Reuters' "Oddly Enough" continues to piss me off with its weirdly misogynist designations of what constitutes "odd news." Scrolling through their collection today, I find:
Woman kept dead husband by bed for a year: "A woman in Mexico City kept the body of her dead husband by her bedside for a year until neighbors, disturbed by the smell, called the police." [1]
Woman arrested over body parts in fridge: "Malaysian police have arrested a woman in connection with the murder of a man whose body was chopped into 11 pieces and stuffed into a refrigerator in a posh apartment in the capital." [2]
Clinton campaign insulted by cleavage article: "Insulted by a fashion article about Hillary Clinton's cleavage, her presidential campaign is trying to use the incident to raise money." [3]
Sheikh delays plane over seating: "A Qatar sheikh held up a British Airways flight at Milan's Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know." [4]
Broken Record Time: In recent months, I've read under the heading of "Odd News" stories about a man branding his wife with a hot iron, a man coercing his wife into having plastic surgery to look like his deceased first wife, wives/girlfriends/exes being held against their will in various "odd" places including a coffin, women being traded for "odd" objects or offered as reparations for "odd" transgressions, "odd" forms of abuse against women, and women doing notable things good and bad, that, while newsworthy, only seem to be "odd-worthy" because they were done by women, all reported alongside such frivolous fare as Chocoholic squirrel steals treats from shop.
This strikes me as one of those nuances of sexism that many men don't notice or understand. To have women's experiences like this trivialized as "Odd News" is just infuriating, and being obliged to think about someone chuckling over the hilarious oddity of a one of the most powerful women in the world being insulted by a cleavage article—and having the hilariously odd notion to make lemonade from the stinking lemons by raising awareness and funds with it—can make a gal angry as fuck, particularly as she recognizes that the constant positioning of humiliated women as the butt of jokes humiliates us all. This shit is important, and even as I say it, I know why it doesn't seem like it is, or should be.
The thing is, the real cost of sexism to women is not in our paying a single emotional penny here for this insult and a single emotional penny there for that disgrace, but in the cumulative negative balance it leaves inside each of us. Even if we let this thing or that thing roll off of the thickened skins of our backs, we pay another penny each time; letting it roll off your back is just another way of saying keep your complaints to yourself, but it doesn't change the reality that sexism takes its toll, whether one has the ill manners of mentioning the offense or not.
As I've said before, the word that comes to my mind when I try to explain how sexism affects me is history. And I don't mean history in an academic sense, as in the history of the feminist movement, but as in my own history—a thousand threads of experience that come together to weave the fabric that I regard as my life. That history contains lots of wonderful and not wonderful things, related and unrelated things. Little things, things like seeing so many stories about the mistreatment of women culled under the heading of "Odd News," prick at a particular thread as though it's a guitar string, but instead of producing sound, it produces memory, memory of all the other times I have seen women or their stories belittled for others' amusement, memory of all the times such degradation has been used to mask the need for helping women in real need of assistance, or even just in need of being regarded with some basic fucking dignity.
I don't carry these memories with me because I want to. I carry them with me because they have left indelible prints upon me, affected my understanding of who I am to other people. I don't want to be bothered when I notice things like the treatment of women in "Odd News" features. But it doesn't matter what I want. To protect myself against this reaction is to deny my experience, to deny part of myself.
I write posts like this in the hope that they will speak to a man who has never had to think about what it means to be a woman in the world, who doesn't understand what women are "still complaining about," or wonders why we can't just let pass without comment, without anger, a sexist t-shirt or a misogynist slur or our irritation at the way stories about women are presented in the news. But mostly, I write posts like this for other women, who see things like this every day, and feel it chipping away at them, and whose pain is assuaged only by knowing that other women share it. In other words, I write posts like this for me.
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1 Sad, pitiable, and gross are all adjectives that come to mind before "odd." But it's about a woman who's also non-American, so naturally it found its way into Reuters' Oddly Enough.
2 Heinous. Cruel. Despicable. Not so much "odd." But hey, it was a non-American woman, and she was upper class, and that's the trifecta for odd-newsiness.
