Suggested by Shaker Angelfish: Have you ever dreamed the same thing more than once?
I've had a pair of recurring dreams in my life: One was a recurring dream about my teeth getting loose and wobbly and unstable in my mouth, and occasionally falling out (which apparently is supposed to signal feelings of inferiority); the other is a recurring dream about being in a highrise building, near or on the top floor, when a huge—and impossibly tall—tsunami wave crashes over and engulfs the building (no idea what that's meant to symbolize).
I haven't had either one in a long time, though. Now I tend to get variations on the theme of school stress—being back in high school and forgetting my locker combination, not being able to find a class, forgetting my university schedule, realizing that I'm about to come up several credits short and won't graduate. These are super annoying, especially since I haven't been in a classroom of any traditional sort in 15 years.
I have more pleasant (or straight-up weird) dreams than unpleasant ones, but none recurring that I can recall.
Question of the Day
News I Don't Want to Write About
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, violence, rape apologia, exploitation.]
There is A LOT of news today that I do not want to write about!
There is the Penn State Sex Abuse Case, which is yet another horrific story about institutional sex abuse against boys by men whom they trusted, while men in positions of power looked the other way. We have heard this story before. The Catholic Church. The Boy Scouts. If this fucked-up world needs another post to be written about the presumed decency of Real MenTM while gay men are erroneously scapegoated as child predators, it will have to wait until another day, when I am fired up by anger and not deflated by grief. I do recommend reading Paul Campos on this story (with the caveat his post contains disablist language).
There is the Conviction of Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician, who has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a California jury. I am sad about this whole thing. I honestly didn't follow the case that closely, because I only have so much capacity for depressing celebrity exploitation stories and I'm ALL FULL UP at the moment, but I guess it's good he was held accountable for what seems like extremely irresponsible medical practices to a casual observer? You tell me.
There is Rep. Michele Bachmann's Ongoing Campaign to Make My Head Explode. "Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat." Oh, Michele. You are THE WORST.
There is Warren Buffett's $20 Billion Spending Spree. Nice spending spree if you can spend it, or something!
There is the Celebrity Boxing Match between "Octomom" and the "Long Island Lolita." They are two women with actual names! Do you know them? The media has done their best to make sure we don't! It makes exploitative—but sexy! woo woo!—boxing matches much more FUN if the participants have been sufficiently dehumanized. True fact.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, medical malfeasance, racism, misogyny, disablism, and victim-blaming.]
"I'm crushed. They cut me open like I was a hog. ... I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life."—Elaine Riddick, who was a 13-year-old girl when she was raped and impregnated by a man who was never held accountable, then legally sterilized without her consent after giving birth nine months later.
Riddick's records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as "feebleminded" and "promiscuous." They said her schoolwork was poor and that she "does not get along well with others."Riddick, who is black, is one of 7,600 people sterilized in North Carolina between 1929 and 1974, 85% of whom were female, and 40% of whom were people of color.
She is one of the estimated 2,000 survivors, many of whom are bravely telling their stories as the state tries to figure out reparations, even though as Governor Beverly Perdue rightly notes: "There isn't enough money in the world to pay these people for what has been done to them."
Daily Dose of Cute
There has CLEARLY already been a heaping helping of cute already today, care of Deeks and Jack. But who couldn't use more cute? (I could!)
Dudley and Zelda are always Very Concerned About the Goings-On when Iain and/or I do anything outside around the house. They take up spying positions wherever they can find them, but the best place ever is obviously at the front door.
"We have Some Concerns about what may or may not be going on out there."
Dudley: "All this standing and looking has really wiped me out."
When the front door window is not available, the window over the couch will suffice, although it's totally not as good.
"This vantage point stinks. Let's get Two-Legs to open the front door."
Open Thread: New Cain Allegations
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
Sharon Bialek, the fourth woman to make allegations of sexual harassment against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain just gave a press conference detailing the alleged event, and what she described is more accurately called sexual assault:
Bialek says Cain took her to the NRA offices — she thought they were going inside, but Cain reached under her skirt to grab her genitals and tried to force her head down to his crotch. She says she said: "What are you doing? That's not what I came here for." To which she alleges Cain responded "You want a job don't you?"There's going to be a lot of victim-blaming and a lot of rape apologia in the media. That will not be allowed in this thread.
Bialek says she didn't file a complaint because she didn't work for the NRA.
"I am coming forward to give a face and a voice to those women who, for whatever reason, cannot come forward."
I've got no more commentary than I had previously: I believe these women, and I have no reason not to believe them. Neither does anyone else.
#mencallmethings
Sady Doyle started a hashtag on Twitter so female bloggers could share some of the vitriol they receive from a seemingly never-ending cavalcade of thunderfucks in their inboxes and comments sections. Check out #mencallmethings, where I direct you with a trigger warning. It ain't pretty. And it's almost certainly worse than you even imagine.
I've contributed a bunch of stuff already, and will continue to submit as time allows.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by white kitten socks.
Recommended Reading:
Doctor Pen: 42nd Down Under Feminists' Carnival
Pam: [TW for homophobia] The Unholy Trio of Anti-LGBT Groups Pushing NC Marriage Amendment
Andy: UK Ban on Gay Blood Donation Lifted
Vanessa: [TW for bullying; rape culture; misogyny; homophobia] New Study: Sexual Harassment Prevalent in Grades 7 to 12
Melissa: Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Gemma Arterton
Igor: Jon Huntsman: Personhood Movement 'Goes Too Far'
Atrios: Maybe We Could Hire People to Do Some Stuff
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
The Bluest Eye
[Trigger warning for racism; colorism.]
[Image from KTLA news segment; post title from Toni Morrison's novel of the same name.]
Because in this age of Impossible Beauty, no one can ever be beautiful enough, Dr. Gregg Homer of Stroma Medical in California is developing a laser procedure that will turn brown eyes blue:
[Homer] announced on KTLA-TV that he had come up with a laser procedure that removes the brown pigment, known as melanin, in the iris. Once removed, the blue color underneath is revealed, giving the person blue eyes. Homer said the procedure takes about 20 seconds.Despite Homer's assurances about the safety of the procedure, which may be available within two years, Dr. Robert Cykiert, associate professor of ophthalmology at NYU Langone Medical Center, told ABC News that the laser treatment is "risky" and "very likely to cause a high pressure in the eye, known as glaucoma," which could be temporary or permanent, and can cause permanent vision loss.
"We use a laser that's tuned to a specific frequency to remove the pigment from the surface of the iris," he told KTLA.
The change is irreversible because, once removed, the melanin cannot grow back.
Sound scary? Homer says he's been working on the science for 10 years. He told the news channel that he and his team had 15 ranges of "sophisticated" tests to make sure there is no eye tissue damage during or after the procedure.
Taking extreme risks to one's health in pursuit of beauty is not new, of course; there have been several high-profile deaths from plastic surgery procedures in recent years. And, like other procedures developed to facilitate conformance to a kyriarchtypal beauty standard, the bluing of eyes reinforces privilege. Homer is unabashed in his privileging of blue eyes:
"The eyes are the windows to the soul; [there's] this idea that people can actually see into it—a blue eye is not opaque. You can see deeply into it, and a brown eye is very opaque, and I think that there is something meaningful about this idea of having open windows to the soul," Homer told KTLA.Silly narratives about blue eyes being more "readable" are nothing more than codswallop used to justify the privileging of blue eyes, which are associated with whiteness, though not every person with blue eyes is white.
