Shakesville

News from Shakes Manor

Email edition…

Liss: Can you view this video?

Iain: Uh-huh. I think Sophie would have fun with that.

Liss: You missed the fact that the three cats in the video looked uncannily like our three cats, didn't you?

Iain: No!

Liss: Wevs. You totally had no idea why I sent that to you, lololol!

Iain: Never — I totes knew why you were sending it before you did.

Liss: LOL! I'm blogging that.

Iain: Blog dis:

[Image of digital flip-off.]
Liss: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! Oh, I'm really blogging THAT!

[Thanks to Shaker DesertRose for dropping the link to the video into comments.]

Healthcare, Public Option, Blah

I can't be mustered to write anything about healthcare this week. Here's a good example of why:

Senator Bernie Sanders, in a brief interview in the Capitol just now, confirmed to me that he's willing to commit to introducing an amendment that would add the public option to the Senate bill’s reconciliation fix.

This is important, because as far fetched as this seems, if this amendment is introduced, a vote on it would be very hard for the Senate Dem leadership to block. The only thing that could stop it from happening, according to Senate expert Robert Dove, is for the parliamentarian to rule that it's not germane to the Senate bill somehow — something that seems unlikely.

"I think somebody should do that, and I'd certainly be prepared to do that," Sanders told me when I asked him if he'd be willing to commit to introducing a public option amendment. This is, in effect, a commitment to introduce the amendment if no one else does.

The possiblity that a single Senator will introduce a public option amendment — which would get a straight majority vote — is actually worrying to Senate Dem leaders. Indeed, Dick Durbin, the number two Senate Dem, yesterday told reporters that this would create headaches and even conceded that the leadership might be forced to ask liberal Senators to vote against it to ensure smooth passage for the overall bill.

So the public option could get an up-or-down vote in the Senate...only for liberal Dems to vote against it. Depressing.

It's not like I don't care about health~~care~~ insurance reform; I care about it quite passionately, especially since I'm self-employed. It's just that I've totally lost any feeling that the Democrats are open to influence from genuine progressives, so I've lost the will to advocate.

I'm just waiting to see what happens now. Like everyone else.

O NOES!

Minority babies set to become majority in 2010; year could be tipping point when non-white newborns outnumber white: "Minorities make up nearly half the children born in the U.S., part of a historic trend in which minorities are expected to become the U.S. majority over the next 40 years. In fact, demographers say this year could be the 'tipping point' when the number of babies born to minorities outnumbers that of babies born to whites."

NOT THE TIPPING POINT!!! Save us, Maude!

Cue yet another round of conservatives wailing about "racial suicide" and the onslaught of the radical brown hordes. You know who I mean—the white assholes who are worried that a brown majority might treat a white minority as shitty as a white minority has treated people of color.

Anyway... Of course you know who's to blame for this, right? WHITE WOMEN! For not having enough BABIES!

[Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire] explained there are now more Hispanic women of prime childbearing age who tend to have more children than women of other races.

More white women are waiting until they are older to have children, but it is not yet known whether that will have a noticeable effect on the current trend of increasing minority newborns.

So you'd better get CRACKING on the babymaking, white ladies! JUST IN CASE!

Right now, roughly 1 in 10 of the nation's 3,142 counties already have minority populations greater than 50 percent.

But 1 in 4 communities have more minority children than white children or are nearing that point, according to the study, which Johnson co-published.

That is because Hispanic women on average have three children, while other women on average have two.

...The numbers are 2.99 children for Hispanics, 1.87 for whites, 2.13 for blacks and 2.04 for Asians in the U.S.

And the number of white women of prime childbearing age is on the decline, dropping 19 percent from 1990.

This is all feminism's fault, I tell you.

I love the inclusion of this tidbit at the end of the article: "In Lake County, Ind., a suburb of Chicago, the minority population grew from 43 percent in 1990 to 53 percent in 2008 as the number of white children declined, the number of blacks stayed stable and the number of Hispanics increased."

