[This is a new series in which I'll be addressing misconceptions or answering questions about feminism and/or feminists. There are certainly old posts that would naturally fall into a Feminism 101 series, like Rape is Not a Compliment, Animal House, or On "Bitch" and Other Misogynist Language, but, increasingly, it's apparent we need a collection of posts on critical theories and prejudices, to which we can point here and elsewhere to succintly deal with recurring themes, so here we go. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered in this series, email me.
Note that I won't tread on Jeff's territory in defining key terms with his "Explainer" series: MRAs, Gender Feminists and Equity Feminists, and Nice GuysTM. If you need something defined, email him.]
* * *
"Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About"
Of all the condescending, dismissive, and factually incorrect accusations used by concern trolls (or hostile trolls) to attempt to silence, shame, or in some other way discourage feminists from addressing sexism in all its manifestations, perhaps none is quite so stupid as the charge that feminists are "looking" for things about which to be offended—as if feminism is a product that will go out of production if there aren't enough buyers and sales are waning because sexism is, like, so over, dude.
This notion is ridiculous for a couple of reasons. For a start, misogyny is so pervasive that no one has to look for it. That said reality is even remotely in doubt is laughable, given that any YouTube comments section on any video featuring a woman will be rife with misogynist swill.
I use YouTube as an example very deliberately, because I want to point out, before moving on, how feminist allies can inadvertently bolster the case of silencers who charge that feminists look for things about which to be offended. Each time I mention YouTube threads, commenters inevitably say either "YouTube commenters are the lowest common denominator" and/or "Just don't read those threads." I'm not sure everyone who says those things has really considered the implications, so let's deal with that first.
The assertion that YouTube threads aren't a legitimate source because they're ostensibly populated by juvenile delinquents or society's dregs isn't actually a sound argument. The same stuff—if more accurately spelled and with fewer Random Capitalizations—can be found in the comments threads of most major progressive political blogs, especially in response to posts about conservative women. (You want to know if there's misogyny among progressive blog readers? Post something about Ann Coulter.) Thanks to blogospheric demographics surveys, we know the average blog user is older, better educated, and wealthier than the average person in the general populace; this is not an issue of maturity or intelligence or class. Treating sexism as though it is indigenous to any singular demographic, or unique combination of traits—or, the flipside of that equation, regarding any demographic as wholly devoid of entrenched misogyny—is both foolhardy and inaccurate. And, more to the point, irrelevant: There are millions of YouTube users and an alarmingly high rate of misogynistic comments. The quality of who is making those comments isn't of much interest to women who must nonetheless suffer their undeniable quantity. Which brings us to…
Telling women that they should merely abstain from reading and/or participating in YouTube threads—or other places online and offline plagued by unfettered misogyny—is akin to telling women their choices are to tolerate sexual harassment in order to participate in it, or segregate themselves and necessarily limit their opportunities in the public sphere. In addition to unfairly punishing women, that's also a tacit endorsement of openly expressed misogyny. No matter how authentic the genuine feelings of concern that may motivate such a recommendation, when someone advises a woman to disengage herself from a public space in which misogyny is rampant, one also necessarily, if unintentionally, communicates the message that her contributions to that space are not valuable enough to fight to protect. By slow increments, every unmonitored space thusly becomes uninhabitable by any woman not willing to suffer—and indulge—misogynist bullies.
[Note: I recognize this experience can be true for GBTQ men, men of color, disabled men, etc., too, depending on the forum.]
So, back to the ubiquity of misogyny. If the nearest comments thread calling Ann Coulter a tranny or Hillary Clinton a "hoe" doesn't convince you, perhaps a 7-part series on the media's insistence on trivializing women's lives by categorizing as "Odd News" stories about women that aren't "odd" in any way aside from the fact that there's a women at their centers will, or a 12-part series on the impossible beauty standards to which women are held will, or a 15-part series on consumable disembodied female bodies will, or a 19-part series on rape jokes will, or a 20-part series on objectionable advertising, most of which focuses on sexism, will, or a 62-part series (make that 63) on sexism being used against Hillary will—to any one of which I could add a new entry every single day, had I the time, energy, and inclination.
