
This is mostly due to the existence of the multi-part culture-saturating Shrek franchise, the central character of which is literally just a collection of nasty Scottish stereotypes (which, as Scott points out here, are Myers' stock in trade)—although we're not exactly enamored of his gifts, ahem, to the Japanese, the Dutch, and Indians, either.
And now he will be getting even less love, if it's possible to give less love than none, as he's signed on to voice the lead role in a live-action/CGI hybrid film featuring everybody's favorite purveyor of the rape culture to children, Pepé Le Pew!
Awwwww, how adorable!
[Image Description: Still images from various PLP cartoons, showing Pepé the Skunk grabbing, kissing, chasing, pursuing Penelope the Cat.]
Lest anyone suffer from the misapprehension that it is only humorless radical feminists who are always looking for things to get mad about that see attempted rape in Pepé Le Pew cartoons, it is not. Frankly, it's astonishing that anyone watches these cartoons and doesn't see it the same way, given that the entire premise is that Pepé Le Pew is trying to "romance" Penelope against her will.
She pushes him away, she squirms out of his grip, she runs from him, she jumps off a cliff to get away. In some of the cartoons, Penelope would eventually attack Pepé and finally manage to free herself, leaving him a cloud of dust, scratched and defeated, but still as "amorous" as ever. And, in others, Penelope would eventually submit to Pepé, at long last (inexplicably) returning his affections.
Pursuit in defiance of interest, stalking as romance, sexual aggression, and disregard for consent—all the key narratives of the rape culture are handily conveyed to children via a "harmless" cartoon.
Gee, it'll be fun seeing this brought to the big screen.
I don't give a shit how much they're paying you, Mike Myers. It isn't worth it to participate in introducing yet another generation to this shameful character.
Oh Look
Vanity Fair has finally noticed that John McCain the Straight-Talkin' Maverick was a figment of the media's imagination, and that the man behind the curtain was always an opportunistic, unprincipled, foul-tempered jackass who would embrace the man whose operatives called his wife a junky and his adopted daughter illegitimate, and distance himself from his own daughter, as long as it was politically expedient.
In Things I Could Have Told You Years Ago.
The People in Your Neighborhood
A few days ago, a student teacher in a suburb around here was asked, by the district, to be reassigned because when he was asked--by a fourth grade student--why he is not married, the teacher replied that he could not be, as he would marry a man and that's currently illegal.
Seth Stambaugh told a fourth-grader who asked if he was married, that he was not. When the student asked why, Stambaugh, who is gay, replied it was not legal for him to get married because he would choose to marry another man. The student then asked does that mean you like to hang out with other guys? and Stambaugh responded yes, said Lake Perriguey, Stambaugh's attorney.Now, the parent of the student who actually had the conversation with Mr. Stambaugh is not the one who complained. This was a parent of another child who overheard the conversation--the same parent who had already previously complained about Mr. Stambaugh:
The parent of a student who overheard the conversation complained, Perriguey said, and district administrators asked Stambaugh's advisors at Lewis & Clark College to find him another school.
Perriguey said the parent who complained had already raised an issue about Stambaugh's appearance, which Perriguey described as pressed pants, an oxford shirt, a tie and a cardigan. Stambaugh has a light Van Dyke and pulls his hair back into a pony tail.Pressed pants? A dress shirt? A cardigan? Do you know who that is, Complaining Parent? That's:
I don't think I can think of a less objectionable wardrobe. OFFS. Axe to grind, much?
According to Stambaugh's school, it's not unusual for student teachers to move around and be reassigned. However, what is unusual is the way Beaverton School District handled it:
Lewis & Clark spokeswoman Jodi Heintz said it’s not uncommon for student teachers to change positions due to conflicts with their mentor teachers or other reasons. However, the decision usually comes at the end of a mutual discussion.Clearly something went wrong, that's for sure--and it's not particularly on Mr. Stambaugh's end that it happened. Shame on Beaverton School District (again--as back in 2005, they shut down Southridge High School's performance of The Laramie Project) for not standing behind their student teacher and caving to a parent--a parent who obviously was looking for something.
“Standard operating procedure includes all parties sitting down at a table and working out solutions,” Heintz said. “Clearly, in Seth’s instance, that collective conversation did not happen.”
I've heard and read several teachers' opinions on the matter and many have expressed the general idea that "this is why you never, ever discuss personal stuff with students". Well, maybe it's a "good policy" to not discuss personal subjects. However, as someone viewing it from "the outside", so to speak, I can't say that I find Mr. Stambough's answers to very direct questions to in any way inappropriate. They seem perfectly factual. He didn't bring a "political opinion" into the conversation (as I've seen said of it). Yes, gay marriage is a current political issue but simply stating "I cannot get married because it's illegal", is not "a political opinion". It's a simply statement of unfortunate fact. It wasn't even embellished with "...because of the ignorant and bigoted", although those, too, would be factual. Mr. Stambaugh should not have to deny or deflect about his existence. He should be able to be just as "there and existing" as any other straight teacher.
Hey Ignorant Parent(s) and Beaverton School District: gay people exist. They work, they live, they teach. They are the people in your neighborhood. Time to pull the head from the ass, as fresh air is a lot better for everyone than the stinking darkness of ignorance from whence your head came.
(Yah, I know the 'people in your neighborhood' is a Sesame Street song and not related to Mr. Rogers)
LOL UR DATA POINT
Today's New York Times contains a story titled "Democrats in Tight Races Put Focus on Abortion Rights." In other words, exactly what Liss has been saying (in that it's largely the opposite of what she's been saying).
How's the weather on planet Times?
The article discusses two races. In the case of New York, I haven't heard Cuomo say anything about abortion (or much of anything really-- the Cuomo ads I usually see feature Republicans having bipartisangasms over what a nice guy he is). The New York ad the article cites was put out by NARAL, not the Cuomo campaign. In other words, an abortion rights group is trying to put a focus on abortion rights, and some Democrats are having none of it. This is a wee bit different than the headline. Basically, there's this one Democrat in Colorado who ran an ad in favor of abortion rights, but that's not news. Or is it?
Newt. Ugh.
Newt Gingrich is a mendacious wad, and the latest in his decades-long involvement in professional mendacious waddery is disputing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's assertion that food stamps have a stimulative effect. Last night, Gingrich made an appearance in his natural habitat, Fox News, to blink naively and profess not to "understand how liberal math turns $1 into $1.79."
Well, you know, I carry around a bumper sticker that says 2 plus 2 equals 4. So I'd be very curious how a dollar given to somebody becomes a $1.79. And I think if we could get that to work with the U.S. Treasuries, so if people gave the Treasury $1,000, it became $1,790, we could pay off the federal debt and never worry about spending or anything. I mean, I — you know, somehow, I don't understand how liberal math turns $1 into $1.79.As Ben points out at Think Progress, "the Wall Street Journal explained this alleged 'liberal math' that Gingrich doesn't understand."
Money from the program — officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — percolates quickly through the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that for every $5 of food-stamp spending, there is $9.20 of total economic activity, as grocers and farmers pay their employees and suppliers, who in turn shop and pay their bills.Gingrich, of course, understands this principle perfectly. He's just counting on the fact that most of the people watching Fox News won't.
While other stimulus money has been slow to circulate, the food-stamp boost is almost immediate, with 80% of the benefits being redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 97% within a month, the USDA says.
Quote of the Day
"He's still a draw. People still respond really well to him."—An anonymous Republican strategist, on disgraced Republican Senator George Allen's planned 2012 Senate comeback.
Allen, who is an authentic asshole, lost his senate seat in '06 after referring to one of his opponent's staffers, S.R. Sidarth, a Virginian of Indian descent, as "macaca," which is a kind of monkey.
He's still popular with the rightwingers, though!
Be patriotic. Or else. Redux.
