Well folks, it's been a helluva weekend. I slipped on the ice and fell flat, throwing out my back and goofing up my knee (Liss insists I did it out of sympathy for her recent fall down the steps) on Saturday, then Sunday I was biting my thumbnail and a chunk of my tooth flew off. Yay.
So, I'm hoping Kringle will make it all better. Riddle me this, Shakers:
What unconventional item is on your Christmas* (or War on Christmas) list?
I want this mask from Bump In The Night Productions: A mask of my favorite klown from the greatest movie of all time (don't question me), Killer Klowns from Outer Space. (Image under the fold, for the coulrophobic.)
So, what would you like to see stuffed in your stocking?
*(All of you that don't celebrate Christmas (or the war upon it), please fill in your holiday, or non-holiday in here.)
Question of the Day
Quote of the Day
"Other than his brave military service, introducing Sarah Palin to Americans is the greatest thing John McCain ever did for his country."—Ann Coulter, on Sarah Palin being bestowed Human Events' "prestigious 'Conservative of the Year' Award for 2008 for her genius at annoying all the right people."
Those are some awesome standards for that award, btw.
OMG
I just got back from doing a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping. Nothing big—a few cards, a little thing for Papa Shakes I couldn't find elsewhere, some tape for wrapping.
If being filled with the holiday spirit feels like being covered with the lingering scum of eight million people crammed into a small space who are all reeking of desperation and quick to glower spitefully at anyone who has the temerity to smile at them, then I am positively overflowing with it!
I AM CHOCK FULL O' HOLIDAY SPIRIT! And I have the spite-drilled eyes in my head to prove it.
Maude save us.
A Bridge Too Far
In comments, Shaker LizardOC recommends Katha Pollitt's op-ed for today's LA Times on why Obama's choosing Rick Warren is insulting.
Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.Good stuff. The whole thing is here.
...In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.
I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.
Daily Kitteh
Livsy, Sophs, and Tils chillin' out...
...after a hard day of doing fuck-all.
Snuggleheads.
"I'm so over it."
Reported Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Way Up
A new government report showing huge increases in the incidences of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault over a two-year period in the United States deserves immediate attention from lawmakers and the incoming administration, Human Rights Watch said today. The statistics show a 42-percent increase in reported domestic violence and a 25-percent increase in the reported incidence of rape and sexual assault.And these numbers reflect only reported domestic violence and sexual assaults, which continue to be the most under-reported crimes.
The National Crime Victimization Survey, based on projections from a national sample survey, says that at least 248,300 individuals were raped or sexually assaulted in 2007, up from 190,600 in 2005, the last year the survey was conducted. The study surveyed 73,600 individuals in 41,500 households. Among all violent crimes, domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault showed the largest increases.
Sob.
Please note that increased reporting may have something to do with these increases, though it is extremely unlikely to be the primary (or even a significant) factor, given the enormity of the increases. Also note that every other crime surveyed has decreased in the same period, except for simple assault, which increased by 3%.
The number of violent crimes against men by intimate partners also went down. Only violent crimes against women by intimate partners increased.
This shit doesn't happen in a void. There is a reason violent crimes against women are increasing. This blog documents that shit every day. This shit doesn't happen in a void.
[H/T to Shaker Dutchmarbel.]
Huckabee: Don't Be "Ridiculous"
This guy really just can't STFU, can he? Here's former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, still on his world tour of gay-hatin', stopping by Fox News to play concern troll and let all of us whiny bitchez know that we're being "ridiculous" for objecting to Obama's selection of huge homobigot Pastor Rick Warren to do the inaugural invocation.
Greta Van Susteren: All right, let me—let me jump to another topic, which you probably weren't expecting, um, is that, uh, President-Elect Obama has chosen Rick Warren to give the invocation—and there are a lot of, uh, a lot of gay Americans very upset. What do you make of this?I love how it's just "gay Americans" who are pissed off, according to Fox. Erasing allies is such a useful marginalization tactic, helpfully suggesting that there's no principle behind the outrage; just a bunch of hysterics playing identity politics for shits and grins.
