Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
Lost Open Thread
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
Yo! GOP Raps
The Republican frantic flailing to remain relevant makeover continues:
"We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles," Steele told the Washington Times. "But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."This could conceivably be the greatest thing to ever happen in the history of everything.
"It will be avant garde, technically," he said of the new public relations team he's signing on. "It will come to the table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook." He also added: "I don't do 'cutting-edge.' That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge."Word.
Phelpses Banned from Britain
A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.Rock.
Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.
Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke is staging The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay.
The UK Border Agency said it opposed "extremism in all its forms."
A spokesman added: "Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities. The government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms. We will continue to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country. The exclusions policy is targeted at all those who seek to stir up tension and provoke others to violence regardless of their origins and beliefs."
That's what a free speech policy that recognizes the fundamental difference between speech and incitement to hatred looks like.
[H/T to Iain.]
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
A '70s British kids' show with the creepiest theme music evah!
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
Sorry for the late thread! I was so Lostmified I forgot to post it! My apologies, Chefies.
...JEFFWTF?!??!!111!
I Write Letters
[Trigger warning.]
Dear Alan Maimon of the Las Vegas Review Journal (also mentioned in this morning's blogaround)*,
Publishing a lavish photo spread featuring "Las Vegas' most prolific prostitutes"--under the 64-point headline, "WORKING GIRLS"--isn't edgy, interesting, or funny. It doesn't do your readers a service. And the fact that you included one perfunctory quote about how men who patronize prostitutes are the real criminals--from the mayor of Las Vegas, but still--does not make up for the fact that you devoted 1,400 words and several full-color pages to "outing" these women, many of whom (not that you'd know it from reading your story) are statistically likely to have been sexually abused, to be addicted to drugs, to be beaten and exploited by their pimps, or to have been forced into prostitution at a very young age.
A few statistics to help you with your future reporting:
• According to the US Department of Justice, the average age at which girls first enter prostitution is 12 to 14. That could explain why so many of the "working girls" in your story are have managed to be so "prolific" by 20 or 21 years old.
• About 70 percent of those arrested for prostitution are women. Clients make up only about 10 percent of all arrests, indicating that law enforcement places a much heavier emphasis on women on the street than on the men who patronize prostitutes.
• Between 40 and 85 percent of prostitutes are addicted to drugs, according to one frequently cited study.
• According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 80 percent of prostitutes were victims of childhood sexual abuse.
• In a survey of San Francisco prostitutes, 82 percent of the respondents reported being physically assaulted since entering prostitution--55 percent by clients. Sixty-eight percent of those women reported being raped.
• According to one study, two-thirds of prostitutes in nine countries displayed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder "at a severity that was comparable to treatment-seeking combat veterans."
• According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (pdf) 58 percent of prostituted women were or had been homeless.
• Another study, also in Chicago, showed that most prostitutes made less than $20,000 a year after giving a 25 percent cut to their pimps.
Please follow up with a piece about the effects of prostitution on female prostitutes in Las Vegas, featuring interviews with the women whose photos you featured in your story but to whom you did not give the opportunity to speak. This time, please include equivalent information (photos, name, age, offense) about the johns--the men who pay women for sex, but go largely unpunished. Please keep in mind the statistics above--statistics that may not make for a salacious story, but which might shed some light on the actual lives of the silent women who make up the "unique most wanted list" featured in your story.
Hearts,
Erica
* I debated about whether to post this image--the fact that posting the women's photos might repeat their victimization did not escape me--but decided to do so because I want all y'all to see just how over-the-top the Review-Journal's treatment of this story was.
Question of the Day
"We are dealing with sick people here!"*
My mother is in the hospital today having a complete shoulder replacement. If all goes well she will be home tomorrow. I am looking at her Netflix queue, trying to decide the funniest, most uplifting movies/TV shows to help her through the post-surgery pain and exhaustion phase and the subsequent frequent rests she'll need between physical therapy exercises. So, the question is, what movies/TV shows have gotten you through difficult periods of recuperation (surgeries, accidents, illnesses, etc.)? If you have a chronic illness that flares, what uplifts you through the bad times?
After some oral surgery in '87, I watched The Princess Bride so many times I know it by heart.
____
*Cloris Leachman in High Anxiety. We love this move so much in my family that when we were kids my parents would joke about taking our fruit cups away if we were late anywhere. Yeah, this one is totally going at the top of my Mother's Netflix list now.