Yesterday attorney Danny Lampley found himself in the poky, charged with criminal contempt of court. Why? Because he did not recite the Pledge of Allegiance when standing up with everyone else in the courtroom:
Wednesday, Chancellor Talmadge Littlejohn sent the 49-year-old Oxford attorney [to jail] for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court.From the judge's order (.pdf--emphasis mine):
Littlejohn urged Lampley to reconsider repeating the Pledge, as every other person in the judge's courtroom did as the day's proceedings began.
"This morning, that was the last thing on my mind," Lampley said late in the day after a child-support hearing.
At 10 a.m., Lampley was in jail garb. By 2:30 p.m., Littlejohn ordered his release and return to the Lee County Justice Center to continue their business.
BE IT REMEMBERED, this date, the Court having ordered all present in the courtroom to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegience, and having found that Danny Lampley, Attorney at Law, failed and refused to do so, finds said Danny Lampley to be in criminal contempt of court.So all he has to do to expunge his criminal charges is to "stand and recite" in "open court", eh?
[...]
IT IT FURTHER, ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that Danny Lampley shall purge himself of said criminal contempt by complying with the order of this Court by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in open court.
Smell the freedom!
(Related: Be patriotic. Or else., To Pledge or, you know, not.)
Today in the Nooz
Southern Baptist leader on yoga: Not Christianity.
All righty then.
Now if a real news agency could do an investigative report on why the AP thought this was fit to publish, I'd be ever so appreciative.
Poor People Are Stupid. And Fat.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, body policing, and classism.]
New York Mayor and "anti-obesity" crusader Michael Bloomberg is asking the federal government for permission "to bar New York City's 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugared drinks."
The request, made to the United States Department of Agriculture, which finances and sets the rules for the food-stamp program, is part of an aggressive anti-obesity push by the mayor that has also included advertisements, stricter rules on food sold in schools and an unsuccessful attempt to have the state impose a tax on the sugared drinks.Okay, so here's the thing: Stigmatizing food stamp recipients by suggesting they're too stupid to make the right decisions about what food they should be purchasing is not a good idea for reasons that ought to be self-evident. But supposing, for a moment, that this proposal wasn't embedded with patronizing classist horseshit and a heap of fat hatred, there still remain reasons to question the potential efficacy of this proposal, and its very design.
...The mayor requested a ban for two years to study whether it would have a positive impact on health and whether a permanent ban would be merited.
"In spite of the great gains we've made over the past eight years in making our communities healthier, there are still two areas where we're losing ground — obesity and diabetes," the mayor said in a statement. "This initiative will give New York families more money to spend on foods and drinks that provide real nourishment."
Why, for example, is the USDA being petitioned to allow an infringement on the autonomous decision-making of poor USians, instead of petitioned to ban the use of high-fructose corn syrup in all the foods and beverages purchased by those poor USians (and everyone else)? Given that researchers have found that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain, and that the average USian's consumption of HFCS over the same time period associated with the OH NOES Obesity and Diabetes crisis has increased by "an alarming 12,250%," you'd think that the mayor and USDA might want to start there and see if "a ban for two years [has] a positive impact on health."
Of course, that's never going to happen, since corn is subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars in the US every year. What a coinkydink!
All of which is a moot point, anyway, because we live in a country where people are meant to be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies. (Consent. Autonomy. Respect. Dignity.) And access to that freedom of decision-making isn't supposed to be decided on how much money one earns.
I'm not naïve or ignorant enough to believe that shit doesn't happen all the time already; we live in a fucked-up country that preaches equality and practices inequality, where we believe we're all middle class except for those people, for whom we're pretty sure we should be allowed to make decisions.
But I expect more.
In a town where Michael Bloomberg's buddy Donald Trump has become a billionaire and gone bankrupt and become a billionaire again, you'd think there'd be more support for the idea that everyone should have the right to make their own decisions, even if they're lousy ones.
And, frankly, I can think of about a metric fuckton of lousier decisions than consuming a can of soda.
The Overton Window: Chapter Fourteen
In Overton related news:
Way back at the beginning of this series I noted that Beck dedicated Overton to David Barton, founder of dominionist group WallBuilders. Barton is back in the news today, going on record with the decidedly un-Libertarian position that teh buttsex among queers should be regulated by the federal government. No word on how Barton feels about hetero assplay. Specifics on how regulation might work were not available.
Noah finally strolls out of jail, along with all his patriot buddies. Überslick lawyer Charlie really earns his pay.
According to Charlie, a group of cops had eventually come forward to corroborate Noah's version of the evening's events: they'd apparently wanted to play no part in the railroading of this harmless group of like-minded citizens. Just as a minor rebellion was threatening to break out between the actual uniformed officers and the contract security forces who'd been working the scene, a phone call had come in from some high echelon, and right away everything was abruptly and quietly settled.
Phew! I just knew all the cop-hating would not stand. The good, hardworking, honest (white) cops were under the thumb of those Blackwater goons, or whoever the "contract security forces" are. That the cops went along with this scheme, up to and after the fact, until a nosey lawyer got involved, doesn't exactly paint them in the kindest of light. But, just so you know, the cops are not the bad guys. Cops are never the bad guys.
Noah watches his new teabagging friends leave and notes how "the sky was clearing with the soft lights of the predawn metropolis outshining all but the brightest stars." Barf.
Hollis thanks Noah and says he's in his debt. They can call it even if Hollis can just tell him the time.
The big man looked up and seemed to take a bearing on a number of celestial bodies before ciphering a moment. "I'd say she's nigh onto half-past four in the morning, give or take some."
Barf. Again. I'll leave it to you to unpack Beck's boner for the Everyman™.
A silver Mercedes S600 Pullman, waits for Noah, and fortuitously, as he's about to be whisked away, Molly and Beverly appear. Noah, gentleman that he is, offers them a ride home.
The author goes on about how nice the limo is, wanking over the "hand-worked leather and rare polished wood." It's a nice car. "The entire vehicle was a rolling monument to the comforts of First World business royalty."
"I don't always get to travel like this," Noah apologized as the car got under way. "But just for perspective, my dad wouldn't be caught dead in a Mercedes. He rides in an armored Maybach 62, or he walks."
Yeah, for perspective. What? I don't even know what this means. Nevermind. Noah has a fancy limo. Darthur has a fancier limo. It gets more ridiculous:
Noah opened a center compartment by his side. Behind the sliding door was a neat pyramid of Turkish hand towels, kept constantly warm and moist like fresh dinner rolls. With a set of tongs he passed one to each of them, and then unrolled his own and pressed the steaming cloth to his face, rubbed in the heat, leaned back, and breathed in the faint scents of citrus and therapeutic herbs. His riding companions did the same, and soon there were long sighs from across the compartment, the sounds of unrepentant indulgence, comfort, and relief.
Nice limo, nicer towels.
Beverly asks Noah about his work as a lying PR stooge. Noah gleefully details how he "wrote some talking points for a man, a U.S. senator from out west who's about to become the subject of an ethics investigation."
"You've heard it before—there's been no wrongdoing, the charges are baseless, a pledge of full cooperation, faith in the process, a little slam at the motivations of his accusers—short and sweet, because he's so eager to get back to serving the needs of his constituents. Believe me, this sort of thing is routine. It'll be in the papers tomorrow night; that's why I can tell you about it."
Just one question: Why would anyone pay for that service? Because if you're a veteran politician who has managed to make it through the gauntlet of campaigns and debates and elections and closed-door backroom negotiations and committee meetings and filibusters and blah blah blah and then get caught, figuratively or literally, with your pants down, and you haven't the wherewithal to come up with "the charges are baseless" on your own, then it doesn't seem at all likely that you'd end up in office to begin with.
Just saying.
Anyway, Beverly asks him if it bothers him doing that for a living. (Lying, I think; not ripping off dildobrains by charging them for talking points they could have thought up themselves.) Yes, it bothers Noah if he thinks about it, so he doesn't think about it.
