The B-52's have a new album. Released today!
Oh Keith, be my boyfriend.
Welcome back, guys. It's been too damn long. Bring in the sexy, bring in the fun!
Exactly the News You Want to Hear When the Coffee Kicks In
Oh Keith, be my boyfriend.
Welcome back, guys. It's been too damn long. Bring in the sexy, bring in the fun!
Scottish Social Services Set to Take Fat Children from Parents
So I wake up this morning to an e-mail from long-time Shapeling Buffpuff, with a link to this story. Scottish Social Services have threatened to remove six children, ages 21 months to 12, from their parents' home, unless the kids lose weight within three months. To "safeguard their welfare."
'Cause, you know, nothing says "safeguarding welfare" like taking children out of a loving home.
Buffpuff on the U.K. media response: Needless to say I woke up this morning to a tirade of holier than thou anti-fat rhetoric radio presenters and listeners alike. All the clichés were present from donut-scarfing to emotional eating to “where’s-their-sense-of-personal-responsibility?!”
The Mirror helpfully offers a taste of that with a point-counterpoint feature about whether this is a good idea or not. Representing the "Great idea!" camp is Tam Fry, Chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, who I can only assume is the U.K.'s answer to MeMe Roth.In 99 per cent of cases, obesity is so avoidable. Letting a child get so fat is a form of abuse as there's a possibility they could die before their parents.
Where to begin?
It's important they are taken out of their homes and put under 24-hour surveillance from doctors and nurses.
We have no hesitation in removing a severely undernourished child from their home. We should be as concerned when they are seriously overweight.
The blame is not always entirely the parents. In this case, where were the health professionals to intervene early?
Going into care is a last resort. But if your kid is obese, do something. Apart from the name-calling they will suffer, do you want a death on your hands?
It's "so avoidable" in 99% of cases? Um, [CITATION NEEDED.]
Fat children could die before their parents? Well, yeah, so could anybody. But the people who screech about how THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA will inevitably result in a generation of parents outliving their children still have no goddamned answer when you point out that life expectancy continues to increase. And it did so while obesity rates were rising (which, psst, they aren't anymore, at least in the U.S.). Not to mention, both of the parents in question here are fat; if you believe obesity is deadly, how the hell do you figure it's going to kill their kids before them?
And "letting" your children get fat -- as if it's something all parents can easily control -- is "child abuse" tantamount to starving them? They should be under 24-hour surveillance? People can seriously say this shit with a straight face?
Speaking of which, what happens when parents are forced to "do something" about their fat kids (since we all know the thought would never have occurred to them before Social Services stepped in)? Well, when one of those kids is an 11-year-old girl threatened with losing her parents unless she loses weight, take a wild fucking guess.[The mother] fears the girl, 11, may develop an eating disorder as she now shuns proper meals...
Way to safeguard those kids' welfare, there, folks. A girl who's too terrorized to eat is way better off than a fat girl. Keep up the good work, you despicable assholes.
Oh, and hey, let's not forget this part:The Dundee family came to the attention of social services when they asked for help in caring for the kids, including the girl, three, who has developmental problems.
Let that be a lesson to you, parents: Don't ever ask for the help you need with your kids. Jesus.
Cheney: Bush Carries the Biggest Burden
Recently, I heard a snippet of an interview that Bush did with a television reporter in Crawford in which he was asked to describe his presidency. His immediate response was that it had been "joyful." Joyful? Two wars, thousands of dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of injured American soldiers, millions of injured, dead, or displaced Iraqis and Afghans, the 9/11 tragedy that started it all and left thousands of dead American civilians, and the first word that comes to his head is joyful?
Of course, he sleeps "a lot better than people would assume," too, so I probably shouldn't be surprised that he finds the whole endeavor of warmongering "joyful."
That he doesn't lose any sleep over it is galling; that he cheerfully admits it is galling yet further; but the cherry on top has to be Cheney's contention that no one suffers more than Bush does."[The milestone today of 4,000 dead] obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan," Cheney said in [an interview with ABC News' White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz], conducted in Turkey. "It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think — it's a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who've sacrificed as they have."
On the heels of "So?" no less. I guess Bush and Cheney could best be described as Joyful Cop / Belligerent Asshole Cop.
"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."
