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!
(Don't forget to tip your bartender!)
Daily Dose of Cute
[Please note that Dudley and Zelda bare their teeth at each other in this video. They're just playing, but if seeing dogs bare their teeth is triggering or otherwise problematic for you, you should skip this video.]
Video Description: Dudley and Zelda play-fight, "biting" at each other's necks, ears, and general head area. I tell them to try not to eat each other's faces off. They look at me and go back to the Bitey Game.
The two of them will do this for ages, until they're both so tired that they're just lying on their sides with their heads bumped together, nudging each other's noses.
Earlier, they were playing between the door of my office and my desk, and Sophie came up and mewed at them while they were playing, as if to say, "Pardon me." They paused and looked at her, then she walked right between them toward me, and they waited until she'd passed before going right back to it, lol.
Just Like Jesus Would Do
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse; rape culture.]
Priorities! The New York State Catholic Conference has them! And they are terrible!
According to reports filed with the Commission on Public Integrity, the Conference hired three lobbying firms in the first six months of 2011. Two firms worked exclusively opposing legislation that would give child sex crime victims more time to bring lawsuits or criminal charges. The third firm spent most of its time on such legislation.Emphasis mine.
Collectively, the Conference paid the three firms just over $111,000 in fees and expenses. The firms lobbied the governor, the State Senate, and the Assembly. The Church is concerned with limiting its financial liability in lawsuits resulting from allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests.
The Church is, of course, concerned with protecting its own ass, but the laws they are lobbying against apply to all survivors of sex crimes. They'd sooner see every child who has been sexually abused and silenced until the statute of limitations runs out denied justice than be accountable to the children their employees abused. Unconscionable.
[H/T to Shaker CarolV.]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by reproductive choice.
Recommended Reading:
Igor: Appeals Court Finds Individual Mandate Unconstitutional
Peter: Kill Switch Redux: British PM Cameron Considers Muzzling Social Media During Riots
Fannie: Losing Privilege Is So Oppressive
Arthur: [TW for racism] History happens. Try to understand it.
Susie: Who Won't Hire the Unemployed?
Adrienne: [TW for racism] Native Ex-NBC Employee "Siouxs" for Harassment
moyazb: (More) Love for Awkward Black Girl
And so much joy to Blue Gal and Drifty, on their wedding day.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Update: Virulent Video
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
On Tuesday, I posted about an advertisement for Always pads that's been making its way around the Internet.
Liss recently received a statement from Leo Burnett UK, the agency responsible for the film:
All creative agencies will look at different creative ideas to push boundaries and engage consumers. We will occasionally make test films to try and bring an idea to life without a request from the client. These films are for internal use only, for us to understand the power of an idea and are not for publication. The creative was never commissioned nor approved by P&G. We regret this has been made public without our approval or authorization and apologise for any offence caused.
Essentially, someone at Leo Burnett UK, leaked a copy of the video. Oh, and if any passive-tense offence was caused, the agency apologizes.
I still have a few questions.
Where's Proctor and Gamble in all of this? Somebody leaked an unauthorized advertisement for one of their products. You'd think this would call for a statement. Is P&G waiting to see what happens with the video, before they take a stand, possibly absolving themselves of any involvement?
Why did Leo Burnett UK make this ad in the first place? Don't clients typically give ad agencies reasonably clear parameters for the design of marketing campaigns? I mean, I doubt Leo Burnett would have devoted the resources to put together this video if they thought there was zero chance P&G would actually use it, or more to the point, if they thought it would offend their paying client.
I'm willing to buy Leo Burnett UK's assertion that something unfortunate happened, but I have to say, I think they and I might be talking about different things.
Rick Santorum Is Gross
[Trigger warning for sexual violence; body policing; misogyny.]
Rick Santorum, on his extreme abortion views, at the Republican Debate last night:
Moderator: Our next question is for Senator Santorum: In June, you said, quote, "I believe that any doctor who performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so." You would allow no exceptions for cases of rape and incest. [Santorum nods.] Polls have long shown that large majorities of Americans support at least some exceptions for abortion. Are your views too much even for many conservatives to support?Yes, Rick Santorum, to be victimized twice would be a horrible thing—and many women who get pregnant via rape consider being forced to carry to term a pregnancy caused by rape and bear their rapist's child a revictimization of their bodies. Which is why women have a choice. No pregnant rape survivor is required to get an abortion; and no pregnant rape survivor should be denied an abortion, either. And if you genuinely believed that to be victimized twice is a horrible thing, you would agree with me, you despicable, body-policing, misogynistic, hypocritical dipshit.
Santorum: You know, the Supreme Court of the Unites States, on a recent case, said that a man who committed rape could not be killed, would not be subject to the death penalty—yet the child [sic] conceived as a result of that rape could be. That to me sounds like a country that doesn't have its morals correct. That child [sic] did nothing wrong. That child [sic] is— [pauses for audience applause]. That child [sic] is an innocent victim. To be victimized twice would be a horrible thing.
It is an innocent human life. It is genetically human from the moment of conception—it is a human life—and we in America should be big enough to try to surround ourselves and help women in those terrible situations—they've been traumatized already! To put them through another trauma of an abortion I think is, uh, is too much to ask, and I so I would, I would just absolutely stand and say that ONE violence in enough!
I have said before that I ardently believe, by virtue of what giving birth demands of the human body, the anti-choice position to be inherently violent. To take an anti-choice position in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape is to turn the inherent violence up to 11.
Let me be blunt: Rick Santorum is suggesting that after a man violates my body without my consent, sticks his penis in my vagina without my consent, ejaculates into my body without my consent, impregnates me without my consent, that he, Rick Santorum, should then have the right to force me to submit my body for nine months to a pregnancy I do not want, force me to submit my body to all that pregnancy can entail, from morning sickness to milk-engorged breasts to stretch marks to potentially life-threatening complications, and then force me to push out a baby I did not consent to conceive through the same vagina that was raped nine months earlier, and then decide whether to parent my rapist's child or give up my child for adoption.
Which doesn't even take into consideration the financial cost of a pregnancy, nor the possible threat to my job, nor that I might have a husband, who would be obliged to raise my rapist's child with me, and about a million other things that are masked behind his casual grin as he suggests "let's rally behind women who are impregnated by rapists," as if a lack of support from misogynist shitbags is their primary reason for termination.
And he's worried about the double victimization of a fucking blastocyst.
The profundity of my contempt is cavernous.
[H/T to Steph Herold.]
Quote of the Day
"I hate wars and violence but if they come then I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas." — Nancy Wake, who kicked all kinds of Nazi ass during WWII after parachuting into the Auvergne as a member of the British Special Operations Executive. She died this week in London at age 98. RIP Nancy Wake.
