More Neil!
Oscar Grant
I haven't said anything about the murder of Oscar Grant because I'm honestly not sure what to say. It's fucking horrible and utterly unjustifiable.
And it is the inevitable result of a culture that treats black men not as the individuals they are but as pieces of a monolith inextricably associated with violence.
THIS SHIT DOESN'T HAPPEN IN A VOID.
There was a reason that gun was drawn, and it was not a reason given to the officer by Oscar Grant, the individual. It was a reason provided by institutional racism, long before Oscar Grant was even born.
Kevin has a video of the shooting which shows very clearly what happened. Trigger warnings apply. Also: 5 Things You Can Do Right Now About the Oscar Grant Shooting.
Fucking hell. I really don't know what else to say.
I resolve once again to be All In. It feels like all I can do.
Where's My Chicagoland Shakers?
[I'm moving this back up to the top of the page. There's additional information at the bottom of the post.]
12/22/08: Holla if you're in the Chicagoland area. (Or, if you'd prefer not to identify your location publicly, email me.)
Looking at my Bush Countdown Calendar and seeing 29 Days (woot!), I think it might be time for a partay soon, bitchez.
ETA: If anyone is interested in hosting a "Goodbye, Bush!" party in their area in January sometime, let me know and I'll help coordinate offblog, or just drop location/contact info in comments.
1/9/08: Save the date for next Saturday, January 17. If you're in the Chicago area (or can get here) and want info about the partay, leave your name in comments (if you haven't already), or email me.
To Be Filed Under: Who the Fuck ARE These People?
I can't imagine anyone who would pay to hear George Bush speak once he's out of office.
For the last eight years, I would have paid good money to never have to hear him speak again.
Heh heh.
Barf.
Shaker Gourmet: Brownies!
Our recipe comes from Shaker Broce who included the warning that these are very rich.
Broce also says: "As an optional I use cinnamon graham crackers and milk chocolate chips, which I find slightly more festive for the holidays."Grammy's Brownies
1. wax wrapped package of graham grackers, crushed loosely (not too fine)
2. 1 can sweeteneed condensed milk
3. one tsp to one tblsp of vanilla
4. 1 six ounce packag of semi sweet chips
Mix them all in a bowl. Grease and flour your 8 x 8 inch brownie pan. Bake at 325 for around 30-35 minutes till the top is brownish and the edges arent too crispy.
Cut fairly promptly - too soon and they fall apart and too late and their glued to the pan.
If you'd like to participate in Shaker Gourmet, email me at: shakergourmet (at) gmail.com
Assvertising
I get user-generated adverts on my webmail, which are totally creepy just in principle, but this ad was extra distubo since I have no idea why it generated, unless Comcast now has an algorithm to serve up misogynist ads to irritate feminists:
If you can't see the image, it's an advert for an insurance quote generator, featuring a picture of a distraught-looking little girl (in what appears to be fake lashes and purple eye shadow!) who's holding the hand of an otherwise unseen adult, with a caption reading: "Dad, what would happen to me and mommy…if you died?"
Obviously, little girl, if your daddy died without an enormous life insurance policy, you and your mommy would end up penniless, homeless, and blowing hobos for tins of beans, because mommies are stupid and helpless.
I don't approve of fearmongering in advertising, but just to illustrate how the same (objectionable) concept could work without being misogynist, it would take just a minor copy change: "Dad, what would happen to me…if you and mommy died?" (And taking out the "and mommy" altogether would erase the heterocentrism.)
It's astoundingly easy to make things not offensively retrofuck. Of course, that doesn't matter a hell of a lot when the whole point is to be as smarmy as possible.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five.]
On the HRC
The other day I received an interesting email from the Human Rights Campaign. I didn't keep it, but the general gist of the thing was about their response to how Rick Warren, "who equates gay marriage with incest, pedophilia and polygamy, was chosen to speak at President-elect Obama's inauguration." The HRC was clearly upset by this turn of events.
All I have to say is WTP, HRC? You backed Obama without reservation, never once (as far as I have ever seen) calling him out on any of his alliances with anti-gay bigots, and now you're acting all surprised about the Rick Warren thing? What the hell did you think was going to happen? Sure, the Warren fiasco is disappointing, but hardly surprising.
At least not to those of us who haven't been willing to look the other way when it was politically expedient to do so.
Illinois House Impeaches Blagojevich
In a historic vote, the Illinois House has impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich, directing the Senate to put the state's 40th chief executive on trial with the goal of removing him from office.The governor's spokesperson said he won't resign. Chutzpah!
The vote by the House was 114-1 with one member voting "present." It marks the first time in the state's 190-year history that a governor has been impeached, despite Illinois' longstanding reputation for political corruption.
...The impeachment resolution covering Blagojevich's actions "show a public servant who has betrayed his oath of office, who has betrayed the public trust, who is not fit to govern the state of Illinois," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, the Chicago Democrat who headed a special panel that recommended Blagojevich's impeachment a day earlier.
Next week, when the Senate convenes, it will begin the process of setting up a trial of the governor in which each of the 59 state senators act as judge and jurors. (Link)
Woot! Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act Pass House!