3 This "odd" news story contains the hilariously "odd" contention from senior advisor Ann Lewis that donors can "take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture… Frankly, focusing on women's bodies instead of their ideas is insulting. It's insulting to every woman who has ever tried to be taken seriously in a business meeting. It's insulting to our daughters—and our sons." Odd, odd, odd!
4 Ooh, even better than a non-American woman doing something terrible, it's non-American women having something terrible done to them! Oppression is just so darn odd!
(And I'm not presuming that the women in question actually felt like something terrible was being done to them. I'm just trying to capture the typical vibe of the Odd News stories, in which any cultural differences affecting women are implicitly framed as oppressive. Some actually are; some actually aren't—depends on the individual story.)
How Odd!
McCain's Found Something to Sink His Teeth Into
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to take a break from the campaign trail to speak out against the Democratic lobbying reform package Thursday before it hits the floor at the end of the week, according to one of the bill’s chief opponents, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)Hey, me neither! Who knew Jim DeMint and I had so much in common?
DeMint held up final negotiations on the bill for weeks, arguing that earmark provisions that purport to provide more transparency do nothing but maintain the status quo…
The junior senator from South Carolina said McCain shares those views and plans to participate in a press conference Thursday morning, along with other opponents of the ethics measure. He could even vote against the entire bill, DeMint said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” he noted.
Hillary Slaps Back
Say what you will about Hillary Clinton, she doesn't take shit from anybody, and that includes unique creatures.
On Larry King Live earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney said that he agreed with the snotty and arrogant letter that Undersecretary Eric Edelman sent her last month in reply to an inquiry she had sent in May about DOD contingency plans for withdrawing from Iraq. Mr. Edelman basically told her that she, a U.S. Senator, had no business inquiring into such plans and that by even asking the question, Sen. Clinton was giving aid to the enemy. Last week she got a letter of apology of sorts from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, saying that he didn't agree with Mr. Edelman's view and that he would be happy to provide whatever information he could to the Senate on such plans.
When Sen. Clinton heard what the Vice President said, she fired off a letter.
Your comments, agreeing with Under Secretary Edelman, not Secretary Gates, have left me wondering about the true position of the Administration. Therefore, I am writing to President Bush asking that he set the record straight about the Administration's position regarding the role of Congress in oversight of the war.So not only is she slapping back at the vice president, she's ratting him out to his nominal boss, President Bush.
As Greg Sargent notes, this little feud between Sen. Clinton and the White House will shore up her assertion that she isn't "Bush-Cheney lite" as Barack Obama labeled her. It also shows that unlike some Democrats in the past, she will not shrink in the face of being bullied by the Bushies. (Her campaign learns fast; they're asking people to add their signatures to the letter.) One can only imagine what John Kerry would have done in this situation; chances are he would have ignored it, dismissed it, and let it fester while he went wind-surfing or something.
Far be it from me to give advice to the GOP, but they'd better learn that if they plan to attack Hillary Clinton, be ready to get as good as you give. And about damn time, too.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Quote of the Day
"What Giuliani is, is George Bush on steroids."—John Edwards, who went on to add that "Giuliani, Romney and the rest of the Republicans running for the nomination are going to give the country four more years of crony capitalism, which is exactly what we have now. We have insurance companies and drug companies and oil companies running this government. They need to be stopped. And Giuliani just wants to empower them."
Today in Dumbassery
There's a new phrase in the Texas state pledge: "one state under God". Which, generally, would be filed under inane religious political stunts--what makes this a bit more than a generic pandering stunt is that, in Texas, school children are required to pledge to the state every day (and the country and have a moment of silence). From the article titled: Students must remember 'God' in Texas pledge (emphasis mine):
Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance.I find it interesting, in a "you've got to be shitting me" sort of way, that students must give written record of their objections to so that they can be free to not partake in make-you-patriotic rituals that have nothing to do with school itself. Students should be free to not participate if they object, for whatever reason, without putting themselves into a file.
