Shakesville

Today In Bad Ideas

Also to be filed under Catastrophic Ignorance of Symbolism. FEMA official offers payback to NOLA residents by way of a dunk tank at the Broadmoor Neighborhood Festival:

For $5, residents of one of the city's hardest hit neighborhoods received three tennis balls Saturday - and a chance to vent 15 months of frustration at the slow pace of rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina.

The object of their annoyance sat perched atop a dunk tank - Bob Josephson, director of intergovernmental affairs in Louisiana for the reviled and much-lampooned Federal Emergency Management Agency.

…After spending nearly 45 minutes in the dunking booth, FEMA's Josephson took off his sopping shirt and tried to warm himself with a towel.

He explained that FEMA is a part of the community and allowing himself to be dunked was an attempt to show that he and his much-criticized colleagues are not so different from their neighbors.

You know, the thing that actually does make old Bob and "his much-criticized colleagues" so different from their neighbors is that "their neighbors" didn’t get relief from the water after 45 minutes.

"It's all in good fun," he added, as residents thanked him and offered dry clothes and a place to change.

Mmm, indeed. Good fun. Perhaps not so much for those who don’t live in Broadmoor, which has "one of the highest [renovation] percentages among the city’s flooded areas." Perhaps not so much fun for the residents of NOLA who are still displaced, or those who can’t even spare $5 to "vent 15 months of frustration." Meh.

(Via Dr. Bloor at Blue Meme, who’s decidedly unimpressed, too.)

Poop

Russ Feingold won’t be running in 2008:

Sen. Russ Feingold will not seek his party's presidential nomination in 2008, the Wisconsin Democrat told the Journal Sentinel on Saturday.

…Feingold, 53, conceded that he faced long odds of winning the nomination.

"It would have required the craziest combination of things in the history of American politics to make it work," he said.

But Feingold said waging an underdog campaign appealed to him. What didn't appeal to him, he said, was "the way in which this effort would dismantle both my professional life (in the Senate) and my personal life. I'm very happy right now."

…Feingold sent an e-mail to supporters Saturday night announcing his decision.

In it, he said, "I'm sure a campaign for president would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda. . . .

"However, to put my family and all of my friends and supporters through such a process without having a very strong desire to run, seems inappropriate to me."

Damn him and his dumb honesty! That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that made me want him to run for president in the first place! Harrumph.

Presuming Al Gore doesn’t run, which I think is a safe presumption at this point, I’m not sure who my first choice is. Probably Edwards. Or Clark.

a song for a sunday

Supertelevangelistic Sex-and-Drugs Psychosis:

I used to be a master of the anti-gay crusade
Until a butch disaster blew my pastor masquerade
But if it's true I'm pounding more than pulpits, don't blame me
It's 'cause I caught my hooker-tweaker-stud's infirmity

It's
Supertelevangelistic sex-and-drugs psychosis
Worse than plague and bird flu crossed with osteoporosis
We were playing doctor and he gave this diagnosis:
Supertelevangelistic sex-and-drugs psychosis

Umm Haggard Bakker Swaggart umm Tammy Faye
Umm Haggard Bakker Swaggart umm Tammy Faye...

Check out the whole thing.

(A spoonful of sugar goes to Bill for this one)

The Virtual Bar Is Open

The Auld Hoose Pub, Edinburgh
Tonight, Shakers, we lift our glasses to Jack Palance, who goes to the big ranch in the sky. RIP, you mad old codger.

"The only two things you can truly
depend upon are gravity and greed."

Caption This Photo

Via Recon, of course, who says: "Politics aren't fun anymore. Remember when we had a president who made movies with monkeys? And a first lady who kicked it with Mr. T and Arnold Drummond? I just couldn't imagine Laura Bush on Dog The Bounty Hunter's lap. It just wouldn't be the same. God I miss the 80's." And how.

Yeah, Me Neither

“I don't even know what he is talking about with his demons and dark side and dirt.” — Mike Jones, the escort who outed Pastor Ted, in an interview with Radar. (Via Pam.)

Today In Great Ideas

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Democrats:

Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the 50-state strategy and his stinginess with funds for House races cost the Democrats several pickup opportunities.

The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.

Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

Hoo boy. I was hoping we’d get back on the Loser Train as quickly as possible after that devastating win. Looks like the equilibrium has returned.

Before we start throwing a Democrat to the wolves, perhaps we ought to consider whether those stinking robocalls had anything to do with the lost pickup opportunities. Since, you know, there appears to be an interesting correlation between the extremely close races where Democrat lost and robocalls were a factor.