*waves from the border of Lake County, Indiana*

Okay, so, first of all, Lake County is not a suburb—because it's not a town. It's a county, as its name suggests. And it includes Gary, which is the "blackest" 100,000+ resident city in America with a per capita average income of under $15,000 a year, from which whites have been flighting since the 1960s when Gary got itself a popular black mayor, a migration that reached a crescendo when the steel industry of Northwest Indiana collapsed in the '80s.

White people have been moving out of this area, and people of color—especially Latin@s—moving into this area, for my entire life. The population shift has fuck-all to do with how many babies white ladies are having, and everything to do with racism and economic depression.

All of which I share just to illustrate the sort of bullshit that gets inserted into news stories as "facts" and "evidence" that are demonstrably neither, in order to further the narratives of the kyriarchy.

[H/T to Shaker Kristin.]

On Punk

[Trigger warning]

I was strolling through the news today when I came across this curious headline: "Author assumes guise of 10-year-old to punk famous." I wasn't sure what it meant, since the word "punk" was evoking for me this sort of thing. So I read the story, most of it anyway, and it turned out to be about adult author Bill Geerhart's new book about pranks he'd pulled as "Little Billy," like getting a Secretary of State to write back about "how to settle a treehouse dispute with his sister." Geerhart, explains the article, was "punking the famous and infamous by writing letters to them asking questions out of the mouths of babes."

Now, I could write a whole post on what I think about giving a book deal to some yo-yo who duped famous people by pretending to be a kid, but at the moment I'm more interested in the fact that the use of "punk" as a verb has moved into the national lexicon.

Because the etymology of "punk" is slang for prison rape. Yeah, to "punk someone out" means to "make them your bitch" — and a "punk-ass bitch" is not someone with a pink mohawk, but someone who's been anally raped.

The most widespread [prison slang term] is punk, used as a noun to mean a submissive homosexual, and a verb for coital relations with a submissive homosexual. It [was] first cited in a memoir of New York State’s Sing Sing prison in 1904. Punk is still in use, cited in every resource the present author has had access to. Punks are usually dominated by wolves, another common term...

See also these definitions:

a. Slang A young man who is the sexual partner of an older man.
b. Archaic A prostitute.
5. Obsolete a young male homosexual; catamite
6. Obsolete a prostitute

I don't think that the above connotations were at all lost on Ashton Kutcher and MTV when they created the show Punk'd, from where I will safely assume this term pushed its way into the public consciousness. When you've been pranked by Ashton, when he tells you you've been "punk'd," it's clearly just another way of saying, "I made you my bitch."

Welcome to the rape culture, where a slang word for rape can make its way through the language to a major news story in which it's used without any hint of its etymology, to sound "cool."

I Write Letters

[This was originally published one year ago today. In the interim, Bea Arthur has died, Rue McClanahan has had a stroke, and Betty White has been recruited to host Saturday Night Live. I decided to republish it in honor of these wonderful ladies I still love so dearly.]

Dear Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia:

This letter is long overdue. As you know, we have spent many joyful hours together over the last two-and-a-half decades, laughing warmly about all kinds of kooky highjinks, and I've never properly thanked you for everything you've given me.

Thank you for being a part of my childhood. Thank you for hanging out with me, in four-hour blocks on Saturday mornings, when I was in college; there has been and never will be any better hangover cure than you ladies. Thank you for always being there on some obscure cable channel or other in the middle of the night when I have insomnia.

Thank you for being feminists. Thank you for showing me that divorce isn't shameful, that being a widow doesn't mean your life is over, that love and sex are different things, that sex can be fun and frivolous and not always fraught with meaning (and judgment). Thank you for showing me women are cool. And smart. And funny as hell. Thank you for showing me that female friendships are awesome.

