Shakers, I've got to be honest...
I love Jesus, but I drink a little.
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison.
Thank fuck it's Friday.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
Shakers, I've got to be honest...
I love Jesus, but I drink a little.
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison.
Thank fuck it's Friday.
The Many Faces of Anti-Choice
This is Kathy from Birmingham Blues. When I sent Liss links to the story below, she asked me to guest post. Thanks, Liss, for this and for all you do!
A group of "pro-life" activists was arrested today in Birmingham. Were they demonstrating in front of a clinic? Why, no, they weren't. The New Women All Women Health Clinic was bombed by Eric Rudolph in 1998, killing an off-duty police officer and maiming my next door neighbor's cousin, a nurse who worked at the clinic. Perhaps even "pro-life" activists are too embarrassed to bus in from out of town and dance on the graves of actual dead people protest women's health care.
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they're not, but for this particular event, the "Survivors" Campus Life Tour (that's "survivors" of the abortion "holocaust" -- no, I'm not linking) chose Parker High School for their display of authentic pictures of aborted fetuses and various other scare tactics. And when they were asked to leave school property, they got all hooty about it and ended up getting arrested for trespassing.
The comments to the story run the gamut from anti-choice to...anti-choice (with a few voices of reason thrown in). There are the typical rantings about evil baby killers, but then there's this from girlygirl569:
For every abortion, that is one less future thug on the streets and one less brat our tax dollars have to support!
She follows that up with this gem:
If you do not have insurance and you cannot pay to have a baby, then you sure can't afford to raise one. I would rather my tax money go to pay for an abortion than to pay for the birth of another brat that we are going to have to support!
Nice! And I bet girlygirl69 is very well aware that Parker High School is predominantly black. Yeah, abortion is a-okay with her as long as it limits the reproduction of those she considers unworthy.
I'm not sure who disgusts me more -- the "survivors" or the bigots.
What I'm Listening To
Better stop dreaming of the quiet life
'Cuz it's the one we'll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus
'Cuz those rosey days are few
And stop apologising for the things you've never done
'Cuz time is short and life is cruel
But it's up to us to change
This town called malice.
Rows and rows of disused milk floats
Stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles
To their hearts
Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry
It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come
Fast and furious
In a town called malice.
Struggle after struggle; year after year
The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice
I'm almost stone cold dead
In a town called malice.
A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef
Gets dashed against the co-op
To either cut down on beer or the kids new gear
It's a big decision in a town called malice.
Ghost of a steam train echoes down my track
It's at the moment bound for nowhere
Just going round and round, ohhh
Playground kids and creaking swings
Lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will
But I'd sooner put some joy back
In this town called malice.
Quote of the Day
"Ownership Society Watch: The new Survey of Consumer Finances shows an increase in family net worth between 2004 and 2007—but estimates, based on stock and housing prices, that all of that gain and more has been wiped out since then. Adjusted for inflation, families are poorer now than they were in 2001. It's worth pointing out that with this release, yet another pillar of the what-me-worry school of economics has fallen. You may remember that a few years ago there was a lot of talk about how only bubbleheads paid attention to our low, low savings rate, because the truth was that Americans were getting steadily wealthier thanks to rising asset values. Not so much, it turns out."—Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom I recently saw on Meet the Press, being talked over by a four journalists and some random douchebag I can't recall during a discussion about the economy, as if their opinions were just as valuable as his, because America has decided there's no such thing as experts anymore.
And look where that's gotten us.
How Odd
Shaker Pizza Diavola emails:
Reuters' "Odd News" file picked up on the pink chaddi campaign.Honestly, the "Odd News" section just needs to die.
I particularly like how Reuters describes Sri Ram Sena: "a radical Hindu group that has branded outgoing females immoral." Why, it's almost as if the group were only making pronouncements rather than assaulting women for being in public!
Is the "odd" part that women are standing up against this? >:O
[How Odd: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen.]