Teaspoons ahoy! o.oP
This is such great news:
In the spring of 2007, the Supreme Court told Lilly Ledbetter, a twenty-year employee of Goodyear Tire in Alabama, that if she wanted to take legal action against the wage discrimination she had suffered, she should have filed a complaint within 180 days of the first discriminatory paycheck she received. Since she hadn't, she had no standing to recover decades of lost wages. The Supreme Court did not make it clear how Ledbetter was supposed to have known that she was being discriminated against after only 180 days on the job, seeing that Goodyear forbade employees from discussing their salaries, and Ledbetter only found out years later, thanks to an anonymous note.Both acts will now go to the Senate, where, if they pass (encourage your senators to vote for them here), they stand to become some of the first bills (soon-to-be-)President Obama will sign into law.
Today Congress took a step toward correcting that injustice. The House passed both the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act, restoring and establishing basic protections for employees who are subject to wage discrimination. The Ledbetter Act repeals the 180 day requirement, while the Paycheck Fairness Act protects employees from retaliation by employers if they bring complaints and allows them to sue for compensatory and punitive damages.
Let's all take a moment to remember how the totally sucktastic GOP nominee John McCain did not support this legislation, instead admonishing women to get more "education and training."
Still loving that he won't be our next president.
Quote of the Day
"I DON'T HAVE GREY IN MY BEARD IN REAL LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M ALL DOWN WITH BEINGS IN MY 30'S BUT DAAAAAAAAMN!!!! THIS IS SOME BENJAMIN BUTTONS SHIT!"—Kanye West, on his blog, expressing consternation with his cover shot on the new issue of Vibe.
First of all, Kanye West's blog wins Best Use of Caps Key 2008, 2009 (even though it's only January), and will continue to win it for every year of its existence.
Secondly, I would like THIS IS SOME BENJAMIN BUTTONS SHIT! to go into immediate circulation at Shakesville.
Because that? Totally made me LOL.
[Previous Kanye: Kanye West Says No More Homophobia in Hip-Hop • "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People." • Oh, the horror!]
Weblog Awards
So, I kind of forgot to remind everyone to vote for Shakesville (not that it matters—shakes fist at Wonkette), so thanks to those of you who have remembered and have been voting!
More importantly, my friend and fellow nominee Blue Gal has been waging a one-woman crusade across the progressive blogosphere to help our pal Driftglass take the Best Individual Blogger category.
Not to knock any of the other nominees, some of whose work I enjoy and respect very much, but Driftglass, aside from being someone I've met in the meatworld and like very much, has the best chance at the moment of beating The Anchoress, a conservative blogger who actually says things like: "Bush was right about Gitmo."
Shiver.
And while you're there, make sure you vote for Jon Swift as Best Humor Blog!
You can vote once a day in each category.
New Dove Film
I have what I'll charitably call mixed feelings about Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign (and similar campaigns), especially given that Dove is owned by Unilever, which also owns the Axe brand—the virulently misogynist commercials for which have the capacity to arouse within me a searing disdain. And, true to form, Dove's latest outing is a mixed bag:
I love the very last bit: "What lovely people. What lovely people." But we'll come back to that.
And naturally the whole can't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover message is always a good one, if trite (and vaguely hypocritical when delivered by a company hawking beauty products). But the construct for delivering that message strikes me a little bit like the films I call Deathbed Confession Cinema, in which you get to laugh at fat jokes (or ethnic jokes or gay jokes or how dumb bitches are, etc.) for two hours before a heavy-handed dénouement in which a childish moral of the story—"X" are people who are deserving of love and respect, too!—is tacked on to hastily absolve both filmmakers and audience their production and enjoyment of the preceding onslaught of mockery. (See here and here.)
In this case, I was left cringing by the framework in which women are made to judge other women based on their appearance (which uncomfortably feeds into the stereotype about women being catty and judgmental of one another) only to be followed by the reversal in which women reveal something about themselves that defies expectations.
(IMO, the piece would be more powerful if the moving, silent images of the women were shown without commentary, followed by the footage of the women talking, which would certainly undercut conclusions the viewer had drawn on hir own, culminating in the same: "What lovely people. What lovely people.")
Complicating the narrative is that the video is called "Intuition." The only way I understand that title relating to the video is if the point was to suggest that the proverbial women's intuition sucks.
Anyway, what do you think?
I Love This Picture
Heath Ledger took the award for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight at the Critics' Choice Awards last night in Santa Monica, California. Director Christopher Nolan accepted and the crowd got on its feet. Said Nolan: "I can't presume to speak for him. His voice was as unique as it was original."Via Andy.
Friday Blogaround
Would you like some pathetic anger bread with your blogaround?
Recommended Reading:
Kathy G: In Support of a Feminist Stimulus
The Black Scientist: Queering Black Politics: Reconsidering the Black Single Mother Argument
Shalom Sam: Gaza Insights
Dave: Rove and O'Reilly: Torture Keeps Us Safe
Max Blumenthal: Rick Warren's Africa Problem
Tami: Joan Walsh Is Quickly Becoming My Nemesis
Leave your links in comments...
Important Announcement
In a just universe, Elias Koteas would be a huge superstar. And if I'm ever made Queen of the Universe (and Maude help us all if I am), I'm totally going to make that happen.
[Click to embiggen.]
That is all.
Blog Note & QotD
Sorry I went AWOL today, Shakers. Just some personal stuff that came up. I'll be back tomorrow, if possible.
Question of the Day: If you could have any band/musician/singer perform at your next birthday party, who would you book?
