In the wake of Kevin Smith's too-fat-to-fly ousting by Southwest, Shaker Esme emails some more examples of fuckery from airlines:
TSA forces travelling policeman to remove his disabled four-year-old son's leg-braces.
and:
US Airways Philadelphia alert sparked by Jewish prayer.
One trend I've noticed in these types of stories is that it seems rare for security to deprive able-bodied white English-speaking Christian men of necessary items to fly. Instead, the people targeted are people of color (wooooo profiling), women (carrying such dangerous items as breast milk, or breasts), people who speak in a language other than English, people who pray in ways of non-Christian religions (Jews and Muslims), and people using items to accommodate a disability (wheelchairs, braces, medicine).
Of course, the terrorism that is most likely to kill people in America comes in the forms of hate crimes, and domestic acts of terror performed primarily by Christian white men.
Also, it's incredibly sad that THE SECOND COMMENTER on the BoingBoing piece uses the word "lame." Irony, thy name is Internet Dumbshit.
At some point, some genius like Richard Branson is going to realize so many people are finding other ways to travel to avoid these sorts of abuses by traditional carriers, that there's a fuckload of money to be made in an airline that services "nontraditional" flyers.
If I had a billion dollars laying around, Fly Freak Airlines, accommodating fat asses with big seats and treating every individual passenger like a human being, would be cruising on the nation's runways, like, yesterday.
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I love not being a mother.
To say that is simply a statement of fact about myself. It does not contain an implicit condemnation of other women's choices.
I have friends and family members who love being mothers, with the usual caveats and qualifications and moments of exasperation and even regret. And, quite honestly, I'm fairly certain if, by some strange and unexpected twist of fate, I had become a mother, I'd love being a mother, too.
But that near-certainty still doesn't make me want to be one. Because, with absolute certainty, I love not being a mother.
The only thing I don't love about not being a mother is being constantly asked why I'm not one.
It's such an intimate question, casually asked by perfect strangers, frequently in circumstances I don't anticipate will turn into a referendum on my reproductive choices. People trying to sell us something—furniture, a car, cabinetry, a major appliance—are the most egregious and shameless offenders, marching straight toward impropriety without hesitation and dragging my womb out onto the showroom floor for everyone to examine.
Intrusive questions about whether my parts work are deeply unpleasant, but the worst inquiry I get is: When are you two going to start a family?
I hate everything about that question, from its wanton familiarity to its profoundly contemptible implication that Iain and I aren't already a family.
We started a family the moment we decided to spend our lives together. We committed ourselves, long before we were married, to build a life with one another, and our shared life looks like that of any other family—we love, we fight, we make dinner, we go on holiday, we rake leaves, we pick out a paint color for the bathroom. But for the intentional absence of children, the snapshots of our life are totally unremarkable.
We are a family.
To ask when we will start a family is to miss the point entirely. It's not that our family hasn't been started; it's that our family is already complete.
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[Trigger warning.]
I am absolutely gobsmacked by the press release I just received from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) about "the fourth quarter data for 2009 on stop-and-frisks just released by the New York City Police Department." CCR has found that not only were a record number of 575,304 people stopped and frisked by police, but that 87% of them were either Black or Latin@.
Said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren, "2009 was the worst year for stop-and-frisks on record. For many kids, getting stopped by the police while walking home from school has become a normal afterschool activity, and that's tragic. The public is demanding constructive change and an end to racially-biased policing by the NYPD."
The City often claims the racial disparity in stops is accounted for by the racial breakdown of crime suspects, but the data from the first three quarters of 2009 (fourth quarter detail unavailable at this time) reveal that "fits relevant description" is the reason for a stop only 15 percent of the time. Far and away the most often cited reason for a stop by the police is the vague and undefined, "furtive movements" (nearly 50 percent of all stops), and "casing a victim or location" (nearly 30 percent of all stops). Also listed are "inappropriate attire for season," "wearing clothes commonly used in a crime," and "suspicious bulge," among other boxes an officer can check off on the form.
Only 1.3 percent of the year's stops resulted in the discovery of a weapon, and only 6% of the stops resulted in arrests.
Said CCR Attorney Darius Charney, "This kind of heavy-handed policing promotes mistrust, doubt and fear of police officers in communities of color and only serves to make the police's job more difficult."
Look, I'm no cop-hater; my grandfather was a cop. In fact, he was a detective with the NYPD. But I do hate that cops are being given free rein to police in a way that is not only evident harassment but rife with the potential for the physical abuse of so-called suspects.
If a cop is a white supremacist, and all that's required to cover hir ass is a bullshit justification like "furtive movements," what's to stop hir from using the stop-and-frisk to secure opportunity to act out hir violent bigotry?
