The comments links on the main page are working again.
The Disqus threads look kinda funky at the moment, but just bear with me, and I'll try to get that back to normal as soon as possible. I'm also aware that the number of comments isn't showing up in IE, and I'm trying to resolve that.
Thanks for your continued patience as we play with the template and try to get everything working and looking good again.
My profound thanks to Portly Dyke, who has been a serious rockstar this weekend trying to get this thing figured out and creating a workable template for us. And also to Iain, who is totes a champion and provider of reserve patience when mine wears out.
Comments Links Working Again
Update on Blog Fuckery
We're futzing around with the template a lot today, trying to figure out what's disabled Java in the main column of the main page, or figure out a workaround, so you may occasionally see the template looking different or comments temporarily disabled.
At the moment, clicking on the comments link below the post title takes you to Blogger commenting, which we don't use. So just ignore that link.
Disqus is still accessible via the individual post pages, so click on the post title to get to the post page, and then you'll be able to read and leave comments.
Again, my apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.
Happy Birthday, SKM!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
You look like a purveyor of the radical feminazi agendaaaaaaa!
And you smell like one, too!
(Mmm, saffron!)
I wasn't sure I was going to be able to top last year's Very Special Cake, but how can anyone resist Chuck Norris personally announcing that it's Cake Time! on her birthday...?! Secret Ingredient: Fist.
Open Thread
Hosted by Qwip.
This week's open threads have been hosted by white, puffy, anthropomorphic characters: aesthetically pleasing Paul the Spud since 1971.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[For InfamousQBert. Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Just in Time for the Friday News Hole
Obama decides to get feisty with the GOP:
[Transcript here. Also viewable here.]
The background: "Republicans invited Obama to appear at their annual conference; the president accepted — and then surprised them by asking that cameras and reporters be allowed into the room. Republicans immediately agreed to the request, but they may be regretting it now. Again and again, Obama turned the Republicans questions against them — accusing them of obstructing legislation for political purposes and offering solutions that won't work."
Amanda, Steve, and Marc have more.
BTD notes: "If politics actually worked this way, Dems would win every time. And Obama would be our FDR. But it doesn't. Do not expect the GOP to ever make this mistake again."
Indeed.
Daily Kitteh
Dear Roland,
If you did not attack and nom my hand every time I went to pet you, you would get more scratches, you silly glaik.
love,
Auntie SKM.
P.S. Your blissed-out expression when I am able to scratch under your "armpits" is motivation enough for me to keep trying. As well you know.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
I Get Letters
I see hoe the Feminist mind works. It was bad to stop George Tiller from killing innocent babies, but Scott Roeder's life gets ruined and you say "Good." even though you deameaned celebrating Tiller's death, now your celebrating.Welcome to the psyche of the anti-choicer, folks. Can't see a difference between celebrating murder and expressing relief at the conviction of a murderer. Calls himself "pro-life," justifies murder, and accuses me of a double-standard. Still hasn't figured out how to use spellcheck. Forever and ever, amen.
Not-So-Random YouTubery: Matthew Fox on Sesame Street
Jan. 19, 2010:
Matthew Fox: Hi, I'm Matthew.
Elmo: And Elmo's Elmo.
Matthew: And we're here to tell you all about the word "bones."
Elmo: Yes! Bones!
Matthew: Now, bones are what are under your skin.
Elmo: Oh, oh, but does that, Mr. Matthew, mean Elmo has bones under his fur?
Matthew: Sure, yeah, we all have bones. Bones help support your whole body.
Elmo: Oh. But does that mean Elmo has bones, um, in his arms?
Matthew: Yeah, an arm bone.
Elmo: How 'bout, how 'bout his leg?
Matthew: Uh, yes, we have leg bones.
Elmo: Oh, well, how 'bout Elmo's—Elmo's neck?
Matthew: Oh yeah. Yeah, we have neck bones, too. You see, bones are all over your body, and they look like this. [lifts bone]
Bone: Hey! Whaddaya call two scoops of chocolate on a fibula…? An ice cream bone! [They all laugh.] Get it?! A fibula's a bone! Ice cream bone! See what I did there?!
Elmo [to Matthew]: What kinda bone is that?
Matthew: A funny bone. [They all laugh.]
All three, looking directly into camera: BONES!!!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Liss and Deeky's Lost Excitement Containers. Note: These containers have been recalled for poor performance.
Recommended Reading:
Shark-fu: Chris Matthews, Post-Racialism, and Acceptable Blackness
Andy: Gates Says 'Major Announcement on 'DADT' Set for Tuesday
Fannie: Story about Murdered Woman Focuses Entirely on Poor Accused Man Who Had to Deal with Bitchy Wife
Ouyang Dan: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: A Discussion That Always Happens from Outside
Mary: Broken Government
BeckySharper: The Most Ridonkulous Op-Ed of 2010: Audrey Irvine Rides Again!
Thea Lim: From Paris With Love…and Some Hilarious Racism!
Jorge: Wow!
Leave your links in comments...
Roeder: Guilty
After 37 minutes of deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women have found Scott Roeder guilty of first-degree murder for killing Dr. George Tiller. Roader now faces life in prison.
Good.
[H/T to Shaker sunflwrmoonbeam.]
Watch Your Mouth - Part 3: Use Your Big-Kid Thesaurus
Part 3 in an Ongoing Series (You may want to read Part 1 and Part 2 first)
In the course of discoursing on the web, I've witnessed and participated in many conversations about semantics and language.
I've seen discussions about whether the word "niggardly" is racist or not, whether or not the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb" refers to domestic violence, and whether the term "lame" has entered common usage to the extent that people who have difficulty walking should just stop being offended and shut up about it, already.
Now, I know that the word "niggardly" is not etymologically derived from a racial slur, but so what? If my listener/reader doesn't know this, do I really want to derail from whatever topic it is I'm addressing by pressing that debate, just so I can sound like a Dickens character?
I also know that the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb" is hotly debated -- maybe it really is tied to the maximum size of a stick with which a man is allowed to beat his wife, and maybe it isn't -- but do I want to spend the next two hours arguing that? Isn't it just as effective for me to say: "General rule"?
This leads me to the most complex question in this entire series (for me, at least): Why am I choosing the words that I'm choosing?