Shaker Gourmet: Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies
Our recipe comes from Shaker Betsy who says that they're some of the best she's ever had! The recipe also comes from America's Test Kitchen:
If you'd like to participate in Shaker Gourmet, email me at: shakergourmet (at) gmail.comBrowned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies
14 T unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks or 7 oz)
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups packed light brown sugar (dark brown sugar can also be used)
2 cups plus 2 T unbleached all-purpose flour (10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp table salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 T vanilla extract
Heat 10 tablespoons (5 oz) butter in small saucepan over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue to cook, swirling pan frequently until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons (2 oz) butter into hot butter to melt; set aside for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large (18 by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. In a pie plate, mix granulated sugar and 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, rubbing between fingers, until well combined. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in a small bowl.
Add the remaining 1 3/4 cups brown sugar and salt to bowl with cooled butter; mix until no sugar lumps remain, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula. Then add the egg, yolk, and vanilla and mix until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined, about 1 minute. Give the dough a final stir with rubber spatula to ensure that no flour pockets remain and ingredients are evenly distributed.
Divide dough into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Working in batches, toss balls in reserved sugar mixture to coat and set on prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart, 12 dough balls per sheet.
Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are browned and still puffy and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft (cookies will look raw between cracks and seem underdone), 12 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Do not overbake.
Cool cookies on baking sheet for a few minutes then transfer to rack to cool completely.
Daily Kitteh
The only thing better than a pizza box is my laptop case, which is covered in pink, blue, and yellow grinning skulls—and cat hair.
It always starts out with a prideful squat, as atop a throne, but, eventually, she succumbs sleepily to the inevitable nap.
"I've still got one eye on you...zzzzzzzzz."
WA Breastfeeding Bill Moves Forward
Good news: A bill that would make it legal to breastfeed in public has made it through committee in the Washington State legislature, and seems likely to move forward.
Interestingly, the bill was heard not in the health care and wellness committee--which generally deals with "soft" (ahem) issues like child care, women's health, and health-care worker qualifications --but in the state government and tribal affairs committee, which deals with ethics and civil rights. Tami Green, the Lakewood, WA Democrat who's sponsoring the legislation, notes that while Washington law currently protects breastfeeding women from getting arrested for indecency, "it doesn't stop people from asking you to leave because they don't like that you're doing it." Green's proposal would define breastfeeding as a civil right subject to state discrimination law; if it passes, women who are harassed in or kicked out of public places for feeding their children will be able to file a complaint with the state's human rights commission.
There's another major difference between the two committees, too: While the health care committee includes seven women (and one openly gay man) the state government committee includes just one woman.
Green says her bill "got a whole different kind of attention" once it moved into the government affairs committee. "There are whole bunch of men on this committee who all have daughters and wives, many of whom have breastfed their babies, who are all very supportive of the bill." On the other hand, she says, "the GOP is very nervous about giving it this high of a profile. They really don't like it going into the civil rights statute. To me," she adds, "it seems like a no-brainer."
I asked Green whether, if her bill passes, she'd consider legislation in the future making it mandatory for large employers to provide non-restroom facilities for nursing mothers to breastfeed or express milk. Green said that although "I'm hoping that raising it to this level, people will realize that this is important and we won't need another law," she's "not opposed to going further" in the future.
Flight of the Conchords Blogging
Iain and I have been totally behind on FOTC this season, which began a few weeks ago; we're still one episode behind, and, consequently, my FOTC blogging has been in the shitter. Forgive me, Shaker Conchordians.
So far this season, I am majorly in love with "Sugarlumps" (purchase here; lyrics here), which just brilliantly underlines the disparity in how we regard women's and men's bodies via the dissonant absurdity of objectifying, commodifying, and fetishizing testicles.
The rap interlude proffered by pawn shopper Dave also serves (quite likely not by design, lol) as an excellent commentary on the culture of disembodied parts we regularly discuss.
It's not a half-bad send-up of the truly insufferable "My Humps," either.
I just love it endlessly. Enjoy.
