The real question we all need answered about President Barack Obama: Is he circumcised?
I have known several American-born men who were not circumcised as infants. The thing they all have in common is at least one immigrant (or not American) parent.
Just like our president.
So, if he isn't circumcised (I can't even believe I just wrote that), it's proof of absolutely nothing, except perhaps that his father was foreign-born (with his own traditions and beliefs about circumcision), which we already knew.
Sigh.
Britches Sniffers
Where Have You Gone, Journalists?
Neal Gabler has some good points to make about the decline of journalism.
T.S. Eliot was wrong. August is the cruelest month. As we head toward next month's congressional face-off on a national healthcare bill, the news media are infatuated with town hall meetings. Over and over, we see angry citizens screaming about a Big Government takeover of the healthcare system, shouting that they will lose their insurance or be forced to give up their doctors and denouncing "death panels" that will euthanize old people.It isn't all the fault of the media -- journalists -- that the message has gotten muddled or treated with passive objectivity, relying on little more than a they said/they said tactic, which allowed talking heads with carefully coached and focus-group tested sound bites to say their piece and leave it there. After all, when someone comes on TV, sounds convincing and uses a catch phrase like "death panels" or "socialized medicine," what the heck? You've got your story, and there's neither the time nor the incentive to question their claims or do your own work.
Of course, none of this is even remotely true. These are all canards peddled by insurance companies terrified of losing their power and profits, by right-wing militants terrified of a victory for the president they hate and by the Republican Party, which has been commandeered by the insurance industry and the militants. But the lies have obviously had their effect. Recent polls show that support for healthcare reform -- reform that would insure more Americans, would force insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions and prevent them from capriciously terminating coverage, and would provide competition to drive down costs -- is rapidly eroding.
Maybe Americans should know better. Maybe they shouldn't fall for the latest imbecilic propaganda and scare tactics. Maybe. But a citizenry is only as well-informed as the quality of information it receives. One can't expect Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or the Republican Party or even the Democrats to provide serious, truthful assessments of a complex health plan. Truth has to come from somewhere else -- from a reliable, objective, trustworthy source.
To look at this in a larger context, journalists would no doubt say that it isn't really their job to ferret out the "truth." It is their job to report "facts." If Palin says that Obama intends to euthanize her child, they report it. If Limbaugh says that Obama's healthcare plan smacks of Nazism, they report it. And if riled citizens begin shouting down their representatives, they report it, and report it, and report it. The more noise and the bigger the controversy, the greater the coverage. This creates a situation in which not only is the truth subordinate to lies, but one in which shameless lies are actually privileged over reasoned debate.One of the core reasons might have something to do with the fact that news is now seen as prime time entertainment, replacing sitcoms and dramas on broadcast TV with their own core of comedy and emotion on programs like The O'Reilly Factor and Countdown. Why watch Two and Half Men when you can watch Pat Buchanan, Glenn Beck, and William Kristol ruminate about Barack Obama's birth certificate? And conversely, why does it take The Daily Show to provide more in-depth insight into what is actually in the healthcare bills than what you find on the round table on ABC's This Week?
Don't think the militants don't know this and take full advantage of it. They know that the media, especially the so-called liberal mainstream media -- which are hardly liberal if assessed honestly -- refrain from attempting to referee arguments for fear that they will be accused by the right of taking sides. So rather than be battered, the media -- and I am talking about the respectable media, not the carnival barkers on cable -- increasingly strive for the simplest sort of balance rather than real objectivity. They marshal facts, but they don't seek truth. They behave as if every argument must be heard and has equal merit, when some are simply specious. That is how global warming, WMD and "end of life" counseling have become part of silly reportorial ping-pong at best and badly misleading information at worst.
This isn't meant to let the Obama administration off the hook for the flat-footed response they've offered in response to the coordinated attacks by the insurance industry and the wing-nuts who are still whistling "Dixie" over the election of a black man as president. It's not like they weren't warned before the election and during the dress rehearsals of the "teabaggers" in April. And it is always easier to put on the loop of a clip of someone waving an Obama-as-Hitler poster than it is to actually dig into the proposed bill and find out that most of the claims being brought up are bogus, exaggerations, or willful ignorance.
