Hosted by ketchup.
Question of the Day
Is there anyone from your childhood/early adulthood with whom you've lost touch that you'd like to reconnect?
(You don't need to provide their actual name, if you don't want to, of course. A description of the relationship, e.g. "my first boy/girlfriend," is sufficient.)
Have you ever tried to find or contact hir? Why or why not? If you did, what was the result?
Meet-Up Recap
Thanks to everyone who attended the Chicagoland meet-up this weekend. It was, as always, so much fun. I loved meeting everyone new and seeing everyone who I haven't seen in awhile, and getting the opportunity to spend time with so many truly amazing people—even though I always feel like I don't get enough time with everyone who attends; there's always someone I'm just about to go sit down with when my food arrives, or someone new walks in the door, and I don't talk to them again until they're leaving. I need better mingling management skillz!
My gratitude to RedSonja for coordinating RSVPs to the event once again, and to RedSonja and KarateMonkey for nametag organization.
Random Notes: Anything worth eating at all should always be eaten with gusto (especially squid, if you're into that sort of thing). Laughing makes costochondritis simultaneously better and worse. These are the ZOMG Shoez I was wearing. Anyone who has ever used the term "humorless feminists" should spend a few minutes at a Shakesville meet-up. A good thing to do before bed is stick your feet in the freezer. True fact.
Also: I found a pair of fingerless gloves left behind on a table. Email me to claim them.
P.S. BrianWS is totes an eyebrow actor.
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.]
The Grandest Male Organ
Dear friends, I confront you today, my whiskers a-bristling with outrage. I was traversing o'er the Great Plains in my airship on my way to a gentlemen's conference on Potions, Elixirs, and Poisons, where I was to deliver what reviewers of the talkies call an "epic tour de force" on the potential curative properties of kudzu for sufferers of Pantaloon Fever, when I was indefinitely delayed by the most scandalous report!
My faithful yeoman Bruce was perusing his favorite web windows on the visual-teletype (keyword: men) when he stumbled across an outrageous electronic-newsey regarding the male brain.
Quite obviously, I am in no disagreement with the assertion that the male brain is a special and robust organ, which should be self-evident to any man with even the most modest of educations. One needn't have spent thirteen years of diligent matriculation at Emmett Q. Crumblecorn's Preparatory School for Fancy Lads to understand that the male brain is the finest organic machinery ever created by our gracious and wise Lord above.
It is as natural as silencing a babe in arms with a nip of moonshine that the male brain would respond to a lady's petition for support in the midst of a crisis by "racing to find a way to resolve the problem as soon as possible." If a gentleman does not make available the extraordinary capacities of his brain to a lady in her moment of desperate need, how will her problem ever be solved?
But I most object most strenuously to the decision by the editorial slobberchops over at CNN—which I had never taken to be a hotbed of Suffragette sucklemucking!—to allow a woman to seize control of their virtual newspaper in order to report this "news." A lady doctor, they say. Poppycock and balderdash! Curses on CNN! Fie!
The lady-brain is a highly delicate instrument that must never be taxed with complex thought, lest it overheat and cause a dreadful case of the vapors, requiring a cooling period in repose upon a fainting couch, preferably on a shaded veranda, during which the swoonful lass must be cautiously revived with a steady influx of mint juleps. The lady-brain cannot be stressed writing for web windows! Complete uterine collapse will not be far behind such wanton willynillying!
Such fragility is precisely why no one of the female persuasion is allowed on the airship! Not only can I not abide the exploitation of gentlewomen by the unnecessary strain of their pitiable mental facilities, but I cannot fit a fainting couch in the infernal contraption, anyhow—not with Bruce's enormous collection of classic gentlemen's calendars and physique magazines lying about!
The chap is very interested in good health.
As well should we all! Let us begin promptly with a collective endeavor to cosset the precious and weak lady-brains into which we shall entrust only the simplest of tasks, such as raising children. Particularly virile young men, who will someday realize their birthright as superiors to the mothers who raised them.
Good day to you, Shakesvillians! I said good day!
[Previous Grumblings: Benjamin H. Grumbles, Progress: Dagnabbit!, A Day in the Life of Benjamin H. Grumbles, What in the Sam Hill Are You Rascals Thinking?, Friday Cat Blogging, Damnable Milkshakery, Grumbles' Gashouse, Dash It All, McCain Is Off His Trolley, I Say, Somebody Bet on the Bob-Tailed Nag, Grumbles Writes Letters, Hosiery Is No Laughing Matter, Fear Not, Shakesvillians!, Bunsen's Balderdash!, Taint a Good Man, A Hearty Yawp of Well Wishes.]