Read the whole piece. She's awesome.
Arizona Upholds Restrictions
Back in 2009, Arizona passed a bunch of new restrictions in regards to abortion care and access. The Democrats in the (state) House were outnumbered, so they walked out in protest when it came time to vote on HB 2564. Well, the legislation went to court and Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Donald Daughton granted an injunction two years ago agreeing that the legislation could cause irreparable harm to women.
Yesterday the AZ Court of Appeals ruled against Judge Daughton's ruling. The court said that simply because it (the law) places a burden on some women, that is not enough to warrant the injunction. Sorry poor women or rural-living women or women who cannot afford so much time off from work! You don't count.
The judges said prohibiting anyone but a licensed physician from surgically terminating a pregnancy does not impose undue restrictions on a woman's constitutional right to choose.The ruling also stated that any medical professional definitely has the right of refusal to perform anything that they think may be an abortion or related to one--including dispensing contraception.
Judge Peter Swann, writing for the unanimous court, said the facts that nurse practitioners are specifically trained to do the procedure, are available in rural areas where Planned Parenthood does not have doctors, and have a comparable safety record are legally irrelevant.
The court also upheld laws requiring a woman to meet personally with the surgeon 24 hours before an abortion and for parental-consent forms for minors to be notarized, and allowing medical personnel, including pharmacists, to opt out of any participation in an abortion.
[...]
In his original ruling, Daughton upheld a requirement women wait 24 hours after meeting with their doctor to have the procedure, but said a personal meeting is not necessary. A consultation by telephone is sufficient, he ruled.
The appeals court disagreed.
"Courts have long recognized that eye-to-eye, face-to-face interaction is superior to videoconferencing," Swann wrote. He acknowledged the in-person consultation requirement could increase the cost, but said, "It does not practically deny a large portion of affected women their right to choose an abortion." He added Planned Parenthood provided no evidence it could not find enough doctors to meet the need.
Howard disagreed, saying there was testimony about the shortage of doctors trained to perform abortions. He also pointed out that state lawmakers just this year made it illegal for the University of Arizona College of Medicine to train doctors how to terminate pregnancies.
The injunction is, however, still in effect while Planned Parenthood decides to appeal and the state Supreme Court decides on whether it will review the case.
An Observation
Someone could make a lot of money with a cable channel that airs nothing but the last 30 seconds of every show my fucking DVR cuts off.
Bi-Monthly Reminder & Thank-You
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.
Managing Shakesville as a safe space requires, in addition to the time of our volunteer mods, my full-time commitment, and my salary is drawn exclusively from donations.** I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.
If you have recently appreciated getting distilled news about the debt ceiling negotiations; being able to discuss the UK Riots in a space interested in social justice; finding out where to direct your teaspoon to help in Somalia or be an ally to a community under attack; getting election news about candidates who are discussed on the basis on their policies alone, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.
I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, Film Corner!, the community in Open Threads, video transcripts, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.
You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Subscribe to Shakesville page, for even more options.
Let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
My thanks as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways, whether as a regular contributor, a guest contributor, a moderator, a transcriber, or as someone who takes the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.
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* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.
** I do not raise funds by required subscription, i.e. locking content behind a pay wall, as I want Shakesville to be accessible as possible irrespective of one's financial situation. And I do not raise funds via ads, for reasons explained here. In June, for example, because of my post criticizing body policing and fat hatred, I was served [TW for body policing and fat hatred] these content-generated ads on my Blogger dashboard.
[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible.]
Rick Perry Is Terrible
I mean, obviously we all know that Republican Governor of Texas Rick Perry, who wants to be US president, is terrible. I'm just not sure those of us who live outside of Texas know just exactly how terrible he actually is.
Like, for instance, did you know that he thinks the 17th Amendment the the US Constitution, which took the power to elect US Senators from state governments and put it in the hands of citizens, is garbage, for reasons he cannot logically defend? It's true!
That is only one of many fun facts you can find out about Rick Perry in this interview with Andrew Romano for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, my favorite part of which is this exchange about Perry's belief that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional (reporter in bold):
The Constitution says that "the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… general Welfare of the United States." But I noticed that when you quoted this section on page 116, you left "general welfare" out and put an ellipsis in its place. Progressives would say that "general welfare" includes things like Social Security or Medicare—that it gives the government the flexibility to tackle more than just the basic responsibilities laid out explicitly in our founding document. What does "general welfare" mean to you?A gentleman AND a Constitutional scholar!
I don't think our founding fathers when they were putting the term "general welfare" in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that's what those states decided to do.
So in your view those things fall outside of general welfare. But what falls inside of it? What did the Founders mean by "general welfare"?
I don't know if I'm going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant.
But you just said what you thought they didn't mean by general welfare. So isn't it fair to ask what they did mean? It's in the Constitution.
[Silence.]
OK. Moving on.
Number of the Day
3.7 million: The number of people in crisis in Somalia, because of the drought and subsequent famine: "In Somalia 3.7 million people are in crisis, 3.2 million people need immediate, life-saving assistance and 2.8 million or 80 per cent are in the south. Five areas of Somalia are officially in a state of famine, and the rest of southern Somalia could follow within the next four to six weeks."
Additionally: "The World Health Organization is warning of a cholera epidemic in Somalia."
The Huffington Post has a list of organizations working in the horn of Africa here. Please note that donations are not the only way you can help. Particularly in the media shadow of financial crises, UK riots, violence in Syria, and the US election, awareness-raising is desperately needed. Write about the famine on your blog, post about it on Facebook, Twitter, etc., talk to people one-on-one and ask them if they can help, via donations or spreading the word.
Five million people+ need our teaspoons.
So the Republicans Had a Debate Last Night
[Trigger warning for homophobia.]
And it was garbage no doy. But in addition to the usual refrains of class warfare, Obama's a socialist, and corporatocratic genuflection, the room was thick with the odor of dinosaur scat: At Think Progress, Igor notes that, despite 11.4% of the US population now living in a state that recognizes same-sex marriages, and a majority of USians now in favor of same-sex marriage, the anti-gay rhetoric was still flowing like whiiiiiine at the GOP debate—which, by the way, openly gay GOP candidate Fred Karger was not allowed to attend. GOP candidate Jon Huntsman effectively resigned from the campaign by unequivocally supporting civil unions.
Mitt Romney: Marriage should be decided at the federal level. Marriage is a status. It's not an activity that goes on within the walls of a state, and, as a result, our marriage status relationship should be constant across the country. I believe we should have a federal amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, because I believe the ideal place to raise a child is in a home with a mom and a dad.Man-woman marriage! LOL!
