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Question of the Day
What's the strangest thing you've ever found in a pants pocket, jacket pocket, purse, wallet, etc. about which you'd totally forgotten? Or inside something you'd purchased second-hand?
Suggested by Kenny Blogginz, who loves buying clothes at thrift stores and has found various weird crap left in pockets.
Once, when I was about 8, my mom and one of her friends, J, were having a joint garage sale, and J had brought over a bunch of her mother-in-law's junk to sell, too. One lady wanted to purchase an old purse or overnight bag or something of the MIL's, and when J glanced inside while the purchaser was fishing out her dollar (or whatever), she noticed that her MIL had left a little something inside, but decided to let it walk out with the customer sans comment.
When telling Mama Shakes about the discovery later, J said, "I should have charged an extra buck for the used douchebag."
Free gift with purchase!
Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, Part 28
The actual cover of Newsweek's November 23 issue. If you can't view the image, it's a picture of Palin in running shorts and a workout top, bare-legged and in sneakers, accompanied by the headline: "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" (As in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" from The Sound of Music, in which an assertive woman is a "problem" to be "solved.") The interior photos are, if possible, even worse, showing Palin's disembodied legs trailing down to high heels in front of an audience of gaping young men and the Sarah Palin Action Figure, discussed in part 12.
I've really got nothing to add to what Media Matthers' Julie Millican says here in her great deconstruction of the ten metric fucktons of Newsweek's fail.
Meanwhile, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham defends the cover, saying: "We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."
Yeah, well, if the picture does accurately reflect what you're trying to say, that's a problem, too, now isn't it?
And in fauxgressive news, Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, appearing on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell, said, in response to Palin calling the picture "sexist" and "out of context":
Well, I mean, I think it's funny that she's benefiting from all this; she's making millions from it. And she's complaining about it all the way to the bank. I mean, this is a woman who basically is the Tonya Harding of authors. She came out and kneecapped every single person who helped her along the way. And she's making millions of dollars for it. She has no right to complain; she has no reason to complain. She can complain all the way to the bank.If a woman is "bad," that justifies using sexism against her and she had no right to complain. The fauxgressive mantra.
Keep it up, Democrats. Keep it up.
[Sarah Palin Sexism Watch: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven. We defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because we endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works.]
Protect Women's Health Care: Stop Stupak
Shaker Monica emails: "I just received an email from the Courage Campaign linking to an online petition against the Stupak Amendment, backed by Senator Barbara Boxer. It's [here]."
The petition content is as follows:
We the undersigned oppose inclusion of the Stupak Amendment in any health care reform legislation because it would be one of the biggest setbacks to women’s health in recent decades.I frankly wish it would be more overtly hostile toward the Hyde Amendment, too, but wevs. I didn't write it, so I shouldn't complain. Especially since I guess most people wouldn't sign something reading: "The Stupak Amendment is even worse than the horseshit compromise that the abject fuckery known as the Hyde Amendment has enforced for decades."
The Stupak Amendment overturns a difficult and delicate compromise that has held firm for decades: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.
The Stupak Amendment discriminates against women by taking away health coverage they already have — and tells women who participate in the new health insurance exchange that they can’t even use their own funds to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage.
The Stupak Amendment is discriminatory, extreme, and just plain wrong.
We urge the defeat of any effort to include this amendment in the final health care reform bill sent to President Obama.
Go here to sign it. Once you sign it, you'll be prompted to send links to friends, family, etc. in case you want to pass it on.
Woot!
Recently, Shaker NameChanged emailed a request, which I posted, to help raise money for her yearbook students, who had nothing but broken and outdated cameras. NameChanged now emails that they've been fully funded:
My students and I are so grateful for your generosity. As we all know, Yearbook is all about the pictures, and many of our spreads have been subpar because we have had to settle for what was available. We have been struggling since August with camera issues, and just last week another camera quit working. This funding came at just the right time to boost our spirits.ô,ôP!
