Prehistoric women had passion for fashion: "If the figurines found in an ancient European settlement are any guide, women have been dressing to impress for at least 7,500 years." (An alternative headline appears to be "Prehistoric women were no Ugly Bettys.")
Okay, just stop right there.
First of all, that's the lede on a story about a significant archaeological find that suggests Europe's Copper Age may have started at 500 years sooner than previously thought. The excavation of Plocnik site, a Neolithic settlement of the Vinca culture, Europe's principal prehistoric civilization, has led to the discovery of a mine and "a sophisticated metal workshop with a furnace and tools including a copper chisel and a two-headed hammer and axe," and complete with a prototypical chimney. Now, I admit I am inordinately anthropologically geeky, but ZOMG cool!—that's, in archaeological terms, a Very Big Deal.
But hey—did Reuters mention that the wommenz wore short skirts?!
Now, I'm not just geeky for copper pots and necropolises; I like hearing about the art and culture, including the clothing and body beautification, of the ancients, too—so I'm not begrudging its inclusion in the article. In fact, it's because I like reading about that junk, too, that I know it isn't just women who have been "dressing to impress" for millennia.
Reuters, let me introduce you to the Persian Empire. Oh, and the ancient Greeks. And don't let me forget the Egyptians. And the Incans. And the Aztecs. And the Maya. And a little continent called Africa. Oh, and here are the Navaho of North America, and the Kayapo of Brazil, and the Maori of New Zealand. You might notice that the men appear to be fond of elaborate hairstyles, body paint, tattoos, body modification, and jewelry.
Forgive me—I almost forgot these white men of colonial America who prance around in short pants and powdered wigs.
Oh, and have you met my friend, Mr. Bowie?
Dressed to Impress, Bitchez
What aggravates me about this framing is that it subtly reinforces the idea that women "dress to impress" but men don't, which itself underlies seemingly endless EvPsych revelations about how and why women dress (or move, or whatever) the way they do in relation to their internal and intrinsic womanness. Now I don't know if the quoted archaeologist, Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic, only commented on findings about Vinca women, but, even if she did, reinforcing the "only women" narrative is nonetheless easily avoidable by merely replacing "women" with "humans" in that lede—"If the figurines found in an ancient European settlement are any guide, humans have been dressing to impress for at least 7,500 years"—and not making the article about how prehistoric women were "into fashion."
The women-do/men-don't framing, especially in a modern setting, is a throwback to the days even before Malinowski and his "savage society," in which observational ethnographers would view as distinct from their own cultures the "uncivilized" behaviors of their "primitive" subjects—that is, decorating oneself with paint and feathers was ritualistic and purposeful, but decorating oneself with a squire top hat and frock coat was just getting dressed. Except now the Other isn't a newly discovered tribe, but women. The carefully coiffed hair, the jewelry, the accessories, the fashionable, skin-baring outfits—these are all evidence of dressing to impress.
Metrosexual Alpha
Except when Mr. Beckham does it. Then it's just getting dressed.
And therein lies the root of my problem with this article. Surely a writer on the cultural beat for Reuters knows that giving readers the impression that only women have historically "dressed to impress" is not merely sexist but factually wrong. Surely that writer's editors know. But off it went on the wire anyway.
Oh, Reuters—What Are We Going to do With You?
Grover Norquist Thinks Americans Are Stupid
Right-wing gadfly Grover Norquist is proposing a Constitutional amendment that would ban the succession of elected or appointed offices from one family member to another.
“It will be ridiculous to have Mr President and Madam President in the White House,” he said. “We’re the United States of America. How can we say to President Mubarak [of Egypt], ‘You can’t hand off the presidency to your son, it’s got to be your wife’ or, ‘Hey Syria and North Korea, you’ve got to knock this stuff off and be like us’.”This amendment would not apply to Hillary Clinton since she is not seeking to succeed her husband directly.
