Hosted by Stanley and Helen Roper.
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!
And don't forget to tip your bartender!
My Manifatso
It's like a manifesto, but filled with fat.
[Content Note: This post contains discussion of fat hatred and disablism.]
I've spent the past two hours (give or take) tweeting my fingers off about fat hatred and the fact that, no, Paula Deen allegedly having diabetes is not, in fact, "justice" for her particular culinary oeuvre, which centers food associated with fatness.
(Yes, it's true that rich foods make some people fat and/or unhealthy; it is also true, however, that rich foods do not make other people fat and/or unhealthy; it is further true that foods not associated with fatness make some people fat and/or unhealthy. You may detect a patten here! A pattern that suggests people are not Bunsen burners!)
Anyway! Because I'm a motherfucking progressive optimist and shit, I wanted to end on an upbeat note, so now I'm busily tweeting my manifatso. And here it is:
I want to be in the world, and I will participate, and I will take up the space that I need without apology. Also: I may occasionally eat butter. But mostly: I will be publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy. Happy-Go-Lucky, in fact! I am a fat woman, and I will matter—to me and to you.
[For those who can't follow along on Twitter, my series of tweets is below.]
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
There is a lot of news about Mitt Romney today. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to read about it any more than I want to write about it.
Here is my Executive Summary: Mitt Romney is a garbage candidate with a garbage ideology and he should never be president, under any circumstances, but especially not when the middle class is teetering on the brink of extinction and we need a robustly funded social safety net more than ever.
The End.
Daily Dose of Cute
Matilda, age 9.
Olivia, age 7.
Sophie, age 3.
Dudley, age 3.
Zelda, age 2.
Just When I Thought I Was Out...
The next time you feel the urge to make a joke about the religion with which Tom Cruise affiliates, or see someone else make one, consider this story in today's Village Voice. It's hard to extricate oneself from that organization even when one isn't its most famous public face on whom the tyrannical chief has some kind of obsessive crush and thus pays people to spy on you to gather information that can be used to extort your continued alliance.
I'm not saying I know that Tom Cruise wants to get out. I'm just saying it probably wouldn't be all that easy if he did.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by crocheted hats.
Recommended Reading:
On the Issues' Winter 2012 issue is all about abortion, a topic which I do believe is of some interest to Shakers (she said with wry understatement).
Alan: Haiti, Two Years After the Quake, in Pictures
Jessie: Microsoft's "Avoid Ghetto" App: Racism Built into Technology [Content Note: This link contains discussion of racism and references to violent crime and rape culture.]
Garland: Anointed in Jizz: The Facial as an Act of Radical Acceptance [Content Note: This link is a response to a piece by Hugo Schwyzer that invites women who have sex with men to prioritize male sex partners' feelings about sex acts over their own.]
Veronica: ¡Acábalo Ya! Working Together to End Cervical Cancer
Peter: Consonance and Dissonance in Political Attacks: Why Bain Isn't Hurting Romney
Cara: Teacher Who Was Reinstated After Sexual Abuse Allegations Admits to 20 Additional Victims [Content Note: This link contains discussions of sexual violence and rape apologia.]
Ragen: This Is the Size I Come In [Content Note: This link contains discussion of fat hatred.]
April: Promoting Black Feminism in Pop Culture
Angus: Turner Diaries vs Ron Paul—The Answers Revealed! [Content Note: This link contains discussion of racism.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Whoooooooooops
Oh, Rick Perry. You are so tragic.
I would probably feel sorry for you if I didn't know you to be a terrible person and a garbage governor who believes bootstraps and prayer to be more important than good governance.
Definitely still in the race. Hasn't dropped out yet.
I Mean, Some Things in This World Are Just Perfect
Please enjoy this picture of Steve Carell as "Burt Wonderstone," an old-school Las Vegas magician who has an existential crisis when he breaks up with "his longtime stage partner [and has to fight] for relevance when a new, 'hip' street magician appears on the scene."
[Click to embiggen.]
The movie, coming out next year, will probably be horrible, but the moment I laid eyes on that picture will remain in my heart forever.
Primarily Awful
![Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney shares a laugh as he greets supporters during a campaign rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, January 12, 2012. [Reuters Pictures]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/shakes3/610x-39.jpg "Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney shares a laugh as he greets supporters during a campaign rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, January 12, 2012. [Reuters Pictures]")
"HA HA HA you're fired! HA HA HA you're ALLLLLLL fired!"
Frontrunner (again) Mitt Romney continues to endear himself to the 99% by saying things like: "You know, I think [the nation's growing focus on income inequality is] about envy. I think it's about class warfare." Ha ha sure it is. Definitely what people who are struggling to feed their children are thinking is, "I'm so JEALOUS of Mitt Romney that he is able to feed his children."
I wonder what the weather is like on Planet Willard. I bet every day feels like a summer's eve.
In a stroke of good fortune (pun intended), his opponents' attacks on Romney's tenure as a corporate raider at Bain Capital have backfired on them and united conservatives behind Romney. It's probably not so much that they give a fuck about Romney, although there are certainly signs his inevitability is beginning to sink in, but that they are pissed off about their own unfettered avarice being demonized. Superwealthy GOP donors aren't going to keep pouring their cash into campaigns where they're made into villains, and, if he's got nothing else going for him, Romney can be counted on to never criticize either corporate or personal greed.
In totally related news, Jeb Bush is reportedly going to endorse Romney before the Florida primary.
Before we move on to the obligatory news about the no-hope wannabes, here is my favorite Willard-related headline of the day: C-SPAN Getting Hammered with Prank Calls about Mitt Romney's Penis. Perfect.
Jon Huntsman remains a great candidate: "Jon Huntsman said Wednesday that expectations for his performance in the Jan. 21 primary [in South Carolina] are 'very low.' ... In a state where he's far behind in the polls and in a ground operation, Huntsman suggested that staying in the conversation—rather than winning—is the goal. 'It's just like the stock market, and as we get closer to Election Day, you all are going to say Huntsman has got to clear a certain hurdle to stay relevant, to stay alive,' he said." Nope! We are all saying now that Huntsman has no chance, Huntsman is wasting his time, and Huntsman should go home and go to bed. And as we get closer to Election Day, we are all going to be saying the same thing, only louder and with more snickering.
Something something Ron Paul. Something something fauxgressive misogynists.
Rick Santorum : Sweater Vests :: Major League Baseball Player : Unwashed Socks.
It's called magic. Look it up.
Newt Gingrich, having abandoned his strategy of sounding like someone who cares about the 99%, is now launching a more traditionally conservative attack on Mitt Romney: Noting that he speaks French. Good one, Gingrich. You might not win the primary, but your crass, brazen, cynical fuckery will always remain second to none.
Rick Perry is definitely still in the race! He has not dropped out yet!