Thank you for being sassy. Thank you for being subversive. Thank you for being bawdy. Thank you for teaching me words like lanai and caftan. Thank you for being what I suspect is a big part of the reason I have never really feared getting old.

And finally, to each of you: Thank you for being a friend, traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true; you're a pal and a confidant. And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me, and the card attached would say, "Thank you for being a friend."

No one really understood why an 11-year-old loved you so much, nor an 18-year-old, nor a 25-year-old, and there are probably some people who wonder why a 35-year-old loves you still. But looking over that list, it seems to me the question isn't why I have always adored you, but how it is possible that anyone couldn't.

With admiration and gratitude,
Liss

P.S. Thank you in particular, Dorothy Zbornak, for making me love my voice.

Daily Kitteh

Sophs the Huntress

AAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Jabba the Hutt + Parks and Recreation Opening = Hutts and Recreation

[Paraphrase: Video of Jabba the Hutt (and related characters) cut in the style of the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation opening, with people singing the words "Jabba the Hutt" over and over to the theme music.]

The maker of this mash-up explains: "The reason this exists is because every time we watch Parks and Recreation we sing 'Jabba the Hutt' along with the theme. So naturally we had to make this video."

I love you, internetz.

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

[Trigger warning.]

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[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.]

Huh!

Care of the WaPo, "We Expected Hillary Rodham Clinton to Be a Wild Psycho-Bitch But It Turns Out She's Kinda Awesome" Story #1,694,382:

Hillary Rodham Clinton ran a presidential campaign notoriously insular and unhappy, managing a group of egos and backstabbers whose dysfunction may have cost her the White House. Understandably, people wondered what kind of management style she would bring to the State Department.

But a little over a year into her tenure as secretary of state, allies and detractors alike say Clinton has made a vigorous effort to widen her circle, wooing and pulling into her orbit the agency's Foreign Service and civil service officials, many of whom said in interviews that she has brought a new energy to the building.

"We have had other secretaries of state who have cared deeply for the institution," said Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management and a senior Foreign Service officer. "None who have done as much internal outreach."

...Stewart M. Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked at the State Department under Colin L. Powell, agreed that Clinton "seems to still be struggling with priorities" and questioned whether she has a "grand strategic vision."

But, he added, "there is no question from a public diplomacy standpoint, she has had a lot to offer in different parts of the world" because of her star power. And he noted that inside the agency, "people invested in the institution are quite happy with things. Here's a woman who everyone expected to be circling the wagons and running the place with a small coterie, and that hasn't happened."

ZOMG! This would be TOTALLY SHOCKING if only I hadn't read 1,694,381 stories with a similar ASTONISHING REVERSAL!!! It's like the media coverage of Hillary Clinton is being directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

(Love the notes about Clinton lacking a unifying vision, btw. Yeah, it's real hard to connect these dots: Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot...)

Those interviewed inside and outside the agency say Clinton has done a good job of heading off the historical tensions between career employees and quadrennial political newcomers by relying on the counsel of senior Foreign Service operatives and reaching out in general.

She has walked the halls and popped into offices unexpectedly, created an electronic "sounding board," and held seven internal town hall meetings to listen to gripes about everything from policy to cafeteria food to bullying in the workplace. She installed six new showers that joggers requested, is taking steps to remedy overseas pay inequities and instituted a policy that allows partners of gay diplomats to receive benefits. She became a heroine to the Foreign Service when she went to bat to get funding for 3,000 new Foreign Service positions for State operations and the U.S. Agency for International Development -- the first boost of this magnitude in two decades.

...Shamila Chaudary -- a self-described "backbencher" -- had toiled for years as a faceless expert on the Pakistan desk when one day she found herself invited to brief Clinton. Chaudary, 32, said the two sparred over whether it was prudent to engage non-governmental power centers in Pakistan, with Clinton expressing skepticism.

