This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Supermo Black Ankle Booties since 1984.
Recommended Reading:
Digby: The "Debate"
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 72
Andy: New York City Clerk Inadvertently Marries Same-Sex Couple
UPDATE: Please also see Autumn Sandeen's post about the problem with the language in the above link.
Cara: Group of Teenagers Attacks Trans Woman in Seattle
Pam: Janet Porter on Hate Crimes Bill: 'Pedophile Protection Act'
Wendi: Nostalgia: A Sport for the Privileged
Leave your links in comments...
Monday Blogaround
The Politico Thinks Stalking Is Funny
[Trigger warning.]
In a truly abysmal article titled—I shit you not—"The Hunks of Washington," Politico writers Daniel Libit & Erika Lovley introduce their list of the Beltway's hunkiest hotties with this opening salvo:
Washington is a magical place, a place where the onetime victims of boyhood gym-locker entombment can grow up to become the objects of affection, admiration, compulsive fandom, BlogSpot pages and Cafe Press T-shirts.Ho ho ho. You see, because being stalked is a compliment. Only the truly sexy among us are afforded the enviable bit of flattery that is becoming the pointed focus of an obsessive and entitled fixation, the increasingly sinister expressions of which intensify as the ostensible admirer tightens orbits in ever smaller concentric circles, slowly squeezing every last remnant of safety, security, and anything resembling normalcy out of one's life.
It is, safe to say, the only place where Ari Fleischer could have a stalker.
What an awesome compliment!
What makes their joke even more hilarious is that it's not just a figure of speech: Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was actually stalked while working for the Bush 43 administration:
Mei-Ling Lin, 31, of Cambridge, Mass., was arrested this week after refusing to leave the doorstep of Fleischer's home. Lin had been stalking Fleischer for at least two weeks.Geez, I can't believe Fleischer called the police. I guess he didn't know he's supposed to be flattered by all the attention. Uppity bald four-eyed nerd.
When Fleischer arrived home at 11:30 p.m. on April 9, Lin was waiting at his front door, insisting she knew him. He went inside and she "then began making bizarre sounds," according to the complaint. Fleischer called the cops, who escorted Lin away. She returned just before 3 a.m. and leaned on his doorbell, insisting on seeing him. Again, cops took her away. But she was back again that morning, the complaint says.
For the next two weeks, Lin allegedly "followed and harassed" the White House aide "maliciously and with the intent to cause emotional distress."
The Politico has stepped significantly beyond the bounds of decency by casually reinforcing the narrative that stalking is a compliment, no less by joking about an actual victim of stalking, calling him ugly and implicitly suggesting he ought to be thrilled at being stalked in the process. I can't imagine by what editorial measure such a stain of journalistic sewage passed muster for publication. Utterly shameful.
[Related: Rape is not a compliment.]
Staying Classy
Via TPM, yet another Republican has made a blatantly racist comment about Michelle Obama and thought he was being funny.
Rusty DePass, a prominent South Carolina Republican activist, is now apologizing for making a racist joke about Michelle Obama, and taken down the Facebook page where he made it -- though he does make sure to shift the blame and say that Michelle started it.And of course he uses the non-apology apology line -- "if I offended anyone" -- as if there's any question that comparing an African-American to a gorilla could be taken any other way.
DePass commented on a story about a gorilla escaping from a local zoo: "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."
"I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone," said DePass. "The comment was clearly in jest."
But, he said, "The comment was hers, not mine," referring to Michelle having said that man has descended from apes. The New York Daily News says they could find no such comment from Michelle -- but even if they could, it's not like that would make it any better.
I'm willing to bet that Ms. Obama will shrug off Mr. DePass as just another in a long string of white racist assholes she's had to deal with all her life and not even comment on it. That's her style. Will the media, though, give as much attention to this as they gave to David Letterman's equally stupid and classless jokes about Sarah Palin and her family? I'll bet not.
Cross-posted.
Oh, Dolly.