Am I choosing certain words and phrases because I think they will help me establish my own identity?
The choice of the handle PortlyDyke, for example, is rich with reclamation for me on two fronts, but it also serves as a handy auto-filter -- if people are offended or put off by my screen name at first read, I can guess that they're probably going to be offended by a lot of things I say, and if they chuckle upon reading or hearing it (which happens a lot) I figure they're probably going to appreciate my sense of humor.
Am I choosing language that helps me bridge a gap?
As a 53-year-old who interacts with online communities which are often composed of much younger people, I find that I often refrain from using idioms that "date" me. When I find myself communicating with someone who is relatively new to feminist thought, I may not use phrases that are commonly used in Feminism 301 conversations. If I'm talking to my 83-year-old mother about my spiritual views (which is rare, I grant you, but it happens from time to time), I tend to use phrases that are somewhere between her notion of the Big White Guy in the sky and my ideas about a Vast Organizing Consciousness.
Am I choosing idioms because I think they are going to "buy" me some kind of acceptance?
This is a slippery edge for me, really -- because at the same time that I'm dropping some terms that would peg me for an old fogie, I might also slip in some words and phrases so that I can sound "hep", even if I don't use these in my day-to-day speech (and see, that right there is an example of an old-fogie word -- "hep" -- which is a dead giveaway). This behavior, by the way, can go horridly, horridly wrong (as when your Dad tries to sound cool in front of your friends).
Also, in the same moment that I'm searching for words that Mom can relate to, I might be filing off the edges of my own belief system, in the hope that my world-view would be more accepted by my family. Which sucks.
Sadly, these attempts to purchase acceptance inauthentically rarely really work in the long run. An example I'd point to is Rachel Maddow.
There are many things about her show that I absolutely adore -- the way she opens interviews with potentially combative people by asking them if she's gotten all the facts right in her intro, the general fastidiousness of her civility toward them when debating even the most difficult issues, etc., -- but there is one thing I deeply dislike -- her continuing use of the words "lame" and "lame-itude" as an idiom for "bad". I even wrote to her about it (gently, civilly).
At first, I thought my reaction to her use of this term was me "just" being offended by the ablism demonstrated (which would have been enough) -- but I realized later that another thing that grated on me was that she seemed to me to be using this ablist term in order to sound cool. There is just something about the emphasis she uses when she says it that rings to me of the 11th-grader who's trying to get in with the popular kids. It seems out of place in the midst of her usual Rhodes-Scholar presentation, and it jars the hell out of me every single time. I want to say to her: "Rachel, you're the first out news-lesbian headlining her own show on a major network. You're cool enough already."
I think it's important for me to know why I'm speaking or writing as I am. I think it's important for me to be clear about my intention when I communicate.
For me, the only reason to post something like this to a blog is to communicate and connect with other people, with the intention of raising their consciousness (and my own, which happens for me both during the writing process and subsequent discussion in comments), and I don't think I'm going to be very effective at that if I am leaning on idioms that a) have underlying meaning that I don't support, b) are inserted to somehow buff up my image rather than communicate my point, or c) I already know are likely to offend people that I want to communicate and connect with.
I have found, in every single case where I have used an offensive word or phrase, or undermined my own communication by employing an idiom which was rooted in the language of oppression that there was a readily accessible alternative. Let me repeat that-- I have found in every single case that there were other words available.
Other words that not only didn't alienate my intended audience, but which usually spoke my point more eloquently.
To those who would argue that maintaining this level of consciousness about language is an onerous burden laid upon them by the evils of political-correctness, I will simply say:
There are over 200,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary -- many of them languishing in the linguistic lethargy of left-behind lingo. If you really don't care who you offend, or how much you sabotage your own communication in the process of maintaining your "with it" factor, you might actually sound edgier if you use something like "That's so absolutely inverted" instead of "That's so gay" -- because never forget -- the really cool kids don't repeat the offensive slurs -- they invent them.
And for those of you who find that the effort toward clear, responsible communication is a yoke which does not chafe you, remember -- there is no shame in visiting Thesaurus.com.
In other words, there are always other words.
Murray Hill Inc. for Congress!
Eliminating the need of a front of a congressperson, Murray Hill Incorporated has filed to run in Maryland's 8th Congressional District (Republican) primary. From their press release:
“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”
Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office. As Supreme Court observer Lyle Denniston wrote in his SCOTUSblog, “If anything, the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission conferred new dignity on corporate “persons,” treating them — under the First Amendment free-speech clause — as the equal of human beings.”
Murray Hill Inc. agrees. “The strength of America,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America’s great corporations. We’re saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?”
Murray Hill Inc. plans on spending “top dollar” to protect its investment. “It’s our democracy,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.”
[...]
Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. Campaign Manager William Klein promises an aggressive, historic campaign that “puts people second” or even third.
“The business of America is business, as we all know,” Klein says. “But now, it’s the business of democracy too.” Klein plans to use automated robo-calls, “Astroturf” lobbying and computer-generated avatars to get out the vote.
National Fuckery League
[Trigger warning.]
I don't guess I'm the only person who's noticed that the NFL has a violent fuckneck problem. There are, to be sure, a lot of good guys in the NFL, but holy hell are there a lot of bad ones, too. And I'm not even talking about the guys with gun charges, or criminal mischief charges, or DUIs, or drug busts. Or even the guy with the dogfighting ring. I'm talking about the alleged rapists and domestic abusers. The guys who hurt women, and hurt them badly.
Today, there are two more stories of NFL players being accused of violent acts against women. Angelina Mavilia, a trans woman, alleges that NFL cornerback Eric Green sexually assaulted her
then got "extremely agitated and threatening," according to court documents, and warned: "This never happened. You'd better not tell."And Supriya Harris alleges that running back Steven Jackson attacked her while she was nine months pregnant (with his child) and then instructed her to tell hospital staff that her injuries were the result of falling in the shower.
Naturally, I do not know the veracity of these individual allegations. But I do know that the NFL has a problem. And I also know that all their ostensible efforts to change the culture don't mean shit, as long as the culture includes transmisogynist/homophobic hazing and banter like coaches still calling their players "ladies" and players still calling each other "fags."
