A wheat ear penny
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!
Programming Note
We're all going to take a recuperative long weekend, starting this evening. There will be a pub tonight, and there will be daily open threads, which we'll moderate, but no new content until next Tuesday.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend. See you soon!
Elementary
I can't believe there's no new Elementary again this week. How can you do this to me, CBS? Don't you understand that I cannot wait (I DON'T WANT TO WAIT!) until April 4 for a new episode? This is terrible. Your deeply unsatisfying schedule is causing me to make this face:
That is all.
[Here is a thread to talk about All Things Elementary for any Shakers who miss it, who just started watching it, who just got caught up, etc. Enjoy!]
An Observation
If there is one turn of phrase for which I'm known, well, it's probably Terrible Bargain. But if there's another phrase for which I'm known, it's: I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous.
For reasons that I probably don't need to explain to anyone who's been paying attention, I've lately been thinking about the ways in which accusations of anger (or fury, or rage, or whatever variations thereof) are used as discrediting strategies in the same way accusations of offense are.
And in the same way that marginalized people are accused of being offended, when what we are really are is contemptuous, marginalized people are frequently accused of being angry, when what we really are is frustrated.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against anger; to the contrary, I find anger can be useful, and necessary, and the root of progress.
But there are a lot of times I am accused of being angry (as if that's a bad thing) when I'm not actually angry—and I see that happening to a lot of marginalized people, especially women of every and any intersectional identity. We are dismissed out of hand as angry, when we are really frustrated—usually because we are being obliged to play games around having our lived experience audited with a validity prism being wielded by a privileged person who erroneously sees themselves as An Objective Arbiter, who is, in so doing, literally frustrating our ability to assert expertise on our own perceptions.
Frustration is not anger. (Although it certainly has the capacity to morph into anger, or coexist with it.) Frustration is "a feeling of dissatisfaction, often accompanied by anxiety or depression, resulting from unfulfilled needs or unresolved problems."
That is the thing I am feeling when I am most likely to be called angry. Overwhelming dissatisfaction as a result of the cyclical and systemic lack of being heard, respected, treated as an equal.
So, to the lexicon of useful phrases I add this: I'm not angry; I'm dissatisfied.
Get to Know a Contributor
Here are the Five Things You Need To Know about Melissa McEwanz:
1. She writes poetry. Lots of poetry. Like, mountains of it. If you could measure all her poetry, it would weigh more than a T. Rex. Almost all of it is about her first crush: Gil Gerard.
2. She has a tattoo of Falkor on her shoulder.
3. She once said "This is the greatest fanny back ever invented!" I'd explain that, but it's kind of complicated.
4. Her favourite Garbage Pail Kids card is Rappin' Ron.
5. Her go-to soundtrack album for sexy-times doing it is Monster Ballads:
Discussion Thread: My Song
You know how sometimes you hear a song, and you listen to the lyrics for the first time—which is maybe not even necessarily the first time you heard and enjoyed the song, but definitely the first time you really paid attention to the lyrics—and suddenly you're all, "OMG THIS SONG IS ABOUT ME!" by which you don't actually mean the song was written about you, individual human being, but that it feels like it could have been written about you, individual human being, because you relate so darn hard to those lyrics? Do you know that feeling? If you don't, skip this thread with my apologies that this does not have relevance to your life.
But if you DO know that feeling, then tell us: What is that song, or are those songs, for you?
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda, just sitting next to me on the couch like she's people.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
"If you redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, you must—you must permit adoption by same-sex couples, and there's–there's considerable disagreement among—among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a—in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not. Some States do not—do not permit adoption by same-sex couples for that reason."—Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, giving a bullshit assist to the defense during oral arguments in the Prop 8 case before the Court yesterday.
There is, in fact, not "considerable disagreement among sociologists" about same-sex parenting. Further, a 2006 report issued by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that "virtually every valid study [on same-sex parenting] reaches the same conclusion: The children of gays and lesbians adjust positively and their families function well." And in 2010, a study spanning more than two decades found "that children raised in lesbian households were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers."
These same results have been found in multiple countries and across a spectrum of cultures.
And on the issue of harm to children: Same-sex parents are more likely to adopt older children, children of color, and/or children with special needs than different-sex parents or single straight adopters. Unlike the many studies regarding children adopted and raised by same-sex parents, there is not an abundance of research showing great outcomes for most children who spend most or all of their lives in foster care.
If one really cares about children's well-being, that should matter.
[Related Reading: I Write Letters.]
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, racism, gun culture, gun violence]
Thurston Howell Day:
A proposed bill in Kansas is calling for people with HIV or AIDS to be quarantined.
Meanwhile: The New York City AIDS Memorial's Board of Directors unveiled new renderings for the final design of the memorial.
For all those bothered by the use of the word vagina in science class: A song! [CN: Cissexism.]
An man accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin cheese has been arrested.
A new musical stage show inspired by the atrocities carried out by Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik is to open in the U.K. this summer.
Winny Puhh is not going to the Eurovision finals this year.
TruFact™: Liss still has her Menudo lunchbox. She eats out of it every day.
[Image via Andy. Again.]
Totally True Stories
Once upon a time, Deeky wanted to be in a band. Specifically, he wanted to be in a Britpop band, because who doesn't?
The year was 1986, and young Deeky W. Gashlycrumb was tearing up LA as a performance artist known as Le Voleur de Derrières. He had blazers in every color of the rainbow, and he could roll-tuck his jean cuffs above his black patent loafers so tightly that they became waterproof conveyers of the smuggled vintage Reunite Lambrusco that kept him neck-deep in the finest cassette singles money could buy.
But what he really wanted was to be a pop star.
So he heard that there was this dude in London named Matt Goss was forming a band, and he flew to the UK for a tryout. It went pretty well. Deeky even wrote a great song that he gifted to Matt called "When Will I Be Famous?" I was super happy to hear from him that it was going so well!
It was a very brief marriage in the mid-80s. Let us not speak of it.
It went so well, Matt and Deeks even started shooting promotional materials for the debut album of their newly-formed pop group, Matt and His New Friend Deeky.
Anyway. For those of you who are massive and eternal Goss fans, like I am, you know how this story ends. At the last moment, Matt Goss decided he was not going to move forward with Matt and His New Friend Deeky, kicked Deeks out of the band, and formed a band called Bros. with his twin brother Luke.
They released "When Will I Be Famous?" as a single, which shot to the top of the charts.
Deeky never saw a dime, even though he totally wrote the song. Or at least a version of the song, before the Goss Brothers changed the lyrics, melody, and arrangement. They definitely kept the title, though. I think. Deeky's song might actually have been called "Time for Me to Be Famous," or "I Can't Believe I'm Not Famous." It's all a blur now.
Speaking of Blur, they are a much better band than Bros.
The end.
DOMA Arguments
This is a good summary of the DOMA arguments made before the Supreme Court yesterday, and how it all went down.
It is incredible that the Court and the country may go through all of this, and we may emerge out the other side still without any ruling that establishes "a specific constitutional standard for judging laws that allegedly discriminate based on sexual orientation." Allegedly. Ahem.
Aggrieved Christian Soldiers
[Content Note: Christian supremacy; homophobia.]
Over at The American Prospect, Paul Waldman documents the outpouring of self-pitying aggrievement from a number of conservative Christian commentators who are lamenting their "second-class citizenship" because they support the "traditional definition of marriage."
Here's CBN's David Brody lamenting the sorrows of Kirk Cameron and Tim Tebow. Here's Red State's Erik Erikson predicting the coming pogrom ("Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God's own established plan."). Here's Fox News commentator Todd Starnes on the oppression that has already begun ("it's as if we're second-class citizens now because we support the traditional, Biblical definition of marriage").Which is only the tip of the monumentally martyry iceberg: Here is Pro-Prop 8 Pastor Jim Garlow warning that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, Christians will be "forced underground. Their buildings will be taken away from them, many of their rights will be taken away from them." Sounds legit.