How I love thee. Let me count the ways:
Country singer Dolly Parton delighted hundreds of Tennessee Girl Scouts when she made a surprise entrance at a ceremony to present them with a patch created in her honor.In a world where everyone is encouraged to conform, Maude bless Dolly Parton for taking the time to encourage girls to be unique and lending her name to a project that celebrates and rewards their individuality.
Parton appeared on stage at the Pines Theatre in Pigeon Forge, where 400 Girl Scouts were receiving the new "Coat of Many Colors" patch. It is named for Parton and her 1971 song of the same name.
Parton is a lifetime member of the Girl Scouts. She wore her own uniform, hugged and chatted with the girls on Saturday. The song tells the story of how schoolmates made fun of a coat Parton's mother made from rags. The patch requires Scouts to help others, then design a collage of what makes them special.
Charming
Recently, Pastor Wiley Coyote Drake, former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and running mate of Alan Keyes, announced he was making "imprecatory" prayers beseeching God to cause Obama's death:
I think it's appropriate to pray for the will of God. I'm not saying anything, what I'm doing is repeating what God is saying, if that puts me on somebodies list then I'll just have to be on their list. [...] If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around I am asking God to enforce in imprecatory prayers throughout the scripture that would cause him death.Being the resident Heeb Laureate of Shakesville, I admit I'm not well-versed in the teachings of that Jesus dude, but I don't recall ever hearing any: "Go forth and pester my dad for the death of thine enemies."
God could not be reached for comment.
Open Thread: Iran Election
For the past couple of days, I've just been reading lots of stuff about the Iran election and its aftermath, in which charges of voter fraud have led to protests and escalating violence. There are articles quite convincingly arguing that the outcome was legitimate; there are also articles quite convincingly questioning whether that's accurate. I quite honestly don't even feel remotely qualified, or even, after all the reading I've done, sufficiently informed, to draw any kind of firm conclusion, so I'm just going to throw some links out there, below, and open it up for discussion.
New York Times—Leader Emerges With Stronger Hand: "Whether his 63 percent victory is truly the will of the people or the result of fraud, it demonstrated that Mr. Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution. ... With this election, Mr. Khamenei and his protégé appear to have neutralized for now the reform forces that they saw as a threat to their power, political analysts said. 'This will change the face of the Islamic Republic forever,' said one well-connected Iranian, who like most of those interviewed declined to be named in the current tense climate. 'Ahmadinejad will claim an absolute mandate, meaning he has no need to compromise'."
Der Spiegel—'Extraordinary Amount of Wishful Thinking' by US: "The Western media overstated the surge of his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi over the last couple of weeks. They missed almost entirely how Ahmadinejad was perceived to have won the television debate, for instance. There was an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking on the part of American and Western policymakers. Unfortunately, that had a strong impact on the media coverage over the past few weeks."
FiveThirtyEight—Iranian Election Results by Province: "Based on conversations with people who are a bit more informed about Iranian domestic politics, it seems absolutely possible that Ahmadinejad in fact won (although his share of the vote was probably boosted through 'dirty tricks'—intimidation both before and during the election, jamming text messaging services, etc.) and also absolutely possible that the election was stolen. The statistical evidence is intriguing but, ultimately, inconclusive."
Washington Post—The Iranian People Speak: "The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin—greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election."
Informed Comment—Terror Free Tomorrow Poll Did not Predict Ahmadinejad Win: "[G]iven the PFTFT numbers, all of the undecideds would have had to vote for Ahmadinejad in order for him to get over 60% of the total vote. That outcome seems to me so statistically unlikely as to rate as an impossibility. Note that the regime is not merely claiming that Ahmadinejad barely avoided a run-off by getting 51% of the vote. They are saying he received nearly two-thirds of the vote. No such outcome was predicted by the PFTFT poll—quite the opposite."