Digby:

Apparently the beltway elite is determined to start a war. There is no reason for them to float this other than a purely malicious power play. Dean's strategy at least arguably worked (I would say undisputably) and the party won the fucking election. Why bring out the long knives in the middle of our victory glow? For the establishment to choose this moment to slap the progressive base of this party right in the face by dissing Dean is to alienate their new younger voters (and their future), their internet-based supporters and their activist grassroots all of whom worked their hearts out in this election.

If there is anyone with the party out there reading this, please talk these short sighted retreads out of pursuing this line. The DNC leadership post is a partywide elected position and Dean has the allegiance of the states, so this is nothing more than public masturbation. There's no point in floating this nonsense except to piss people off.

Which we already know that “big name Democrats” are patently capable of doing—indeed, some might call them experts in the Pissing Off field—so perhaps they can put a lid on it for awhile.

Friday Cat Blogging

Matilda, Maxin' and Relaxin'

Olivia, Yawwwwwwning and Grooming

News from Shakes Manor

Some would say it’s spontaneous sex in atypical places, but I say it’s learning new things about your partner, even after you thought you knew everything there was to know about them, that keeps a relationship spicy. Last night was muy picante at Shakes Manor, as I discovered that the mere appearance of Regis Philbin’s face on our television screen is enough to send Mr. Shakes into an elaborate and passionate tirade.

“What is wroong with that guy?! Fooking goods, he’s soo bloody annoying! I hate joost looking at him! Everything he says or doos has to be soome fooking meloodrama, like he’s the woorst Shakespearean actoor oof all time! What a wankstain! Hoo did he get famoous, foor the loove oof good?! Who the fook is he? FOOK OOF, you wanker! Look at him—joost look at him! Ach! He makes me want to poonch him right in his smoog wee face! Grinning like a fooking baboon. If I stepped oon him, I’d think I’d stepped in a pile of shite!”

Who knew?

Rumsfeld and War Crimes

Sucks to be Rummy:

New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And it’s not as toothless as I originally suspected it might be:

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."

…Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.

I still don’t have a lot of hope this will go anywhere, to be quite honest, but as I said before, I certainly don’t begrudge their trying.

The Hiss of a Slowly Deflating Tire

Nothing like a sloooow leak...

R.I. Senator May Leave Republican Party

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Two days after losing a bid for a second term, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he would remain a Republican.

Chafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in a race seen as a referendum on
President Bush and the GOP. On Thursday, he was asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or become an independent or Democrat.

"I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my place is," Chafee said at a news conference. When pressed on whether his comments indicated he might leave the GOP, he replied: "That's fair."

Chafee, 53, is a lifelong Republican who has represented Rhode Island for seven years. His father held the same seat for 23 years before that.

He is the most liberal Republican in the Senate and was the sole Senate Republican to vote against the war in Iraq. But that was not enough to prevail against Whitehouse, who shared many of Chafee's views but was a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state.

Now that they don't feel they need to immediately knuckle under to Bush's every whim, and when the Republican higher-ups are jumping ship left and right, I think we're going to see quite a bit of this from other Republicans in the upcoming weeks and months.

Sounds like steam escaping....

(I swear on a stack of Futurama DVDs that this is cross-posted.)

Swearing on what?

Neil MacFarquhar's piece on the first Muslim on Congress exits on this nervous note: Upon what holy writ will Keith Ellison swear when he takes his oath of office? Ellison himself declined to comment for the article, but other news reports assert that the Congressman-elect will in fact take the oath of office with his hand upon the Koran. According to some Chicken Littles, this example of religious diversity will declare an allegiance to sharia over the Constitution and generally result in forty days of rain, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!

None of these guys cry about officeholders asserting allegiance to "Christian law" when swearing on the Bible, of course.

I hope Ellison's induction is televised. Nationally.

Overall, though, I rather prefer the atheistic take on the whole swearing-on-holy-texts thing:

On one hand, if you deny Muslims the right to swear on their own religious book, then you are clearly setting up a hierarchy of religious beliefs, with Christian oaths being 'better' than those based on other religions.
On the other hand, if you allow Muslims to swear on the Koran, then you may also have to allow people to swear on the holy icons of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Wiccanism, all the native American religions, and any other religion. Some scholars have advocated just that, with the Monitor article saying "according to law scholars, allowing a range of holy books in oaths of justice may not only lead to a greater feeling of inclusion among religious minorities but also encourage them to tell the truth."