It's quite amazing to hear a five-time draft dodger describe the erstwhile "young and irresponsible" Texas Air National Guardsman as the bearer of the biggest burden of a war so unnecessary they had to lie their way into it.
It's even more amazing if you've ever heard of the Hubbards.In 2004 [the Hubbards'] son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard, was on patrol in Iraq with his best friend and fellow Marine, Jeremiah Baro -- also from Clovis -- when a roadside bomb exploded, killing both.
The Hubbards gave up two of their sons to the Iraq war, and the third had to see his brother's body pulled from the wreckage in which he died. Maybe, just maybe, they carry quite a burden themselves.
…Six months after Jared was killed, Nathan and Jason Hubbard decided to enlist and serve together -- to follow in their brother's footsteps.
On August 22 after returning from a scouting mission south of Kirkuk, Iraq, the Blackhawk helicopter carrying Nathan and 13 other soldiers crashed.
Jason, who served in the same Army platoon, was in a separate helicopter when his brother went down and was ordered to secure the crash site.
When he and his men reached the downed Blackhawk, Jason says he realized it was his brother's unit.
"We also had to remove as many of the men as we could out of that helicopter," Jason remembered. "And I couldn't participate in that. I knew my -- I knew Nathan was in there. I tried several times to kind of gather myself, but I just -- I couldn't."
Jason says as the men carried bodies out of the wreckage, he spotted his younger brother. "At one point they did carry Nathan by me. And that's when the reality, the complete reality, and complete understanding of the situation came to me and I began dealing with it."
Under the Department of Defense sole survivor policy, Jason says he was told he will not be allowed to return to war. His wife and young son will join him at his base in Hawaii.
I read an article about the Hubbards yesterday in People magazine, which was supposed to be a disposable purchase for a train journey into the city. Well, the magazine was—but the story about the Hubbards was not. Mr. Hubbard spoke about playing solitaire at night to keep himself from going mad; Mrs. Hubbard spoke about trying to find happiness again, but always feeling the void left by her two lost sons. I doubt they would describe the last seven years as joyful. It occurred to me I was reading about them in the same magazine where Bush had noted he sleeps "a lot better than people would assume."
Bush carries the responsibility for the lives of those boys, but their family carries the unbearable weight of their loss. The former is an abstraction; the second is a giant hole in one's heart.
I wish Mr. Cheney could acknowledge the difference—but I suppose having a heart is a prerequisite for understanding a broken one.
Question of the Day
Do you play any instrument(s)? If so, which ones? If not, which would you like to play, if any?
I play the piano, and a little bit of harmonica. I would love love love to play the the flugelhorn, and I wouldn't mind learning the accordian, too.
In Spirit
First, the good news. I'm okay and the airbags worked.
I was driving home after running an errand when an elderly gentleman in a 2007 Infiniti made a left turn directly in front of me at an intersection. There was no time to stop and I t-boned him. Fortunately it happened in the middle of downtown Coral Gables and within five minutes there were three police cruisers and fire rescue on the scene. The other driver is okay -- he cut his head but refused treatment -- and will be cited for failure to yield. Triple A took care of the towing, the insurance company will take care of the storage until the adjuster can write it up, and at some point I get to shop for a new Mustang convertible.
So for the time being, I'll be driving my reliable 1988 Pontiac station wagon, and even if it's a while before I can get the new car, I'll still be Mustang Bobby in spirit.
So long, pal. It's been fun.
(Cross-posted.)
Shakers in Love
by Shaker Heather B, aka Gourmet Goddess
It used to drive me crazy when well-meaning people, trying to comfort me after yet another dating related disaster in my early 20s, would say things like, "There is someone out there for everyone." I was convinced that my own true love had been kidnapped by aliens and now resided in a petting zoo on the planet Xanthrope. For a long time, I just stopped dating all together. Then, when I started dating again, I tried online personal ads, which resulted in the hilarious disaster known only as not-so-dear-John. Then I tried online matching services that shall remain nameless, which proceeded to match me with individuals who most definitely did not share my sexual orientation but tragically did not want to accept this fact. So I stopped dating again. Bought a house. And spent all my free time doing home improvements rather than dating.
And then, last summer, there was a wonderful happy accident that was all Shakes' fault!