New York Times—Khamenei Calls for Vote Inquiry Amid Calls for Calm: "The Iranian opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared publicly on Monday for the first time in more than two days to call for calm as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for a high-level inquiry into accusations of election irregularities. ... Mr. Moussavi met with the supreme leader on Sunday night, several news agencies quoted state television as reporting. Ayatollah Khamenei then asked that the powerful Guardian Council 'precisely examine' Mr. Moussavi's charges of irregularities, state media said. The council will make its findings known in 10 days, according to the state media reports."
AP—Pro-reform marchers fill Tehran streets: "Iran's supreme leader ordered Monday an investigation into allegations of election fraud, marking a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Washington Independent—Obama's Iran Policy to Focus on Human Rights, Not Election: "As reports of political violence in Iran intensified after Friday’s fiercely disputed election, the Obama administration insisted that it would not interfere with the struggle for power between regime-backed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the thousands of demonstrators who contend the election was stolen. Administration officials, on and off the record, said that President Obama would offer support for human rights in Iran generally and would not back away from his diplomatic outreach to the longtime U.S. adversary, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the election."
On Obama's Defense of the Defense of Marriage Act
Or—"Schmope and Schmange: I Ain't Spending My Political Capital on Queers."
Friday afternoon, the Obama administration filed a brief (via) in the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer vs. the US, State of California, et. al. Smelt and Hammer, a gay couple legally married in California, argued that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) denies them the right to have their marriage legally recognized in other states and also denies their access to federal benefits afforded opposite-sex couples. It was an opportunity for the Obama administration to take a firm stand against the law, which Obama called "abhorrent" during his campaign.
Instead, the brief justified the law, using the same tired old chestnuts we came to expect from Obama's predecessor, including the despicable comparison of states' right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages with their right to refuse to recognize incestuous marriages and unions that would be considered statutory rape under state law, as well as the pathetic contention that a union between one man and one woman is "the traditional, and universally recognized, version of marriage." Blah blah yawn.
Setting aside for the moment the fact that an opposite-sex, two-person union is not, in fact, a "universally" recognized and singular version of marriage, let us deal only with the idea that it is the "traditional" version of marriage. Okay, it's traditional. So fucking what? There are lots of traditions that aren't worth defending (like, for example, the tradition of only white men leading the country, ahem), and the idea that just because something's traditional sets it beyond criticism is anathema to progressivism.
It's hope and change, remember, Mr. President?
Further, the administration argued that rescinding DOMA would "obligate federal taxpayers in other states to subsidize a form of marriage their own states do not recognize," never mind that the suggestion, in addition to its cruel and absurd contention that the denial of civil rights is a great penny-saver, is patent malarkey: As HRC president Joe Solmonese says: "Same-sex couples and their families … pay taxes equally, contribute to our communities equally, support each other equally, pay equally into Social Security, and participate equally in our democracy. Equal protection is not a handout; it is our right as citizens."
Pish tosh! Sayeth the brief:"This policy of neutrality maximizes state autonomy and democratic self-governance in an area of traditional state concern, and preserves scarce government resources. It is thus entirely rational."
I didn't realize Eric Holder was a Vulcan!
See, here's the thing: Maybe the discussion of marriage shouldn't be so goddamned rational. Maybe it should be a little less "maximizing state autonomy and democratic self-governance" and a little more "pursuit of happiness," maybe a little less "scarce government resources" and a little more "abundant love."
Love is not rational. Love is wild and expansive and reckless and unpredictable, and it is one of humankind's greatest achievements—a capacity unique in its magnificence, a radiating splendor which can only be dimmed by the injurious refusal to regard as equal the love between partners on the basis of details that love itself transcends.
To deny love's existence, and equality, in every human heart is to reject our common humanity. We are thus all diminished by anything less than full-throated support for marriage equality, because buried below all the Very Fancy and Very Rational legal defenses of the continued disparity is simply an indefensible avowal that all love is not the same.
