CNN reports, in huge big black letters: "Older mothers' kids have higher autism risk, study finds."
Eleven paragraphs in: "The study authors emphasize that while autism rates have risen 600 percent in the past two decades, older women having children contributed to only 5 percent more cases of autism." Emphasis mine.
Nowhere does the article make any effort to distinguish between an increase in autism and an increase in the diagnosis of autism.
Who cares anyway. Mothers suck. That's the important thing.
Blame the Mothers, Part Wev in an Infinite Series
How Xciting
Cromcrast is changing its name to Xfinity.
That literally sounds like a joke name I'd come up with if someone asked me to rename a monolithic corporate entity that wanted to sound "cool."
Blog Note
Just a quick update on the progress in getting the blog back in working order...
As you may have already noticed, Space Cowboy has got "read more" working again (although Blogger no longer supports our in-page dropdown), and links open in new tabs/windows again. Also: The Big McLargehuge text in the sidebar has now been restored to regular size.
We're still in the process of bringing back author pix and making some other tweaks.
Again, thank you for your patience.
RIP Representative John Murtha
Think Progress reports: "Democratic Rep. John Murtha (PA), who served in Congress since 1974, passed away today. Murtha had been in intensive care after complications arose from his gall bladder surgery a couple of weeks ago."
My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
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, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110. 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.
Blah Blah Bipartisan Blah
Obama Plans Bipartisan Summit on Health Care:
President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.My gut feeling is that Obama expects to be able to make the GOP look like assholes the way he did recently at their annual conference. That isn't going to happen. They will come prepared with their usual arsenal of half-truths and outright lies delivered in spectacularly simplistic soundbites, gunning to definitively tank healthcare reform once and for all—and make the President look like a dipshit in the process.
Mr. Obama made the announcement in an interview on CBS during the Super Bowl pre-game show, capitalizing on a vast television audience. He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to offer their own ideas on health care and show whether both sides are willing to work together.
"I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.
Lots of potential to backfire with little potential gain, methinks.
Quotes of the Day
"We don't work with a lot of women on our films. When I do work, it's always one woman and a bunch of men in my casts—maybe my character has a friend in the script, but not always. It's odd. So on this film, it was great to have someone like Jessica around, even though most of our scenes as best friends were over the phone."
"And do you find this true, Jennifer? I know I do: You never really bond with all the guys in your cast like they do with each other."
—Jennifer Garner and Jessica Biel, on their scenes together in the new film Valentine's Day, in the new issue of Marie Claire, the cover of which, in addition to featuring Garner and Biel, informs us that "PRETTY IS BACK!" and advertises a "must-read" article entitled: "I agreed to a threesome for my husband's birthday."
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, distributors of the Liss Line of Fatsronaut Spacesuits, for the corpulent cosmonaut.
Recommended Reading:
Rayedish: The 21st Down Under Feminists Carnival
Thomas: This Man Was Raped
Renee: What Counts as a Disability?
Jennifer: President Obama's Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2011 Receives Mixed Reactions from Global Health Community
Andy: Anne Hathaway Left Catholicism Because It's Anti-Gay
Thea: General Larry Platt's "Pants on the Ground" and the Intersection of Race and Comedy
Leave your links in comments...
Book 'em, Danno!
Generally speaking, I am against TV shows and movies being remade. Most of time, these remakes suck ass, and not in a good way. (Occasionally, a remake will be better than it's original, but those are few and far between.) That aside, I am against them on general principals alone: Hey, Hollywood, come up with some new ideas.
All of which is to say, Daniel Dae Kim has signed on to CBS' Hawaii Five-0 remake, due this fall. Good for Daniel!
On a slightly less-exciting note
The part of Detective Steve McGarrett has not yet been cast, though Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin continues to be in talks for itbecause, yeah, what the world really needs is another show with a white dood in the lead. I'd have rather seen Kim in the lead, but maybe our post-racial world just ain't ready for that yet.
[Cross-posted with a hatch-tip to Liss.]