Mike Huckabee: Well, it's ridiculous for people to be upset at Rick Warren—he's one of the most influential spiritual leaders of this generation. I've known Rick for over 30 years. We were actually in seminary together in Fort Worth, Texas, back in the, uh, mid-1970s. He is today what he always has been, and that's a humble, gracious, thoughtful, very intellectually capable person.
Fine, Fox—make me queer, if you like. But next time you do a report on "Teh Gay Menace," I want to see that percentage of the population number bumped up to at least 25%.
(Meanwhile, with friends like these…)
Monday Blogaround
lol your fat blogaround
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Four Sought in Gang Rape of Lesbian in San Francisco's East Bay
Echidne: Meanwhile, in Iraq...
Greenwald: Cheney Says Top Congressional Democrats Complicit in Spying
Kimberly: Black and White
Shayera: Proposition 8 Supporters Are Liars and Hypocrites
bfp: Speak!
Leave your links in comments...
Facilities
[Trigger warning.]
by Shaker Sunless Nick
In the comment thread of a recent post, I was moved to say of anti-choicers and MRAs, "The same attitude is common to both, that women's bodies are just facilities."
At the time, I was just thinking in terms of property and availability—but Liss of course sees further, and pointed me at her Disembodied Things series—a set of posts about mouse pads, cakes, furniture, bikes, bottle openers, ashtrays, pencil sharpeners, remotes, dartboards, sinks, and toilets, all in the shape of women's body parts. Yep, toilets; those things that "facilities" are a euphemism for.
I find myself unable and unwilling to take these things in the lighthearted, jokey kind of way they're (mostly) presented to be meaning. Because really, what is the joke here? What can the basis of the joke possibly be but to imagine real women's body parts in their place? Imagining pissing into a real woman or jamming a bottle into her vagina. Imagining a woman who exists only to have these things done for the man's convenience (another euphemism for toilets).
In a post at the Curvature, Cara said of an ad for a men's magazine (a picture of a near-naked woman posed on a bed with a video game controller connected to her navel, and the slogan "Keep on dreaming of a better world"):Few, I imagine, would consider this image to be promoting rape. But personally, it's all I can see.
And the same is true of these Disembodied Things items—both they and their promotion by their architects/fans are (allegedly) meant to be humourous, but the humour they try to evoke is dependent idea of a real woman in their place, unable to escape being used. Just like you can't describe a fembot with no appetite, need for rest, or will of its own as "the perfect woman" without evoking the idea that that's how women should be—because without that idea, the only response could be, "but it's not a woman."
And that's why people who say feminists are taking these things out of context are full of shit: Debasement of women is the context.
Relatedly, how often do we talk about men's bodies in a separate context from talking about the men themselves? How often is a distance constructed between men's bodies and their identities, their very personhood?
Meanwhile, all the different strands of political misogyny—"traditional family," rape-apologism, purity balls, anti-choice—have in common a disconnect between women's bodies and their identities. To reiterate the line that sparked off this post, women's bodies are treated in our culture like facilities—toolkits, devices, things to be used. And what are women in this view?
"Traditional family" espouses submission to the husband/father figure and service to husband and children; rape apologism talks about carelessness or dressing wrongly, and necessarily treats the female body as public property; purity balls talk about, well, purity, and the female body being kept pristine until a man has use for it; anti-choice talks about babies and the female body's forced subjugation to bearing them.
All of them claim not to be limiting the rights of women, but merely to be exhorting women to behave "properly." I look at that, and think "staff." If a woman's body is a facility, then the woman herself is the receptionist (responsible for overseeing access to it) and janitor (responsible for keeping it clean and decorated); and the "perk" is that she gets to use it whenever no one else needs it.