These men spent egregious amounts of time in an environment in which anything considered feminine is dehumanized. And pretending that subjecting oneself to, and participating in, such ritualistic dehumanization doesn't have any practical consequences only increases the number of people who are going to get hurt.
If the NFL wants to get serious about its violent fuckneck problem, they can start with banning hate speech on the field and in the locker rooms. And follow that with a zero tolerance policy on sexual violence and domestic assault.
Because right now? Your policy sucks. And everyone knows it.
Inside The Technology Hatch
Steve Jobs unveils Apple's newest gizmo, the iPad. The bazillionaire is pictured here demonstrating the popular app Sawyer's Sweaty Abs. The unit will retail for $815 and is guaranteed to deflect flaming arrows. In the event of a water landing, the iPad can be used as a flotation device.
Quote of the Day
"We live in a dangerous world. What we can't do at a time when we're in two wars and we have a very determined enemy in Al Qaeda, we can't stand down." — David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to President Obama, explaining why the President's proposed spending freeze excludes the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
Let's Hear It for the Girl
The other day I said that if health care/insurance reform does happen, it may well be because Congressional Dems made it happen despite the president. I should have added: And because of Nancy Pelosi.
[At a press conference], a striking quote from Pelosi underscoring her determination to get health care done:And unlike some other Democrats we could mention, she's still trying to get the Senate to include a public option. Otherwise known as the thing that would make this thing national healthcare reform.You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people.It's often been observed that this health care fight is the defining moment of Pelosi's career, and that victory would seal her place as one of the most powerful House Speakers in modern history. She seems to realize this, too.
Blog Note
[THIS POST WILL STAY AT THE TOP UNTIL THE TECH ISSUES ARE RESOLVED. NEW POSTS ARE BELOW. PLEASE CLICK ON POST TITLES TO GET TO DISQUS COMMENTS.]
As you may have noticed, our author pix and commenting just disappeared. I have no idea why; I haven't touched the template. I've also got no idea how to fix it, and our tech guru, Space Cowboy, is currently unavailable.
So, um, yeah. I guess just use Blogger commenting, accessible from directly beneath the post title, for the time being. UPDATE: Actually, it looks like Disqus is still accessible via the individual post pages. So click on the post title to get to the post page, and then you'll be able to read and leave comments.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
UPDATE 2: Just FYI, we are working on a temporary fix, so that we can at least access comments again from the main page. Again, my apologies.
A Topical Scene, with Deeky and Liss
Deeky: I was just looking at that photo of Steve Jobs with his iPad.
Liss: I totes don't want an iPad. I'm holding out for the Max-iPad.
Deeky: LOLOLOLOL!!! Here's what the iPad reminds me of:
Liss: Here's what it reminds me of:
Fin.
Random YouTubery: Faraday on Punk
THE LOST-A-THON CONTINUES!
For Iain, whose hatred of Daniel Faraday is so strong he declared upon seeing this advert, "Subaru is dead to me. On the list of people for whom I have an irrational hatred pehaps only Regis Philbin is ranked higher than Jeremy Davies."
Jeremy Davies explains why the Subaru is "like punk rock."
(Just FYI, he's wrong. The Subaru is nothing at all like punk rock.)
[Cross-posted.]
TV News Item Korner
Hey Shakers, it's Kenny Blogginz, and I'm back with another one of my classic TV news items! According to Ain't it Cool News, David Spade is partnering with TBS to create an animated JOE DIRT series! This is the best news I've heard all day!
Everyone who's anyone remembers the smash hit 2001 comedy blockbuster Joe Dirt starring David Spade and Kid Rock. David Spade's performance was hailed by Ebert and Roeper as "the Brando of Generation Tween." No-one could tell whether he was making fun of Joe Dirts or endorsing them! It was a philosophical masterpiece.
I think we can all agree that America is heading down a dark path, what with all the Scary Health Care and Evil Socialist Take-Overs. But if anyone can save our fair country, my friends, it's DAVID SPADE. Now my day-time tv-viewing needs shall ALL be met!
Yes Dear
King of Queens
Everybody Loves Raymond
Joe Dirt: The Animated Series in 1080 HD and 3D where available
Friends
TBS: Very Funny indeed! You know what would REALLY blow my shit out the water? If Larry the Cable Guy could have a few cameo appearances! This show could be the Fake/Real/Fake(?) Redneck Comedy that America DESERVES!
News from Shakes Manor
There is but one food on the planet that Iain won't eat: Brussels sprouts. He hates them with a red hot fiery passion.
I, on the other hand, love them. I only recently tried Brussels sprouts for the first time, as neither of my parents are crazy about them, so we never had them for dinner when I was growing up, and I always heard how they were like the WORST! FOOD! EVARARR! The culinary equivalent of the proverbial root canal. And their being the only food Iain won't eat made me even more reluctant.
But I try everything at least once.
So I had them at a restaurant not long ago, and I loved the tasty little buggers!
Now Brussels sprouts and I are totes BFFs. I just had like a million of them for lunch. But before I dug in, I took a picture and texted it to Iain.
Liss: Yummy! Brussels sprouts for lunch!
Iain: Thanks. I just projectile vomited all over my desk.
Liss: Nom nom nom. I'm so gonna have the big time fartz.
Iain: Don't tell me you actually enjoyed it?
Liss: OMG delish! (I even ate one raw & liked it.) I steamed them and then sauteed them with some mushrooms & a little bit of bacon. Amazing.
Iain: It's like you're talking about how you like to go to graveyards at night and gnaw at the bones of the fresh corpses.
Something tells me I am not going to make Iain a convert.
Dishonest, Irresponsible, and With Callous Disregard
Those were the findings against Dr. Andrew Wakefield & his research methods by the General Medical Council:
The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR vaccinations and autism acted unethically, the official medical regulator has found.Two of Wakefield's former colleagues who helped assist in the research were also ruled as acting unethically.
Dr Andrew Wakefield's 1998 Lancet study caused vaccination rates to plummet, resulting in a rise in measles - but the findings were later discredited.
The General Medical Council ruled he had acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in doing his research.
Afterwards, Dr Wakefield said the claims were "unfounded and unjust".
[...]