Brace Yourselves, Fatsronauts
During the President's State of the Union address, he announced that First Lady Michelle Obama would soon be launching a national anti-obesity campaign centered on childhood obesity. Lynn Sweet reports that the campaign will be elaborately debuted tomorrow:
Mrs. Obama's East Wing said she will be "joined by members of the president's cabinet, as well as media, sports, entertainment, and business leaders," plus mayors, member of the medical community and others at the White House event. On Tuesday evening, Mrs. Obama will sit down with CNN's Larry King for an interview about obesity and her first year as first lady. She will take questions from viewers.Right from the get-go, the messaging on this is flatly atrocious. Positioning this as an "anti-obesity" campaign is just going to reinforce—and justify—fat hatred. Obama (and anti-obesity crusaders like her) can argue from here to Kingdom Come and back again that "anti-obesity" campaigns aren't about hating fat people, but the reality is that "obesity" doesn't exist outwith people. And, unlike a disease like, say, diabetes, there's an endemic institutional prejudice against fat people. There's a reason why "fat joke" is a term with which everyone's familiar, and "diabetic joke" isn't.
"Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled; nearly one third of children in America are now overweight or obese," the East Wing said in a statement. "The First Lady will announce the elements of the nationwide campaign, which will put us on track to solve the problem of childhood obesity in a generation."
Recently, Iain—who is fat, diabetic, and athletic—began training for the Chicago Marathon. To me, this is wholly unremarkable, because I know how fit he is. But of those who know him and have expressed surprised, their shock was not that a diabetic person who has experienced symmetrical peripheral polyneuropathy was training for a marathon, but that a fat person was training for a marathon.
"Obesity" simply defines fat people in a way that most other physical differences (rightly or wrongly) called disease don't.
I am a fat person; being fat is a defining part of who I am because fat-hatred is something with which I contend on a regular basis—and my reaction to it determines how I am perceived by the world.
That's not something over which I, or any fat person, has any control.
And as long as we are externally defined by our fatness, "anti-obesity" is, quite literally, an attack on a part of us, on us.
"Anti-obesity" will remain functionally indistinguishable from "anti-obese person."
How about an "anti high-fructose corn syrup" campaign? How about an "anti feeding families shitty food is cheaper than feeding families healthy food" campaign? How about an "anti farm subsidies" campaign?
Oh. Right. Because that might hurt the feelings of corporations. Better that we spare the delicate fee-fees of corporations and make life even harder for fat kids.
[Commenting Guidelines: I support a Health at Every Size model. Commenters wishing to debate about fat, the aesthetics of fat, the ethics of fat, DEATHFAT!, or in any other way engage in fat-hating and/or the shaming/blaming of fat people, will find no harbor for that in this thread. We have debated "fat" before here; we're not doing it again.]
Between Storms
Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas are digging out from the big snowstorm on Friday/Saturday. Snowfall totals around Allegheny County were between 15 and 23 inches. In Pittsburgh, we got 20 inches and Friday's 11.4-inch snowfall beat the one-day total of 10.4 in. It was 4 degrees Fahrenheit when I got up this morning, so this snow is not going anywhere on its own.
My internet connection was out for a day and a half this weekend, and another winter storm advisory takes effect tomorrow morning. So, in case I get cut off again, here are a few images from between snowstorms.
On Saturday morning, I awoke to find that my usual view of downtown Pittsburgh looked like this:
There was about 14 inches of snow on the roof next door, and the tree, which usually does not obscure the window at all, was bent all the way down to the neighbor's roof with snow.
Superbowl Ads: Open Thread
I watched nothing but the last three game minutes of the Superbowl yesterday, and didn't see any of the commercials until this morning. Shaker plussziedfeminist sent me this one from Dove, which is just absolutely absurd.
Singing voiceover (over images of a man throughout his life, starting with sperm fertilizing an egg, a crying baby, elementary school class picture, playing high school football, getting married, etc.): Get born, get slapped, now get to school / Get good at sports, always look cool / Get [?], get strong, know how to fight / Stay out late, but be polite / Find a nice girl who'll say "I do" / Then have three kids who'll look just like you / [?] the leaves from the hedge and mow the yard / "Honey, can you open this jar?" / If you hear a noise in the middle of the night, check it out with a flashlight! / You've reached the stage where you feel at ease / You've come this far and it wasn't a breeze / You can take on anything; of course you can! / Because...you're a MAN!And Shaker TheFatLadySings mentioned this one from Dodge (voiced over by Michael C. Hall—sob!) in comments:
Spoken voiceover (over image of man looking self-satisfied, then in shower, then images of product): Now that you're comfortable with who you are, isn't it time for comfortable skin? At last there's Dove for Men. Introducing Dove Men + Care. A new range body and face wash. Be comfortable in your own skin.