The limo drops Beverly off at the Chelsea, which seems a little boho for such a conservative woman, if you ask me. I may have mentioned this before, but I am pretty sure the writer has never been to New York. It's like his only reference for the city was a Rough Guide. It reads with such inauthenticity, as if someone whose never been to a big city is imagining what New York might be like.
It reminds me of an anecdote I once read about Truman Capote. He was living in New York at the time and he had a friend in from back home in Monroeville. One morning he asked his guest where they'd like to go for breakfast. "Tiffany's!" they blurted out. That was the only business the guest new by name in New York. Nevermind that they don't actually serve food at Tiffany.
I just imagine the ghostwriter thinking to himself, "The Chelsea is a hotel in New York, right? I can have Beverly can stay there. Yes, authenticity!"
Noah and Molly sit in the limo as it drives aimlessly through the city. Molly first confesses she misjudged Noah then confesses she's hungry.
"Say no more." Noah touched the intercom. "Eddie, could you take us up to Amy Ruth's, on One-hundred-and-sixteenth? And call ahead, would you? I don't think they're open yet. Tell Robert we need some orange juice and two Al Sharptons at the curb." Through the glass divider, he saw the driver nod his head and engage the Bluetooth phone system.
Yay for soul food! Boo for dragging Robert out of bed to cook for Noah!
Backstory alert!:
On the way to the restaurant he learned a little more about her life. Her family had moved around a great deal when she was young, following her father's job as a journeyman engineer for Pratt & Whitney. They'd ended up living near Arnold Air Force Base outside Manchester, Tennessee. When her dad was killed in an accident at the testing facility there, that's where they stayed. Her mother then reclaimed her maiden name and started the patriot group they were both still a part of, the Founders' Keepers, a few years later.
Clenis alert! Changing the subject, Molly asks "Who's the most fascinating person you've ever met?"
He didn't hesitate. "President Clinton. Hands down."
"Really?"
"All politics aside, you've never seen so much charisma stuffed into one human being. And you brought up the subject of lying earlier—this man could keep twenty elaborate, interlocking whoppers in his head at a time, improvising on the fly, and have you believing every word while you're holding a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. His wife might be even smarter than he is, but she doesn't have any of that skill at prevarication, and Gore was pretty helpless if he ever dropped his script. But Clinton? He's like one of those plate spinners at the circus: he makes everything look completely effortless. And obviously, in a related skill, he's a total Svengali with the chicks."
"I never found him all that attractive."
"Oh, but it's a whole different thing when someone like that is right next to you, as opposed to on your TV. If he was sitting here now, where I'm sitting? I promise, you'd be helpless. He wouldn't even have to try. You'd listen to him recite from the phone book for an hour and swear it was written by Oscar Wilde. Clinton could read you a fairy tale and you'd be down to your panties by the time Rapunzel let down her golden hair."
"I'll have to take your word for it."
"That being said, he's also one of the most ruthless sons of bitches who ever walked the earth, and we won't see another one like him for generations."
Back in the author's note, Beck said "the words Republican or Democrat rarely appear in this book, and when they do, it’s in an equally unflattering light." Okay. Sure. When this book gets around to calling W. and Cheney the d-bags that they are, I'll believe Beck is a non-partisan man of the people, and not the right wing hack that he appears to be.
Backstory alert! Darthur edition:
"Rhodes Scholar, that's a little-known fact. He was studying anthropology at Oxford when he met a man named Edward Bernays—Bernays was an admiring nephew of Sigmund Freud, if that explains any part of this messed-up business—and Mr. Bernays needed some new blood, someone with my father's skill set, to give a shot in the arm to the industry he'd invented a few decades before."
"Public relations."
"Right. Bernays got his start in the big leagues helping Woodrow Wilson beat the drums to push the U.S. into World War I. And my father's first project with him was a massive propaganda campaign for Howard Hunt and the CIA, along with the United Fruit Company, when they all got together to overthrow the president of Guatemala in 1954."
Did you get all that? Darthur helped overthrow Guatemala's democratically elected government. So he knows what he's doing when it comes to coups.
Speech alert!
Just kidding.
No, really, Noah gives a speech. But I am not going to tell you anything about it. It's a short one. And he references Joseph Goebbels. So, no. I'm not going into it. I've already said more about it than I wanted.
There's chicken and waffles, Noah's backstory (it's a bore), a ride through Central Park. Then things get weird: Molly sits on Noah's lap and asks him to take her home. To his home.
"I'm not talking about anything sexual," she assures him. "I just don't feel safe yet, after last night."
Well, at least that means there will be no sex scene in chapter fifteen. I'm glad something about this chapter went right.
Consent. Autonomy. Respect. Dignity.
[Trigger warning for misogyny, sexual assault, bullying, suicide, slut-shaming, and victim-blaming.]
[Transcript below.]
Above is video of a CNN piece that aired about Hope Witsell, a 13-year-old girl who hung herself after being viciously bullied following the dissemination of a picture of her breasts she texted to her boyfriend.
This story is similar to the more widely-discussed Tyler Clementi case in a very important way: Sexual images of Witsell were distributed without her consent, so it was not merely bullying, or "cyberbullying," that Witsell experienced, but sexual assault. And, also like the Clementi case, any discussion of sexual assault aspect is being eclipsed by the current media meme about bullying.
But the way in which Witsell's situation is being framed here is meaningfully different from the way Clementi's case was framed by mainstream commentators, who clearly laid the responsibility at the feet of his roommate. Here, we hear instead of Witsell's "mistake," and how she'd been warned by her mother about "the dark side of cell phones and computers," but "sexted" a private sexual photo to her boyfriend nonetheless. Curiously, it is never explained how the image privately sent to the boy ended up being in the hands of a female classmate, who then widely disseminated the photo, nor are either of them held accountable for the grave breach of Witsell's trust. Welcome to the rape culture, where it's just taken as read that people will violate you, so it's your responsibility not to do anything to make yourself vulnerable. And if you do, that's your "mistake."
No one with any decency suggests Clementi shouldn't have trusted his roommate not to secretly film him. But suggesting that Witsell shouldn't have trusted her boyfriend not to pass along a private image is not only considered acceptable, but the obvious conclusion for how the whole thing could have been avoided.
If we lived in a different (better) culture, we would use the sad and entirely avoidable death of Hope Witsell to have a national referendum on how slut-shaming and victim-blaming, specifically in association with young women's sexuality, is as damaging to (and frequently deadly for) young straight women as homo/bi/transphobic bullying is to LGBTQI youth. There is so much crossover between misogyny, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, particularly at the intersection of demonized sexuality, of which expressions of young straight women's sexual agency remains firmly a part, that these are not separate issues, nor competing issues—they are inextricably linked. Consent. Autonomy. Respect. Dignity.
Of course, if we lived in a different (better) culture, I wouldn't be writing this post at all.
Randi Kaye, CNN Correspondent (in voiceover, over photographs of Hope Witsell): Hope Witsell was a good student, but about a year ago Hope did something so unexpected, so out of character, it changed everything. (onscreen): Friends and family say this all started in the spring of 2009 at the end of the school year when Hope sexted a picture of her breasts to her boyfriend. Another girl at school they say got her hands on that photo and sent it to students at six different schools in the area. Before Hope could do anything about it, that photo had gone viral.
Donna Witsell, Hope's Mother: —and to just love everybody.
Kaye (in voiceover): Hope's mother, Donna, says she warned her many times about the dark side of cell phones and computers. (onscreen, sitting with Donna Witsell): So after all those conversations, you never imagined that she would sext a photo of herself to someone.
Witsell: No. No. No. Absolutely not.
Kaye (in voiceover): The photo made Hope a target. She was in middle school—11, 12 and 13-year-olds, and suddenly bullies everywhere.
Kayla Stitch, Hope's Friend (sitting at a table with other friends of Hope's, being interviewed by Kaye): They would walk up to her and call her like a big slut and whore, and, like, they would—sometimes they would, like, call her skank and, like, just be really, like, cruel to her.