Yearbook is the type of class that attracts passionate students, and my students are no exception. They have put in time before and after school, as well as weekends to make sure that they are putting out the best product possible up for publication. Now that you have helped fund our new cameras the students will surely be even more excited about working on the yearbook.
As donors, you have also taught my students a valuable lesson about giving. They were anxiously awaiting the "We're funded" email, and they now know that small actions can make a big difference. I am encouraging my students to raise funds for another Donors Choose project so that they may give back and help another class achieve their goals.
You can find more classrooms in need at DonorsChoose.org.
Daily Kitteh
"Hey, I gots this crumpled up paper ball, and, I'm not bovvered, but we could play fetch if you want, I mean, I don't care either way, but, it's up to you..."
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69. 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.
Glenn Beck: Asshole
[Trigger warning.]
America has spoken clearly, consistently—we don't want [government-paid healthcare]. And for the first time in history, we don't think it's the government's place to give it to us. We're kind of reading this [holds up unidentified piece of paper] from time to time now. We are—excuse this analogy, but I feel like it's true—we're the young girl saying [puts on scared voice and crying face] "No, no—help me!" [back to regular voice] and the government is Roman Polanski. In the end, I think we're all gonna be cowering in France. [A few more moments of babbling about "unfunded liabilities" before the video cuts out.]Universal healthcare = rape. Awesome.
[H/T to a whole bunch of Shakers, and thanks to each and every one of you.]
News from Shakes Manor
[Trigger warning.]
Iain and I were chatting and just aimlessly flipping through channels Saturday, when I passed The Usual Suspects. I stopped and we started watching it and talking about it.
Liss: I haven't seen this in ages. Such a good film.
Iain: Definitely one of the best films of the '90s. I'd put it up there with The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction.
Liss: Ugh. Not Pulp Fiction. The Piano.
Iain: Schindler's List.
Liss: Boys Don't Cry.
[He named another movie I now can't recall. At that moment came onscreen the scene of Keyser Soze's wife being raped.]
Liss: You know, every film we've named has a rape scene in it.
Iain: Fuck.
Liss: Welcome to the rape culture.
Now that I've had time to think about it, I can, of course, name other good films of the '90s without rape scenes. You know, like Swimming with Sharks, in which the female narrator is killed by two men named Buddy and Guy. Or Thelma & Louise, in which the two female protagonists have no better options in life than death. [Oops, no. There was a rape scene in T&L, too!] Or movies directed by and/or starring Kevin Costner or Clint Eastwood, in which there aren't even women around to victimize.
And compared to the Apatowcalypse of the naughties, those were the Good Old Days.
On Pirate Radio
by Shaker Eileen, a Californian who shares her life with a cat, a husband, and an amazing 3 1/2 year old daughter.
[Trigger warning.]
I saw Pirate Radio last night, and had one of those experiences where you can only really enjoy yourself if you turn half your brain off and pretend you're not getting the messages that are clearly being sent.
Early in Pirate Radio, just as I idly wondered where all of the women were, one of the characters refers to the only woman present with surprise. " I thought there were no women allowed on board…" And it is explained to him that an excuse is made for the cook, because she is a lesbian.
That is all the explanation deemed necessary for the total exclusion of women from the world of Pirate Radio, except as sex partners, mothers, food preparers, or avid audience-members. I have no trouble believing that the world of Pirate Radio in the sixties largely excluded women, but I didn't expect to find a movie so gleeful about the wonderland of boy bonding and camaraderie that, the movie posits, is only possible in a world where women are only allowed on board every other Saturday in order to provide sex.
The movie veers into an early scene of near-rape played for laughs as well. One of the successful DJs, feeling sympathetic toward a younger man because of his virginity, tries to trick his date for the night into having sex with the other man while the lights are turned off. He hopes that she won't notice the switch, in spite of a huge size differential between the two men. The scene is played entirely from their perspective, and while the younger man doesn't get near enough to the woman to touch her, there is a "ho ho ho, so funny my sides might split" scene in which the lights unexpectedly go on, and she screams as she finds herself alone in a room with a naked stranger. I was left with a queasy feeling at the end of that scene, wondering if this was what the whole movie would be.