In both some white communities and some communities of color, there is a privileging of lighter eyes—blue, green, hazel, light brown—over dark brown or near-black eyes. It's a variation on colorism, which privileges light skin over dark, and has its own legacy of bleaching and lightening and lasering similar to the one Dr. Homer is trying to build for eye color. Light eyes, pale skin, hair that is light and fine and straight—these are all privileged to create a kyriarchetype that treats everything else as "exotic." As other. As less than.
Suffice it to say, I find Homer's "revolutionary" new procedure to be deeply problematic on multiple levels. Discuss.
[Commenting Guidelines: There are lots of women and men who like to play around with eye color using contact lenses, and, should that become part of the discussion, I would ask commenters to bear in mind what I said here: "Quite evidently, we each have a responsibility to think critically about our individual decisions, and not pretend they happen in a void even when we make choices for no one's pleasure or security but our own. Just because one is doing something for hirself doesn't magically turn it into a choice without cultural implications. But it's eminently possible to critique the culture in which individual choices are made, and the cultural narratives that may affect our decision-making processes, without condemning those individual choices. Or the people making them."]
Finding Jack
I was driving home the other day, ambling through rush hour traffic, thinking about how much I need to pee. Typical Friday, really. Edmondson Avenue heading into downtown was crowded, slow, but not completely stopped.
Somewhere between Uplands Park and Cathedral Cemetery I saw a cumpled up brown paper sack in the road in front of me. The only reason I really noticed the litter was because of it's shape. I thought to myself, "That piece of paper looks just like a kitten."
A moment later I realized that piece of paper was a kitten! Eep!
Okay, so just to get an idea of where this furball was, I've kindly recreated the placement of the kitten in the image below. I've also used a graphic of a teddy bear in place of the feline for reasons that should be obvious.
(Artist's rendering © 2011 Deekyvision Enterprises GmbH.)
I stopped, put on my flashers and jumped from the car. I ran to the front of the car but the kitten was gone. Crap. He'd crawled under my car. I guess for safety? "Kitty, don't do that!"
Reaching for him just prompted him to run out behind my car. Uh oh. Yeah, if "Yakety Sax" has been playing, it would have been perfect. I chased him around a bit, holding up traffic as we weaved and dodged around the road around my car until he slowed enough for me to grab him.
As I carried him back to the car I noticed how scrawny he was. A tiny little underfed thing. I tossed him onto the floorboard and drove away, not sure what I was going to do with a dirty, mewing kitten. A bit down the road I stopped and, using my smart phone, checked the hours for the city's animal shelter. Unfortunately they'd closed for the evening.
Well, I said to myself, I guess he can stay the night and I'll drop him off in the morning.
That was over a week ago. The kitten is still in my apartment.
I took him to the vet the next morning. They bathed him, weighed him (1.6lbs), and following some tests declared him in good health. His name is Jack.
Here he is that first night, having perched himself on my back, like I'm a pirate and he's a parrot:
For scale, here is Jack and an Xbox controller:
Welcome home, Jack. I am glad to have found you. You're safe now.
Oh, and to the woman who gave me dirty looks as I was picking up Jack from the road: Kiss my ass.
[Cross-posted.]
Number of the Day
49.1 million: The number of USians living in poverty in 2010, or 16% of the population, according to a new broader measure of poverty released by the US Census Bureau today.
How Dire Is the State of the Republican Primary?
Herman Cain, serial sexual harasser, is still leading in Iowa. Newt Gingrich, serial philanderer, is now polling in second.
Yiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Earthquakes in Oklahoma, Northern Afghanistan, and The Philippines
Oklahoma's largest quake in decades buckles highway; rattles residents: "Central Oklahoma continued to experience dozens of aftershocks Sunday, nearly 24 hours since the state's strongest earthquake since 1952 was felt throughout the region. More than ten aftershocks measuring at east 3.0 magnitude were reported Sunday, in the hours after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake took residents by surprise Saturday night. The temblor rattled homes and structures, causing belongings to scatter in houses and sending strident, booming sounds through the area."
Moderate earthquake shakes northern Afghanistan: "An earthquake of 5.5 magnitude has rattled the Hindu Kush region of northern Afghanistan, but there are no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey says that the quake occurred Monday at 4:29 p.m. local time."
Moderate quake shakes Philippine City: "A moderate earthquake injured one person, knocked out power and prompted the evacuation of dozens of patients from a hospital Monday in a southern Philippine city, officials said. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology measured the quake at magnitude 5.2, while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 5.0. The quake shook houses in Valencia City and other parts of Bukidnon province shortly before nightfall, prompting residents to run outside in panic as TV sets and other objects tumbled off tables, Office of Civil Defense Director Anna Caneda said. 'The shaking was brief but quite intense,' Caneda told The Associated Press."
Fortunately, no serious injuries and limited damage have been reported in all three locations.
Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up
[Trigger warning for violence.]
Below is video of an Occupy Oakland protester being shot with a rubber bullet while filming the police line in the early hours of November 3: "While filming a police line at Occupy Oakland after midnight on Nov. 3 following the Nov. 2 general strike, an officer opens fire and shoots me with a rubber bullet. I was standing well back. There was no violence or confrontations of any kind underway." [Via Zaid at Think Progress.]
CNN—A roundup of Occupy protests: "On Monday, a hearing will be held [in Atlanta] for a protester who was charged Saturday night with aggravated assault and obstruction after police said he assaulted a motorcycle officer patrolling the area. However, demonstrators said the officer 'accelerated into a demonstrator.' ... Riverside [California] police arrested 11 people Sunday after a group of about 40 demonstrators formed a human chain to prevent officers from pulling down tents near City Hall, Occupy organizers said." Etc. Meanwhile, in Chicago, police have installed surveillance equipment near Occupy Chicago HQ.
Welcome to America 2.0!
Here's some of the other stuff I've been reading this morning...
NPR—What Do Occupy Wall Street Protesters Want?: "Occupy Wall Street is in its second month of protest, and the frustration with financial big wigs continues to grow. Tomorrow's protesters will track 11 miles from Upper Manhattan to Lower Manhattan, ending in Zuccotti Park, the place where it all started seven weeks ago. They're calling the walk End to End for 99%."
The Guardian—US entrepreneurs cash in on Occupy movement: "The revolution could be trademarked in the US as more entrepreneurs seek to profit from the Occupy demonstrations. T-shirts began to appear days after the first protest on 17 September, a march through lower Manhattan. Now T-shirts, coffee mugs and other merchandise are being offered on the campsites that have sprung up in cities across the US. The US patent and trademark office has received a spate of applications." Perfect.
Barry Ritholtz in the Washington Post—What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral: "A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed. Those opposed to stimulus spending have gone so far as to claim that the infrastructure of the United States is just fine, Grade A (not D, as the we discussed last month), and needs little repair. Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault. Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny. But that has not stopped people who should know better from repeating them."
WaPo—Wall Street's resurgent prosperity frustrates its claims, and Obama's: "President Obama has called people who work on Wall Street 'fat-cat bankers,' and his reelection campaign has sought to harness public frustration with Wall Street. Financial executives retort that the president's pursuit of financial regulations is punitive and that new rules may be 'holding us back.' But both sides face an inconvenient fact: During Obama's tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled. The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data."
New York Times—The Next Fight Over Jobs: "The way the job market is going, it will never be robust enough to bring down the unemployment rate, now at 9 percent, or 13.9 million people. Monthly job growth has slowed to an average of just 90,000 new jobs a month over the past six months, a pace at which growth in the working-age population will always exceed the number of new jobs being created. High unemployment and low job growth, which have plagued the economy all through the current 'recovery,' hurt both consumer spending and economic growth. But don't count on government to do the obvious and urgent thing—intervene to create jobs. Tragically, the more entrenched the jobs shortage becomes, the more paralyzed Congress becomes."