This year's Legislature added the phrase "one state under God" to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge tothe U.S. flag and a moment of silence.
State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who sponsored the bill, said it had always bothered her that God was omitted in the state's pledge.
"Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, 'You know what? We need to fix that,' " said Riddle, R-Tomball.[...]
[...]
By law, students who object to saying the pledge or making the reference to God can bring a written note from home excusing them from participating.
[...]"Most Texans do not need to say this new version of the pledge in order to be either patriotic or religious," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "This is the kind of politicking of religion that disturbs many Americans, including those who are deeply religious."
[...]
Texas has had a pledge of allegiance since 1933. In 2003, the Legislature required all schools to pledge allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags and observe a moment of silence every morning at the beginning of classes.
[...]
Bridge Footage
A security camera caught the bridge collapse on film. It's both captivating and upsetting, in a way not unlike the collapse of the World Trade Center was. I don't know if this is something people want to see or not; I figure some will want to see it and some won't. (And I hope those who don't will understand I'm not trying to be exploitative or insensitive.) The second video is an aerial view of the scene after the collapse.
Get Off My Lawn, You Damn Smoochers
The Wingnut's Dream is alive and well in Singapore:
Singapore has banned an exhibition of photographs depicting gay men and women kissing, a gay rights activist said yesterday, calling the move "absurd". The city-state's media development authority denied organisers a licence because the photographs "promote a homosexual lifestyle", said Alex Au, founder of a Singapore gay rights group, People Like Us. The show features 80 shots of same-sex kissing by clothed models, said Mr Au, the photographer. Singapore deems gay sex "an act of gross indecency", punishable by up to two years in jail. It bans gay festivals and censors gay films.I'm sure the Freepers are turning cartweels over this, but I'll leave that to Pam to check. I'm just wondering when we're going to evolve beyond the point where a simple kiss can be seen as "an act of gross indecency."
Stop the Presses: Obama Was Ambitious
Obama's 'Hidden Side' is the ominous headline of a story in the Chicago Sun-Times, which breaks wide open Obama's secret, dark, reprehensible past, riddled with the villainy of—gasp!—ambition.
On the stump, presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama suggests his political career was an afterthought. He tells of returning to Chicago from Harvard Law School to be part of a civil rights practice and teach law.ZOMG—the bastard!
However, a new book reveals a reason Obama joined a politically connected law firm: to give him entree to the powerbrokers in Chicago's elite liberal political community who helped elect Mayor Harold Washington -- a job the new lawyer had his eye on.
Obama actually pondered a political career early on, even telling Craig Robinson, his future brother-in-law, he might get into politics after Harvard and "maybe I can be president of the United States."
Presuming for the moment that the recollections of Obama's nefarious aspirations to, um, be a leader or wev in Obama: From Promise to Power are accurate, so fucking what? The same charge of naked ambition is routinely lobbed against Hillary Clinton as if it's a bad thing. "She's always wanted to be president, the horrible bitch!" Well, fuck me! The unmitigated nerve of extended planning and preparation for what is arguably the most difficult job on the entire fucking planet! How could they?!
By most accounts, George W. Bush never really considered being president with any seriousness; Jeb was the real go-getter. Dubya stumbled from a failed Congressional campaign, bad business deals, and a stint in baseball to the largely ceremonial governorship of Texas, at which point it sounds like Karl Rove got designs on the White House and figured Dubya would be just the patsy for the job. By Dubya's own admission, he spent the first half of his life in a directionless haze of immaturity and drunkenness. He never planned on being president, and—dare I say?—it shows.
He was categorically unprepared for the job—had never traveled, didn't understand the world, barely comprehends (or likes) the country itself or the people in it. He is a poor manager, a terrible leader, an embarrassingly abysmal speaker, an intellectual lightweight, and an irrepressible bully, who surrounds himself with incompetent cronies. He is disrespectful, dismissive of legitimate dissent, and disdainful of the opposition. In every aspect, from protocol to personality, he is unfit for the presidency, in no small part because he walked into the job without a moment's forethought, expecting the role, the office, and the rest of the world to bend to his shape, rather than having formed himself in its image.