Voiceover (over images of various men looking utterly morose and defeated): I will get up and walk the dog at 6:30am. I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast. I will shave. I will clean the sink after I shave. I will be at work by 8am. I will sit through two-hour meetings. I will say yes when you want me to say yes. I will be quiet when you don't want to hear me say no. I will take your call. I will listen to your opinion of my friends. I will listen to your friends' opinions of my friends. I will be civil to your mother. I will put the seat down. I will separate the recycling. I will carry your lip balm. I will watch your vampire TV shows with you. I will take my socks off before getting into bed. I will put my underwear in the basket. And because I do this [cut to image of black Dodge Charger speeding on the open road], I will drive the car I WANT TO DRIVE. Charger: MAN'S LAST STAND. [The words appear onscreen in all caps. More images of car, set to Bond-like music.]The thing I love most about this second one is that the entire narrative is submission to nagging women, with "I will be at work by 8am. I will sit through two-hour meetings." stuck in the middle. Um. Okay. Right. Because women totes structured and run corporate America. Blink.
The few others I've seen, including the talking eTrade baby sexualized and having an affair on his baby girlfriend with a "milkaholic" baby whore (?!), have been dreadful. A lot of terribly sexist swill. We are deep into the backlash, Shakers.
Discuss.
Russian Debate About Rights of the Disabled
(Trigger warning: this post discusses a progressive response to a violent 'solution' to the problem of people with disabilities, as well as some language which will be very offensive to people with disabilities)
As I've mentioned before, I'm a translator by trade (and yes, please, if you have work!), of French, German and Russian to English.
One of my Russian friends posted a link today to a post on Livejournal - which has always had a thriving Russian-speaking community, where it's called "zheh-zheh", analogous to our "el-jay" - about a journalist on a Moscow radio station who'd posed the question: "Do 'defective' children have the right to life?"
Seriously. With a question mark. The radio report was following up on an intense public debate about so-called "mercy killing", inspired by an article by a journalist named A.P. Nikonov.
The post contains the text of a letter sent to the Russian President, and to the Ombudsperson for Children, by some parents of children with Down Syndrome. Now, there's not a lot we can contribute from outside to that debate; I've included a rough translation of the text of the post below. I wanted to say publicly that they have my support, of little value though it may be, and that I hope they have great success.
Mostly I wanted to point out that, although it looks from the outside to be (and is, in many ways) a very socially conservative country, Russia has its own progressives, and they're fighting the good fight just as we are.
If anything, they're currently fighting a more dangerous fight than we - well, not as much Russia anymore, but certainly in other countries around the world, each having their own clusters of progressivist elements, many of them facing serious consequences, from loss of housing or employment to imprisonment, torture, and/or execution.
And this is where I turn to an unabashed plug for Amnesty International. I've had the pleasure of being a small-scale activist for AI for many years, writing my letters to ambassadors and heads of state, demanding human rights for prisoners of conscience, or those facing cruel and unusual punishment.
Many of those unjustly held, imprisoned without the usual rights obtaining to membership in the human race, are progressives like you and I, who just happen to have been born in a place with a somewhat more repressive government (and how deep the shame to know that my government, and that of the US, have been complicit in a horrid abuse of human rights at Guantanamo). People like Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and thousands more, punished for having the nerve to put forward the radical idea of treating all people with basic respect.
The nice thing about Amnesty is, it's *easy* to be an activist for them. You just write letters, mostly. Sure, they need money like any organization, but you can contribute even if you don't have money to give, which is one reason I like them so much.
So, yeah. Plug, plug. Also, bravo/a to our Russian colleagues, and good luck to them with their petition.