And here's Pat Robertson (of course) warning that "the foundation of our society since the founding of our great Republic is under attack" by "a few people [who] want to have their way doing of sex affirmed by everyone else." Solid commentary as always from the biggest bozo in the hate biz.
But it's Brody who really takes the garbage cake with his hilariously headlined column: "Are Evangelicals Now More Scorned than Homosexuals?"
Direct from the school of, "Counter-Intuitive Thinking," I bring you this question: When it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage, are Evangelical Christians actually the ones more ridiculed than homosexuals?Executive Translation: Direct from the school of "Self-Pitying Aggrievement at Losing the Undeserved Privilege We've Justified with a Cherry-Picked Religious Text," I bring you a load of codswallop that anyone with a modicum of decency would be embarrassed to think in their most private thoughts, no less write and publish for public consumption. Let's be honest: I am a jerk who uses contemptible anachronistic idioms to simultaneously engage in projection and appropriation. I am a colossal dirtbag who makes money by pretending that systemic discrimination is "ridicule," and that being ridiculed for innate characteristics is the same as being ridiculed for one's beliefs, and, further, that it is my beliefs being held in contempt rather than my insistence on trying to legislate them. I am being rightly marginalized for being a hateful vessel of kyriarchal norms, but I'mma pout about it. Boo-hoo.
In the media's narrative, you would think that homosexuals are the poor souls who have been banished by society like ugly stepchildren and are now rising to overcome incredible odds.
But what about today? Let's be honest: If you are a conservative evangelical who believes in the biblical definition of traditional marriage then guess what? You are one of the following: An outcast, a bigot, narrow-minded, a "hater" or all of the above. It's a different type of ridicule but it's still ridicule.
The tables have been turned. Evangelicals are now the ugly stepchild. In our American culture today, you can easily make the argument that it is harder to stand for biblical truth than it is to be a supporter of gay marriage in today's society.
Anyway.
Christians are not in danger of losing their sway in this country anytime soon. It is execrable that there are conservative Christians—whose paternalistic, retrofuck, unscientific, indefensible views on reproductive rights and women's agency are currently being legislated all over the nation with nary a peep from the office-holding pro-choice president—who have the temerity to whine about how oppressed they are simply for having their undiluted right to legislate how every other person should be allowed to use their bodies and live their lives minimally eroded via marriage equality.
Losing the capacity to oppress is not oppression.
And there's no equivalence, none, between a position that wants to reserve marriage for some and deny it to others, and a position that wants to extend marriage to all, for anyone who wants to take part in whatever way they wish, with no one compelled to participate.
Which is my polite way of saying: No one's forcing you to get gay-married, dipshits.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker sashasmiles: What place do you most want to visit (or revisit) someday?
Have a nice day!
At some point, these pictures from the set of the film Animal Rescue will run out, which will obviously be a terrible day. But today is not that day. Yay!
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
So, a female student at the University of Oregon created an anti-rape PSA in response to the Steubenville case, which was gone viral, and CNN did a short piece on the PSA.
[The video was screwing up the page code, so I removed it, but you can view the segment here.]
CNN Anchor Don Lemon (a black man wearing a dark pinstriped suit and a brown tie): Well, it's a video that has been going viral on the heels of the Steubenville rape case—a co-ed at the University of Oregon says she was frustrated by the case and decided to make her own video to show what someone should do in a similar situation. Samantha Stindall (ph) calls her public service video "a needed response." Here's a clip—the entire clip.Aside from the fact that I wasn't aware we were still using the term "co-ed" in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen, it was a solid bit of coverage. But this is how CNN is currently teasing the video on its front page:
Video Clip of a young white man in a t-shirt and jeans speaking into a camera, while a young white woman wearing a t-shirt and shorts is passed out on a couch in the background: Hey, bros. [he gestures to the woman] Check who passed out on the couch. Guess what I'm gonna do to her? [he retrieves a pillow and puts it under a head; a blanket which he drapes on top of her; a stool on which he sets what looks like a cup of tea; smooths her hair] Real men? Treat women with respect.
Lemon: The YouTube video just went live on Friday; it's already received more than 727,000 views.
The fuck, CNN? I shouldn't need to explain why it's fucked-up to tease an anti-rape video exhorting men not to assault unconscious women with an image and text suggesting that it's a video of a man assaulting an unconscious woman. "HA HA PSYCH!"—CNN. Just no. Anti-rape advocacy is not the time for wacky reversal pranks.
I'm sure there's some threadbare rationalization waiting to be deployed about drawing in the very people who need to see it most, but suffice it to say that effective anti-rape advocacy does not happen in spaces that tantalize rape aficionados with materials that appear to promise access to a sexual assault.
As a general rule, effective anti-rape advocacy also doesn't have the potential to make anti-rape advocates gasp and survivors trigger when they stumble upon it.
Of course, I don't believe for a moment that CNN gives a flying fuck about anti-rape advocacy. They pretty clearly just want click-throughs, from anyone, for any reason. Better luck next time, rapists.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by chickadees.
Recommended Reading:
The Naming Series continues at Are Women Human?: Let's Talk About Names: Mattie. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of gender- and body policing.]
FMF News: Female Teacher Murdered in Pakistan [Content Note: The post at this link includes descriptions of gun violence and misogyny.]
Jamilah: It's Bigger Than Adria Richards [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism, misogyny, and harassment.]
Katie: The International Violence Against Women Act: Coming Soon to a Congress Near You
Angry Asian Man: Artist Julia Kim Smith Asks Google "Why" [Content Note: The post at this link contains screencaps of racist Google searches.]
Ragen: HAES/Size Acceptance FAQs [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of fat bias and body policing.]
Fall: The HAES® files: On Advocacy
Nicole: Is Social Media Causing Your Activist Burnout?
Veronica: Latino and Women Farmers and Ranchers Have Until May 1st to File a Claim
Lauren: Could Rob Lowe Be Any Happier as He Uses One of Those Water Jet Packs?
Josh: The Next Netflix Show Will Be a Science Fiction Thriller from The Wachowskis
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Get to Know a Contributor
Here are the Five Things You Definitely Didn't Know about Melissa McEwanz:
1. She collects recipes. Specifically egg salad recipes. She keeps them in a journal titled Egg Salad Dreams and Memories.
2. She is suuuper into pan flute music.
3. She has seen SpaceCamp (starring Kate Capshaw, Larry B. Scott, and Lea Thompson) a total of 39 times: Six times in theaters, 27 times on VHS, four times on laser disc and twice on Betamax.
4. She loves chalk drawings.
5. She has an entire set of Aaron Carter dolls on her desk:
TruFact™: Last time I was over I tried to play with her Aaron Carter dolls and she got sooooooooooo mad! "These are MIB, jerk! Don't muss them up!" she shouted. Dang!
Daily Dose of Cute
"Yeah, I'm fuzzy. So what? You wanna make something of it?"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Would That I Knew
Most of the searches currently bringing people to Shakesville via search engines have to do with marriage equality being argued before the Supreme Court. This, however, is my favorite among them:
Excellent question, my friend.
Teaspoons 101: I Am Not the Thought Police
Frequently, when I ban a commenter who isn't overtly expressing bigotry, but is derailing a thread with typical silencing techniques—accusations of oversensitivity, humorlessness, looking for things to get mad about, exhortations to "get over it," protestations of providing much-needed objectivity, and the usual tiresome attempts to deny the perceptions and experiences of the actual targets of the particular bigotry being discussed—I make a point to note that the commenter is not being banned from the blog in its entirety. I will note that their commenting privileges have been revoked, but invite them to keep reading the blog in the hopes they might learn where they went wrong, and assure them I will be open to a discussion of reinstating their commenting privileges if and when they email me with some awareness to that end.