Paul Krugman in the New York Times—Here Comes the Sun: "Let's face it: a large part of our political class, including essentially the entire GOP, is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers' money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar. So what you need to know is that nothing you hear from these people is true. Fracking is not a dream come true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we're willing to let it in."
In Eurozone news...
The Guardian's live coverage is here.
CNN—Greece's prime minister to quit in deal to salvage bailout package: "Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will step down as his government's leader, the country's president announced Sunday night—agreeing to do so on the condition that the controversial 130 billion euro bailout deal is approved. The announcement follows a meeting on Sunday in which Papandreou and Antonis Samaras—the leader of the New Democracy party, Greece's leading opposition party—agreed to form a new government."
The Guardian—Italy hails businessman a hero after he launches appeal to save the economy: "A businessman has become an unlikely national hero after urging Italians to buy up government bonds to help drag the country back from the brink of an economic meltdown. As the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, scrambles to deliver key reforms, the Tuscan financial services entrepreneur Giuliano Melani announced his appeal with a full-page ad in the leading daily Corriere della Sera, complete with his telephone number and email address. Melani says the bill for Italian government bonds expiring annually is €260-270bn (£223-232bn), a sum which would be taken care of if every Italian paid €4,500."
CNN Money—Europe: The worst-case scenarios: "That upheaval [in Greece] serves as just another reminder that the the crisis is far from over. ... Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, put the odds of Greece leaving the eurozone at zero in the near term. Global Insight, another consultancy, puts it at about one in three. But UBS's Magnus puts it at 50-50 in the next year or two, and 80% by 2016."
This is not good:
The Guardian—Far right on rise in Europe, says report: "The far right is on the rise across Europe as a new generation of young, web-based supporters embrace hardline nationalist and anti-immigrant groups, a study has revealed ahead of a meeting of politicians and academics in Brussels to examine the phenomenon. Research by the British thinktank Demos for the first time examines attitudes among supporters of the far right online. Using advertisements on Facebook group pages, they persuaded more than 10,000 followers of 14 parties and street organisations in 11 countries to fill in detailed questionnaires. The study reveals a continent-wide spread of hardline nationalist sentiment among the young, mainly men. Deeply cynical about their own governments and the EU, their generalised fear about the future is focused on cultural identity, with immigration—particularly a perceived spread of Islamic influence—a concern."
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave links to what you've been reading and/or writing in comments.
Sunday Shuffle
You?
(This song, btw, was the one I picked as the theme song for my thirties when I turned thirty :-))
Happy Birthday, Iain!!!
It's my burfday!
Once upon a time, I mentioned to my friend Mannion that Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks had always been my favorite Hollywood couple. "Not Bogart and Bacall?" he asked. "Not Newman and Woodward?"
"Nope," I replied. "Definitely Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks."
He asked why. It was because of something Anne Bancroft once said. Yes, that Brooks made her laugh. And this: "When I hear his key in the lock at night my heart starts to beat faster. I'm just so happy he's coming home. We have so much fun." I can totally relate.
I'll never get over my crush on Iain.
There will never be anyone with whom I more want to share good news, with whom I most want to celebrate my successes or lament my failures, with whom I more want to see a movie I'm dying to see, or passionately discuss a book I loved, or play Talisman until we're falling asleep at the table or Rock Band until our fingers are ready to fall off.
Last night, I took him to dinner at his favorite restaurant, and, nearly ten years after our first dinner date, I am still excited to gaze at him across a table and have a tumbling conversation about interesting things.
Which reminds me of something else Anne Bancroft once said about Mel Brooks. "I'd never had so much pleasure with another human being. It was that simple."
I can totally relate to that, too.
I love you, Iain. Happy Birthday.
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!
Here Is Something That May Be Fun for You to Watch!
Not everyone has the right to get married, which is terrible, and not everyone wants to get married, which is great for the people who live in places where that is a choice and not great for the people who live in places where it isn't, and not everyone who can and wants to get married also wants their parent(s) there, or still has parent(s) around to be there, plus don't even get me started on blood diamonds. We can probably all agree at this point that marriage is a very complicated issue and relationships with parent(s) can be pretty complicated, too, but, because the best human moments rarely happen outwith the intricate framework of cultural difficulties we have collectively built, I think maybe we can nonetheless enjoy this video of what might be the best father-daughter wedding dance of all time. Can we? Let's try!
Video Description: A black woman in a bridal gown and a black man in a tuxedo stand in the middle of a dance floor at a wedding reception. Over a speaker, an offscreen DJ says, "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we would like to invite the father of the bride to join our beautiful bride out there." There are cheers and applause as the groom leaves, and a black man in a tuxedo, sans jacket, joins the bride on the dance floor.
As "My Girl" begins to play, the father bows, then takes his daughter in his arms and they begin to dance a very traditional father-daughter dance. The music then switches to "Boogie Shoes," and they go into choreographed dance steps. The crowd cheers and laughs and applauds. The music then switches to The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," and the father does a little MJ dance move, to cheers.
The choreographed dance steps continue through several more song segments in the medley, including Lloyd Banks' "Beamer, Benz, or Bentley" (which gets a big laugh) and the Jackson Five's "Dancing Machine" (to which they do the robot). They then wind up in more traditional dance together once again, then take a bow and hug each other to cheers and applause.
And just when everyone thinks it's over, Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" begins to play, and they break into the choreography from the video. More well-deserved cheers and applause. The end.
[Via Kelly.]
Quote of the Day
"The latest consequence of extreme austerity is in Highland Park, Michigan, which has not only turned off all of its streetlights, but also ripped out the light poles—a telling sign that its darkening of the streets is permanent. With an unemployment rate at 22 percent and a city debt of $58 million, Highland Park could no longer afford to pay the electric bills."—Rebecca Leber, at Think Progress.
Well, maybe the citizens of Highland Park can just light some bootstraps on fire.
Daily Dose of Cute
Oh the humanity.
(That is, for the record, a stuffing-less plushy toy raccoon draped across Zelda's head. I was trying to engage her in a game of tug-o-war with it, but she prefers to play tug-o-war with Dudley and play RUN AROUND IN CIRCLES!!! with me, so I put it on her head.)
Film Corner!
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
Below is the trailer for the upcoming Michael Fassbender (Team Magneto!) film Shame. It also stars Carey Mulligan and was directed by Steve McQueen, a black Englishman born in 1969 who is no relation to the white Hoosier actor of the same name who died in 1980, after starring in The Great Escape and other films. This is a very splendid picture Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender together! Anyway! Let's go the video!
Listen, I sort of know what Shame is about, because I read a description of it that gave some vague outlines, suitably cryptic for the kind of film generally considered best enjoyed if you know very little about it. Trailers for those sorts of films are often difficult, because you want to capture the mood without giving away details of the premise. Unlike, say, a Michael Bay film, in which you might as well watch the extended trailer, which is essentially a comprehensive synopsis, and save yourself $10.
But, come on, trailer for Shame! You are not telling me ANYTHING except that Michael Fassbender is adorable (no doy) and runs a lot (okay), and he has lots of sex (sure), and also has an indeterminately troubled relationship with his sister Carey Mulligan (all righty), and that New York City is filled almost exclusively with white people (which I know from all the other film trailers ever). Give me SOMETHING.