The translated post (I'm dashing this off quickly, and if I make any notable errors, I'm hoping one of our resident Shaker russophones can let me know):Dear friends and professionals!
The debate is everywhere right now about the 'issue' raised by the journalist A.P.Nikonov, in his piece "Mercy-killing: to relieve suffering". The radio station Echo of Moscow posed a question: "Do 'defective' children have the right to life?" Just like that, with a question mark. Apparently this radio journalist has forgotten that in our country, every citizen has the guaranteed right to life, and that we are party to a UN Convention which separately stipulates that people living with developmental disabilities (or, in the language of the journalist, 'defectives') have the same rights as other citizens.
An online community of parents raising children with Down Syndrome (these children having become one of the main targets) are sending a letter of protest to the President of our country (in his role as guarantor of the Constitution), and to Pavel Astakhov, ombudsperson for children in Russia. The letter reads as follows:
Dear Pavel:
We, the parents of children with Down Syndrome, ask you to protect us and our children from those who abuse us in the media, namely A.P. Nikonov, in his article "Mercy-killing: to relieve suffering", and the radio broadcast "Echo of Moscow", specifically the one about "Do 'defective' children have the right to life?"
We believe that it is unacceptable to label our children 'chunks of meat', or 'biomass', or 'broken diskette', or 'retard'.
We believe that the honour and dignity of parents of children with disabilities have been harmed by such statements as "Most normal people turn over their defective children to state custody," and "They're crazy, these little mothers," and "They screw up their own lives, turn themselves into holy martyrs," and so on.
We believe there was much that was offensive in the language and tone in both article and broadcast, as well as the very idea of a public discussion of presenting a possible 'solution' to the parents/mother: euthanasia, so soon as the child is born (the so-called 'post-natal abortion').
We believe that such statements as "And you and your family's lives won't be screwed up, and the state - and I, as a taxpayer - won't have to rear this monster in a home," and the thesis of "deep sleep" for "substandard children who will be a burden on the society, in preference to those who are healthy".
We believe that the touching-off of this intense public debate, using offensive terminology, and given Mr. Nikonov's statements aimed at the most vulnerable members of our society, causes grave damage to the cause - newly taken up in our society - of moving towards accommodating the needs of those living with disabilities, and understanding their difficulties.
And we believe that the consequences of such publications/broadcasts can be very serious, particularly with note of the fact that more and more children with disabilities are remaining with their families.
We ask you, as Ombudsperson for Children in Russia, and as a lawyer, to evaluate these messages yourself, and to protect the honour and dignity of parents of children with disabilities, as well as the rights of our children, who are the most socially vulnerable people in our society. Also, we strongly urge you to prevent future dissemination of messages which express contempt for, or urge humiliation of, persons with disabilities.
(signatures follow, and instructions for how to send messages to the right people)
Open Thread
Hosted by the cutest little knitted squid evarrr and a cup of coffee.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by squid. Squid: Bringing the awesome since 1742.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: fatso-fu. lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Important Announcement
If I have to listen to one more dipshit say they're rooting for the New Orleans Saints in the Superbowl "ya know, because of Katrina," my head is going to fucking explode.*
Because here's the thing: I keep hearing that saccharine, pithy, bullshit well-wishing for the inconceivably wealthy football players who play in the Superdome falling out of many of the same mouths I heard victim-blaming the poor, infirm, disabled, elderly, adolescent, infant, and/or otherwise unprivileged—or just fucking unlucky—people who were trapped in and around the Superdome in the aftermath of Katrina, hungry, thirsty, scared, unsafe, surrounded by the dead and dying, and swimming in a river of piss and shit.
No. You don't get to be indifferent to human suffering while it's happening, and then five years later go on about how you hope that town wins the Superbowl because of all that suffering, like you're some kind of compassionate hero.
If you can root for football players to win a fucking game, but can't root for your fellow Americans to be delivered from a waking nightmare no person should even have to contemplate, there's something deeply wrong with you.
And you really just need to STFU about your magical football hopes for NOLA. Because you're a jackass.
-------------------------------
* No, I'm not talking about people who remark, quite rightly, that this is good for the city of New Orleans, economically and spiritually.