The truth is, if I actually spent my days actively paying attention to every example of misogyny around me, I would be a profoundly unhappy woman. Not bitchy or grumpy or short-tempered, but paralyzingly depressed. Women have to train themselves to avoid consciously reacting to every bit of misogynistic detritus permeating the culture through which we all move, lest they go quite insane. I write about the things I can't not write about. If I wrote about all the examples of sexism I see every day, I'd never sleep.
Tangentially, the idea that addressing "the little things," like being told to smile or misogynistic t-shirts, somehow demeans feminism or distracts from "real" or "serious" sexism is utterly, completely, devilishly wrong.
Feminism seeks to address all manner of issues, big and small. That women can (and do) utilize the tenets of feminism in every aspect of their lives does not undermine the history of the feminist movement, but instead does it a great honor. Feminism was never meant to be restricted to suffrage and equal pay, held in reserve like a finite quantity that could run out if it's used for "the little things." Feminism is a renewable resource.
The idea that feminism should be kept under glass, broken only in case of a "real" and "serious" emergency, is predicated on the erroneous assumption that "the little things" happen in a void, as do, presumably, the "real" and "serious" things, when, in reality, they are interwoven strands of the same rope. And as soon as one begins to judge the worthiness of feminists' attention on a sliding scale, even generally-regarded "serious issues" like equal pay are dwarfed by global concerns like sex trafficking or government-sanctioned use of rape as a tool of war. It doesn't have to be one or the other—feminists can multi-task.
And, in a very real way, ignoring "the little things" in favor of "the big stuff" makes the big stuff that much harder to eradicate, because it is the pervasive, ubiquitous, inescapable little things that create the foundation of a sexist culture on which the big stuff is dependent for its survival. It's the little things, the constant drumbeat of inequality and objectification, that inure us to increasingly horrible acts and attitudes toward women.
Irrespective of intent, the recommendation to "ignore the little stuff," so often intertwined with accusations of looking for things about which to get offended, is not just ill-advised, but counter to the ultimate goal of full equality. It's like a knife in my gut when I see feminists accusing other feminists of "hurting the cause" by focusing on "the little stuff," because that's It—that's the stuff, that's the fertile soil in which everything else takes root and from whence everything else springs, that's the way that the fundamental idea that women are not equal to men is conveyed over and over and over again.
Which, quite frankly, means that if even we had to look for it, we'd be right to do so.
Feminism 101: "Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About"
Jimmy responds
Recall Space Cowboy posted Sarah Silverman's fantastic video that she is, in fact, fucking Matt Damon? Well, last night Jimmy aired a response video (potentially NSFW; starts a minute or so in):
Leaking Desperation
Following up on Melissa's post, it's pretty clear that the desperation has not only set in on the Republicans, they're getting to the point that it's starting to leak out like anti-freeze from a crack in an overheated radiator. What more proof do you need than the continuing fascination the right wing has with Barack Obama's middle name and his lack of the proper lapel attire. Affable if not loony Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) was on Real Time with Bill Maher over the weekend and he repeated both the middle name and the lapel pin crap and got a derisive hoot from the host and the audience for the trouble. (And, it should be noted, Mr. Kingston was not wearing an American flag lapel pin himself, as if that actually matters.) It's gotten to the point that even some right wingers are throwing up their hands in disgust and telling their fellow conservatives and whacko conspiracy theorists to "get a grip."
The Serious Pundits are taking a different tack. Or at least one is. William Kristol, in a fit of unintentional irony, accuses Sen. Obama of making himself the focus of the race, as if he is the only one who can save the country, and thereby creating a cult of personality surrounding him rather than focus on the issues, and also uses the flag pin kerfuffle as his sticking point.