Well, in fairness, it does give me lots of accolades from reviewers, who would definitely never mistake pretentious kyriarchal garbage and recycled rape culture narratives for revolutionary film-making, so I guess I'll go ahead and trust them!
Onto the trailer description...
Mysterious, moody, brooding string music. Michael Fassbinder breathes. Sounds of the city. This film has won lots of awards. It is "from award-winning director Steve McQueen." Michael Fassbender breathes. He also jogs. He looks at ladies' asses.
Michael Fassbender is "the man." His pitch is "amazing." He clinks glasses with other men who are presumably his coworkers. According to The Guardian, this film is "mesmerizing." Michael Fassbender clinks glasses with ladies and watches them dance. Elle magazine thinks this film is "exquisite and emotive."
String music! Breathing! Jogging! Michael Fassbender checks out ladies on the subway. Michael Fassbender's sister is "playing downtown," and he goes to see her with some other dude. Carey Mulligan looks troubled and performs in some club in a sequin gown, looking Marilyn Monroe-ish. The Hollywood Reporter thinks this film is "scorching."
Breathing! Taxi! Computer! Carey Mulligan is maybe doing it with Michael Fassbender's boss now? Michael Fassbender's hard drive is dirty. He does it with lots of chicks. He is a sex addict, for sure. I.D. thinks this film is "daring and stylish."
Sex! Breathing! Tension with Carey Mulligan! Sex! Breathing! Tension with Carey Mulligan! The Hollywood Reporter also thinks this film is "a cinematic jolt."
Jogging! Some dude calls Michael Fassbender "Romeo" and then punches him. His sex addiction is getting him into trouble. Well, I'm sure we'll all feel very sorry for his objectification and exploitation of women when it turns out his sister coerced him into a sexual relationship at some point and is trying to do so again. Which is what this trailer is making me SUSPECT is going to be the big reveal of the film, and gross if that's true because rape reveals are cynical and revolting. (And, not so coincidentally, nearly always run counter-intuitive to everything we know about who tends to commit rape.) Time Out says this film is "courageous and distinctive."
Breathing! Jogging! Michael Fassbender is coming unglued. He won't pick up the phone. Sex! Running! Sex! Running! Sex! BREATHING!
SHAME. Carey Mulligan lies her head on Michael Fassbender's shoulder, and he wraps his arm around hers, while they watch TV.
This film has an NC-17 rating and, according to a film awards consultant, is "littered with the rawest sex you've ever seen in a non-pornographic movie." But don't worry! "The sex isn't gratuitous and is designed to show the disintegration of the character."
You know, it's just never good for female characters (if the living embodiment of a sex doll can be construed as an actual character) when sex scenes are used to "show the disintegration of" a male character.
I hope I am wrong in my impression that this film is a garbage nightmare about a kyriarchetypical sex addict who abuses women in various ways for whom we're meant to feel sympathy because of his profound struggle, which has been received as a serious and remarkable piece of film-making despite looking eerily like American Psycho without the chainsaw. (Or capitalist commentary.) I hope, because I like Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, and because I hate misogyny and the rape culture, that it is a lot better than I fear that it is.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cement.
Recommended Reading:
Edna: [TW for racism] The Message of Occupy Wall Street: Return to Social Justice
Shark-fu: [TW for violent racist imagery; rape culture] Digital Strange Fruit Hanging from Cyber Trees?
Andy: New Jersey Judge to Hear Marriage Equality Arguments Today
Tami: [TW for transphobia] If You're a Bigot When You're Angry, You're a Bigot All the Time
Reninaj: [TW for rape culture; racism; misogyny] Black Feminist Love and Amber Cole
Meredith; [TW for racism; appropriation] Garrett Hedlund Offered Lead Role in Akira. Crap.
Jane: [TW for misogyny; objectification] Women Struggling to Drink Water
Cuppycake: [TW for misogyny; disordered eating; racism] Recommended Reading: Sexism Bingo, EDs in Geek Culture, and More
Kirby: Protect IP Act Breaks the Internet [VIDEO]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
This is a real thing in the world.
Um. This is apparently an actual series of ads created by Ogilvy Atlanta for the Boy Scouts of America:
[Click to embiggen.]
Okay, there is a lot of stuff going on here—the equating of hairiness with masculinity, and a particular brand of "natural" masculinity, at that; the equating of hairiness with wildness; the substitution of "a brunette white kid, a redheaded white kid, and a blond white kid" for racial diversity; the aging of children to promote a group that has [trigger warning] an institutional problem with sex abuse—but, apart from (and in addition to) all of that, this shit is just fucking WEIRD.
[Via Copyranter.]
Film Corner!
Do we need another remake of Great Expectations, the Dickens novel which has already inspired no fewer than 17 film, television, and theatrical adaptations? No, we definitely don't.
But we definitely do need to gaze with wonderment and delight at this still shot from Mike Newell's in-progress adaptation, of the perpetually scrumptious Helena Bonham Cartner as Miss Havisham, the "embittered spinster who sits in her mouldering mansion still wearing the wedding dress she wore when she was jilted at the altar; she has trained her adopted daughter Estella to break men's hearts just as her heart was broken."
[Click to embiggen.]
Bonham Carter co-stars opposite Ralph Fiennes as escaped convict Magwitch. Producer Stephen Woolley tells me the Oscar nominee is playing Miss Havisham at the same age she is in Dickens novel – previous incarnations by Charlotte Rampling, Anne Bancroft and, most memorably, Martita Hunt in David Lean's version played her much older. New York-based Unison Films is searching for a US deal for the film, which Lionsgate UK will release in fall 2012.I don't even like Great Expectations (I'm an A Tale of Two Cities gal myself), but I have to say I'd seriously consider seeing a version with Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham.
Wank Swap: S1 E6
Wank Swap reminds you to renew your television license.
The zombie of former CNN talk show host Eliot Spitzer lectures
the Belgian people about the importance of consistent leadership.
[Zombie Spitzer remarks that "the rumors of [his]
undeath have been greatly exaggerated.]
Meanwhile:
Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme is unimpressed.
[Leterme (Hugh Grant, actually) stands in front of
the US Capitol noting that "you assholes have no idea who I am."]
Will French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy make his connecting flight? Find out soon on Wank Swap!
[Zarkozy asks, "What the hell is a bennigan?"]
Previously: Season Preview, S1 E1, S1 E2, S1 E3, S1 E4, S1 E5
Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up
Sheriff's deputies advance on Occupy Oakland protesters early Thursday morning, Nov. 3, 2011, in Oakland, Calif. Following a mainly peaceful day-long protest by thousands of anti-Wall Street demonstrators, several hundred rallied through the night with some painting graffiti, breaking windows, and setting fires. [AP Photo]I've seen several headlines and/or story ledes this morning that are some variation on "Oakland Protests Get Violent." Interesting framing, that. The protests, you see, only "got violent" when protesters broke shit; they weren't "violent," apparently, when police put Scott Olsen in the hospital.
Anyway.
CNN—Oakland, NYC occupiers see violence, legal action:
Two major hubs of the Occupy movement -- Oakland and New York City -- recovered Thursday from West Coast violence and East Coast court actions, with both fronts continuing their protest camps despite their encounters with the law.CNN also has video of protests in Seattle greeting the CEO of JP Morgan, who was in town for some reason.
In violence-torn Oakland, authorities reopened Thursday the city's port on San Francisco Bay after a night of Occupy demonstrations shut down the fifth-busiest port in the nation, a port spokesman said.
