Brave Sir Robin emailed me this story about the "hilarious" ad the owner of a concrete company is running this Christmas:
Ha ha! Get it? Your wife needs concrete shoes this Christmas! Ha ha!
Richfield Street-based American Concrete had a new billboard erected Monday on West Avenue. Over the image of a wrapped gift, the solicitous catchline, "Wife need new shoes?" is accompanied by the American Concrete logo and a greeting, "Happy Holidays."
The humorous inference to "cement shoes" or "concrete shoes" as a method of doing away with one's wife is at the heart of the controversy.
"I'm sure it was considered to be a joke, or something cute, but with the number of fatalities we see in the domestic violence field, it's not a joke," Granchelli said Thursday. "It's in very poor taste."
No, it's not, countered McCabe.
"I think the mainstream understands it," he said. "It's unfortunate that some people are reading much more into it than they should."
Yes, it's deeply unfortunate that there are uppity women ruining all the fun by pointing out that the ad turns domestic violence, which claims the lives of over a thousand women every year in America alone, into the butt of a joke.
McCabe's defense is that there are women who find it funny. Well, if Ann Coulter has made one contribution to the world, it's proof that just because someone is a woman doesn't mean she's not also astonishingly ignorant of, apathetic about, and/or hostile toward women and women's issues.
It's exceedingly easy for women to endear themselves to sexist men by laughing along at sexist jokes and particularly by demeaning the women who don't. There are a lot of rewards for being the woman who says, "Oh Christ, some women can't take a fucking joke." Their exasperation is well-compensated with adulation from the men whose virulent misogyny is so expediently excused.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams flippantly asserts that "marriage is under attack":
Transcript:When Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip got married, Harry Truman was President of the United States; the city of London was still recovering from the pummeling it received while under attack in World War II. In an era when marriage is under attack, the United Kingdom is these days celebrating a sixtieth wedding anniversary.
“I think he’s kind of done a belly flop,” said an estranged Thompson backer who indicated he will not pull his public support before the “Super Tuesday” primaries. “We’ll just wait till after Feb. 5 because I think he’s going to get beat.”
The disaffected members of team Thompson say he has failed to put to rest whispers that he is unwilling to campaign hard enough to win the presidency.
“He seems to be perpetuating it instead of defeating it,” another dissatisfied Thompson backer said. “I can’t see me bailing on him, but there’s some frustration.”
Not unlike the iconic disaster that made its big premiere fifty years ago, there was a lot of anticipation and excitement about the impending candidacy of Fred Thompson: he would be a breath of fresh air, something entirely new, who would unite the party behind the true new message of the GOP and save them from certain doom... only to find out that he was just another white guy with the same old tired ideas, the same fear mongering, and even the same folksy shtick that Bush used in 2000... and that segment of the market already had Mike Huckabee. And like the new/old car, he was slow off the starting line, had some mechanical glitches, and didn't really fit into the market.
It took Ford two years to finally pull the plug on the Edsel. That's a short run in the auto business. Mercifully in politics, it takes a lot less time. I'm guessing that by the middle of February, Mr. Thompson will be heading back to his acting career...just in time to cross the picket line of the Writer's Guild.
The annual Thanksgiving menu post! This year we are hosting friends (who also do not have family here) again, which is awesomesauce. I love to have people over for dinner and Thanksgiving is, like, the mother of all dinner-hostings, LOL. Anyhow, this is most of the menu this year. I warn you, this is a long post.
One of the appetizers, and always a hit:
Bruschetta
* 8 to 10 Plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped * 1 bunch fresh basil chopped * 6 garlic cloves minced * 1/3 cup olive oil * 2 tbls balsamic vinegar * Salt and pepper to taste * 2 baguettes French bread, cut into 1 & 1/2" slices * 10 oz. pkg Goat Cheese
Mix the tomatoes basil garlic olive oil and vinegar in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Place the bread on a baking sheet and broil until golden brown on both sides. Let cool. Spread the goat cheese on each slice. Top each slice with a dollop of the tomato mixture. For added flavor, try stirring some pesto into the goat cheese. Makes 16 –20 servings.
I usually make the tomato mix the day before and let meld. Main course & Sides:
Herb-Scented Roast Turkey
* 1 T chopped fresh or 2 tsp dried rosemary leaves, crumbled * 1 T chopped fresh or 2 tsp dried sage leaves, crumbled * 1 tsp salt * 1/4 tsp black pepper * 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped * 1/4 cup butter, melted * 1 whole turkey (thawed, innards removed)
—Heat oven to 325. In small bowl, mix rosemary, sage, salt, pepper, and garlic; rub into turkey skin.