There are those who will argue (and have argued, and will continue to argue) that the Justice Department's brief is just a technical legal exercise, to which I will direct you to Pam's post in response. And/or there are those who will argue (and have argued, and will continue to argue) that Obama can't spend the political capital right now, because the economy or healthcare or climate change or the wars or this or that is more important, too important to risk multitasking on an important civil rights issue at the same time—so they play Wait Your Turn and kick the can down the road, as if every other pressing issue will soon be solved, as if midterms won't be yet another convenient excuse, and after that, re-election.
There will always be reasons for Obama not to take up this fight. And progress—real, demonstrable, material, life-changing, practical progress—is never easy. But, as someone once said, "the true genius of America [is] that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. … This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time … to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can."
Yes we can, Mr. President. Can you?
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
We've done this one before, but I was just in the mood for it again.
Saturday YouTubery
Ok, it's not from YouTube but it's the spirit of it. Or something. LOL! Anyway, A radio station I listen to does a "Nineties at Noon" segment weekdays, which I happened to catch the other day and now I cannot get this song I out of my head. So I'm sharing with you all so you can randomly sing the chorus during the day as well:
That's My Boy!
[Trigger warning.]
So, Joel McHale, comedian and host of The Soup, was one of Conan O'Brien's first guests after taking over The Tonight Show, and the segment was one of the most disturbing things I've seen in late night television for awhile (which is really saying something). The video is here, if you are so inclined.
The first half of the interview is just general bullshit chat, and then O'Brien asks McHale about his two sons, at which point McHale launches into a story about his four-year-old hitting on a bikini-clad woman at a wedding reception. The two men chuckle admiringly about how much "game" the little kid has, and it only gets worse from there.
McHale: Then we had this friend over—her name's Kim—she was the most popular girl in high school and she would date nobody. My son was way into her. She was taking a bath in our guest room, and he heard the water, and, much like Superman changing in seconds in a phone booth, he opened the bathroom door, took his clothes off, jumped in the bath [audience begins to laugh uncomfortably as McHale mimes breast-grabbing], and began playing with her boobs. [audience laughs and gasps] And—I'm not joking—
There's so much wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin. The casual hilarity of sexual assault, the implied "just desserts" for the high school ice queen, the invasion of her privacy (twice), the invasion of the son's privacy, the inappropriate behavior of a curious child recast as sexual aggression, the fatherly pride of a sexually aggressive son, the collusion of the show host and audience in rescuing this vile anecdote by pretending it's harmless and funny, the deeming of this content as appropriate for a national audience…
[cut to O'Brien looking unnerved and Gwyneth Paltrow laughing]
McHale: —he scored—and then he goes, he goes, "Open your legs; I want to be closer to you." [audience laughs and gasps; McHale looks proud; O'Brien looks stricken; Paltrow laughs] He scored in fifteen seconds! An entire high school couldn't do what he pulled off in seconds. [audience howls]
O'Brien: You've got to talk to him! This is going to be a problem! [audience laughs] When he gets older—
McHale: No, he's got a book deal!
O'Brien: When he's nineteen and he's jumping into bathtubs, this is gonna be a huge problem!
McHale: I have been encouraging him, so, this is— [O'Brien laughs; Paltrow laughs; audience laughs] But yeah, he's, uh, he's the greatest, so I mean—until he gets arrested for doing that.
[McHale then talks about his 14-month-old son, who "doesn't do anything" yet; O'Brien jokes about McHale having high expectations]
McHale [as if to baby]: Get out there and harass older women! Come on, like your brother!
O'Brien: Yeah, fondle someone's boobies! Come on!
[McHale mimes fondling breasts roughly; audience howls]
I'll leave you to parse the rest in comments.
Maude save us.
Quote of the Day
"Lately, I've been in meetings regarding a new script idea I have. A studio executive asked me to change the female lead to a male, because 'women don't go to movies.' Really? When I pointed out the box office successes of Sex and the City, Mamma Mia, and Obsessed, he called them 'flukes.' He said 'don't quote me on this.' So, I'm telling everybody."—Nia Vardalos, whose new film My Life in Ruins is in theaters now.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, intercontinental matchmakers of mega-nerds for seven years.