I almost always immediately receive an irate email full of phrases like "echo chamber" and "censorship," and I am berated for being the "thought police."
I am not the thought police.
I am challenging readers—and always, too, myself—to think about things in a way in which we may have never thought about them before.
The entire rest of the world, with its privileging of men and heterosexuality and cisgender people and thin (but not too thin!) and tall (but not too tall!) and able and healthy white bodies and religious people and people who desire and have sex and people who can and want to be parents and the wealthy and the traditionally educated, and all the ways in which the rest of the world facilitates and upholds that privilege, and all the ways in which the rest of the world marginalizes and demeans and treats as less than all the people who deviate from those privileged "norms," and all the ways the rest of the world has indoctrinated you into that system of privilege, and socialized you to believe it's the natural and right and immutable state of the world, and all the shills for the kyriarchy who fill the ether with self-reinforcing rubbish on a constant loop so you swim in a sea so thick with the detritus of Othering that you don't even notice it on a conscious level anymore, and all the bullies who emerge to kick you back in line if you do, if you have the temerity to question the message, and all the other bits and bobs of the brainwashing to which we are all subjected since the day we're born as part of scheme, nearly incomprehensible in scope, to ensure that challengers to these traditions are never made, and, if they're born, are squashed with the weight of mountainous tidal waves of blowback in the other direction…? The purveyors of that shit are the goddamn thought police.
And you know what one of the biggest lies they tell you is?
That it's the other way around.
[Originally posted August 2009.]
Get to Know a Contributor
Here are the Top Five Things I Bet You Didn't Know about Deeky W. Gashlycrumb:
1. He loves puns. Like, loooooooooves them. If you ever have the opportunity to make a pun for his enjoyment, you should definitely do it.
2. He will only eat food prepared from a Guy Fieri cookbook or at a Guy Fieri restaurant. His dream is to eat a plate of Red-Hot Blazin' Chicken Dingers with a side of Kickass Cheese-n-Cheese Slaw personally prepared by Guy Fieri.
3. He has a commissioned portrait of Larry the Cable Guy hanging over his bed.
4. His safe word is "Guttenberg."
5. His favorite actor is John Travolta, and his favorite John Travolta film is Michael. This is his favorite scene:
Video Description: John Travolta, playing the archangel Michael, hits a jukebox in a bar to make "Chain of Fools" play, then does a terrific choreographed dance with some ladies.
BONUS FUN-FACT!
I made this collage and emailed it to Deeky late last night, so it would be waiting to greet him in the morning:
He was very appreciative, and sent me a thank-you email which read: "Dear Liss: You are so thoughtful, and you know me so well! I am lucky to have a friend like you. All My Love, Deeks."
Lucky Dogs
My thanks to Shaker catvoncat for alerting me to this important piece of news: My BFF Zooey Deschanel has rescued two dogs from the Bill Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit rescue group. Deschanel tweeted this adorable picture of her two rescues:
They are named Dot and Zelda. You know, I happen to think that Zelda is a terrific name for a dog.
Congratulations to Zooey Deschanel, and her lovely and lucky pups!
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny]
Snide Introduction Here:
Five Democratic senators in two days announce sudden support of marriage equality. Timely. [Update: Six senators now.]
Here is the audio and transcript of yesterday's Supreme Court arguments on Proposition 8.
A high school science teacher is being investigated after using the word vagina in a lesson on the human reproductive system.
Scientists want to bring twenty-two animals back from extinction. Go science!
Speaking of: Jurassic Park 3D opens next week.
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics has released a limited-edition lip gloss with to raise funds to help one of their employees complete her SRS.
TruFact™: Liss was afraid of The Cavity Creeps until she was fifteen.
[Image via Andy.]
Number of the Day
$18.4 million: The average income growth, adjusted for inflation, for the top 1% of the top 1% of USians between 1966 and 2011, per an analysis by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston for Tax Analysts.
As you may recall, yesterday's Number of the Day was taken from the same analysis, which found that the average income growth for the bottom 90% of USians during the same period was $59.
Source: Author's calculations from analysis of IRS data by Saez and Piketty.
Chart care of TaxAnalysts.
David Cay Johnston:
Skyrocketing growth at the top and, in recent years, plummeting income for the vast majority caused a major re-slicing of the national income pie. That re-slicing results in large part from tax, employment, and other rule changes that began with President Reagan and intensified under President George W. Bush. The situation changed slightly this year under President Obama, but the rules allow the rich to make their fortunes grow like a giant snowball rolling down a hill.Read the whole thing here, and then marvel at the brass audacity of conservatives accusing progressives who want to sufficiently fund a robust social safety net of waging "class warfare."
... Those at the top are pulling away from everyone else not because of hard work, but the shift of income from labor to capital and changes in federal income, gift, and estate tax rules.
The median wage has been stuck since 1999 at a bit more than $500 per week in real terms and job growth has lagged far beyond population growth. But capital gains and dividends have soared, a new Congressional Research Service study shows. And, of course, the rich get most of that income.
Well, If You Wanted Civil Liberties, You Shouldn't Have Been Born with a Uterus
[Content Note: Hostility to agency; misogyny; drones.]
Ilya Shapiro and Francisco Gonzalez are at CNN, talking about how Senator Rand Paul (R-Egressive) is the totes awesome future of conservatism:
The junior senator from Kentucky has a vision of the Constitution in full, advocating the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms and the Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.I don't know how many times and in how many different ways I can say this, but a person who is resolutely anti-choice is not "for civil liberties." Nor does he support "a humbler role for government," as there is nothing humble about the government crawling up inside vaginas and planting flags of ownership.
He's for civil liberties -- to protect against police abuse or presidential drones, as well as economic liberties and the freedom to run a business without unnecessary regulation. And he wants to give the blessings of those liberties to those who come to America in search of a better life.
As a libertarian and a traditional conservative, we disagree with Paul on a number of issues. Yet we both see his constitutional conservatism as auguring a future in which social tolerance, fiscal temperance and a humbler role for government are pursued not as ends in themselves but because that's the best path.
The wormy anti-choice apple doesn't fall far from the rotten misogynist tree.
Relatedly, on the general subject of Rand Paul's civil libertarian warrior credentials, LeMew observes: "My argument is not that civil libertarians should be skeptical of Rand Paul because he has terrible beliefs on a wide array of other issues. My argument is that civil libertarians should be skeptical of Rand Paul because he has terrible positions on civil liberties. While he did make a couple of gestures towards a more serious questioning of the arbitrary executive, the overwhelming thrust of his lengthy filibuster (and the exclusive subject of his proposed legislation) is on DRONES! rather than extrajuridical killings, and on American citizens on American soil rather than people."
And even Paul's opposition to DRONES! is limited: As Howard_Bannister noted in comments: "Rand Paul is totally okay with using drones to kill 'icky' people, just not Americans on American soil!"
Paul is definitely interested in protecting and conferring rights upon people like himself. But there's no such thing as trickle-down civil liberties. He wants protections and rights at the expense of, or with indifference to, others'.
That's not a champion of civil liberties. That's just being a self-interested fuckhead and cloaking it in a flag.
Quote of the Day
Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. I think it was first adopted in The Netherlands in 2000. So there isn't a lot of data about its effect. And it may turn out to be a—a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing, as the supporters of Proposition 8 apparently believe.—Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, during oral arguments on Prop 8 yesterday. (The full transcript is here [pdf].)
But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cell phones or the Internet? I mean we—we are not—we do not have the ability to see the future. On a question like that, of such fundamental importance, why should it not be left for the people, either acting through initiatives and referendums or through their elected public officials?