Charming to the Last
Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News on Sunday:
WALLACE: Did you tell Senator Leahy, “bleep yourself”?He also told Mr. Wallace that basically the president has the right to do anything he wants to when he thinks he is "protecting the country." This is his version of Richard Nixon's statement that "when the president does it, it means it is not illegal."
CHENEY: I did.
WALLACE: Any qualms, second thoughts, or embarrassment?
CHENEY: No, I thought he merited it at the time and we’ve since patched over that wound.
These sentiments received rapturous applause from William Kristol, who has never been shy about being a completely obsequious toady in service of Mr. Cheney. Today he goes further in his column in the New York Times, slavering over his latest rumblings and, taking a cue from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing Kipling's "If" as the maxim by which he lived:
I’ve never heard Dick Cheney quote Kipling. But I suspect he might like Kipling, and that Kipling would admire him — a man who has never gone out of his way to look too good, nor talk too wise, but who has always, in four decades of public service, sought “to fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”Dick Cheney has been the epitome of the smug and swaggering arrogance of the Bush administration; the secretive would-be dictator who believes that he is a separate power unto his own, answerable to no one. The only saving grace of the last eight years was the good health of President George W. Bush and the fact that the nation and the world never had to face the horror of Mr. Cheney attaining the actual powers embodied in the Constitution that are granted to the president and not just the ones that he imagined were granted to him by his creative interpretation of what exactly it is the vice president is supposed to do.
In his interview on Fox, Mr. Cheney mocked Joe Biden for saying that he would return the office of the vice president to its traditional role: "And if he wants to diminish the office of vice president, that’s obviously his call." I really don't think Mr. Cheney gets it that it is he who has diminished the office of vice president by abusing his position and maintaining that the office of the vice president is a separate branch of the government. He doesn't get it that his assaults on the Constitution and the rule of law have done as much damage to the office and the trust granted to him than anything any outside force of anti-democratic evil could accomplish.
With any luck, other than his appearance on the inaugural platform on January 20, 2009, this will be the last time anyone hears from Dick Cheney unless it's in response to "Will the defendant please rise."
(Ten points to anyone who gets the reference in the title.)
Cross-posted.
Daily Caganer -- DIY with PortlyDyke
OK, Shakers, this is the moment you've been waiting for! How to build your very own personal Caganer!
To begin, let's assemble some materials -- You will need:
A. Some Snow
B. Some tools -- a table knife will also do (especially if you are DIYing with children)
Step 1: First, Form Your Basic Shape:
Then
Step 2: Voila! Your very own Venus of Willendorf Solstice Caganer[tm] (Wasn't that easy?)
Complete with All-Natural, Seasonally-Appropriate Poo!
Of course, if you're the type that doesn't really go for the whole Diety thing (even in Great Goddess format), then you may want to opt for a PortlyDyke Caganer --
(Real PortlyDyke not included -- shown only for scale. Cheap-ass beer also not included.)
This has been your Daily Caganer -- Click Here for Parts I, II, III, IV, V ,VI & VII
ps. It was all my Beloved's idea.
Joyous Solstice
warmth in your home,
love in your heart,
peace in your soul,
and joy in your life.
Also, Happy Hanukkah!
Celebrations of light abound!
More Shaker Happy
by Shaker Llencelyn
(Don't forget to check out the other happy-making contributions in the comments threads of Happy Posts One and Two.)
Shaker Deadra is happy to live in a picture postcard, and to get to spend Christmas in one, too!
From Shaker Blue Sky (careful, if you watch this, don't be drinking anything that might squirt out your nose):
(Liss has offered her praise of that stunning work of art before.)
Shaker Susan shares with us two photos from what she refers to as "the happiest time ever in [her] life," visiting the Galapagos Islands!
Crossing paths with a giant tortoise:
Swimming with a seal:
Shaker Anne brings us three adorable mice pictures, and a link to her collection of baby mouse photos.
Adorable mouse album!