Chaudary held her ground, making the point that "we've been seen as not engaging with them, and it's hurt us a lot." She said that although she and Clinton "didn't necessarily agree ... she said that it's very important for us to debate like this. ... This is how she said she wants to do business."

Within 48 hours of their meeting, Chaudary was promoted to a front-line job in the office of policy planning.

Blub.

Quote of the Day

I appreciate the fact that everybody [in the acting community] really cares and is trying to show their expression of sorrow right now. But at the end of the day, Larry, where were all these people the last 10 years, the last 15 years of Corey's life? … Where were all these people to lend a hand out, to reach out to him and say, you know, you're a legend, you're an amazingly talented, wonderful person who's really never gone out of his way to hurt anybody other than himself. He was there for his mom and he took care of her. He's always been a good person.

…In this entertainment industry, in Hollywood, we build people up as children. We put them on pedestals. And then when we decide that they're not marketable anymore, we walk away from them. And then we taunt them and we tease them. And things like TMZ, outlets like that, where it's acceptable in society—it's okay for society, as a whole, to poke fun at, to point fingers at, to laugh at us as human beings. Why is it okay to kick somebody when they're down? I don't think it is. And I don't think it should be tolerated anymore.

…He had nobody to turn to. I was one of the few people he had left in his life. You know, you see these people making great statements and that's wonderful and I hope they're all there for the memorial. And I hope they're all there for the funeral. But where were they during his life?

And that's something that I believe that everybody in this society needs to hold themselves accountable for. I think that we all need to grow up. And we need to think about every time we laugh at somebody in the tabloids, or every time we poke a finger at somebody and say they're a joke or they're fat or they're a drug addict or they're washed up or they're a loser, we need to look at ourselves and say, who am I?

—Actor Corey Feldman, on Larry King Live last night, discussing the death of his best friend, Corey Haim. Video here.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Andy Prieboy: "Tomorrow Wendy"

The Past Is Present

ETA: My best friend, who taught at our old high school, and my sister corrected me. The school did eventually sponsor off-campus proms, however, “tradition” meant that students quickly left (usually after taking pictures) to gather for their own separate (in terms of race) functions.

Dear Mississippians,

I find it amazing the type of symbolism with which y’all manage to imbue high school rituals like prom. I mean, some of you held on to racially segregated proms well into the 21st century—although some progress has been made there.*

Now I hear others of you would rather cancel prom than allow a lesbian couple to attend. This, just a few months after your execution of a flawless southern swoon at the idea of a high school senior challenging the norms reinforced by gendered clothing.

I don’t know if it’s nostalgia for the good ol’ school days. I don’t know if you're scared that Anita Bryant's predictions have come true and proponents of the radical homosexual agenda™, have infiltrated the schools and are recruiting your children.

But, really, stop. Time will not stand still. You cannot re-create your youth or what you envision as the glorious past through your children.

Your fellow southerner,

elle
_________________________________________
*My own Louisiana high school did not have integrated proms and, only shortly before its closing, did it stop the practice of having a homecoming court with one white and one black representative from each grade.

Ah, to be loved conditionally.

Shaker Jessmo forwarded this advice column, which is one of the most vicious examples of fat hatred I've read recently (which is really saying something). A woman writes in asking about her relationship, which has been devoid of any physical affection at all for more than a year, because she's gained 40 pounds. The "Advice Goddess," Amy Alkon, responds by scolding, shaming, ridiculing, hectoring, and ultimately blaming the woman (delivering a heaping dose of men are shallow dick-thinkers who only like skinny women, unless they're creepy fat fetishists on the side).

In two years, you've put on the equivalent of a 5-year-old child about to outgrow his car seat. That isn't going up a dress size; it's going up a tent size.

Love might be blind, but male lust usually has a weight limit. There are those guys who are fatty fanciers, but a guy who got together with you 40 pounds ago probably isn't one of them. Male sexuality is highly visual.