Ha ha ha WHUT.
This is literally one of the worst arguments I've ever heard, for about a million different reasons, but in serious response to his incredible question "why should it not be left for the people" to decide, I would like to again quote this old John Rogers post:
[W]hen the Supreme Court struck down the bans against interracial marriage in 1968 through Virginia vs. Loving, SEVENTY-TWO PERCENT of Americans were against interracial marriage. As a matter of fact, approval of interracial marriage in the US didn't cross the positive threshold until -- sweet God – 1991.The reason we don't leave it for the people is because rights of marginalized people shouldn't be dependent on whether privileged people choose decency over the maintenance of undeserved privilege.
Somehow I suspect that a United States Supreme Court Justice is not unfamiliar with the concept of tyranny of the majority, and yet here he is, talking some rank bullshit like that ain't A Thing.
Question of the Day
What's the best comeback you've ever had that you didn't get to use because you thought of it ten seconds (or ten hours, or ten days...) too late?
Recommended Reading
Robin Marty: Despite Abortion Bans, TRAP Law Is the Real Threat to Abortion Access in North Dakota. I'm not even going to excerpt it. Just go read the whole thing.
Not-So-Random YouTubery
So, y'all know how I love The Golden Girls, right? Well, via HyperVocal, a reminder of why The Golden Girls was (and remains) awesome. This clip, featuring Sophia talking to Blanche about her brother's commitment ceremony, is 22 years old:
Blanche [Rue McClanahan] is sitting at the kitchen table, with her head in her hand when Sophia [Estelle Getty] walks into the room.
Sophia: Blanche, I've been thinking about Clayton and Doug, and I have a question.
Blanche: What?
Sophia: Why do men have nipples? [laughter]
Blanche: I have no idea.
Sophia: You think it's because god has a sense of humor and isn't as uptight as the rest of us? [laughter; she sits down at the table]
Blanche: It's easier for you to say that, Sophia. It's not your brother who's getting married to another man. Oh, look—I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know?!
Sophia: Why did you marry George?
Blanche: We loved each other! We wanted to make a lifetime commitment, wanted everybody to know.
Sophia: That's what Doug and Clayton want, too. Everyone wants someone to grow old with, and shouldn't everyone have that chance?
Blanche: Ah! [she stands up and reaches out her hand to Sophia] Sophia, I think I see what you're getting at.
Sophia: I don't think you do. Blanche, will you marry me? [laughter]
Blanche: Thank you, Sophia. I need to go talk to them.
Sophia: Fine—but I'll need an answer! I'm not gonna wait for you forever! [laughter]
[NB: Not everyone wants someone with whom to grow old.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, the tiniest wee titchy cat in all of catdom.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Today in Fat Hatred
[Content Note: Fat hatred; disordered eating.]
My pal Erica Barnett sent me another terrific (by which I mean terrible) article about another prominent scholar publishing some swell ideas about how we should deal with the high cost of fat people:
An economics scholar in Norway has recommended that air ticket costs be calculated according to a passenger's weight.Pun intended?
Dr. Bharat P. Bhatta, associate professor of economics at Sogn og Fjordane University College, Norway, is proposing three models that he says, "may provide significant benefits to airlines, passengers and society at large."
I always love articles written about the benefits to "society at large" that can be found in demonizing and mistreating fat people, as if we are not ourselves part of society.
"I mean the part of society that matters!"—Dr. Bharat P. Bhatta, probably.
In his paper, published in the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Dr. Bhatta noted "a reduction of 1 kilo weight of a plane will result in fuel savings worth US$3,000 a year and a reduction of CO2 emissions by the same token."I don't have the will or inclination to detail all the many ways in which treating fat as a moral choice that should be "taxed" is totally fucked up (but here's a helpful series if you need some info!), so I will simply note that even the suggestion of a public weigh-in is not merely contemptible but deeply ignorant: People of any size who have disordered eating stand to be triggered by even the prospect of a public weigh-in. This proposal is not just biased and cruel, but disablist.
..."Charging according to weight and space is a universally accepted principle, not only in transportation, but also in other services," Bhatta says. "As weight and space are far more important in aviation than other modes of transport, airlines should take this into account when pricing their tickets."
His three "pay as you weigh” models are:
Total weight: A passenger’s luggage and body weight is calculated, with the fare comprising a per kilo cost. In this scenario a passenger weighing 100 kilos with 20 kilos of luggage (120 kilos total) would pay twice that of a passenger of 50 kilos with 10 kilos of luggage (60 kilos total).
Base fare +/- extra: A base fare is set, with a per-kilo discount applying for “underweight” passengers and a per-kilo surcharge applying to “overweight” passengers.
High/Average/Low: A base fare is set, with a predetermined discount applying for those below a certain weight threshold and a predetermined surcharge applying for those above a certain weight threshold.
Bhatta prefers the third of these options. He goes on to say that weight could be ascertained through passenger self-declaration, with one in five passengers randomly selected and weighed to dissuade cheats (with penalties for cheaters) or by weighing all passengers at check in.
Number of the Day
$59: The average income growth, adjusted for inflation, for the bottom 90% of USians between 1966 and 2011, per an analysis by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston for Tax Analysts. That's fifty-nine dollars. Over forty-five years. While nondiscretionary individual spending has increased significantly.
Another day, another mind-blowing fact about the staggering difference between the haves and the have-nots.Over at Digby's place, David Atkins observes:
Incomes for the bottom 90 percent of Americans only grew by $59 on average between 1966 and 2011 (when you adjust those incomes for inflation), according to an analysis by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston for Tax Analysts. During the same period, the average income for the top 10 percent of Americans rose by $116,071, Johnston found.
And these statistics only look at the top 10%. The top 1% is making exponentially more than the rest of the 9% under them. And the top tenth of a percent is doing exponentially better than the rest of the one percent.Whoops.
The country isn't broke. It's just that a small portion of the country's people have basically looted all the wealth of the last 50 years.
Ideally, that looting would be illegal in its own right. But if we give conservatives the benefit of the doubt and say that it would be too economically restrictive to attempt to control how much these people are taking away from the rest of the economy, then the second-best alternative we have under the circumstances is to redistribute a greater portion of those ill-gotten gains to create better jobs and social services for people whose incomes have been artificially constrained.
What we should under no circumstances be doing is cutting the safety net while allowing these thieves to walk away with all their loot.
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, racism]
Tuesday Stuff:
As part of California’s new gay-friendly school curriculum, the state has included LGBT-themed books into the K-12 curriculum.
Tennessee's new Muslim foot sink causes a furor.
Someone broke into Bryan Cranston's car and stole a script from the upcoming final season of Breaking Bad.
Despite previous films in the series losing millions, Atlas Shrugged Part 3 heads into production. Free markets, yall!
North Korea is rattling its sabres. Swell.
Sirius XM has struck a deal to carry a new channel produced by Glenn Beck's media company. Gross.
TruFact™: This is Liss' favourite movie.
SCOTUS to Hear Marriage Equality Arguments
Today, the United States Supreme Court will begin to hear arguments in the Prop 8 case:
A four-year legal battle to extend the right of marriage to same-sex couples no matter where they live gets its moment before the Supreme Court on Tuesday in historic oral arguments difficult to imagine even a decade ago.Tomorrow, the Court will also hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of DOMA.
The first of two days of oral arguments over what supporters call marriage equality brings the boldest of the claims that gay rights activists will make — that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage that states may not deny.
The nine justices will consider California's Proposition 8, which voters passed in 2008 to define marriage as between a man and woman and to overturn a state Supreme Court decision earlier that year that approved same-sex marriage.
...The U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of [the 9th circuit appeals court] decision would limit the impact to California.
But those are not the only options before the nine justices. They could conclude that the Constitution is silent on the issue and that California voters were within their rights to write into the state constitution a traditional definition of marriage.