Jon Huntsman: I also believe in civil unions, because I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to equality, and I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to reciprocal beneficiary rights. And I believe that this is something that ought to be discussed among the various states. I don't have any problem with states having this discussion—but, as for me, I support civil unions.
Ron Paul: [asked about Santorum's rhetorical, "If a state wanted to allow polygamy, would that be okay, too?"] Well, it's sort of like asking the question if the states wanted to legalize slavery or something like that, that is so past reality that no state is going to do that. But, uh, on the issue of marriage, I think marriages should be between a single man and a single woman and that the federal government shouldn't be involved. I want less government involvement. I don't want the federal government having a marriage police.
Rick Santorum: It sounds to me like Representative Paul would actually say polygamous marriages are okay. If the state has the right to do it, they have the right to do it.
Michele Bachmann: I support the federal marriage amendment, because I believe that we will see this issue at the Supreme Court someday, and, as president, I will not nominate activist judges who legislate from the bench. I also want to say, when I was in Minnesota, I was the chief author of the constitutional amendment to define marriage as one man, one woman. I have an absolutely unblemished record when it comes to this issue—man-woman marriage.
Congratulations on your unblemished record of bigotry, Rep. Bachmann. Good job on being a TOTAL asshole, and not just half-assin' it like Jon Huntsman.
Summary: Yiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Question of the Day
So, six years ago today my youngest kiddo was born--and I cannot believe how fast the last six years have gone by! Six years ago today: I had a newborn, a one year old, a two & a half year old, and a five year old (and I didn't sleep! LOL); we lived in Ohio in a rented townhouse in the town we grew up in; I wasn't yet writing for Shakesville (though I'd start a bit later that year), nor had I become the activist I am today (not that I had much time right then, LOL).
In those six years we've come a long way as a family (in a lot of ways, including moving 2300 miles away!) and I have personally, as well. It's not always been roses--not by a long, long shot--but I definitely have many blessings to count, as the saying goes. I can only imagine what I'll be looking back on six years from now.
How was life for you six years ago? Have things gone how you thought they would six years ago? Any plans for the next six?
Nope!
Promoting some garbage film that will be out next summer (whut?) about a couple who wish a child into existence, actress Jennifer Garner said she "understands her character's yearning [for a child because] 'There's no deeper want for a woman' than to be a mother."
Nope!
For some women. Not all women.
This is seriously like the hundredth article I've read in which an actress cast as a mother says the same thing.
It aggravates me because it is not true, and because it disappears women who don't want children as well as women who do want (or have) children but want something else even more, but it also grieves me because I suspect that the actresses who say this, most of whom are in their 30s and starting to find that the film industry is offering them increasingly fewer roles besides "mom," are saying this thing, at least in part, to try to imbue with greater importance the only role they are allowed to fill.
I can imagine it feels less demeaning to play "mom" over and over, if you believe that "mom" is the best and only role that women really want to play.
Maybe I wouldn't have read a hundred actresses offering some variation on "motherhood is woman's true nature" if actresses played astronauts and scientists and cops and writers and assassins and ranchers and politicians and thieves and sculptors and loggers and ophthalmologists as often as they played mothers. Is what I'm saying.
Not that those vocations and motherhood are mutually exclusive pursuits, anywhere else in the world besides the Big Screen.
Number of the Day
Ten Thousand: The number of hours I spent laughing at Senator Jim DeMint's contention that the Obama administration is "the most anti-business and I consider anti-American administration in my lifetime."
GOOD ONE, JIM!
I guess President Obama isn't wearing his flag lapel pin hard enough while creating new ways for corporations to exploit people. Actual people.
Seriously, to call Obama anti-business is a joke. And to call him anti-American is straight-up racist. There's nothing anti-American about Barack Obama or his administration, except by definitions that are privileged, prejudiced, dog-whistlin' horseshit.
The only way that could be not a thinly-veiled reference to Obama's Otherness is if DeMint was using careless shorthand to make an argument about Obama's policies' deleterious effects on not-rich Americans. But HA HA we all know Republicans don't give a fuck about them and do not make arguments that the President isn't doing enough to help the poor. Which is why DeMint was complaining about Obama being anti-business and not anti-working people or anti-unemployed people or anti-PEOPLE OF ANY KIND WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY JIM DEMINT'S ALLEGIANCE in the first place.
SUPERCOMMITTEE!!!
Representatives James Clyburn, Xavier Becerra, and Chris Van Hollen: Those are the three Democratic dudes House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has named to the SUPERCOMMITTEE!!!, making Democratic Senator Patty Murray the only woman chosen for the dirty dozen tasked with figuring out how to austere the shit out of the national budget.
That's 8.3% representation, ladies. Which is twice as bad as the 16% representation we've got in the regular Congress. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
Senator Harry Reid's picks are here. Senator Mitch McConnell's and Speaker John Boehner's picks are here.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for violence; sexual assault; gender essentialism; misogyny.]
If you haven't already used up ALL the barf bags reading Max Hastings argue that liberalism is to blame for the decay of English society, grab whatever's left and head over to read Frank Miniter argue that feminization is to blame, in his piece inevitably titled "England Used to Be a Country of Men."
"Fuck you."—Every English Queen.
Miniter, based on "several recent conversations with Englishmen," has concluded that the English are lost if they don't start packing heat, which will help restore the nation's manliness, a loss for which he finds evidence in an image of a (white) English man being forced to disrobe in the street by a (black) English man.
He refers to the man being assaulted as "the feeble Englishman." The man assaulting him is, naturally, not even identified as an "Englishman," but is merely "an impatient looter."
Suffice it to say, I could not more profoundly disagree with Miniter's contention that being assaulted makes one "unmanly," but, granting that rotten definition for the purposes of argument, it defies Miniter's own logic (such as it is) to fail to praise the black looter for his manly show of violent strength—unless, of course, one fails to acknowledge that the black looter is also "an Englishman."
And also if one argues that only violent self-defense against looters is manly, but violent self-defense against oppressive governments is not.
(Hey, Tea Party—don't look now, but Frank Miniter is calling the Founding Fathers pussies!)
Miniter admonishes "England's law-abiding citizens" that "giving up their natural right to self-defense" has left them "defenseless both physically and psychologically. The loss of their right to self-preservation has created a culture of dependency on government (for protection and so much more) that has helped neuter the English male."
But lest you mistake him for some kind of sexist, he assures us that "gun rights are women's rights, as they make the frailest woman the equal of the strongest male."
Take note, Queen Elizabeth!
Great Candidate! Successful Campaign Stop!
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) exchange with a few hecklers turned into somewhat of a shouting match while he was stumping Thursday in Iowa.Soylent Green is corporations!
...The first two questioners pointedly asked Romney why he wouldn't raise the cap on Social Security taxes, or promise not to cut Medicare benefits.