Last October, a reporter asked Barack Obama why he had stopped wearing the American flag lapel pin that he, like many other public officials, had been sporting since soon after Sept. 11. Obama could have responded that his new-found fashion minimalism was no big deal. What matters, obviously, is what you believe and do, not what you wear.No, what Mr. Obama is saying is that just because you wear a flag pin -- or put a magnetic one on the back of your Hummer -- doesn't make you a patriot. It makes you look like you're a morally superior simp who has to use jewelry (probably made in China) to reassure yourself that all you have to do is wear the pin to be patriotic instead of doing something like, oh, actually do something to make the country a better place. The flag pin is your free pass to commit sartorial demagoguery.
But Obama chose to present his flag-pin removal as a principled gesture. “You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”
Leave aside the claim that “speaking out on issues” constitutes true patriotism. What’s striking is that Obama couldn’t resist a grandiose explanation. Obama’s unnecessary and imprudent statement impugns the sincerity or intelligence of those vulgar sorts who still choose to wear a flag pin. But moral vanity prevailed. He wanted to explain that he was too good — too patriotic! — to wear a flag pin on his chest.
The irony comes from the fact that in accusing Mr. Obama of making the race "all about him," Mr. Kristol is ignoring the fact that the right wing has been running on the cult of personality they built around the sainted Ronald Reagan and trying to get it back ever since. And if you don't think that the GOP would love to have someone with the talent and the vision of Barack Obama -- even if it is just rhetorical splendor -- and that they wouldn't sell that over substance, you have obviously not been checking with your answering service.
Ever since the end of the Reagan era, they have been desperately seeking someone who had the smile and charisma to repeat the magic that overwhelmed the nation and swept out the humble and bumbling Carter administration. And what have they come up with since then? A pale imitation in the person of George W. Bush, who even on his best day couldn't summon the timing and carefully-crafted spontaneity of Ronald Reagan if it was handed to him on a silver platter. And now they're proposing to nominate John McCain, who Mr. Kristol summons his best game face to describe as someone who "more proud of his country than of himself. And his patriotism has consisted of deeds more challenging than “speaking out on issues.” Wow; not exactly what I've call a ringing endorsement.
What I think is happening is that the Republicans are realizing that with John McCain they haven't got the next Ronald Reagan, they've got the next Jimmy Carter: a competent if not inspiring candidate that stirs suspicion in the base that he's not really One of Them (David Keene of the American Conservative Union told NPR this morning that Sen. McCain barely scores a 60 on his 100-point scale of being a True Believer, and 80 is a passing grade) and that given his age, if he's elected, he'll be a one-term caretaker until they can either find the next Reagan or come up with a scientific breakthrough to reanimate the last one. (Oh, wait; the right wing thinks science has a liberal bias.) The spluttering defense of Sen. McCain against the story in the Times last week about his relationship with a female lobbyist was more about the story and the unproven sexual angle than it was about the uncomfortable reminder of the fact that Mr. McCain has had a problematic history with lobbyists in the past and has since painted himself as the paragon of virtue when it comes to Capitol Hill influence.
When John McCain loses, they will then turn on him with all the pent-up fury and frustration that's already evident in their subtext and continue to desperately seek out their next Reagan. It won't be pretty, but it will be fun to watch.
(HT to Sarah in Chicago for the NPR link.)
(Cross-posted)
I Write Letters
Dear CNN,
Please see my previous letter regarding Obama's scandalous failure to wear a flag lapel pin (and also, time permitting, my previous letter regarding Obama's drug use and post regarding Obama's being a heinous, pledge-disrespecting criminal) in which you will find my approximate sentiments about your awesome decision to run a "Quick Vote" poll on your front page yesterday question whether the Senator, and likely Democratic nominee for the presidency, "show[s] the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States."
[Screen cap from CNN front page.]
