No.
(Story here.)
Bechdel + Deggans = Win*
Shaker distractedbyshinyobjects emails: "What makes the Oscar films sexist and racist is also what makes them shitty and boring."
Discuss.
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* Or, two steps closer to Win, anyway.
Further Proof He's A Douche
Philosopher and Hufflepuff blogger Bernard-Henri Lévy, he of the Free Polanski petition, has made an ass of himself. Again.
This time by quoting heavily from Jean-Baptiste Botul's "The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant" in lectures and in his own book. The thing is, Jean-Baptiste Botul doesn't exist and his book is a hoax perpetrated by journalist Frédéric Pagès. Oops!
While we're on the subjects of douches, know who else is a total nozzle? Whomever wrote the piece, including this closing paragraph:
Levy last stirred controversy when he published an account in 2008 of his visit to Georgia during the war with Russia that French newspapers said contained excerpts that were made up.
Really? That's the last time he "stirred controversy"?
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Annepersand: "What is your favorite fictional character's name? Not the name of your favorite character, mind you, but your favorite name that belongs to a fictional character, either because it's really amazingly apt or sounds funny or you just love the way the sounds work together."
Mine is totes Uriah Heep (from Dickens' David Copperfield).
Just Think...
You totes could have owned the Terminator rights, if only you hadn't spent that $29.5 million on Lost bobbleheads and Frankie Goes to Hollywood bootlegs.
The World Loves a Pretty Girl
And loves even more a pretty girl who will talk about how not-pretty she thinks she is:
Anne Hathaway looks as unequivocally gorgeous and radiant as ever on the March cover of InStyle—though she's probably the only person out there who doesn't see it: "I think I've got really weird features. I have very large features on a very small head," she tells the magazine. "But, you know, I'm not going to beat myself up. It's my face. I'm not very pretty. But that's OK because I do know that I look like myself, and I think at the end of the day, as nice as pretty is, authenticity is more important."Quite obviously, I don't want this post to be a referendum on Hathaway's attractiveness (by any reasonable measure, she conforms quite closely to the current beauty standard, and that's all that's relevant), and I don't intend to imply in any way that Hathaway doesn't have the explicit right to her own feelings, whatever they may be, about her own appearance.
What interests me is only that I've read this same article before, with some other beautiful young ingenue talking about how not-beautiful she really is. Julia Roberts, Renee Zellweger, Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, whomever, waxing pragmatically about their "flaws"—goofy grin, bad skin, unruly hair, one eye slightly higher than the other. I once saw an interview with Evangeline Lilly where she revealed getting her "uneven" teeth shaved down three different times only to realize it was her lip that was crooked.
Why do we like this formula so much? Part of it, I imagine, is the idea that we want our unattainable female icons to be impossibly beautiful, but self-consciously modest about it. Perhaps, to suggest that they are as distant from their own beauty as we are, that they don't really inhabit our fantasies.
But then there is this, this very import thing: We consider it humanizing to read about a female star who obsesses about her perceived imperfections.
To be a female human is to wracked with self-doubt.
Let's Move, Part II
[Trigger warning re: disordered eating and sexual assault.]
Part One is here.
Something else I wanted to point out about First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative—and I felt it deserves its own, separate, discussion thread—is that there doesn't appear to be any strategy at all for discerning whether the "obese" children being targeted have disordered eating.
The evident assumption is that "obese" children (and I'm putting obese in quotes here because BMI is a crock for kids, too) are fat because of some combination of not having been taught to eat right, not having access to healthy food, not getting enough exercise, etc. And for many kids, this may be true.
For other kids still, who are being ignored by the "Let's Move" initiative, they are fat because of disability, or treatment of disability—many drugs prescribed to treat mental illness, including childhood depression and bipolar disorder, have a side effect of weight gain.
But there are also children who compulsively overeat as an emotional salve. Children (for the most part) cannot access on their own the appropriate tools adults use to process trauma, like therapy.
They can't access inappropriate tools adults use to cope with trauma, either; they don't have access to drugs or booze, but they do have access to food—and children in emotional distress can use food to self-medicate.
Several studies have found associations between childhood sexual trauma and childhood and/or adult obesity, especially in girls and women (example). Even a child thought to be overeating out of "boredom" may really be eating out of loneliness or abandonment.
That we know children may self-medicate with food to fill a void left by neglect or abuse means one of our primary concerns for any "obese" child is the potential that trauma is underlying disordered eating.
To ignore this possibility is to risk subjecting children not merely to the secondary trauma of indifference, but also to deepening wounds, by piling shame about their only coping mechanism on top of the original trauma.
Once More, Without Feeling
Does anyone care to guess how sad and tired it makes me to continually be making posts about Canadian citizens in trouble abroad whose government refuses to help them?
Because yes, that's what I'm writing about today. Shaker Unree sent me this link to an article at The Nation. I'll quote the lede and the second para, you can read the rest over there.
In most countries, a woman in her mid-20s is legally an adult. And in most countries, foreigners are free to leave when they like. In its flagrant rejection of these two principles, Saudi Arabia is unique, and that is a big problem for 24-year-old Nazia Quazi.
For more than two years Nazia, an IT specialist who graduated from the University of Ottawa and holds dual Canadian-Indian citizenship, has been trying to leave Riyadh and go home to Canada. Her troubles began on November 23, 2007, when she entered Saudi Arabia with her parents on a visitor's visa. In Saudi Arabia, foreign visitors must have a sponsor, a local man who handles their paperwork. Nazia's sponsor is her father, Quazi Malik Abdul Gaffar, an Indian citizen who has worked in Saudi Arabia for many years. At some point Nazia's father clandestinely switched her visitor's visa to a more permanent visa--one that requires that he, as her sponsor, approve her exit visa. This he refuses to do. No exit visa, no departure. Worse, Nazia says he has confiscated both her Indian and Canadian passports and all her identity documents--driver's license, health card, credit cards and so on--and refuses to return them. She is trapped.