Telling the truth requires shoe leather. It requires digging up facts that aren't being handed to you, talking to experts, thinking hard about what you find. This isn't easy. It takes time and energy as well as guts, especially when there are conflicting studies, as there are on healthcare. But finally, we may not have a journalism of truth because we haven't demanded one. Many of us are invested in one side of the story; we are for Obama or against him, for healthcare reform or against it. These are a priori positions. Truth won't change them.What is ironic is that in an age when we are surrounded by the technology that could provide us with instant communication, it's harder than ever to know the truth. Perhaps that's because the journalists who used to do that are relying on the same sources their readers are and leaving it to bloggers to do their fact-checking for them (in spite of the fact that some "journalists" don't think bloggers do any fact-checking at all). They don't call out obvious falsehoods and repeated talking points, they're not stunned and sickened by people brandishing automatic weapons at a presidential event, and they don't point out to people like Joe Scarborough that when he says the both sides are equally responsible for the breakdown in civil discourse, he's full of it. That's not reporting; that's stenography, and it's a disservice to their craft and democracy.
Yet the danger of not insisting on the truth in a brave new world of constant lies is that it subjects our policies to whichever side shouts the loudest or has the most money to spend to mislead us. That is likely to lead to disastrous governance: a needless war, a great recession, a continuation of a failing healthcare system.
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning.]
"We're going to kill your children."—A threat allegedly made by a CIA interrogator against detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. "Another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him-though the interrogator in question denied making such a threat." Sob.
Teaspoons 101: I Am Not the Thought Police
Frequently, when I ban a commenter who isn't overtly expressing bigotry, but is derailing a thread with typical silencing techniques—accusations of oversensitivity, humorlessness, looking for things to get mad about, exhortations to "get over it," protestations of providing much-needed objectivity, and the usual tiresome attempts to deny the perceptions and experiences of the actual targets of the particular bigotry being discussed—I make a point to note that the commenter is not being banned from the blog in its entirety. I will note that their commenting privileges have been revoked, but invite them to keep reading the blog in the hopes they might learn where they went wrong, and assure them I will be open to a discussion of reinstating their commenting privileges if and when they email me with some awareness to that end.
I almost always immediately receive an irate email full of phrases like "echo chamber" and "censorship," and I am berated for being the "thought police."
I am not the thought police.
I am challenging you to think about things in a way in which you may have never thought about them before.
The entire rest of the world, with its privileging of men and heterosexuals and cisgender people and thin (but not too thin!) and tall (but not too tall!) and able and healthy white bodies and religious people and people who have sex and people who can and want to be parents and the wealthy and the educated, and all the ways in which the rest of the world facilitates and upholds that privilege, and all the ways in which the rest of the world marginalizes and demeans and treats as less than all the people who deviate from those privileged "norms," and all the ways the rest of the world has indoctrinated you into that system of privilege, and socialized you to believe it's the natural and right and immutable state of the world, and all the shills for the kyriarchy who fill the ether with self-reinforcing rubbish on a constant loop so you swim in a sea so thick with the detritus of Othering that you don't even notice it on a conscious level anymore, and all the bullies who appear to kick you back in line if you do, if you have the temerity to question the message, and all the other bits and bobs of the brainwashing to which we are all subjected since the day we're born as part of scheme, nearly incomprehensible in scope, to ensure that challengers to these traditions are never made, and, if they're born, are squashed with the weight of mountainous tidal waves of blowback in the other direction…? The purveyors of that shit are the goddamn thought police.
And you know what one of the biggest lies they tell you is?
That it's the other way around.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strip One, Strip Two, Strip Three, Strip Four, Strip Five, Strip Six, Strip Seven, Strip Eight, Strip Nine, Strip Ten, Strip Eleven, Strip Twelve, Strip Thirteen. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Liss' Fatbrainz Supplements, made from 100% organic Pathetic Anger Bread. Not available at Whole Foods.
Recommended Reading:
Maha: Truth Versus Facts
Ginmar: Health care for all? But that would mean I'm not special!
Mannion: The Weasel Caucus Meets
Kyle: Randall Terry Takes His Show on the Road
unusualmusic: American Women Athletes Part One: In which women athletes need to be sexy and heterosexual (preferably with child/ren and husband/boyfriend)
Andy: Lutheran Decision on Gay Clergy May Split Church
Becky: On Women, Alcohol, and Anti-Feminism
Leave your links in comments...
God Bless America
Obama, sneakers and basketball. $39.99. (Watch the video at the link.)
[Cross-posted.]
Today in Fat Hatred
Science schmience! Deathfat shrinks your brain bitchez!
Please pay no attention to the concluding paragraph that questions the veracity of the claims in the rest of the article!
Please do pay attention to the charming image we selected to accompany the article—a naked, halved headless fatty, as disembodied as possible while still retaining vague traces of humanity even as that humanity is reduced to its FATTY FAT FATNESS.