...Romney defended his free-market belief with a line sure to be dredged up by his political opponents: "Corporations are people, my friend."
During the back-and-forth, Romney also admonished his hecklers: "If you don't like my answer, you can go vote for someone else. If you want someone who will raise taxes, you can vote for Barack Obama." IF ONLY.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence.]
"When someone saves your life, and her life is taken in the process, how can you let it go to waste? You can't. I feel that all the time. So I try to be the best person I can be and try to make the most of the life Teresa saved. It's not easy. (Did I mention that?) There have been dark, painful moments. But there have been incredible, delicious, blissful, and hopeful moments as well."—Jennifer Hopper, who reveals her name and tells her story in The Stranger of being the "survivor of the South Park attacks of July 19, 2009," during which she and her partner were raped, her partner was murdered, and she was nearly killed, too. The piece is powerful and difficult and sad and beautiful, and I encourage you to read it, if you can.
(It does not contain graphic details of the incident.)
[H/Ts to Shakers kb, bgk, and femwanderluster.]
Texas Governor Rick Perry Is Polling Well
In a new CNN poll, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who decided to run for president after talking to his wife, George W. Bush, and Jesus, is polling very well, just two points behind blah blah fart yawn.
Slumlord Millionaires
So let me see if I have this straight: The Obama administration's proposed solution to the foreclosure crisis is basically to turn it into a massive, government-sanctioned land grab, in which corporations use federal subsidies to profitably rent houses back to the people who used to own them. Awesome.
I'm guessing it's safe to surmise that rich conservatives will not be caterwauling about this heinous "redistribution of wealth," since the wealth is being redistributed upwards.
I love trickle-up economics!
This, apparently, is the best idea an administration deliberately choosing not to focus on tax increases and job creation can come up with to address a faltering economy. And that is very, very worrisome, because getting out of any recession requires more than piddling ideas that stand to make the already-wealthy even wealthier, and getting out of this recession in particular requires creativity and innovation, for reasons succinctly outlined by Austan Goolsbee, the outgoing director of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, last week on Meet the Press:
Now, the, the depth of the recession and the nature of it, that it's coming out of a bubble, that we can't just go back to what we were doing before the recession began makes this particularly hard to get out of. ... It can't be just going back to building residential houses and consuming more than we're earning, which were the drivers of growth before.In plain language, we can't hope to just get "back on track." The tracks are gone. We need to build new tracks. (Literally.)
Before the recession, our economy was built on a house of cards; now that the housing and credit bubbles have burst, we have to have something new to drive the economy. That might be sweeping infrastructure projects, green technology development, whatever—but it sure as shit ain't turning the foreclosure crisis into a national land grab.
On the UK Riots, Part Three
[Trigger warning for violence; dehumanization; eliminationism.]
For the latest, I will just point once again to the front page of The Guardian's comprehensive coverage. I'll also recommend this CNN piece on the three Asian men who were killed by a hit-and-run driver while trying to protect their families' shops.
In the Daily Mail (I know, but STILL), Max Hastings writes one of the most vicious screeds I've yet read, which is really saying something, because I've read a lot of nasty shit the past few days. His thesis serves as the blunt headline: "Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters."
He writes with seething vitriol, using the vilest dehumanizing and eliminationist language, of the underclass (or, more accurately, his impression of the underclass) that he asserts has been created by wanton liberalism:
The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.To exist, rather than live, is a profound tragedy; and yet Hastings feels no compassion for people so catastrophically failed by their country—a point on which Hastings and I both agree, despite our difference of opinion regarding the source of that failure (to which I'll return in a moment). Instead, he blithely implies they are fortunate to not have been shot for behaving in precisely the way they've been socialized to behave.
Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.
They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.
They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.
Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it.
A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the 'feral children' on his patch — another way of describing the same reality.
The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call 'lives': they simply exist.
On the one hand, he argues, "Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community," and "These kids are what they are because nobody makes them be anything different or better," and cites at length the alleged failures of liberalism which has degraded the entire society, but, on the other, he sneers at those failed young people: "My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham."
Not only is he holding individuals responsible for systemic problems, the hallmark of garbage conservative thinking, but he is, without a trace of irony, taking to the pages of a national newspaper to debase in the most Othering, dehumanizing, cruel language the very people he says liberal ideology has failed.
Because demeaning people as less than human in national publications has nothing to do with creating a cavernous void of anything resembling a sense of belonging among marginalized populations.
Hastings explains that liberalism has failed by giving to people in need too much:
An underclass has existed throughout history, which once endured appalling privation. Its spasmodic outbreaks of violence, especially in the early 19th century, frightened the ruling classes.Suffice it to say, looking back at history and finding the same explosive bursts of insurrection, which can only be "kept at bay" by removing people entirety from society, leads me to a very different conclusion than "ostensibly having relieved people in need of hunger and real want is liberalism gone too far."
Its frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.
Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.
In fact, it leads me to the conclusion that liberalism has not gone far enough to create a pluralistic and inclusive society that is materially different for people in need than life in the 19th century.
Maybe people need more than food in their bellies to feel like their government and countrypersons give a fuck about them.
Just a thought.
Question of the Day
Nicked from fbomb: What was the first consciously feminist thing you ever did?
My earliest feminist memories are about asking questions: Why aren't women allowed to be ministers? Why are all my teachers women? Why do men get to go shirtless in hot weather, but women can't? Why isn't there a girls' football team?
Questioning gender divisions was the first feminist thing I ever did, but I didn't realize it. The first consciously feminist thing I ever did was encouraging other people to ask the same questions.
An Observation
It seems to me that about 99.9% of the shit labeled "pranks" is actually just straight-up bullying.
Photo of the Day
A Nepalese artist paints graffiti in Kathmandu as part of an artist movement organised through Facebook. Members of the Facebook groups "Artudio Nepal" and "The Image Park" have been painting wall murals on the city's walls in an effort to create clean and positive expression that promote beauty instead of the unwanted political slogans and pamphlets which often litter the city walls. [Reuters Pictures]
Number of the Day
75%: The property tax discount over the next 30 years granted by the city of Williamstown in Grant County, Kentucky, to Answers in Genesis for the construction of the Ark Encounter, a Noah's Ark-themed biblical amusement park, "which will feature a full-size replica of Noah's Ark." Sure.
The tax deal is in addition to almost $200,000 given to the company by Grant County's economic development arm as an enticement to keep the project located there, along with 100 acres of reduced-price land."Schools are for suckers."—Jesus.
And that's not counting the state's promise of $40 million worth of sales tax rebates and a possible $11 million in improvements to the interstate near the project that would be financed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
...The property tax agreement means the Ark Encounter would pay 25 percent of the taxes due on 800 acres of property that is eventually expected to be worth $150 million. Most local property taxes are used to finance Williamstown Independent Schools.