I am an occasional commenter here on Shakesville, known as Heather B. or sometimes GourmetGoddess. And sometime last June or July, something I said caught the eye of a certain Boxer Rebellion. He followed my link back to my own personal blog, which is supposed to be about cooking and food but is really only my own personal online bitch session and diary. At this point, I only had a few readers, most of whom were members of my family. He started reading me and providing an occasional comment, which I thought was nice, and I started reading him. But that is as far as it went. And then there was the fateful post.
I was going through a really rough patch. Kinda sad. Very exhausted. Feeling like I was blogging into the void. And I wrote about it and how I just really needed to take a break. Boxer wrote some words of encouragement and then another friend wrote, "Drop me an email." And thankfully, Boxer misread that and, thinking that I wanted him to drop me an email, did so.
Our first email exchange was rather amusing:
Him: Oh and by the way, the picture of you from your family reunion with your face in the watermelon, so very cool. I was going to post a comment when I first saw it, but since I didn't want to come off as some skeezy boy who was trying to hit on you, which I am and would have been, and your mother reads your blog, I just held my tongue till now.
Me: I wish I could say I was the woman in the watermelon. That is actually a cousin, a few times removed (I really need a road map at our family reunions). Our hair is about the same color, but that is about it. I wish it were me. She is wonderfully beautiful. And, honestly, my mom would be totally thrilled to have a boy, skeezy or not, hit on me, especially in public. She's become utterly convinced that I am going to die a stereotypical cat lady…
And that was the beginning. We started out from that point on as email penpals. We learned about each other by exchanging those silly little quizzes. You know, the ones where you list 66 facts no one knows about you. Within a couple of months, we had confessed to each other that we were interested in each other as more than just penpals. Soon, we were talking via IM several hours each night.
And on Thursday, March 13 (my birthday!), we took the next logical step. He flew in from North Carolina and we finally met in person. And we got to ask the important questions, the ones you can never answer via plain old talking. Could we stand each other? Did we smell right? Was there any chemistry? Could we get along?
And the answers are: absolutely, oh yeah, oh baby, and you bet!
So, this June, we are going to take the next step and move in together, here in the Waukegan abode. Yes, moving half way across the country is expensive and horrid, but in the end we both think it will be worth it! (Side note: we have a PayPal donate button on my blog. Experimental cookie recipes to any and all who can help us raise some funds for moving expenses.)
We've tried to go back and look in the Shakesville archives and see which post it was that brought us together. We've never been able to find it. But it doesn't really matter. It is still a wondrous thing. It will be a great story to tell the hypothetical grandchildren. And I hope it serves as a hope-filled story for all of you, showing that where communities of like-minded allies join together—in the intertubes or in person—wonderful things can bloom. Like change. Like joy. Like love.
Peanuts not powerful after all
I never did watch the CBS apocaldrama Jericho, though lots of fans liked it enough to send in forty thousand pounds of peanuts in protest over the show’s cancellation. The network responded by bringing the program back, a heartwarming story that must seem utterly hollow now that CBS has turned around and canceled it again. Apparently the power of peanuts is no substitute for the nuclear force of viewership, something woefully lacking in the show’s second life. While this seems at first blush to validate the network’s earlier decicion to axe Jericho, you have to wonder what impact the strike-enforced absence had on potential viewership. Fans will no doubt find this unfair, but television is a lot like the sausage-making business: not always pretty.
I predict a brisk business for the DVD of those episodes that actually got made ; perhaps the unaired eps will find their way onto disc. Look also for a lot of fan fiction based in the Jerichoverse. And who knows - the big screen, one day, maybe? From all evidence, filmmakers are utterly desperate for ideas.
(Cross-posted.)
Why is this Racist Superfuck Still on my Teevee?
Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Rachel Maddow Smile
Pleasantly During Pat Buchanan's Election Coverage on MSNBC
Why are these people smiling? No, really. In fact, why do they even agree to appear on the same show with Pat Buchanan?
He is, after all, a virulent hatemonger who has unapologetically claimed that AIDS is retribution against gays, praised Hitler as "an individual of great courage," and stated that women "are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed" as are men, just for a start. Evidently, there's nothing the old duffer can say that's so objectionable it renders him unfit to be offered a high-profile and widely coveted spot covering the election by MSNBC or makes the likes of Olbermann, Matthews, and Maddow unwilling to legitimize his despicable positions by appearing with and regarding him as a professional equal.