And there's a late entry into the Republican field: Stephen Colbert announced on his show last night "that he is exploring a presidential run in South Carolina, and made it legal by handing control of his super PAC to Jon Stewart in the opening segment."
Sure, why not? This whole primary is a joke. It might as well contain an actual comedian.
I'm sure the Founders are so proud. "We're flipping our literal wigs!"—The Founders. Well, that's what you get for being racist, misogynist crumblebums!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite thing about yourself?
Interpret however you like: Your favorite personality trait, your favorite accomplishment, your favorite part of your body, whatever.
I don't even know what my answer to this question is. I guess my tenacity, maybe.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please refrain from defining your favorite thing in contradistinction to another thing you find unappealing. That is to say, if your favorite thing is your feet, just say, "I love my feet," rather than, "I love my feet, because they're not gross like other feet that look like X." It's fine to expound on why you like what you like; just be considerate not to make other people feel shitty in the process.]
Whoooooooooops
Arthur S. Brisbane, you are not helping your case by condescendingly implying that your readership is stupid.
The problem is not that the Times readership doesn't understand the nature of your examples. The problem is that you don't seem to.
Quote of the Day
"I mean we spent trillions trying to help poverty in America. But we don't cure poverty; we subsidize it when we make people dependent on the government and make it harder for them to get up the ladder."—Senator Jim DeMint (R-Evolting), offering up more of that compassionate conservatism we hear so much about.
It's a nice little racket the Republicans have going, isn't it? They defund every social program they can get away with defunding, and underfund every piece of the social safety net they can't defund out of existence, and then they whine and moan about how social programs don't work.
Leaving aside the fact that there are lots of social programs that do work, naturally the failure of the ones that don't has NOTHING to do with the Republican strategy of denying social programs a reasonable chance to flourish by withholding generous funding and other institutional support.
And then they blame the people whose quality of life is sacrificed in service to their ideological game for being lazy and weak and dependent. How truly, deeply vile.
Woman's Work
For a very long time, Democrats' agreement with progressive women was this: Vote for us, and we will be your champion. In practical terms, despite important pieces of legislation like the Violence Against Women Act and the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, being women's champion has largely meant making sure that progress women made wasn't allowed to backslide by standing between progressive women and the enforcers of the Patriarchy in all their guises—conservatism, religion, tradition.
But decades have passed with women on average still making less than men, still widely and primarily victimized by sexual violence (and still vanishingly unlikely to see justice for those crimes against them), still disproportionately affected by the nation's failure to provide a comprehensive and robustly funded social safety net, by unemployment, by food insecurity, by the lack of universal healthcare, by the lack of equal opportunities, by the lack of sensible and fair family-work policies. What social progress does happen frequently comes at the expense of women's reproductive rights.
Women who have multiple axes of oppression—women of color, women with disabilities, women in same-sex partnerships, women who are trans*, fat women, poor women, et. al.—are at increased risk of being marginalized and under-served by their government.
A government whose national legislative body, meant to be representative of the people, is still less than 20% female.
In recent elections, the Democrats' promise to progressive women has been reduced to ensuring (and only when it's politically expedient) that Roe vs. Wade would not be overturned, even as the GOP diligently works to render that ruling an empty statute.
Last spring, Shark-fu and I were talking about the blitz of anti-choice legislation in state legislatures across the nation, and she was telling me about lobbying in Jefferson City, Missouri—one of the many places bills limiting abortion rights are being considered. (The following has been published with her permission.)
Shark-fu: Jeff City was a train wreck. SEIU and others were there trying to stop the right to work bullshit. We were there trying to stop the 20 week abortion ban. And a whole bunch of losers were there showering the House and Senate with praise for giving it to the works and taking away women's rights. Ugh. I had a state Senator tell me that he "has" to vote for abortion restrictions so he can get other stuff done. The price of entry into negotiations with the MO GOP is women's reproductive freedom. I'm disgusted and dreaming of Canada.
Liss: "The price of entry into negotiations with the MO GOP is women's reproductive freedom." This is so depressing. I just don't even know what to say anymore. As I'm sure you know, the same legislation is making its way through the statehouse in Indiana. I'm not only dreaming of Canada; I'm dreaming of menopause, so I don't have to worry about the possibility of ever needing an abortion.
Shark-fu: OMG, it's so funny that you mention menopause! On the drive back yesterday I decided to write a post about how amazingly liberating it is to no longer have a uterus—every time I read a heinous bill I realize that they can't touch me. Sadly, plenty of the bills still apply to my post-hyster self. But they can't force me to get pregnant and that's so damn liberating it's sad.
Liss: If the fact that diminished cis female reproductive capacity (whether via hysterectomy, menopause, or elsewise) feels liberating for feminist women doesn't plainly expose how TOTALLY FUCKED UP the GOP's war on uteri is, I don't know what possibly could.
And then we lolsobbed forever.
This, then, is the situation in which we find ourselves: We are demoralized to the point of imagining, if only in passing, life in another country, or in another body, because we have been abandoned by the only one of the two nationally electable major parties who were even ostensibly on our side, who have negotiated away our alliance because doing so is the price of entry into doing business with the other party.
There is a presidential election coming up. The Democrats will not only want our votes, but expect them. And male partisans, having not learned the lessons of the last election, will admonish any feminist/womanist voter who does not axiomatically promise to give her vote to the Democrats that she is a fool who doesn't even understand her own rights or recognize her own best interests. We will be excoriated for even considering abandoning the Democratic Party, as if the Democratic Party did not abandon us first.
But this is not a post about voting. This is a post about the way reproductive rights are regarded—by the women who are actually affected by them, and by the party who purports to be our ally, and the cavernous divide in between.
My right to control my reproduction—and the respect for my bodily autonomy, agency, and consent that is embedded within that right—is central to my sense of self and my worth to my community and country. I can't put it any more plainly that that. The value of my very humanity is predicated on that right.
That right is not some piece of shit bit of legislation to be used as a dangled carrot during elections and used as a bargaining chip to be negotiated away in between.
And I'm angry that the party meant to champion women's rights doesn't see it the same way. I'm angry that there are so many male Democratic partisans (and not a few women) who claim to be progressive and yet think that whether I am trusted to make the best decisions about my own reproduction isn't a big fucking deal. Or want to lecture me about what a Big Fucking Deal it is when they're trying to bully me into voting for the party whose indifference allows the GOP to chip away at the scope of that right.
If it's not a big fucking deal to you every fucking day, then don't come shouting at me about it every four years like you're Professor Roe V. Wade, foremost expert in Abortionology at Gliberal University.
And if it is a big fucking deal to you every fucking day, then get busy getting involved.
Believe me, I know: Getting involved stinks. You're forced to deal with people who, on the best end, are deliberately obtuse bullies and, on the worst end, spam your inbox with pictures of dead fetuses. These are not pleasant folks, and I'd like to avoid them myself.
