A white guy driving the shittiest, beat-up GM pick-up you can conjure, sporting on its back window a sticker recreating the iconic Ford logo, except instead of "Ford," it read "Fags."
Iain pointed it out to me while we were on the way to the grocery store—in our Ford Fusion.
"I think that makes us fags," I observed.
"And it makes that guy a total douchebag," Iain added.
"It's pretty fucked up to see hate speech just driving down the road like that," I said.
I imagined the gay children who didn't even have words to describe themselves yet but maybe already had some sense of what the word "fag" means, maybe because they'd been called a fag on the playground—what would they feel when they saw that guy's truck and his despicable sticker? And then I imagined shattering that window into a million billion pieces with one arcing swing of a baseball bat.
But I don't wield a baseball bat. I wield a teaspoon.
Donate to Advocates for Youth.
Seen
Um...
[Trigger warning for reference to clergy abuse.]
[Click to embiggen.]
If you can't view the image, it's of a ten-foot-tall crucifix hanging in St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Oklahoma, in which Jesus' abs (I ain't gonna mince words) look like a huge cock and balls.
The controversial crucifix has caused a deep divide among members of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, where it hangs above the main altar.Via Andy, who notes: "The crucifix is based on the San Damiano Crucifix. As you can see, it has distended abs too."
"There are a couple people who have left the parish," said the Rev. Philip Seeton, the church's pastor. "There are people in the parish who don't like it and have stayed."
Critics of the crucifix take issue with what appears to be a large penis covering Jesus' abdominal area. Seeton said the portion of the crucifix in question is meant to be Jesus' abdomen "showing distension" — not a penis.
In all seriousness, do Rev. Seeton, who says "the crucifix doesn't concern him, and there are no plans to remove it," and Monsignor Edward Weisenburger of the Oklahoma City Archdiocese, who says "he has no problems with the crucifix," really not get how this image, irrespective of its historical context, is perhaps not strictly the best choice for display in a Catholic Church when juxtaposed against an international sex abuse crisis...?
Somebody nick a fiver from the collection plate and buy these dingalings a fucking clue.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
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.]
Skinny Jesus Chef Less Messiah, More Mess-Maker
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the first episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, an ABC reality show in which "Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver travels to Huntington, WV—deemed the Obesitiest Place in America by the Centers for Disease Control—where he was going to makeover the town's eating habits, a project that included revamping the school lunch program.
Well, Arun Gupta investigated Oliver's success in the latter endeavor and found that "Jamie Oliver's 'Food Revolution' Flunked Out." Oliver, it seems, is not merely a self-congratulatory fat-hating ass, but also a liar concealer of information:
At the end of one episode, we hear Rhonda McCoy, director of food services for the local county, tell Jamie that he's over budget and did not meet the fat content and calorie guidelines, but she's going to let him continue with the "revolution" as long as he addresses these issues. What is not revealed is that the "meal cost at Central City Elementary during television production more than doubled with ABC Productions paying the excess expense," according to a document obtained by AlterNet from the West Virginia Department of Education.Ouch. And there is yet more.
…Turns out that even with an unlimited budget, Jamie was unable to design a menu that provided a minimum number of calories while not exceeding the fat limits. A nutritional analysis of the first three weeks of meals (15 lunches) at Central City Elementary conducted by the West Virginia Board of Education flunked him on both counts. A whopping 80 percent of his lunches exceeded either the total fat or saturated fat allowance, and most of the time both, and 40 percent of his lunches provided too few calories.
…A document from the West Virginia Department of Education indicates Jamie's escapades put Cabell County's entire lunch program at risk. It stated: "Noncompliance with meal pattern and nutrient standard requirements may result in a recovery of federal funds." In plain English, the county could lose a large amount of funding because of the failure to meet the standards.
While Jamie did raise $80,000 to pay for trainers to teach cooks in all of Cabell County's 28 schools to produce the new menus, a document from the county outlined many other expenses that have not been detailed on the show. Meal preparation required more cooks to the tune of $66,000 a year; each school needed new equipment ranging from $20 containers to $2,945 commercial-grade food processors; the county was paying more for fresher items, such as cooked chicken at an additional 10 cents a serving; schools that rolled over to the new program were unable to use "donated food" from the USDA, valued at $522,974.68 last year, with officials bluntly noting, "The program cannot afford to lose this amount"; and the county was losing purchasing power because it was having difficulty getting the fresh ingredients through the buying cooperative it shares with eight other counties.