While the movie doesn't play rape for laughs again, the only other two love interest characters who appear are betrayers and interlopers in boyland. One woman, while waiting for a man to find a condom, ends up sleeping with someone more famous because she finds him impressive. Another comes onboard to marry one DJ, without telling him that she's only doing it in order to sleep with someone else on the ship. I can imagine the first case happening in real life: When women have sexual agency they will sometimes decide to sleep with someone other than the person they start out an evening with. I can't imagine a context for the inexplicable cruelty of the second case though, and since she represents roughly one quarter of all women in this film, it is easy to assume that the film is endorsing the idea that all relationships with women are suspect, and only relationships between men are noble and pure.
More than anything, I wonder why the film felt it necessary to revel in the sexism of the world that it depicts. These men are not actually great rebels if they really expect women to be content providing sex and food. There may have been many great things about sixties Pirate Radio, but the exclusion of women was not one of those things, and the film would have been more effective if it had taken pains to include women rather than shrugging its shoulders early on and trying to opt out of the subject.
I had a discussion with my husband after the film, and pointed out that most women perceive themselves as the protagonists of their own lives, not as an avid audience for men as they play out their stories. My experience throughout my life when watching movies like this has been to desperately try to find a place for myself among the male characters. How can I be Phillip Seymour Hoffman? There is no space for women in this movie, so how do I rewrite the movie so I can fit myself in? I've been doing it for so long that it is almost natural to me, but I think it's time that it stopped.
The sad thing about this film is that I could have really enjoyed it otherwise. As I was watching it I wondered why I was feeling so fatigued, and I realized it was because it was yet another time that I was expected to happily stand in the sidelines and watch boys have lots of fun. That's such a bummer to me nowadays that I can't even pretend to be enthused anymore.
It wouldn't have been difficult for filmmakers to do a better job than this. One can acknowledge the sexism of an age while still admitting the personhood, value, and contributions of women. Beyond just their ability to cook up a tasty meal, I mean. My gleeful exclusion from this film turned what should have been a charming experience into another bitter pill. It's not 1967 anymore. I'm ready to throw those pills away.
Two From the NY Times
The first one, here, is a tale of a woman, a classical pianist, who found it initially very difficult to keep her career after she transitioned. It starts off really down, but it's actually got kind of a nice upbeat ending. Some pronoun awkwardness, and a little too much, for my taste, of the "when she was he" construct, but something not completely unpositive.
Of course, doesn't it suck that the state of our portrayals in mass media - fiction and non-fiction - are generally so craptacular that even a somewhat-upbeat "not completely unpositive" article seems like A Good Thing?
The second is just infuriating: A young US soldier is under investigation and confined to post after missing her deployment flight when she couldn't find care for her 10-month-old; she's told "put it in foster care".
With the shenanigans around lowering recruiting standards and all sorts of other not strictly kosher activities going on as the US Army continues to try and fill out the numbers for its overstretched foreign wars, this shouldn't really be all that surprising, but it is.
Tip of the CaitieCap to my good friend mzrowan. :)
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Deeks: [takes a picture of a ridiculous Globe cover story, featuring an image of President Obama coughing accompanied by a headline reading: OBAMA LUNG CANCER DRAMA, i.e. its usual unfounded bullshit reported in the most breathless and callous way.]
Liss: I love how it's a "drama."
Deeks: "How will it unfold???"
Liss: Quite the mystery!
Deeks: LOLOL!!!!
Liss: Another fine conversation brought to you by sarcasm.
Deeks: Never leave home without it.
Liss: Sarcasm: Accept no substitutes.
Deeks: The breakfast of champions.
Liss: Can't be smashed by a determined gorilla.
Deeks: LOL!
Liss: Oh wait—that's Samsonite, not sarcasm. Nevermind.
Deeks: Close enough.
Liss: Easy mistake to make as I associate both of them with my personal baggage.
Deeks: Ha!
Bad Messages from Problematic Blog Posts
[Trigger warning.]