…I'll let your friends go on about how your boyfriend's a horrible person, and how love should transcend all. The reality is, it often doesn't. Besides, you didn't get cancer; you got a trough of Haagen-Dazs, stuck your snout in, and didn't look up for two years straight. Now, maybe your boyfriend's affection strike is utterly unconnected to your weight, but chances are, he's angry and resentful that he's got a girlfriend whose panties are beginning to resemble a parasail.

"It helps to accept that, as a woman, you need to do the very best you can with what you have," Alkon eventually concludes."Sure, inner beauty counts for a lot, but it isn't slimming. And while the average guy doesn't want Kate Moss, he isn't into Kate Moose, either."

Wow.

Look, no one is obliged to find another person attractive. No one is obliged to be attracted to every body shape, any more than one is obliged to be attracted to short people, or tall people, or people with blue eyes, or people who wear glasses. Preferences are personal, and you're not a bad person if you're not attracted to fat people. (You're not a bad person if you are, either. That there is such judgment and suspicion associated with a thin person's attraction to fat people, or one fat person, underlines how being fat is treated like a moral failing in this culture.)

But, to quote Meowser from an old thread: "If changes in the physical attributes of your partner would affect how you felt about them, if their being altered physically in some way would make you not want to make love to them…don't get married. [And/or don't make lifetime commitments or of some other description.] Just don't. Do the world a favor and stick to serial monogamy or unwed polyamory, so you can dump your lovers with impunity when they stop meeting your physical standards (and they you, of course)."

The couple in the letter aren't married. They've been together two years, but haven't kissed or had sex in over a year. The affection-withholding boyfriend should have broken off the relationship ages ago, for the reasons outlined in Meowser's comment, because every day he stays, he's communicating a commitment that he evidently shouldn't be.

Waistlines get thicker. Hair falls out. Skin loosens and wrinkles. Boobs get droopier. And get removed to save lives. Spines get damaged. Limbs get irreparably injured. Disease or injury or disability can change a life in an instant or after an inalterable journey across years…

If your partner's body changing for any reason is going to cause you to withhold affection, don't make forever promises, or continue to tacitly communicate a commitment you don't intend, because no one stays the same forever.

And to expect a partner's body not to change is to deny your partner hir humanity.

* * *
One of the best things Iain ever said to me was "I wouldn't give a shit if your mind were stuffed inside a Dalek, woman! But as it happens, I find you extremely attractive." He didn't do that "I wouldn't give a shit if you were a ________________" thing and fill in the blank with the most hideous example of humanity his mind could conjure, thus making me file away a note: "Don't become that." He didn't put beauty on a sliding scale to make me feel beautiful, or feel like he loved me despite anything; he went for a robot joke. It was so uncontrivedly charming—and I have always felt secure with him because of it.

As it happens, I also feel precisely the same way about him.

Fine! We Just Won't HAVE a Prom Anymore!

Prom is canceled because of your GAY:

A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.

"Due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events, the Itawamba County School District has decided to not host a prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School this year," school board members said in a statement.

Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old senior at Itawamba, recently challenged a school policy prohibiting her from bringing her girlfriend as her date to the April 2 prom. McMillen, who is a lesbian, and the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged school officials to reverse the policy both on McMillen's choice of date and attire. She also wanted to wear a tuxedo to the dance.

ACLU attorney Christine Sun said her organization receives requests for help every year from students facing anti-gay prom policies. The complaints are especially prevalent in the South where attitudes toward sexuality are more conservative, she said.

In the announcement, the school board encouraged the community to organize a private prom. "It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors. "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes anyone," the statement concluded. School officials did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The announcement alarmed McMillen.

"Oh, my God. That's really messed up because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one," she said. "A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this."

...The ban on same-sex dates is a violation of McMillen's constitutional rights, said Sun, the ACLU's senior attorney on gay rights. "We believe the law is pretty clear," Sun said. "The school just can't arbitrarily say you have to bring an opposite date to the prom."