This is one reason the Founding Fathers made it hard to amend the Constitution; to prevent hare-brained ideas like this from becoming a part of the foundation of our laws.
Mr. Norquist is proposing to ban a practice that hasn't even happened yet. No relative has yet to directly succeed a family member in office, and those that did a generation or so later were so far removed from their ancestor as to make the only thing they had in common was a last name. John Adams died at the age of 90 six months after his son John Quincy Adams became president; William Henry Harrison died when his grandson, Benjamin Harrison, was eight years old; Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican and died thirteen years before his fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, was elected in 1932; and George H.W. Bush was the soul of moderation compared to his progeny. (I also doubt that George and Bar looked at their prodigal son in 1968 and said, "Yes, the future of the world will rest on his shoulders. We're so proud.") And unless you believe the tin-foil hat brigade, Hillary Clinton didn't marry Bill Clinton because she could predict the future and know that he would one day become the president so she could then RULE THE WORLD eight years after he left office. (Some people have seen Evita once too often.)
The last time the Constitution was amended in order to limit the voting choices of the electorate, we got the 22nd Amendment, which was rammed through by the Republicans in revenge for FDR being elected four times. Predictably, once they got someone in office they worshipped, (i.e. Ronald Reagan), there was talk about repealing that "limit to democracy" as one Reaganite put it. (Some wily Democrats reminded the GOP of this when Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second term and loved to see them recoil to the idea of a Clinton third term. Sauce for the gander, eh?)
There's also the definition of "family." How far up the genealogical tree are we going to go? Siblings? Children? Spouses? First cousins? Second cousin once removed? Bastard child out of Alabama? Does it rule out Barack Obama because he's distantly related to Dick Cheney? Does it apply to blood relatives only? What about ex-wives? What if Hillary Clinton divorced Bill; could she then run? What about all of Rudy Giuliani's ex-wives? Does that rule them out?
Mr. Norquist assumes that the American electorate is incapable of making up their own mind whether or not it's a good idea if a son or a wife should succeed a president. That's a remarkably interesting suggestion from someone who prides himself in being a small-government libertarian. Granted, the voters of this country have done some pretty inexplicable things, but by and large we have been able to go along without a whole lot of arbitrary meddling.
The idea of term limits, a very popular trend in the 1990's when the Republicans were out of power and wanted some way to game the system, quickly died out when the GOP got into office and with all due hypocrisy began to back off their pledges to serve only one or two terms. Besides, as people on both the left and right have noted, the Constitution already has term limits: they're called elections.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Edwards Unveils Veterans' Plan
Presidential contender John Edwards is introducing a $400 million plan Monday to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, including those recently returned from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.Veterans returning home with PTSD has increased by nearly 70% in the last year alone, which the Defense Department determined in a study earlier this year is attributable to "inadequate time stateside" between tours (which have been extended to 15 months). Edwards' plan also calls for longer rehabilitative breaks betweens tours.
..."I strongly believe we must restore the sacred contract we have with our veterans and their families, and that we must begin by reforming our system for treating PTSD. We also must act to remove the stigma from this disorder," Edwards said in prepared remarks his campaign provided to The Associated Press. "Warriors should never be ashamed to deal with the personal consequences of war."
Edwards said that despite his opposition to how the war has been waged, the enlisted men and women deserve the nation's support when they complete their service.
"We must stand by those who stand by us. When our service men and women sacrifice so much to defend our freedom and secure peace around the world, we have a moral obligation to take care of them and their families," he said.
This should be a bipartisan no-brainer. Frankly, the only objection I can even imagine from conservatives is the cost, which I'd just love to hear someone be galling enough to say, given the amount of money spent on the war that made our soldiers veterans in the first place.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Unlike most of the Nostalgia Sublimes I post, Grand was a show I actually watched and loved dearly. It was a great sitcom with a great cast—so of course it was immediately canceled.