Hey, fatties—stop clogging your brains with gravy! Not only will it make your brains more delectable to zombies, but it makes you dumber than skinny people, and isn't just being uglier bad enough? I mean, look at that FATTY FAT FATSO with her FATTY FAT FATITUDE?! We can't even believe you don't want to kill yourselves already, being so ugly and disease-prone and underemployed and underpaid and cow-called and treated with contempt because of being such FATTY BOOM BALATTIES, but maybe hearing that you're FAT IN THE BRAINS, too, will go ahead and push you right over the edge, fatties! GOD WE HATE YOU!
Err, we mean, we're really concerned about your health.
* * *
If it's true that fat gives you a raging case of the fuckbrains, then the world had better be glad I'm fat—or else I'd be Queen Cunt of the Universe by now.
Because, like, I'm really fucking fat—but I'm even more really fucking smart.
Even with a critically addled fatbrain.
[H/T to Shaker NAS.]
Today in Not Even Close
Actual Headline: 'Seinfeld' joke gets man canned for harassment.
Actual Reason for Dismissal: At an outdoor retreat last summer for the employees of the Brain Injury Association of Iowa, a female worker "told her colleagues that whenever she or her husband sneezed, the other would respond by saying, 'You are so good looking'," which is from an episode of Seinfeld. So, for the rest of the retreat, which due to its proximity to "fields of blooming plants" had "a somewhat higher than normal incidence of sneezing by agency staff," according to the association's executive director, Geoffrey Lauer, they were gesundheiting each other with "You're so good looking!" But John Preston just had to be the douche who takes it too far.
A week after the retreat, Preston allegedly sent the female worker who initiated the joke a series of e-mails in which he reiterated that she was good looking.Nope. Wrongity-wrong-wrong. It was not a continuation of that joke at all; it was, instead, totally inappropriate behavior that the joke was invoked to try to justify. Which was painfully obvious to the board who denied his unemployment benefits, is painfully obvious to me (and, I'm guessing, every other reader with two brain cells knocking together), but is evidently not painfully obvious to whomever's writing the headlines for the Des Moines Regiser, where it is proffered that Preston was, in fact, shitcanned for the joke, not the actual harassment itself.
The woman complained to her superiors, and Preston was cautioned about such comments. A few weeks later, Preston allegedly stopped the woman in a hallway at work and massaged her shoulders while speaking to her. That generated another complaint, and early this year Preston confronted the woman at a work-related event.
Preston was then fired for sexual harassment. At a hearing last week on Preston's claim for unemployment benefits, his attorney, Bradley Strouse, questioned Lauer at length on the origins of the "good looking" remark.
"It was, in fact, a 'Seinfeld' reference?" Strouse asked.
"Yes," Lauer replied.
Preston testified that he meant no harm by repeating the phrase. "It was just a continuation of that joke," he said.
In case it isn't evident, this is beyond bad reporting (or bad headlining). This plays directly into the victim-blaming narrative in which women who are sexually harassed at work are merely "oversensitive" and "hysterical" and "humorless." It's literally suggesting that Preston's accuser/victim couldn't "take a joke," and another poor man has fallen victim to the P.C. police blah blah yawn. And that is seriously uncool and extremely devastating to find so casually in a paper as influential as the Register.
Contact the Register.[H/T to Shaker ParanoiaRebirth.]
Bread and Teaspoons Seven
Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.
There are hundreds of us here, maybe thousands, all over the US and Canada, and out into the rest of the world. We work in all kinds of fields, doing all kinds of different things, and most of us tend to be online creatures: we roam the Toobz constantly, and in doing so, encounter many opportunities.
This is a weekly post, Mondays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
Here's how it works: There should be three sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, I might post a comment saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, translatey.caitie@translateycaitie.com.**
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
I'd like to be clear: only offer tasks which you have explicit permission to offer. If you come across something that isn't yours, but think some Shakers might want to know about it, either ask permission of the offerer, or offer it privately to someone whose comment says they might be interested (based on their skillset). For instance, you're on some other site, you see someone asking for, say, help in designing their new website. Don't come here and offer the job as a comment, unless you have that person's explicit permission. What you could do is go through the comments, and send an e-mail to anyone with the right skillset.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
My Terrible Bargains
by Shaker Amenfro, a relapsed Catholic and ethical hedonist who fears carnivorous plants and the growing ubiquity of celebrity gossip rags.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a world-class Shakesville lurker. I have been reading Shakesville for what feels like ages, but like a Galapagos turtle, I usually don't stick my head out too far. Still, Liss' post on "The Terrible Bargain" has gotten even me coming out of the cold, as it was the most elegant, moving, and exceedingly articulate formulation of how I—and I suspect many of you—feel in the world.