Michael Savage: Expert on Womanhood
[All the hippie girls with patchouli oil are] all sixty years old, and they're all in Code Pink. They're way past their prime, so there's only one thing left for a woman after her prime of sexual excess, and that's radical left-wing politics.I'm pretty sure Michael Savage is trying to tell us he wants to do sexy times with Phyllis Schlafly.
Maybe a hot threeway with Phyl and Maggie Thatcher.
I'm sad to hear it turns out I'm past my prime of sexual excess. I hadn't even hit my sexual peak yet! Damn.
Quote of the Day
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton* reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."—New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan responding to criticisms over Sean Delonas' repulsive cartoon, which the Post published earlier today.
You've got no sense of humor. Check.
It isn't racist. Check.
Anyone who sees racism is overreacting. Check.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a hysteric. Check.
It's the people who point out racism, not the people who exploit it, who are the attention-seeking opportunists. Check.
BINGO!
----------------
* who called the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys."
And Justice For All
Since it's turned out to be one of those kinds of days...
Allow me to turn your attention to this piece of appalling news out of Pennsylvania: Last week two judges plead guilty to fraud, having accepted over two-and-a-half million dollars in kickbacks for sentencing juvenile offenders to privately run detention centers.
"At the hands of two grossly corrupt judges and several conspirators, hundreds of Pennsylvania children, their families and loved ones, were victimized and their civil rights violated," attorney Michael Cefalo said in a statement Friday.
In the plea agreement, Ciavarella and Conahan admitted they "abused their position ... by secretly deriving more than 2,600,000 (dollars) in income ... in exchange for official actions."Among the judges' alleged offenses: "14-year-old ... Bernadine [Wallace] was charged with terroristic threats after getting into an argument on MySpace. ...The teenager was not advised of her right to an attorney and was pressured to plead guilty. She was taken from Ciavarella's courtroom in shackles and spent time in PA Child Care and at a youth wilderness camp."
Those actions included "entering into agreements guaranteeing placement of juvenile offenders with PA Child Care, LLC (and) facilitating the construction of juvenile detention facilities."
And "a youth detained for nine months for stealing a four-dollar jar of spices, and a 13-year-old who was sent to boot camp for several weekends for exploring an abandoned building."
For fuck's sake, that is a vile and repellent abuse of power.
Police Assault Woman Who Called for Help; Sue News Station Who Exposes Them
[Serious trigger warning.]
In the below video, Ohio NBC affiliate WKYC investigator Tom Meyer speaks to Greg Steffey, whose wife, Hope Steffey, called 911 after being assaulted by her cousin. When the police arrived, Hope was "mistakenly" treated as the perpetrator, arrested, taken to jail, subjected to a full-body strip search by male and female officers in violation of the sheriff's department's own policy, and left naked in a cell for six hours. There is video of the strip search included in the news segment, and it is extremely upsetting:
Given that Hope was never asked to remove her clothes with an explanation of why it was necessary, but instead just forcibly subjected to a strip search by officers of both sexes without her consent, I fail utterly to see how this is not a sexual assault.
And though the case is exacerbated by Hope Steffey ending up in police custody after calling for their help, there's categorically no justification for this sort of treatment of anyone, irrespective of their being suspected of a crime, or not.
The story gets even worse, as five more women subsequently came forward alleging similar mistreatment, with a refrain of "threatened suicide." That is, according to the police, each female detainee threatened suicide, which triggered the strip search, presumably to ensure they had no means of hurting themselves.
That the women deny making such threats is only part of the problem; even if they had, there is still no legitimate reason to forego requesting voluntarily compliance before effectively attacking the women to remove their clothes, nor is there legitimate reason to have violated department policy about strip searches being performed only by members of the same sex.
Now the officers involved in the case, caught on video roughly removing Hope Sheffey's clothes to the sound of her terrified screams, are suing the station who shone sunlight on their dirty deeds, claiming defamation and—get this—invasion of privacy.
Stark County sheriff’s deputies who were vilified after a Cleveland television station aired video of them stripping a woman at the Stark County Jail have filed a lawsuit saying they are victims of one-sided reporting.Well, I'd certainly love to hear the "other side" of this story—you know, the one in which six police officers can come up with a reasonable explanation for why they held down a woman who'd called them for help and tore her clothes off in a flagrant breach of their department's own policy. That would be some fun victim-blaming, no doubt.
The sheriff's office contends that deputies removed Steffey's clothing as a suicide precaution on the orders of a psychologist after she made a statement to a nurse indicating that she might harm herself.That old canard!