Recommended Reading:
PizzaDiavola: I Write Letters: On Alexia Kelley
Melissa: Three Events
Kevin: I Just Don't Know
Marcella: David Letterman's Joke
Echidne: Whatevah!
Eloriane: Disability Fail?
Leave your links in comments...
Not Alone
The smoke had barely cleared from the scene at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. before we found out that the man, James von Brunn, who is accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, is a white supremacist with a long history of hatred towards anything that didn't fit the Nazi definition of the Master Race. He has a lot of writings and web postings that blame every minority he can lay his hands on for his troubles, he subscribes to the belief that President Obama is not a citizen of the United States, and he saw such things as the Holocaust memorial as "the enemy".
As far as we know now, Mr. Von Brunn acted alone; it appears that he spent a lot of time stewing in his own hatred, seeing the conspiracies piling up against him until something set him off on his solo mission from his home in Annapolis to the museum in downtown Washington. This fits the pattern of the "lone wolf," as described in the memo released by the Department of Homeland Security -- and immediately attacked by conservatives who, for some odd reason, thought that they were being singled out as being perpetrators of extremist violence. The howls of protest, including a speech on the floor of Congress by Rep. Michele Bachman (R-MN) against the Obama administration and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano neglected to take into account two details: the report was initiated by the Bush administration, and there was a similar report released at the same time that also warned about attacks from left-wing extremists.
The smoke had barely cleared before the cable shows were wall-to-wall with commentators and reporters making the connection between the ravings of Mr. Von Brunn and the heated rhetoric that has been coming out of a certain corner of the commentariat for the last year or so against Barack Obama and that has only intensified and gotten granular since his inauguration. And while no one is directly accusing the loudest right wingers of being behind Mr. Von Brunn's attack or supporting his views -- no matter what you may think of Rush Limbaugh's self-obsessed blather or Pat Buchanan's nostalgia for Joe McCarthy, they're far too liberal for the likes of the hard-core haters like Mr. Von Brunn -- the response so far from some on the right, including Debbie Schlussel and Michelle Malkin has been an over-reaction of defensive denial that they had anything to do with it even though no one has said they did...leading me to remember the quote from Queen Gertrude in Hamlet; "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." (Ms. Schlussel, in what could only be described as pretzel-logic, blames the shooting on tolerance of Islam in America. And President Obama.) Now to complete the circle of lunacy, the right-wingers have concocted a new meme: Mr. Von Brunn is a lefty.Yesterday, a guest from the "Ayn Rand Institute" argued to Fox News's Glenn Beck that because Von Brunn is a racist, he must of course be "a phenomenon of the left." In response, Beck accepted that logic, and wondered: "How did it happen that you look at people that are Nazis and you say that those are right wing? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever!"
It makes you wonder why these folks are so quick to deflect blame from the right wing and immediately try to pin it on someone else. It's like they have something to hide.
Yes, it's totally baffling.
Not to be outdone, Rush Limbaugh too declared Von Brunn "has more in common with the marchers and protesters we see at left-wing rallies," according to video just aired on MSNBC.
This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum, and the folks who caution against lumping the likes of Mr. Von Brunn in with their points of view would do well to remember that jumping to conclusions works both ways. After all, they are forever warning us about "Hollywood liberals" and the Radical Homosexual Agenda; a brief glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple or two men kissing on TV inevitably lead to the decline of the western world into sin and debauchery. If Glenn Beck carrying on about socialism and fascism doesn't have any impact on the actions of viewers, than neither does mindless sex and violence on TV. And while people like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh will warn the liberals not to use the "isolated incidents" as an excuse to crack down on free speech (which begs the question as to why they think anyone is talking about them) or institute more gun control (nobody was, but thanks for reminding us), the fact is that these aren't isolated incidents. We have these acts of terror on a regular basis, and it doesn't matter what adjective -- "Muslim" or "domestic" or "right-wing" -- we put in front of the word. If it's not the incitement of the words that gin up the paranoia of the disturbed that does it, what is it?