[Via Memeorandum.]
Daily Dose of Cute
"I have the cutest belly!"
"No, I have the cutest belly!"
"My belly puts your middling bellies to shame!"
"I do believe my belly is King Belly of All the Bellies."
"You cannot be serious."
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by a Town Called Malice.
Recommended Reading:
Richard: Democrats Fall Short in Heated Wisconsin Recall Elections
Digby: Mushy Peas: Austerity Bites
Tommy: Mostly a Gold Star: Chris Christie
Andy: Rick Santorum Compares Same-Sex Marriage to a Non-Alcoholic Beverage
Microaggressions: "Where are you from?"
The Rotund: What Fat Acceptance Is and Isn't
Fannie: Ask a Feminist
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Thank You, Dr. Frist
I'm so glad Bill Frist is around to let me know I have economic reasons to care about starving people.
Quote of the Day
"It is peaceful here. There is no gunfire. But we are starving."—Ali Hulbale, 30, a Somalian refugee who, with his wife and two children, lives on the outskirts of the Dadaab refugee complex in northeastern Kenya, which "now holds 372,000 people, more than four times its original capacity. ... The onrush of refugees has created a backlog of 17,000 people and growing who can languish for months before they are registered, said Alexandra Lopoukhine, a spokeswoman for the aid agency CARE International."
If you are able to help, you can donate to CARE International's campaign for Somalia here. Doctors Without Borders is also active in the area; you can donate to DWB here.
CNN has some other ideas about how to help here.
Whoops Your Trojan T-shirt!
From Germany, Shaker The Bald Soprano e-mailed me a story about a hilarious stealth action for social justice.
Okay, so that link is in German. There's an English-language link (though with less info) here from the BBC, and from DW-World (the German 24-hour news network's online section) here, with a lovely picture of the shirts before and after.
In short, there was a right-wing music festival being held in Thuringia, in the eastern part of Germany, sponsored by the NDP (National Democratic Party, an extreme right-wing group, with a not-very-disguised reference in their acronym to the NSDAP, the official name of the Nazi Party). Many neo-Nazis were in attendance.
A group called Exit Deutschland, devoted to helping people leave the extreme right-wing groups, stealthily prepared a selection of t-shirts with a skull and crossbones and the words "Hardcore Rebels". These were given away free at the concert, through a clever bit of subterfuge, by the NDP itself.
Only when the attendees got their shirts home and washed them, the message changed. The shirts faded, to reveal a message:
Was dein T-Shirt kann, kannst du auch
(what your shirt can do, you can too)
...along with the URL, and a message saying that they were an NGO available to help people leave the neo-Nazi groups. The shirts were designed and paid for by a marketing firm which had come up with the idea.
I raise my teaspoon in salute, Exit Deutschland (link is only available in German, sorry). Bravissimo!
Ô,ÔP
SUPERCOMMITTEE!!!
Boehner, McConnell announce picks for deficit 'super committee':
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced Wednesday that he has chosen Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) to be part of the so-called "super committee" of congressional lawmakers tasked with finding another $1.5 trillion in deficit savings over the next 10 years.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also announced his picks Wednesday, selecting Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to fill the Senate Republicans' three slots.
Boehner said in a statement that he had tapped Hensarling, who serves as the House Republican Conference chairman, to serve as the committee's co-chair.
"Everything comes to he who waits—and I have waited so very long for this moment."
Sen. Harry Reid's picks are here. Rep. Nancy Pelosi has yet to announce hers.
Meanwhile...
...in the US, where we are determined to double-down on the social and economic injustices currently coming to rolling boil in the UK, Paul Krugman reports that the Obama administration has made "a deliberate decision to focus on the wrong issues, knowing that they're the wrong issues," because they want to "keep the public focused on the deficit drama—to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington's paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public's attention from the President's failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia."
Let them eat deficits, or whatever.
On the UK Riots, Part Two
Here's the latest...
The Guardian—Lockdown in London, while trouble flares in Nottingham and Manchester:
A police station in Nottingham was firebombed late on Tuesday by a group of up to 40 men, police said, while there was looting in Manchester and there were tense scenes in Salford.The front page of The Guardian's comprehensive coverage is here.
Canning Circus police station in Nottingham was attacked by the group but no injuries were reported, Nottinghamshire police said just after 10pm.
The force said a number of men were detained nearby.
There was also trouble in Birmingham and other parts of the West Midlands, but relative calm in London as Scotland Yard attempted to put the capital in lockdown with 16,000 police on the streets, in contrast to 6,000 on Monday.
Scotland Yard ordered its officers to use every available force including the possible deployment of plastic bullets to tackle widespread rioting and looting as the capital was flooded with the biggest police presence in British history.
For raw, naked ugliness of response, you won't find anything that beats this piece of contemptible shit, titled "Let Britain Burn," care of the loathsome John Derbyshire [tw for eliminationist language]: "Through British veins runs the poisonous fake idealism of 'human rights' and 'sensitivity,' of happy-clappy multicultural groveling and sick, weak, deracinated moral universalism—the rotten fruit of a debased, sentimentalized Christianity. ... I treasure my faint, fading recollections of Britain when she was still, for a few years longer, a nation. Today Britain is merely a place, a bazaar. Let it burn!" A thoughtful, measured response from an upstanding conservative.
There's an interesting bit in this AP piece, further underlining the class and generational disconnect between law enforcement and many of the rioters:
In the northwestern city of Manchester, hundreds of youths rampaged through the city center, hurling bottles and stones at police and vandalizing stores. A women's clothing store on the city's main shopping street was set ablaze, along with a disused library in nearby Salford.I feel like I'm stating the obvious here (although this idea appears to be anything but obvious virtually everywhere the riots are being discussed), but "hundreds of youths" don't go on a "rampage" without any reason, even if that reason is simply having no incentive not to. And, truly, feeling utterly devoid of any reason to not take to the streets of your community and destroy it is a profound injustice.
Manchester assistant chief constable Garry Shewan said it was simple lawlessness.
"We want to make it absolutely clear — they have nothing to protest against," he said. "There is nothing in a sense of injustice and there has been no spark that has led to this."
That sort of collective apathy, or antipathy, particularly when marked by a stark generational divide, is indicative of a cultural failure to provide something to young people worth personally investing in. Most observers claim to see no connection between black Londoners rioting against police oppression and white Mancunian teens "rampaging for no reason," but there is an overwhelming—and evident—plume of dispossession, neglect, marginalization, purposelessness, voicelessness, disconnection from the life that Britons are supposed to have, and supposed to want, emanating from every street upon which are running rioters dismissed as incomprehensible animals.