Is It Terrorism Yet?
The FBI has arrested nine members of a Christian militia group. The group, called the Hutaree, "planned to kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral" using IEDs.
I poked through the Hutaree's website and didn't see much of interest. Lots of crap about Jesus, as per usual, and end times, and blah blah blah. They seem to have a big boner for a man who "lay[s] down his life for his friends" which I think means they've seen one too many John Wayne movies. And they certainly seem to have missed that bit in the bible that says "Thou shalt not kill." In fairness, that's probably the least known passage in the whole book.
According to the FBI's press release "Hutaree members view local, state, and federal law enforcement as the 'brotherhood,' their enemy, and have been preparing to engage them in armed conflict." Or, as the militia's website puts it "We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. All christians must know this and prepare, just as Christ commanded." I'm not sure how killing cops figures into that.
I'm glad the FBI and state and local authorities were able to apprehend these d-bags before they started shooting.
True Science Facts About Booze and Broads!
by Shaker Ethyl, a geologist and feminist who lives, much to her dismay, in Upstate New York. Special Friend Holocene is a feminist ally and biologist in the Pittsburgh area and has been Ethyl's BFF since before the dawn of time (i.e., those dark ages before the internet).
[Trigger warning.]
In recent "Today in Fat Hatred" installments we've noted some of the ways in which scientists can allow their prejudices to influence their work. Unfortunately, as we all know, it's not just obesity research that suffers from the insidious intrusion of the kyriarchy into what is idealized as a strenuously objective enterprise. A recent article from the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) of all places really drives this home.
Spring break season is here and many teenage girls may be tempted to take their first drink. The AAAS Science Inside Alcohol Project suggests that parents, teachers and caregivers help girls delay that drink by telling them of scientific research that shows they may be more vulnerable than boys to alcohol-related problems.I'll leave aside the vague and undefined "alcohol-related problems" for the moment to address instead the purported reasons that girls "may be more vulnerable" to them.
• Girls have less water in their bodies than boys. Girls have a slightly higher proportion of fat to lean muscle tissue, concentrating alcohol more easily in their lower percentage of body water. This means they become intoxicated faster after drinking less alcohol.So...about these facts. The first thing I did after reading this article and deciding to write a post on it was to get with my biologist friend (code name: Holocene) to do some fact-checking. According to Holocene, the True Science Facts are generally true—women tend to have differences in body type that seem to be able to affect how much alcohol is kicking around in one's bloodstream—but he noted, however, that there are also plenty of other variables (age, race, body type, etc.), and there's much that is not known about the ways in which our bodies process alcohol. So how much can one really generalize these True Science Facts to an entire population of people…? Never mind that! If one's agenda is not, in fact, the health and safety of humans but instead the prevention of damage to one's property, then the conclusions make a lot more sense.
• Girls have fewer enzymes to break alcohol down. Alcohol dehydrogenases are a group of seven enzymes that help break down alcohol so the body processes it. Girls have fewer of them, so it is not as easy for their bodies to metabolize the alcohol they drink.
• Girls are smaller and often weigh less than boys. When drinking the same amount as a boy, a girl will experience a quicker rise in her blood-alcohol level, and she may stay intoxicated for a longer period of time. Girls who drink heavily can be at greater risk for alcohol poisoning because it takes less alcohol for them to get really sick.
My suspicions as to the agenda behind these True Science Facts were further aroused by the fact that they all, aside from bullet 3 there, seem to focus on how fast women can get drunk, without focusing on why that might be a bad thing. It's taken as read that being drunk is inherently bad—well, bad for women at least.
And of course, my suspicions as to the agenda behind these True Science Facts are entirely upheld with the last bullet point:
• Girls often prefer sweeter, carbonated mixed drinks. Such drinks can speed up the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.This...this is my current favorite True Science Fact. Holocene could find nothing at all to support either the claim about women's preference in alcoholic beverages, or the assertion that these types of drinks are likely to make women drunker faster.
Shockingly, it almost seems as if someone took their preconceived notions of what women drink and made science out of it. But no, this is the AAAS, they wouldn't do that, would they? These must be True Science Facts if the AAAS says so!
But wait! There are more True Science Facts for our edumacation!
If those points don't sell girls on abstention or drinking less, here's another reason: Boys don't like it when girls drink heavily, according to David J. Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology at the State University of New York at Potsdam and a member of the Science Inside Alcohol Project's advisory board.And I was just beginning to wonder: Where are the boys in all this? Oh right. Turning up their noses at girls who drink (unless it's to target them), because girls who drink are dirtybadwrong and probably sluts to boot, whereas boys who drink are just having a bit of fun, right? These are True! Science! Facts!