So maybe an ambitious nature ("hidden" or not) shouldn't be treated like a disqualification, but instead the most fundamental prerequisite for the job. Someone who takes the presidency seriously, who respects the gravity of the position and all it entails, is to be commended, not condemned. It turns out, being the sort of guy with whom it would be "fun" to drink beer isn't actually the most important qualification for being the leader of our nation. Go fucking figure.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
In this completely shitty underground newspaper Todd and I wrote in high school, my nom de plume was Jasmine Guy. Heh.
Michael Vick "Would Have Been Better off Raping a Woman"
Because CNN sports anchor Larry Smith's contention that dogfighting is worse than raping a woman just wasn't offensive enough, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise figured he'd go ahead and say what's evidently on lots of sports commentators' minds:
"It's really a sad day in this country when somehow ... Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened. Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for four games and he'd be back on the field. But because this has become a political issue, all of a sudden the commissioner has lost his stomach for it."
I'll just give you a moment to let that sink in.
Vick would have been better off raping a woman because then no one would have cared.
The best part is that his apology appears to be to Michael Vick, rather than, ya know, the women whom he suggested ought to have been his target: "I regret the poor choice of analogies I used to characterize a professional athlete's legal situation." Oh, well, that's all right then. As long as we've cleared up that he didn't mean to misrepresent the good Mr. Vick's legal situation. Fates fucking forbid this shitbag regret that he talked about women like pieces of meat and sexual violence against them like it was No Big Deal.
I honestly don't even know what to say anymore. American men clearly need a serious education about rape and sexual assault against women; even lots and lots of good men who would never assault or harass a woman just simply aren't aware of how prevalent it is.* But I just don't know what it's going to take to get this national conversation started.
I despair at the lack of outrage. Rape serves as constant fodder for jokes among way too many men; I cannot even watch an allegedly progressive-minded comedian without being slapped in the goddamned face with "a bit" about a man who raped his own wife to wrap up his show in spectacular fashion. This is not healthy. Our culture is sick with misogyny, and we keep treating it with increasing doses of apathy then wondering why it never heals.
And if you haven't yet noticed the plague, then you're not paying enough attention.
So let me hold up a magnifying glass once more to the words of Paul Zeise: "Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman." A woman. Any woman. Maybe someone you know. Maybe me. Doesn't matter. Every woman is invoked by these words.
He would have been better off raping a woman because then no one would have cared.
The worst part about it is that it's probably true.
--------------------------
* If I'm not talking about you, then I'm not talking about you, know what I mean? No need to take offense if you're a dude all up to his neck in rape awareness. Of course, if you really are that dude, you already know what a rare bird you are, and I don't even need to say this to you.
[H/T to Blogenfreude and Shaker Kevin, both via email.]
Question of the Day
Okay, Shakers, time to dust off the 45's, the leather jackets, the DA haircuts, and the poodle skirts. In honor (or in spite of) the revival of Grease with the leads chosen by the viewers of a reality TV show, tell me true:
Who was your teen idol crush?
For me, back in 1964, it was Paul McCartney. Pretty much nailed the am-I-gay question for me.
Assvertising: Brokedick Mountain Edition
I don't find the commercial offensive in any way. I just can't believe that someone thought "a bunch of doodz sitting around a cabin going all Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas to (literally) sing the praises of Viagra to the tune of 'Viva Las Vegas' before zooming off to fuck things" was a good marketing strategy.
Or maybe it's just that I fear it's a good marketing strategy.
Can't decide. Both, maybe.
Quote of the Day
"I know of nothing that suggests that. I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity and would not participate in something like that."—Donald Rumsfeld, who decided to testify at the Tillman hearing after all, after being asked if he thought there was a cover-up by the Defense Department.
So there must not have been a cover-up, then. I mean, if you can't trust a war criminal, who can you trust, right?
Who Would Jesus Flash?
A Baptist minister has been charged in Tennessee with indecent exposure and driving under the influence.In addition to being a minister, Tester is also an employee of a Christian radio station, which has no doubt broadcast many fine hours of programming about the evils of being gay and/or trans.