—Stuff turkey, if desired.
—On rack in shallow roasting pan, place turkey breast side up. Brush with melted butter.
—Roast turkey as directed by weight.
—Place turkey on platter, cover w/foil. Let stand appx 20 minutes before carving.
For more information on buying, thawing,cooking, and stuffing a turkey, see here.
Gravy!
* 1/2 cup turkey drippings * 3 cups liquid, either more juices w/o fat and/or chicken broth * 1/2 tsp salt * 1/4 tsp pepper * browning sauce, if desired
--Pour drippings from roasting pan into bowl, leaving particles in pan. Return 1/2 cup drippings to roasting pan (remember that too little fat makes gravy lumpy).
--Whisk in flour (measure accurately so gravy isn't greasy). Cook over med heat, stirring constantly until smooth & bubbly. Remove from heat.
--Stir in liquid. Return to heat and bring to boiling, stirring constantly for one minute. Stir in few drops of browning sauce, if desired. Stir in salt & pepper.
Appx 12 servings (of 1/4 cup each).
Gravy tips: * Be sure that the mix remains at a full boil for the full one minute to cook the flour so that the gravy doesn't have a starchy flavor * If you do not have enough drippings, you can use wine, broth, water from cooking potatoes, or tomato juice * For thinner gravy, decrease meat drippings and flour to 1 tablespoon each
Brie Mashed Potatoes
* 5 - 6 med/large baking potatoes (about 5 lbs worth), peeled & cut into large chunks * 1 cup milk * 1/4 cup butter * 1 tsp salt * 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper * 1 pkg (8 oz) Brie cheese, rind removed and cubed * 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
--In large saucepan, place potatoes and enough water to cover. Heat to boiling. reduce heat and simmer 20 - 30 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender. Drain.
--Heat oven to 350. Spray 2 - 3 quart casserole with cooking spray. In small sauce pan, heat milk, butter, salt, and pepper over med heat. Stir occasionally until butter is melted. Measure out 1/4 cup of mix and set aside.
--To potatoes, gradually add the remaining milk mix, cubed cheese, and thyme, mashing with masher or electric mixer (on med speed) until light and fluffy. Spoon potatoes into casserole. **Dish can be covered and refrigerated up to 24 hours at this point**
--Pour reserved1/4 cup milk mixture over potatoes. Bake uncovered 40 - 45 minutes or until hot. Stir before serving. (12 servings)
If you want regular mashed potatoes but with a garlic flavor, boil (peeled) garlic cloves in with the potatoes, then mash all together after draining liquid.
Sweet Potato Casserole
* 1 (40 ounce) can sweet potatoes, drained * 1 cup sugar * 2 eggs * 1/3 cup milk * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 1 cup packed brown sugar * 1 cup chopped pecans * 1/3 cup all-purpose flour * 2/3 cup melted butter, divided
—Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2 quart baking dish.
—Heat, drain and mash sweet potatoes. Combine with them with the sugar, eggs, 1/3 cup butter, milk and vanilla. Place in the prepared baking dish.
—In a separate bowl combine the brown sugar, chopped pecans, flour and 1/3 cup butter. Sprinkle over the top of the sweet potato mixture. Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
I've made this with crushed almonds before and it turns out well that way too.
Ginger Apricot Cranberry Sauce
* 1 tbsp. unsalted butter * 2 tbsp. finely grated ginger * 16 oz. fresh cranberries * 2/3 cup sugar * 1 cup orange juice * 1/2 cup apricot preserves
In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt butter. Add ginger and cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Add crans, sugar, oj and preserves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until crans burst and sauce thickens, about 20 mins. Transfer to bowl and serve warm.
This is new one for me this year, that I got from my friend Jess. She said that it's one that can be made ahead of time and rewarmed on T-day.
Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls
* 1/2 cup milk * 2 T white sugar * 2 T butter * 2 T shortening * 1/2 cup cold water * 1 egg, at room temperature * 1 tsp active dry yeast * 2-3/4 cups bread flour divided * 1/2 tsp baking powder * 1/4 tsp baking soda * 3/4 tsp salt
* 1T butter, melted
—Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in the butter, shortening, and sugar; stir until melted. Add cold water and let cool until lukewarm.
—Pour milk into a large bowl. Add egg and yeast; mix well. Beat in 1 cup of flour and let stand for 20 minutes.