So I guess his latest emission of full-tilt crazy—in which he argues that black Americans should be appreciative of everything white Americans have done "to lift up blacks" and wonders "Where is the gratitude?"—won't bother them a bit, either. After all, it's not like there are any black people in their little club anyway, since MSNBC's idea of fair and balanced is one dude who openly hates women and one who openly hates people of color.
Pam Spaulding and Dave Neiwert have more on Buchanan's latest screed, which is titled (I shit you not) "A Brief for Whitey."
[Lest anyone waste his or her time accusing me of censorship or hostility to free speech, I said no such thing. Buchanan should absolutely be free to disgorge his diarrheic rantings on his blog or any welcoming street corner in the nation; I just don't think they ought to get him a spot covering a national election on cable news.]
Praise Cheesus
Little did Steve Cragg know, when he opened a bag of Cheetos, he was about to find Jesus. The youth director at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston was, naturally, shocked and pleased to discover his Lord and Savior in the bag of delicious cheesy snacks, though he's not certain it's technically a miracle: "If you're looking for God in different places, you can find God in different places. … I don't think God makes Cheetos that look like Jesus. I'm not sure he does grilled cheese sandwiches that look like the Virgin Mary. I do know that God reveals himself to us in a lot of different ways."
And when He does, miracle or not, it's best to put that holy revelation in a nifty wee display box and for all the world to see. Or cover it in 20 coats of polyurethane and send it on adventures all over the world. Just, whatever you do, keep it away from the cat.
[Via Michael K. Holy folks Gone Wild: Weeping and bleeding and appearing in pretzels, fire and on pancakes, baking sheets, pizza pans, doggy doors, ice, peanuts, x-rays, turtles, ultrasounds, chocolate, dying plants, sheet metal, trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, wardrobes, water stains, plates of pasta, drywall, fish, grilled cheese sandwiches, and potato chips.]
Domestic Violence, Ownership of Women, and, Of Course, Jesus
Two professional football players. Two cases of domestic assault. Cedrick Wilson allegedly punched his former girlfriend and mother of his daughter; James Harrison allegedly slapped his girlfriend and mother of his son across the face. Wilson gets shit-canned; Harrison remains with the team—because he had a good reason, explains team chairman Dan Rooney:
"I know many are asking the question of [why] we released Wilson and Harrison we kept,'' he said. "The circumstances -- I know of the incidents, they are completely different. In fact, when I say we don't condone these things, we don't, but we do have to look at the circumstances that are involved with other players and things like that, so they're not all the same."Shaker "Fair and Balanced" Dave, who emailed me about this story, says, "[A]pparently if you're a professional football player, domestic abuse is OK if you do it for Jesus," and Vanessa at Feministing, who blogged the story over there, also notes the "good Christian" excuse. Quite obviously, that was part of the calculation when the Steelers organization considered "each incident … on a case-by-case basis," but what's also notable is that the man who was released from his contract assaulted his ex-girlfriend, while the man who was retained on the team assaulted his current girlfriend—and undoubtedly the still-pervasive attitude that domestic violence is "between a man and his woman" affected the decision. As long as she stays with him, as long as she's willing to suffer the abuse, that's "their" business.
In Mr. Harrison's case, Mr. Rooney said the player was trying to take his son to be baptized.
"What Jimmy Harrison was doing and how the incident occurred, what he was trying to do was really well worth it," he said of Mr. Harrison's initial intent with his son. "He was doing something that was good, wanted to take his son to get baptized where he lived and things like that. She said she didn't want to do it."
The ex-girlfriend, by virtue of her "ex" status, no longer belonged to Wilson, so it's easy to see why his hitting her was wrong. But things are always muddier, somehow, when it's a current girlfriend or wife, which signifies our collective belief that men still have some ownership of women with whom they're in a relationship, and therefore have more right to do ugly things to them than men who don't have any claim over them. We mask that belief with mumbled questions about "why she stays if she doesn't like it," pathetically substituting the inevitably compromised agency of a battered woman for an objectively principled stand against domestic violence, as if that's remotely reasonable. Of course it is not—but justifications for situations like this are thin on the ground.
As well they should be.