Also a True Science Fact: Girls should do and not do things based on what boys think of that behavior. I know the only reason I myself pretend to enjoy craft beers is because I think it makes "boys" like me!
What about girls who like girls? Or boys who like boys? Or people who are not interested in a romantic or sexual relationship at all? Or even just people who don't focus their entire lives on what someone else thinks of them? And what makes this David J. Hanson person believe this, anyway?
On his "Alcohol Problems & Solutions" Web site, Hanson discussed a recent study in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that found seven out of 10 of the college-age women surveyed thought their male peers wanted them to have five drinks during social occasions, while the men preferred they drink half that or less.Okay, it doesn't take a ton of scientific understanding to note the enormous piles of cultural baggage that are inherent in a study asking women what they think men want from them, and following that up by asking men what they want from women. This result, IMO, is not surprising, but I think maybe it doesn't mean what Hanson thinks it means.
"Not only does alcohol affect girls' bodies differently from boys, the result of heavy drinking can be a turn-off for boys," says Hanson. "Boys don't want to take care of a girl who is drunk."Wow. That is...that is quite a statement there. I mean really, there is much that could be discussed regarding expectations and pressures to drink for people of any gender, especially in college. The study Hanson mentions could even be used to explore some of these issues. But to leap to the conclusion from the data he quoted that "boys don't like it when girls drink heavily," and that "boys don't want to take care of a girl who is drunk" says far more about Hanson and his prejudices than it does about These Girls These Days. Because, in Hanson's world, women only ever do things to appear attractive to men, and the way to keep them from doing things that are unattractive to men is to use our favorite tools—shame and fear!
And of course, all of this totally ignores the actual really true fact that could be actually really helpful for people in environments where alcohol is being consumed: That serial rapists on college campuses operate with a clear MO, and frequently use alcohol to incapacitate their victims. But of course Mr. Hanson would probably not rape anybody, so the worst thing he can think of is "having to take care of" a drunk "girl." Sheesh.
So there's a lot that's bad here, but it feels like the worst part is that this article is from the AAAS, an organization who:
seeks to "To advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people."I guess those "all people" don't, as usual, include women. Typically, the use of fear and shame to keep those pesky womenfolk constrained to roles that men approve of is the "benefit" that is being sought here.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Mustang Bobby's Official Freak Flag Lapel Pins.
Recommended Reading:
Jill: Right-wing Cartoon Depicts Obama Raping the Statue of Liberty
Andy: Lt. Dan Choi: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Still Forces People to Lie
Mary: But women are an advanced social skill…
Renee: Dan Savage Engages in More Transphobia
Lori: Here They Are: Your Top Ten Young Visionaries!
Matthew aka Seraph: The Past Isn't Dead. It Isn't Even Past: The Irish Hunger Memorial
Zuska: The Arts as a Healing Balm for Mansplaining's Psychic Ills
Leave your links in comments...
Fat Nooz
1. Junk food addiction may be clue to obesity: study. I love the headline ("study"), particularly given that the story opens with the disclaimative line: "The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but..." I also love this: "Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating." As if no one has ever considered a link between disordered eating and obesity before. Especially not every dipshit on the planet who assumes every fat person is fat because they gorge themselves on junk food 24/7. Which brings me to...
2. Plus-size models are better role models? Fat chance! Money quote: "Tolerance is the enemy of shame. With more and more fat acceptance...there will be more and more fat people. Nobody is born 300 pounds. Nobody 'suffers from' obesity. She chooses it, one milkshake at a time." LOL!
3. Better Ways to Help the Public Lose Weight. In which the New York Times seek ideas about the "sorts of public initiatives [that] can promote good eating habits without possibly resulting in discrimination against overweight people." Yay! And there are actually some very good insights here (and some not so good). Too bad they're buried below a headline equating weight loss with health and an image of a frowny face on a scale. FAIL!
4. To avoid breast cancer, ladies, just "avoid becoming overweight as an adult," but, if you're already suffering from CANCERFAT, all you've got to do is "convert more fat into muscle." It's that simple!
5. The workout: An exercise in futility? Subhead: "Canadians have been taught that the gym is a surefire path to shedding pounds. But some experts say gluttony, not sluggishness, is where we should be focusing our efforts." Good call. If only there were more people out there telling fat people to STOP BEING GLUTTONS! My favorite part of the article is this observation about fat people from Eric Ravussin, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Centre at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge: "First of all, most of them hate exercise." LOL!