Meyer disregarded any information that could support that claim, including Steffey's booking photos, jail audio recordings, a 911 tape and a transcript of her criminal trial, which included testimony that Steffey was intoxicated and ended with her conviction for misdemeanor resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, Zimmerman said.I'll give you a moment to recover from learning that Hope Steffey was later convicted for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. I'm guessing you won't be surprised to find out that the video of the police forcibly stripping her wasn't made available to her attorneys until after her trial.
"We provided all the facts to Mr. Meyer and then he ignored all the facts that interfere with his sensationalized story and one-sided story," Zimmerman said.
As to Meyer's disregard of that totally pertinent information (I'd love to hear how a booking photo can support a claim she was threatening suicide, by the way), maybe he just didn't think it was relevant that Steffey was drunk. Perhaps Meyer isn't in the habit of blaming victims for their assaults, so he doesn't think that even a suicide threat, which clearly signals a person in crisis, warrants breaking the rules to further terrorize them. Just a thought.
The reports were "purely for ratings and for advertising and promotion," said Brian Zimmerman, one of the attorneys representing the deputies.Because, of course, there could be no value to the community to know that women are being sexually assaulted by the police, and no reason to stop it from happening. It's just about the ratings.
Look, I don't hate cops; my grandfather was NYPD, and he was a great guy and a great cop who really enjoyed and cared about people. And one of the things I always remember him saying about cops is that the badge doesn't make you a good person—and bad people make bad cops.
Good cops don't break the rules to hurt someone and claim it's for her own good. Good cops find a way to do the right thing, the right way.
[H/T to Shaker Maria M.]
Terrence Howard, Misogynist, Part 3
Yes, Terrence Howard is still a ginormous misogynist skidmark on the panties of human decency. And it turns out, that's not a new thing.
In 2001 Howard was arrested for assaulting his estranged wife. As Howard told officers at the time, "I broke the door down and hit my wife."
According to a Whitemarsh Police Department report, after Howard and Lori McCommas argued on the phone, the actor warned, "Don't disrespect me by hanging up on me or I'll come over and hurt you." McCommas then "hung up and contacted 911 fearing Howard was serious." While McCommas was speaking with a police dispatcher, Howard "showed up at the victim's residence and began breaking the door down." McCommas ran to the rear of the house and into the backyard. Howard then "broke the front door down and ran through the screen door in the kitchen. Howard then grabbed the victim's left arm and punched her twice with a closed fist in the left side of the face."I wish I could say I was shocked by this, but Howard has already offered up enough evidence of his contempt for women.
Chris Brown, meanwhile, was unavailable for comment.
Questions for ND
For the Reps and potential-voting Senators, that is. And, I suppose, anyone who supports this legislation.
So you (the Reps) have just passed something that says fetuses have personhood/legal rights. When do these rights start? Conception, right? Perhaps one day when there will be a test for that. I suppose that means they retroactive then, from a positive pregnancy test? When will an embryo get its social security number? How many more government officials will you be paying to deal with this? Speaking of giving embryos SSNs, what are you planning on doing for the ones that are frozen in the IVF clinics in your state? What, again, were you planning with regards to infertility treatments?
Since a woman's body is giving life to the embryo or fetus via the placenta/umbilical cord/blood/uterine environment and this embryo or fetus has full rights of personhood, how will the woman then be monitored? If she eats something like, oh, sushi...will she be fined? After all, you aren't supposed to do that as it could be dangerous to the embryo/fetus and the embryo/fetus is a full legal person that one cannot submit to harm. How much is too much Starbucks? Again, how will this be monitored?
Also, how much more money will have to be put into Medicaid and the like to pay for all the women now legally forced--yes, that's what it is--to give birth? How much are you going to raise taxes to pay for more hospitals, more doctors, and more clinics? Oh and I'm sure the over-burdened and under-funded foster care system thanks you.
Speaking of harm, what about miscarriages? If an embryo/fetus has full legal standing as a genuine/individual person, the its 'death' will need to be investigated via autopsy. When I miscarried, I started bleeding on a Wednesday. I went in for my ultrasound on Thursday where it was confirmed. I couldn't get into see my ob/gyn until very early Friday morning, which by then I had naturally passed everything (into the toilet). Should women who face the same situation straddle a bucket to bleed in? Keep her pads? Take the contents to the police? The contents of such will need to be investigated to make sure that there was no foul play involved, as again, an embryo/fetus is a full legal person whose death would warrant an investigation and, eventually, death certificate (which, btw, are not given for miscarriages now). How much more money will this cost? These ideas were submitted before the VA state legislature some time back, btw, if you recall. But also necessary if declaring embryos full-fledged people which you are doing.