Bipartisanship at Work
Oh look. The House has now approved the post-conference-committee stimulus bill. How many Republican votes did reducing the size of the bill and reaching a compromise with the much suckier Senate bill win?Now is the time for the overtures to end. The GOP has been given more than enough chance to prove they're operating in good faith. They are not.
Yeah, everyone here can probably guess the answer. Not a one.
Cue Chuck Todd et al. whining about how the Democrats just weren't being bipartisan enough!
Let's move on.
Boehlert v. Goldberg
Boehlert in the blue trunks. Goldberg in the red.
Boehlert puts Golberg on the mat.
Goldberg rallies feebly.
Boehlert gets the KO.
Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine
Some of the other contributors and I have posted once or twice around here, ahem, about our firm belief that, if the Dems had any brains in their heads, they would use the opportunity of their simultaneous Congressional majority and White House occupancy to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which was established by the FCC in 1949 to ensure that broadcasters afforded reasonable access to opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, and was later tossed out under Reagan, paving the way for the emergence of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Fox News, and Randi Rhodes, just to name a few.
Well, maybe there's some grey matter in D.C. after all:
More and more Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.That's total bullshit, of course.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.
"I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," Hinchey told CNNRadio. Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.
Democratic Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa added their voices recently to those calling for a return of the regulation.
Republicans oppose the Fairness Doctrine, arguing it would be wrong for the federal government to monitor political speech on the airwaves, in order to require opposing views.
The FCC doesn't constantly monitor every single thing on the airwaves now. They set up guidelines, broadcasters mostly adhere to it, and, when they don't, viewers complain, prompting the FCC to investigate. There's no reason to think that the primary enforcers of the Fairness Doctrine wouldn't be the American viewing public, serving as watchdogs just as they are now on "decency"-related content.
Also bullshit is the commonly-held assertion that the Fairness Doctrine curbs free speech. It does not. It censors nothing, but merely exhorts authentic balance, which, in the end, means more speech, not less.
All of us have seen cable news. We know they've got time to spare. Dead air would be better than hour three of Groundhog Day coverage.
The reason the Republicans don't like the Fairness Doctrine is because they've got a monopoly on the airwaves and they know it. And even with the media giving them an unfair advantage, they're losing ground.
The reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine could be the death knell for the GOP as we know it.
Contact Rep. Hinchey and let him know you support his efforts. (If you're not in his district, you'll have to call.)
Contact your Senators and Representatives and encourage them to support the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.
Friday Blogaround
Blogaround-round-round, I blogaround!
Recommended Reading:
Greenwald: Obama and Liberals: A Counter-Productive Relationship
Nojojojo: Return of the Revenge of the Daughter of the Welfare Queen
Elana: The Bizarre Burgeoning Legend of Judd Gregg
Lena: No, Lawrence King Wasn't Sexually Harassing His Killer
Kate: The Law Doesn't Apply to You (If You a White, Male Texas Sheriff)
Andrea: All the RE5 Discussion Needed Was a Nice White Gamer
Lauredhel: "We Teach Boys"
Leave your links in comments...
Ahh, Romance
Nothing says romance like the whiff of potential spousal murder:
It's an unusual combination. Buy a pair of diamond earrings, get a free gun.Now, I don't think that every, or even most, of the men who want a little bang with their bling are going to kill their wives. I fervently hope that none of them will! I'm just creeped the hell out by the whole offer because I know that one third of female murder victims are killed by an intimate, mostly spouses, I know that proportion is on the rise, and I know that one of the primary motivations for men who murder their wives is protecting their material possessions that might be lost in a divorce. So the idea of a dude buying a valuable possession at the same time he buys a potential murder weapon, no less under the banner of Valentine's Day, when more couples break up than at any other time of the year, is just spine-tingling.
General Coin and Gun Exchange owner Brian Zinn says since "guys like guns and girls like diamonds," he would "mesh the two together this year."
…Zinn says if you buy a $400 pair of diamond earrings, you can pick any gun in the store worth under $300.