Kaye: Hope hid her pain from her family and school officials. They knew about the photo, but she never told them about the ridicule. And she couldn't escape it. Online, friends say bullies wrote horrible things about Hope. On a MySpace page called "The Shields Middle School Burn Book," anonymous bullies created a "Hope Hater" page to taunt her.
Abby Hudson, Hope's Friend: Every time I see it I think back to Hope and what people were saying about her.
Kaye (in voiceover): And it got worse. In school friends formed a human shield for her.
Lexi Leber, Hope's Friend: People would try to come by and like hit her or push her into a locker or something.
Kaye: So you walked as a—like a crowd?
Stitch: Yes.
Kaye: Protecting her.
Leber: She was, like, afraid to walk alone because she was afraid that somebody was going to do something to her, or like verbally attack her, so we always—so she'd always have somebody come with her.
Kaye (in voiceover): Her parents did not know what was going on. (onscreen): Did you see a change in her behavior? Could you tell something wasn't quite right?
Witsell: I could tell that she was struggling to overcome this mistake that she made.
Kaye (in voiceover): On a Saturday, as school was starting last year, Hope helped her dad mow the lawn, ate dinner with her parents, and then went upstairs to her room. Her parents turned on a TV show.
Witsell: When we had finished watching the program, and I went upstairs to go in her room and kiss her goodnight, like I always do, is when I found her.
Kaye: What happened when you walked in her bedroom?
Witsell: I—I screamed for my husband as I was putting her on the bed. And doing CPR.
Kaye (in voiceover): It was too late. Hope was already dead. The 13-year-old hanged herself from her canopy bed. She used her favorite scarves. (onscreen): The day before she died Hope met with a social worker at school. A spokesperson for the school said the social worker was concerned that Hope may have been trying to harm herself, so she had her sign what's called a "no harm" contract in which Hope promised to speak to an adult if she was considering hurting herself. Her mother told me she was never told about that contract. She found it crumpled in the garbage in Hope's bedroom after she had died. (in voiceover): The school told us that the social worker had tried calling Hope's parents, but the parents say the school dropped the ball. And still, incredibly, the bullying was not over. After Hope's suicide, her sister Samantha found more cruel comments posted on Hope's MySpace page.
Samantha Beattie, Hope's Sister: There was people putting comments on there like, oh, my god, did Hope really kill herself, I can't believe that whore did that, you know, just obscene things that I would never expect from a 12-year-old or 13-year-olds.
Kaye: Obscene things written by children. So terrible, Hope Witsell thought there was only one way to escape. Randi Kaye, CNN, Tampa, Florida.
Exodus Abandons "Day of Truth"; Focus on the Family Still On-Board
[Trigger warning for homophobia and suicide.]
Every spring, in schools across the world, students mark a Day of Silence during which the discrimination and harassment—in effect, the silencing—of LGBTQI students and their allies is protested with silence.
And every year, the pray-the-gay-away Christian conversion program participates in a "Day of Truth" on the same day, admonishing conservative Christian kids to "counter the promotion of homosexual behavior" by wearing anti-gay t-shirts and handing out anti-gay literature, i.e. engaging in precisely the homophobic bullying that the Day of Silence was created to protest.
Well. It only took a well-publicized cluster of teen suicides directly attributable to homophobic bullying for Exodus to decide that maybe they shouldn't sponsor the "Day of Truth" anymore.
"All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not," said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year.The absolute rage I feel at these assholes is indescribable. Just because the news inexplicably decided to finally bring attention to the well-documented issue of LGBTQI teen suicide doesn't excuse having ignored those easily accessible statistics, not to mention the stats on homophobic and transphobic hate crimes, for years. *rage*seethe*boil*
..."I don't think it's necessary anymore," Chambers said of the event on Wednesday. "We want to help the church to be respectful of all its neighbors, to help those who want help and to be compassionate toward people who may hold a different worldview from us."
And yet at least Exodus International has the decency to do the right thing, which is more than I can say for James Dobson's despicable outfit, Focus on the Family:
At least one major Christian group, Focus on the Family, stood by the Day of Truth on Wednesday.I am literally shaking with fury.
"Without question, Day of Truth is a loving and redemptive way students of faith can express their views positively in response to GLSEN's Day of Silence which only presents one point of view," Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, said in a statement.
"In contrast to the whole idea of 'silence,' Day of Truth has encouraged students to exercise their free speech rights and have an open dialogue while respectfully listening to others," Cushman said.
It's not that I'm surprised that a group of horrible, heinous bullies would talk about an anti-bullying protest as "presenting one point of view," and mendaciously suggesting that advocating decency toward LGBTQI peers is equivalent to promulgating a Radical Gay Agenda, but I will never be able to wrap my head around that kind of hatred, nor understand the profundity of antipathy that allows someone to dress it up in some Orwellian message of tolerance and dialogue.
I despise those hatemongering fuckers to their rotten goddamn cores. And if my sneering contempt makes me a terrible person, so be it. But at least I'm honest about it.
Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread
[Image from last night's episode: The chefjudicator and grief counselor Johnny Elvisface delivers some distressing news.]
Last night's episode will be whipped and folded, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your ice cream scoop and go...
Also: What the fuck does this have to do with food?
Oh yeah, nothing.
Question of the Day
What's your favorite card game?
I love just about every card game I've ever played, and I've played tons of 'em: My dad is one of seven kids, and my childhood memories from every family get-together of our large extended family are centered around my grandma's big dining room table, playing cards.
One-on-one, my grandma and I would play games of War that would last for hours. But my favorite game that we played, and still my favorite, is probably Shanghai Rummy, which is essentially the more complicated Chinese version of Gin.
I also love me a game of Texas Hold-'Em.
If you're not a fan of traditional card games, please feel free to answer with your favorite card-based role-playing game instead. Like "Magic and the Gathering?"
For RedSonja and KarateMonkey.
[Video Paraphrase: It's a clip from the documentary "Hell House," in which a man and woman working on the script for a conservative Christian hell house are having a who's-on-first type miscommunication about the name of the role-playing game Magic: The Gathering.]
Moral Values, According to Jim DeMint
Senator Jim DeMint (R-Idiculous), last seen gumming up the funding for a women's history museum, revisited his controversial 2004 assertion that gay teachers and straight female teachers who are partnered but unmarried should not be allowed to teach in public schools (for which he later apologized) by saying at a rally last week that "no one came to my defense, but everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn't back down. They don't want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion."
Women's groups and LGBTQI groups immediately responded to this retrofuck assholery, by suggesting DeMint should get back in his spaceship and return to his home planet Dipshit-9 or whatever, and now DeMint's office has finally responded:
DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, has issued a response and basically says school boards can decide on their own and people should stop attacking him for being discriminatory.Shakers, I don't even know what to say anymore. In the year of our Maude two thousand and ten, there is a sitting senator in the Unites States Congress who believes that LGBs and unmarried, sexually active straight women shouldn't be allowed to teach in public schools.
The statement, via DeMint's communication's director, [says]: "Sen. DeMint believes that hiring decisions at local schools are a local school board issue, not a federal issue. He was making a point about how the media attacks people for holding a moral opinion."
(I note that unmarried, sexually active straight men are A-OK, though! Natch.)
*headdesk*
Blog Note
Disqus is behaving oddly again. Lots of users are seeing languages other than English used in comment timestamps, and the threads are showing the wrong number of comments on the front page.
As per usual, I've no idea what's going on or when it will be resolved, but I wanted to let you know we're aware of the problem/s and apologize for the inconvenience.
Hopefully, Disqus will have the issue/s resolved soon.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Taken from an actual text conversation...]
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.]
Daily Dose o' Cute
Dudley, contemplative on the stairs.
I like how this turned out looking like a charcoal drawing, via some strange combination of the very early morning light, my not using the flash, and the way Dudz moved just as I took the picture.