Certainly we can't monitor every website or shut down every nutball that rants about Jews and Negros controlling their life. But Mr. Von Brunn's beliefs were well-known and documented over decades; he first acted out against the Federal Reserve in 1981. And yet people stood by and basically let him carry on until he blew his cork. I'm not suggesting that he should have been arrested before he committed a crime (like in Minority Report) and I sincerely doubt that even had someone tried to get him to climb down would have had any impact, but perhaps it might do well to remember that just standing by and letting this kind of madness percolate isn't an exercise in democracy or freedom of speech; it's enabling the madness.
(Cross-posted.)
Seven
Iain and I had an unusual courtship. We met online, drawn together because of an Oscar Wilde quote an affinity for which we happened to share. It might never have developed into anything at all, beyond any one of similar, unremarkable exchanges we'd both certainly had, except that he asked me: "Fancy a game of Fahrenheit 451? Which book would you memorize for posterity, and which would you throw onto the pyre?" Well. I was hooked.
We became friends in emails, and we confessed our mutual crush over IM. We were on the phone, Iain standing in the street outside a pub in Edinburgh, clutching his mobile phone, drunk and gregarious, when he first told me he loved me—"I loove yeh, Lissie. I LOOVE YEH!!!"—and I laughed and cried and told him I loved him, too.
Following our rather unorthodox falling-in-love, and after not a single day spent in each other's presence that wasn't bathed in the casual, happy light of being on vacation, never having seen each other on a day stressed by work or unpaid bills or the general drudgery of routine, we went to the courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois, and we stood in front of a judge and we got married.
It was, unlike most other marriages, civil unions, and commitment ceremonies, a necessity, the only way we could reside and work and live life in the same place at the same time. We loved each other, but we knew so little—nothing, really—of what it would be like to be in a face-to-face, daily relationship together, that getting married was a pre-cursor to the actual beginning of whatever our authentic relationship would be.
(I don't believe in the sanctity of marriage, so I don't go in for discussions of its subversion, but, if I did, requiring people to get married just to see if they've got a workable relationship would be right at the top of my list.)
Seven years on, what I know about our relationship is this: We laugh a lot, and hard. We can fight and get over it. We still haven't run out of things to talk about—and, when I once told him after our first long conversation about god and death and other Serious Things, "I could have that conversation with you 50 more times," I wasn't wrong. We are both works in progress, which is at turns exhilarating, scary, and tiresome. Each of us has a messy slate, filled with the scrawls and scratches of lives lived with a willingness to fail and fall and fuck up, to take big risks like marrying a person you aren't even smart enough to realize you hardly know.
Or like hanging in there, once you've seen that person's capacity to be grumpy, mean, petty, impatient, and in other ways perfectly horrible. And once you've seen their facility for kindness, for goodness, for idiosyncratic talents and inimitable quirks—and your aching, reverberating love is as much a source of wanton joy as it is a reminder of how much you have to lose.
We are lucky. We were each others' biggest risk, and we are each others' greatest reward.
Last night, I crawled into bed about a half hour after Iain, and, uncharacteristically, he had fallen asleep on his side, facing my side of the bed. I slipped in as quietly as I could, and in the dark I found his hand resting between us. I slid my palm across his, smooth and cool, beneath his slightly curled fingers. He exhaled sleepily, and from somewhere in the space between slumber and waking, his fingers closed and softly grasped by hand.
I grasped his back.
As the clock struck midnight, I laid beside him, holding and being held by him, my partner, my best friend, and I was exactly where I wanted to be.
I love you, Iain. Happy Anniversary.
I Write Letters
Dear Maude,
Please let this be as awesome as it sounds:
Universal has picked up "Lunch Lady," a children's graphic novel series written and illustrated by Jarrett Krosoczka, with Amy Poehler attached to star. Poehler will executive produce along with the Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein set to produce.Love,
Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern are penning the adaptation.