Shaker Betsy's half-grown kitteh, Chompers!
If you liked "Only in Kenya," here is their new "Only in Somalia!" Now with Pirates!
Have a wonderful day, Shakers!
If you would like to send more submissions to be used in the future, go ahead and email them to happyshakesville@yahoo.com . I'll keep them safe and ready for posting the next time we're all in need of a lift.
12-Year Old Girl Arrested for Resisting "Arrest"
[Trigger warning.]
by Shaker Sunless Nick
This...there are no adjectives that describe this. A 12 year old girl—Dymond Milburn—is attacked* and beaten in her front yard by three men who turn out to be plainclothed police officers, responding to a report about three prostitutes in the area. She's hospitalised, and then arrested for assaulting a public servant and resisting arrest.
* Despite ending up in hospital, the attack is still apparently "alleged."
Icing on the cake? They went to the wrong house; the suspects they were seeking were white, and Dymond was black. Yet somehow, they still thought she must be one of them, because she was wearing "tight shorts." Here's how they went about it:
As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."See, to my mind, that's not an arrest, that's a fucking kidnapping. There's no indication that they identified themselves a police officers—or gave this girl, or her father, any reason to suppose that this was anything but a violent abduction—yet she is arrested for defending herself, and he is arrested for defending her. The Milburns are due before the court in February.
Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.
In the meantime, they are suing the officers; the officers' lawyer says this:
Also, "The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances," Helfand says. "It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest."And is it me, or does the corruption just drip off this speech? First, like I said, this was a kidnapping, not an arrest—the Milburns resisted kidnapping at the hands of three violent thugs—three cowardly thugs, who felt so threatened by a 12-year old, that they chose to beat her into hospitalisation. Second, the officers were supposed to be looking for white women—there is no conceivable way they could have legitimately concluded that Dymond Milburn was one of their suspects.
The sexism's obvious here: She's wearing tight shorts, so she must be a prostitute? The racism's obvious: When would the police ever arrest a white person on suspicion of being a black suspect; and when would the city ever uphold their conduct in doing so? But there's a third prejudice at play here—the suspects the officers were looking for were (or might have been) prostitutes, who had been soliciting—nothing violent, nothing dangerous. Yet they found it legitimate to attack the girl they had concluded was one of them, beating her and covering her mouth. What other nonviolent crime would ever be responded to in such a violent fashion; or such a response defended so callously?
In the officers' minds, Dymond was a girl who dared to wear tight clothes, so she had to be a slut, and she was black slut, so she had to be a prostitute, and she was a prostitute, so she had to be violently broken down. In the department's mind? The same damn thing, or how the fuck else could they believe the officers acted justifiably?
I wish the Milburns complete success on both their days in court.
More on this at Feministe, and Womanist Musings.
Daily Caganer -- Just 5 Days Left to Become Culturally Enlightened!
OK -- so here's the REAL poop on the caganer thing -- direct from Catalonia -- and it turns out that the real shit on all this is a whole lot more revolutionary that I ever imagined -- which is a great comfort to me:
Can I just say? -- I want to visit Catalonia now. Seriously.
This has been your Daily Caganer -- Click Here for Parts I, II, III, IV, V & VI
Dear Mr. President Elect . . .
You don't know me, but I voted for you.
I'm 52 years old, and I've been waiting for your inauguration day since I was old enough to understand what institutionalized oppression was -- perhaps longer, without really being conscious of it.
As I grew older, and gained more life experience, I think that I grew increasingly impatient in my waiting, as I began to understand more about what might actually help dismantle the systems of privilege that keep institutionalized oppressions alive.
I believe with my whole being that your election as President of the United States has, and will continue to, help take apart some of those systems -- not just because you are a person of color and your election breaks a tradition of exclusion that has existed throughout our nation's history, but also because I honestly believe that you want to make change and move this country forward.