MSU Rape Case Update
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
Last week, I wrote about a rape case in which two Michigan State University basketball players were accused of taking turns "assaulting an unidentified woman for nearly an hour in their Wonders Hall dormitory room late on Aug. 29 and into Aug. 30," and, despite one of the players' voluntarily corroborating the victim's statement, including the fact that she did not consent, prosecutors had nonetheless declined to pursue the case. (On Friday, I linked to a follow-up on the story here.)
Julie from The American Independent, which has been vigorously following this case, just emailed me with an update, which I'm quoting with her permission:
Hi Melissa,What I find particularly interesting in this case is the prosecutor's contention (pdf) that the player who made a voluntary statement did not actually corroborate the victim's allegation that she was raped, even though the transcript clearly has the player reporting she said, "Stop," at one point, that she then got talked into continuing, that she argued with the other player about his unwillingness to wear a condom, and that she told him she felt as though she couldn't leave because they were physically intimidating.
Just wanted to pass along an update on the MSU sexual assault case. The prosecutor has now released the transcript of the interviews with one of the men as well as the victim (with very little redaction, thus making her identity obvious). Michigan Messenger talked to a number of experts to evaluate what the prosecutor is claiming is an absence of crime vs. what the police report suggests, and that story went up live this morning. Ed Brayton has also been looking at overall prosecution rates for sexual assault in Ingham county as well as nationwide, and will continue following up on the story.
There is no ambiguity here. At least, there shouldn't be. Compliance is not the same as consent.
Actual Headline
Reuters: Many Tea Partiers part of religious right.
Thanks for the hot tip, Reuters. I haven't been so excited about a news story since your three-part investigative series on the wetness of water.
[H/T to Shaker Lizard.]
Quote of the Day
"It's great that President Obama is showing a fighting spirit in the weeks before an election, but what his former voters need to see is that same fighting spirit when he's governing."—Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an org launched to advocate for progressive legislation and candidates who will champion it.
On the one hand, I'm like: Yeah!
On the other hand, I'm like: The problem isn't that he's not showing a fighting spirit; the problem is that he's just not using it to fight for the things I want and/or in the way I want. For someone who got elected on the soaring rhetoric of hope and change, he is frightfully indifferent to the value of being visionary. Even if his team is certain they are going to have to end up with compromised, bipartisanized, uninspiringly pragmatic legislation if they want to get anything passed, instant capitulation isn't ideologically helpful, even if it's politically expedient.
It does matter whether we win or lose, but it also matters how we play the game.
Is all I'm saying.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, Soupmakers to the QCoFM and to the surrounding areas of Faggottown and Mildendorf since 2010.
Recommended reading:
Andrew Price: Americans Are Horribly Misinformed About Who Has Money
Ginny W: So, you’re in pastry, right? (H/T Zuska)
Dana Goldstein: Now That There's an Election, Democrats are Remembering They are Pro-Choice!
Michael Erard at Design Observer: It's the 16th Ed. of the Chicago Manual of Style and I Feel Fine
femmephane: Why I don’t like Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project as a response to bullying (Via Samia's must-read post, [TW suicide discussion] *what* "gets better," exactly?)
Latoya Peterson: On Rick Sanchez, Jon Stewart, and Why We All Lose Playing the Oppression Olympics
scicurious: Sensitivity to Social Rejection and Inflammatory Responses to Stress
The Selfish Seamstress knits a gorgeous Missoni-inspired scarf in Still here, still making you jealous: the Envy scarf
Blog of the Carl Brandon Society: Regarding the Elizabeth Moon Controversy. The post to which they are responding is here.
Jesse Sharrard of Corduroy Orange: Corn Sugar Confusion and a great quinoa pilaf recipe
Share your links in comments!
On the Public Option
And when it was taken off the table.
In addition to Igor's piece, also see: Glenn, DDay, and Digby.
I Write Letters
[Trigger warning for homophobia; suicide.]
Dear Warren Throckmorton:
If you and your fellow Evangelical Christians really want to be "part of the solution" to stop anti-gay bullying, you'll stop teaching your children that being gay is sinful.
You can argue all you want that the solution is Christian compassion despite a belief that being gay is sinful, but as long as you believe and preach and teach that gay kids are inherently abominable to God, you're always going to be part of the problem.
And no, the philosophical contortions in which many Christians like to engage, claiming God only hates homosexuality but doesn't hate homosexual people, does not absolve you of your responsibility. Treating people as though their humanity is somehow separate from their intrinsic characteristics is not merely absurd bullshit; when you seek to wrench apart the components of people's whole selves and throw away pieces of their identities, it's just eliminationist rhetoric dressed up in its Sunday best.
This reflexive insistence that anti-gay Christians can't just toss away their institutional homophobia because it's in the Bible is contemptible nonsense. There are all kinds of things in the Bible that modern evangelicals don't teach their children, and for less reason than because to continue to believe it has demonstrably deadly consequences.
Listen, I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't believe. I'm just telling you that it's disingenuous to pretend that your anti-gay beliefs themselves don't have cultural consequences.
Any well-known and widely-discussed and deeply-held belief of millions of people in a democratic nation is going to have cultural consequences. Especially when that belief marginalizes millions of other people.
If you really and genuinely and authentically want to be part of the solution, you'll take a good, long, hard look at the particular bit of dishonesty that is telling yourselves the belief itself is okay to have. Because there is nothing—and I mean nothing—that is helpful about telling "straight evangelical students that following your faith means treating your neighbors well. That means all of them - even the gay ones."
Even the gay ones. That shit, right there, suggests to the very students you want to dissuade from bullying that their gay peers are less than, which is the precise attitude that leads to bullying in the first place.
You can't hope to be part of the solution when your beliefs are exactly the problem.
You want to help? Stop marginalizing queers.
It's that simple. Anything else is an empty gesture, designed to make you feel good—not designed to help gay kids.
Sincerely,
Liss
Sarah Palin is the worst.
Ugh, the mendacity of this asshole drives me to absolute distraction:
Palin, delivering a paid speech to an anti-abortion group in Texas, claimed that President Barack Obama oversaw "the biggest advance of the abortion industry in America" by signing landmark health care reform legislation that, she said, allows for taxpayer-funded abortions.No. The reform legislation specifically does not allow for taxpayer-funded abortions. That's what the whole Stupak shit was about. That's why the president had to issue an executive order in association with the legislation banning the use of federal funds for abortion. It's flatly untrue that "Obamacare" funds abortions.
"That's why it's essential that we use the 2010 midterms to elect a Congress that will make undoing the damage of Obamacare its first priority," she told an audience of more than 2,500 gathered at First Baptist Church of Houston, a megachurch on the city's west side.
And CNN makes absolutely no attempt to insert actual facts into the story. It's just what Palin said, with no correction. No truth.
There's your liberal media for you.
Palin starkly framed the midterm elections on Tuesday as a choice between political candidates who favor a "culture of life" and those on the opposite side of the issue wanting to implement "a culture of death."Says the supporter of the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, whose warmongering position on Iran places her to the right of Dick Cheney. Ugh.
[Commenting Guidelines: Her gender is irrelevant. If you can't comment without using misogynist epithets or negatively referencing her womanhood—including starting sentences with "That woman" in the way one might also say "Those people"—then don't comment. The rules don't go out the window just because she's totally the worst.]
Question of the Day
'Tis Autumn, and it's chilly and damp here in Pennsylvania--good soup weather. I am making matzo ball* soup. To paraphrase Marilyn Monroe, the balls really are the best part of the matzo. I like to start with the leftovers of a roasted chicken for any chicken soup, but today I just had a pack of chicken drumsticks (on sale!) I roasted them, and am making soup stock from the bones while the matzo ball mix chills in the fridge.
So, here's the question: what's your favorite soup? (Besides Autumnal Metaphor Soup, that is.)
For non-vegetarian options, I'd go with chicken soup in all its forms--from Thai-style with coconut milk and lemongrass, to my usual simmered roast chicken soup with leek and potato. Mushroom soup is a close second. For vegan options, mushroom works very well, as does butternut squash soup made with apple cider, a bit of curry power and cinnamon, and coconut milk instead of cream. In season, fresh tomato with basil can't be bested. Yum!