6. Obesity: Food kills, flab protects. "Only when the body's fat cells, or adipocytes, are crammed to capacity do the problems of metabolic syndrome begin. The fully engorged adipocytes begin to die and leak their contents into the bloodstream, including saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid. Such fats then accumulate in tissues such as the liver, pancreas and heart, where they may prompt the symptoms of metabolic syndrome." Gökhan Hotamisligil, a diabetes and obesity researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, describes the theory this way: "When fat cells break, it's like an oil tanker being hit. It unloads this toxic cargo, almost like an oil slick." Forget junk in the trunk. I've got TOXIC CARGO IN MY PANTS!
7. Elle magazine breaks fashion's last taboo: plus-size models on the cover. Shaker Joe says: "It's a little sad that the last taboo was a plus sized model. I would have preferred a Dalmatian in a party dress but whatever." Dear Elle: For the record, plus-size models on the cover of a magazine are not fashion's last taboo. Not even close. And, btw, call me when my fat ass can buy as many cute and fashionable clothes off the rack and a size 2, if you're so interested in radicalizing the industry. Kthxbai. Love, Liss.
[H/Ts, respectively, to Shakers Kevin Baker, MelissaRel, MelissaG, Museclio, lelumarie (and again), and Joe.]
A Quick History Lesson
Dear Military Folk,
Read about your idea of requiring "separate bunks for gays"* if gay servicepeople are allowed to serve openly.
Wanted to remind you we tried that separate-but-equal thing. It was never equal. It was unfair and stigmatizing.
People grew tired of it and effectively resisted.
The military finally gave it up.
I mean, it was even repudiated legally.
Yet, here you are, contemplating a march backwards. This is wrong for so many reasons, and not solely the ones I mentioned above.
As Vanessa pointed out in another forum, the very premise of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, acknowledges that there are already gays in the military. Why do you expect a problem to develop if they are allowed to serve openly? This idea, that gay servicepeople should be segregated, suborns homophobia, particularly, as a colleague of mine wrote, the idea that gays are indiscriminate in their desires and straight people are in danger/in need of rescue. You are insulting your own personnel with suggestions like this which imply they, as a whole, threaten other service people with sexual aggression and potentially, sexual violence.
If only you were as concerned with the actual and significant problem of sexual violence that occurs within your institution.
Though, I suppose you could flip the argument and try to say it was for the protection of gay personnel, especially given the current political climate towards any so-called "progressive" change. In that case, I'd still accuse you of upholding homophobia and some sort of macho-ethic (okay, I'd accuse you of that, anyway).
Why? Because if your solution to addressing the potential danger openly gay servicepeople would face, is to segregate them, rather than address the military culture which allows for that danger, you've totally missed the point.
Sincerely,
elle
___________________
*And I'm not relying on the opinion of one general as sole evidence that the government would consider this. The article says, "The question of whether changes to housing policies would be necessary is being addressed in a study to determine how to allow gays to serve openly."
Party Animal
I always thought RNC Chairman Michael Steele was a fuddy-duddy. Apparently I've misjudged him.
A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.I'm sure there's a simple explanation; he just stopped in to get directions to Pastor Rick Warren's church and use the bathroom.
Steve Benen has an update: "The RNC now claims that a 'non-committee staffer,' not Steele, spent the money at Voyeur West Hollywood. The RNC chairman, the party insists, was 'never at the location in question.'"
It probably goes without saying, but I'm all for everyone letting her or his freak flag fly high and proud. I'm just not sure that said flag-waving needs to happen on the RNC's dime -- but we'll see. Maybe the Republican donors are more open-minded than I am.
HT to digby and Melissa.
Cross-posted.
Have I Mentioned...
...a thousand or so times lately that the new battleground over abortion rights is on the state level, where anti-choicers are trying to render Roe an impotent statute...?
Louisiana: Women seeking abortions must have ultrasound just before procedure, bill proposes.
All women seeking abortions would have to undergo an obstetric ultrasound two hours before the procedure unless there is a medical emergency, under legislation proposed by the Senate's second-ranking lawmaker.Georgia: Senate passes abortion bill, would make it a crime to convince woman to abort child.
Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, said the bill is designed to make a woman "think twice about having an abortion. This is such a serious decision that a woman makes, the process should be exhausted with all the medical information on the procedure" available, she said.