The free gun deal runs through Valentine's Day.
The whole thing is okay, though, you see, because Zinn says that "some wives have been sending their husbands into the store" to take advantage of the hot deal. It's not noted, naturally, that's according to the husbands, not the wives who allegedly sent them.
Shiver.
[H/T to Shaker Trina.]
But It's Not His Fault
I don't know how much this story is making the rounds, but if you're not familiar with it, let me fill you in. Wisconsin high school student Anthony R. Stancl, 18, set up a phony Facebook account then and used it to dupe dozens of his classmates into sending him nude photos of themselves. But here's the kicker: Stancl then used the nude photos as leverage to blackmail several of his classmates, some as young as 15, into "having sex" with him.
Stancl has been charged with "a dozen felony charges, including sexual assault on children and possession of child pornography." As he should be. Not that he's without his defenders.
Earlier this week Christopher Frizzelle published a piece on The Stranger titled "What He Did Was Wrong, Yes—But..." wherein he states:
…Lying is wrong, and blackmail is wrong, and sexual assault on a minor is wrong—this kid clearly deserves to get in trouble—but doing this up as a sexual-predator-ravages-a-Wisconsin-town type story … seems slightly off.Bully for you, Frizzelle, for understanding that "sexual assault on a minor is wrong." Too bad you can't see that sexually assaulting minors is, in fact, predatory as well.
I guess that's because there were "mitigating factors." Let the victim-blaming begin!
First of all, teenagers lie to one another all the time. Second, these [teenagers] took photos/videos of their [genitals] and sent them to a person on the internet—a person they'd never met—of their own volition.So, yeah, they were basically asking for it. Kids lie, and if they send off nudie pics all over the internet, well, they get what they deserve. Nevermind that the victims are children.
If you're wondering how anyone can defend Stancl's behavior, let me mention one other thing. Stancl is gay, and all his victims were male. And that, according to Frizzelle, makes it okay.
Back to the mitigating factors: "Third, gay kids in high school are the victims of humiliating pranks constantly, as well as the low-level humiliation of being other." Besides "Stancl thought of what he was doing as a prank." No big deal, then, eh? I guess blackmailing children into "having sex" is just harmless fun.
It must be, because "those blackmail victims didn't just call the cops." In fact, "seven of them agreed to it" and "none of those seven victims ever complained to authorities." The experience was probably a good one for the victims, because Stancl was "teaching them a valuable lesson: don't send photos/videos of your naked self to people you don't know on the internet."
Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's easy being a gay teenager. I'm not going to tell you high school is a walk in the park far any queer kid, in or out of the closet. But having a rough go of it is not some sort of get out of jail free card allowing one to sexually assault fellow students with impunity.
And just because the assailant's actions play into that tired "all gay people are predatory" meme doesn't mean he should be let off the hook lest he prove all those anti-gay whack jobs right.
What Stancl did was criminal, and no amount of victim-blaming or excuses can change that.
Looking for Rape Products? Try Amazon.
[Strong trigger warning.]
Long-time Shakers will recall that, in Dec. 2006, I wrote about a terribly fucked-up video game that functions as a rape simulator called Rapelay, the entire purpose of which is to rape women as viciously as possible until the characters say things like, "I want to die," at which point you can take pictures of their brutalized bodies before leaving, or rape them again "to shut them up."
I wish that were as horrific as it gets, but the game also keeps a running score of how many times the player ejaculates inside his victims, and is controlled via "an intuitive 'click and drag' interface, which leaves your other hand free to masturbate while watching graphic scenes of rape."
The game was only being sold in Japan when I first wrote about it, but a British MP recently discovered it was being sold on Amazon, who removed the page after being contacted by the Belfast Telegraph. (See the Google cache of the page here. See a screenshot of the product listing here.) Amazon "would not comment on the item or say why it had been offered for sale through their website," nor, presumably, for how long it had been for sale and how many copies they sold before they took the page down.