Unfortunately, that would necessitate closing up shop, putting down my teaspoon, and going silent. And then, somehow, magically not being a woman who lives in a patriarchy anymore.
This is the hard truth for progressive men who care about reproductive rights: When you leave the public fight to others, you're leaving it mostly to women.
I'll give you a moment to contemplate the many ways in which treating the feminist/womanist fight for reproductive rights as "woman's work" is some fucked-up irony, right there.
*a moment*
Now here's the other thing about leaving the reproductive rights fight to the ladies: Misogynists don't respect women. They don't listen to women; they won't acknowledge a woman's authority on her own lived experiences; they're not going to learn anything from women, and certainly not feminist/womanist women.
Misogynist anti-choicers who believe women to be less than need to hear that they're terribly, infuriatingly, and demonstrably wrong from men. Publicly. Passionately. As loud as the loud, so very loud, voices on the other side. One of the ways their self-reassuring bullshit works is via the effective void of male dissension, which supports their erroneous belief that they are the "objective" arbiters of womanhood.
They count on feminist men never showing up en masse for the main event.
They count on the Democratic Party being too squeamish, too spineless, too unprincipled, too apathetic to stand up for reproductive rights, unyieldingly.
They count on reproductive rights being the first bargaining chip on the table.
They count on the still almost entirely male leadership of the Democratic Party and the vast number of male Democratic partisans giving themselves permission to not get publicly involved, or to get publicly involved only when it's convenient and not all that risky and not all that hard.
They count on men trading on that privilege of not having to get involved.
They count on Democratic partisans being more interested in hectoring dispossessed progressive women than in being their allies and fighting this fight alongside them, every day.
They count on reproductive rights being treated as Woman's Work, and thus being devalued as woman's work inevitably is.
They are trying to overwhelm and demoralize the (mostly) women to whom this work is being left.
If the Democratic Party wants to retain its alliance with women, they'd better send reinforcements. And soon.
By way of suggestion, I recommend that the allegedly feminist staunch defender of reproductive rights, President Barack Obama, who happens to be currently seeking reelection, give some of his fancy speech-making on behalf of the 52% of the nation whose rights are being eroded. The states enacting a record number of abortion restrictions last year seems like it warrants his comment. Ahem.
[This piece was originally published in similar form April 4, 2011. It's particularly relevant again lately.]
Get Swabbed, Baby
In November 2010, 11-year-old Shannon Tavarez, an actress who starred in The Lion King on Broadway, lost her life to leukemia. A year after her death, Shannon's story has inspired more than 15,000 new bone marrow donors to register with DKMS, which is the largest bone marrow donor center in the world, and 30 potentially life-saving matches have already been found for other patients.
In the below video, model Evander Holyfield, Jr. tells his story while donating his marrow, after being "matched to a patient in desperate need of a transplant within two months of joining the registry."
Click here to find out more about becoming a bone marrow donor.
Hey, how're you doing? My name is Evander Holyfield Jr. Right now, I'm donating bone marrow. I guess you could kinda say I'm feeling like Robocop when he first got built. But you know what? It's all good. I'm filling up my stem cell sack over there and I'm progressing pretty well and hopefully that thing will be up full in maybe a couple of hours or so.[Full Disclosure: I was provided the video link and transcript by a representative for DKMS, but I am getting no compensation for passing it along. It's just something which is important to me. Please also see this post by William K. Wolfrum for more information, especially as regards the need for African-American donors.]
I absolutely feel... I feel pretty good because the IV I have in me has my blood circulating all over my body. I can feel the tingling. In a sense, I can almost feel every blood vessel I have in me and it feels good. But I also feel even better that this is going out for a good cause. This is actually helping somebody out there who actually needs this and who is actually dying of leukemia.
I registered for a very good reason. I heard the story of a young actress by the name of Shannon who was in the Lion King and she died of leukemia. So, I went to a fundraiser and I heard her story which was absolutely motivating and I got swabbed there. Two months later, it led to me being selected for an individual, a young teenager who needs my stem cells right now.
I dedicate this donation to my grandmother, who has breast cancer. I dedicate it to her because she means a lot to me, and this young lady means a lot to me, and Shannon, this is for you as well. I donate it to all of you ladies out there; I appreciate you.
I just want to stress the point that it's very important to donate, you know, to help keep people alive and help people when you can help them. It's a very important thing to do. If you haven't helped anybody in a long time, get off the couch, get up. Get out and go help somebody. You know, cut some grass, and donate! Most importantly, donate. Get swabbed.org, baby! [laughs]
So, Let Me See If I've Got This Straight...
Yesterday, it was fifty degrees. Today we're supposed to get fifty inches of snow.
All righty then.
Daily Dose of Cute
"Yes, hello, is this the Complaint Line? I have a complaint I'd like to make about a dog who keeps sniffing my ass despite my most fervent hissing protestations. Also, she continually steals my spot next to Two-Legs! The wanton thievery of this usurping interloper forces me to sit on THE OTHER SIDE of Two-Legs, which, yes, I will begrudgingly admit, is just as good, but that is NOT THE POINT."
"I have no idea who or what she is talking about." *wink*
Looking For That Perfect Gift?
Amazon is making it easy for you with:
Also known as:
True Fact: The New York Times Does Not Know What Journalism Is Or What a Journalists' Job Is
That can be the only explanation for this column by the Times' public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane: "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?"
I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge "facts" that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.OMFG. If I had asked these questions of my high school newspaper faculty adviser, she would have sent me back to retake Journalism 101. This is deeply embarrassing stuff. Or should be.
...If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:
"The president has never used the word 'apologize' in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president's words."
That approach is what one reader was getting at in a recent message to the public editor. He wrote:
My question is what role the paper's hard-news coverage should play with regard to false statements – by candidates or by others. In general, the Times sets its documentation of falsehoods in articles apart from its primary coverage. If the newspaper's overarching goal is truth, oughtn't the truth be embedded in its principal stories? In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn't the Times's coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. ... Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?
I don't even know how Brisbane can frame this scenario as a "reporter choosing to correct one fact over another." Does he know what the meaning of the word fact actually is? If it needs correction, it ain't a fact.
And howsabout the radical idea of not picking and choosing which not-facts to identify and/or correct, but identifying and/or correcting them all.
Meanwhile, Brisbane wants to know if a "separate fact-check sidebar" is insufficient. YES IT IS! "Do you like this feature, or would you rather it be incorporated into regular reporting?" Literally, the public editor of the "paper of record" just asked the paper's readership if they want accuracy inserted into their reporting.
That explains everything. *jumps into Christmas tree*
Wow
Video Description: Video, from a new BBC special called "Earthflight," of common cranes flying over Venice. What's remarkable is that the video is shot from among the V of the flying cranes, getting in slow-motion and amazing detail every feather and every sinuous move of the cranes' lovely long necks.
How did they do it? "Common cranes have been hand-reared to fly alongside a microlight to capture these images. Earthflight uses many different filming techniques to create the experience of flying with birds."