"People are all at home—they're scared," London convenience store owner Adnan Butt is quoted as saying by the AP. Sure. Except for the people who are rioting. Who, at best, are not considered to be People Who Matter, and, at worst, are not considered to be people at all.
I keep coming back to that "disused library* in nearby Salford," and it just seems to hang there like a symbol of the plague of neglect that creeps across any nation in the shadows of robber barons who hoard bootstraps and champion austerity measures.
And I am reminded of the video to which Kevin Gosztola linked, in which teenagers from Haringey in London are interviewed by The Guardian about the closing of 13 youth clubs by the local council and express their concern about how they won't have anywhere to go and no more creative outlet, and the idleness and boredom will fuel violence between gangs set adrift.
When parents neglect their children, we (rightly) call it criminal. When governments neglect their people, well, we might call it criminal if that government is a dark-skinned warlord who's stealing food intended for his country's starving citizens. But when a "civilized" government neglects to provide choices, resources, options for meaningful work, opportunities for participation in conversations about national needs and identity, cultural inclusion, some basic sense of being valued, to its citizens, we call that "democracy," and call criminal any display of frustration, despondency, rage at that grotesque injustice.
We pretend that "almost everyone has food and can scrape by, and anyone who can't is just a shiftless waster, anyway" is good enough, and we pretend that the government and upper classes in wealthy countries aren't constantly conspiring to wage a civil war of economics and access against people living lives of quiet desperation who are accused of being irrational and crazy and savage and uncivilized by their oppressors if they have the temerity to object to their oppression, and we pretend that a sustained campaign of marginalization and denial and subjugation doesn't amount to a lifetime of abuse committed against vulnerable people by their own government.
And we pretend that a government in service to an ideal that ostracizes many citizens by virtue of poverty and others by virtue of indifference to its ostensible rewards is a functional government and not simply a tool of privileged elites.
Those pretenses are going up in smoke across the UK.
-----------------
* In comments, Shaker virescence notes that the building in question is actually "the council housing office, which was converted from a former library," and details some of the "regeneration" (i.e. gentrification) measures being undertaken in Salford, making the burning of the council housing office an even more pointed symbol of neglect than if it had merely been a disused library.
Question of the Day
So, Dirty Dancing is being remade, to which I can only respond: NO!!! JUST NO!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But, TOO BAD, it's happening, so: Who would you cast as Baby and Johnny in a remake of Dirty Dancing?
SUPERCOMMITTEE!!!
Harry Reid super committee picks in place:
In the first of what will be a closely watched selection process for a powerful new deficit panel, Democratic sources say Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will appoint Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Max Baucus (Mont.) and John Kerry (Mass.) as his three choices for a super committee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in spending cuts by the end of this year.
Murray will serve as co-chair of the 12-member panel. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will select a co-chair and two other panelists, as required by the next debt limit agreement signed into law by President Barack Obama last week. Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell will each select three additional members.
THEY HAVE THE POWER!!!
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for fat dehumanization.]
Actual Headline: It Pays to Be Fat.
Actual Lede: "Employers may punish women who are obese with lower wages, but not all women are paying a penalty. Single women who are obese earn higher wages because they invest more in unobservable job skills. Why? Because heavy women have to plan on never having a husband to help pay the bills."
Mmm. Or maybe because they work longer and harder and better because they are terrified to lose the job they have since they know that fat women, married or single, face strong employment discrimination. Earning more on average doesn't help single fat women who can't get a job.
Also: It's not entirely clear from this piece what "earning more" even means. Does it mean that single fat women earn more on average full-stop, or that single fat women merely earn more on average than married fat women? And what defines a "single fat woman," anyway?—does that group include lesbian/bi women partnered with other women, or just any woman not married to a man?
Because, you know, those aren't actually the same things.
Such a failure to include anything approaching reasonable definitions of groups being discussed might normally be the worst thing about a Worst Thing article. But I'm afraid the lack of clarity pales in comparison to what is quite genuinely one of the most atrociously dehumanizing images of a headless fatty I have ever had the displeasure to see. I love how it's cropped: Boobs, belly, fat legs. That's all we are.
[H/T to Erica.]
Daily Dose of Cute
"I still can't stop thinking about Tony. Wondering where he could be, who he is with, what is he
thinking, is he thinking of me, and whether he'll ever return someday."
"I am so the boss of you, mutt."
Q&A
Q: Does Rick Santorum ever stop being stupendously stupid and colossally cruel?
A: No.
This has been another edition of Easy Answers to Rhetorical Questions.
Case in point:
All the other necessities of life, we allow people to have varying degrees of creature comforts, if you will. Why? Because we are people who ration our resources based upon what's important to us and health care has to be one of those things, which is in the mix of things we make decisions about as to what type of, what kind of money we want to allocate to that.Oh, Santorum. Please check your email immediately, because I just sent you an Evite for a get-together at which we're gonna dip ALL THE THINGS in gold! Be sure to wear your fanciest bootstraps!
I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions…I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you're complaining that you're paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What's your cable bill? I mean, what's your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that's a problem? No, that's a blessing!
[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment and rape culture.]
"Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman's bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can't we be friendly?"—Actor Jeremy Irons.
Charming.
Note that when Irons says "deal with it," what he really means is "let a man grope her without complaint." Telling a man to get his hands off her and fuck off, forcibly removing a man's hand from her body, filing a harassment complaint...these are all ways that a woman might "deal with" a man touching her without her explicit consent.
They just don't happen to be ways of "dealing with it" that Irons, a sexual harasser, finds acceptable.
And because auditors audit in support of the rape culture, naturally he finds only a woman who reacts with quiet acquiescence to harassment is a woman "worth her salt." Sure.
I will note, with all the volcanic contempt it deserves, that women who are most inclined to react with the silent indulgence that Irons finds so laudable are women who have survived sexual violence and freeze with terror when triggered by unsolicited touching.
I shudder to consider how many nervous smiles, offered as a defense mechanism by women who calculate if I just go along with his fondling my ass, and be quiet about it, he won't escalate, have been interpreted by Jeremy Irons as a flirtation in response to his "friendly communication."
Today in Virulent Videos
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
Yesterday Jezebel drew my attention to a recent "viral" video for Always pads. Why yes, it is "edgy".
The first thirty seconds is of trans* women crying. There's a woman crying on a stage. There's a drag queen putting on makeup and a wig while crying. There's another woman crying on a different stage. Imagine thirty seconds of that, all set to sad music.
The screen then fades to black, and we see:
"There are some people who'd just love to have a period."
Followed by:
"Let alone a happy one."
The commercial then cuts to a woman with a massive beehive hairdo sitting on a toilet, crying. She slams the door to the stall, which reveals a sign that reads "Gentlemen".