Perhaps you'd like to politely email the Steelers or call their administrative offices at 412.432.7800 to let them know that condoning domestic violence for any reason is not acceptable.
Jonah Goldberg: Dramaturg
Jonah Goldberg tries to exploit David Mamet's reconsideration of his liberal values for the right wing's gain.
David Mamet, considered by some to be the greatest living playwright, has proclaimed for all to hear -- but few to listen -- that he is no longer ''a brain-dead liberal.''Okay, he lost me right there. I've been in the theatre business longer than Jonah Goldberg has been in the punditry gig, and I've read just about every play David Mamet has written -- and sat through some really ass-numbing productions of his plays -- and no one I know both in and out of the business considers him to be "the greatest living playwright."
And frankly, I don't care if David Mamet -- or any playwright, for that matter -- is a liberal, conservative, or whirling dervish. All I care about is that they create characters that I care about and who explore the human condition and our connections with our selves and each other. All of the rest is just crap.
(Cross-posted.)
Memories…
The blogger about whom Jeff writes about below, Old Punk, is the co-blogger of LocoPunk, the huge douche whose reading problems provided us with hours of entertainment last August, spawning not only the Gift Certificate to the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good, but also You've Been Shakes-Speared!TM
Good times.
Thanks of a Grateful Nation?
- Not. A Kurdish translator is denied a Green Card because he once worked to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
During his nearly four years as a translator for U.S. forces in Iraq, Saman Kareem Ahmad was known for his bravery and hard work. "Sam put his life on the line with, and for, Coalition Forces on a daily basis," wrote Marine Capt. Trent A. Gibson.The logic of this escapes me... unless the Bush administration thinks that they were the only people who had the right to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But wouldn't that make them an "undesignated terrorist organization" and "inadmissible" as well?
Gibson's letter was part of a thick file of support -- including commendations from the secretary of the Navy and from then-Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus -- that helped Ahmad migrate to the United States in 2006, among an initial group of 50 Iraqi and Afghan translators admitted under a special visa program.
Last month, however, the U.S. government turned down Ahmad's application for permanent residence, known as a green card. His offense: Ahmad had once been part of the Kurdish Democratic Party, which U.S. immigration officials deemed an "undesignated terrorist organization" for having sought to overthrow former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Ahmad, a Kurd, once served in the KDP's military force, which is part of the new Iraqi army. A U.S. ally, the KDP is now part of the elected government of the Kurdish region and holds seats in the Iraqi parliament. After consulting public Web sites, however, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that KDP forces "conducted full-scale armed attacks and helped incite rebellions against Hussein's regime, most notably during the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Ahmad's association with a group that had attempted to overthrow a government -- even as an ally in U.S.-led wars against Hussein -- rendered him "inadmissible," the agency concluded in a three-page letter dated Feb. 26.
In an interview Friday at Quantico Marine Corps Base, where he teaches Arabic language and culture to Marines deploying to Iraq, Ahmad's voice quavered, and his usually precise English failed him. "I am shamed," he said. He has put off his plans to marry a seamstress who tailors Marine uniforms. "I don't want my family live in America; they feel ashamed I'm with a terrorist group. I want them to be proud for what I did for the United States Marine Corps," said Ahmad, 38.
(Cross-posted.)
Blame the Dog
The White House says they threw out the computer hard drives that contained subpoenaed e-mails.
Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.Update: Barney ate them.
The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.
"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.
[...]
The White House says it does not know if any e-mails are missing, but is looking into the matter.
(Cross-posted.)
From the Mailbag
Shaker CM:
"The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror... The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable -- yet some in Washington still call for retreat. War critics can no longer credibly argue that we're losing in Iraq..."
--George W. Bush, in a speech delivered at the Pentagon on March 19, 2008, marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!"
--Grand Moff Tarkin, on board the Death Star, seconds before Luke Skywalker blew it to atoms.
LOL!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
TFIGF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison.
And toast to 4 million!
Laughing All the Way From the Bank
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt gave a combined $8.5 million to charity last year. That's amazing. And yeah, I know, they pay huge taxes and tax deductions and blah blah, but wev. They helped out a hell of a lot of people, and they didn't just give money, but their time and energy, and that's really cool.
Those bitchez got tablespoons, and they ain't afraid to use 'em!