Amazing Race Open Thread
As requested last week, I'm opening a thread for AR fans to discuss the show tonight (8pm EST on CBS). Since there's still some time before the show starts, it's a good opportunity to dish about the contestants and stake out your favies and the couples you already know you hate. I, of course, am all about the goths:
I
Kynt & Vyxsin.And I am already deeply in loathe with Jennifer & Nathan, who are this season's resident Whiny Girl and Asshole Guy Who Can't Stop Bickering. Also a special "Bleh" for Nicolas and David, the grandson and granddad team who bond over "talking inappropriately about women." Charming.
Veterans Day 2007
In Flanders fields the poppies blowI honor my father, two uncles, a cousin, a great uncle, many friends and colleagues, and the millions known and unknown who served our country in the armed forces.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— John McCrae (1872-1918)
The next time...
...you hear the Bush administration claiming there's been no terrorism in America since 9/11, think of this story:
A federal judge ordered an anti-abortion activist to remove Web site postings that authorities said exhorted readers to kill an abortion provider by shooting her in the head.That would be pretty much the textbook definition of terrorism.
District Court Judge Thomas Golden granted an injunction Thursday seeking the removal of postings on Web pages maintained by John Dunkle. The injunction, sought by prosecutors in August, also bans him from publishing similar messages containing names, addresses or photographs of health clinic staff members.
Prosecutors said one posting targeted a former clinician for the Philadelphia Women's Center, and that she later stopped providing reproductive health services because she feared for her life.
One posting, which featured the provider's name, photo and address, stated that "while it does not sound good to say go shoot her between the eyes, it sounds even worse to say let her alone."Harassing people with threats of violence, death, rape, etc. until they are terrified to continue doing what they're doing is terrorism. And there are conservative elements in this country who are engaging in this kind of terrorism constantly, the most organized and evident being those at the extremes of the anti-choice movement. Any issue associated with women, however—especially those relating to women's autonomy over their own bodies, particularly reproductive rights, sexual assault, and domestic violence—provokes similar reactions from a virulently misogynist contingent of activists (many of whom assert to be acting in service to Christianity). Last week, I got an email that ended with this ominous, all-caps message: "REMEMBER SOME PEOPLE ARE ALIVE SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL TO SHOOT THEM."
But this shit is never called terrorism. Terrorism has been redefined by the Bush administration (and their cult of crusading neocon minions) to mean "swarthy Muslim people blowing up things we actually do or pretend to care about," to the exclusion of "white Christians threatening and intimidating people we don't really like, anyway, doing things with which we don't agree."
I'd love some enterprising reporter to mention this story at the next White House briefing and ask what the administration's plan is to combat homegrown terror, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen.
RIP Norman Mailer
Celebrated American novelist and advocate against women's liberation and birth control, dies at 84.
The Virtual Pub is Open
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar
and name your poison!
Let's make it a HOT ONE tonight!
Grody to the Max
"At every single hotel, regardless of price, the glasses were simply rinsed out and left for the next guest. Some hotels used dirty bath towels to wipe the glasses. One hotel employee rinsed the glasses after cleaning the toilet—using the same gloves. Another one sprayed the glasses with blue cleaning fluid that was marked Do not drink." Barf.
Tom DeLay: A Dopey Yank in Oxford
I know, it's him again. But don't worry, we can get through this.
Anyway...
Tom DeLay, the forever disgraced former House Leader and all around douchebag, spoke at the Oxford Union to explain how horrible life would be with a Democratic president, even more so if the winner was one Hillary Clinton:
DeLay warned that a Clinton victory would result in higher taxes and bloated government. He also said she would seek to create a British-style publicly funded health care system, a prediction that was met with thunderous applause.Right. Well, that didn't work out too well for him. I'm sure, being the skilled
"By the way, there's no one denied health care in America. There are 47 million people who don't have health insurance, but no American is denied health care in America," he said to derisive laughter.Tom has just learned, the hard way, that people outside of this country actually know the score, and they don't believe any of the bullshit spewing from his gob for a second.