—Sift in baking powder, baking soda, salt and 1 cup flour. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a warm damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
—Divide the dough into six equal pieces. Divide each piece in half and form into 12 rolls. Place the rounds in a lightly greased 11×7 inch baking dish. Cover the rolls with a warm damp cloth and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
—Bake in preheated oven for 20 - 25 minutes, or until golden. When they come out of the oven, brush with melted butter. Let stand one minute before taking out of pan. (serves 12)
We're also having: cheese & crackers, cocktail weenies, dressing (being brought by friends),steamed & buttered green beans, corn, herb bread & dipping oil, pumpkin pie (brought by friends), and Bavarian apple torte. And wine. Lots of wine.
First, Hardball host Chris Matthews teases a segment by asking whether Hillary Clinton is a "She Devil"…
…and then he features an image of her sporting devil horns while discussing if it's wise for Republicans to demonize her.
Later, he also expressed total amazement that women don't vote with their vaginas:
I don't get it. I see women who I've always thought were progressive on the issues, certainly feminists, who I would assume would be just taking a swan dive for Hillary, totally in love with her. It would be Thelma & Louise, "Let's go over the cliff together," even. And yet they're going, "You know, there's something I want to think about here."
If he's honestly saying he can't understand that women don't automatically vote for women, is that not a tacit admission that he votes for men specifically because they're not women? The guy is an inveterate, unapologetic sexist, and inveterate, unapologetic sexists have got no goddamned business covering for a major news network a presidential race in which one—and only one—of the contenders is a woman.
I can't believe this shit is allowed to go on. It's an absolute disgrace, and the fact that it's considered Business As Usual is just totally despicable.
[Important Note to Feminist Noobs: This is a long post. It contains lots of different, though related, Feminist 101 kind of ideas about misogynist language. Please carefully read the whole post before commenting. If you don't understand one of the points that is made in the post, I highly recommend asking for clarification before issuing an opinion on it. If you make an argument in comments that has already been discredited within the post, be prepared to be thoroughly mocked.]
Andi Zeisler, co-founder (with Lisa Jervis) of Bitch magazine, wrote an interesting piece for the WaPo this weekend on "the B-word," its cultural connotation, and its reclamation:
Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn't respond to men's catcalls or smile when they say, "Cheer up, baby, it can't be that bad." We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn't apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn't back down from a confrontation.
So let's not be disingenuous. Is it a bad word? Of course it is. As a culture, we've done everything possible to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and, of course, unfeminine -- and sees uncompromising speech by women as anathema to a tidy, well-run world.
…[Bitch magazine is] not about hating men but about elevating women. But too many people don't see the difference. And, at least in part, that's why the B-word is still such a problematic term.
I found it particularly compelling because of its pertinence not only to the sexism surrounding Hillary's campaign which we've been discussing around here recently, but also because in the last week, I had a really retro and disheartening conversation about sexist language—a really retro and disheartening conversation about sexist language that I've had dozens of times before.
It began in the comments section of another blog, when I objected to a contributor denouncing a male public figure he didn't like as an "all-around cunt." Naturally, I was mocked for pointing out that demeaning and marginalizing sexist language has the capacity to make women feel demeaned and marginalized. I don't have any relationship with the contributor who used the term, so I emailed another contributor whom I know better to inquire if using the n-word as an insult is considered appropriate at the blog, and if it would have been acceptable for the public figure to be deemed an "all-around faggot." I was told that anything was allowable "within reasonable limits." Racial slurs would not be tolerated or defended, but the use of sexist language was acceptable. Which, by my calculations, means that if you're lambasting a black male public figure, calling him a stupid n----r is out of bounds, but calling him a stupid cunt is totally cool.
I'd like to point out it's a trade-off which insulates other black men against collateral debasement, but just debases black women in a different way, along with their sisters of all colors. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Ahem.
So, unlike the racial slurs that would not be neither tolerated nor defended, the misogynist slurs that would be both tolerated and defended were thusly justified:
1. The Brits use it.
2. I use it.
3. The guy who used it is "no misogynist." He was using this term for female genitalia to insult a man, after all, and his intent was not to be misogynistic.
4. Comparing cunt to the n-word isn't accurate and trivializes the n-word.
5. He can't "abide" the policing of their comments threads by the PC police (i.e. me).
Quite honestly, I've had almost this exact same conversation before with male, self-identified liberal/progressive bloggers at whose blogs I objected to the use of sexist language, which is why I'm not identifying the blogger with whom I had this conversation. It's far too typical for me to single him out. I was, however, particularly disappointed by the way this conversation went, because I had thought that the person with whom I was speaking would be receptive to hearing how alienating it is, if for no other reason than because it will necessarily limit their audience. I was evidently mistaken.