[Via Andy.]
A Conservative Problem
Via STFU, Conservatives, below is a video (with transcript) of Mitt Romney on the campaign trail during the last election, being confronted by a man with muscular dystrophy about his rigid position on medical marijuana. And not just rigid: It's a bullshit position, because Romney, like lots of people, asserts that synthetic marijuana or some other medication can be substituted for weed, which is not actually true for many patients whose bodies reject synthetics, much like how different antibiotics work differently in different bodies. Of course, Mitt Romney doesn't go around insisting that everyone should be able to use penicillin, but no one uses penicillin to (gasp!) recreationally get high, so it's not a naughty drug about which rigid, bullshit positions must be drawn.
Anyway! The point of this post isn't really Mitt Romney's position on legalizing weed, for medical purposes or full-stop. The point of this post is that the video is such a perfect example of what is required of people to maintain a conservative ideology: You must turn your back on every person whose individual experience and circumstance proves wrong your inflexible certitude about any issue.
Now, this is not to say that there do not exist in the world progressives who do a similar thing on certain issues (fat acceptance is a perfect example of endemic progressive fail in this very way), but the difference is in the ideology: Conservative ideology broadly asserts: "This is the one right way for all people," while progressive ideology broadly asserts: "Let us give people a choice." Which means it's easier for progressives not to pretend that people with different opinions, ideas, and, most importantly, needs do not exist.
When we are confronted with a person whose needs are not encompassed by a policy or position, we generally don't need to abandon that policy or position in toto; we can expand it to be more inclusive. And, when we can't, the habit of inclusion makes us better able to abandon an oppressively restrictive policy or position—to the point where we are the butt of sneering conservative jokes about bending over backwards to include everybody, as if that's a bad thing.
But here, Mitt Romney is confronted, literally, by a person whose needs are not encompassed by his policy, and he just reiterates his unworkable policy. When the man challenges Romney to answer for the practical realities of enforcing such a policy, Romney simply walks away as if this person doesn't even exist. The man is not a provocative cause for reconsideration of a bad policy; he is instead just an inconvenience, best quickly forgotten.
Thus can Romney keep on pretending that his policies exist in a void, just a collection of rhetorical devices that win him the most votes, without any real-world consequences.
This is the difference between people-centered politics, and policy-centered politics:
Top Chef: Texas Open Thread
The cast of Top Chef: Texas enjoy the bounty that is the Top Chef: Texas/Amarillo YMCA Rec Center pantry. Get cookin', cheffies!
Restaurant wars! Why is everything on TV wars this, wars that now? Cupcake Wars? Storage Wars? Lobster Wars? Swamp Wars? Border Wars? Shipping Wars? Enough, Hollywood Brain Trust, this is just getting silly.
Spoilers below. Discuss!
(See also.)
Primarily Horrendo
Here's the latest from These Bootstraps Are Made for Walking, and That's Just What They'll Do; One of These Days These Bootstraps Are Gonna Walk All Over YOU! aka the Republican Primary...
Looks like we finally know who farted, y'all.
Did you know that everyone hates Mitt Romney? It's true! Even Sarah Palin hates him, and went on Fox News to demand that Romney provide proof of the 100,000 jobs he keeps saying he created during his tenure as Chief Corporate Raider at Bain Capital. She also wants to see his tax returns. Mimeographs or it didn't happen!
Whooooooooooops my mistake! There is one person who hearts Mitt Romney, and that person is none other than John Bolton! In addition to offering his endorsement, John Bolton will "join [candidate Romney's] top team of foreign-policy advisers, according to people close to the campaign." Wowee wow! That is not only excellent news for all of us, because if Mitt Romney wins it means MORE JOHN BOLTON FOR EVERYONE, but also speaks to the moderation, wisdom, and fundamental decency of Mitt Romney that he would want on his team the guy who says assassination and sanctions in Iran are "half-measures" and calls for a full-on "attack."
Yay for war! More war! Aggressive mustaches for everyone!
Moving on.
Rick Perry is definitely still in the race! He has not dropped out yet!
Newt Gingrich confesses he should probably stop attacking Romney using the whole "greedy capitalist garbage nightmare" angle, because he sounds too much like a Democrat, and also too much like a human being with a functional empathy center.
Something something Ron Paul. Hey, did you know that Ron Paul is anti-choice? It's true! And yet some dudes who claim to be progressives nonetheless think he's awesome because they don't understand that allowing the state to force women to carry pregnancies they don't want is incompatible with freedom! Whooooooooooops you are misogynists!
Jon Huntsman zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. South Carolina zzzzzzzzz.
Rick Santorum announces that he is unelectable: "[Mitt Romney]'s the most electable because the establishment feels comfortable with him. Right? That's it. Well they're not going to feel comfortable with me!" Welp, we already knew that Rick Santorum was totally unelectable, for myriad reasons. Nice to see he's caught up and is finally on the same page. Good job, Santorum. Now go home and take a nap.
Hey, want one more reason to hate Mitt Romney? Here's a doozy: "According to a passage from a forthcoming book, The Real Romney, while serving as bishop of a Mormon congregation near Boston in the early 80's, Romney once threatened to excommunicate a young single mother if she did not give her soon-to-be-born son up for adoption." Neat! What a neat guy with such a neat religion!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Good Morning! Here Are Melissa Harris-Perry and Stephen Colbert Being Awesome!
My profound thanks to Shaker shutupmonica for providing the transcript for us! For people who have not seen The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert is playing a Bill O'Reilly-like character, but he is actually politically liberal, and his guests are very much in on the joke.
Question of the Day
Would you sign up for a ticket to Mars, with no guarantee of survival or return?
Background here.
If my personal circumstances were different, I think I would. That would be a journey so intensely fascinating that it would be worth unfathomable risk to take it, if I only had myself to consider.
Of course, I'd no doubt be too fat anyway, lulz.
[H/T to @BoraZ.]
There Is No Such Thing As Second-Hand Consent
[Content Note: This post contains reference to a sexual assault and discussion of intimate partner violence.]
In July 2010, I wrote a piece called "Your Underdog Lovelorn Romantic May Be My Rapist," about public romantic gestures in which strangers' participation is elicited, and the potential for people's good judgment to be undermined by the belief they're helping facilitate a grand romantic moment. Relatedly, male predators often get access to female victims by claiming to already be romantically involved with them.
Today, Shaker Courtney forwarded me this terrible story (which is rife with rape apologia right down the headline and its use of the loaded word "claim" vs. a less dubious word like "allege") about a woman who "is suing Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, [alleging] staff at one of their hotels gave her room key to a drunken man who allegedly sexually assaulted her in her bed."
This guy had, according to Alison Fournier, hit on her earlier that night, and, after she'd made it clear she was not interested in having sex with him, she "retreated to her room to get away." So why did a hotel employee just hand out her room key to this guy?