I guess DeLay will have to give Rummy a call to see if they can go on domestic lecture circuits together.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
News from Shakes Manor
(Mr. Shakes is off work today, hence the paucity of posting; we've been hanging out, having lunch together and watching a movie from an absolutely extraordinary care package that Petulant sent me.)
Liss: It's chillsy in here. (snuggles under favorite blanket)
Mr. Shakes: Yoou're always chillsy, wooman! Except when yoo're hoot! Hoonestly, wooman, if it's oone degree less than seventy, yoo're freezing, and if it's oone degree moore, yoo're boorning alive! What a screwball!
Liss: A screwball?! Bwah ha ha ha!
Mr. Shakes: Yeah, yoo're a screwball, ye wee mad fing.
Liss: A screwball?! A screwball! Ha ha ha! Do you want go on some madcap high-jinks, or should we just engage in some fisticuffs, Old Timey Husband Type Person?
Mr. Shakes: Be shushtelled, Apple Cheeks.
Two screwballs engage in a round of fisticuffs.
Dueling Quotes of the Day
"The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse. ... People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog. ... I'm a fan of many blogs. I visit them frequently and I learn a lot from them. But there also blogs written by angry kooks."—Karl Rove, lamenting the loss of civility in politics on the web.
"We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!"—Karl Rove, expressing displeasure with a political operative who had displeased him in 2003.
Yes or No?
This is a story of Cause and Effect.
Cause: New legislation is introduced which will "define the meaning of consent for the first time, making it clear that being drunk or under the influence of drugs does not mean consent has been given" and will "introduce an 'objective fault test,' meaning a man can no longer use the defence that he thought he had consent if the circumstances appear unreasonable."
In other words, men can no longer rape incapacitated women and claim those women had consented.
Seems reasonable enough.
Effect: Outrage; claims the new law is completely unreasonable.Chair of the Bar Association's criminal law committee Stephen Odgers SC said the law made sexual assault a crime of negligence.
Sigh.
"The stupid, the negligent, the intoxicated, the crazy will be treated as if they are the same as the true rapist, who knows there is no consent to sexual intercourse," Mr Odgers said.
Thankfully, Attorney-General John Hatzistergos aptly noted: "Although Mr Odgers might like to draw a distinction between the stupid or drunk rapist and normal rapists, for rape victims they're categories that don't matter." Right on. And, beyond that, I don't think "stupidity" is a viable defense for any crime, nor is negligence or intoxication, so why on earth rapists should get special dispensation, I have no idea.
Although I suspect it has something to do with the frustratingly unalterable idea that consent to sex is an unnavigable quagmire of indiscernible mystery, as opposed to being as simple as this:
Everyone wants to make it harder, and discuss all kinds of hypotheticals about implied consent or assumed consent and blah blah blah. But it's really. not. that. complicated. It is, in fact, as Auguste says, "possibly the easiest concept in the history of the world."Consent is defined according to the quality and quantity of assent, not the quality and quantity of dissent.
That's just another way of saying it's a yes or no question, and if you haven't gotten a serious, coherent yes, then you shouldn't presume you've gotten consent. [Also see: Portly Dyke.]
Anyone who protests that simplicity, who feels compelled to say, "But what about this situation? But what about that situation?" is, by definition, a rape apologist—because at the root of such protestations is the idea that people should have a right to sexual congress without consent, without taking three goddamned seconds to say:
And what this law is about is protecting people who couldn't even answer that question, if they were asked—or could only answer it in a way that any reasonable person would know is bullshit if the question were anything else.
Q: Are you okay to drive?
A: Sure! (clunk as head hits bar sleepily, before popping back up, wobbling on neck) I'm perfectly schlober!
Q: Do you want to have sex?
A: Sure! (clunk as head hits bar sleepily, before popping back up, wobbling on neck) I'm perfectly schlober!
This law seeks to make people treat the answer to the second scenario with the same incredulity with which they treat the first.
Because, realistically, that isn't happening. And that's what Auguste is talking about when he refers to the quality of consent.