By which I shouldn't be surprised, given that, as I said, I've had this conversation before, and it always goes the same way. So let me just respond to this point-by-point, since they're the same responses I inevitably get in such exchanges, and all of them have been raised in the comments of Shakes on multiple occasions:
1. The Brits use it.Some segments of British society are indeed fond of using the word cunt a lot. There are pubs in London where three seconds doesn't go by without someone shouting "yeh feckin' cunt!" at his or her mate. And…that really has nothing to do with its use at an American blog about American politics.
It also, btw, has nothing to do with whether it's intrinsically sexist. There are also bars in America where not three seconds pass without one guy calling another guy a fag. The frequency of its use in specific regional areas doesn't make it not homophobic—in those areas, or anywhere else.
Relatedly, the attempt to rip misogynist slurs from their roots to try to redefine them doesn't fly. "I'm using it in the European way" is just a cynical ploy to justify the continued use of misogynistic language that feels good to use. "Asshole" just doesn't have the zing! of "cunt," which is why we get these tortured explanations about how "cunt" isn't being used in the misogynistic way, but in the British or European way, where the word's ubiquity is fallaciously used as evidence that the word has lost all its meaning.
Throwing around the word cunt as if it has no meaning anymore—or some "new" meaning separate from gender—is ignorant and lazy, and contributes, in spite of all protestations to the contrary, to a culture of inequality.
2. I use it. My using the word cunt to describe myself and a man using it to describe another man are fundamentally different contexts. To pretend that this difference is not patently fucking obvious is what August calls a fabricated belief. No one with two brain cells still knocking together honestly believes that white people using the n-word as an insult and black people using it for any reason are equivalent, nor that a gay man describing himself as a faggot is the same as Ann Coulter describing John Edwards as a faggot. And no one should have the slightest bit of trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that my (or other women) reclaiming the word cunt (or bitch, or other sexist euphemisms) to describe ourselves is not the same as a man using it as an insult.
I love the word cunt, and I'm all for reclaiming it—but reclaiming "cunt" is about a woman wearing it herself and wielding it ironically, which is necessarily as a compliment, not an insult. If I call my girlfriend "a beautiful cunt" for expertly handling a sexist wanker, that's got reappropriative power. If I call her "a dumb cunt" because she does something foolish, not so much.
There are ways to use words and there are ways to use words—and knowing the difference, rooting out the subversive context from that which simply perpetuates oppression, is not remotely difficult.
And no matter how often women use it in a reclaimative fashion, it doesn't give anyone (of either sex) permission to use it as an insult. The whole "you use it" justification strikes me as a rather pathetic bit of whining; why do you get to use it and I don't? As if that's some big coup for the girlz. Trust me—in the whole "undeserved privilege since birth" v. "getting to use cunt" cage match, you've got the better end of the bargain. So STFU.
3. The guy who used it is "no misogynist." He was using this term for female genitalia to insult a man, after all, and his intent was not to be misogynistic. Okay, first of all, let’s pull this apart into two pieces:
A. Intent: If you're turning part of a woman's body into a slur to insult someone, the implication is necessarily that cunts are bad, nasty, less than, in some way something that a person wouldn't want to be or be associated with. That's how insults work. When cunt is used as a slur, it is dependent on construing a woman's body part negatively—and it thusly misogynistic, because it inexorably insults women in the process. Specifically using a misogynistic slur against a man can't be anything but intentionally misogynistic. If you don't intend to demean women, then don't use misogynistic slurs. It's really as simple as that.
B. Not a Misogynist. How often does one have to use misogynistic language before one can be identified as a misogynist? Twenty times? A hundred? An infinite number of times, as long as he doesn't beat women? During the "cunt/whore" dust-up recounted here, Piny wrote a great post addressing this very question:
I wholeheartedly agree that there is a difference between someone who posts an ill-conceived blackface photoshop caricature and, say, Nathan Bedford Forrest. I will also happily concede that there is a difference between someone who openly identifies as feminist but casually uses misogynistic slurs and graphic misogynistic riffs to deride people–women in particular–and, say, John Knox.