But where does one draw the line about what is a religion and what is not? What if, for example, devotees of the Flying Spaghetti Monster demand the same privilege? [...]

This is another example of the kind of frustrations that arise when we have religious dogmas vying for inclusion and acceptance in the public sphere. All this could be avoided if everyone was simply required to take the secular oath and be done with it, and we had a secular state where nothing in the public sphere referred to any specific religious beliefs. Then people of all faiths could practice their religion freely in their private sphere without causing friction with each other or with the state.

A little too rational for our tastes, I imagine.

(I swear on a stack of Marvel comics that this is cross-posted.)

interesting

Just over a year ago I made a post called "Rage Against the Machine" about the rote recitation of the pledge of allegience. In it I said:

But mainly, it’s the whole concept of making young children put their little hands over their hearts and well, pledge their allegience to a flag that is silly and slightly offensive. Putting aside the fact that flag worship is idolatrious, the idea of making children swear themselves to a country is absurd. There is nothing inherently wrong with pledging your own allegience to a particular country but one must do so under one’s own free will. Five year olds don’t know any better and - no matter the country - it is a propagandic form of subtle brainwashing when children are made to pledge themselves to it in a ritual manner. There is also nothing inherently wrong with having pride in one’s own country. But that pride should come from the way the country works for its citizens, not because it was ingrained into a person from a very young age to love it, no questions asked.

It sounds like someone has been reading my blog:

Student leaders at a California college have touched off a furor by banning the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings, saying they see no reason to publicly swear loyalty to God and the U.S. government.

[...]

"That ('under God') part is sort of offensive to me," student trustee Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. "I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that 'under God' was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology."

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn't want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. "Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge," he said.

Ok, I'm sure he wasn't reading my blog but I found it amusing. I also thought this was a pretty brave public stand given how this issue inflames all sorts of tempers. Speaking of which, one student had this to say:

"America is the one thing I'm passionate about and I can't let them take that away from me," 18-year-old political science major Christine Zoldos told Reuters.

"The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued traditions in America is just horrible," Zoldos said, adding she would attend every board meeting to salute the flag.

"...Since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me..." Oh, sorry. Anyway, what? They aren't taking "America" from you! And this ban only applies to the trustee meetings, not any other group on campus. For chrissakes, get a damn grip. The Coast Community College District, when asked about this, essentially said: "We don't care, we aren't going to force them to pledge. Wev.".

(I pledge allegience to this cross-post)

Who says the GOP doesn’t care about the environment?

They’re, like, totally into recycling.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party just lost both chambers of Congress, will leave his position in January, and the post as party chief has been offered to Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele.

…Mr. Steele is one of the most successful and respected black Republicans in the country.

It’s a big tent, bitchez.

Meanwhile, speaking of out-of-work Republicans, can I get a few crocodile tears from the Shakers on behalf of all the poor sods who are soon-to-be jobless after getting thumped by the Dems?

The hundreds of Republican staffers — not to mention more than a few Members — who will lose their jobs in the next few weeks are going to face a hostile marketplace on K Street as unemployed Republicans flood the market.

Aww. Sniff, sniff.

Luckily, Blogenfreude has a good suggestion for them: “Even though Rummy is gone, there's plenty more fighting to do. Sign up here—sure, Iraq's not Capitol Hill, but it's a real chance for you young Republicans to make your mark! Sign up today!”

*snort*

Animal House

Maybe this is the frat to which Rush Limbaugh was referring when he described what happened at Abu Ghraib as "sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun."

Police are investigating a hazing ritual at a University of Central Florida frat house that including forcing pledges to wear "fairy wings", women's under garments, diapers, and possibly rape.

Police were called to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity by a person reporting to have heard screaming, sobbing and moaning coming from the house.

A police report said officers found pledges in various forms of undress on their hands and knees and there was a heavy smell of beer, vomit and urine throughout the house.

The report said that one pledge was nearly passed out and wearing pink fairy wings and women's underwear. Another student was found passed out on the floor. He was wearing a pink tank top, women's underwear and a blond wig. A third student, a rainbow-colored wig and a diaper was found in a corner crying and in pain. Three pledges were taken to an area hospital.

WKMG television reported that "a number of devices" were found in the house leading police to believe some of the students had been sexually assaulted.