The video ends with the text:
"Have a happy period. Always."
There's a lot to discuss here. Okay, there's probably not, because it's obvious what Proctor and Gamble is doing here. Still, a quick recap:
First: The ad is quite obviously conflating drag and performance with transsexuality, which is hardly new. Once or twice I've seen folks imply that trans* women are actually men, and that our identities, like femininity itself, are artificial. Yawn.
Second: The ad is mocking trans* women for feeling disconnected an alienated from their bodies. Yes, some of us do shed tears over these things. No, we do not tend to do so in the men's room.
Third: Aside from "trans* women are laughable", the only other message the spot sends is "periods are a bitch, amirite?", which strikes me as neither original nor endearing. I mean, I talk with lots of women about their periods, and they've got all sorts of things to say, often unpleasant. However, the whole "having a period is the worst! thing! evar!" shtick strikes me as more than a bit misogynistic.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with convincing folks to buy P&G's product.
Of course, this is an attempted viral video. What P&G desperately wants is for someone like me to get all up in the Internet pointing out the above obvious problems with this presently obscure video.
This leaves me with a choice. I can remain silent, because duh transphobia is everywhere and maybe if I keep quiet people will ignore it, or I can speak out and risk demonstrating that transphobia sells.
The problem is that transphobia kills. Ultimately, I can allow society to walk all over me, or I can face accusations that I'm humorless and angry. P&G knows this.
The thing is, I chose none of the above. I've got enough faith in society to still believe that "Transphobia! Misogyny! Buy!" isn't automatically an ace marketing strategy for a product that's bought by women and trans* people.
Furthermore, it is possible to be "viral" without being "virulent". It is possible to be funny on the Internet. There are plenty of domain names out there with offensive words in them. Yay for grabbing attention! The issue, is both how you grab that attention and what you do with it. This video misses the mark, because it's appalling, full stop.
P&G can do better. If they want me to buy their products, I suggest they do so.
The Exploiting Exploited Children to Spy on Everyone Act
[Trigger warning for child sex abuse.]
One of the greatest ironies of the rape culture is that when legislative bodies, who typically spend their time diligently ignoring victims of sexual violence and exploitation, suddenly make an effort to pay attention to sex crimes, they use the existence of sexual violence and exploitation to pass sweeping (and grossly ineffective in sex crime prevention) legislation that gives the government more access to and control over people's lives.
See, for example, sex predator registries which fail utterly to make distinctions between someone who has raped children or a nonconsenting adult and someone who has been convicted of statutory rape of a consenting partner one year younger, i.e. a teenage dating relationship on either side of the age of consent, most of which end up getting prosecuted only because the teens are caught by cops in public, e.g. doing it in the backseat of a car, or because the younger teen's parents don't like the older boy/girlfriend (or their race, or their sexuality). I don't guess I need to explain why I don't believe a young gay man reported for statutory rape by his boyfriend's bigoted parents who accuse him of "recruiting" their son belongs on a sex predator registry.
Anyway.
Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes about the latest legislation of this flavor, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, which Friedersdorf aptly describes as "arguably the biggest threat to civil liberties now under consideration in the United States. The potential victims: everyone who uses the Internet."
[The bill would require] the firm that sells you Internet access would be required to track all of your Internet activity and save it for 18 months, along with your name, the address where you live, your bank account numbers, your credit card numbers, and IP addresses you've been assigned.When James Sensenbrenner is the voice of reason, you know the train has derailed. But he's right: There's absolutely no way that this proposed legislation, which has passed out of committee and awaits a House vote, is going to be a meaningful contribution to sex crimes prevention. And the suggestion is so absurd that I can only believe its sponsors, including Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), who claims on his website to be "an outspoken defender of individual privacy rights," hope that no one will dare to question this vast expansion of the government's ability to snoop on its citizens because that egregious encroachment of civil liberties is being proposed under the auspices of "protecting children."
Tracking the private daily behavior of everyone in order to help catch a small number of child criminals is itself the noxious practice of police states. Said an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American." Even more troubling is what the government would need to do in order to access this trove of private information: ask for it.
I kid you not -- that's it.
As written, The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 doesn't require that someone be under investigation on child pornography charges in order for police to access their Internet history -- being suspected of any crime is enough. (It may even be made available in civil matters like divorce trials or child custody battles.) Nor do police need probable cause to search this information. As Rep. James Sensenbrenner says, (R-Wisc.) "It poses numerous risks that well outweigh any benefits, and I'm not convinced it will contribute in a significant way to protecting children."
I couldn't more want effective sexual violence and exploitation prevention initiatives in this country (most of which would not be legislative in nature), but this is garbage. It won't protect children from predators, and it sure as shit doesn't protect them from their government.
[H/T to Shaker Sofia.]
On the UK Riots
First, a quick news round-up...
The Guardian has a gallery of images here. Their live daily coverage here. The front page of full coverage is here. There's just so much stuff there, I wouldn't even try to excerpt highlights; I really encourage you to stop by the site and browse through all their coverage.
CNN—Cameron vows tough action as violence flares in British streets:
British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed tough action Tuesday to quell rioting in Britain's cities, after tensions between groups of youths and police escalated in London and elsewhere Monday night.The word that comes to mind is "unhelpful." It's not that I believe rioters/looters/protesters, some of whom are violent and dangerously destructive, should not be stopped or face consequences if/where criminal acts are committed, but when the lit match of a questionable police shooting landed in the tinderbox of simmering hostilities, one significant part of which has been police "stop-and-search" tactics, and another significant part of which has been government neglect, to have the Prime Minister start paying attention only to belligerently bark about a law enforcement crackdown, it just seems, you know, unhelpful.
He said more than twice as many police would be on the streets of London Tuesday night, with 16,000 officers drafted in to tackle "criminality, pure and simple."
...Speaking after the meeting at Downing Street, Cameron said court processes would be sped up to ensure swift justice for those people involved in "looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing", many of them apparently teenagers.
"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and make them safe for the law-abiding," he said.
"People should expect to see more, many more, arrests in the days to come," he added. "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishments."
Cameron comes across as addressing People Who Matter, promising them, "We will stop these vicious scoundrels from interrupting your peaceful lives!" and thus reinforcing to marginalized people that they are not People Who Matter to their nation. Unhelpful. I understand Cameron wants and needs to communicate his concern about the situation, but there's a better way to do that. Is what I'm saying.
Anyway.
The BBC's front page of full coverage is here. Their photo gallery of last night's riots is remarkable. I also recommend this piece by Matt Prodger, in which he opens with the wise observation that "instant analysis is a dangerous game."
To that end, I won't be engaging in a lot of analysis, sitting at my desk 4,000 miles away. I will say this: The situation is hardly as simple as most people will want to make it out to be...