The "Lady" series, the first of which will be unveiled at the end of July by Knopf Books for Young Readers, centers on a mild-mannered school cafeteria server who secretly dishes out helpings of justice as she and her assistant investigate wrongdoings. The books also feature three kids who try to figure out her double life.
The titles include "Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians" and "Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute," both of which are due this summer. "Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta" is scheduled to be released in December and "Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown" is set for summer 2010.
Krosoczka, repped by Writers House and Gotham, is the author-illustrator of books "Punk Farm" and "Max for President."
Liss
P.S. "Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute" is totes making me giggle.
Note for Teacher
This story is giving me a serious case of the awwwwwwwws:
Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.
Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.
"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.
On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note — to Kennedy's surprise.
"I thought he was joking until he started walking down," Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. "It was like the best thing ever."There hasn't been another president in my lifetime who's as good with kids as Barack Obama. He's just absolutely lovely to (and with) them.
[H/T to Iain.]
Chaz (nee Chastity) Bono Transitioning
Chastity Bono is [transitioning] to become a man.Bono was born famous, and has used his fame-by-association in a positive way (or tried to) on behalf of the queer community for half his life. He's probably not so famous, though, that he couldn't have transitioned in private, if he'd wanted to. Or maybe I'm wrong about that; maybe this announcement was pressed by a tabloid who'd been tipped off and was poised to run a SHOCKING! headline. Either way, all I can think is that transitioning in the public eye, nationally, internationally, is really quite selfless and brave.
A spokesman for Bono, born a girl to Sonny and Cher, says he "has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity" and began the sex-change process earlier this year.
Publicist Howard Bragman said Bono is proud of his decision and hopes "that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue."
The 40-year-old writer, activist and reality-TV star came out as gay 20 years ago, Bragman said.
In the book "Family Outing: A Guide to the Coming-Out Process for Gays, Lesbians, & Their Families," Bono describes the realization of being "somehow different — specifically different from who my mom expected me to be."(Link)
[H/T to Deeky.]
On Safe Spaces and High-Hoping Fools
There are very few things about which I am certain, but this is one of them: There are no totally safe spaces.
Despite that, and because of that, I've tried to make Shakesville as safe a space as is possible, for everyone who inhabits it. Woman, man, androgyne, black, white, brown, gay, straight, bi, asexual, trans, cis, intersex, fat, thin, tall, short, disabled, able-bodied, old, young, and in-between, the infinite intersectionalities of humankind—all have been welcome, to the best of my abilities. I have tried to listen when I've failed, and make adjustments.
I've had that promise—and my efforts, imperfect as they've been—erroneously invoked numerous times by the recently-banned or a departing commenter mid-flounce, people who don't, or won't, understand that a safe space doesn't guarantee freedom from criticism, or from mockery of one's (moribund) ideas or (disgraceful) behavior.
It means, and has only ever meant, that no one is valued less or more here because of hir intrinsic characteristics; no one is worth more or less because of the particulars of the body housing the consciousness whence emanates the thoughts and choices and behaviors and actions which are the stuff of legitimate debate and critique.
It means, and has only ever meant, that in a space where we congregate to challenge war, and torture, and sexual assault, and other manifestations of violence, and where an integral part of that discussion includes sharing our own stories of survival to break the silence in which acquiescence and approval are assumed, we do not engage in a self-defeating perpetuation of violence, and revisit violence upon its survivors, by directing its language and images at others.
It doesn't mean, and never has, a space free of disagreement. There are, in fact, few more laughable accusations than the oft-levied echo chamber / groupthink / differences-of-opinion-are-disallowed-at-Shakesville chestnut; I feel like I've been in a virtual barfight at the end of many days here, less blog than brawl.
It does mean, however, that we must agree on certain things, like the unacceptability of using slurs or employing identifiable silencing strategies (e.g. accusations of hysteria or hypersensitivity or humorlessness) in our discourse. That there are rules to which participants in this space are expected to adhere does not mean that disagreement is verboten.