They could also decide that the issue is not properly before the court. Because California's political leaders disagree with Prop 8 and have chosen not to defend it, the court will have to decide whether proponents of the measure may be the ones to do so.
If not, the state probably will be free to again issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
I don't have much to say, beyond reiterating my full and unequivocal support for full marriage equality with the unqualified extension of all rights and privileges conferred by different-sex marriage (e.g. immigration rights). I desperately want the Court to do the right thing. Marriage equality is not the final frontier in full equality for all members of the queer community, but it's really fucking important to a lot of people, and it's time to get this done. It has always been the right thing to do, even before there was majority support for it.
This Also Happened
Background here. And more. [CN: Harassment.]
And then, picking up where Adam Lee left off, Ophelia Benson wrote this post in support of his erroneous assertion that I had monolithized movement atheism. It starts thus:
So all the irritated or difficult or especial feminist types think all of atheism is sexist to the core and hostile to all but the most compliant and Hot women, right?So, right from the opening line, I am an "irritated or difficult or especial feminist type." Neat! I guess she hasn't heard yet that I'm also famously uncharitable.
No. Not at all.
Adam Lee has a post on the subject.
He starts with a post by Melissa McEwan that lists a string of rules (in the form of tweets). I'm not all that fond of strings of rules.
Immediately, that is followed by mischaracterizing my expressly solicited list of advice—which has been republished by PZ Myers, who asked the question to which it was a response—as a "string of rules" as if they were presented with some expectation that they be followed in spaces other than my own. (Which I have repeatedly said over the last week was explicitly not my expectation.) I got asked how movement atheist spaces can be more welcoming to women. I replied with some suggestions. Now I am being cast as a rule-making enforcer. Neat!
It goes on from there, with Ophelia quoting Adam's cherry-picked post in order to make the argument that I monolithized movement atheism to call it universally misogynist.
Which, as an aside, if I believed, I wouldn't have wasted my time making a list of advice for "atheist men who genuinely want an answer" to the question about making their spaces more inclusive. If I were a person who went about making "rules" for an entire movement of people I didn't believe were remotely amenable to them, I would be a very silly person indeed.
But never mind the evident curiousness inherent to that logic. I mean, geez, you know how those irritated or difficult or especial feminist types are. Don't even bother trying to figure them out!
Anyway. Fifty comments into her comment thread, after many of her commenters noted that Adam's post was an intellectually dishonest piece based on selective quoting, Ophelia writes:
Urf, I never wanted to get into this level of detail, I didn't know it was going to be this detailed. Maybe I got it wrong.Followed by:
Yes much too detailed. (I took a look at that post.) I didn't mean to get into a whole huge thing. I thought it was a relatively small detachable point, and I found it interesting, so I said about it. Maybe I'm all wrong. I'm sure as hell not saying "movement atheism is just fine and I feel totes welcome inside of it."So, basically, in the middle of some visible percentage of mainstream movement atheism having a week-long referendum on how unfair, uncharitable, cold, passionless, fascistic, oversensitive, hysterical, stupid, fat, ugly, and deserving of rape and death I am, yet another movement atheist decided she couldn't be bothered with the pesky details of it all, which I have been carefully documenting with backlinks in every subsequent post, before piling the fuck on and just presuming that Adam Lee was right in order so that she could make a "relatively small detachable point" about an assertion I didn't even actually make.
But I'm interested in things like overgeneralization. I always have been. It's what got me into this, more than ten years ago. Sometimes I really am just thinking about that, and not making some larger political point, let alone a gotcha.
Neat!
A lot of virtual ink has been spilled over the last week arguing that feelings aren't evidence, that this is about my hurt fee-fees or my being offended, that no one should be expected to change hir behavior because of someone's feelings or perceptions, that some feelings are wrong, and so forth and so on. It has been asserted that I am documenting this because I have a grudge, or because I don't like the people involved, or other variations on being oversensitive and taking it personally.
No. The reason I am documenting it is because this is the exact dynamic I was talking about in the first place. Whatever feelings about this dynamic I have are a result of repeatedly cycling through it. Patterns should mean something to people who prize rational thought and evidence. Systemic marginalization can be objectively assessed, and that is the endeavor I've undertaken here.
I've never said I was hurt. I've never said I was offended. I've never made this personal. I said I was alienated for demonstrable reasons. Framing this documentation into the thrashing petulance of a difficult feminist is a discrediting strategy, a choice made in contravention of all evidence to the contrary. For the people who use the next breath to argue that rational evidence trumps feelings, that is a curious choice indeed.
Nope.
[Content Note: Abuse of authority by teacher; hostility to consent]
Portland (Oregon) Public School district offers an optional program to its high school students called Teen Outreach Program (TOP). The TOP program is offered nationwide by several organizations but here in PDX, Planned Parenthood Columbia/Willamette is the org that gives the presentations. Just what is TOP, exactly? Well:
Wyman’s Teen Outreach Program® (TOP) aims to prevent teen pregnancy and increase academic success by increasing life skills on a number of different topics, including healthy relationships, communication, values clarification, examining influences, goal setting, decision making, adolescent development and sexual health, and community service learning. The TOP program is recommended by the US Department of Health and Human Services based on rigorous evaluation. PPCW is a certified replication partner of Wyman's TOP program.You can learn more about the program here.
TOP is a comprehensive youth development strategy that promotes the positive development of adolescents through a combination of curriculum-guided group discussion and community service learning. The program provides teens with the necessary supports and opportunities to prepare for successful adulthood and avoid problem behavior. The TOP clubs meet weekly throughout the school year for approximately one hour sessions. The TOP program is implemented in partnership with schools and community organizations.
Recently a local high school teacher, Bill Diss, was placed on administrative leave & rec'd for dismissal because of his atrocious and disruptive behavior in his workplace, the classroom. Diss is a well-known opponent to Planned Parenthood and calls the org and its mission "filth". Mr. Diss claims it's because of his personal views (and many conservative, anti-choice outlets are trying to run with that).
Nope.
Diss was reprimanded in September for stopping employees from giving a presentation about the program in his classroom, according to a letter he provided to The Oregonian. They eventually finished their presentation, but district officials said he interrupted them.The 82nd Avenue reference? Because it's an area more or less known for prostitution.
[...]
In one of the suspension letters he provided, officials accuse him of trying to stop students from attending the program because of his religious beliefs, as well as telling students to "shut (their) mouths."
"(Students) also quoted you as saying, 'they would end up on 82nd (Avenue) and that they kill over a million babies every three years,'" according to the letter, which was addressed from Principal Carol Campbell and Frank Scotto, human resources regional director.
The letter included statements from another teacher in the classroom, who said Diss frequently yelled and confronted students. It also told Diss it was inappropriate to discuss chastity, purity, premarital sex, abortion and religion in his math, computer science and study hall classes.
"I think, deep down, it's because of my views," Diss said. "And that it's much more important for them to have Planned Parenthood in the schools than to have a really dedicated teacher who really teaches math well and goes the extra mile and does a whole bunch with the kids."So we have a teacher who, at his workplace: prevented people from doing their jobs, made highly inappropriate comments to students, and who used his class time to "discuss" with students on his religious views. It's not because of his views that he has been removed from the classroom, it's because of his behavior. No matter how "dedicated" a math teacher he may be, he could not conduct himself professionally and he doesn't deserve to be in a classroom because of it.
Question of the Day
When was the last time you were reading something and had a "click" moment? About anything: Understanding a news story in a new way, figuring out a solution to a problem you've been trying to solve, workplace politics, social justice, how to perfect a recipe, whatever.
Shakers, I think this puppy may just be living in Tom Hardy's jacket now. There is also the outside possibility that Tom Hardy and the puppy are slowly fusing into one beast that will eventually rule the universe. In which case, I welcome my Hardypup Overlord.