If you don't like soup, feel free to tell us why.
_________
*Matzo ball recipes vary greatly of course. I use chicken fat plus a dash of canola oil, and no seltzer or plain water (just 2-3 tablespoons of the soup stock). I then poach the balls at a bare simmer in the soup stock itself. Not everyone approves of this last practice, as it clouds the broth. The chicken fat has some herb flavor left over from roasting, and I add a little minced cooked onion. Now you know. More from Epicurious here.
Film Corner!
I honestly do not even know how to begin to do a transcript of this video that would do it any kind of justice, as it's cut more to highlight the inimitable and extraordinary visual direction of Julie Taymor. Broadly, it is a trailer for Taymor's upcoming adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, featuring a series of quickly edited images from the film, steeped in the rich saturation of color that's a hallmark of Taymor's style. In the trailer, we see that Helen Mirren has been cast as Prospera, Djimon Hounsou as Caliban, Russell Brand and Alfred Molina as Trinculo and Stephano, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming as Antonio and Sebastian, and Felicity Jones and Reeve Carney as Miranda and Ferdinand.
I imagine that a lot of people are going to have the same reaction as Gabe (who gets the hat tip), which is "Shakespeare + Russell Brand = WHOOOOOOOOOOOOPS." LOL. And I can't say I blame him/them, because, hello, Shakespeare + Russell Brand really seems to = WHOOPS. But to brashly mix a math metaphor with a grammar metaphor, what (I hope) we have here is an I before E except after C situation, where C=Julie Taymor. (What?) What I'm saying is that she's a rule-changing variable. A wild card, if you will (for those of you who were waiting for one last metaphor so you could make a lovely autumnal metaphor soup).
What I'm saying is that Julie Taymor is kind of a genius, and I really loved Titus, and I think The Tempest could be, like, brilliant.
And I can't wait to see it.
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: Iain and Dudz play tag at the dog park. With special guest star Deeky! Set to The Rentals' "Please Let That Be You."
Still pix of the behbehs below the fold...
Matilda.
Olivia.
Sophie (with BFF Kenny Blogginz).
Dudley.
The Overton Window: Chapter Thirteen
I've talked a fair amount of shit about previous chapters. They were awful; I don't think I was being unfair. The writing really is terrible. The plot nonsensical. The characters flat, inconsistent. The book is, quite simply, garbage.
And as much as I've complained about those early chapters, this one is, inarguably, the worst. Because as ridiculous as everything has been up this point, chapter thirteen is even stupider. In fact, it is so poorly constructed that it's insulting.
Here's what happens: Noah wakes up in Molly's arms, in the back of a police van. The patriots are perp walked past the liberal media. Noah's fancypants lawyers gets the charges against him dropped. But before Noah can leave, he sees all the most radical patrons from the bar standing around the police station having a laugh. Because they were all undercover cops!
Really.
This is, literally, the most ridiculous and unbelievable thing that could have happened. I dare you to come up with something stupider. Can't be done. No Twinkies for you!
He opened his eyes, and found her looking down at him.
It was the wide variety of aches and pains that told him for certain she wasn't a figment of his imagination. His head was resting in her lap, and Molly held him steady as the crowded police van bumped and jostled along the patchy downtown streets.
Noah looked up at her again. "What happened—"
She hushed him with a fingertip to his lips, and he saw that her wrists were bound with nylon ties.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
Are you gagging? Because I'm gagging. What tripe.
So, yeah, Noah is dragged from the van past "local and network correspondents" and detained with a couple hundred teabaggers, drunks, and male prostitutes. Oh, the humanity!
After a time he saw something that he couldn't begin to understand; he must have been mistaken. The man from the back of the tavern, the one with the gun, was being escorted from an adjacent cell. He wasn't in handcuffs or restraints of any kind. He was just walking along with the officers toward the exit.
What?!? No! Not the gunman! He's just walking out of jail! How could this be? Oh, yeah, he was clearly an agent provocateur! Duh! (And jebus, I need to lay off the exclamation points for a while.)
Eyeing Noah's "gold class ring from Riverdale Country School," the cops pull him from the cell and take him to be interrogated. The interviewing officer even gets a short speech. Yay for speeches!
He tells Noah he is "going to get on a big bus with some armed guards and take a ride to central booking at the Manhattan Detention Complex—most people call it the Tombs. Over there they'll get your mug shots, your DNA and your fingerprints, and then you'll be formally charged and arraigned in the criminal court and bound over for trial." Blah blah blah. It's painfully boring.
The officer tries to play Good Cop/Bad Cop all by himself, hoping to get Noah to squeal. Not that Noah has a chance. The family lawyer arrives before Noah can open his mouth.
Charlie Nelan was one of those old-school, silver-haired überprofessionals who swore by the power of image. No matter where you happened to see him, he always looked as though he'd just stepped out of the "Awesome Lawyers" issue of Gentlemen's Quarterly. Fortunately, he was every bit as sharp as he looked.
Slick Charlie tells the cop "I want my client released, and his charges dropped, and I want that arrest report in the shredder." And to further his point, the officer's captain calls at this very moment. The cop takes the call and Nelan drags Noah down the hall. It's there that Noah sees something unbelievable. Well, honestly, it's not believable, if you understand the distinction.
Out in a common area, a dozen or so men were gathered together having coffee and a collegial chat with some uniformed police. He stood and stepped closer to the glass, trying hard to believe his eyes.
In this surreal gathering was every heckler, every troublemaker who had made himself apparent during the speeches at the bar. Every one of them was dressed similarly, the differences being confined to the inflammatory slogans on their clothing and their selection of cracker-chic accessories. When scattered among a larger group they'd been harder to spot as co-conspirators, but all together like this, with their guard down, their costumes were obvious and their mannerisms out of character. It looked like the after-party of a Larry the Cable Guy stunt-double audition at Central Casting.
One of them matched a picture in Noah's memory to the very last detail. He was sure this time: the man was wearing a loud flannel shirt, a hunter's vest, a do-rag torn from the corner of a Confederate battle flag, and a shoulder holster.
So, yeah, the agitators? All undercover agents. They were at the rally to stir up shit, to cause a riot, to bring down the average in Noah's outstanding record of success with the ladies. Noah is freaked out by this revelation.
Which is odd, don't you think? All of it is. Again, going back to Noah's' earlier professed ability to spot an infiltrator, he missed all of the undercover cops. And he just spent the afternoon in a meeting about implementing the New World Order, and he's stunned to see it taking place. Noah's fancypants prep-school education obviously didn't buy him any critical thinking skills.
Nelan tells Noah he's pulled all the strings he can, and if he "so much as jaywalks" there is nothing he'll be able to do. Noah doesn't care.
"Those guys, right out there"—Noah pointed through the glass, and Charlie looked briefly in that direction—"they were at this meeting tonight, where all this happened, and they were there specifically to start something. When they got tired of waiting for the people to get violent they did it themselves."
"Let me see if I understand you. You're saying that you think an undercover New York City police officer discharged his weapon in a crowded bar to incite this whole incident?"
Nelan says it doesn't matter if he did. Noah disagrees. Because he's becoming a Better Man. "That guy right there, the one with the visitor's badge and the holster under his vest, that's the guy who fired the shots that started all this!" Oh, the humanity!
Noah refuses to leave. "Not without everybody else who was brought in with me." (To hell with the drunks and rent boys!) Nelan complains about opening "this can of worms again" (huh?) and says he won't be able to do anything without Darthur's say-so.
That wasn't welcome news, but Noah took a deep breath and nodded his permission.
Oh dear. Daddy issues. Very thrilling. Less thrilling: Everything else.
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.]
Why Does Joe The Plumber Hate Puppies?
Joe The Plumber, the Tea Party, and the Alliance For Truth have taken on the most evil of evil organizations. (No, not NAMBLA.) I'm talking about The Humane Society. Yes, the evil, despicable, free-market-hating Humane Society.