If a cop is a
sexual predator, and all that's required to cover hir ass is a bullshit justification like "furtive movements," what's to stop hir from using the stop-and-frisk as part of hir predation?
That the obvious answer to these questions is "nothing" underlines how utterly fucked-up this situation really is.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Blacks and Latin@s, who comprised
87% of the NYPD's stop-and-frisks last year, are respectively 25% and 28% of New York City's total population.
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Daughter: Morning!
Dad: You got in pretty late last night
Daughter: Dad, I'm not 16 anymore.
Dad: Still, it was late
Daughter: Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore (reveals an engagement ring)
Dad. Todd's a lucky man...that's what I told him when we talked last week.
This commercial is not new, but I heard it for the first time this morning on the Weather Channel, as I was getting my daily Winter Weather Advisory.
Folgers has a robust tradition of sexist commercials, and
The Frisky covered this one last month. The comments there are, alas, mostly of the "I don't see the sexism" and "It's cute and sweet--deal with it" and "must we look for sexism and invent things to be offended about" variety. It's a total bingo card.
Buggie at the Feministing community covered the ad as well, and the comments there had a feeling of "of course parents worry about their kids being out late" and "shrug--it's just a tradition".
The posts at The Frisky and Feministing point out that the advert shows ownership of the daughter changing hands from father to husband. I would add that the father has granted his permission for this change of ownership at the request of the husband-to-be and without the daughter's knowledge. The commercial would have us believe that it's a sweet and loving gesture. Apparently, many people agree.
The dad's smugness as he lets his daughter know she isn't doing anything without his say-so riles me.
I am equally disturbed by the sexism of the commercial and the fact that this woman-as-property concept is so normalized that many (maybe even most) people don't see a problem with it and even find it charming.
I'm not saying that you and you and
you should drop your family traditions. Just don't tell me they are not sexist and expect a credulous response.
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Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
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by Shaker P
Hours after the earthquake hit, my four coworkers (one Haitian and three Americans) and I (also American) were with a group of 30 or so people in the courtyard of a hotel near Petionville that had sustained the quake without damage. Across from the hotel is a large park, into which dozens of families were streaming from side streets, carrying food and bedding, and grasping their children tightly, to settle in for a sleepless night away from the buildings that might fall in the aftershocks.
Two small figures came in from the street, a girl and a boy. They looked as though they'd been dipped in fine powdered sugar from head to toe. Except where they were bleeding: Minor cuts and probably a fractured wrist for the girl. In America I would have said they were 8 and 6, but in Haiti I've learned it's very hard to estimate age because of chronic malnutrition. When the girl realized that people wanted to listen to her, and that there were Creole speakers among us, she burst into tears and told her family's story. Their house had collapsed on top of them, and now they were in the park, with nothing. "We almost died today," she repeated. We sat them down and brought them water to drink, ibuprofen for her pain, and a first aid kit to clean their wounds.
Maya (not her name) is twelve, and her brother Ron (not his name) ten. Once she had been cared for, with ice on her wrist, Maya decided it was time to bring the rest of her family to the hotel courtyard. My friends and I sat with Ron while others accompanied her to the park. Soon, in came Maya's mother, with a babe in arms, a brother, who looked about Maya's age, and a sister, maybe three years old. All had the terrible powdered-sugar coating. Quietly, they settled onto a bench and the edge of a fountain. The doctor who was with us looked at each of them in turn. Maya's mother probably had a fractured top of her foot. Again, ibuprofen and ice were the remedies we had.
Coke and crackers were produced by the hotel, and the family ate. The three-year-old girl settled in on my lap, and one of my friends was holding the baby. Soon they were both deeply asleep. The hotel was happy to offer them space in the courtyard where we were all planning to sleep, but that was still too close to a building for them. They chose to return to the park, and were anxious to get back before the space was full. We walked them across the street, and when they were settled in a spot, handed the sleeping baby and toddler to Maya's mother and older brother. We gave them the little cash we had on us and returned to the hotel.
Soon we heard that there was a clinic functioning nearby, and we volunteered there until early in the morning. It was difficult, but what a difference it made having morphine and strong antibiotics to give to people injured in every imaginable way by falling buildings. Later we would not have those to give.
At daylight Wednesday morning, my group decided to make our way back to the place where our organization has worked on community-based health and nutrition since the 90's, about 20 miles outside of Port au Prince, near the epicenter of the quake. We walked partway and then were lucky enough to hitch a ride. Tens of thousands of people were on the move that day, walking, with few possessions. Again I was struck by how fiercely people—women and men—were holding on to their children.