The verdict, read out by panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar, criticised Dr Wakefield for the invasive tests, such as spinal taps, that were carried out on children and which were found to be against their best clinical interests.
The panel said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London's Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.
The GMC also took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son's birthday party.
Dr Kumar said he had acted with "callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer".
He also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.
The only thing surprising about this ruling is that it took two and a half years to come to it, really, given the circumstances of his research.
More on who Wakefield is, what he has done because of this research, and some details of the research that led to this ruling below..
From a 2009 eSkeptic article:
In 1998 a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published an article in the respected medical journal The Lancet. He did intestinal biopsies via colonoscopy on 12 children with intestinal symptoms and developmental disorders, 10 of whom were autistic, and found a pattern of intestinal inflammation. The parents of 8 of the autistic children thought they had developed their autistic symptoms right after they got the MMR vaccine. The published paper stated clearly: “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.”(emphasis mine)
Despite this disclaimer, Wakefield immediately held a press conference to say the MMR vaccine probably caused autism and to recommend stopping MMR injections. Instead, he recommended giving the 3 individual components separately at intervals of a year or more.[...]
Wakefield’s data was later discredited (more about that later) but even if it had been right, it wouldn’t have been good science. To show that intestinal inflammation is linked to autism, you would have to compare the rate in autistic children to the rate in non-autistic children. Wakefield used no controls. To implicate the MMR vaccine, you would have to show that the rate of autism was greater in children who got the vaccine and verify that autism developed after the shot. Wakefield made no attempt to do that.
His thinking was fanciful and full of assumptions. He hypothesized that measles virus damaged the intestinal wall, that the bowel then leaked some unidentified protein, and that said protein went to the brain and somehow caused autism. There was no good rationale for separating and delaying the components, because if measles was the culprit, wouldn’t one expect it to cause the same harm when given individually? As one of his critics pointed out: “Single vaccines, spaced a year apart, clearly expose children to greater risk of infection, as well as additional distress and expense, and no evidence had been produced upon which to adopt such a policy.”
Wakefield had been involved in questionable research before. He published a study in 1993 where he allegedly found measles RNA in intestinal biopsies from patients with Crohn’s disease (an inflammatory bowel disease). He claimed that natural measles infections and measles vaccines were the cause of that disease. Others tried to replicate his findings and couldn’t. No one else could find measles RNA in Crohn’s patients; they determined that Crohn’s patients were no more likely to have had measles than other patients, and people who had had MMR vaccines were no more likely to develop Crohn’s. Wakefield had to admit he was wrong, and in 1998 he published another paper entitled “Measles RNA Is Not Detected in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.” In a related incident, at a national meeting he stated that Crohn’s patients had higher levels of measles antibody in their blood. An audience member said that was not true — he knew because he was the one who had personally done the blood tests Wakefield was referring to. Wakefield was forced to back down.
In 2002, Wakefield published another paper showing that measles RNA had been detected in intestinal biopsies of patients with bowel disease and developmental disorders. The tests were done at Unigenetics lab. Actually, Wakefield’s own lab had looked for measles RNA in the patients in the 1998 study. His research assistant, Nicholas Chadwick, later testified that he had been present in the operating room when intestinal biopsies and spinal fluid samples were obtained and had personally tested all the samples for RNA with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. The results were all negative, and he testified that Wakefield knew the results were negative when he submitted his paper to The Lancet. Chadwick had asked that his name be taken off the paper. So the statement in the paper that “virologic studies were underway” was misleading. Virologic studies had already been done in Wakefield’s own lab and were negative. Wakefield was dissatisfied with those results and went to Unigenetics hoping for a different answer.
Soon Wakefield’s credibility started to dissolve. The Lancet retracted his paper. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, described the original paper as “fatally flawed” and apologized for publishing it. [...]
Attempts to replicate Wakefield’s study all failed. Other studies showed that the detection of measles virus was no greater in autistics, that the rate of intestinal disease was no greater in autistics, that there was no correlation between MMR and autism onset, and that there was no correlation between MMR and autism, period.
In 2001 the Royal Free Hospital asked Wakefield to resign. In 2003, Brian Deer began an extensive investigation6 leading to an exposé in the The Sunday Times and on British television. In 2005 the General Medical Council (the British equivalent of state medical licensing boards in the U.S.) charged Wakefield with several counts of professional misconduct.
One disturbing revelation followed another. They discovered that two years before his study was published, Wakefield had been approached by a lawyer representing several families with autistic children. The lawyer specifically hired Wakefield to do research to find justification for a class action suit against MMR manufacturers. The children of the lawyer’s clients were referred to Wakefield for the study, and 11 of his 12 subjects were eventually litigants. Wakefield failed to disclose this conflict of interest. He also failed to disclose how the subjects were recruited for his study.
Wakefield was paid a total of nearly half a million pounds plus expenses by the lawyer. The payments were billed through a company of Wakefield’s wife. He never declared his source of funding until it was revealed by Brian Deer. Originally he had denied being paid at all. Even after he admitted it, he lied about the amount he was paid. Before the study was published, Wakefield had filed patents for his own separate measles vaccine, as well as other autism-related products. He failed to disclose this significant conflict of interest. Human research must be approved by the hospital’s ethics committee. Wakefield’s study was not approved. When confronted, Wakefield first claimed that it was approved, then claimed he didn’t need approval. Wakefield bought blood samples for his research from children (as young as 4) attending his son’s birthday party. He callously joked in public about them crying, fainting and vomiting. He paid the kids £5 each.
The General Medical Council accused him of ordering invasive and potentially harmful studies (colonoscopies and spinal taps) without proper approval and contrary to the children’s clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children’s symptoms or medical history. One child suffered multiple bowel perforations during the colonoscopy. Several had problems with the anesthetic. Children were subjected to sedation for other non-indicated tests like MRIs. Brian Deer was able to access the medical records of Wakefield’s subjects. He found that several of them had evidence of autistic symptoms documented in their medical records before they got the MMR vaccine. The intestinal biopsies were originally reported as normal by hospital pathologists. They were reviewed, re-interpreted, and reported as abnormal in Wakefield’s paper.
[...]