That same man, according to the suit, later went to the front desk, said that he was Fournier's husband, and obtained a key from hotel staff to her room.Nor, evidently, did they even bother to pick up the phone and ring Fournier's room to get her permission to hand out a key to her room—which is something they should have done even if this guy had been her husband.
The staff did not ask him for any identification or proof that he was in fact Fournier's husband, according to the lawsuit.
There is no such thing as second-hand consent. A husband cannot consent on his wife's behalf to give himself access to her room. There are husbands in this world who hit their wives, who rape their wives, who murder their wives. There are reasons that a wife could be in a hotel room to which she doesn't want her husband to have a key.
"In a statement given to ABC News by Starwoods Hotels and Resorts, Worldwide, the company said it is investigating the incident." Ya think? Fuck.
This Is Your Irregularly Scheduled Reminder to
Be All In, Whenever and Wherever You Can Be
[Content Note: This post contains discussion of police violence. The video contains images of police violence, and its transcript contains corresponding descriptions.]
Here's the thing: Jermaine Green is hero. And what we're going to talk about is how he's a hero, not just because he filmed an incident of police brutality against a disabled woman, and not just because he refused to hand over the video to the deputy whom he'd just filmed, but because he is a man of color who did these things at the same personal risk any of us would face in standing up to police, plus the fuckload of additional risk because he is a man of color, and did them even when the white police deputy was being racist right in his face. (White men are not typically asked, "Do you have any warrants?" by police.)
What we're not going to talk about is how not all cops are bad (I know; my grandfather was a cop), nor are we going to talk about how hard cops' jobs are (I know that, too), nor about some supposed additional difficulty of dealing with mentally disabled people (because fuck that and look at the video where he punches her in the face for no reason, and no, "she's a constant pain in my ass" isn't a reason). We're not going to defend that bullying fuckery in this space.
I'm posting this video because I want to say thank you to Jermaine Green for being All In, even when there are mightily strong disincentives not to be, and thus encouraging us to do the same. And we're going to talk about him, and the woman to whom he made himself an ally, even though she was a stranger, because she was a stranger who needed his help.
[Transcript below.]
Also: "A sheriff's department spokesman told NBCLA over the phone the department would not comment on this case and would not look at the videotape, but the spokesman said the department does investigate all use of force claims." So they're going to investigate the claim without looking at the video? Awesome. Great job as always, LA Sheriff's Office.
Best. Rally. Ever.
If not strictly the best ever, it's certainly the best rally I've ever seen, anyway: "Two Chinese women's volleyball teams [the People Liberation Army's women's team and the Tianjin City women's team, according to a commenter at Reddit] expend an entire game's worth of energy on one epic rally." [Via.]
Video Description: Two women's teams volley for a point for nearly two minutes filled with amazing spikes, blocks, digs, and dives.
Honestly, it gave me chills watching it!
(Here's another great one, if you've not had your fill.)
Number of the Day
94%: The likelihood that Shakesville is written by a man, according to this awesome Gender Analyzer. As new content goes up, that number will change. The other day, when Shaker Siobhan sent it to me, it was 96%.
Although we do have male contributors, of course, currently the only content posted by any of them on the front page are the Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublimes posted by Deeks.
Whoooooooooooooooooops!
It's Ricky Gervais Season Again!
[Content Note: Discussion of Ricky Gervais' various bigotries and bullying.]
Ricky Gervais has been asked to host the Golden Globes again (about which he is VERY SHOCKED of course because he is trying soooooo hard to be an asshole but omg titter they keep inviting him back ANYWAY almost as if the entertainment industry actually REWARDS people for being assholes as long as they're assholes in a very particular way by which I mean the way that upholds the kyriarchy by being a jackass bully and calling it comedy or art or both), so LUCKILY we will get another season of media about how CONTROVERSIAL Ricky Gervais is leading up to his second totally boring hosting gig during which he'll say trite offensive shit and pretend it's daring and edgy.
Rolling out the red carpet on the Gervaisathon is the New York Times with this charming profile that will totally remind you what a complete wanker Ricky Gervais is in case you'd forgotten (ha ha I know you have not forgotten! it is impossible to forget because he reminds us SO OFTEN!). The whole thing must be read so you can really appreciate the entire bouquet of the fine vintage of fuckery in which Gervais is marinating, but I'll just highlight my favorite part:
To many Americans, last year's Golden Globes appearance by Gervais defined how they know him: as a self-styled provocateur who's not afraid to shock and offend in the service of humor.Barrrrrrrrrrrrf.
I mean, sure, he's a "provocateur" if provocateur is broadly defined enough to encompass a playground antagonist who pokes other children with a stick. If anything designed to provoke any response can make one a provocateur, then give Ricky Gervais his trophy for Provocateur of the Year or whatever.
But "provocateur" really should mean something loftier—not a person who engages in the tiresome bigotry of misogyny and ableism, of racism and xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, who tells and defends rape jokes, just to elicit an entirely predictable (and legitimate) negative reaction from people getting poked with the stick, who are then immediately dismissed with charges of "humorlessness" or a lack of sophistication required to get the nuances of a joke to which the punchline is, at its essence, you are less than me.
A provocateur, if the word is have real meaning, is someone who challenges existent paradigms and marginalizing narratives, who presents a radical thought that makes people sit rather uncomfortably in their privilege and urges them to wander off the well-worn path of their socialization. It's someone who changes minds.
It isn't someone who calls people "mongs" and pretends that it's brave.
The irony of calling Ricky Gervais a "provocateur" is that he routinely insists that he is not trying to elicit reactions, but just say whatever the fuck he wants to:
Gervais spoke at greatest length about his comedy, occasionally adopting the whispery, professorial tone of someone who is certain he is saying very profound things. "I know I didn't do anything wrong," he said of the Golden Globes. "If I had done something wrong, it'd have been terrible. If I have to go, 'They're right,' that's a terrible feeling." He said the only reliable metric for success was his own satisfaction with his performance. "The only thing that matters is, did it turn out like I wanted it?"Emphasis original. That sounds less like a provocateur and more like a sociopath, whose cavernous void of empathy allows him to substitute self-indulgent id-fulfillment for complex ethics.
If you're chasing after positive reviews, demographic trends or a lucrative box office, Gervais said, "you've already failed." But, he added, "if your only ambition is to get something off your chest and render it exactly as you wanted it, then you're bulletproof.”
Gervais is the comedic equivalent of the troll who comes into a social justice space and disgorges with a whiff of Pleistocenian air the most exhausting of ancient stereotypes, only to punctuate it with: "There, I said it!" as if zie were Spartacus throwing off the shackles off political correctness, and not just another impolite asshole who doesn't even have the decency to wipe the glyptodon scat off hir shoes before taking a privilege dump in the middle of the living room carpet.
"Women are overemotional! There, I said it!" Yep, we've never heard that one before, brave little soldier.