SAE is one of the oldest fraternities at the University of Central Florida, and the chapter was immediately disbanded by the national headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, as nearly “two-thirds of the chapter’s approximately 90 members may have been involved.” A spokesperson for SAE’s headquarters said the board “does not feel it’s worth the effort to rehabilitate this group.” Meanwhile, UCF is investigating “whether the school’s anti-hazing policy had been violated.” If it hasn’t, that’s one laissez-faire policy.

I visited the website of SAE, which is America’s largest fraternity, to see if they were providing any easily accessible resources to their 280,000 members on LGBT equality and rape prevention. And to their credit, they are. As part of “a comprehensive member-education program” that they call the True Gentleman Initiative, they provide a Web Links page, which links to both the Lambda 10 Project and Men Can Stop Rape. They also expressly ban hazing, repeatedly, all over their main website.

So what went wrong? Did the True Gentleman Initiative, which describes a True Gentleman as “the man whose conduct proceeds from good will…whose self-control is equal to all emergencies…whose deed follows his word, who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own…a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe,” simply not reach Florida?

Or, in spite of the SAE national headquarters’ best efforts, are we back to the issue on which I’m fast becoming a broken record—the ugly history of defining the masculine in opposition to the feminine (and the perceived femininity of homosexuals)?

Let’s consider the form of the hazing. Pledges were forced to wear pink “fairy wings,” women’s undergarments, pink outerwear, female wigs, rainbow wigs, and diapers, creating what sounds like some grotesque Frankenhorror of an infantilized half-woman half-drag queen—and once the emasculating transformation was complete, the pledges were allegedly further demeaned as the frat brothers raped them. Not with their dicks, mind you, because that would be queer, but with “devices”—proxy penises that establish masculine domination without the troubling possible complication of undeniable arousal at sexually assaulting another man.

Like the entrenched tradition of defining masculinity by othering that underlies ritualistic hazing, the hazing itself becomes a vicious cycle. Certainly the perpetrators of this monstrosity had themselves been subjected to this humiliating rite of passage, and thusly felt not only entitled but obliged to subject others to it, in order to reclaim the dominance of which they’d been ceremonially stripped.

It is a pattern that plays out over and over in fraternities, athletic teams, the military, as men who have been hazed recover their masculinity by becoming hazers themselves—and sexual assault is frequently an integral part of this ugly process. Badjocks.com reports that the most commonly reported hazing incident among male high school students is sodomy, with penises, fingers, or other objects; usually it’s the teammates, but sometimes it’s the coaches. (Google “hazing+rape” to quickly discover how frighteningly prevalent the problem is.) Rape—and, make no mistake, unwanted penetration of any orifice is rape—is a sex crime, but its intent is control, which is why it is such a useful tool for violent hazers, who restore their own masculine authority by subjugating other men. Each year consequently yields a new batch of emasculated victims who await their absolution, to which becoming a victimizer is regarded as the singular path.

Indoctrination into a culture in which rape is not discouraged, but instead considered a necessary social survival tool of any self-respecting man, is, by way of colossal understatement, problematic. Inevitably, there is toxic spillage from the specific context of hazing in which the tool was bestowed, and it is foolish and naïve to ignore the association between vicious hazing and its male targets who later greet challenges to their dominance with the use of the powerful and wicked tool of rape. Even outside the boundaries delineated by the hazing experience, it becomes a reliable strategy for reestablishing control, as women who say “no” rather than submitting are simply overpowered, and gay men who fight back against belittlement are not merely beaten, but sexually violated.

Regrettably, even the best-case scenario is not encouraging. While we might hope that being forcibly effeminized and summarily raped would generate some sympathy for the women and gay men whose stereotypical accoutrements were employed in one’s shaming, the reality is more grim. Even those violently hazed who don’t engage the instruments of hazing outside the explicit milieu are generally not left with sympathy, but increased contempt, for the others to whom comparison served as the basis of their indignity. It’s a dreadfully destructive cycle, and, at its center, the definition of masculinity predicated on contradistinction to and supremacy over women and gay men becomes increasingly, unavoidably, indurated.

And in its wake, a never-ending procession of victims is left to contemplate a problem they can’t fix.

For a very long time, the people who have most vociferously scrutinized and challenged both the rape culture and traditionally adversative definitions of masculinity are those who stand to gain the most from change—women and gay men. Problematically, however, inculcated misogynists and homophobes don’t listen to women, especially feminist women, nor to gay men. Additionally, women and gay men have been habitually excluded from the institutions in which aggressive hazing most often occurs, rendering their ability to affect change, imagining hazers were even amenable to it, essentially nonexistent.