While the post is about Dr. Wakefield & the ruling against him (& his colleagues), it's inevitable that the conversation in comments will also include the topic of vaccinations in-general. Thus, we have some commenting guidelines on this one: We realize there are varying views on vaccines among Shakers, and no opinion is off-limits in the discussion, but we request that people make sure they are using "I" language to express those opinions and not making sweeping generalizations. Let's keep this a civil conversation, please.
The Lost-a-Thon Continues: Check Dis Shit Out
Hey, Shakers, it's Kenny Blogginz! Even NEWBORN BABIES know that I'm a huge LOST fan! (Thanks, Liss!) Anyway, I thought my fellow Lost-ites would appreciate this easter egg that Cory Doctorow* just shared with me (we're totally BFFs):
[It is the information for a flight leaving Sydney at 2:55pm and arriving in Los Angeles at 8:03am, at a cost of $4839, on Oceanic Airlines.]
------------------
* Actually BoingBoing guestblogger Jessamyn West. I just like using every opportunity I can to claim that Cory Doctorow and I are BFFs.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
RIP Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn, historian, author, educator, and activist, has died at age 87.
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as "A People's History of the United States," inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died [yesterday] in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. ... His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he suffered a heart attack.
...For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. "A People’s History of the United States" (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers -- many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out -- but rather the farmers of Shays' Rebellion and union organizers of the 1930s.
As he wrote in his autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" (1994), "From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble."
...In addition to his daughter, Dr. Zinn leaves a son, Jeff of Wellfleet; three granddaughters; and two grandsons.
Lost Facts!
Top five fake-ass wigs on Lost (in descending order):Breaking News
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, professional fat-hater, is a superdouche: Whole Foods has a new program in which it "will offer steeper employee discounts to people with lower BMIs." Charming.
[Click to embiggen.]
If you can't see the image, it's a letter from Mackey explaining the program, and it might as well be a picture of a steaming load of actual bullshit for all its value and sensitivity. With my apologies to bullshit.
[H/Ts to Shakers Lena and MistressSparkleToes.]
Watch Your Mouth - Part 2: Reappropriation and Cooption
(See Part 1 for Context)
I find idiomatic speech and shared lexicon endlessly fascinating -- never more so than when I study a sub-culture of which I am a proud member: The Gay.
I can't tell you the number of times I've stumbled on some online conversation where homophobes are moaning about how we nasty Queers have "hijacked" a perfectly nice word that used to mean "happy, merry" (happy, Mary?), and "why can't they just be called what they are -- homosexuals!".
Which is very amusing to me, because the term "homosexual" was coined in the late 1800s, and first used in an English text in 1897 -- at around the same time that queers were reclaiming the word "gay" in reference to themselves ("gay" was originally used idiomatically to indicate anything "immoral", but especially in terms of sexuality and promiscuity -- for example: a "gay house" was a brothel). Gay was used commonly within the community of self-identified homosexuals by the 1920s, and there's evidence that it was used as early as the late 1860s.
So which came first, Teh Homo or Teh Gay?
Doesn't matter, AFAIC -- what matters to me is how people being identified with a word want to be identified. Me? I prefer "queer" as a general term for the community I consider myself a part of, but I've had friends and lovers who hated this term -- they preferred "gay", or "LGBTQ" as a descriptor. My very best friend (my Beloved), doesn't like any of them, and doesn't want her sexuality labeled at all.
*Ahem* I shall henceforth trot myself back over to the focus of this post.
I think it's clear that by now, the word Gay has been reclaimed successfully by the queer community -- so much so, in fact, that it's unlikely that an author writing in English would use it without being aware that various layers of meaning might be read into it.
On the downside, it's been so successfully claimed that it can once again be used as a pejorative by virtue of being associated with queers ("That's so gay.") *sigh*
"Dyke" is another word that's been reclaimed (see Dyke, sub-category Portly), as is "queer", although the re-appropriation of these terms carries a certain level of controversy that is similar to (but, perhaps, milder than) the split in feminist communities over the word "bitch".
I know a number of lesbians who would be absolutely offended if I called them a dyke -- even in private, or in the exclusive company of other lesbians. I also know lesbians who would be offended if I referred to them as "gay women", and gay women who would be put off if I called them lesbians.
So what's a dyke to do?
Well, for one thing, comprehend and respect this fact: It is vitally important that oppressed persons retain the agency to identify themselves.
Labeling a minority, or any oppressed class, is big tool in the oppressor's tool-kit. That's why there is such a vast array of slurs applied to people who are disenfranchised based on their sex, gender, color, race, creed, orientation, disability, national origin, etc..
When a member of a privileged class uses these terms, they are saying, in essence: "I own the culture, and I get to define you." It is an attempt to exercise power, whether conscious or unconscious.
When a member of a non-privileged class re-appropriates the term, they are saying: "No, you do not define me."
Tends to piss them right off (the privileged label-makers, that is).
Here's a true-story example: I was walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend, and the guy we'd just passed said (just loud enough for us to hear): "Fucking dykes."
I turned around and said, in my cheeriest voice: "Congratulations, Sir! -- you have correctly identified the dykes -- but I will have to remove points from you for mis-identifying our current activity."
He was absolutely aghast.
I had not only refused to passively accept his right to label me pejoratively -- I had had the audacity to actually confront him for attempting to "power-over" me.
In his mind, the way this was supposed to work was that I would get scared, or drop my girlfriend's hand, or feel ashamed, or Maude knows what -- however he thought it was going to play out, clearly it did not include me engaging him directly and proudly claiming the term he sought to denigrate me with.
So, what does all this have to do with Part 1 of this series?
Let's say a person of privilege uses a term or idiom (perhaps with no intent to offend at all) and a member of the non-privileged class says that it is offensive to them, and the privileged speaker responds with something like: "That term has come into common use and isn't offensive anymore".
I believe that they are enforcing their privilege.
I believe that they are reiterating the following message (usually, completely unconsciously):
"I have the power. I own the language. Your experience does not count, and the fact that you are offended is of no consequence, because you have no power."
Which is fine, if you aspire to be a privilege-wielding butt-hole.
Reproductive Coercion
[Trigger warning.]