A private prom would allow the district to get around the issue, McMillen said. "If they set it up privately they probably aren't going to allow gay people to go and there is nothing that you can do about it," she said.

The school district is clearly staffed by a bunch of useless bigots who whiff of a pungent bouquet of fear, desperation, and ideological extinction, as pitiable for their small-mindedness as they are contemptible for their cruelty.

McMillen, on the other hand, is enormously courageous and wields on hell of an impressive teaspoon. She's probably right that a bunch of kids will hate her for this (although I hope we're both wrong and she ends up getting lots of surprising support!), but she'll soon find out that there are places in this world where she will be loved and admired and embraced for being exactly who she is.

Open Thread

Hosted by the Cyclops.

Question of the Day

What's the worst TV series of all time?

We've done this one before, about a year and a half ago, and, at the time, I nominated Full House. But, in the interim, I've seen nearly a full episode of Two and a Half Men. So...yeah.

[Click to embiggen.]
The only thing that could conceivably make that shit worse is if they had a CGI golden retriever named Dingle and the show was littered with Dingle reaction shots. "A-ruh?!"

AAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Jimmy Kimmel: —hours left of Lost; I still have no idea what's going on [laughter, but I do love it. And here tonight to shed some light on the many mysteries: Ben Linus himself, Michael Emerson, with this week's "Secrets of Lost."

Text onscreen accompanied by iconic Lost note: "Secrets of LOST."

Michael Emerson: My character, Ben Linus, gets beat up a lot on the show. Apparently, everybody is jealous… [slowly lifts up shirt from waist, revealing stomach] … of my situation. [Laughter; Emerson puts on Situation voice.] My situation!

Text onscreen accompanied by iconic Lost note: "Secrets of LOST."

I'll Be Skinny in No Time!

Reuters (again): Tax soda, pizza to cut obesity, researchers say:

U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults' calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.

OMFG FIVE POUNDS A YEAR! At that rate, I will reach my "ideal" weight by the year 2050! Wheeeeeeee!

I've previously addressed why these "obesity tax" proposals are bullshit, so I won't rehash the same shit again. But I will note this:

Number of non-diet sodas I've had this week: 0.

Number of pizza slices I've had this week: 0.

Number of non-diet sodas I will have next week, and probably the week after: 0.

Number of pizza slices I will have next week, and probably the week after: 0.

Still fat. Will still be fat next week, and the week after.

Obviously the only solution is taxing my dumbass taste buds, which apparently can't tell the difference between pizza and salad. Or something. That's right: TONGUEFAT!

[H/T to Shaker Danielle for the second article.]

Meet-Up Time!

As you may recall, after November's meet-up, we scheduled the next Chicagoland Shakesville meet-up for Saturday, March 27—which is now right around the corner!

The plan, as always, is to go to our favorite Celtic pub in the early afternoon, take over their party room, and while away the afternoon and evening. Last time, we added board games, movies, and henna tattoos (care of Shaker Dani) to the usual great conversation and great food, and we had an absolute blast. We've got the room for the day, starting at 1:00pm CST, and you're welcome to come and stay the whole time, or pop in just for a bit.

At this point, we just need to get a handle on how many people will be there, so please drop a line in comments or email Official Organizer of Meet-Ups, Shaker RedSonja, at sonja1023-at-gmail-dot-com if you're planning on coming.

Because there are always folks who'd like to come in from out of town, and locals who always offer up crash accommodations, we'd like to help coordinate local Shakers with spare rooms/beds and people looking for a place to stay. So if any Chicagolanders would like to volunteer their pads, once again just email RedSonja. Please include smoking preferences, any pets, and how many people you can accommodate—that will make coordinating much easier! Out-of-towners can drop us a line with their needs and we'll try to match you with someone suitable.

As always, details will be provided to Shakers who have signaled an interest in attending.

Looking forward to seeing everyone who can come!

Daily Kitteh

No.