As I know you're not particularly great with doing your homework, let me reiterate the highpoint of my earlier missive for you: If you're trying to spy unpatriotic interlopers in the general Beltway area, keep your eyes peeled for a collection of despicable miscreants who have launched two failed wars, robbed the country blind, devastated via neglect and incompetence the national infrastructure, let an American city drown, flagrantly disregarded the Geneva Conventions to torture enemy combatants, engaged in extraordinary rendition, tossed out habeas corpus like day-old bread, illegally spied on American citizens, tried to codify discrimination into the Constitution, celebrated unfunded educational mandates, sent soldiers with no body armor to fight in unprotected vehicles, let energy companies write the national energy policy, continually sniffed at an unprecedented number of uninsured Americans, increased both the teen pregnancy and abortion rates by an intractable insistence on abstinence-only sex education, equated dissent with treason, and, among a nonillion other things I could mention, spent the last seven+ years exploiting a tragic terrorist attack on American soil for political gain.
If you have any trouble finding them, they're the ones with the flag lapel pins, wrapped in the flag, waving a flag in one hand and furiously masturbating with a flag in the other, coming in red, white, and blue while farting Battle Hymn of the Republic.
And they hate this country and everything for which it's meant to stand with every fiber of their flag-clad beings.
Now run along and see if you can find any of those wankers about whom to ask your precious little question.
Love,
Liss
P.S. Since it appears you've run out of serious questions, here's a suggestion for you: Is a belligerent asshole who can't get along with his colleagues, even the ones on his own side of the aisle, flies off the handle when he doesn't get his way, is hostile toward anyone who disagrees with him, has no seeming objection to the casual use of sexist and racist language, and makes highly inappropriate jokes about war and death, including the murder of TV hosts and deaths of foreign leaders, really the kind of person who we want as our head of government, no less our head of state?
P.P.S. Go fuck yourselves, you rightwing talking point parroting plonkers.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
You'll notice the Human Torch is conspicuously absent, having been replaced by Herbie the Robot. Apparently, Hanna Barbera wanted to ride the coattails of an extremely popular new film franchise that featured a little guy named R2-D2. So Johnny Storm was out, ushered onto the pavement with the excuse that children were setting themselves on fire to be like him.
"I Drink Your Milkshake"
[Click image to view in new window.]
Dear NBC: Make your video embeddable. Love, Liss
Lunch Room, Locker Room, Bar Room, Board Room...
Zuzu passed along this great piece by James Wolcott about the continued acceptability of overt sexism, which I recommend reading in its entirety, although here's a snippet: "Lunch room, locker room: the trash talk is still being batted around about women as if everything's the fault of a few feminist bitches with frigid temperatures and Tilda Swinton hauteur who insist on being where they're not wanted, going where they don't belong."
(Shades of Mr. Shakes' "from the barroom to the boardroom" comment, evocative of the pervasive cultural narrative of defining masculinity in women-free spaces and in contradistinction to the feminine.)
Meanwhile, also in my inbox, I find from Shaker B the link to a YouTube video made by an Obama supporter which sets imagery of Obama and the Clintons (yes, both) to Jay-Z's "99 Problems (But a Bitch Ain't One)." The comments are predictably grim: "props, tell that hoe sit down" and "lmao @ strong arm a ho" and "shut up bitch! heheh..sorry I had to say it." Hating on women has never been quite so fun!
Which reminds me of this post by The Ghost of Dr. Violet Socks (emphasis mine):
See, if you're a decrepit old person like me and you came of age in the 70s, it is painfully obvious that my generation, the feminist generation that grew up with the Second Wave, is an aberrant hiccup. Before us there was the Rat Pack world of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner, where all the women were broads and dames; after us is the hip-hop world of Snoop Dogg and Joe Francis, where all the women are hos and bitches. It's the post-backlash, kill-the-feminazis, all-porn-all-the-time culture of exuberant misogyny. My generation certainly included plenty of sexists, but we also created a brief moment in time when it was actually cool to be a feminist. When respect for women as fully realized human beings was the "in" thing. Those days are long gone. Even while the political demands of liberal feminism have become mainstream — equal pay, etc. — social attitudes towards women are more dismissive and degrading than I've ever seen in my life.I came into the world in the 70s, during the very time when Violet and her cohort came of age. When I was born, Golda Meir led Israel, and one of my earliest political memories is hearing a man on the news say, "Women run Great Britain," when Margaret Thatcher became head of government alongside head of state Queen Elizabeth II. I was five years old. I remember it still: Women run Great Britain.