Proposition B or the "Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act" ... aims to help eliminate the "3000 puppy mills" in Missouri that constitute "30% of all puppy mills in the U.S.," according to Michael Markarian, the Chief Operating Officer of the HSUS.The Alliance For Truth (HA!) will have none of that and are fighting back against this "radical agenda." Or, as spokesdouche Joe The Plumber says, the propsed bill is "taking our constitutional rights away."
Oh, okay.
Good to know Joe The Plumber and the Tea Party are moving forward on their pro-puppy kicking platform. Nice.
Et Tu, Rendell?
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is the latest prominent Democrat to tell progressives to suck it up and vote blue:
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says discouraged liberals need to "get over it" and support the Democratic Party, before they regret it.1. The Democratic Party ain't exactly the Democratic Party of old, either. In many ways, that's a good thing, because the party has progressed with the country on many social issues, even when it still lags behind public opinion. But in other ways, it's lamentable: The Democratic Party of the New Deal has been replaced by the Democratic Party of the Bipartisan Deal.
"This isn't about President [Barack] Obama," Rendell said on MSNBC's "Last Word" Monday night. "It's about whether the Democratic Party, not perfect, but certainly bent on trying to preserve theories in government and progressive practices, is going to be in charge of the Congress or the Republican Party. And it's not the Republican Party of old. This is a scary Republican Party."
Of conflicts the left has had with Obama, Rendell said, "We ought to get over it."
"If we've got some issues with President Obama, save them for another day," he said.
2. Saving one's grievances "for another day" in the age of corporate personhood and unlimited political contributions is increasingly futile, as Election Day is the only day that the average person's voice still has even a remote chance of carrying over the din of lobbyists shuttling between elected officials and their corporate masters.
3. It isn't just the president with whose governance many progressives have issues; the Congressional Dems aren't exactly covering themselves in glory lately, either.
4. Hey, Rendell, maybe instead of yelling at us, you should yell at the dipshits in your state who are trying to exploit the abortion exception in the health care bill, which was proposed, championed, and ultimately supported by the Democrats you're admonishing us to vote for, without a trace of irony that THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT that's alienating progressives from your retrofuck party who's actually moving BACKWARDS on women's autonomy.
Harrumph.
Predatory D.A., Part III
(Trigger Warning for attempts to coerce sex from a position of authority, and prosecutorial misconduct toward a victim of domestic violence)
Wisconsin's Calumet County D. A. Ken Kratz, whose attempts to coerce women who came to him for professional help (including a victim of domestic violence whose assailant he was prosecuting) into sexual relationships were detailed here and here, has resigned, faced with a hearing on removing him from office which was called by the governor after receiving formal complaints about Kratz from citizens.
In a statement, Kratz said that he had lost the confidence of those he represented
primarily due to personal issues which have now affected my professional career.No.
Following the announcement of the hearing, Kratz was said to be receiving "inpatient therapy". Unfortunately, this therapy seems to have been unsuccessful in pulling Kratz' head out of his ass. These were not "personal issues"; they were explicitly professional issues in which Kratz attempted to use his powerful position to re-victimize a woman who was dependent on him to prosecute the man who tried to kill her, and in which he attempted to use that same professional position to gain sexual advantage from several other women.
For Kratz, though, the central tragedy here is still that his "professional career" has been adversely affected. The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation, before Kratz's behavior became a public scandal, had told the woman whose ex-boyfriend Kratz was charged with prosecuting that the series of 30 text messages he had sent her after meeting with her about the case, in which he repeatedly suggested she become sexually involved with him, leading her to fear that if she did not give him what he wanted he might drop the prosecution of her attacker, "did not appear to involve possible professional misconduct".
Following publication of the story, however, both the governor and state representative Terese Berceau questioned that judgment. We can only hope that Kratz's resignation does not end the consideration of his abuse of his position.
H/T Liss
Quote of the Day
[TW for discussion of suicide.]
"Learning about the suicide deaths of Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas and Justin Aaberg has been heartbreaking for me. These young people were bullied and tormented by people that should have been their friends. We have a responsibility to be better to each other, and accept each others' differences regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ability, or religion and stand up for someone when they're bullied." — Daniel Radcliffe, discussing the Trevor Project with MTV.com.
On the Dutch Elections, Part Three
by Shaker Glauke
[Part One can be read here; Part Two can be read here.]
The New Dutch Government: the News Is Not Good
It looks as if, after the general elections in June yielded a very unclear result, and after two failed attempts at building a coalition, the Dutch will finally have a government before the end of the month.
There is no clear consensus among the electorate about either the problems or the solutions. The last two months the CDA and VVD (see footnote) have held negotiations with Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (FP). The basic idea: CDA and VVD would form the coalition government, and their policy agreements would be supported by FP, though FP is not part of government. This means that Wilders has free reign, and is not being made responsible for governing. He gets influence on policy without having to take actual responsibility.
Last week, the concept-agreement was published. There are some Christian Democrats in parliament who objected to working with FP, but it seems that it will come to pass. With a majority of 1 vote (76 out of 150 seats) in Parliament, they will start implementing their plans. I have been reading them over the weekend, and here is a selection of my likes and dislikes in the proposals.
The Likes
In Dutch we have the saying that even a non-working clock indicates the correct time twice a day. When you say a lot of words, you're liable to right about something.
The new coalition will develop concrete policy for the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Hate crimes will be penalised more severely. The Veteran's Law that's being devised in parliament will be introduced. (The Vet Law that the ministry of Defence had drafted wasn't as good for our veterans as the proposal from parliament. I don't know why that is either.) There is a paragraph on animal welfare, including the intention to promote alternatives to animal testing, and more effective strategies to combat illegal trade in exotic species and animal abuse. Part of that will come of 500 new specialised animal cops. A dedicated telephone number will be introduced where animal abuse can be reported. The availability of GPs will be improved. The quality of surface water will be improved, particularly in urban areas. This is an important statement, because in our current implementation of the European Framework Directive on Water Quality, very little attention is paid to this. Criminal law for adolescents will be introduced. I'm tentatively labeling it good news, because I hope it means a focus on socialisation and treatment of the various psychological problems that underlie much of the criminality, but I'm not yet sure that's the case, though. Minimum age for being a sex worker is moved up to 21. Human trafficking will be investigated more, and prosecuted more heavily. The statute of limitations on violent crime and sexual abuse will be increased.
The Dislikes
Among the dislikes, these are the ones that really rattled my nerves. This is however, a selection.
Government will consider new mission requests from NATO (read: for a mission in Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan). However, these missions are likely to be mixed military-civilian, which is bad at least for the civilians. Adding insult to injury, these missions will increasingly be funded from development aid funds—funds that are already being slashed. The army will also become a full partner in the struggle (AD: note they're not using the word war here!) against drugs, terrorism, illegal immigration and piracy.
There is no ambition on safeguarding our national landscapes. There will be no saving natural habitats beyond what is completely mandatory under EU law. Construction in the Green Heart will be allowed, sacrificing an important piece of cultural historical landscape.
Animal welfare is mentioned, though it's made clear that it will only be pursued in European context. National legislation will not be made.
Diseases with a "low burden" will no longer be covered in the basic health care package. The number of IVF treatments covered in the basic health care package will be reduced to one. I mention this one because my SO has psoriasis, or more accurately arthritis psiariatica. His current (expensive) medication allows him to function normally, but it bars us from conceiving naturally. IVF was our back up plan. I'm a little afraid what this will mean for us. But then, I have a tendency to be afraid.
Which brings us to:
Psychological problems are treated in two 'lines' of care, first line for not-so-heavy problems, the second line for heavier problems that require more and more specialised care. The premium for first line care will be upped, and premiums will be introduced for second line care. The number of visits covered will be decreased to five. If a patient doesn't show up for hir appointment, zhie will have to pay for it personally.