Gervais nonetheless actually believes himself to be some sort of prophet, some kind of revolutionary whose hackneyed observations about oppressed populations is actual genius. He's not being ironic, after all. He's really just a straight-up fucko.
What emerges from moments like these is the core of Gervais's relationship with Hollywood: he has become the entertainment industry's favorite irreverent person, because he manages to be irreverent in such a deeply reverent way.That is to say, he holds the garbage values of the entertainment industry in high esteem, and thus has he become its favorite clown.
[Via Gabe.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley
Earlier today, Zelda was indicating to me that she wanted something. "Food?" I asked, holding up my left index finger, "Or out?" holding up my right. Instead of touching a finger to give her answer, she went back to her old method of urgently jabbing me with her nose when running backward, a habit that earned her the nickname "Jabba the Mutt."
"Yes, I know you want something, Zelly," I told her. "Food or out?" She jumped up next to me and licked my face.
"Food or out?" She jumped back down and Jabba the Mutted me.
Dudley, who appeared to be asleep on the couch rolled over with a groan, got up, came over to me and poked my right finger with his nose.
I laughed, then let them out.
Lies, Bigotry, & the Girl Scouts
[Content note: transphobia]
Back in 2010, an outright lie manufactured a controversy regarding the Girl Scouts (GSUSA). The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute published that during an event, the Young Women’s Caucus (which took place during the 54th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations), materials (this, .pdf) by the International Planned Parenthood Federation were distributed. While that would not inherently be an issue, in my opinion, it was An Issue™ to this religious group that blew up over the internet and various "right wing" media.
Of course, it was, as I said, an outright lie. The Young Women's Caucus was an event attended by four groups: GSUSA, UNICEF’s Working Group on Girls, Girls Learn International, and The Grail. The participants were never given any materials beyond the statement they were working on writing themselves and the event was only open to the participants in those groups--no one else was allowed attendance. Eventually, the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry looked into the "issue" themselves and released a statement in support of the Scouts that included the admonishment:
This is a good reminder that at times we can be quick to render judgment without fact, that not all information offered on the Internet is accurate, and that our organizational integrity is at stake when we fail to properly investigate allegations.Recently there was a hubbub over a GSUSA publication mentioning Media Matters as a potential resource for fact-checking. FOX, of course, had a field day with this. "Right wing" media of all sorts attacking the Girl Scouts is nothing new, as Amanda Marcotte noted in her September 2011 Slate article:
More than a decade ago, Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review wrote: "The Girl Scouts' leaders hope to make their youthful charges the shock troops of an ongoing feminist revolution." A number of prominent voices on the Christian right went on to join her in sounding an alarm about the organization, accusing it of religious and sexual subversion. Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council alleged that the organization is "pushing promiscuous sex on the girls." Bob Knight, while working for Concerned Women for America, accused the Girl Scouts of drifting into "radical feminism," and while the word "witchcraft" has yet to be trotted out, popular right wing website WorldNetDaily has accused the Girl Scouts of promoting "lesbianism" and "paganism."And now that paragon of suspicion and bigotry, WorldNetDaily, is decrying the Scouts again by promoting a young woman's call for a boycott of Girl Scout Cookies (which are on sale this time of year and a huge fundraiser for the organization). Why the boycott this time? Because there are transgender members in the Scouts.
A reportedly 14-year-old Girl Scout has joined with parents and Scout alumni to call for a boycott of the widely popular Girl Scout cookies, claiming the organization is using cookie proceeds to push a radical homosexual agenda at the expense of the Scouts’ safety.As usual, the pearl-clutching bigotry boils down to "I think this is icky and I don't really get it and I'm not willing to try to understand anything outside my worldview, therefore, it's bad" (you can watch her video at the link, if inclined). I'm sure it will be Big News on FOX, given that they still are making hay out of the Media Matters story.
[...]
After controversy arose over the potential admission of Colorado 7-year-old Bobby Montoya last month, The Girl Scouts of Colorado released a statement explaining, “We accept all girls in kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”
Rachelle Trujillo, vice president for communications of the Colorado Girl Scouts, added, “If a child is living as a girl, that’s good enough for us. We don’t require any proof of gender.”
According to a report in the Baptist Press, Trujillo also affirmed transgendered children are currently serving in Girl Scout troops across the U.S., though she declined to give details.
It's always interesting to see how certain values such as some of the ones the Girl Scouts promote--empowering girls, a commitment to diversity, of honest discussion and education, of thinking forward and inclusively--are a "threat" or are "dangerous" or "immoral" to certain people. It really says a lot about those people and their values and not one bit of it is good.
You know, I think I'll be buying more boxes of cookies this year than I have in the past.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Good Vibrations and Sweet Sensations.
Recommended Reading:
Kate: Illinois Legislators Meet with Local LGBTQI Groups to Strategize on Making Marriage Equality a Reality in Illinois
Mannion: Mitt in Context
Jessie: Casual to Deadly: Anti-Asian American Racism [Content Note: This post contains discussion of racism, bullying, and violence.]
Suzanne: Doomsday Clock Ticks One Minute Closer to Midnight
Amber: Once Again, the Director's Guild Nominates All White Men
Igor: Pat Buchanan Blames "Militant Gay Rights Groups" and "People of Color" for Pending MSNBC Termination [Note: Those are direct quotes, not scare quotes.]
Kay: Health Care and Non-Compete Agreements [Content Note: This post contains discussion of life-threatening legal wrangling.]
Andy: Where the Trees Are
Chloe: Stephen Colbert Asks Melissa Harris-Perry to Pick a Winner in the Oppression Olympics
Arturo: Red Tails Does The Media Rounds: Are George Lucas' Fans Listening?
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Primarily Bored
"What is the MATTER with you people?!"
Welp, it was a real nail-biter (for people who bite their nails out of boredom) last night, as Mitt Romney cruised to totally predictable victory in New Hampshire. Do you want to read his victory speech? Here it is! The best part is how he says President Obama "chastises friends like Israel" immediately after sneering that Obama "wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity." So he basically calls our European allies garbage, then scolds Obama for his alleged lack of diplomacy. Okay, player.
By the way, is that the same President Obama who's reportedly overseeing US involvement with Israel and Britain in a covert war against Iran, by any chance? Some friend to Israel he is!
(Which is certainly not to say I agree with this bullshit strategy of preemptive covert war, because I don't, but the suggestion that President Obama is hostile to Israel while currently fighting a covert war as their ally is mendacious in the extreme.)
Anyway! Congratulations to Ron Paul, who came in second last night. Second! And while everyone else scrambles to try to figure out how to stop the MittMobile in its tracks, Ron Paul's got a swell idea: "We urge Ron Paul's opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul's candidacy," campaign chair Jesse Benton said in a statement. Ha ha brilliant. Why didn't anyone else think of that?!
Inconceivably, Rick Perry is still in the race! He has not dropped out yet!