"The most current field reports confirm that in the port area there were no injuries, no property damage, and no major security problems from last night's demonstrations," port officials said. "There was a limited incursion into a private rail facility, and trespassers were escorted off peacefully."
Meanwhile, in downtown Oakland, Occupy protesters continued their encampment Thursday in the park in front of City Hall following a night of violent clashes with police.
New York Daily News—More than a dozen Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested outside Goldman Sachs:
At least 15 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested Thursday after marching on Goldman Sachs to deliver an "indictment" of the financial giant.Here are two fun stories to read back-to-back...
Among the demonstrators hauled away after sitting down in front of the multinational's doors at 200 West St. was former New York Times foreign correspondent-turned-activist Chris Hedges.
...The marchers, led by four drummers, stretched a city block.
Some construction workers sitting along Church Street gave them thumbs up and a businessman on Murray Street muttered to himself, "What a bunch of idiots."
The NYPD didn't move in until about 15 protesters sat down and linked arms, blocking the lobby entrance.
As they were arrested, onlookers chanted "shame!" and "the criminals are inside!"
New York Magazine—Jon Corzine Resigns, Won't Take More Millions From Failing Firm: "The CEO of MF Global, the securities firm that filed for bankruptcy on Monday, resigned this morning, and has opted not to accept his $12.1 million severance package, probably quite appropriately considering the role he had in the company's failing. Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs CEO, said in a statement today that he feels 'great sadness about what has transpired at MF Global and the impact it has had on the firm’s clients, employees and many others.' Employees, of course, are basically out of a job, while about $630 million in client funds is still missing, drawing the suspicious eyes of the FBI and federal regulators. To keep things extra cozy, the man leading those regulators, Gary Gensler, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, worked closely with Corzine at Goldman Sachs, and eventually even worked for him."
I love how he's still entitled to a $12.1 million severance for running a company into the ground. Meanwhile...
The Guardian—US poverty data: 1 in 15 people among America's poorest poor:
"The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high—1 in 15 people—and spread widely across metropolitan areas, as the US housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and reduced jobs and income. New US census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high."
In other domestic news...
Raw Story—Tea party supporter to Elizabeth Warren: 'You're a socialist whore!': Not only did a heckler at a campaign appearance call Warren a whore for being "the intellectual creator of that so-called party," referring to the Occupy Movement, but: "The Massachusetts Republican Party recently released an ad that dubbed Warren the 'Matriarch of Mayhem' for supporting the Occupy Movement protesters across the country." You know, in case anyone hadn't noticed she's a woman, or failed to understand how her womanhood makes her EXTRA HORRIBLE.
CNN Money—'I'm home!' Adult children move back in: "With job openings scarce, getting adult children to leave the nest is becoming a lot more difficult. The number of adult children who live with their parents, especially young males, has soared since the economy started heading south. Among males age 25 to 34, 19% live with their parents today, a 5% increase from 2005, according to Census data released Thursday. Meanwhile, 10% of women in that age group live at home, up from 8% six years ago. Among the college-aged set, the 18- to 24-year-olds, 59% of males and 50% of females lived with their parents, up from 53% and 46%, respectively. The fact that so many young people are unable or unwilling to flee the nest 'cuts into the formation of new households quite a lot,' said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. Zandi calculated that there are about 150,000 fewer households being formed per year than the 1.2 million that would be in a normal, well-functioning economy."
Paul Krugman in the New York Times—Oligarchy, American Style: "[E]xtreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger? Some pundits are still trying to dismiss concerns about rising inequality as somehow foolish. But the truth is that the whole nature of our society is at stake."
Speaking of oligarchs...
Think Progress—Romney Campaign Memo: The Koch Brothers Are the 'Financial Engine of the Tea Party'.
New York Times—For Perry, Private Jets Have Been Key to Public Job.
In Washington...
CBS News—Boehner: Debt deal will include new tax revenues: "House Speaker John Boehner addressed one of the biggest sticking points for the 12 member Congressional 'supercommittee' today, acknowledging that any bipartisan agreement will need to include some new tax revenue. 'I think there is room for revenues, but I think there clearly is a limit to the amount of revenues that are available,' Boehner told reporters." Yeah, yeah—I'll believe it when I see it.
Reuters—Republicans block another part of Obama jobs plan: "Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a $60 billion White House proposal to repair crumbling bridges, highways and other transportation systems as President Barack Obama's job creation agenda hit another obstacle in Congress. All 47 Senate Republicans, one Democrat and one independent voted against a piece of Obama's $447 billion stimulus plan that would have helped construction workers—some of the hardest hit after the housing meltdown and economic downturn. The bill needed 60 votes to advance in the 100-seat Senate. Construction workers face a jobless rate of 13.3 percent, according to the Labor Department, far above the nationwide rate of 9.1 percent. Obama's jobs plan is effectively dead in Congress, but Democrats are forcing Republicans to vote on it piece by piece as both sides dig in their heels before 2012 presidential and congressional elections in which the economy is expected to be a defining issue."
And in Eurozone news...
The Guardian—Greece may leave euro, leaders admit: "The G20 is planning to increase the crisis-fighting firepower of the International Monetary Fund after the start of its summit was dominated by the first open admission from EU leaders that it might be necessary for Greece to leave the eurozone if the single currency is to survive. George Osborne said there was a 'real sense of urgency' on a day that saw an emergency interest rate cut from the European Central Bank, backtracking from Greece over a referendum on its bailout conditions, and a recognition that the IMF may need extra resources to cope with a deteriorating global economy."
The Guardian's live coverage of Greek PM George Papandreou's confidence vote, and related news, is here.
Here Is Something Beautiful to Start Your Day
Murmuration, by Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith.
Video Description: Two young white women are out in a canoe on the River Shannon in Ireland when a murmuration of starlings comes flying overhead, swooping and swirling in amazing shapes. They laugh and exclaim with wonder. Set to music by Emmett Glynn and band.
[H/T to Portly Dyke.]
Ha Ha Good One
The Hill—Mitt Romney: 'I've been as consistent as human beings can be'.
Mitt Romney, under fire from all sides on the strength of his political convictions, said Thursday he has been as consistent as a person can be during his political career.LOL. What a card.
"I've been as consistent as human beings can be," Romney said in a meeting with the editorial board of New Hampshire's Seacoast Media Group. "I cannot state every single issue in exactly the same words every single time, and so there are some folks who, obviously, for various political and campaign purposes will try and find some change and try to draw great attention to something which looks like a change which in fact is entirely consistent."
The Timing Is Just a Coincidence...
...but I think we have a better picture of at least some of the reasons for this today than we might have had last week: Sears marketing president to leave.
Retailer Sears Holdings Corp.'s president of marketing, Dave Friedman, will be leaving the company to pursue other opportunities, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.Maybe having a hedge fund manager run your company isn't a good idea. Who knew! I'm no Professor of Businessology, and I only worked in marketing for eight years, but I have noticed that, when your chairperson doesn't seem to understand the intrinsic—if not easily quantifiable in Quicken—value of investment in impeccable customer service, treating it instead as an extraneous cost that can be easily eliminated in order to maximize profit, it gets to be a hard sell to customers whose loyalty has been used as an executive toilet.
...The news comes at a time when the retailer, home to brands such as Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances, faces tremendous pressure to boost sales.
Sales at the company, where hedge fund manager Edward Lampert is chairman and the biggest shareholder, have fallen every year since it was formed through the merger of Sears and Kmart in 2005.
Again, I'm no Dame Businesshead PhD over here, but I do seem to recall reading something, probably in Popular Mechanics or Ranger Rick, about how it costs a lot less to retain an existing customer than win a new one—and a lost customer who must be won back is the most expensive of all.