I personally believe that most men are quite capable of making distinctions between a willing partner who gives serious, coherent affirmative consent to sex—and a partner who doesn't know what planet she's on, no less who's trying to get in her pants. I personally give most men credit for being moral and rational enough to not be interested in a partner who hasn't given clear consent. And, in my experience, which includes one man who was not decent enough to respect my lack of consent, none of the other men I've known intimately (not all of whom I've known sexually) had the slightest bit of confusion on this issue, or thought clear consent was difficult to discern.
But still there are people not willing to give men the benefit of the doubt—and, surprise, it isn't the people in favor of this law:"It will turn our sons into criminals," new Bar Association president Anna Katzmann SC said yesterday.
Actually, if they're as likely to "have sex" with a woman incapable of clearly consenting as you assume, Ms. Katzmann, this law might keep them from being criminals, by teaching them to ask the simplest question there is:
Because if they're "having sex" without asking it, they may be criminals already.
[Thanks to Lauredhel for passing that story along. Cara has more.]
The Business of Death
The folks at GOOD Magazine created a pretty cool animation dealing with the death industry.
I particularly like how Anubis is involved in every aspect of the business. Makes sense, no?
[Via BlueGal]
Meet the New Pro-Torture Boss
Senate Confirms Mukasey By 53-40:
A divided Senate narrowly confirmed former federal judge Michael B. Mukasey last night as the 81st attorney general, giving the nominee the lowest level of congressional support of any Justice Department leader in the past half-century.Wev.
The 53 to 40 vote came after more than four hours of impassioned floor debate, and it reflected an effort by Democrats to register their displeasure with Bush administration policies on torture and the boundaries of presidential power.
...He avoided defeat only because a half-dozen Democrats voted in favor of the appointment along with Republicans and Democrat-turned-independent Joseph I. Lieberman.
Hard-Core Huckabee
Behind all the charm and aw-shucks folksiness of Mike Huckabee lies the heart and soul of a hard-core religious fundamnentalist who has no problem denying an awful lot of people the same rights as everybody else in this country just because they're gay.Let me ask you about the marriage issue. You spoke with the Concord Monitor many months ago. And according to the transcript of that you said, you would tend to leave it to the states if they wanted to have some sort of civil unions law that gave gay couples the rights of marriage without calling it marriage. Is that accurate?
When I hear people carry on about keeping "traditional marriage" intact, I want to know what traditions they're talking about: the arranged marriages of the bible where the father sold his daughter off to a business partner, or the polygamous marriages that a lot of traditional people had back in those days, plus a little something on the side? Or the traditional marriage laws we used to have here in the United States that forbade white people from marrying someone -- presumably of the opposite sex -- of another race? Does Mr. Huckabee want us to reinstate the miscegenation laws which were such a powerful tradition? That was the law in a lot of states as recently as forty years ago and only overturned by those damned activist judges on the Supreme Court. And what about divorce? Talk about something that threatens traditional marriage; if Mr. Huckabee wants to keep traditional marriage intact, perhaps he should work harder to keep those who can get married in the first place from splitting up before he starts dictating to the LGBT community what we can or can't do.
I have never supported civil unions, and I don't. I don't think it is something that is a good thing. I think in fact it's something that in fact just leads us to the ultimate idea of same-sex marriage, which I don't support. I went back and tried to read that transcript, and I can't argue with what they said, because I don't have anything. I don't have another transcript to say, well we recorded it differently. I'll just assume that was correct. I either misspoke or misunderstood. The only thing I can reconstruct it is that I may have implied that I would prefer to see -- because I have always supported -- a marriage amendment at the federal level, and a life amendment. I may have acquiesced that if that can't happen, I understand that states may pass on their own. But I don't support the idea that there would be civil unions, every state would have their own set of rules on that.
So just to clarify, you would oppose a state like New Hampshire choosing to pass a civil union bill that gave gay couples similar rights to couples that are heterosexual.