This does not mean that it’s a good idea to restrict “a racist,” “a sexist,” and “a misogynist,” to the very worst of the worst. …[I]t reduces complaints about all of these words to matters of personal affront, such that “sexist” and “cunt” are equated. “Sexist” becomes not a criticism of someone’s demonstrated beliefs, a term like “reactionary,” but an epithet as crude as the slurs to which it responds. It’s mean and unfair to call someone a sexist.
Absolutely spot-on. Also see the except from Pam here, which talks about how reserving these terms for the extremes allows people to "rationalize away such incidents because a real racist burns a cross on someone's lawn, or ties a black man to the back of a truck and drags him until his limbs fall off." Reserving "misogynist" (or "sexist") for equivalent displays of contempt for women means that a guy who flippantly refers to another guy as a cunt (or a bitch, or a pussy, or a girl) can justify it with assertions that he isn't a misogynist, even if he uses the terms with regularity. Back to Piny:
Then, inevitably, it becomes impossible to describe behavior as repeated and typical, part of a pattern, because there will always be a John Knox whose lack of respect for women is more constant and more obvious. In fact, it arguably conflates extremism with consistency. If my bigotry does not reach a certain level, then it is a negligible component of my persona, even in discussions about bigotry that respond to demonstrations of bigotry.
…If someone cannot be called a sexist unless they either constantly treat women as though they hated them or engage in behavior that even Bill Napoli considers abominable, then little things like using a misogynist slur are automatically trivial. They’re so far from true sexism that they might as well be called feminist.
Indeed.
And the ultimate result of resisting being deemed a misogynist for the use of misogynistic language is that it's yet another way of giving oneself permission to resist self-examination. As I've said no fewer than a nonillion times before, all of us, failing extraordinary effort to examine the narratives of bias—with which we're all indoctrinated by our culture—in an attempt to extricate ourselves from their divisive grip, will hold prejudices. The only question is whether you allow your own to be unexamined prejudices. Responding to questions about the use of misogynist language with "I'm not a misogynist!" is a near-certain step to burying and making intractable the very prejudices that allows someone to engage in such behavior in the first place. There's more shame in denying being a misogynist when you patently, undeniably are than saying: "Yes, I'm a misogynist, but I don't want to be."
I'm reminded of an exchange I had with Bill soon after he started posting at Shakes. He used something (way less obvious than an overt slur) to which I objected in one of his posts, and I asked him to please remove it. Here's how he responded: He said, approximately, "Thanks. I don't always notice stuff like that, and I'm trying to be more sensitive to it, so I appreciate your letting me know." That's it. I can't even begin to tell you how much I respected him for that, how profoundly appreciative I was of his utter lack of defensiveness. And if you want to know what a swell dude he really is, he removed it from the post at his own blog, too. (In other words, he wasn't just blowing smoke up my ass.)
4. Comparing cunt to the n-word isn't accurate and trivializes the n-word. I've seen a lot of this "slur ranking" lately—JFH did it in comments here just this weekend, although, unlike my correspondent, he decided that the n-word and cunt are equivalent, but probably only because he was rejecting someone's having compared bitch and the n-word: "[C]omparing 'bitch' to '[the n word]' is not fair. The equivalent to 'bitch' is 'bastard' or 'asshole'. The equivalent to '[the n-word]' is 'cunt'."
The ludicrous thing about these examinations of equivalence is that when someone says, "Would you use the n-word in that way?" what they mean is, "Would you use racial slurs in that way?" Parsing whether cunt is the precise equivalent of the n-word is just a way of avoiding the underlying idea. Sexist language, like racist language, is marginalizing and demeaning. Full. Stop. And I shouldn't have to determine the exact racial equivalent of "cunt" before that point can be made. "It's not as bad as the n-word, but it's worse than darkie…" Yeesh.
The internal rankings are equally useless, i.e. "bitch isn't as bad as cunt." Women who are marginalized and demeaned by misogynist language take little comfort from the fact that the people who use it only mean to marginalize and demean us "this much" with "this word" and "that much" with "that word."
And if there are women who say, "I hate being called a cunt more than being called a bitch," I suspect it's merely indicative of our being inured to one word more than the other and/or having been given more cultural opportunities for reclamation. It means something that there's a Bitch magazine at your local newsstand and not a Cunt Quarterly. (Or if there is, it's a porno.)
5. He can't "abide" the policing of their comments threads by the PC police (i.e. me). Well, this is what it always boils down to in the end. I'm just too sensitive and I'm trying to censor someone and blah blah blah. In a word, no.