Police said 58-year-old Tommy Tester of Bristol, Va., was wearing a skirt when he was arrested last week after allegedly relieving himself in front of children at a car wash.
A report also accuses Tester of offering police officers oral sex and says an open bottle of vodka and empty oxycodone prescription bottle was found in his car when Tester was arrested Friday.
I love, by the way, how a dude "wearing a skirt" is obviously supposed to be equally as alarming as pissing in public and drunkenly soliciting cops.
Aside from the godbotherer part, it sounds like a night out in Edinburgh.
[H/T Petulant.]
Frontrunnin'
Maybe it's just me, but my impression of the battle among Democratic presidential candidates over who best represents "change" is that it's a huge waste of time. I can't honestly imagine there is a single American voter even remotely inclined to vote for a Democrat in 2008 who wouldn't view any one of the contenders as a massive improvement from George Bush. Strictly speaking, defining "change" literally as simply a departure from what we've got now, I bet there aren't any voters predisposed toward Republicans who wouldn't view them all as agencies of change, either. So save your breath, Dems.
We know none of you would let New Orleans drown or let oilmen write our national energy policy or fire Arabic translators for being gay. We know that you care about the healthcare crisis and that you believe government can actually work. I think most of us know that even those of you who were dumb enough to vote for the war wouldn't have started it yourselves, and that any one of you probably would have captured, tried, and convicted bin Laden by now.
And, unfortunately, which one of you is the most innovative of your group has been rendered rather moot by the enormous clusterfuck Bush will leave behind that you'll have to clean up. Quite honestly, that's going to demand less visionary thinking than plain, old-fashioned elbow grease—knowing how to get shit done combined with a willingness to make some unpopular decisions. Classic leadership, friends.
I'm not saying there's no need for imagination, but your creative assets will only be as good as your work ethic come January 2009. You don't need to convince us you'll bring change; you need to convince us you're willing to trudge, because that's what'll save us.
[Damn, that sounds a lot like someone who should have been our president once upon a time…]
Choice Schmoice
Of course women are infants—so we definitely need to give men the right to control abortions.
A group of legislators in Ohio are pushing a bill that would give men a say in whether or not a woman can have an abortion.Obviously."This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth or the destruction of that child," said [Rep. John] Adams, a Republican from Sidney. "I didn't bring it up to draw attention to myself or to be controversial. In most cases, when a child is born the father has financial responsibility for that child, so he should have a say."Written notes? Submitting a list of potential fathers? Sometimes I think that anti-choice folks forget that women are, you know, adults.
As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.
But seriously here's the best part of the bill:Claiming to not know the father's identity is not a viable excuse, according to the proposed legislation. Simply put: no father means no abortion.Fuck. You.
But wait, it gets even better. Women would be required to present a police report if they want to "prove" that the pregnancy was a result of rape of incest. Because women can't be trusted, obviously.
I would just note in response to Rep. Adams that requiring a father's signature for an abortion is more than giving him "a say." It means giving him veto power. If he doesn't want to consent to an abortion, he can simply refuse—and that's that. There is no provision in the bill for this eventuality.
Leave it to me to state the obvious, but that would result in the exact situation which Adams asserts he is trying to avoid, except instead of a father charged with financial responsibility he doesn't want, there's a mother charged with financial responsibility she doesn't want—with the additional burden of a pregnancy and delivery, and all the health risks, costs, and personal inconvenience (to put it lightly) such entails, including the very real possibility of missing work for an extended period or losing her job altogether. I'd love to find out what Adams' justification is for this legislation, were some enterprising reporter to point out to him that his current rationale is blatantly misogynistic.
As I've noted before, men already have plenty of “say” over this decision—but much of it happens before the pregnancy. They have “say” over the women with whom they choose to have sex. They have “say” over whether they choose to discuss in depth with a partner what they would do in the case of an unintended pregnancy—and what their partners would do. They have “say” over whether they put a condom on. Once a woman is pregnant, men’s legal “say” ends (though it's only fair to note that the vast majority of women give their partners' opinions due consideration). Men don’t have the right to demand abortion, and they don’t have the right to demand carrying the fetus to term, because conferring those rights would allow them to exact control over another human’s body, which is simply an untenable position.