In a perverse way, Jamie Oliver has highlighted many of the shortcomings of the U.S. food system. But it was like taking a wrecking ball to a termite-infested house to show the rot inside at the cost of smashing the structure.
The reality behind "Food Revolution" is that after the first two months of the new meals, children were overwhelmingly unhappy with the food, milk consumption plummeted and many students dropped out of the school lunch program, which one school official called "staggering."Oliver, who spent a good part of the first episode harrumphing about the bureaucracy that was making it difficult for him to get done what he wanted, didn't dedicate any time to talking about the fact that the US "federal government reimburses schools a paltry $2.68 for lunches and $1.46 for breakfasts (pdf) for children who qualify as long as the food meets specific guidelines," nor that, as reported by Jan Poppendieck, author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, "after school districts pay for labor, equipment, administration, transport, storage and other expenses, it leaves them with 'somewhere between 85 cents and a dollar' for the actual ingredients for lunches."
Gee, that might have been a good tidbit to highlight. If, y'know, he was actually concerned about why USian kids aren't eating fresh organic foods at lunch.
Of course, it's way easier to appear to "fix" children being served pizza for breakfast than fix an institutional clusterfuck that demands school cafeterias serve up healthy grub for a buck a kid.
And what of that pizza? Another little slice (heh) of info left out of Oliver's show is that it had a whole-wheat crust and lowfat cheese—and that serving whole-wheat and low-fat dairy to kids in a slice of pizza means they are less likely to pick and choose what they eat when the ingredients are served separately.
And then there's this:
Even though these kids are eating "breakfast pizza" with "luminous pink" milk, it's probably more nutritious than what they would eat otherwise, assuming their parents were even able to feed them breakfast. The median household income in the city of Huntington is about 55 percent of the U.S. average. We never learn that a phenomenal 86 percent (pdf) of the children at Central City Elementary qualify for free or near-free meals because of widespread poverty.Fawn Boyer, a resident of Huntington, points out: "In a town where many of the state employees are making so little income that they qualify for welfare, it's unrealistic to expect people to be able to shop at the higher line supermarkets that offer organic foods." Indeed so. Which means that as kids gave up the lunch program because they didn't like Oliver's (higher-fat, lower-calorie than the school lunches they liked) lunches, their parents had to provide alternative food on the cheap, meaning highly-processed, HFCS-riddled, high-sodium junk food.
Which, despite its limitations, the school lunch program was not serving.
So what Oliver ultimately accomplished by "staggeringly" driving more students out of the school lunch program is increased consumption of the very food that no one should be eating. Classic.
If Jamie and Co. wanted to make a real difference they should go after the fast-food industry and abominations like the KFC "Double Down," a breadless sandwich composed of two fried chicken cutlets piled with bacon, cheese and "Colonel's Sauce." Then again, a recent issue of the Jamie Magazine reportedly features a "wholesome" school meal of "tuna Waldorf pita with hot vanilla milk, an oaty biscuit, and a banana" that has 643 more calories and 23 grams more fat (pdf) than a Double Down.Snort.
And just in case anyone's still wondering if Jamie Oliver is the victim of bad press, and isn't the grandstanding, opportunistic, smug fat-hater I've accused him of being, please enjoy these photos of Oliver dressed in a fat suit and "riding" a scooter with a broken wheel, a stunt designed "to show the dangers of eating too much junk food."
It's not being unhealthy that's the problem, you see, so much as being FAT!
These are not the pictures of a man who cares about my health (or anyone else's). These are the pictures of a man who loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice and reading his own favorable press, and has convinced himself that his "good intentions" justify any amount of insult (or deceit).
[Via.]
I Write Letters
Dear CNN:
Repeat after me: Women are not a reward for good behavior. Women are not a reward for good behavior. Women are not a reward for good behavior.
And being a "nice guy"—defined here as someone who "puts a girl's [sic] demands first," "puts women on a pedestal," and "gives [them] thoughtful gifts," all in the interest of getting sex—isn't being "nice." He's being manipulative. And pathetic.