So last month, I cast my vote for you with a hopeful heart, and wept during your victory speech. I said to my beloved, as we watched the closing of the speech (where you gathered with family, colleagues, and supporters in a glad mingling, awash in the cheers of thousands): "Look at that stage -- old, young, women, men, faces of many hues-- we're seeing something we've never seen before in our lifetimes."
And I took the opening lines of that speech to heart:
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible -- who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time -- who still questions the power of our democracy -- tonight is your answer."I took a cautious, hopeful in-breath when you actually said the word"gay" in the section where you detailed the diverse groups that played a part in this victory. I didn't notice it before I heard the word, but I think I had been waiting for that word for a long time, too -- yet I had been hopeful, not expectant (a habit I've developed over the years -- perhaps a defense-mechanism against disappointment).
You see, I'm old enough and savvy enough to understand that there will be times when mention of a person like me will be omitted -- because there are elections to win, and assumptions about what works and what doesn't work in political tactics, and polls that indicate the "safe" course that must, perhaps, be steered in the present, in order to make gains in the future. I understand this. I really do.
That's why, when I watched your infomercial the week before the election, I wasn't surprised to see that there was no one like me featured as one of the "average Americans". Yes, I'm a small business owner who can't currently afford health insurance, a person who has raised kids, and who is coupled in a stable, loving relationship, a person who currently faces big challenges in earning enough to simply cover rent, utilities, and groceries for my family -- but I would never be featured in your examples of working folks in this country -- because I'm a lesbian -- and that wouldn't poll well.
And again -- I understand this. I really do. You were attempting to reach out to a segment of the population that you needed to win over, so that you could win the presidency.
But understanding this intellectually doesn't necessarily make it easier to experience -- all the political savvy and realistic assessment in the world didn't make it easier to sit watching your ad (which takes the time to really go into detail about the problems that Americans face today, and how you will work to fix them) -- knowing that I (and others like me) would not be represented, or even referred to.
Last April, during the Democratic primary, I said that I had started to feel like the orphan at the family picnic.
It's not as if that feeling is completely foreign to me. I've sat around bargaining tables as part of my union and argued strenuously for family leave acts and benefits packages that would never cover my family. I've extended understanding to politicians for whom I've campaigned when they had to do the "politically smart" thing, even if it excluded me and mine. I've had compassion for some of my family members, who have acknowledged my orientation and have not outright disowned me, but who also do not ask about my life in any detail, lest an uncomfortable or challenging moment arise.
In fact, I sometimes worry that I've become so used to my position as an outsider that it has dulled my motivation toward change -- that it has made it too easy for me to say things like: "Well, that's the best I can expect -- and it's better than nothing."
So, when I cast my vote for you in November, I had hoped to put that feeling aside, and "........ choose hope over fear, and unity over division -- the promise of change over the power of the status quo".
Which is why I'm writing to you.
I understand that you may have selected (or allowed the selection of) Rick Warren to speak the invocation at your inaugural as part of a plan to demonstrate that you are not closed to the concerns of those who embrace a conservative Christian lifestyle. I understand that, regardless of what your real personal feelings about gay marriage may be, you were probably advised to say that you didn't support it, in order to get elected. I understand that you may have made choices in the past two years which were politically expedient in the short term, with the intention of serving an eventual greater good. I understand all this. I really do.
And when I read about the honor that Pastor Warren is being done in being allowed to perform the spiritual opening for your inaugural ceremony, I was surprised that I didn't feel angry -- instead, I simply felt . . . . profoundly sad.
I believe that sadness is to the heart and soul as hunger is to the body -- and I believe that my hunger is this: I want to be included in your diverse, but United, States of America.
When I hear you talk about the problems of working families, I want to be able to believe that you are talking about my family, too, and when you swear your oath of allegiance, I want to believe that you will be upholding the Constitution of our nation with the clear understanding that my rights are equal to the rights of every other citizen of this country.