I didn't know anything about Thatcherism; I probably didn't even yet know the word "politics." What I knew what that it was possible for a woman to run a nation. And, a few years later, I found out that a woman had never run ours.
I'll be 34 this year, and not only am I still waiting to see this great nation of alleged equality elect a woman as its leader, but I'm looking at a Congress which is still only 16% female, and where there are legions of assholes who can't even spell "ho" correctly but are nonetheless convinced they're superior to Hillary Clinton just because she's got a vagina.
McCain is Not Fit to Be President
"I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon."—John McCain, making clear his wish that a (now-former) foreign head of state will die.
When do you think, if ever, we're going to be honest about the fact that the likely GOP nominee for president is a belligerent jerk with no ability to self-censor and a demonstrable, well-known history of being, if I'm feeling charitable, undiplomatic, and, if I'm not, a total asshole?
Let's recount some of the highlights of McCain's continual failure to control his infamous temper and/or big fucking mouth prickly, insulting temperament, just since the inception of this blog:
• Accusing the Democrats of being sore losers and obstructionists motivated by partisan "bitterness" just because they had the temerity to not treat Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State as "a foregone conclusion."
• Accusing Vietnam veteran and Congressman Jack Murtha of being "too emotional" to be rational about the war.
• Sending freshman Senator Barack Obama what Matt Stoller called "remarkable" and one of "the single most bitter, nasty letters I have ever seen from any Senator."
• Threatening to leave an appearance before the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department because members of the audience challenged his statements on immigration, organized labor, and the war. He also questioned their work ethic and skills, telling them "You can't do it, my friends," when some accepted his hypothetical job offer of $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.
• Threatening to commit suicide if the Democrats won a majority in the Senate.
• Using the racially-charged and highly inappropriate term "tar baby."
• Singing about bombing Iran:
• Responding to criticisms of that hilarious little ditty by snapping: "Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends. My response is, lighten up and get a life," without, naturally, the merest glimmer of irony that he'd been casually joking about taking lives.
• Telling Jon Stewart he'd brought him an IED from Iraq as a gift:
• Responding to Congressman Murtha's criticism of that hilarious joke with: "All I'm going to say to Murtha and others. … Lighten up and get a life," to which Atrios said what ought to have been obvious to any halfwit but eluded the evidently witless McCain: "The point is that dead troops and other victims are no longer capable of getting 'a life'."
• Erupting at fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn in a meeting about immigration legislation, during which McCain accused Cornyn of raising a concern just to torpedo a legislative deal, "used a curse word associated with chickens," and shouted "[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room!"
• Responding to one of his supporters asking of Hillary Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" by laughing:
So, let's see: He can't get along with his colleagues, even the ones on his own side of the aisle, he flies off the handle when he doesn't get his way, he's hostile toward anyone who disagrees with him, he has no seeming objection to the casual use of sexist and racist language, and he makes highly inappropriate jokes about war and death, including the murder of TV hosts and deaths of foreign leaders.
That probably describes a hell of a lot of people, including—perhaps, especially—bloggers. But those people aren't running for president. John McCain is. Is that the kind of person we really want leading our country? Is that the kind of person who we want as our head of government, no less our head of state?
There are a lot of scary things about the possibility of a President McCain, like the fact that he's a warmonger, just for a start. Among them, if not at the top of the list, is this: Sending McCain onto the global stage to be our national representative could make this...
...a fond memory of the days when we had a president who merely creeped out foreign dignitaries by being a douche, but at least never screamed, "Fuck you, cocksucker!" at them.
Oh, The Powerfulness of Me!!
If I never hear the phrases "hold their noses" and "will only have themselves to blame" used in the same sentence again, it will be too fucking soon.
A word to the wise -- if any of you Shakers out there intend to run for political office someday, you might as well disavow me right now -- because I'm a lesbian, feminist, female whose progressive values actually drive her to expect that candidates who want my vote are not going to discard the progressive ideals of liberty and justice for all just because it's politically expedient.