What I am is more sensitive to how misogynist language affects women, because I am one. People of color are more sensitive to racist language (particularly racist dog whistles, for example) than I am; that doesn't mean they're too sensitive. When a reader pointed out to me that my use of the word "lame" to mean "stupid" could be offensive to disabled Shakers, it wasn't that she was too sensitive; it was that I was not sensitive enough. It means that (duh) I still have shit to learn in this world.
Life is hard enough without my unexpectedly smacking people in the face who trust me not to be a jerk, and it's in that same spirit that I've tried to convey how misogynist language is uncool—hey, I don't want to get blindsided with shit like that from an ostensible ally. When I highlight the use of sexist language at a male-authored blog, it's because such language is alienating and demeaning and infuriating and I'm operating under the assumption that those bloggers don't want to alienate, demean, and infuriate their female readers.
But that, as it turns out, usually tends to be a faulty assumption.
Repeatedly, it comes down to this insistence that I'm trying to police their blogs, but they refuse to be censored, man! Which itself is bullshit. It's not about being censored, but about the refusal to self-censor to make their blogs non-misogynist, as if giving up the use of the word cunt is some kind of creative apocalypse. I've got news for you: If you feel like self-censoring to forego the use of misogynist language is a compromise of your integrity, you don't have much integrity to begin with.
I self-censor all the time. I'm not exactly proud to admit this, but it's not like the phrase "Bush is a fuckin' retard" has never entered my mind. But I don't use the slur—not because I'm oh-so-scared that the "PC police" will come after me, but because it's not a nice term. That's reason enough.
And I don't think I've exactly failed to convey my feelings about our less-than-brilliant president without using a word that would unnecessarily insult people I have no desire whatsoever to demean and alienate people who love them. It's not particularly challenging to expand one's vocabulary beyond cunt and retard.
But the attitude I routinely get for suggesting such a infinitesimal broadening of one's horizons is, essentially, "Deal with it or fuck off."
So "fuck off" it is.
I generally don't read (so as not to tacitly support) progressive blogs that use misogynist language, even if they're ideological allies in other ways, because sexism is deeply illiberal. There are plenty of progressive blogs, including exclusively male-authored blogs, that don't use misogynist language—so I don't need to read blogs that do.
Plenty of us have managed to figure out that refusing to use language which perpetuates oppression is not enslaving oneself to the language police. It's just doing the basic work required of someone who doesn't want to be a fucking asshole.
Today marks the 9th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is "set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the 'Remembering Our Dead' web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester's murder—like most anti-transgender murder cases—has yet to be solved."
You can read about the people who have lost their lives to transphobia here, thanks to the diligence and dedication of Gwendolyn Ann Smith, who won't let them be forgotten.
Trans people are often targeted for violence because their gender presentation, appearance and/or anatomy falls outside the norms of what is considered acceptable for a woman or man. A large percentage of trans people who are killed are prostitutes, and their murders often go unreported or underreported due to the public presumption that those engaged in sex work are not deserving of attention or somehow had it coming to them.
Some trans people are killed as the result of being denied medical services specifically because of their trans status, for example, Tyra Hunter, a transsexual woman who died in 1995 after being in a car accident. EMTs who arrived on the scene stopped providing her with medical care—and instead laughed and made slurs at her—upon discovering that she had male genitals.
Lacking federal employment protections, transgender men and women are at higher risk for lack of insurance, adding to the difficulty of securing routine medical care from welcoming practitioners. Transmen in particular can have trouble locating accommodating gynecological services for annual pap smears, risking undiagnosed cervical cancer. The great 2001 documentary Southern Comfort spans the last year in the life of Robert Eads, an FTM transsexual who died of ovarian cancer after two dozen doctors refused him treatment.
That's the kind of hate crime that doesn't make headlines. Or even federal hate crimes statistics.
We remember all the victims of violence and apathy today. The rest of the year, I'll continue to advocate on behalf of my trans sisters and brothers, I'll continue to pay attention, I'll continue to challenge the gender norms deviation from which feeds into violent transphobia, I'll stand with you fiercely, my friends.
In his new book, "What Happened", Scotty draws a line in the sand that separates him from his evil bosses with regards to the outing of Valerie Plame:
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.
Really? Even the president himself? Well GOSH, that's awfully shocking.
But more importantly, what the hell is it with every ex-government official writing a damn book? Is that part of the career path that the high school guidance counselor lays out or what?
Michael Tomasky at The Guardian pokes holes in the humbuggery that is Fox News.