So, are we getting this? Canadian woman is detained by her patriarch, using Saudi Arabia's misogynistic "cultural values" as the reason for detention.
And the Canadian government, as usual, takes a brave stand in favour of the patriarchy, that this physically and emotionally abusive asshole has the right to imprison his daughter because, well, it was his sperm that made her, after all, so obviously he gets to own her Forever and Ever, All-men.
ò,Ô
So, what can you do, Shakers?
I have a number of suggestions.
I'd start with this listing, of the Saudi Embassies around the world. You could write a polite but firm letter letting them know the eyes of the world are on them. I recommend strongly that you do, in fact, make sure it's a polite letter. After many years of experience writing such letters in my connection with Amnesty International, I can tell you if you're rude, they'll just throw your letter away. Seriously.
But the Saudis aren't the only ones complicit in this appalling violation of human rights. You can find the locations of Canadian embassies and consulates here, and Indian embassies and consulates here. If you're not Canadian, I suggest writing a similar polite but firm letter to your nearest Canadian embassy or consulate.
If you're Canadian, you'll want the contact information for your local MP, which you can find here in English, or here in French (on a deux langues officielles en Canada).
If you're Indian, your Members of Parliament can be found through this page.
Teaspoons up, Shakers.
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, 111. 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.
Lost Jones
Tread lightly if you aren't caught up yet...
Matthew Fox in the Telegraph.
Terry O'Quinn in the LA Times.
Jorge Garcia in New York.
Michael Emerson at Fancast.
Yunjin Kim in the Star Telegram.
Elizabeth Mitchell at E!
Josh Holloway in USA Today.
[H/T to Tracie for the first four.]
Let's Move
As I mentioned yesterday, First Lady Michelle Obama was set to launch her anti-childhood-obesity campaign today, and so she has:
Michelle Obama is telling America that it's time to get moving.Christ. I'm pretty sure I already have bingo. (Btw, the link to Kate's post at the link is broken, but you can find the referenced, and relevant, post here.)
In a news conference set for noon Tuesday at the White House, the first lady will introduce a national effort to combat childhood obesity.
Calling it The Let's Move campaign, the program will focus on what families, communities and the public and private sectors can do to help fight childhood obesity, which she and health experts have termed an epidemic in the United States.
You know, navigating the territory where fat acceptance/HAES language, and the associated attempt to talk about being healthy as opposed to thin, can come uncomfortably close to disablist language can be tricky. It's something that even I, both fat and disabled, struggle to do well. So I am deeply sympathetic to those who are trying to find that balance.
But "Let's Move"...? Is not even close. That misses by a country mile.
I just said in January of another similarly disastrous idea: "Just on the most cursory, simplistic level, this has the I assume every fat, disabled person I see is disabled because they're fat, and don't consider the possibility they're fat because they're disabled problem about which I've written before." While physically disability that limits movement may be less endemic among children than adults, this is nonetheless a national campaign equating "moving" with "getting thin/healthy," without regard for an implicitly disablist message.
And, naturally, it also fails wholly to take into consideration that not everyone who "moves" loses weight, anyway. There are fat people who regularly exercise, whose bodies persistently stay "overweight," laying waste to the "calories in, calories out" meme.
And it fails to address many of the cultural constructs hindering "movement," like the decrease in safe green areas for children to play, and the dearth of public transportation to walkable city centers in favor of a car culture.
Below is the full text of the press release with the details of the plan, some of which are good, and some of which are not-so-good. What strikes me most about it is that it is simply incomplete.
The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report – T100209
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco, proud publishers of the thrilling sequel to Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying: Ethel the Aardvark: Assistant Manager of Quantity Surveying for Northwest Region! Available now in bookstores near you, and some which are sort of on the net, so they're near in a way, but not really like you could go over and get a cuppa and sit down and read them.
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
NQDTR Discussion Thread – T100209
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
Bread and Teaspoons Twenty-Two
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 (theoretically) 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.
Sorry for missing last week's instalment, depression sucks big rocks through a garden hose sideways.
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.
Question of the Day
What question would you like to see asked as a future Question of the Day?
(Try to resist answering the good ones; that defeats the purpose!)
"Where are 1% of American adults?"
by Shaker Anitanola
That was one of Stephen Fry's questions in a recent episode of the BBC's long running comedy show QI.* The answer, of course, is jail.
Five percent of the world's population is American; twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners are American. The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any country in the history of the world.The QI researchers are no mere wiki-wanderers and I do not question their skills; indeed even a cursory google produces shocking information. For example, there has been an explosion of the prison population since 1980. The percentage of the adult population in the penal system—in prison, on parole or probation—is 3.2%. The Sentencing Project shows racial disparity in incarceration rates throughout the United States.
The rate is three times that of Iran, six times that of China. More than one in a hundred adults in the United States is in prison. One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is in prison.
What followed makes me wonder about taking pride in things "Made in the USA." I know our society is not post-racial but I must now wonder if we are actually even post-slavery. QI's answer continued:
It is illegal to bring into the United States any goods produced by forced labor or by prisoners, yet American prisoners make 100% of the military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof vests, ID tags as well some other items used by the US military. Although a prisoner is not technically forced to work, solitary confinement is the punishment for refusal. They also make 93% of domestically produced paints, 36% of home appliances and 21% of office furniture.Those are manufacturing jobs. We're told that it helps our economy to outsource many jobs, even if it feels painful to those workers who are affected, but I can't recall being told about penal labor in relation to our economy.
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* Unfortunately, QI is not available on BBC America but you can search YouTube for QI Series G Episode 11 Gifts. See part 3.