I believe in the maxim that one should begin as one means to go on, and as a minister, I understand well the meaning of an opening invocation. It quite intentionally sets the tone of all that is to follow.
Pastor Warren has publicly expressed statements which compare my desire to marry my beloved to pedophilia, incest, and polygamy -- all of which are illegal in this country -- and so, for me, your presidency will begin with an invocation delivered by someone who considers the most precious human relationship I have -- a core and anchor of my daily existence -- as similar to a list of criminal acts.
He will be recorded as the pastor who was given the great honor of speaking first at this most historic presidential inauguration, and I will, once again, be a less-than -- an "other". I am concerned that, for many, the power of your office, and your perceived blessing on his blessing, will give strength to his voice -- and weaken mine further.
As an out lesbian, there are few laws that protect me from discrimination based on my sexual orientation, and many laws (and more prejudices) that curtail my unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I have dealt with these realities since I was 12 years old (when I first realized that I was a lesbian), and often, it has only been the small, symbolic victories and gestures that have kept my hope of eventual equality kindled -- the confrontation of a homophobic remark by a straight co-worker who knew that I couldn't speak up without risking the loss of my job -- the decision of a straight couple to postpone their marriage until their gay and lesbian friends have the same right to wed -- the willingness of my mother and father to speak out in their church when their synod was determining whether or not to sanctify gay and lesbian unions.
These symbolic gestures, while not carrying the weight of law, have given me hope, and helped me to carry on.
Those gestures are sometimes small -- but since I can be pretty sure that I won't show up as an "average American" in the next nationally-broadcast infomercial, and reasonably certain that any candidate who states that they support full marriage rights for gays and lesbians will be declared, soon thereafter, to be "unelectable", symbolic acts of support from allies have become incredibly important to me.
I realize that my letter may not change your mind about having Pastor Warren provide the inaugural invocation. I realize that, at this point, it may be politically nightmarish to even consider such a change, or it may have become such a political hot potato that you are sick to death of hearing about it, or that you may simply dismiss my letter as yet another from some disgruntled LGBTQ person.
My hope, though, is that you will not simply dismiss this letter.
My hope is that you will consider the symbolism that is implicit in the way that your administration begins. If this administration is to be about inclusivity, then I believe that it is best begun with an invocation by someone who truly personifies that concept, who can be relied upon to invoke both the spirit and the language of inclusivity.
My choice to vote for you was like one drop in an ocean, but your choices as President will profoundly influence the currents and tides of that ocean, in which I will swim for many years to come.
I know that you are just one human, with a complex and enormous task before you, but I ask you to . . . . remember me.
When you hear the invocation that Pastor Warren is allowed to give, please listen with my ears.
I realize that this will be "your day" in many ways, and that you are straight, and Christian. I personally have no problem with you wanting to have a spiritual invocation that reflects your belief system - but if you hear prayers which invoke only "traditional" families, or only Christians, or which lean too heavily on any structure which contributes to institutionalized oppression of any sort -- I implore you to remember that you will be President of every citizen of this country, and to listen with the ears of those whose voices are rarely heard from the bully pulpit.
You have power and a great deal of choice around what this ceremony will symbolize -- I hope on that day, you will remember me, and remember that some days, a symbol is all I have.
Congratulations on your election, and thank you for taking the time to read this.
Sincerely,
Carol Steinel
Saturday YouTubery
More Neil! This time, an interview with Elmo:
Take some time in your day today to randomly bust a move.
Daily Caganer -- Better with Music
Yes, it's true. Seasonal music makes the caganerishness even more caganerish. Plus, you can get a better idea of the whole creche/caganer juxtaposition.
I mean, seriously -- these Catalonian folk are seriously serious about Da Creche!
ps. This video could just have easily been entitled: "Using Every SINGLE Transition Effect Available in Windows Movie Maker -- and Why You Shouldn't."
This has been your Daily Caganer -- Click Here for Parts I, II, III, IV & V