An Observation
I mentioned this in comments earlier, but it really deserves a post of its own: It is a critical piece of ally work to acknowledge that being marginalized because one holds beliefs that are marginalized and/or is part of a movement whose identity is marginalized is fundamentally not the same as being marginalized because of one's intrinsic characteristics.
No matter how immutable these beliefs may be, it is different.
I'm never not going to be a feminist, for example. And feminism is a marginalized identity within a misogynist culture. But being a feminist is not the same, in many crucial ways, as being a woman.
It is a choice to be part of a movement built around an identity; it is not a choice to be a person born, by birth or circumstance, into a marginalized population.
A genuine ally knows this, and does not attempt to conflate the two.
[Related Reading: On Situational and Relative Privilege.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Gender essentialism; family policing.]
Here is your reminder that, although occasionally David Frum sounds like a feminist compared to the rest of his party, he is not one:
But while straight young Americans support marriage for gays, increasingly they opt against marriage for themselves. Nearly half of American children, 48%, are now born to unmarried women. Among women without college degrees, and of all races, unwed motherhood has become the norm.There is a lot of terrible stuff there! And I will leave it to you to discuss all of it in comments! But I do want to note two quick things:
This is the crisis of the American family. Whether same-sex marriage proceeds fast or slow, whether it extends to all 50 states or stops with the current nine plus the District of Columbia, the crisis will be the same.
Children born to single parents face much longer odds in life than children born to married parents. (A new study by ThirdWay.org suggests that the harms are especially intense for boys, less so for girls.) "Odds" are not rules, of course. There are always exceptions.
On average, however, children born to married mothers and fathers are more likely to finish college, more likely to avoid prison and more likely to form marriages themselves than children born to single parents. And precisely because the harms of single parenthood tend to be self-replicating, the breakdown of marriage threatens to harden into a caste divide, with some families launched into cycles of downward mobility because of the unstable relationships of parents or grandparents or great-grandparents.
For 20 years, Americans have fiercely debated whether gays -- who constitute maybe 3% of the population -- should be allowed to marry each other. Meanwhile, Americans have given short shrift to what is happening to the 97% of the population that is allowed to marry, but increasingly opts not to do so.
1. There is increasingly less need for male-partnered women to get married, as women have entered the workforce in greater numbers and thus have direct access to things like healthcare coverage, which was otherwise accessible only via a legal marriage arrangement, and various other legal protections that used to be conferred exclusively by marriage.
Ironically, male-partnered women have gained access to some of these rights because of accommodations begrudgingly conceded to same-sex couples by conservatives who hoped to try to give same-sex partnerships as many legal rights as possible without granting them actual marriage equality. So in their obstinate unwillingness to relinquish the privileging of their super-special relationships—bathed in the shimmering, golden glow that only denying equality to same-sex couples conveys upon their gloriously gilded unions—they have created more options for male-partnered women. Whoops! (And thanks!)
2. Different-sex marriage statistics don't axiomatically reflect any truths about co-parenting (or the lack thereof). There are now many unmarried different-sex partners who cohabitate and co-parent without ever getting married. There are also many unmarried different-sex partners who do not cohabitate but do co-parent.
Further, there are—and always have been—married different-sex people who are shitty parents. Marriage is not a magic spell that guarantees a happy family. Even a physically present parent can be an emotionally absent one. (Which is to say nothing of physically abusive parents.) Just because, say, your father lives in the same house as you doesn't mean you're better off. That is entirely dependent on what kind of father he is.
Much of what Frum is crediting to single motherhood is really a reflection of poverty, toward which single mothers are disproportionately disposed, for a whole lot of reasons that can be addressed in better ways than "add a man with an income." The key is stability, which is indeed aided by functional and safe marriages between people of different or the same sexes. But marriage is only one factor in personal and/or familiar stability.
It is also the most popular individual solution to systemic problems that make instability a problem for lots of folks. Marriage isn't supposed to be about bootstraps.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by fizzy drinks.
Recommended Reading:
At Flyover Feminism: Let's Talk About Names: Tawny
At Are Women Human?: Let's Talk About Names: Ali, hooks, Lee Boggs
Tressie: How For-Profit Colleges Are Rebuilding the Middle Class?
Living ~400lbs: [Content Note: Fat bias.] Quote of the Day
Tara: Low-Income Tennesseans Resort to 'Health Care Lottery' for Coverage
Andy: [Content Note: Homophobia; rape culture] Right-Winger Says California Dept. of Education is 'Raping Innocence of Children' with New LGBT-Inclusive Books List
Jorge: [Content Note: Racism; misogyny] Labor Attorneys Say Adria Richards' Firing Will Be Hard to Defend
And finally—it's really hard to believe this didn't exist before, now that it does: Nic Cage's Face on All 151 1st Generation Pokemon. Obviously.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
The Walking Thread
Who needs all the hugs? Daryl does, that's who!
(Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein. CN: Violence.)
Previously on The Walking Dead: Clues to what will happen in this episode of The Walking Dead! Can you guess what things will happen in this episode, based on the scenes just shown to you? I SURE CAN! RIP Merle. Thank you for the very obvious foreshadowing that Merle was totes gonna die in this episode, producers of The Walking Dead. Your terrific storytelling is excellent, as always.
The title of this episode is "This Sorrowful Life," which is a pretty apt title for every episode, and could only be more accurate if it was "This Sorrowful Attempt at Great Storytelling with Rich Character Development and Solid Internal Consistency." That's a bigger mouthful than Merle's fingers, though, so I will be satisfied with "This Sorrowful Life." Because I'm charitable like that. Ahem.
When the episode opens, Grimes is telling Hershel and Daryl that turning over Michonne to Governor Cyclops is "the only way" to keep them all safe, because Grimes is super stupid and still imagines there a way in which Governor Cyclops will leave them alone. This fucking guy. "Well, Governor Cyclops has been totes operating in good faith so far, except for all the murder and rapeyness and zombie heads in aquariums and letting loose a van-load of zombies on our property OH OKAY I SEE YOUR POINT," Grimes DIDN'T say.
Instead, despite Hershel's and Daryl's expressed reservations, Grimes trots off to find Merle, who FOR REAL is tearing apart prison mattresses in search of drugs, and tell him all about his genius plan to turn over Michonne to Governor Cyclops. Grimes, wicked judgy about Merle's dope-search, asks him with a sneer if he "even knows why you do the things you do, make the choices you make," which HA HA is a little like the pot asking the kettle if it knows why it does the things it does and makes the choices it makes. Merle responds by telling Grimes he doesn't have the spine to turn over Michonne, and Grimes yells, "SHUT UP I DO SO!" before running away with windmill arms.
Ha ha just kidding. Grimes stays put long enough for Merle to tell him, CORRECTLY AND WISELY, that Grimes is a dipshit if he thinks Governor Cyclops is going to kill Michonne, when obviously he is going to torture her mercilessly, and that Grimes is "cold as ice" if he turns over Michonne knowing damn well that's going to happen. Grimes huffily tells Merle they need to get Michonne "to the Governor by noon," and THEN he runs away with windmill arms.
Meanwhile, Michonne is killing zombies with Glenn and Daryl, because she is awesome. She comes up with a good strategy to protect Grimes Jail from Governor Cyclops, and when Grimes says it's a good plan, Daryl underlines that it is Michonne's plan, because he is awesome. But Grimes will not be deterred. He yells, "STOP TRYING TO CHANGE MY MIND, DARYL! SHUT UP, BUTTHOLE!" and then runs away with windmill arms.