Rick Santorum's near-upset in Iowa did not translate to Santorumentum in New Hampshire, to no one's surprise except apparently Rick Santorum's. He came in a distant fifth, and now he heads off to South Carolina, where he imagines he's going to do very well among Protestant bigots who haven't noticed he's Catholic yet. "Direct your attention to the Mormon driving this clown car of the damned! You don't want your only choices on Election Day to be a Mormon and a Muslim, DO YOU?!"
Speaking of Mormons, Jon Huntsman's big gamble in New Hampshire did not pay off!
Everyone's so sad for Jon Huntsman, I'm sure. It's hard to believe that his carefully devised strategy of speaking in Mandarin during debates, being part of a religion that is no weirder than any other religion but is somehow considered by most other religious people to be unacceptably weird, and not being an unrepentant bigot about every single thing ever has not won him more favor among Republican primary voters! Huh.
And yet Jon Huntsman will not be deterred! He's heading south to South Carolina, where the demographics might not favor him but the open primaries do! Huntsman is now betting on Independents, Democrats, and progressives who would at least prefer not to have a complete nightmare disaster in the White House if President Obama loses turning out to Republican primaries to vote for him (or against everyone else). Well, it's a nice thought, but maybe Jon Huntsman didn't hear while he was in China that corporations own our government and our elections now, which has made voters pretty disillusioned even on Election Day, and only TOTAL NERDZ like the inhabitants of this space give a flying fuck about this primary.
Still: Good luck, Jon Huntsman! You are definitely going to need it!
Something something Newt Gingrich. Mitt Romney is a lying money-fucker, etc.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Wahlku
Yesterday, my day began with one of my oldest friends hilariously challenging me to "make 5 awesome haikus about Marky Mark." Which, naturally I did, and then spent the day sending her pictures of Mark Wahlberg, because why wouldn't I?
This morning, I begin my day by sharing with you my Walhku, and encouraging you to start your day by sharing your own verses.
I saw Mark Wahlberg
Outside his hamburger joint;
It's called Wahlburgers.
I said, "Hey, Wahlberg."
He said, "Hey, what up witchoo?"
And made a duck face.
I told Mark Wahlberg:
"You were great in that movie."
He said, "Girl, I know."
Then Mark Wahlberg said:
"The one about the boxah?"
I said, "Sure, why not?"
Mark Wahlberg told me:
"Say hello to yer mothah."
Then chin-nodded me.
*drops mic; walks offstage*
Question of the Day
Do you keep a physical, hand-written address book? Did you ever keep one, if you don't now?
I do still keep a hand-written address book. It has a picture of a rotary phone dial on its front, lol.
New Hampshire Primary Night Open Thread
OMG y'all. This might be (should be) Rick Perry's last night in the primary! Do you feel sad? I feel so sad. Seeing as how this is probably (should definitely be) the last night we all have to spend with presidential candidate Rick Perry before he goes home to destroy Texas, I thought that I'd honor him (and all of us, really) with a tasteful retrospective highlighting the best moments of his candidacy (cue Bad Day):
Welp, that about does it. Thanks for all the memories, Rick Perry! We'll definitely miss you soooooooo much!
Anyway! I can't wait to see what happens tonight! So many possibilities... Mitt Romney could win and go on to get the Republican nomination! Mitt Romney could lose and go on to get the Republican nomination! What a wild ride we've got ahead of us, Shakers!
Bring it on, New Hampshire!
Bath Time for Baby Sloths
Too much cute. Can't even process.
Video Description: Baby sloths are gently removed from their cages by their handlers, who are two women, one of whom appears to be white and one of whom appears to be a woman of color. The baby sloths are placed into a big plastic container which has been fitted with wooden racks from which the baby sloths can hang, while the women carry the container to a bathing area. The baby sloths are washed, looking adorable and making adorable squeaky sounds, then dipped in a tea bath to protect them from parasites. Then they're taken to a sort of baby sloth jungle gym where they're allowed to "drip-dry" before they're toweled off. They squeak and look suuuuuuuper cute! Then they are returned to their cages and given hibiscus flowers, which are a highly valued sloth treat! Then: Naptime! Crushing amounts of slothy cuteness. The end.
[Via TDW.]
2FA, #3
Washington Post: Has Obama taken Bush's 'preemption' strategy to another level?
[H/T to Katrina vanden Heuvel.]
Are You Sitting Down, Ladies?
I have some shocking news for you: New research has found, and I know this will come as a very big surprise to all you working ladies out there, so I really hope you are sitting down, possibly even at your desk at your job for which you are underpaid and overqualified even though you have asked for raises and promotions, that it is, in fact, NOT TRUE that women don't get raises and promotions because they are shrinking violets who fail to ask for them.
It TURNS OUT that women actually do ask to be appropriately compensated and promoted, but FOR SOME REASON we just don't get that for which we're asking—and, not only that, but "the gender gap in level and pay gets even wider" as the careers of men and women on the same track progress.
HOLY SHIT! This is some really shocking news, amirite, ladies? I never would have guessed that we were asking for things all these years that we weren't getting.
I can't even imagine what the perplexing reason is that we're not getting promotions and raises if we're asking for them after all. Oh well. Life is full of mysteries!
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelly Belly
One of Zelda's favorite positions is sitting right between my feet, with her chin resting on my knee. She usually looks forward, while I scratch her head and her face—running my fingers as if skiers on a slope down that expanse of velvety black right between her eyes. Occasionally, she'll lift her head and look up at me with the sweetest, heart-melting expression of sublime tranquility.
I have read that rescued animals shelter are forever grateful for it. I don't know if that's true, if animals have the capacity for gratitude, but sometimes it sure does seem like it.
The Nose Knows
Last night, I was watching a documentary about service dogs. It was very moving; major blubbo and all that. At one point, it came to a segment about cancer-sniffing dogs, then set the dogs aside for an extended piece on a mechanical dog nose scientists are trying to build to replicate dogs' cancer-sniffing capabilities.
Huh. If only there were millions of dogs without homes, most of whom could be trained to do this work for free at hospitals all over the world!
Of course, as Iain observed, giving a life and an occupation to homeless dogs who can detect cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages (and affordably treatable stages, at that), wouldn't be nearly as profitable for Big Pharma as building costly machines that will likely never replicate with the same accuracy what a dog will do for a biscuit.
For the record, I would totes volunteer to provide belly rubs to cancer-sniffing dogs in residence at my local hospital.
Chip, Chip, Chip...
[Content Note: Legislative encroachments on reproductive rights; invasive medical requirements; rape culture.]
Andrea Grimes reports that the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled Texas can enforce its forced trans-vaginal sonogram law while the heinous legislation is challenged in court.
I'll just refer you to the post I wrote when the same shit started in Oklahoma (where a similar law is being challenged, but which the state has been disallowed from enforcing in the meantime), and I'll reiterate here the basis of my unyielding objection: Compelling a person to undergo an unnecessary vaginal probe to acquire a legal medical procedure is fucking rape.