"This bill was created under the false assumption that abortion doctors solicit women of color, particularly, black women," said Sen. Donzella James of College Park.Naturally, I don't want to see any woman coerced into doing anything she doesn't want to do, including having an abortion. But a law created by a bunch of Republicans who don't give a flying flunderton about policy that helps impoverished women, particularly impoverished women of color, grandstanding about how they want to stop "boyfriends and pimps and mothers" from forcing pregnant women of color to get abortions, is just absurd. This law will clearly be used to target clinics, and reduce affordable access to abortion for the women (of any color) with the fewest options.
...Throughout the afternoon, a host of senators – both Republicans and Democrats – lined up to speak for or against the bill. ... Several times, the words China, socialism, genocide, Obamacare, Holocaust and even serfs were used to show where the country is going.
"We are following China in many ways toward the road to socialism," said Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons). "We are beginning that road to serfdom ourselves."
Going back to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Williams said that in 1973, when the Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to an abortion, more than 90 percent of the country was against it.
A statistic that Vincent Fort of Atlanta found dubious.
"In 1865, if you had taken a public opinion poll on slavery, I would still be in chains," Fort said. "What we are doing here is irresponsible, to use genocide and holocaust and allusions to death panels. The underlying belief is that women of color cannot make decisions of themselves."
[H/Ts to Shakers Anitanola and Redlady 50.]
Not Even Healthcare Reform!
Shaker EastSideKate emails:
Coverage Now for Sick [or Disabled] Children? Check Fine Print.Yeah. I don't really have anything to add to that—except, perhaps, to add that Senator John Rockefeller is positively adorable when he's SHOCKED! and OUTRAGED! at insurance companies acting like greedy weasel scum: "The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous." Awwwww.
Short version:
Insurance companies: "It's expensive to give health insurance that covers kids' pre-existing conditions, so we won't give them insurance at all. There's nothing in the bill about that."
Democrats: "We are shocked, we tell you, shocked, that for-profit companies are acting as if they're in some sort of competitive marketplace."
Rest of the world (in unison): "We. Told. You. So."
Collective headdesk. Exit stage right.
*Rage*Fume*Seethe*
[Trigger warning.]
So. The Vatican has "gone on the defensive" against those who would try to "smear" the Catholic Church leadership with a despicable campaign of telling the truth about how the Catholic Church has abetted child rape for decades.
And, because he's totes classy like that, the Pope used the occasion of his Palm Sunday sermon yesterday to stick it to the Church's critics.
While he did not directly mention the scandal involving sexual abuse of children by priests, parts of his sermon could be applicable to the crisis.Because you know how petty it is for assholes who think child rape is wrong to "gossip" about it. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned: I refused to be silent about the institutional rape of children.
The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion."
One prayer asked God to help "the young and those who work to educate and protect them," which Vatican Radio said was intended to "sum up the feelings of the Church at this difficult time when it confronts the plague of pedophilia."You know what neither helps nor protects "the young" who have been sexually abused...? Silence.
Silence is a secondary trauma, not a solution.
The only people who are "helped" and "protected" by silence are sexual predators. And if the Church leadership had taken even the most basic steps to learn about assault prevention, they'd know that. They'd beg the media to cover the issue and beg the police and independent investigators to get involved, instead of relying for decades on internal investigations, conspiring with police to conceal evidence, and going on a defensive against coverage of this ongoing problem.
As the scandal has convulsed the Church, the Vatican has gone on the offensive, attacking the media for what it called an "ignoble attempt" to smear Pope Benedict and his top advisers.I just... ARGH.
What drives me to absolute distraction about this issue is that no matter how bad, how endemic, child sex abuse in the Catholic Church may seem in media reports, it doesn't touch the reality of how ubiquitous it is. Every person I've ever known who's done survivor work with male survivors reports the same thing: Person after person after person after person after person reporting sex abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest.
Being on the other side of this crisis, it absolutely infuriates me that the Vatican is taking the position that the issue is being exaggerated, when I suspect few of us can truly contemplate its vastness.
March Douchebag of the Month
This guy is always in the running for D-Bag of the Month pretty much thirteen months a year, but former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Under the Poop Bubble) takes the top honors this month.
Gingrich called on Dems to take responsibility. For the death threats emanating from the far-right.
"I think the Democratic leadership has to take some moral responsibility for having behaved with such arrogance, in such a hostile way, that the American people are deeply upset."
Yeah, okay.
Because those threats have nothing to with the toxic culture of hatred and lies the right wallows in.
Trailer for Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever
Found out yesterday that a lot of folks haven't seen this yet.
Open Thread
Hosted by Rod Serling.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by the Twilight Zone. Doo-doo-doo-doo Doo-doo-doo-doo