Out of curiosity, I did a search for "rape" under video games, just to see if anything at all would come up, now that Rapelay's been removed. I got this result:
[Click to embiggen.]Your search "rape" did not match any products. Did you mean: age
But then a funny thing happened when I clicked through to the Age of Empires product page. About halfway down the page, there's this:
[Click to embiggen.]Looking for "rape" Products? Explore 1106 other items related to "rape"
If you click on the link, it just takes you to page after page of films and books containing rape scenes (sorted by popularity). In good news, Yes Means Yes was on page 6, not that anyone deliberately looking for rape scenes as wank material likely gives a fuck about enthusiastic consent. (Still, teaspoons.) And finding The Rape Recovery Handbook on page 9 was just heart-wrenching. After about 70 listings for rape-lovers, here's one for their victims.
As if that weren't enough, the tag cloud for "related products" associated with this search is positively stunning. Welcome to the rape culture:
That little "women" in the lower right corner is just…excruciating.
Mind you, if you go to Amazon and just search for "rape," the results are very different indeed. The Rape Recovery Handbook is #2 on the list, and while there is some pro-rape horror-torture type stuff at the top of the returns, it's balanced with anti-rape academic work and memoirs.
In other words, it doesn't look anything at all like the back-door "rape products" search I discovered.
There's certainly no tag cloud offering me related products about "revenge," "violence," "child abuse," or "sex."
I'm sure there are all sorts of elaborate excuses about user-driven content and metrics and interfaces and algorithms and blah blah blah, meant to make my silly little girly head understand this sort of thing is just the price we've all got to pay in the wild west of the internetz. But, suffice it to say, I could not come even close to recreating these results at Barnes and Noble, nor any other online retailer I tried.
Nowhere else was I offered up an opportunity to browse "rape products" clearly tailored to people who get off on rape. Nowhere else was I asked if I meant to search for "age," but nonetheless offered a link to browse "rape products." Nowhere else did I see "revenge" or "women" associated with rape.
If that's the price I pay to do business with Amazon, I've no problem at all taking my business elsewhere.
[H/T to Shaker RiderOnTheStorm, who hat tips BoingBoing, where I strongly discourage venturing into comments.]
The Name Game
The Religious Right doesn't want to be called that any more.
The term "Religious Right" pops up every election cycle, but leaders often identified with the political movement say that while their constituencies remain strong, the catchphrase deserves a proper burial.Let's see... they're "religious" and they're conservative, which is popularly known as the "right" in political discourse. It's an innocuous term, and accurate. But hey, if they don't want to be called that, it's cool. But what should we call them? Are they accepting suggestions, because I have several. How about "Ignorant Tightasses", or "Superstitious Gay-Sex-Obsessed Busybodies"?
[...]
[S]everal politically conservative evangelicals said in interviews that they do not want to be identified with the "Religious Right," "Christian Right," "Moral Majority," or other phrases still thrown around in journalism and academia.
I'm sure we can come up with some helpful suggestions.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
A Reminder: Terrence Howard Still A Misogynist Wankstain
When asked by paparazzi last night if he had any comment on the Chris Brown incident with Rihanna, the actor said, "It's just life, man. Chris is a great guy. He'll be all right. And Rihanna knows he loves her. She'll be all right. Just everybody's got to get out of their way."Hey, yeah, domestic assault, that's just life. Maybe if you're Howard. Maybe if you're a virulent misogynist. And maybe if you think abusers are really just "great guys."
Howard later apologized in a written statement, saying he was unaware of the allegations against Brown. Clearly, that is bullshit; the quote makes zero sense in any other context. But wevs.
And as an aside, following on the post Liss wrote yesterday, what the fuck is the paparazzi doing asking Howard his opinion on Rihanna and Brown. What the fuck is the paparazzi doing asking Howard his opinion of anything?
Seriously, Howard, shut the fuck up already. And paparazzi, you shut the fuck up too.
Sometimes...
...I look at the list of what search terms have brought people to Shakesville, and I just want to cry.