There are people who are reacting to the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan. There are people who reacting to the police "stop-and-search" tactics. There are people who are reacting to austerity measures that have pressed them to the point of breaking. There are people who are waging class warfare from the only position they've got. There are people who are simply tired of not being heard. There are people who are just using political conflagration as an excuse to be violent assholes for the sheer thrill of it. Etc. And every combination thereof.
To try to find a singular motivation, or a singular source of the disquiet, or even to try to attribute a singular emotion to a toxic mix of rage, fear, alienation, anger, frustration, exhilaration, dispossession, is folly.
And to be surprised is dishonesty, or privilege. Nina Power documents the history of the boil here:
Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a gamble, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven't seen since the early 1980s. With people taking to the streets of Tottenham, Edmonton, Brixton and elsewhere over the past few nights, we could be about to see the government enter a sustained and serious losing streak.And Laurie Penny observes:
The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police's treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment.
One journalist wrote that he was surprised how many people in Tottenham knew of and were critical of the IPCC, but there should be nothing surprising about this. When you look at the figures for deaths in police custody (at least 333 since 1998 and not a single conviction of any police officer for any of them), then the IPCC and the courts are seen by many, quite reasonably, to be protecting the police rather than the people.
The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don't know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:People can only be pushed so far before they push back. To not understand that is a privilege.
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they're paying attention now.
"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
To invoke that privilege in response, to use it in order to demonize the very people with whom the fastidious maintenance of one's privilege has left with no voice and no power and no options, is both cruel and risky.
I hope our leaders in Washington are paying attention, as the ink dries on our fancy new austerity legislation.
Breaking Bad Open Thread
"My god, man: That is one talented karaoke master."
Sunday's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
Congratulations, Wall Street Journal
You have published one of the most ridiculous op-eds I have ever read, which is really saying something, because I read David Brooks.
Bret Stephens: Is Obama Smart?
Yes. He is smart.
Whatever legitimate criticisms one may be able to make of President Obama, that he lacks intelligence is not among them.
And of the criticisms cited—"He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent." etc.—none are issues of intellect. Political acumen, maybe.
But there are a lot of smart people who lack political acumen, and a lot of people with tremendous capacity for playing politics who are otherwise not particularly gifted in the grey matter.
For the record, pairing the piece with an image of Obama caught mid-sentence making a goofy face does not your case make. A typical miss, WSJ.
Question of the Day
After reading my post with the Brian Regan clip, Shaker Be_Be emails, which I am publishing with her permission:
I personally find [stand-up comedy] a very difficult medium in which to avoid misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, gender essentialism, etc.... But maybe other Shakers would have some good suggestions? (Aside from the obvious and ever-amazing Eddie Izzard.)So, Shakers: Who's your favorite stand-up comic?
I'm going to go ahead and give a shout-out to Jim Gaffigan, who can make ANYTHING funny without resorting to oppressive humor, and also grew up about 10 miles away from where I did, which gives me a particular appreciation for the flavor of his humor. The first time I saw Beyond the Pale, I laughed so hard my face nearly fell off.
Also: They're more sketch comics than stand-up comics, but anything with the name French or Saunders near it is pretty much guaranteed to be gold.
Number of the Day
Two: The number of online adverts I've seen today featuring fat women for no reason, i.e. they weren't the "before" shots in diet pill ads or models for fancy new glucosometers or stock photos pulled to advertise a hot cover story on the Obesity Epidemic. They were just random people, there because a picture of a person was needed.
One was something about weddings. I don't remember what the other one was. Some kind of people-finder, I think.
It's tragic that seeing in a single day two fat women in advertisements where their fatness, or even more specifically their fat-womanness, wasn't somehow related to the product being advertised should be so very remarkable to me.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda, who is seriously SO. FREAKING. CUTE.
Dudley, who I think has, inconceivably, increased the cuteness action, to compete with Zel.
All tuckered out from a long walk with Iain.
A bunch of people have asked about how big Zelda is compared to Dudz; this is a pretty good comparison, even though Dudley's head is in the kitchen, lol. He is very tall, and weighs about 75 pounds. She's about 40 pounds, and is short enough to walk right underneath him, which she does with amusing frequency.
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
There is a lot of bad news today.
The market closed with the Dow 634 points down. Verizon is fucking over its workers gilded age-style. The House has unceremoniously ended its page program. Rick Perry is going to run for president. Newsweek still can't report on female candidates without being sexist. The conflict in Syria continues to worsen. As does the famine in Africa. And there is rioting in London.
That's not even everything. It's like the world is falling apart. Or fixing to explode. Or something.
Iain and I were emailing about Operation Handbasket, Destination: Hell the other day, and Iain said: "Seems that the wavelength of human folly is tuned to hit peak amplitude at around the turn of every century." To which I could only reply: "OMG IT'S BEEN LIKE FIFTY YEARS SINCE A WORLD WARRRRRRR! LET US BREAK EVERYTHING!"
Anyway. I know a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed by how much shit is going on at the moment, whether it's actually more than usual or it just feels that way. And there's a lot of guilt going around about feeling disposed to stick one's head in the sand, or a game of Zuma. So I thought I'd open a thread for discussion.
If nothing else, at least we need not feel alone.
Random YouTubery: Trim
Video Description: A time-lapse film in reverse, making it look like Petey Boy was putting on his hair and beard, rather than shaving them off.
Let Fred In!
Gay Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, whom I met at the Clinton Global Initiative and liked very much (and who is pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-legalizing weed, pro-energy independence, pro-immigrant, and anti-war, and whose "fiscally conservative" economic policies are essentially the Democratic Party's current economic platform), is being denied a slot in Thursday's Fox News debate in Ames, Iowa, despite having met all the published requirements.
Of course he does not meet the unpublished requirements of being straight and totally hostile to social justice issues.
Sign the petition here to urge Fox News to let Fred Karger, who is polling as high as is Newt Gingrich, into the debate. Let Fred in!
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
"She just kept hugging Rosie."—Dr. David A. Crenshaw, a psychologist who worked with a teenager who had been raped and impregnated by her father, and was able to testify against him in court with the help of Rosie, "a golden retriever therapy dog who specializes in comforting people when they are under stress. ... Prosecutors here noted that she is also in the vanguard of a growing trial trend: in Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Idaho and some other states in the last few years, courts have allowed such trained dogs to offer children and other vulnerable witnesses nuzzling solace in front of juries."
Rosie, a dog that accompanies children as they testify in court, with Lori Stella, a social worker, outside the Dutchess County Courthouse in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. [Kelly Shimoda for The New York Times][H/Ts to Steph Herold and Shaker SusanMc, in comments.]