Anyway! I wish Sears the best. Go Team Money!
Sears shares were down 2 percent to $77.80 in early Thursday afternoon trading on Nasdaq.Whoooooooooops.
[H/T to Shaker knitmeapony, on Twitter.]
WANT
Sarah Jessica Parker wearing an AMAZING Philip Treacy hat at the VRC Oaks Club Ladies Luncheon in Melbourne.Looooooooooove.
I love hats, anyway, but OMG THIS HAT! WANT!
And if there's anyone who definitely goes to places and events where this hat would be both appropriate and appreciated, it's me. I'll be all the rage down at the corner store!
This, Too, Is Why People Occupy Wall Street
30 Major Corporations Paid No Income Taxes in The Last Three Years, While Making $160 Billion.
I believe I have observed once or twice before, ahem, that the invisible hand of the market appears to belong to a thief.
Pop Quiz!
Can you guess which actor is partnering with video artist Laurel Nakadate later this month to play the "Gentleman Caller" in a performance of "Three Artists in Search of Tennessee, a three-part commissioned piece in which the pair will lead a seance to talk to the late playwright Tennessee Williams through a Ouija board. In part two, female actresses will audition for the part of Laura in The Glass Menagerie. And for the third act, male actors will audition for the part of Tom"?
Can you guess? Can you?!
Here, let me give you a clue: It's James Franco.
Did you guess James Franco?! If you did, give yourself 1,000 points, because it's totally James Franco! OBVIOUSLY. When you think about it, he is clearly the only person who would—or could!—play Tennessee Williams' Gentleman Caller in this or any other production that involves a fricking seance to have a chat with old Tenny, I mean when you really think about it, he's the only one, because James Franco.
Just ask the dog.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley: Twooooooooo-Leeeeeeeeegs! Make her mooooooooove! I wanna lay dowwwwwwwwwn!
Zelda: Blerp blorp. Treats. Blerp blorp. Toys. Blerp blorp. Treats.
Dudley: Oh my GOD. This is the worst thing to happen in the history of America!
Zelda: Blerp blorp!
Quote of the Day
"This is not a favor to women; it is not simply a nice thing to do. No country can get ahead when it leaves half of its people behind."—Melanne Verveer, a US State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, at a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing called this week to examine the role of women in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
The full inclusion of women into policy-making roles has been an issue championed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her entire career. She has spoken to the need for equality, and the rich mine of ideas and passion and energy that goes untapped when women are marginalized, on countless occasions. It is no surprise, but no less delightful for its predictability, that her State Department would take an active approach to addressing inclusion in what blooms from the Arab Spring.
Less charming is this, buried deep in the same article:
The United States, which along with states like Iran and Somalia, has yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, should do so, said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California. She said repressive governments could use that fact as a pretext to not live up to their own obligations under it.I will note that the US Senate currently has a Democratic majority. Still no action for the nation's women.
The U.N.-sponsored treaty has languished in the U.S. Senate since its adoption in 1979.
Wank Swap: S1 E5
Brought to you by Sweden.
Sweden: We tried to warn you. Nobody listens to us.
Thanks to a recent free trade agreement, South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik tours America in his chromed-out Cadillac Escalade.
[Kim drives his sweet ride while singing "Everybody's working for the weekend."]
Meanwhile:
Paul Krugman wallows in self pity outside of a Seoul bar, alone, unloved.
[Krugman holds his head in his hands while thinking "I could've gone to the University of Chicago.]
Previously: Season Preview, S1 E1, S1 E2, S1 E3, S1 E4
Blog Note
It's not just you. Disqus is being wonky.
They're working on a fix for delayed commenting, so I imagine things might be a little goofy with comments while they resolve the issue.
My apologies for the inconvenience.
Sears/Kenmore Follow-Up
Background here and here.
I've not heard hide nor hair from Sears since I spoke with Dee again yesterday, which is fair enough, since the only thing I want to hear from them is that they're working intently with the manufacturer on a recall, so I'm not the only person with this issue who's offered a free repair, and that's not something in which they seem to be very interested.
I have also, however, not heard from Kenmore, after they publicly accused me of not having tried to contact them, even though whoooooooops I did. Kenmore has also suggested that my failure was in tweeting at them directly, instead of sending a DM (direct message), despite the fact that their Twitter account is prominently displayed on the front page of their website without such a direction and the troubling little issue that it's impossible to send a DM to someone who is not following you.
And then there's this: If you send a DM, no one else sees it, and if this whole episode has proven anything, it's that Sears/Kenmore only respond after someone makes a lot of noise.
Every single polite and private entreaty I made before posting about this was ignored.
When I spoke to Brenda C. in customer service, I told her point-blank at the end of the conversation that I would be writing about it and exactly who my audience was. I also asked her if there was someone else, e.g. a PR person, to whom she'd like to direct me, and she said no.
So even having warned them that I would make a public stink, they still didn't care.
UNTIL I DID.
Which suggests to me that the only reason Kenmore wants to get direct, i.e. private, messages is because they're easier to ignore.
If Kenmore would like me to have a different, and more favorable, impression, then perhaps their one and only direct contact with me should have been something other than claiming to have "no previous knowledge" of this situation, despite the fact that my very first tweet was directed at them, and then "apologizing" if they "missed something." Not an apology for wrongly snarking on their Facebook page about how I never contacted them, but, you know, for if they missed the fact that I did indeed contact them.
How to Create a Public Relations Nightmare 101, by Sears/Kenmore. Chapter 7: Fauxpologies.
Here's the thing: The first place we went when we were looking to replace our dishwasher that also broke last weekend? Sears. The second place we went? Sears Outlet Store. Yep, the first two places we went to price dishwashers were Sears stores. You know why? Because we were happy with our stove, even though it had just broken.
I'm not an unreasonable person. I understand things can break. I figured Sears/Kenmore would deal with us fairly.
Well. We just bought our new dishwasher at Lowe's.
Numbers of the Day
$25,250: The average debt load of a US college student in 2010, a new record.
Over $31,000: The average debt load of graduates of Alabama A&M, a public, historically black university.
$8,000: The average debt load of graduates of Williams College, a selective, private college where approximately 10% of students are African-American.
Read the whole story at NPR.
Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up
[Oakland Men's Wearhouse. Photo tweeted by Oakland Tribune reporter Matt O'Brien.
The Guardian's live coverage of the Occupy Oakland General Strike is here. InsideBayArea's live coverage is here.
In a bitterly emblematic incident, a Mercedes driver hit two protesters in Oakland last night, delivering non-life-threatening leg and ankle injuries to the woman and man who were hit. The police questioned the driver, then let him go.
Back in New York [trigger warning], a 26-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting two teenage women in Zuccotti Park. #OccupyRapeCulture
CNN reports that Occupy Wall Street is gaining favor among USians:
As Americans learn more about Occupy Wall Street, they are becoming more supportive of the movement's positions, according to a new poll from ORC International.Nearly any protest movement that can just hang in there inevitably grains credibility among the general population, for the sheer appearance of having unwavering principles and not just being the dirty hippies/crackpots/fools/lowlifes/extremists/whatever that their opponents, with the help of the media, make them out to be.
The survey, taken Oct. 28-31, shows more adult Americans saying they have heard of Occupy Wall Street than when the question was asked in early October. Sixty-four percent of respondents now say they've heard of the movement, compared to only 51% in the earlier poll.
The new poll also shows more Americans supporting the movement. Thirty-six percent say they agree with the overall positions of Occupy Wall Street, while 19% say they disagree.