Anti-rape and domestic violence advocates have long known that a significant feature of many abusive straight relationships is unwanted pregnancy as the result of male sabotage of birth control—or, in some cases, disallowing their partners to use birth control altogether. Our culture is rife with narratives about women who "trap" men by "getting themselves pregnant," but rarely discussed are the stories of abusive men who poke holes in condoms, flush their partners' birth control pills down the toilet, monitor their partners' periods to ensure they're not using birth control, and in other ways try to control their partners' reproduction, because a child will keep them connected for life.
But earlier this month, Elizabeth Miller (whose name may be familiar), an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of California, Davis, published a new study in the journal Contraception addressing "reproductive coercion."
[Reproductive coercion] is when the male partner pressures the other, through verbal threats, physical aggression, or birth-control sabotage, to become pregnant. According to Miller's research, about a third of women reporting partner violence experienced reproductive coercion, as did 15 percent of women who had never reported violence.Younger women are also, of course, less likely to be making a living wage on which they can support themselves, particularly if they have already become pregnant. Abusive partners aren't seeking to create a baby; they're seeking to create a dependency in their partners.
Overall, rates of reproductive coercion among family-planning-clinic patients are surprisingly high: about one in five women report their partner having attempted to coerce them into pregnancy. "What we're seeing is that, in the larger scheme of violence against women and girls, it is another way to maintain control," says Miller, who studied 1,300 female patients culled from five family-planning clinics in Northern California. "You have guys telling their partners, 'I can do this because I'm in control' or 'I want to know that I can have you forever.' " This may help explain previous findings of higher rates of unintended pregnancies in relationships with partner violence.
The women in Miller's study were between 16 to 29; Miller will publish a study later in 2010 that finds similar numbers in demographics of older women. That said, younger women may have a more difficult time dealing with reproductive coercion: they have less experience in relationships, and, if they are minors, less access to doctors' appointments and emergency contraception. Particularly for teenagers in relationships with older men, the age difference "may have profound implications for perceived and actual reproductive choices for young adult women," Miller wrote in a 2007 paper on the same subject. "Such factors may also lead to fewer adolescents reporting such reproductive control as abusive, forced, or coercive." Put another way, teenage girls are at greater risk of not recognizing reproductive coercion as problematic, and allowing it to continue.
Which is why there exists a "men's reproductive rights movement" that seeks to wrest control of reproductive decisions from women.
It is also almost certainly, in part, why murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in America, many of whom are actively trying to leave the men who murder them when they are slain.
[H/T to Shaker Broce.]
SOTU Open Thread
Here's an open thread to discuss last night's State of the Union address (full text here; and the Republican response can be found here), in case anyone missed the Virtual Pub.
My overall assessment in a word: Meh.
Lots of proposals, many of which I didn't like (tax credits), and some I did (repealing DADT), but none of it means shit without the kind of action—and leadership—that Obama hasn't really shown himself to have so far. And, indeed, he spent way too much of the address IMO talking about partisan divisions and exhorting the GOP to engage in good faith, which they are simply never going to do. It was tiresome to watch.
Obama still doesn't seem to have realized that you can't simultaneously pander to your opponent and rally your troops. He missed a big rallying opportunity last night. And I fear it's really going to cost him.
Neo-Con Bullshit Is Still With Us
Self-referential paper is self-referential.
If the reports are to be believed, Women's Studies programs are disappearing at many Canadian universities. Forgive us for being skeptical. We would wave good-bye without shedding a tear, but we are pretty sure these angry, divisive and dubious programs are simply being renamed to make them appear less controversial.Also, pestilential, inconsequential, sewer-sedimential.
(CC's note: I have condensed the middle several paragraphs, to save your eyes* some strain:
MRA BULLSHIT, MRA BULLSHIT, MRA BULLSHIT; ALSO, BTW, MRA BULLSHIT, DID YOU KNOW? AND THEN MRA BULLSHIT. NO, REALLY. ALSO, WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ? NO, REALLY!)
While we'd like to cheer and say "Good riddance," we're certain such celebration would be premature.
It occurred to me while writing this that simply taking the article and search-and-replacing every occurrence of "Women's Studies departments" with "neo-con birdcage liner", and "(radical) feminism" with "morally bankrupt neofascist marketworship" would turn it into a pretty good piece, although the latter cries out for a good hearty acronymming.
Tip of the CaitieCap to Shaker Sara.
* My apologies for this. I'm leaving it in because I don't like erasing my mistakes, and as an example of how even those of us who do this on the public stage get it wrong sometimes, but I shouldn't have said this. It would be better as:
"...to save you some time."
Why? Because I othered visually-impaired people there. Not everyone peruses Shakesville with their eyes. Some probably use readers, or other assistive tech, to get their daily dose.
So, my apologies to those Shakers whom I othered, and I'll try to do better in future.
It Looks Like We're Going to Have a Mansplainer Thread After All
Links relevant to this post:
--Rebecca Solnit's L.A. Times essay, "Men who explain things".
--Zuska, You May Be A Mansplainer If...
--Jennifer Ouellette links to her post "Let Me Explain" in Zuska's thread. It's good reading.
--Zuska's follow-up thread, Men Who Cannot Follow Clear Directions From Women
On Monday morning, Zuska of Thus Spake Zuska opened a thread for her readers to discuss and mock the phenomenon of mansplaining. Zuska quotes Karen Healy’s definition of a mansplainer:
Mansplaining isn't just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.The thread is entitled “You May Be a Mansplainer If...”, and the space is supposed to be for sharing hallmark mansplainer behaviors that readers have witnessed, experienced, or even displayed.
Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate "facts" about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.
Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!
Think about the men you know. Do any of them display that delightful mixture of privilege and ignorance that leads to condescending, inaccurate explanations, delivered with the rock-solid conviction of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation?
That dude is a mansplainer.
Here is a great example of the phenomenon from mightydoll, reproduced with permission:
my ex used to do this:
ex: something's wrong with my computer.
me: Oh, looks like there's a phrenicle in the stubert zone
ex: something's wrong with my computer
me: Why not check the stubert zone for phrenicles?
ex: something's wrong with my computer - - I'll ask Dick at work about it.