And that was true even before the US Justice Department revised its definition of rape to make it patently obvious that this is, indeed, rape—at least if the concept of consent is to have any real meaning at all.
A woman or trans man who cannot access a legal medical procedure without submitting hir body to a vaginal probe cannot be said to be meaningfully consenting. Consent requires a choice.
Consent requires a choice, because consent without a choice is not consent; it's coercion.
[H/T to @scatx.]
Quote of the Day
"Are you going to fire the baby?"—Someone in the crowd at a campaign event in New Hampshire today, as Mitt Romney did the classic candidate-holding-a-baby shtick.
LOL oof.
[Background. Via Richard Adams.]
Film Corner!
Last March, I shared the exciting news that New Line was rebooting the beloved boobies-and-crotch-injuries standard-bearer Police Academy franchise. I'm sure many of you, like me, were beginning to worry that this magnificent cinematic revival was never going to happen, but FEAR NOT! The project now has a director:
New Line Cinema has set Scott Zabielski to direct Police Academy, its remake of the long-running film series that started at Warner Bros in 1984 and spanned seven films. ... Zabielski is making his feature directing debut after directing several seasons of episodes of the hit Comedy Central show Tosh.O.PERFECT.
Number of the Day
Five: That's how many minutes it took the Indiana House Republicans to shove their anti-union bill through committee this morning, forcing an immediate roll call vote without any debate or opportunity for Democrats to offer amendments.
Republicans won the roll call vote on party lines, 8-5, clearing the way for the full Indiana House and Senate to vote on the bill.
They're not even pretending it's a democracy anymore.
Previously: News from the Conservative Legislation Lab.
[H/T to @NatashaChart.]
Fix for Comments Not Appearing in New Zealand
A couple of readers in New Zealand have contacted me about comments suddenly not appearing for them. This appears to be due to Blogger changing its extension from .com to .co.nz, which then causes a compatibility failure with Disqus.
That's something over which I've got no control, unfortunately, but Shaker bekitty has noticed that if you put a / after blogspot.com, it doesn't redirect to the blogger.co.nz domain and then comments load normally.
Thanks, bekitty!
If anyone wants to contact Blogger to let them know about the problem, you can tweet at them @blogger.
Primarily Stupid
OMG, y'all! It's Primary Day in New Hampshire! Are you so excited? I am so excited! I can barely contain my enthusiasm for watching Jon Huntsman not win today! It's going to be GREAT!
In fact, I'm so pumped for this thrilling exercise in American Democracy today, that I'm going to begin this morning's Primary Rodeo with a pop quiz! Are you ready? Get ready!
Q: Who's got at least one thumb and is a full-tilt jackass? A: This guy!
Speaking of that guy being a jackass, Mitt Romney is under fire, from the other candidates, for saying: "I like being able to fire people that provide services to me. If, you know, someone doesn't give the good service I need, I want to say, 'You know, I'm going to get someone else to provide that service to me.'" Which sounds a lot like "I like to fire people!" as not a few people are (deliberately) misinterpreting that statement to be, but is not. It's actually just the heartless admission of an entitled jackass whose undiluted privilege has rid him of empathy or patience, and convinced him that the failure of "good service" on demand is axiomatically grounds for firing.
Personally, I find that rather worse than a cartoonish version of Willard twirling his mustache while mwah-ha-haing about firing people willy-nilly, but I guess that's easier to convey in a soundbite than, "Romney's the self-important fuckhead who says, 'I'll have your job!' because some of the breading fell off his corndog."
Anyway! Mr. Privilege is still polling best against Obama, but 58% of Republicans want more presidential choices. LULZ. Whoooooooops! Mitt Romney, your new name is "Bizarro Sally Field." They hate you; they really hate you!
In other not-news, Newt Gingrich is a huge hypocrite! "Newt Gingrich has ramped up his attacks on Mitt Romney as a heartless leveraged buyout executive for his years at Bain Capital, asking reporters in Manchester on Monday, 'Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, somehow, a little bit of a flawed system?' But Mr. Gingrich was himself on an advisory board for a major investment firm that had a similar business model, Forstmann Little, a pioneering private equity firm co-founded in 1978 by Theodore J. Forstmann that was, along with Mr. Romney's Bain Capital and Henry R. Kravis's Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, among the leading private equity firms during the 1980s and 1990s." Ha ha ha ha barf!
Newt Gingrich would have to be concerned about this apparent hypocrisy if he were actually running for president and not running to sink Mitt Romney's battleship.
Something something Ron Paul.
Rick Santorum had a fun event yesterday, where he mocked Bob Dole and John McCain being nominated because it was "their turn," and elided the eight-year garbage disaster that was the Bush presidency, when a rightwing religious ideologue was nominated "out of turn" like he would like to be. That's funny for more reasons than because the crowd booed Bob Dole and John McCain, although I find that very funny, too!
Speaking of John McCain, he says that SuperPACs are bad for democracy. No shit, Sherlock!
Rick Perry is still definitely in the race! He has not dropped out yet! (Watch this space tomorrow.)
Jon Huntsman is zzzzzzzzzzzz New Hampshire zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz almost tied with Romney zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Here's the thing: Even if Jon Huntsman wins today, it's not like he's going to go on to South Carolina and win over the incredibly conservative Republican primary voters by talking about his support for civil unions in Mandarin. And it's unlikely that a slim win over Romney would derail his trajectory: Romney would have to come in fourth today behind Huntsman, Paul, and Santorum for his candidacy to get truly shaky. Which means everyone else is running for vice president, and there ain't gonna be a double-Mormon ticket, so Jon Huntsman is seriously out of luck.
Speaking of potential veep picks, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a sexist asshole. Gross.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Question of the Day
In one of those coincidences of the universe, a few people have asked me recently what camera I use and/or been having conversations in my sphere about cameras. So I thought this might make for an interesting QotD: What kind of camera(s) do you use, if any?
Please feel free to make recommendations or criticisms of any camera you're using, including vintage cameras, digitals, phone cameras, etc., and feel welcome to leave sample photos in comments, too.
Discussion of photography-related apps, e.g. vintage camera apps, is on-topic, too.
I use as my main camera a Sony Cyber-Shot Digital DSC-950 9.1MP. I love it, and I've recommended it dozens of times over the years.
The Student Non-Discrimination Act
Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) has introduced legislation that would "create a federal prohibition against discrimination in public schools based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, it would forbid schools from discriminating against LGBT students or ignoring harassing behavior. Schools that violated the act could lose their federal funding."
Representative Jared Polis (D-Colorado) has introduced sister legislation in the House.
Call your Senators, or contact them here, and ask them to support the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Contact your representative here.
This has been your regularly scheduled reminder that one of the only functional and decent elected officials in the US is a comedian.