In US domestic news...
BBC—US manufacturing growth slows to a crawl: "US manufacturing continued to expand in October, but growth slowed to a snail's pace, according to the latest monthly survey of the sector."
Pat Garofalo at Think Progress—For the First Time Since 2007, Federal Reserve Official Dissents from Central Bank Policy from the Left: "The Federal Reserve today released its latest policy statement, announcing that it is taking no new moves to boost the economy's sluggish growth. However, for the first time since 2007, one of the voting members of the central bank—Chicago Fed President Charles Evans—dissented from the Fed's decision from the left...support[ing] additional policy accommodation at this time."
ABC's The Note—Mitt Romney Directs New Attack at Rick Perry, Telling Him 'Deficits Matter': "Romney's new line of attack comes days after Perry suggested he is less concerned about how his economic plan will affect the federal deficit in the short term and more focused on creating incentives for job creators to spur hiring in the country."
Nate Silver in the New York Times—On Obama's Reelection Chances: "[T]he conventional wisdom long held that Barack Obama would most likely weather his midpresidency slump to win another term. Then came the debt-ceiling debates of July and August, which seemed to crystallize Obama's vulnerabilities in a way that even the Democrats' midterm disaster of 2010 did not. It's probably because he handled the situation so poorly, simultaneously managing to annoy his base, frustrate swing voters, concede a major policy victory to Republicans and—through the fear imported into the market by the brinksmanship in Congress and the credit-rating downgrade that followed—further imperil the economic recovery. ... Obama has gone from a modest favorite to win re-election to, probably, a slight underdog. Let's not oversell this. A couple of months of solid jobs reports, or the selection of a poor Republican opponent, would suffice to make him the favorite again."
In international news...
The Guardian—Greek crisis: PM 'expected to step down today': "Reports are breaking in Athens now that George Papandreou is set to meet with the country's president within the hour. Greek Mega TV claims that following a meeting of his parliamentary group after his cabinet session, the embattled leader will soon visit the president, Helena Smith tells me. This is probably to ask the president to dissolve the government and call early elections. But seperately, the BBC is reporting that Papandreou plan is to step aside and make way for a new coalition government to take over."
CNN—Young Italians fear uncertain future: "Youth unemployment in Italy runs at 28%, well above the eurozone average of 20%. When I asked [Italian youth] how worried [they] were about [their] job prospects, [they] all laughed nervously. 'There is no money in Italy, there is no opportunity,' [they] said."
CNN—Tax evasion is a national pastime afflicting southern Europe: "'Wherever the olive tree grows, you won't find much tax being collected,' the mayor of a small town in southern Spain told me a few years ago. He shrugged; such was life. ... That is partly because of the higher number of self-employed and family businesses [in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal], which tend to deal in cash and pay little tax. But to many economic commentators, tax evasion is also a national pastime in much of southern Europe, and a significant factor in the region's burgeoning financial crisis."
The Guardian—G20: Europe faces the nightmare of a euro breakup: "The four members of the eurozone attending the G20 summit—Germany, France, Italy and Spain—were holding talks in Cannes this morning to discuss what to do next. Unsurprisingly, the mood was grim. Splits were appearing in the Greek cabinet, Italian bond yields were rising after Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet came up with no new proposals for tackling Italy's debts and for the first time European leaders have had to confront their worst nightmare: the euro may break up."
BBC—Obama calls for urgent debt deal: "US President Barack Obama has warned that there is still work to be done on how the eurozone can end a financial crisis that threatens engulf the world. Speaking on Thursday ahead of the opening of the G20 summit in France, he said that the most important topic on the agenda was Europe's problems."
Question of the Day
What piece of information or anecdote about your life would Shakers (or family, or coworkers, or whatever group you prefer to use) find most surprising?
I can't imagine what anyone would or would not find surprising about me, since I'm always amazed by what wildly divergent impressions people seem to draw of me from the blog. I guess maybe people would be surprised to find out how naturally shy and still and introverted I am. Which is not to say that I'm timid, but observant and quiet, except for my loud laugh—unless I am among people I trust. And even then I am loathe to be the center of attention, and I don't know how to take compliments without blushing.
I quite enjoy talking to strangers, one-on-one, especially if I can get them talking about some interesting bit of their lives; I love listening. I appreciate endlessly people who will allow me to be nosy in finite times and spaces—waiting for a bus together, sharing a cab, online at the grocery store, getting my hair cut. Those slices of passing intimacy are precious to me.
I am, on the other hand, dreadful at small talk. Awkward, hopeless, ever in real danger of looking horrendously rude—my inelegance misconstrued as aloof disinterest. My friend Miller, who I've now known and loved dearly for a decade, loves to tell people how she thought I was "a total bitch" when we met, those first months after she was hired at an office where I already worked. When she threw out her back and ended up bedridden, I appeared with pizza and the promise of good company for an evening, surprising her utterly.
Shy then, she realized. Not an asshole after all. We've been friends ever since. And so my life goes.
[Originally suggested by Maurinsky in March 2008.]
News I Don't Want to Write About
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment, violence, racism, terrorism.]
There is A LOT of news today that I do not want to write about!
There is the Great Kardashian Divorce of 2011. Does the internet need one more person making some sneering comment about straight people and their sanctity of marriage, which is an Actual Point, but one I'm increasingly reluctant to make since I sort of want same-sex couples to have the right to forge wildly inappropriate unions in lavish, multimillion dollar ceremonies if that is what they REALLY WANT? No, the internet does not need that.
There is also the Ongoing Saga of Sexual Harassment Allegations against Unserious Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain. This is genuinely an Important Story, but I feel like the only people discussing it are those who have an agenda, the primary example of which seems to be Bitchez Be Liars. I have heard that song before! I don't guess I have anything to say about this other than: I believe the women are telling the truth. The end.
There is also the Video of a Judge Beating His Daughter. I'm not linking to it. You can find it, probably on the front page of CNN, if you really want to look at it. He is terrible. His daughter is right: He should not be trusted to be a judge, because his decision-making skills are DEEPLY FLAWED. His daughter is also right that he should not be getting death threats, but psychological care.
There is also Another Incident of Ann Coulter Saying Something Totally Racist and Also Very Stupid. Not only will I not link to it, but I won't even reprint the asinine and attention-seeking thing she said, because fuck her. I'm so tired of you, Ann Coulter. You are THE WORST.
There are also the four dudes in Georgia who have been arrested by the FBI after allegedly plotting to turn the shitty terroristic online novel (very good, I'm sure) of some Fox News contributor into a real-life scenario of murdering lots of people to "save the Constitution." That seems like something about which I should have something smart to say, but all I've got is thank Maude they're as stupid as they are terrible. Also: Good thing no one but Deeky has read The Overton Window.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Number of the Day
$6.6 trillion: The cost of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's proposed economic plan. With interest, the cost grows to $7.8 trillion over the next 10 years. Wheeeeeeeeeee!
That would help SO MANY job creators create SO MANY jobs at the bootstrap factory!
The Tats Were Permanent, But the Hate Wasn't
This is an interesting story about a reformed skinhead who, with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center and an anonymous donor, is ridding himself of the extensive white supremacists tattoos covering his face, neck, torso, and arms.
While MSNBC's headline makes a prominent reference to the "agony" Bryon Widner is suffering with the tattoos' removal, Widner himself is less inclined to indulge concern about the pain he's experiencing: "If anything he felt that he deserved the pain and the public humiliation as a kind of penance for all the hurt he had caused over the years."