"The Terrible Bargain" resonated with me deeply: as a feminist, a woman, a self-professed fattie, and a woman of color. I recently left New York City for the Southland, and living in a "liberal" small town has been a recurring assault on my sensibilities. "The Terrible Bargain" reminded me of the many times since living here (New York was not perfect) and becoming an adult more generally that I've gotten the exceptionalism comment from people whom I considered "enlightened" and/or people I considered friends. I suppose they thought the "oh but you're different" comment would warm my heart or roll off my back. But all I think each time I hear it is, "I'm actually just the idiot [Black/fattie/feminist] that took time to get to know you when you're not the person I thought you were."
Worse yet are the little jokes that people thought that I'd enjoy when these jokes were so clearly inimical to my beliefs and what I thought were our shared values. They not only remind me that I'm different, but that my difference is supposed to be funny. It is a joke to you. My race, my gender, my body shape, my sexual orientation, my disability, myself…these are differences that I cannot change and of which I had no control or choice, but they are differences that gives you power over me when you cut me down. Apparently, these are differences worthy of ridicule. These are differences that makes me smaller, less important, less human, a stereotype and not a person, but most of all, not like you. And you, for some reason, think I would laugh. Rather, it's a refreshing reminder of how my race, my gender, my body, et. al. may be used by others to exclude me.
Still, I am grateful for my "mistrust as a self-protection mechanism." I am neither ashamed nor regret the mistrust that I too carry because it has grown rationally and rightfully; it helps me, albeit imperfectly, discern between those who will hurt me and those who I can love and cherish while always trying to educate them and allow them to educate me. My mistrust is the best filter I have to create a good life: one where I can live without the hatred as opposed to just dealing with it. And during the times when I have to deal with it, my mistrust just gets stronger.
But my mistrust is not a weapon I wield; it grows stronger with softness, not with a fist. It is the sieve that separates the desired elements from the waste. Where said waste comes from people I love, the sieve helps me show them that it is just that: waste. This mistrust also helps me readily recognize where my own class privilege or privilege of any other sort creates waste for someone else and hopefully understand my mistakes and keep from making them ever again.
The one shame that I feel is that our human experiences are marred by this mistrust. Will my daughters and granddaughters have a richer human experience because, hopefully, much of the misogyny and racism I experience now will fade away? Just as I have encountered fewer barriers in pursuing higher education and getting a job than my mother and my grandmother, will my children and daughters more specifically, be freer? Will my daughters have richer human experiences when they are not weighed done by the social significance of their race and gender (amongst other classifications) in their everyday lives? Will men too, or any potential sons, have a richer human experience when not blinded by a thousand subtle hatreds they perpetrate without knowing that hurt their relationships with women they love? What would the world be without such prejudices, and how much stronger would our culture and relationships be when we are humankind and not mankind? Will my disabled or gay or trans children live a freer life when not saddled by seemingly inexorable bargains that I have made?
That said, I do not want them to make a bargain, and I will do what I can to make sure they never will.
Because of them, I will not apologize for your ruined afternoon. Every time you make these jokes you insult me too. Every time you call former Governor Palin "Sarah" or talk about how "it would be better" if she stayed home with her kids, you demean all women. And you insult me. Every time you try to paint President Obama as being wholly exceptional for his race, you insult the millions in the diverse Black community. And you insult me. Every time you joke about Oprah's changing weight, you demean her work as a journalist and humanitarian and reduce her lifetime of contributions to society to a number on a scale. And you insult me. Every time you joke about the Paralympics or how Barney Frank's sexual orientation negatively affects his judgment or so on and so forth, you insult me.
I will not apologize for snapping at you. I will not apologize for being uppity or a "man-hater." I will not apologize because you assaulted me. I will never apologize for your hatred, implicit or unknowing as it may be. Your beliefs wound me because they undermine the better world my life hopefully helps create just a little bit each time. You hurt my friends, my family, every soul reading this site, and me.
I will not apologize for your ruined afternoon: now, tomorrow, or ever.
Discussion Questions: What positive attributes would you associate with yourself because of your mistrust? Can you think of a time when your mistrust has limited you? A time when it's protected you?