And guys who don’t like that need to take it up with the Almighty, or the Intelligent Designer, or Mother Nature, or whatever, which in its infinite wisdom decided that only one sex should have the ability to get pregnant.
LeMew has more. So does Echidne.
Running Scared
The Republicans are absolutely stark staring skeered of Hillary Clinton.
Over the last year, as Republicans have sought out their next standard bearer, no candidate has excited their passions and united their focus more than the Democratic senator from New York. Clinton is regularly evoked in stump speeches, presidential debates and fundraising events as a symbol for all that the Republican voters stand to lose in the coming election. She is, in many ways, the glue now keeping the Grand Old Party from further splintering into disarray after the 2006 elections.
"It unifies the party. It motivates a part of the base," explains Grover Norquist, a longtime party activist who runs the group Americans for Tax Reform. "Hillary can be scary."
[...]If this proves anything, it's that after six years of bug-eyed fearmongering about terrorists and such, the Republicans have begun to believe their own press releases about the Worst Thing that Could Happen.
The Republican focus on Clinton may say more about the Republican Party than it does about her inevitability as the Democratic nominee. Though she polls better nationally than her Democratic rivals, she currently trails slightly in most Iowa caucus polls to John Edwards, and she has been surprisingly outstripped in fundraising by Barack Obama. But this has not stopped Republicans from referring regularly to the Democratic Party as a shell organization at the beck and command of the Clinton family, even if that's a flimsy caricature at best.
Norquist, for one, insists he is confident that Clinton will come out on top. "The Clintons run the Democratic Party the way the Bhutto family runs the PPP," he said, in a reference to the corrupt and dynastic Pakistan People's Party. Republican leaders, such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, long ago elevated the Clinton family to nearly mythic stature, claiming that the Clintons are backed by a vast "George Soros-funded, Harold Ickes-led shadow party." But Republicans have a history of glaring disconnection between their strategic prognostications about the Democrats and the way things actually turn out. As recently as the fall of 2003, presidential advisor Karl Rove was betting hamburgers in the White House that Howard Dean would be the Democratic nominee. A few months later, Dean's campaign deflated after the first caucus returns in Iowa.
It also tells you that the most important thing to the Republican Party isn't fixing what's wrong with the country: health care, education, the infrastructure, and providing solutions or ideas for fixing them. The most important thing to them is winning an election and clinging to power, so they don't care about finding a candidate that could do anything more than win an election.
I'm not sure which is more disconcerting: the idea that the Republicans still think they can run on fear or that they believe the voters will buy it. Either way, it shows you how little regard they have for the electorate, the system, and their own ability to field a candidate who can acutally offer something more than just the slogan "I can beat Hillary."
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Schadenfreude Rules!
I love Chicago. Because, among other reasons, we are a bunch of seriously stubborn bastards.
When Federated (now Macy's, Inc.) decided to turn Marshall Field's into Macy's, the entire goddamned city said, "Don't do it, idiots. We will stop shopping there."
Federated said, "Nonsense! We've done it in several other cities with no problem! You say you won't shop at Macy's, but we know better!"
The entire goddamned city said, "Dudes, this is Chicago. And you are coming in here with your New York store and fucking with Marshall Field's. And if you don't get what those two things mean, then you really, really don't get your market here."
Federated said, "Ha! We'll see about that!"
Well, they saw about that. Chicago Carless catalogues the mind-boggling string of fuck-ups by the Chicago Macy's, including their declining sales, store closures, and recent fruit fly infestation at what used to be the best food court in the city. It's delicious reading for locals -- and anyone else who hates big corporate entities who think they can increase profits while refusing to take into account the human beings needed to purchase their wares.