Back inside Grimes Jail, Merle's hunting for booze, and Carol, questioning his loyalties, tells him, "It's not time to do shots; it's time to pick a side." I know that probably sounds like some made-up dialogue that I inserted in place of the real dialogue, but NOPE! Those are the real words that come out of Carol's mouth in that scene!
Elsewhere, Daryl asks Glenn if Merle has apologized to him yet, and Glenn is silent. Daryl presses on, saying he'll make sure Merle makes up for tying Glenn to a chair and beating him up and handing over Maggie to Governor Cyclops, but also Glenn has to be forgiving. Whoooooooooops Daryl! That was a shitty thing to say! Glenn reminds him that Merle tied him to a chair and beat him up and handed over Maggie to Governor Cyclops, and Daryl makes a whoopsface, because what else is he gonna say? Aside from, "Yeah, fair point, I'm sorry I just said you should forgive my brother. What I MEANT to say was: Thanks for not stabbing my brother in the throat like he fucking deserves."
Daryl then ambles off to confront Merle, now on the hunt for drugs in Ye Olde Gaol Apothecary, and Merle makes a speech about how Grimes Gang looks at him like he's the devil for handing over Maggie to the Governor, even though they're now planning to do the same thing with Michonne. GOOD POINT, MERLE! Someone give that guy a candy cigarette. (His disappointment will be priceless! Do it!)
Meanwhile, Hershel and Maggie and Blonde Sister hold hands around a table while Hershel reads Meaningful Passages aloud from the Bible. His droning recital continues in voiceover as Grimes picks through garbage looking for cordage to tie up Michonne, during which he sees Pregnant Ghost Lori, i.e. the projection of his garbage conscience, and then throws down the cord and walks away to tell everyone THE PLAN IS OFF. Ixnay on the Idnapkay.
But whoooooooooooooooooooooops Merle didn't get the message, because he's off killing zombies in the bowels of Grimes Jail with Michonne, whom he thunks on the head and drags off to bind her up and start walking her to Unpleasantville. By the time Grimes locates Daryl to give him the GREAT NEWS about how he's not quite as terrible a garbage monster as he was five seconds before seeing his dead wife's pregnant ghost, Merle and Michonne are long gone. Daryl takes off after them, while Grimes stays behind to give a
On the road to Unpleasantville, Merle and Michonne have a lot of great conversation which reestablishes that Merle is a dirtbag and Michonne is underutilized on the show. He ties her to a post like a dog while he hotwires a car, setting off the car alarm in the process. OH NOES ZOMBIES! Even tied to a post, Michonne kicks ass, and after a scuffle that is no more or less exciting than every scuffle exactly like this one in every episode, they manage to get in the car and drive away.
Michonne tells Merle they can just turn back, and makes the point that it would actually restore some goodwill with Grimes Gang if he returns her unharmed. He says he can't go back, but cuts the binds around her hands, gives her back her blade, and lets her out of the car. Awhile later, Daryl finds her in a field, and, after establishing she has not murdered the fuck out of Merle, he continues on the search for his brother, while she continues on back to Grimes Jail.
Speaking of, back at Grimes Jail, Glenn has a great conversation with Hershel about how he now understands that when Hershel gave him a watch, it was more than just a watch he was passing on—it was the ownership of and responsibility for protecting Maggie's vagina. Hershel tells him that he has his blessing to marry Maggie, so Glenn runs outside and cuts a diamond ring off the finger of a lady zombie, then presents it to Maggie, who says yes without his even asking. I guess the good thing about the zombiepocalypse is that you don't have to worry about the pesky ethics of blood diamonds anymore!
Meanwhile, Merle is drinking booze straight from the bottle in the car, from which he's now blaring music through a cracked window and slowly creeping forward down the road with a gaggle of zombies in tow. The zombies follow him to UN Barn, where Martinez & Co. are lying in wait to ambush Grimes Gang when they show up for the scheduled confab. Merle jumps out of the still-moving car, somehow managing to not impale himself on his own knife-arm, and hides in another building, setting up kill-shop in the window.
When Martinez & Co. come out of hiding to kill the legion of zombies he's brought along for the ride, Merle picks off their faceless minions one by one, until Governor Cyclops finds him. They fight, and Merle somehow manages to not stab Governor Cyclops on his knife-arm, either. Instead, Governor Cyclops bites some fingers off Merle's remaining hand, and then shoots him. RIP Merle.
Well, except for how he's now a zombie. And Daryl, upon arrival at UN Barn, finds Zombie Merle munching on a corpse. He cries, and it is very sad. And then he kills Zombie Merle, because he has to and because he needs to violently vent the lingering emotional turmoil caused from his family of origin, and his regret at how things turned out with Merle, and his fury at how fucked-up the world is.
And we are probably meant to be left thinking, "At least Merle sorta redeemed himself by doing the right thing in the end," but of course Merle didn't do Grimes Gang any damn favors at all, because now Governor Cyclops can return to Unpleasantville with a solid justification for attacking Grimes Jail, as he can report Unpleasantvillagers were killed by Merle, acting on behalf of Grimes Gang.
At least letting Michonne go was a rare moment of decency. Good job, Merle. And goodbye.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley uses my leg as a pillow Saturday afternoon.
When we adopted Dudley, in April of 2010, he was so scared of me touching him that he'd pee on himself in fright if I got near him. I spent long hours lying on the floor, next to his crate where he felt safe, synchronizing my breathing to his, quiet and still, to reassure him I would never hurt him. One day, he came out, and laid down beside me on the floor. I put my hand on his side, across a long scar the origins of which we do not know, and matched him breath for breath. There we laid, until he let me know he needed to go out, and I put on his leash without making him fearful for the first time.
It wasn't until almost two years later that he initiated an intimate snuggle with me, after Zelda gave him an appreciation for seeking out a cuddle with Two-Legs.
Now, as we approach our three-year anniversary of finding one another, there is no trace of the frightened dog who arrived. Not long ago, I fell asleep with my head on his back, our heads meeting in the middle of the couch as our bodies stretched away in opposite directions. There we napped together for an hour or so, two contented little monsters, snoring away.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In The News
[Content note: Transphobia, racism]
It's Monday! You Know What I Always Say About Monday!
It turns out George Zimmerman's brother is a total racist. How weird and unexpected!
Voyager 1 has left the Solar System. Or maybe not. Arguments ensue.
The winning ticket for Saturday night's $338 million Powerball jackpot was sold at a liquor store in Passaic, New Jersey.
GLAAD has changed its name to GLAAD in support of trans inclusivity. Okay.
Tilda Swinton as sleeping in a box at MoMA. Obviously.
VFiles has resurrected the defunct gay magazine XY in its digital archives. Woot!
TruFact™: This is Liss' favourite song.
Reproductive Rights Updates: North Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Washington
Quite a bit happening in the anti-autonomy front, much of it this past Friday.
North Dakota made big news over the weekend with what happened Friday--three out of four anti-abortion bills passed. One of those being a resolution to bring "personhood" to ND voters.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 4009, passed and will be on the 2014 general election ballot.The TRAP legislation is particularly harmful: there is only one clinic in North Dakota and, as noted in the article, a doctor would need to admit ten patients per year to retain privileges. The clinic has only had to admit one person in the past decade.
Under the resolution, North Dakota voters will decide whether the state constitution should be amended to protect a human at every stage of life, which some say can mean at conception.
[...]
Senate Bill 2368, which defines life as starting at conception and would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, passed through the House by a 60-32 vote. It was sponsored by Sen. Joe Miller, R-Park River.
The bill also would increase reporting requirements for abortions and prohibit a public higher education institution from contracting with an entity that performs or counsels in favor of abortions.
It does exempt an abortion in the case of a medical emergency.
[...]
Senate Bill 2305, which would require a physician performing an abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility, passed 58-34 in the House.