Another Brilliant GOP Rally
Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA) recently held a town hall meeting to discuss why he and his supporters hate having a black man as President Obama's health care proposal. After most people got their "socialism!" and "want my country back!" out of their systems, some valid questions were posed to the Congressman. Here's one example:
Mount Shastan Craig Vivas asked Herger if "health care is a right?" and if not, "Who should be denied? Forty seven million people are without health care insurance in America," Vivas said.Herger calls that a response, I call it something else: a steaming pile of horse shit. If he would just come out and say that he thinks health care is a privilege, I'd actually have more respect for him. Of course, the bottom line is that he, like a lot of his colleagues, have nothing constructive to really add to the conversation. After all, the new party mantra is, "Just say no!"
Herger responded by saying "everyone should have access to health care" without declaring it a "right."
"You call it a right. I call it something else," Herger said.
When challenged by another constituent about our our health care ranking in the world and how the current status quo sends families with insurance into bankruptcy due to medical bills, Herger offered this nugget of advice:
"There are many things we can do," Herger responded without going into specifics.Yes, it is hard to go into specifics when there aren't any specifics to be offered. Oh - and as a bonus, here's one thing that Herger does embrace:
"I am a proud right wing terrorist," [one speaker] declared to cheers.I guess the war on terror really is over! Wheeee!
Herger praised the man's attitude.
"Amen, God bless you," Herger said with a broad smile. "There is a great American."
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
One Step Closer to Torture Prosecutions
Attorney General Eric Holder has been teasing us for awhile with tantalizing hints he may actually investigate Bush-era torture cases, and now it looks like we're possibly one step closer, as the Justice Department's ethics office (which I believe was either dormant or on paid vacation during the Bush administration) has recommended investigations.
The Justice Department's ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.Emphasis mine.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.'s inspector general but have never been released.
When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general's findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder's associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.
With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.
The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder's hand.
It's difficult to think of something that could more pointedly underline 1) how deeply on the wrong track this country is; and 2) how irreparably broken Obama's campaign promise of new politics is; that our Attorney General even needs his hand strengthened on the subject of wanting to prosecute torturers.
This, btw, is exactly why I had such a huge problem with Obama's explanation for why he opposed impeachment and kept harping on it during the election, even while I was routinely called an asshole for asserting it was potentially reflective of a streak of conflict-avoidance we didn't need in the Bush-succeeding administration, rather than definitive evidence of Obama's impending Beltway revolution.
The revolution we most need is just a plain and simple willingness to do the right thing for a change. I fervently hope that our Attorney General will rally his Justice Dept. troops to lead that charge, because it doesn't look like anyone else is up to the job.
Although I'm sure someone will be happy to explain to me how this is all a game of 12-dimensional Good Cop Bad Cop that I'm just too unsophisticated to appreciate.
[H/T to Shaker The Bald Soprano.]
What The Hell?
Shaker OuyangDan
What the hell is with that Oreo cookie stuck to your belly? What the hell is with that "hat"?? What the hell are you doing on the phone??? What the hell????
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud, Temeraire: Redux, Mama Shakes II, and Bonus Deeky.]
Sigh
Shaker SapphireCate emailed me a heads-up that the New York Times' public editor, Clark Hoyt, has addressed the recent fat hatred-laden Cintra Wilson piece we discussed here.
Suffice it to say that if the Times really wants its readers to believe that they don't endorse naked bigtory against fatties, perhaps the public editor's response could have avoided a fat joke in the goddamn title.
"The Insult Was Extra Large"? Fuck off.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
I'm pretty sure this is the only thing Dana Carvey's ever done that's made me laugh.
Sunday Morning Bonus What The Hell?
Deeky
Nice beret there, Lucky Pierre.
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud, Temeraire: Redux, and Mama Shakes II.]
Oh, Crist
Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) says he appealed to a higher authority for help in preventing hurricanes from hitting Florida.
Town Hall reports that Crist was speaking to a group of real estate agents, and credited prayer notes in the Western Wall in Jerusalem with preventing his state from being hit by hurricanes during his time as governor.Far be it from me to mock someone for their personal religious beliefs, but that's if you keep it personal. Bragging about it to a group of people in a rather blatant effort to appeal to the Jesus-shouter faction of the Republican Party in Florida when you're running for the Senate against a far-right primary opponent smells of craven toadyism and opportunism, not to mention leaving you wide open for mockery from snarky bloggers.
Crist told of how he visited the Wall in 2007, and placed a note saying: "Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie."
"Time goes on -- May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December -- no hurricanes," Crist said. "Thank God."
Crist has also had other people place notes in the Wall in 2008 and 2009.
And if Florida gets hit by a hurricane this year, we know who to blame.
Via TPM.
Cross-posted.
Saturday Open Thread
Hosted by Baby Sophs, who's now called
Shakes Manor home for one whole year!
Rrrooowwwrrr!