Like so many Chicagoans, I was raised loyal to Field's. And I mean loyal. Like, there was no other department store worth bothering with, period. (Is that remotely reasonable -- especially when Field's had already changed hands repeatedly, and the quality and service were declining for years before Macy's ever came along? No, of course not. But it is what it is -- a simple fact for a whole lot of us.) After I moved away, I would go to Field's State Street and drop a bundle every time I came to visit. When I moved back, I was giddy about being able to go down there and wander around the awesome flagship store any time I felt like it. And I brought my credit cards.
I've spent money on clothes there once since it became Macy's, and then only under duress. The only other money I've given them in the last year has been at the food court -- and that's clearly not gonna happen again now.Dear Macy's, Inc.,
Dudes, this is Chicago. You came in here with your New York store and fucked with Marshall Field's.
And now you're scrambling to keep it open.
Are you getting the local market yet?
Love,
Kate Harding
P.S. I spent $300 at Nordstrom yesterday.
(Cross-posted.)
More Dangerous Dissembling about Weight Loss Surgery
Etta James is in the hospital because of complications following unspecified "abdominal surgery" last month.
As of 9 a.m. central time, there are three articles about this that mention Etta James had weight loss surgery a few years ago. The AP article didn't mention it. Which means a Google news search on Etta James returns 273 articles that didn't mention it.
I wish Etta James a speedy recovery and all good things. And no, of course, I don't know for certain that James's recent abdominal surgery had anything to do with the WLS. She could have had a hernia or something.
Nevertheless, I feel comfortable calling this total bullshit.The chances that someone who had WLS would end up in the hospital after completely unrelated abdominal surgery are pretty fucking small.
It's bad enough that celebrities have their viscera renovated and then lie about how they lost the weight. But passing off complications as something unrelated is just brain-breakingly disgusting. Judging by the AP article, the press release from the James camp did just that -- but even so, it ain't like an intrepid journalist would really have to knock herself out to connect the dots. Sure, you couldn't speculate openly about the nature of the recent abdominal surgery in an AP article, but you could bloody well do what those three other journalists did and mention that she had WLS, so readers could do their own speculating. I mean, seriously, if a celebrity known to have had breast implants were in the hospital for "chest surgery," would the former point go unremarked?
Downplaying the risks of weight loss surgery is just one more way the media reinforces that getting thin at any cost is all that matters. And it's not just the mainstream media; it's the goddamned medical journals, too.In an article in the Oct. 13 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers unveiled encouraging news for people seeking surgery to reduce their weight. JAMA reviewed the results of 136 studies and found that surgery to lessen the size of the digestive tract resulted not only in weight loss but also reversed diabetes in 77% of obese patients, eliminated high blood pressure in 62%, and lowered cholesterol in at least 70%. The study was funded by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ), a maker of instruments used in such surgeries.
Emphasis mine, but big, fat kudos to Business Week for noting that at all. And of course what rarely gets mentioned when studies like that trickle down to the mainstream media is that there's no proof whatsoever that being less fat caused the reversal of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Weight loss surgery doesn't just make you thin; it makes you physically unable to eat large quantities of food and in most cases, much less able to digest fatty or sugary foods. So basically, it forces you onto exactly the kind of diet already recommended to control diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol -- the kind of diet that, absent WLS, might not make you much thinner, even if it makes you much healthier.
But people don't stay on diets like that! And healthcare costs are out of control! So why not force the fatties to behave and save us all some money?
Well, here's one reason: Two years ago, the rationale that the surgery can cut down on the health-care costs associated with being obese also took a blow. A large ongoing study in Sweden found that [sic] the use and cost of drugs in obese patients to be about the same, whether or not they had the surgery. Those who didn't have the procedure needed medication for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, while those who underwent it needed treatment for gastrointestinal-tract disorders, anemia, and vitamin deficiency.
Those who undergo the surgery are also more likely to die within a few years from complications related to the surgery than they would have been from complications related to obesity. There's that.
But oh wait, if they die young, that's less money the rest of us have to pay for their healthcare. Not a problem, then.
H/T Corinna from the Fat Studies list.
(Cross-posted.)