The central goal of the new immigration policy will be a decrease of the number of immigrants, unless of course they are 'knowledge workers'. Illegal residence will be made a criminal offence. The eviction of undocumented aliens is supposed to take place more often (side note: because I worked for the organisation responsible for such evictions as a temp I know what a hairy, difficult process it is, and how unlikely to succeed). A naturalised citizen is required to (attempt to) relinquish hir other nationality. If zhie commits a grave crime, zhie shall lose hir Dutch citizenship. I assume this means rendering hir stateless.
The options for preventive searching will be widened. There will be more camera surveillance. The intake of TBS will be decreased. TBS used to a point of pride for me: when a person cannot be held responsible for hir crimes because zhie was suffering from a mental illness, zhie could receive treatment as part of the 'punishment'. Government will prepare a privatisation of the prison system.
The Quiet
There are many things CDA, VVD, and FP discussed. But there are a couple of things they are eerily quiet about. Climate change stands out. FP is (of course, of course) in the denier-camp. VVD has been moving in that direction, too. CDA, I'm not sure where they stand. With the agro-industrial complex, I guess. Which is why the European fishery policy is mentioned, but overfishing isn't.
Finally, the hypotheekrenteaftrek, which translates loosely into mortgage interest return. When you take a mortgage to buy a house, you get the interest back from the government. This outragous scheme benefits people with large houses more than it does low-income people, and costs the government approximately 9 billion a year. Yet this arrangement is left intact. Oh, and although animal welfare is mentioned, CAFOs are not. Really odd, that.
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CDA: Christian-Democrats, centre right, mostly Christian, some Muslim members.
VVD: economically liberal, socially conservative-leaning.
Freedom Party: one member, Geert Wilders, formerly VVD. Profoundly anti-Muslim, tough on immigration and crime, but soft on issues like elderly care.
Sex in the US
I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is free America about the newly released results of Indiana University's National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior:
"The surprise we found in this survey is the variability and diversity of the way people conduct their sex lives," says [Logan Levkoff, a New York University sexologist].Read the whole thing here.
Frankly, I'm more surprised by the surprise with which the findings – that teens are sexually responsible, sex lives are varied, and people view themselves on a sliding scale of sexuality – are being met. The shock that Americans are not puritans is not only outdated – surely, we've all known Americans aren't doing it missionary-style through hole-punched fuck sheets ever since Dr. Kinsey got a boner staring at gall wasps – but, ironically, seems indicative of the false puritanism that guides much of the US's public discourse about sex and sexuality.
We insistently believe ourselves to be puritans despite all evidence to the contrary, an intractable myth periodically punctuated by the findings of some sex researcher or another, who reveals to us the true nature of our naughtiness – and, oh, how we love to gasp at our scandalously sexy sexbusiness!
But even the actual Puritans weren't puritans. (This lady knows what I'm talking about.) And despite the collective apoplexy about the appearance of a boob at a football game or a naked butt in primetime, what happens behind closed doors has never had any relationship to the public sanctimony about sex and sexuality peddled by pecksniffs who parade a contrived virtue to bored busybodies.
The profound disconnect between who we are and who we regard ourselves to be would be amusing if it weren't so dangerous.
"I Did an Evening of Vegetables Off-Broadway!"
(About the title: check out this clip from Tootsie and the partial transcript below the fold for context.)
We seem to have a carrot theme today. I'm inspired to do my part.
My younger sister's birthday rolled around again last month, and I knew she wanted a carrot cake. She requested a straightforward carrot cake with walnuts but no pineapple or coconut. A carrot cake with classic cream cheese frosting, but not too much. And absolutely no bakery-style piped icing carrots on top.
Turns out, it's pretty hard to find a satisfactory straightforward carrot cake recipe. I tinkered around with a mixture of Alton Brown's recipe and the one for carrot cake cupcakes from Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home. The final recipe is significantly different from either source. To cut down on the amount of frosting, I made up a tangy carrot and apricot jam to go between the cake layers. The recipes are below the fold. I baked the layers separately in case the experimental recipe was a disaster, so I have not tried doubling it.
TheLadyEve had vehemently denounced "those piped carrots" on bakery carrot cakes, so my big sister and I decided there should definitely be some kind of carrot on top of the cake for that all-important smartass factor. It was Labor Day weekend, and we gave TheLadyEve ocean-related gifts for her soap-making--sea salt, sea mud, ground seaweed. So we chose a beach theme:
A chocolate plastic carrot relaxes on a ground-walnut beach beside a cream cheese frosting sea.
The final touch: a paper umbrella in the carrot's drink. Meta!
From Tootsie. This excerpt begins around 2:40 in the linked clip:
GEORGE: You got one of the worst reputations in this town, Michael: nobody will hire you.
MICHAEL: Are you saying that nobody in New York will work with me?
GEORGE: Oh, no--that's too limited. Nobody in Hollywood wants to work with you either. I can't even send you up for a commercial--you play the tomato for thirty seconds, they went a half a day over-schedule 'cause you wouldn't sit down!
MICHAEL: Yes. It wasn't logical.
GEORGE: You were a tomato! A tomato doesn't have logic! A tomato can't move!
MICHAEL: That's what I said! So if he can't move, how's he gonna sit down, George? I was a stand-up tomato, a juicy, sexy, Beefsteak tomato! Nobody does vegetables like me--I did an evening of vegetables off-Broadway. I did the best tomato, the best cucumber--I did an endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass!
GEORGE: Michael, I--I'm trying to stay calm here. You, uh, are a wonderful actor--
MICHAEL: Thank you.
GEORGE: But you're Too. Much. Trouble--get some therapy.
MICHAEL: OK thanks--I'm going to raise eight thousand dollars and I'm gonna do Jeff's play.
GEORGE: Michael? You're not going to raise twenty-five cents: no-one will hire you.
MICHAEL: Oh yeah?
[Cut to first scene of Michael Dorsey dressed as Dorothy Michaels, on a crowded New York street]
Finally, the cake recipe. I frosted it with Alton Brown's basic cream cheese frosting.
Straight-Up Carrot Cake with Walnuts
For one 10 x 2-inch layer (have not yet tried doubling):
2.5 cups sifted cake four (scant)
3 cups carrots, medium-grate (5 large peeled and trimmed carrots)
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
1 level teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons spice mix (see below)
1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon white sugar
½ cup gently-packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
5 ounces plain yogurt
7 ounces canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup chopped toasted walnuts
Spice mix (about enough for two cake layers. I include the brands I used; substitute as necessary):
1 Tablespoon King Arthur Vietnamese cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Penzey’s Baking Spice
2 teaspoons Penzey’s french four spice
1 teaspoon added ginger (there is some in the four-spice)
1 teaspoon added cardamom (there’s a bit in the Baking Spice)
½ teaspoon fresh-ground grains of paradise
1 small pinch of saffron, powdered as finely as possible
2 pinches finely powdered Hu Kwa tea (smoky black tea), stem bits removed (about one-eighth teaspoon).
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Butter and flour a 10-inch round and 2-inch deep cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper.
Set aside grated carrots and walnuts in separate containers.
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a bowl and set aside.
Put yogurt, sugars, eggs and extract into mixer with paddle attachment. Mix until sugar is dissolved. With mixer running, drizzle in oil and beat until thoroughly mixed. Mix in dry ingredients, being careful not to over-mix. Fold in carrots and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in the center of the oven for 40 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 and bake 15 minutes longer, until skewer stuck in the center comes out clean and cake has pulled away from sides of pan. Cool in pan on rack for 15 minutes; de-pan and cool completely.
Carrot Jam Filling, if doing two layers:
¾ bag of baby carrots
10 dried apricot halves
¼ cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger
Heat and cover; allow to steam until the carrots are very tender (20 minutes)
Add the following:
Half a jar of apricot preserves
The rind of one lime and the juice of 2 (one lemon would work instead)
A few grinds grains of paradise
A small pinch of saffron, powdered
2 tablespoons of cognac
2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
Dash of salt
2 tablespoons of cold butter
Puree with a blender or food processor and chill.