The sole defeated legislation last Friday was one that was more "personhood"-esque nonsense which would have defined a human as “as an individual member of the species homo sapiens at every stage of development.” It only lost by six votes.
***
Number of the Day
[Content Note: Drones; war.]
65%: The percentage of USians in Gallup's latest poll found to believe the US government should use drones to launch airstrikes in other countries against suspected terrorists who are not US citizens.
That is a depressingly high number. But I want to observe something about which I've written previously: Most of the people responding to this poll realize they are effectively making the choice between: 1. Boots-on-the-ground warfare; 2. Drone strikes, which have been widely mischaracterized as "precision strikes" with limited civilian casualties; 3. Doing nothing.
I wrote in September of last year:
I also believe quite fervently that the approval for drones is reflective of that aforementioned lack of a meaningful choice. When our choice is between a Democratic candidate who will wage war with "targeted" drone attacks, or a Republican candidate who will wage war with troops and tanks and treasure and mercenaries and false promises and no exit strategy, I "approve" of drones, too—but only by default.I don't know what the numbers in this poll would look like if the respondents knew there was a meaningful option that included effective diplomatic strategies (of which "doing nothing" might be a part, given that the use of drones is now a key recruiting tool). I would like to know, but I fear that I will never have that chance, because the degree of militarized engagement is the only real option we're given anymore.
I authentically, enthusiastically, desperately choose diplomacy over drones. But that is not the choice I'm given.
I live in a war-mongering empire, and the only choice I'm given is in which way I want to wage war. That I don't want to wage war at all doesn't really matter, not to this president, nor any other.
Ladies, Amirite?
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Shaker insomniax sent me the link to this post about the shock and sexism that resulted after the creator of the popular Facebook page I Fucking Love Science disclosed (via a link to her Twitter account) that she is a woman.
There's nothing I can say which I haven't already said in a million different ways about the inherent misogyny in neither having considered that the creator of any space, particularly a space concerned with science, could be female, nor in having the decency to not respond to that news with a torrent of misogyny, including commenting on the female creator's appearance.
I will, however, observe an odd thing about my own reaction: I would have been surprised if the creator of I Fucking Love Science wasn't a woman. I don't follow the page on FB, but lots and lots of my friends do, so I see content from the page shared all the time. And I can't account for what made me (unconsciously) presume it was female-authored, but I did.
I am reminded of my early days of blogging, when there was a "rumor" that one of the Big Liberal Bloggers was "secretly" a woman, and it took me ages to figure out that people assumed Digby was a man. I also can't account for what made me (correctly) presume that Digby is a woman.
I dunno. I do know, however, that one must be open to the possibility of unidentified content creators being women to come to that conclusion, though, however unaccountable.
* * *
As an aside, early in my blogging, when I was still pseudonymous, even under the female moniker Shakespeare's Sister, I used to get a lot of email accusing me of secretly being a dude masquerading as a woman. And even to this day, after eight years and disclosing my real name and posting countless pictures of myself, I still get the occasional email accusing me of being a male someone else.
It's an interesting commentary on what some people believe women to be capable of, I suppose. It also grants me a far greater capacity for sustained prankery than I have, lol. That would be one hell of a long-con!
And Then This Happened
Here is the background to this post.
And then Adam Lee—after telling me in comments here that I am being unfair in saying, after a solid week of being harassed and threatened (which is to say nothing of being called unlikable, uncharitable, oversensitive, reactionary, etc.) by self-identified movement atheists in response to offering solicited advice on how to make movement atheism more inclusive for women like me, that "movement atheism doesn't want to have anything to do with me"—wrote this: On Being a Good (and Bad) Ally to Feminists.
In that piece, dedicated to making the same point, he excerpts one line from my nearly 600-word piece and one comment from its 176-comment thread, in order to accuse me of unfairly monolithizing movement atheism.
He says: "To me, this sounds as if she's saying that atheism has only one voice, and it's the voice of the sexists." This, despite the fact that I also wrote in the post from which he quotes: "My admiration for the women who hang in and stick it out and fight the same fights over and over. That is a valid and commendable choice, even though it's not mine."
To accuse me of being unfair, not only does he casually elide that the context of my claim of being unwelcome was a metric fuckton of sustained hostility emanating from movement atheism, but also disappears the recognition I gave to atheist women in the same post he's saying monolithizes movement atheism. Forget whether he's my ally: Ignoring that, because it's inconvenient to his thesis about my monolithizing movement atheism, is being a shitty ally to them—because ignoring it implicitly argues that movement atheism is a men's movement, and my acknowledgement of female atheists doing good work isn't relevant.
It is relevant.
I will say, again, that I know there are men in movement atheism who make a practice of being good allies to women. (At least straight, white, cis women. And some men more broadly than that.)
But I shouldn't need to keep saying that over and over. Obliging me to salve the consciences of men affiliated with a movement which, irrespective of their efforts, is still incredibly hostile to lots of women outside (and inside) of it, is antithetical to being an ally and incompatible with making me feel like there is a place for me in the movement, if I want my role to be anything but deferential gratitude to men for being decent human beings.
And I will note again, as I did in direct replies to Adam Lee in comments here, that how welcoming movement atheism (or any other self-identified movement) is to marginalized people is subjective, and is not defined by how many people want to welcome marginalized people, but by how many people don't. That any percentage of any privileged group can be hostile enough to make the entire group unsafe for marginalized members is basic social justice 101.
Again, these are dynamics I understand as a privileged member (white, cis) of another self-identified movement (feminism). When a non-white and/or non-cis person says zie does not feel like feminism wants anything to do with hir, I understand that—because I am aware of both the history of mainstream feminism and its current hostilities to non-white and non-cis people. (Among others.)
Yes, it is my job to make the spaces over which I have influence more welcoming and inclusive. No, it is not my job to explain to people who feel unwelcome that they're wrong to feel that way; that to criticize the overwhelming nature of the movement is to monolithize it; that they are being uncharitable and prickly and unlikeable; that, hey, I'm one of the Good Ones, as if that's an immutable state, as if privilege doesn't mean there's always the capacity to fuck up.
In fact, those two activities are utterly incompatible.
There is a thing we say here, long ago introduced in comments by Rana: If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.
That is the concept to which I turn when I read criticisms of mainstream feminism. I listen, hard, to the criticisms being made, and I don't filter them through a validity prism. Instead, I assess whether the person talking about mainstream feminism is talking about me because of my own actions, as I damn well know criticisms of marginalization and exclusion in mainstream feminism are fair, irrespective of the exact number of feminists who engage in it.
If I do not behave in the manner being criticized, then I don't wear the shoe. And if I do behave in the manner being criticized, I had better wear that fucking shoe and get my shit in order.
Either way, I don't defend a movement that I agree needs changing on precisely the basis being held up for criticism.
Anyway. Over in comments at Adam's place, commenter athyco solidly destroys the notion that Adam is making an intellectually honest argument. I don't know who you are, athyco, but thanks. So I will simply leave it at this: Suffice it to say that having my words cherry-picked, thus disappearing my inconvenient acknowledgment of atheist women fighting the good fight, in order to accuse me of being insufficiently appreciative of the men who assert to be my ally while claiming the right to audit my feelings about my lived experience, has not changed my mind about movement atheism.
If this is the welcome mat, I have no desire to walk through the door.
Which I'm certain is of no concern to the number of men in movement atheism (and some women) who have spent the past week discussing amongst themselves what an uncharitable, cold, and variously terrible specimen I am. Nor should it be. I started out writing why I felt alienated from movement atheism, and it wasn't in expectation of a personal invitation.
But what would be of concern to me, were I on the other side of this thing, is that even reasonable expectations of some pushback from the "small but vocal group" were wildly exceeded by petty personal criticisms and gross emotional auditing care of those who identify themselves as part of the ostensibly welcoming majority.