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Suggested by Shaker JupiterPluvius: If the Wish Fairy gave you one wish, that would be simultaneously granted both to you and to the person at whom you are currently angriest, what would that wish be?
I'm not angry at anyone at the moment, unless you count the sort of nebulous, borderless, morphing anger that gets directed at people like political strategists and advertising executives, people whose names I may never know, but who shape the world, and hence my life in it, in ways I constantly resist.
And if those people count, then I wish for both myself and for them the desire and ability to make others a little happier, and to make ourselves a little happier, because to make others less happy is a crime, and to make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.
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[Trigger warning for descriptions of sports-related injury.]
So, Iain and I both lurrrrrrrrve the Olympics, and we've been watching coverage of the Winter Olympics almost nonstop. And here's something interesting I've noticed: The NBC commentators talk incessantly about the various injuries that been sustained by the athletes. I've heard about countless sprains, ligaments, broken bones. I've heard about a ruptured Achilles tendon. I've heard about a speed skater who sliced into his own leg with his skate, and a figure skater who sliced into his partner's face with his skate. I've heard about the elaborate medical procedures that were done to repair these injuries, and the extensive physical therapy that some of the athletes have done to get back to their sport.
Some of the athletes are from the United States. Some of them are from other countries but were training in the United States.
And not once has anyone commented that these athletes are a drain on the healthcare system.
No one has complained about non-citizens and immigrants using our emergency services.
No one has complained about the "unhealthy lifestyle" Olympians engage in, and how all their totally preventable (if only they'd give up their hopes, dreams, passions, and jobs!) injuries are contributing to rising healthcare costs.
Funny that.
It's almost like there's some kind of zany double-standard at work in our national discourse!
Ahem.
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I really, really love it when I'm in line waiting for a customer service type person (CSTP) to assist me and the CSTP completely bypasses me by speaking to a man waiting either in front of or behind me in line--because the CSTP assumes that I must be with the man (as noted in their surprise/apology-like mumblings when I speak up).
Because I couldn't possibly have my own business to attend to.
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"There's just too much brain-dead partisanship, tactical maneuvering for short-term political advantage rather than focusing on the greater good, and also just strident ideology."—Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who happens to be one of my senators, on why he's not seeking reelection to the Senate.
You know, Senator, your alleged concern for the "greater good" might mean more to me if you hadn't just announced your plans to vacate your office without warning to the Democrats just before the candidacy filing deadline, thereby significantly increasing the odds your seat will be filled by someone who doesn't even marginally believe in the bodily autonomy of half the population, who doesn't even marginally support queer equality, and who doesn't even marginally support treating suspected terrorists as human beings.
You were already a shitty Democrat (even by the Democrats' pathetic standards), but it's pretty goddamned low to make sure there was no chance of getting a more progressive person in your seat. Asshole.
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I see that the BBC is covering the issue of sexual assault in the US military and also what it's like to be a woman military member. They're not just doing one article but are highlighting all week long.
Any guesses as to when you think a US media outlet will care to give the same coverage?
lolsob
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116. 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.
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[Trigger warning.]
Copyranter just called my attention to this new spot for StartFreedom.org, a British anti-trafficking site. It's another in a long list of PSAs and adverts for various anti-trafficking, anti-rape, or anti-domestic abuse orgs that features violent imagery, a new trend I really disdain. (Remember this Keira Knightley spot?)
Just this weekend, I saw a billboard along a highway not far from my house with a picture of a little boy with a bruised eye, with the text, "He's got his mother's eyes," followed by some quip that strongly suggested a mother who stays with an abusive father is responsible if her children are abused. Even without the victim-blaming, I was unthrilled with the violent imagery coupled with a pun. It's not the worst thing in the world to suspend the urge to be clever for the duration of one anti-violence ad.
Anyway, in this spot, a white British schoolgirl is stalked, has her head smashed against her desk, and is dragged by her hair out of a classroom by a man while the rest of the class, including the teacher, who continues to do rollcall as if nothing is happening, does nothing to help her.
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You know, I was just thinking the only thing that could make a White House celebration of a Christian holiday even more fucking objectionable is layering the First Lady's fat-hating and disablist and otherwise problematic "anti-childhood obesity" campaign on top of it.
Voila! "The President and First Lady have announced that this year's White House Easter Egg Roll will be held on Monday, April 5, 2010 with the theme of 'Ready, Set, Go!' promoting health and wellness. The event will feature live music, sports courts, cooking stations, storytelling and, of course, Easter egg rolling. All of the activities will encourage children to lead healthy and active lives and follow the First Lady's 'Let's Move!' initiative, a national campaign to combat childhood obesity."
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