Britons may be familiar with Rupert Murdoch, but I don't think the UK has a beast quite like the American Fox News Channel. Celebrating its 11th year on the air, Fox is a breathtaking institution. It is a lock, stock and barrel servant of the Republican party, devoted first and foremost to electing Republicans and defeating Democrats; it's even run by a man, Roger Ailes, who helped elect Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior to the presidency. And yet, because it minimally adheres to certain superficial conventions, it can masquerade as a "news" outfit and enjoy all the rights that accrue to that.
[...]
And so, for a decade and more, Fox has got away with an amazing thing: it can call itself a "straight" news channel even while everyone knows it's not. It's a great little racket. Every so often, a Toto comes along and tugs at the curtain - earlier this year, for instance, the Democratic presidential aspirants agreed that they would not participate in any debates hosted by Fox because there was no point in getting up there and being asked questions merely for the purpose of providing footage that the eventual Republican nominee could use against them. But these moments have been rare.
Last week brought an event with the potential to change all that. Judith Regan, a former Fox host perhaps best known in the UK as the, um, brains behind the OJ Simpson If I Did It mediapalooza, has sued her former employer for wrongful dismissal.
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Let's linger over that for a moment. Two executives of a major news organisation may have told a citizen to lie to federal investigators to protect a presidential candidate. It's a stunning charge. If proven someday, Fox will no longer be able to hide behind the fiction that it's a neutral news outfit.
In the meantime, Democrats should ratchet up their refusal to pretend that Fox bears any relationship to news. I've always felt they should just boycott the network en bloc. One can be pretty confident that if the situation were reversed - imagine a cable channel that was known as a Democratic house organ and run by, say, Bill Clinton adviser James Carville - Republicans would have done something like that long ago. I asked Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic speaker, about this last Friday, and she just replied wanly: "I think we have to reach out to all the viewers out there."
I guess I didn't really expect her to say more on the record. But if the day ever comes that Fox is no longer allowed to have it both ways, Democrats won't have to keep playing along with the rabbit-hole fiction that Fox is a genuine news-gathering operation.
If they did, you can be sure that Fox will come up with some "balanced" panel discussion and include some token liberals who will serve as window dressing, much as the New York Nationals serve as the opposing team at a Harlem Globetrotters "game," all pondering why the Democrats don't want to play along.
As for a Democratic version of Fox, apparently some think that CNN is the DNC house organ. Oh, right; like Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs are shining examples of liberalism. Howard Kurtz sucks up to the trivial and the celebrity pundits like a goopy teenager reading Tiger Beat, and if Wolf Blitzer and his lame performance at the debate in Las Vegas was supposed to be supportive of the Democrats, the party has got to find a smarter hack to plant at the network.
Frankly, I don't know why Fox doesn't just come right out and brag about being the conservative network. It's not like it would startle anyone, and all this sham about "fair and balanced" just makes it that much more phony: when you have to tell someone you're unbiased, it begs the question. The only reason that I can think of that Fox doesn't own up to it is because they couldn't play the victim when people accuse them of being exactly what they are.
Me, on John McCain, August 25, 2005: "Anyone who still thinks this jagoff's a maverick after the bootlicking he gave Bush during the last election is living in cloud cuckoo land. His alleged independent streak came to a screeching halt as it collided with the stumbling zombie corpse of his credibility the moment he stood in New Hampshire with his arm around the shoulders of the man whose operatives called his wife a junky and his adopted daughter illegitimate. He may have been honorable and brave once upon a time, but he's not anymore."
Me, on John McCain, now: "OMFG. Somebody killed the zombie. And it was John McCain."
Presidential hopeful John McCain said Monday he doesn't hold grudges and indicated he would accept campaign help from Karl Rove, the architect of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 2000 triumph that dashed McCain's presidential hopes seven years ago.
Wow. He is totally fucking shameless.
I know he's desperate for campaign cash, but I'm not sure selling off the last remnants of his soul is really going to be worth it in the long run.
What iconic film role do you so inextricably associate with the actor who filled it, you can't imagine the role being played by anyone else if the film were to be remade?
I can't imagine Harold & Maude being played by anyone except Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon. I'm sure it will be remade some day, and I'm sure I will feel that it pales in comparison to the original, no matter how open-minded I endeavor to be.
[And no, btw, I have no idea what the deal is with the blog, but I don't think it's unique to us. Blogger's just being glitchy, I think.]
"Over 21 years, [Dick Wilson] made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling the soft toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted Charmin-squeezer."
A few people have already emailed me about this story out of Georgia:
Three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban apartment complex, officials said.