A WEEK PASSES IN WHICH I MENTION THE STUBERT PHRENICLES A FEW MORE TIMES
ex: Hey, I spoke to Dick at work about my computer. Turns out, (begins speaking really slowly) there are these things called phrenicles which SPEAK ... TO... the molydimes. The molydimes can reside in the jiminy zone, or they can reside in the stubert zone, but WHEN they reside in the stubert zone, sometimes there's a problem with them communicating with the loovarths, so it's best to keep phrenicles out of the stubert zone. All I have to do is move these phrenicles back to the jiminy zone and it's solved. Isn't Dick at work a computer god?
me: ...
Predictably, the thread is littered with arguments and hurt feelings, most of which stem from a failure to understand the original post. (Hint: nobody claimed that all men mansplain, or that women are never tiresome know-it-alls.) And of course, people showed up to laugh at the comments that so aptly prove the post’s point.
I wanted to write a post in response, but foundered almost immediately. I couldn't decide exactly what to say beyond providing my own examples, which I did in Zuska's thread. My inchoate thoughts on the matter included the following:
1) I understand the pressure, at least in the United States, to avoid admitting ignorance. Especially in science and tech fields, everyone competes for the title of Most Knowledgeable, even though admitting ignorance and asking questions is crucial to gaining knowledge. Both genders feel this pressure. But men's opinions and ideas are privileged over women's, and men often receive positive feedback for holding forth, while women tend to be punished for doing the same. Anyone who has been chastised by a supervisor for being "too aggressive" while male coworkers were praised as "go-getters" for similar behavior knows what I'm talking about.
2) Gender-neutral words for "mansplanation"-type behavior include great terms like "rule-crapping" and "info-dumping" (see Zuska's comment thread). As much as I like these concepts, though, they remove reference to the male privilege that makes mansplaining what it is. Mansplaining is not just holding forth; it's holding forth by someone who has the force of society behind him. A girl or woman can be a tiresome know-it-all, but she won't be praised and supported in her efforts while those around her are discouraged from showing her up.
3) I sympathize. Really, I do. Boys grow up hearing that the worst thing they can be is wrong, or weak, or like a girl--indeed, all of these horrible things are lumped together. Gentlemen, those times that you were called a sissy, or a girl, or berated for getting beaten by a girl on a math test, I was there too. I got the same message: girls are less than. Yes, it's hard to prove yourself. Now, prove yourself and try to make up for not being a son at the same time.
4) So, all the sympathy in the world won't make me let mansplaining (or whatever you choose to call it) slide.
I couldn't think of any way to express all of these inchoate thoughts, so I put it off and just included the link in today's blogaround. But comments in that thread convinced me that there is real interest in a similar though broader discussion here, so I'm opening one. Unlike Zuska's thread, this one is not limited to mocking the phenomenon, although examples are welcome. Discussion of social forces behind the phenomenon of Men Who Explain Things is on-topic, as are techniques for dealing with such Explanations. The different ways in which society responds to any and all genders of "rule-crappers" would also be on-topic. Comments about what it’s like to grow up afraid of getting scooped by a girl, or to grow up being that girl, and effects this has had on your communication skills are welcome. Debates over whether mansplaining exists, or is truly gendered behavior, or comments claiming that men are not privileged and/or calling us sexist, will be deleted, because we don't argue with cranks. Feel free to write about those topics on your own blog, but please stay on-topic here.
Finally, if you find that your comment boils down to "I've got hurt feelings", please refrain from posting it, and enjoy instead this lovely video:
Flight of the Conchords, "Hurt Feelings". Season 2, Episode 3, "Tough Brets"
The State of the Union Pub Is Open
Drink up, Shakers. It's gonna be a long night.
Late in the day, CNN reported that Obama will ask Congress tonight to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Paul Campos captures the perfect tone of cynicism on this one:
Of course "asking" could mean everything from making this a legislative priority to engaging in a largely empty symbolic gesture. Given that Obama almost certainly has the authority to stop discharges based on sexual orientation by issuing an executive order, it will be interesting to see how seriously he pursues what up to now has been perhaps his most egregiously broken campaign promise.As ever, I expect the worst and hope for the best! Bottoms up! Glug glug glug.
[If you're searching for an online broadcast, C-SPAN will be streaming it.]
Question of the Day
What's your favorite political movie?
(By which I mean, a movie specifically about politics, as opposed to a movie that generally makes a political statement.)
There are a lot of political movies I like: The Girl in the Café, The Constant Gardener, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Milk, The Man, Dave, The American President, My Fellow Americans...
But my absolute favorite is one which was recommended to me last time we did this question (in 2007): The Contender. If you haven't seen it, do.
Clinton on Her Future
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Tavis Smiley in an interview airing tonight that she doesn't envision being a two-term cabinet member:
TAVIS SMILEY: Finally, there's already speculation about whether or not Secretary Clinton is going to do this for the full first term, and whether or not she has any interest if asked to stay on to do it for eight years? You see how tough the job is, can you imagine yourself doing all four years and, if asked, doing it for another four years?I get the feeling that most of the people who ask her that question are relieved when the answer is still no.
HILLARY CLINTON: No, I really can't. I mean, it is just…
TAVIS SMILEY: No to what? All four or eight?
HILLARY CLINTON: The whole, the whole eight, I mean, that that would be very challenging. But I, you know, I don't wanna make any predictions sitting here, I'm honored to serve, I serve at the pleasure of the President, but it's a, it's a 24/7 job, and I think at some point, I will be very happy to [LAUGHS] pass it on to someone else.
TAVIS SMILEY: That opens the door for the obvious question, what would Hillary Clinton want to do when she is no longer Secretary of State?
HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, I, there's so many things I'm interested in, I mean, really going back to private life and spending time reading, and writing, and maybe teaching, doing some personal travel, not the kind of travel where you bring along a couple of hundred people with you. Just focusing on, on issues of women, girls, families, the kind of intersection between what's considered 'real politique' and real life politics, which has always fascinated me.
TAVIS SMILEY: And finally, just for the record, you have said before, emphatically, in fact, that you are not interested in running again for President of the United States, I’m taking your answer now to mean that that's still the same?
HILLARY CLINTON: Absolutely not interested.
Elizabeth and John Edwards Separate
According to The Guardian:
[A] source close to Elizabeth Edwards told ABC News that she and John are now legally separated. Under North Carolina law they can't get divorced until at least a year later.