Yeah. Because once you give it in one state, then what keeps that couple from having it in New Hampshire and then moving to Arkansas and saying, "Hey, you have to accept what the other state did." That's why it is better cleared up by a marriage amendment that just says marriage is what it always has been. We are not redefining it. It's not that you are opposing something. You are actually affirming something. That's the way I really do feel. It's important to communicate it. My position is that it's the advocates for gay marriage that are opposing traditional marriage by wanting to change the definition and the rules. Those of us who are traditional-marriage people would say, We are not against same-sex marriage as much as it is we are for keeping the traditional understanding of marriage intact. [ Emphasis in original.]
Mr. Huckabee sees civil unions as the slippery slope to gay marriage. Oh, dear, the old slippery slope. But what he's really saying is that he would like to impose his religious values on people who may or may not be religious at all. Since marriage, which is a religious ritual, has become inexorably intertwined with civil law and is probably the only religious rite that has been given a place in the canons of a presumably secular society, it makes it difficult to talk about same-sex marriage without treading on religion. But saying that civil unions represent a threat to the religious aspect of marriage is a straw man argument. The state should be able to recognize a legally binding contract between two people that grants them all the rights, responsibilites, and benefits of marriage without all the fables and superstition that go along with some mumbo-jumbo chanted over them by some priest. Mr. Huckabee, along with all the other anti-gay-marriage Henny Pennys, won't even allow civil unions because it somehow means that it will lead to Adam and Steve demanding that the church down the street perform the ceremony. But since there is no obligation placed on the church to perform every marriage by a state granting a marriage license, why would there be such an obligation with gay or lesbian unions? As far as the state is concerned, once you've filled out the forms and paid the fee for the license, you're married. The rest of it -- the ceremony, the reception, the honeymoon in St. Kitts, the interminable thank-you notes for the matching bath towels -- is all a lot of ritualistic crap imposed on our society by the church and greedy corporate wedding planners who know how to exploit someone like a rich father of the bride. No church is required to marry anyone they don't want to. The Roman Catholics don't even recognize some marriages performed by other denominations, and the orthodox Jews sit shivah when one of their faith marries someone who isn't equally orthodox.
What it comes down to is that Mr. Huckabee is intent on imposing his religious values and beliefs on a secular society and relegating a sizeable segment of the population to second-class citizenship under the gay version of Jim Crow via the Federal Marriage Amendment and the Human Life Amendment. (Continue reading the interview if you want to see what he has in mind for the reproductive rights of women.) He has no qualms whatsoever about making that clear.
That may be refreshingly candid, and it may qualify him as a Baptist pastor, but not as the President of the United States.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Because Melissa Never Told Me I Shouldn't Do This, I Will . . .
I don't know about you, but Shakesville is a site that has kept me alive and kicking for a very long time.
I read it every day, and through posts and comments here, I've expanded my understanding, laughed, cried, and made connection with people that I might never have known otherwise.
There are lots of people who contribute here, but I also recognize that Melissa keeps it going, and takes a lot of shit in the process.
So, I'm sending her at least a fin, tonight.
I hope you'll join me. C'mon -- if you relish her every day -- do more than give her a "blog award" -- send her some money -- even if it's only a coupla bucks.
She's modest, and I might get my ass kicked for posting this (I'm ready to take that chance) -- but visit the "Donate" link over on the right and show the gurrrl sum monetary appreciation:
That is all. Portly Dyke.
Question of the Day
What book can you not believe hasn't yet been turned into a movie?
When I first thought of this question, six books instantly flooded to mind all at once, because they are books I re-read, and every time I wonder why no one's ever seen fit to bring them to the screen, because they're all powerful, amazing, unique stories:
1. Donna Tartt's The Secret History
2. Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven
3. Katherine Dunn's Geek Love
4. Margaret Marshall Saunders' Beautiful Joe
5. Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
6. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
See if you can spot what all six of these books have in common.