Widner's straightforwardness about the depth of his previously-professed "principles" is compelling, too: "I wasn't on any great mission for the white race. I was just a thug."
I would've liked to read more about what brought Widner to reject white supremacy—a movement in which he was so enmeshed that, when he approached the SPLC, their chief investigator of hate and extreme groups, Joseph Roy, described it as "like the Osama Bin Laden of the movement calling in."
It's a profound transformation, and I hope Widner will continue to use the new life he is being given to move ever further from hatred and to inspire others to similar changes of heart and mind.
[Via TDW.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia contemplates sticking her paw into my water glass, to draw out the last drops of melted ice on her wee fuzzy digits. Normally, I'm not a mind-reader, but I've seen this look before. Ahem.
I Have Seen the Future, and It Is Now
This amazing video was posted on YouTube with the description: "Two cams, anything goes, you decide. The future of live entertainment." At first, I wasn't sure—but then I was like, yeah, this is definitely the next logical step after Jersey Shore. Bring it on.
Video Description: From a boombox set on a table in a backyard emanates "Rebound (Original Mix Edit)" by Arty. Nearby, an elderly white woman wearing sunglasses and a windbreaker, sits in a plastic yard chair hanging out with a little Corgi dog. A young white woman in pink shirt and jeans dances with what appears to be a katana. Then a young white man in blue shirt and jeans comes out; he hands the beer bottle he is carrying to the elderly woman. Then he whips out a butterfly knife and begins to do a choreographed dance with the young woman. Obviously.
The future is now. Gleep glorp.
[Via Gabe.]
That's Your Liberal Media!
Obama uses executive orders as a political toolOpening sentence of the story [emphasis mine]:
President Barack Obama is crafting his own laws of political physics these days, insisting that inaction by a divided Congress requires White House action in order to get something done.Nineteenth and twentieth paragraphs of the story [emphasis mine]:
Almost three years into his term, Obama is on a similar pace in issuing executive orders issued as his recent predecessors such as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.Paragraph twenty [!] actually gets at the important story here. Recent US presidents (like Reagan!) have expanded their use of executive orders. They may, as the article insinuates, have used executive orders to circumvent the legislative branch of government. Of course, the president also has a fair amount of discretion over how to run the executive branch, which AFAIK is the point of his issuing executive orders, so maybe this isn't the whole story. In any case, this seems like a kinda important discussion to have.
While some executive orders are routine or ceremonial in nature, presidents since Jimmy Carter have used them more for major policy directives to sidestep the legislative or bureaucratic process.
However, OMG Obama is doing a unique job of ruining America by being just like Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and other Bush doesn't strike me as a particularly productive discussion. Of course, I have this strange feeling that one of the MSM's objectives is to paint Obama as a brazen socialist who hates freedom and American democracy, so it really depends on how you define "productive."
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by fuzzy slippers.
Recommended Reading:
eeshap: Boom!? 7 Billion People on Earth Fosters Population Alarmism
Zerlina: White House Announces iPhone Apps to Address Sexual Abuse
Shayera: [TW for sexual violence] Wow: Boy Scouts Failed to Report Abuser
Shark-fu: Insurance Coverage and Values
Jha: Using the Term "Multiculturalism"
Andy: Cops, Nurse Save a Man's Life
Michael: U.S. Government Glossed over Cancer Concerns as It Rolled out Airport X-Ray Scanners
Scatx has an amazing picture from Occupy Iran. I love the wall the women are themselves forming a wall, as if showing the world what the alternative to Wall Street really is. It gives me chills.
And Happy 4th Blogiversary to Questioning Transphobia!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
"I believe life begins at conception. Unfortunately, this personhood amendment doesn't say that. It says life begins at fertilization, or cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof. That ambiguity is striking a lot of pro-life people here as concerning. And I'm talking about people that are very, outspokenly pro-life. ... I am concerned about some of the ramifications on in vitro fertilization and [ectopic] pregnancies where pregnancies [occur] outside the uterus and [in] the fallopian tubes. That concerns me, I have to just say it."—Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Eallyrightwing), on the proposed amendment to the state constitution being put to voters next week, which would redefine a person as "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
How extreme is this bit of anti-choice maneuvering...? So extreme even HALEY BARBOUR is concerned about its extremism. Yiiiiiiiiiikes.
Sears/Kenmore Follow-Up
Background here.
I left several updates in yesterday's thread, but I wanted to do a follow-up piece to let everyone know where things stand.
Toward the end of the day, Dee from Sears Executive Office rang me and offered to send someone 'round to replace the broken panel, free of charge, and give me a 90-day warranty on the new part.
It is an offer Iain and I ultimately declined, because I frankly did not feel good about accepting service in what Sears certainly expected to be an exchange for my letting the issue drop, because I am not letting the issue drop.
I'm not seeking anything further from them in terms of reparations to me, personally. My stove is now my issue. But I have some grave concerns about how this issue is being handled by Sears with its other customers.
If my stove had still been under warranty, it would have been fixed for free, and I never would have started down this road. But I did—and now I know not only that this is a very costly repair (especially relative to the price of the stove), but also that the repair is being made with the same faulty part that cannot withstand typical use.
Sears isn't fixing these stoves; they're patching them. People who get it fixed under warranty may end up with the same broken bracket again a year later, and face a pricy repair then. People who pay for the pricy repair once may end up with the same broken bracket again a year later, and face a pricy repair once more. Sears is kicking the can down the road, and expecting their customers to foot the bill for the problem.
It's a nice little racket, though, to replace a shitty piece with the same shitty piece, and sell $100 extended warranties on the back of a $300 repair—extended warranties that last one year, which seems to be the approximate lifetime of the bracket.
Sears/Kenmore clearly knows the piece is faulty. Dee told me that Sears plans to "address the problem" in the future, but when I explicitly asked if there was going to be a recall, and if I should advise my readers to not pay for a pricey repair on a stove that would be recalled, she said she could not confirm that there would be a recall, nor that future repairs would be made with a different, improved part.
So, on the one hand, they acknowledge having sold a bad product to lots and lots of people, and, on the other, they won't promise to do anything about it.
What they want to do is offer to fix patch the stove of the person with a platform and the willingness to use it to make some noise, and hope that the whole thing will go away.
Sears/Kenmore needs to do better by ALL its customers. Not just me. And they need to something more serious than what is essentially a patch on a known problem.
(I will note that there is also the possibility Sears/Kenmore is already actually repairing the stoves with better pieces, in which case that's just a different problem—charging people to do what they should be doing for free with a recall.)
As I said in my post yesterday, this is a low-end model Kenmore stove, bought primarily by people unlikely to be able to purchase "optional" extended warranties in the first place, unlikely to be able to afford $300 repairs, and unlikely to be able to buy a new stove when faced with a $300 repair (plus $100 extended warranty!) to avoid giving more money to a company that exploited them.
Six months after Louis J D'Ambrosio took over as CEO of Sears Holdings in February of this year, he was given a $2 million bonus, bringing his total compensation to $3.15 million. He is the 27th highest ranked CEO within the retail sector.
How many people have paid costly repair bills to replace a part Sears/Kenmore knows to be faulty, in order to give Mr. D'Ambrosio a $2 million bonus?
Do the right thing Sears/Kenmore. Recall this stove. And don't charge another person for a shady repair.
* * *
Note: Kenmore is reportedly deleting critical comments from its Facebook page, and @KenmoreConnect did not respond to tweets. Sears has been more receptive: Tweet at them @sears, @SearsHoldings, @SearsAppliances, and @SearsCares.