Shaker Koach sent me this piece from Geek Dad at Wired, "Top 10 Bad Messages From Good Movies." And I appreciate what the author, Matt Blum, is trying to do, but there's a real some of these things are not like the others problem with his list, which starts out with:
10. If you're not born with special abilities, you're never going to be any good at some things, no matter how hard you try (from the Harry Potter movies, and of course books). - In the world of Harry Potter, there are those who are born with magical abilities, and those who aren't. There's even a word, "squib," for people born to wizarding families who can't do magic. It's made very clear in the stories that, if you're unlucky enough to be born without magical talent, you're never going to amount to anything in that world and might as well not try.—and ends with:
1. If you're not a member of the elite, you're basically inconsequential, even if you die heroically trying to save your people and your way of life (from the Star Wars movies). - This crops up time and time again in the series, but nowhere is it more clearly demonstrated in the assault on the first Death Star. We mentioned it a few months ago, but here it is again: There are somewhere between twenty and thirty one-man fighters in the assault, right? And of all of those guys, only Luke, Wedge, and some guy in a Y-wing make it back (and Han and Chewie, of course, but they weren't part of the original team). So that means that in this fight, despite its amazing success, the rebels lost somewhere between seventeen and twenty-seven of their very best, bravest pilots. Yet all they can do is cheer as Luke descends the ladder of his X-wing. Luke cheers, too, hugs Leia, and is absolutely ecstatic… until he realizes that R2-D2 got badly damaged in the fight, at which point he is nearly distraught. Losing fellow human beings, including a good friend of his, that doesn't matter; possibly losing a cute but replaceable machine, now that's sad. And of course then there's the whole matter of Vader being redeemed because he saved his own son's life, never mind the thousands of people whose deaths he was responsible for.Most of the other entries are of a similar tone, but stuck right in the middle is this:
6. Kissing sleeping women whom you don't know will wake them up and lead to them falling in love with you (from Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). - We don't really need to explain this one further than that, do we? I mean, we all know the stories.That's it. He offers more than 200 words on redshirts, and precisely 20 on the rape culture, just enough to say it's not even necessary to talk about. He spends more time on every other "bad message," including arrogance vs. competence and even prejudice against geeks.
4. Unconventional creative play is very, very wrong (from Toy Story). - Sid, the kid next door, is portrayed as basically evil. The movie makes him out this way because he pulls toys apart and reassembles them in strange ways, and likes to blow things up. In other words, he's a GEEK. If the toys weren't alive — and Sid can probably be forgiven for not realizing that they were — his behavior would be perhaps a little extreme, but not in any way wrong, especially for a boy his age.Especially for a boy his age, huh? It's just painful to find that sort of gender essentialism in a post in which the author is ostensibly trying to root out precisely those sorts of "bad messsages" from good films:
3. Even tough women who aren't afraid to fight aren't as important as the men they fight alongside (from the Star Wars movies). - Princess Leia, despite being very comfortable giving orders and shooting at stormtroopers, always hands off the really important jobs to men. Luke tells her that she's his sister and Darth Vader is their father, and by the way he's going off to confront daddy to try to turn him back to being a good guy, and she doesn't insist on coming with him or joining him later. On Hoth, Luke and Han are out scouting on Tauntauns, but she's back at the base where it's nice and warm. And then there's Padme, who kicks a fair bit of butt, but only until she and Anakin get secretly married, at which point she essentially vanishes except to talk about her pregnancy and her worries about her husband. As we know, of course, pregnant women are incapable of doing anything except sitting around worrying, right?If it's possible to recognize why that's problematic, how does Blum miss that attributing Sid's "geekery" to his being a boy is just as problematic for precisely the same reason?