So. An embryo is a person of legal standing and abortion is murder. Ok then. Murder is a very serious crime. So, somehow or another, a woman is 'caught' trying to abort (or aborted). Perhaps the tox screen of her miscarriage contents show black cohosh. Maybe she showed up septic at the hospital with a partially done abortion like so many women in the mid-late 20th century. Either way, she's guilty of trying to or already committing murder under your new legislation. Where are you going to put all these new prisons? How are you going to pay for them? If "abortion is murder" there must be criminal investigations, trials, more prisons, and it all has to be paid for.
So you have more social workers, more foster stipends, more hospitals, more clinics, more welfare needs for those who don't relinquish, more police time in criminal investigations, more DA's to prosecute, more prisons...so what programs in ND are going to get the axe to pay for all of this?
Let me know what you come up with. I'm sure it will be something of the same stunning caliber as the initial law you retrofuck, mysoginistic assholes just passed.
Wednesday Blogaround
What's the frequency, Shakers?
Recommended Reading:
Shaker YoungFeminist gets a response from Britain's Advertising Standards Authority about that retrofuck Virgin Airlines ad. Spoiler Warning: Guess what? It's totally not sexist!
Also see Louise for a related post.
Ann: Las Vegas Cracks Down on Sex Workers—and Publishes Their Photos
Mannion: The Invisibles
SarahMC: Domestic Abuse Rises as Economy Falters
Sady: SCIENCE FACT: Douchebags Treat Girls Like Crap, Do Not Care
Renee: Bristol Palin Says Abstinence Is Not Realistic
Leave your links in comments...
But Roe!!!!!11!1eleventy!
It is precisely this sort of retrofuckery I was talking about when I kept saying during the election, like a broken record, that beating knowledgeable pro-choice women and men over the heads with the Democrats Will Protect Roe card was an outdated argument—because the abortion battlefield has been relocated to state governments.
North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion.The paragon of virtue who sponsored this bill, Republican State Representative Dan Ruby, says the bill will withstand any challenge based on Roe's precedent because, "This is the exact language that's required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that's what this does." The North Dakota State Senate will now consider the bill, which, if again passed, will certainly go thereafter to the courts for a constitutional challenge.
The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person.
That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder.
I'd like to note that, since a fertilized egg is actually dependent on another human body for its survival, the ND House technically voted to confer upon a fertilized egg more rights than any person. Unless, that is, ND has also passed a law allowing its citizens to, say, demand a spare kidney from any compatible donor, irrespective of the donor's consent.
[H/T to Shaker Ann.]
Welcome to Post-Racial America
This is what seems to have happened: Editorial cartoonist reads headlines about President Obama's major legislative accomplishment—the passage of the stimulus bill. Editorial cartoonist reads headlines about a savage chimpanzee attack on a woman in Connecticut, which eventually resulted in police having to shoot the chimp). Editorial cartoonist mulls. Editorial cartoonist develops a concept from the resulting mishmash inside his idiot head. Editorial cartoonist produces this clusterfuck of a cartoon, which appeared in the New York Post today:
Sam Stein writes:
The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.And nothing's more awesome than piquing racial hatred to stir up a little controversy. It's so "edgy."
"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," reads the caption.
An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper.
At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that's what Delonas wanted.
If it wasn't deliberate, the ignorance is astounding.
[H/T to Shaker NWHiker.]
Dream Chancellor Barbie
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel was a little girl, I bet she dreamed of growing up to be the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world, to make her country better for its people, to be a trailblazing role model for women all over the world—and then to get her own Barbie.
Barbie can add another dream job to her list - Germany's first female head-of-state.
Toy company Mattel debuted the Chancellor Angela Merkel Barbie last week at an international toy fair in the southern city of Nuremberg. It sports Merkel's signature strawberry-blond bob, an elegant black pantsuit and low-heeled shoes.
OMG, which one's which?! They look so alike I can't tell which one is Chancellor Merkel and which one is a cheap plastic doll—what a likeness!
"Creating a copy of someone is not the intention - we're not Madame Tussauds," [Mattel spokesperson Stephanie Wegener] said. "It's just a lookalike doll created to honor her."And what an honor it is.
Mattel chose Merkel because she's "a role model for other women worldwide" who "represents what we can achieve," and I can't think of any better way to honor an iconic symbol of women's potential by slapping her name on an impossibly-proportioned doll marketed to little girls as an aspirational figure: Be smart and accomplished like Chancellor Merkel, but be prettier—like Barbie!
File under: Things the World Doesn't Need. Cross-reference with: George Bush's Christmas List.
[H/T to Shaker Kira.]