Discuss. Or not. I don't really care.
Daily Kitteh
It's frequently commented upon that Olivia is Big McLargehuge, not merely fat but long and tall, though the actual breadth of her enormity is rarely cast into such stark perspective as in this pic I snapped of her cuddling with Iain Sunday night. This is not a trick of the camera, nor is it Photoshopped, and Iain is not a small fella. (He's 6'1, broad-shouldered, and barrel-chested.) She is really just. that. big.
Another one with Iain. And here she is with Sophs, who is ridiculously titchy, but still.
Olivia is a lady of remarkable substance.
Watch Your Mouth - Part 1: Explain Yourself
(Part 1 of An Ongoing Series)
Recently, I participated in a conversation about certain words and phrases and when they do (or whether they can) become used as common vernacular to the extent that they lose any derogatory or degrading meaning inherent in their origins.
It isn't particularly important what the exact phrase being discussed was at this point, but it is a subject I see come up frequently, especially on blogs where people are making an effort to use language responsibly, inclusively, and non-oppressively.
So, I'm going to offer up what I use as my general guideline (aka "rule of thumb" -- see more about that in part 3 of this series, arriving in a few days) when thinking about what language I will use when communicating with others, especially on the internet.
I'll start with a wee story: A number of years ago, when I was first studying Hebrew, I would occasionally send an email in Ivrit to a friend in Israel. I was learning formal Hebrew, so to him, I'm sure my emails read as if I was a real stuffed shirt (fortunately, he knows me better than that). He would tease me a bit about my proper language and was infinitely good-natured and supportive when he corrected some of my word choices to a better reflection of day-to-day speech.
One day, though, I sent him an email about Halloween, and I indicated that many children had come to my door "begging for candy". He wrote back and warned me with uncharacteristic sternness that the word I had chosen for "begging" would be offensive to many native Hebrew speakers in this context, even if I was just being hyperbolic about the Trick or Treat traditional threat/demand chant of costumed children on a pagan-esque holiday.
I asked him to explain this to me, and he said that the word would imply, in Israeli culture, a certain level of poverty and powerlessness so abject that it would not be a joking matter, especially when referring to children.
He went on to talk about the complexity of attitudes re: begging and charity in Jewish and Israeli culture, and how using such a word in this context might even subtly indict the community referred to of failing in their responsibility to care for their children.
This experience was very enlightening to me. My friend's explanation took some time -- he had to provide me with history and context in order for me to fully comprehend, as someone outside both the culture and the language, why one word next to "Beg" in my Hebrew dictionary implied wretchedness and cultural failure, and another simply meant "asking emphatically".
Since then, I've used this as a tool for determining whether a commonly-used idiom can be successfully detached from any oppressive history or present-day offensiveness.
This is how I use the tool:
(Note: In this example, I'm going to use a fairly innocuous phrase, rather than something as highly-charged as "that's so gay", or "shuck and jive" or "bitch", but this technique can be applied to pretty much any phrase that some people receive as offensive because it's racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ablist, etc., while other people argue that commonality of use has rendered inert any roots in racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, etc..)
I'm going to use the phrase "Pardon My French".
Let's imagine that I am conversing with a person who is just learning English, has a fairly good word-by-word vocabulary, but who knows nothing about France except that it's a country, and nothing much about the culture of any country in which this idiom is used.
I say: "Damn this fucking pickle jar lid! -- Oh, pardon my French."
And they say, "Hmmm. Why are you wishing to send to hell the lid of a jar? And what do the French have to do with it?"
First of all, I would have to explain to this person what I mean by "damn this ___" (that what I really mean is definition 5 in the OED -- an expression of frustration).
If they ask (and why wouldn't they?) how a word whose first meaning is "be condemned by God to eternal punishment in hell" came to mean that I'm annoyed, there might be conversation about Judeo-Christian attitudes, and why some words which are considered "bad" come into use only in moments of great frustration. I might also need to relate this to any words considered to be "cussing" in the speaker's own language (which might involve the etymology of the word "cuss").
However, let's assume, for the moment, that the listener understands the concept of cursing, but is scrambling to comprehend the Gallic influence on my U.S. potty-mouth.
I would need to explain to this person a least a little bit my culture's historical attitudes and stereotypes about residents of the country of France, who are assumed to be libertine from birth, and why some members of other countries attempt to excuse their "salty" language by claiming that they are just speaking French (and then, of course, I'd have to explain why "salty" language has nothing to do with sodium chloride), and I'd probably need to put in some stuff about why some people in our culture think that using the word "damn" in any context is bad/wrong, and I'd probably touch on why they are likely to hear the word damn on broadcast television at some hours, but never the word "fuck", even though they are both "cussing". Phew!
The point is -- I consider that if I can't explain an idiom without also describing a system of bias or discrimination or oppression that gave rise to it -- the term is fundamentally discriminatory and/or oppressive.
And this is "just" Pardon my French! -- something I doubt most people think of as demonstrating bias (although I think it does) -- and the residents of France are not really all that disenfranchised as a group. Think about how the energy of oppression in these casually-expressed idioms are amplified when they involve groups and individuals who are more deeply other-ized.
You may be breathing an exasperated sigh at this moment and saying to yourself: "Oh PortlyDyke, do I have to always be thinking about every single word and phrase I use?"
No. You don't have to do anything.
However, in the text-saturated environment of the blogosphere, words and phrases are often the only tools we have -- and ostensibly, we are here to use those words and phrases to communicate to, and connect with, other people.
So, if there are words and phrases that I use, but haven't actually thought about -- idioms that may be so common that I don't have a clue about their etymology, but which I find are undeniably rooted in discrimination and oppression when I use the "explain it to a non-native speaker" exercise above (such as the phrase: "I got gypped" -- a slur against Romani people that I'm often surprised people don't know about) -- if I continue to use these words and people are offended by them and I say: "Hey, it's common usage! I didn't mean it like that" . . .
Well, if I do that, I think that what I'm really saying is:
"I want to use these phrases because they are an easy short-hand for me, and/or they make me sound hep, or edgy, or current -- and I want that more than I want to effectively communicate and connect with you."
Which, when I put it like that, sounds really shitty of me.