And finally there is this:
2. It's OK to completely change your physical appearance and way of life for the person you love, even if he makes no sacrifices at all (from The Little Mermaid). - This movie has the single most appalling ending of any Disney movie ever made, which is a shame because, apart from that, it's a great film. I just cannot comprehend how anyone could make a movie in the late 1980s with this message, which is not exactly subtle: Ariel gives up her home, her family, and BEING A MERMAID because she loves Eric so. And he gives up… nothing. Yeah, that marriage is off to a great start.Apart from the appalling ending which effectively makes the moral of the story that girls should do anything for love, it's a great film?! I guess I don't understand what Blum's definition of a great film is, because a film that overtly endorses the anti-feminist trope of female self-sacrifice for marriage and packages it for little girls as romance (and let us not forget that Ariel also has to literally give up her voice to woo the prince) doesn't qualify as a great film in my opinion, no matter how stunning the animation may be.
I can get on board with "Harry Potter was a good story that had a problematic element with regard to squibs," but not so with The Little Mermaid, in which the sexist narratives were not incidental but central to the story. That the two are being equated is a "bad message" all its own.
And because Blum doesn't just stick to problematic human tropes generally, but includes a few specific to women, it underlines the omission of any "bad messages" about racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia, or any other bigotry on the basis of intrinsic characteristics.
That's the problem with viewing, for example, "7. Arrogance, brash self-confidence, and having had a heroic father are much more indicative of a competent leader than are experience and knowledge" as a bad message for men, rather than a bad message for humans, or "4. Unconventional creative play is very, very wrong" as a bad message for boys, rather than a bad message for children.
Women are leaders, too. Girls are geeks, too.
But when we're not thought of in that way, inclusively, items specific to women get included for balance, and then two things happen:
1. Tropes based on behaviors (arrogance) are equated with tropes based on intrinsic characteristics (being a woman), which inevitably and unfortunately diminishes the gravity of the latter.
2. The lack of acknowledgment of tropes based on other intrinsic characteristics becomes glaringly evident, which inevitably and unfortunately communicates that a sop was thrown to women. (And no one else.)
The solution is not difficult. If you want to write a post about "bad messages" that all humans get from "good films," make sure you're writing to all humans. And if something is specific to marginalized humans, or privileged humans, note that explicitly.
Take a moment to add to "Arrogance, brash self-confidence, and having had a heroic father are much more indicative of a competent leader than are experience and knowledge" a simple qualification like: "Especially when you are a straight white cis male, because, if you're not, you're not going to be able to bluster through on genes and charm and bravado."
Take a moment to add to add of the end of "Even tough women who aren't afraid to fight aren't as important as the men they fight alongside" a note like: "As with so many tropes about marginalized people, this is not exclusive to women, but in fact is a character flaw repeatedly embedded in characters from oppressed classes. Leia is but one example."
Note limitations and similarities. Write for humans.
Otherwise, you're just writing more bad messages.
Mods Get To See The Darnedest Things
There is a great comment stuck in the Disqus spam filter (pointing to a site selling the Romanian equivalent of Enzyte, as best I can tell):
"I had an erectie whatching this video."
Just FYI, "erectie" is now my new favourite word.
Blogginz Semi-Daily Dumpus
The one and only James Quall, performing "Beach Blast" (transcript below):
I had the dubious pleasure of seeing James Quall live once, and it was an experience that I won't soon forget!
Note: This whole thing is performed badly. Very badly.
[while playing air guitar] Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…
We're gonna have the best time yet
A summer that we'll never forget
All over Malibu
There will be so much to do
We just arrived at the shore
We'll surf the biggest waves and more
This week can forecast
It will be a Beach Blast
[while playing air guitar] Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…
After surfing we will be
Splashing all though the sea
When we have ceased to swim
Each guy will find the girl for him
We will lie down on the sand
[inaudible] bikinis will get tanned
Then start to move again fast
It will be a Beach Blast
[while playing air guitar] Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…
Before we've had our fill
There will be one more thrill
We'll go into the bars
And listen to guitars
On the floor we'll dance wildly
[inaudible] sober there will be
Spectacle that's fast
It will be a Beach Blast
It will be a Beach Blast
Quote of the Day
"But Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better [than to not bow before other heads of state], and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to 'hope' for '"change.' It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of 'the 57 states' is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream."—Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden, in his November 17 column.
Wow. Just...wow.
Blood impulse?