The alleged attack happened Thursday and the girl's mother reported it to authorities Sunday, Acworth police Capt. Wayne Dennard said.
"The juvenile victim stated that an 8-year-old boy and two 9-year-old boys that she had been playing with earlier pulled her into a wooded area, where one of the boys raped her," Dennard said.
The three boys were charged with rape, kidnapping, false imprisonment and sexual assault, Dennard told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Their names were being withheld because of their age.
Those are the only facts about the case that I've been able to find, and, quite honestly, the only reason I'm posting about it at all is to say that I don't know anything else about it, and I suspect it will be a very complicated and incendiary case based on the ages of the allleged rapists and their accuser.
Child victims in sexual assault cases are notoriously bad witnesses, even when there is no doubt of the crime. (I have no idea what the evidence in this case is.) That should not be construed as a negative assessment of child victims; it is, in fact, profoundly sympathetic. If it goes to trial, this case, with a child accusing other children of rape, will be even more difficult to prosecute than a case involving adults.
Anyway, like I said, I pretty much just wanted to post something to say I really don't know enough to say anything at all, just because I was being asked about it.
"The thing about the perpetual attempts to claim that TEH SCIENCE proves that black people really are stupid is that there are two simple fallacies that they are based on. The first one is that the 'intelligence' tests used in the data actually measure some sort of immutable inherent or potential intelligence when in fact people can be educated to do better on the tests. The second is that race generally or especially as understood in America bears any relationship to the concept of 'population' as understood by geneticists. That these things have been explained to the Saletans and Sullivans of the world over and over and over and over and over again for decades and they still fail to comprehend them tells us... I really don't know. I have a hard time believing that they really are this stupid."—Atrios, whose incredulity I totally share.
Maybe it’s that the writer uses the word prostitute in the article. Perhaps it’s that the editor thought the fact that one of the victims was a former housewife was a story highlight. But I’m pretty sure it’s the ‘they had it coming’ aftertaste, which sickly mirrors the crimes, that got me.
The good girl gone bad...the ho...the hooker...the whore who got what she deserved?
No.
The victims where Kim Raffo, Barbara Breidor, Molly Jean Dilts and Tracy Ann Roberts.
Last Tuesday, I mentioned that Kathy lost her brother Ken, and asked for donations to be sent to Equality Alabama, of which Ken was a co-founder, in his honor. Today, Kathy notes that "If you make a donation to Equality Alabama and designate it in memory of Ken Baker (you can do that on the online form), your gift will be used to maintain the newly-renamed Ken Baker Equality Alabama Justice Center in Montgomery. Read more about it here."
In her post, Kathy also takes a moment to make clear just how important the equality for which Ken had spent his life fighting really is:
Everywhere Tony turned during this ordeal, he had to wait for our approval of his decisions. Thank God I could get to the hospital quickly; I had to sign the form that gave permission to release Ken's body. When we changed our minds about which funeral home to use, I had to get on the phone and say yes before the hospital could make the change. When we made arrangements for Ken's cremation, my mother had to sign the consent form, even though Tony was "allowed" to sign the contract for payment. Although he consulted us at every turn and knew that we would approve his decisions, he wasn't permitted to perform the duties of a spouse—the spouse that he was and is in every sense other than legal. He, being the wonderful person that he has always been, never complained, but I found it painfully offensive and intrusive. (I do need to point out that all of the people we dealt with were sympathetic and understanding, particularly at the funeral home, but their hands were tied by legal requirements.)
Those of us who've read up on the subject of marriage equality have likely run across the oft-quoted statistic that marriage brings with it over 1,000 legal rights that are not granted to couples like Ken and Tony. That's a good fact to remember, but dry numbers can't begin to portray the reality of the experience.
…So. If you were sitting on the fence about marriage equality … it's time to climb down on the side of justice and compassion. Speak up. Tell your friends, your co-workers, your family members. Talk to your elected representatives. Join Equality Alabama and other organizations that work for equality and justice, and donate what you can to support their work.
A woman in Florida has sold (for $338!) a pancake that she claims features an image of Jesus and Mary, which her daughter interprets as "a message from God telling the world to clean up its act." (Via.)
I dunno if I see Jesus and Mary telling the world to clean up its act in that pancake. I'm pretty sure I see The Captain and Tennille telling the world that muskrat love on a shoestring will keep us together.
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And brothers.
In his new book, "What Happened", Scotty draws a line in the sand that separates him from his evil bosses with regards to the 
Me, on John McCain, 