In the last week, I've learned a lot about how powerful I am. If I'm to take the frantic comments of some fellow Democrats seriously, it would seem that:
- I am likely to "give Feminism a bad name" by being "too shrill" when candidates use sexist dog-whistles.
- I am likely to "split the party" by being "divisive" when candidates use racist dog-whistles.
- I am likely to be "responsible for four more years of nightmare" if I expect Democratic candidates to stop acting like Republican candidates.
Who knew?
I am Portly. Hear me roar.
Frankly, I'm sick of hearing principled progressive voters accused of being a threat to the certainty of a Democratic win in '08 -- because they have the temerity to expect Dem candidates to actually demonstrate that they value equal rights for people of color and women -- to demonstrate it by refusing to stoop to sexist and racist manipulation tactics in their campaigns.
So, I won't blame the voters -- I will place the blame precisely where it belongs:
On. The. Candidates.
I'm sick of hearing people defend their candidates with "slip of the tongue" and "everyone makes mistakes" arguments.
You know what? I think that if you really believe that "shuck and jive" and "periodically down" could be simple "slips of the tongue", you're probably incredibly politically naive. Candidates spend hours and hours and hours being drilled -- about what to say and what not to say -- on which words to avoid completely and which words to hammer constantly.
Besides -- if you really are a progressive candidate, and you do make a slip of the tongue or utter a thoughtless phrase -- that offends a potential support-base -- then you fucking apologize.
So -- to those who want to blame "picky" progressives for an impending train-wreck in which the Democrats could lose an election that has essentially been fucking handed to them on the silver platter of GWBushco's disastrous 8 years -- I suggest that you direct you attention to -- and place the full burden of responsibility on: The candidates who just can't seem to catch a clue that they are alienating valuable members of their constituency. (Which is, in my humble fucking opinion -- just plain stupid.)
And don't even get me started on LGBTQ issues -- I've been thrown under the bus so many times in that regard that I've swapped out my entire wardrobe for camos in "treadmark" pattern. Makes laundry so much easier.
You may notice that I rarely post directly on political matters -- for some background about why that is, you can read here. (Hint: 30 years of activism, 1000s of dollars, and DADT are prominently featured.)
Standard disclaimer: I have not endorsed, nor am I endorsing, a candidate. If you want to get in the comment thread and go on and on about how "your" candidate isn't being stupid, or tell me how I'm being a danger to democracy and shit, you will have missed the point of this post entirely.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
Since Haloscan seems to be giving us grief again, I figured I'd try this nifty little chat widget that Space Cowboy found. If it's crap, then we'll do the best we can with regular old comments. (New posts below until midnight, as always.)
Chat now closed.
Branded
Take this fun quiz and find out how much of a slave to corporate brainwashing you are.
I got eighteen out of twenty.
The Grand Old Party Ends
...for Rick Renzi: "A federal grand jury in Arizona has indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), on conspiracy, fraud, extortion and money laundering charges after an investigation lasting more than a year," CQ Politics reports.
Cute!
Georgie Goes to Africa
Because I have the best top secret sources in the biz, I just had delivered to my hot little hands a copy of President Bush's scrapbook of his trip to Africa, during which he did that superhawt dance everyone's talking about. Enjoy this exclusive peek at the president's very own vacation diary, Shakers!
If you can't view the slideshow, see below.
Another Nader run?
The Associated Press is reporting that Ralph Nader will appear on Meet the Press this Sunday.
He launched his 2004 presidential run on the show.
Thoughts?
Rabbitproof fence
"Oh," said M.
It was some time ago, early morning, as gray as one normally feels on a workday, and M said "oh" as she looked out the window. Actually, what she said was "ohhh...", trailing and sad. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Something got our bunny," she replied.
We don't own a bunny. We don't even own the four cats who live in our house; rather, we are fairly owned by them. We do feel a kind of attachment to the wildlife that makes regular appearances in our backyard, though, and so have come to think of Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, the squirrels Spike and Frosty, the feral cats Jack and Missy Calico and Nameless Black Kitty and the like as "ours." We thought of the gray rabbit in the same way, having watched it grow from a tiny thing the size of your fist to a gangly vegetable-stealing teenager of a bunny.