It also doesn't mean that the quality of the discourse is lessened. Quite the contrary—creating guidelines to ensure that the voice and experiences of a disabled trans lesbian of color are as valued as the voice and experiences of a straight, cisgender, able-bodied, white male qualitatively and quantitatively expands the discourse via a diversity of perspectives. The richness of contributions, encouraged by dismantling the disincentives and barriers to participation in other spaces, is the radical potential of a safe space.
Realistically, because we are a people of opinions as strong as they are diverse, and of differing priorities, and of many, frequently conflicting, choices—believe in god/s, don't believe in god/s, eat meat, don't eat meat, vote blue, vote Green, have kids, don't have kids, support reclaimative language, object to reclaimative language, shave, don't shave, wear a bra, don't wear a bra—sometimes just existing in the same space is challenging. There have been people who take others' different choices as an implicit condemnation of their own, and people who assert their choices are the only acceptable ones to make. There have been people who never learn not to wear the shoe if doesn't fit, and people who never learn not to trade in blanket generalizations.
But, for the most part, even in very contentious times, the quality of conversation has been remarkably high, especially for an online community, and Shakesville has been a safe space, or a mostly safe space, for a whole lot of people.
I believe that's something worth defending. And I'm pleased I'm not the only one.
There have been criticisms of the post published by my colleagues exhorting members of the community to active participation in the maintenance of the safe space for which we strive. Some of the criticism, familiar in its implied allegation that activism is a pathetic, contemptible waste of time, is along the lines of: There's no such thing as a totally safe space, anyway.
As if we didn't know.
The safest place in the world for a privileged, white, straight, middle-class American teenage girl should be her own bedroom in her happily married parents' home, but it was the place where I was raped by a boyfriend who supposedly loved me. I knew then that there are no totally safe spaces. And I know it still.
I know it because I've fucked up and made this space not safe for people before, and I will undoubtedly do it again.
So call it something else, it has been suggested—to which I can only reply: No. Talking about this space as anything else, calling it by some name other than the concept to which we aspire, is like talking about freedom by another name. There is no whole, perfect freedom, either, but no one fights for freedomish. The objective serves as inspiration to get as close as we can.
Audacious ideas are a compelling muse.
And then there has been this criticism—the tired, lazy refuge of scoundrels, pessimists, and other sundry defenders of the status quo: It's the internet; what do you expect?
More. Always more.
Some will argue such expectations are foolish, but foolishness is beside the point. Innovation is commonly owed to magnificent fools with foolish dreams. Discouragement against expecting more is a coward's conceit—it is not foolish to have great expectations; it is brave.
Resignation is a sanctuary, but having high hopes is a risky business indeed. Trying to create the change one wants to see in the world means risking disappointment, heartache, frustration, failure. It means wanting something desperately—wanting it with abandon, wanting it fervently and urgently and recklessly, wanting it with clenched jaw and knitted brow, wanting it despite the fact that it is always easier, always safer, to expect nothing, because nothing is so frequently all that we get—and risking looking like a fool if the centerpiece of that ardent, public desire never materializes.
It is perilous—and, yes, maybe foolish—to harbor fantasies of more, but I want a safe space too much not to.
Expecting more is a brash act of courage, and it is also an extraordinary act of generosity. I am a better person than I once was because people gave me the gift of expecting more of me, of setting a higher standard and encouraging me to reach for it, of challenging me not to settle into the well-tread grooves of my socialization, of admonishing me to reject the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which I'd been indoctrinated, of urging me expect more of myself and persuading me to believe I could be the change I want to see.
Not perfection. Just more.
Perfection is an unattainable goal and an unreasonable expectation—of a space, of a person. More, on the other hand, is eminently reasonable. It's such a small thing really, more. And yet, by virtue of so few being willing to exact it, of themselves and of others, asking for such a little thing is regarded as an enormous expectation.
Well. I am willing to think big, like so many fools before me.