Wow.
Bread and Teaspoons Fifteen
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*.
This is a weekly post, usually Tuesdays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
I don't have a Topic for this week, because I've just been too sore to come up with one. Hopefully next week.
Here's how it works: There should be four 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. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
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.
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. :)
**NEW CATEGORY ADDED**
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
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: Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
You Go, Grrl: Alysa Stanton
Alysa Stanton was ordained earlier this year as America's first African-American female rabbi:
Stanton, who was born to a Christian family, was formally ordained on June 6, having completed seven years of rabbinical training at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. Stanton will now assume her new role as the first nonwhite rabbi of Congregation Bayt Shalom, a 60-family synagogue in Greenville, N.C.Shaker GWB recommended Rabbi Stanton for this series, and sent the link along with the note: "For the first time, a WOC [has been] officially ordained as a rabbi in [American] mainstream Judaism. Also relevant, as I've seen in my local community and others, is that she seems to have been accepted as a convert becoming a rabbi. Orthodox Judaism hasn't caught up to the other denominations on this front, but Conservative and Reform Jews have come a long way in welcoming converts." And in other ways: It's not even notable when a woman is ordained anymore.
...She beat out some half-dozen candidates for the position of rabbi at Congregation Bayt Shalom in North Carolina. Much of Stanton's appeal, says synagogue president Michael Barondes, lies in her ability to connect and communicate powerfully, both from the pulpit and face-to-face. Those are skills Stanton honed during an earlier career, before entering the seminary — as a psychotherapist specializing in grief and loss. She helped counsel victims of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. "She knows intuitively how to listen to people," says Barondes. "And as a one-synagogue town, we need a rabbi who can reach out to all of our members."
Barondes says Stanton's color played no role in her candidacy, but neither he nor Stanton — a divorced single mother to Shana, 14 — is unaccustomed to the impact of race in America, particularly in the South. Indeed, leaders of the Alabama synagogue where Stanton trained for a year as a student rabbi never believed their white congregation would accept an African-American at the pulpit. Complaints were lodged and calls were made. Yet by the end of her training, the synagogue was deeply saddened to see her go. "Everyone has their initial impressions and outmoded stereotypes," Stanton reflects on the experience. "But these people came to embrace me and my child."
In lots of American Christian churches, women still aren't allowed to hold congregational offices, or even read scripture from a lectern, no less be ordained. Still paying for that darned apple...
The Blade Folds
Wow:
The Washington Blade, the weekly newspaper that chronicled the coming-out of the capital's gay community, was born amid the idealism of 1960s street protests. Monday, the paper died, victim of the unforgiving realities of the nation's sagging newspaper industry.The Rainbow Phoenix.
Last month, the Blade celebrated its 40th anniversary at a swanky downtown Washington party. The paper's nearly two-dozen employees arrived at their downtown offices Monday to start a new workweek, only to be ordered to clear out their desks by midafternoon.
Steven Myers, co-president of the paper's owner, Atlanta-based Window Media, said the company also ceased operations at its other gay-oriented publications, which include the Southern Voice newspaper and David magazine in Atlanta, and the South Florida Blade and 411 magazine in Florida.
As employees in the District newsroom packed up and removed photographs from the walls of the Blade's offices at the National Press Building, Myers declined to explain the shutdown, saying the company would release "a formal statement later this week." Staffers planned to meet at a coffee shop Tuesday to plot a revival of the paper.
"It's a shock. I'm almost speechless, really," said Lou Chibbaro Jr., a Blade reporter who has written for the newspaper since 1976, covering the full arc of the country's gay-rights movement, from early marches through the rise of AIDS and on to the latest battles over legalizing same-sex marriage.
...[Kevin Naff, the Blade's editor] said Monday that he hopes to keep the staff together and relaunch the paper under a new name. He would not provide more details about potential investors or logistics.
"It will be employee-owned," Naff said. "We're not going away."
Asked the name of the new publication, he smiled and said, "Got any suggestions?"
This is really sad, and I hope that the employee-owned relaunch is a success.