I joined M at the side window and saw what she was talking about: A mangled heap of gray fur and red flesh, not in our yard but that of our neighbors to the east, just on the other side of the fence.
"Oh," I echoed. No more vegetables for Thumper.
"Do you think it was a cat?" asked M. "Or maybe one of the hawks?"
I shook my head, having no idea. The neighboorhood cats certainly wouldn't mind some impromptu hassenpfeffer if they could get it, but I had trouble imagining one of them taking down a rabbit that size. It was a lot easier to envision a hawk being responsible. We'd had a series of visits by one or another red-tailed (we think) hawk over the previous weeks; the first visit was the most startling. I had entered the kitchen, glanced idly through the window and found myself meeting the fierce, intent gaze of the bird as it sat atop a pole the yard of our west side neighbor. We didn't think of the hawks as "ours." God only knew what they thought of us.
But would hawks just abandon prey? I would have thought that they would soar aloft with newly-acquired food for private dining in some treetop. Serves me right for not subscribing to Animal Planet.
M and I had scant time to wonder about the rabbit's demise; we were running late for gainful employment and made our mad dash out of the house.
"I don't think they know about the rabbit," M said as we pulled away. She was referring to our neighbors, Lisa (upstairs) and the Bryants (downstairs), and she was almost certainly right. The animal's carcass would not be easily spotted by anyone leaving the back door of their building, and that side of the yard was infrequently visited by anyone living there, so they - unlike us - would remain blissfully ignorant.
At day's end, we returned home. The dead rabbit lay just where we had last seen it on the other side of the fence.
"I guess we'll have to tell them," said M. "Though I'm not sure if we should tell Lisa."
I was sure that we should definitely not tell Lisa, a sweet woman and a young one whose father owned the duplex in which she lived. I had once entered her apartment at her behest in order to dispose of a dead mouse. This rabbit business would be well beyond her.
"Maybe Jim instead," I suggested.
Jim was the older guy living with his elderly mother in the downstairs apartment next door. Not likely to finch at unpleasant cleanup duties, but the problem was pinning him down for a quick chat. Jim was always coming and going at irregular hours.
This presented a bit of a social dilemma. It seemed somehow awkward and odd to ring Jim's doorbell and say, "You got a dead critter out back." Phoning would have seemed even more strange - if we had his phone number, which we did not. It seemed a simpler matter to just enter their yard and do the business myself. I'd worked in their yard several times, clearing brush ala George Bush, weeds and shrubs that disrespected boundaries; this was just more of the same, really.
Except that I couldn't do it.
I don't think of myself as being much more squeamish than the next person, most of the time. And I'd had a fair amount of experience picking up the bodies of losers in Nature's struggle. Mice, snakes, countless birds. The odd possum, even. I was extremely reluctant to handle this dead rabbit, however. Maybe it was because it had been, in my mind, one of "our" critters. Most likely, though, my reticence had to do with the...mangledness of the poor thing. Not a pretty picture, this rabbit.
So I left matters as they lay, and waited. I waited a day. Nothing much changed.
I waited another day. Nothing new to report. Thank God it was fairly cold.
Day four of the dead rabbit brought new developments, early. Something had gnawed at the carcass; there was a definite and discernable loss of, well, tissue. One bone stuck up out of the mass, newly cleaned.
At the end of that day, I saw that the corpus had been not only further worried, but had been dragged away from its previous location. It was now a distance away from the fence and quite near the back porch of the building next door.
"Ah," I said.
The next morning, I came downstairs, fed the cats, brewed a pot of coffee, poured myself a cup. I drew near the side window and peered outside.
The rabbit was gone. Nothing left, not even fur.
My assumption was and is that Jim spotted the critter's body in its new and more visible position and disposed of it. It's always possible (though unlikely) that Lisa took care of it, however.