Groups like Men Can Stop Rape and individual progressive men who have joined the debate are therefore tremendously welcome, particularly as they position themselves as allies. As I read MCSR’s statement of its goal to “work as allies with women in preventing rape and other forms of men's violence,” I was reminded of the three questions posed by Pam to LGBT allies on National Coming Out Day: “Are you “out” as an ally? Are you able to talk about gay friends or relatives with others? Are you comfortable shooting down homophobes when they spout off during a conversation?” As we’ve discussed here before, there is no organized progressive men’s movement at this point dedicated to addressing the redefinition of masculinity, the eradication of othering, and the rape culture that victimizes both women and men. But an organized movement isn’t a prerequisite for becoming an active ally, committed to those goals. What are your answers to these questions:

— Are you “out” as an ally to women and gay men in preventing oppression, othering, and associated violence?

— Are you able to blog about and talk to other men, including your sons, about your commitment? Have you educated your sons about rape prevention as thoroughly as your daughters?

— Are you comfortable shooting down misogynists when they spout off during a conversation?

Just not being a virulent misogynist and homophobe isn’t enough. Just not being a rapist isn’t enough. At the University of Central Florida, nearly 60 of the approximately 90 members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon were involved in a brutal hazing that relied on misogyny and homophobia and likely culminated in sexual assault. The other 30 weren’t.

But it wasn’t enough.

Totally

I second Richard Cranium: Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Blakes 7

¡Hurra Mexico City!

What was the capital of Mexico doing while their president-elect Felipe Calderon was meeting with President Bush today? Why, they were legalizing civil unions.

Mexico City’s assembly on Thursday passed legislation to legally recognize gay civil unions in the capital, the first such vote by a legislative body in the history of the conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas has spoken in favor of the bill and was expected to sign it into law, while at least one conservative non-governmental group said it was considering seeking a court injunction against the measure.

The bill, which would not approve gay marriage, allows same-sex couples to register their union with civil authorities, granting them inheritance rights and other benefits typically given to spouses. Heterosexual couples who are not legally married can also be registered under the bill.

“This law ... does not require anyone else to change their thinking, nor does it hurt the concept of the nuclear family,” said legislator Juan Bustos of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which has pushed for the law in the capital for years.

What a concept. Imagine have left-leaning legislators who actually have the cojones to state quite plainly that same-sex unions don’t undermine families. As the Democrats work with President Bush on immigration, I suggest they consider a provision to import members of the PRD, starting with Juan Bustos.

Tito Vasconcelos, one of Mexico City’s leading gay activists, said the law represents “Mexico’s entrance into the first world of democracy, along with other countries that recognize this type of union.”

Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe we could try that.

(Via.)

Breaking News

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has been discovered in bed with a 14-year-old Thai girly-boy, with enough PCP in his veins to fell a small ox and a bag of cash labeled “Abramoff Dosh.”

Oh, strike that, sorry.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has resigned before he is discovered in bed with a 14-year-old Thai girly-boy, with enough PCP in his veins to fell a small ox and bag of cash labeled “Abramoff Dosh.”

My apologies for any confusion.

Farewell, Kenster.

Question of the Day

Political Wire:

"Two days after losing a bid for a second term in an election seen as a referendum on President Bush and the Republican Party, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he'd remain a Republican," the AP reports.

When asked whether he felt that his loss may have helped the country by switching control of power in Congress, he replied: "To be honest, yes."

I certainly haven’t always agreed with every vote that Lincoln Chafee has cast, and we have quite different views on many issues, but generally speaking, I have always had a lot of respect for him. He is, not just because of his liberal leanings, but because of his integrity, my favorite Republican holding national office, and I’m sorry to see him go, when there are so many I’d prefer to bid adieu.

As with any politician, you could pull out examples of his hypocrisy or just bad stinking votes, but I don’t know that there’s any politician on either side of the aisle about whom I couldn’t say the same, which is the requisite caveat for this question: Who is your favorite Congressional Republican, and who is your favorite Congressional Democrat?

With Chafee leaving, I don’t know to whom my Republican vote would go. As for the Dems, well, I have a special place in my heart for Louise Slaughter, particularly for her diligence in calling attention to the issue of sexual assault in the military, but for a whole lot of other reasons, too—not the least of which is that she’s too busy trying to get shit done to worry about becoming a household name.