All well and good, then, except that I was left with a sense of having failed some small test, the kind of situation that life tosses you now and again just to show you to yourself. You never like to think that feeble responses are part of your toolbox, but they seem to be included in mine.
Note to self: Better tools, please.
I'd put off committing this story to the weblog, telling myself that I'd get around to it one of these days and quite possibly lying to myself about that. But I saw something outside the window this morning that prompted to write this.
A young rabbit, hopping about the snow-covered expanse of our backyard, searching for food.
(Cross-posted.)Why We Rally Behind Her
Because she's got the coolest costume, of course.
With apologies to any contributors not pictured because they *ahem* did not send me their Super-Heroes.
Slide show of Shaker Contributors and Shaker Regulars (who have already or might *ahem* in the future email me a screen-shot of their Super Hero) in the works.
Thank fuck it's Friday.
[Updated: Oh, and a "Safe For Work" Version -- just for Mustang Bobby :) -- I better see this on your bulletin board, young man!]
Now the White House Has a Comment?
AP:
The White House sided with Sen. John McCain and accused The New York Times on Friday of repeatedly trying to "drop a bombshell" on Republican presidential nominees to undermine their candidacies.Interesting that they have plenty to say on something that has absolutely fuck all to do with the administration, when obfuscation has been the order of the day for anything that is remotely relevant to the administration's activities of the last 7 years.
White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel, at a briefing, noted that the story has received a lot of attention.
"I think a lot of people here in this building, with experience in a couple campaigns, have grown accustomed to the fact that during the course of the campaign, seemingly on maybe a monthly basis leading up to the convention and maybe a weekly basis after that, the New York Times does try to drop a bombshell on the Republican nominee.
I Write Letters
Dear Bill O'Reilly,
When you opened the disgusting font of diarrheic vitriol you call a mouth to emit the grotesque statement that you "don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels…that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever," every sentient person who had the misfortune of hearing you recoiled in revulsion at your blatant display of unabashed hatred and nauseating racism.
Then, two days later, you plucked from the huge vat of fetid shit you call a brain the most ridiculous bit of back-peddling imaginable, arguing that "[t]he word 'lynching' was used because I said it quite clearly: I'm not going to go on some lynching party against Michelle Obama; that's ridiculous," as if anyone with two brain cells knocking together couldn't discern that you, in fact, had categorically not said you weren't going on "a lynching party," but that you wouldn't unless there was some evidence that she feels "America is a bad country or a flawed nation." (Addressing your preposterous suggestion that there's something wrong with regarding America as imperfect will be addressed in a letter sent under separate cover.) You also took the opportunity to dismiss a caller, who had the temerity to suggest you owe Ms. Obama an apology, as a "far-left loon."
Then, last night, on the towering heap of putrid waste you call The O'Reilly Factor, you finally "apologized" by uttering the following hot, steaming mess: "While talking to a radio caller, I said there should be no lynching in the case—that comment off Clarence Thomas saying he was the victim of a high-tech lynching. He said that on 60 Minutes, you may remember. I'm sorry if my statement offended anybody. That, of course, was not the intention. Context is everything." Well, Bill, you're right about that—context is everything. And adult human beings with functional brains (and probably most children) can see quite evidently that you have ripped your despicable statement about Michelle Obama from its context in order to reframe it as something it was manifestly not. You, sir, are a liar. You've always been a liar, and I've no doubt you will ever be a liar.
And I'm certain you are aware of the precise extent of your own mendacious fuckitude, given that your original statement—"no lynching party unless…"—ironically has a contingency not totally dissimilar from your apology—"I'm sorry if…" The ultimate non-apology apology, which I'm sure you know, which I'm sure is exactly why you used it. It turns the words "I'm sorry" into an unstated "I'm not sorry at all."
It's sort of like how "I don't want to go on a lynching party unless" really means "Let's lynch this bitch."
You're not fooling anyone, you scumbag.
Eat shit and die,
Liss
Happy Birthday, Shark Fu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
You're our favorite Angry Black Biiii-iiiitch!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