Sincerely,
Erica C. Barnett
P.S. Next time you write a story about "what women really want," maybe consider including the perspectives of, I dunno, some actual women?
Tell 'Em, JK!
JK Rowling writes an awesome column ("The Single Mother's Manifesto") explaining why she doesn't vote conservative, despite having becoming incredibly wealthy—and although it's specifically about British politics, it is, as you'd expect, widely applicable:
Yesterday's Conservative manifesto makes it clear that the Tories aim for less governmental support for the needy, and more input from the "third sector": charity. It also reiterates the flagship policy so proudly defended by David Cameron last weekend, that of "sticking up for marriage". To this end, they promise a half-a-billion pound tax break for lower-income married couples, working out at £150 per annum.Read the whole thing here.
I accept that my friends and I might be atypical. Maybe you know people who would legally bind themselves to another human being, for life, for an extra £150 a year? Perhaps you were contemplating leaving a loveless or abusive marriage, but underwent a change of heart on hearing about a possible £150 tax break? Anything is possible; but somehow, I doubt it.
…I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft's idea of being a mug.
[H/T to Shaker differentdrummer.]
Today in Rape Culture
by Shaker BrianWS, who, in addition to horseracing, loves fantasy football and Kodak.
[Trigger warning.]
You know what I love?
Horse racing. It's quite literally my favorite thing in the entire world.
From the very first time my mom took me to the track when I was in elementary school, I knew I loved it. What I didn't know then was that twenty years later I'd be making a living watching it, writing about it, following it, talking about it, and basically living my dream surrounded by all things horse racing all the time.
But you know what I don't love?
That horse racing, my favorite thing ever, gave me a nasty reminder that there really isn't any place anywhere that isn't affected by rape culture.
Why, just last night at Charles Town Race Track and Slots in West Virginia, a runner named No Means Yes was sent off as the heavy 2-5 favorite in the 4th race, and won.
As the community's certified eyebrow actor, this is giving me a raging case of the sighbrows, Shakers.
While I'm thrilled for all the bettors who analyzed the race and are able to bask in the glory of their $0.80 profit for getting it right, I can't help but wonder how many people who threw their dollars at that horse even thought for one moment about the fact that the horse is named No Means Yes. I, for one, could only think about that as I listened to the track announcer call her name over and over during the running of the race.
Oh yea, did I mention that the horse is a mare? Surprise, surprise, a female horse called No Means Yes.
The fact that someone bought this horse, and when tasked with coming up with a name for her, landed on No Means Yes, can only further speak to just how pervasive rape culture is.
I'm further disappointed because I'm privy to the knowledge that people by and large take naming their horses very, very, seriously. It's almost a discipline all its own, coming up with the perfect name for a horse. Sometimes that name is some combination of the horse's parents, sometimes it's a touching tribute to someone else, other times it's an inside joke. That's why it's even more upsetting, because when given the opportunity to name this runner and give her a moniker that she'd race with for all of her days, the idea that consent is a constant that is also given through use of the word "no" was the best this owner could do.
When does no mean yes? Never.
The idea that "no means yes" is not just some cute, throwaway saying that you give to a horse as a name. It's a disgusting concept that has been used time and again to reinforce the idea that sexual assault survivors really wanted it and were really giving consent when they repeatedly said "no."
And in a somewhat sexist, hardly progressive environment like horse racing, naturally I'd be labeled a hysteric for commenting on this. I'd be accused of making it a bigger deal than it is – that is, if anyone would even be willing to acknowledge that it was a problem in the first place, an idea I'd label a longshot if I've ever seen one.
[Commenting Guidelines from Liss: This is a thread about the insidious ubiquity of the rape culture; please note that comments discussing the merits/ethics of horseracing and/or gambling will not only be considered off-topic, but will rightly be regarded as an attempt to derail a conversation about the rape culture.]
Check Out the Gall on That Guy
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
I've heard some real dandies from rape trials and sentencing hearings before, but this just about takes the cake:
It's a safe bet spectators thought things could not get worse in Ontario Superior Court on Friday, once the two women [raped by 27-year-old Daniel Katsnelson at York University during frosh week in 2007] finished reading out their victim impact statements. But things did get worse when Crown prosecutor Andrew Locke rose to recount the rapist's own words, as recorded by a probation officer in a pre-sentence report.Rage. Seethe. Boil.
"[Mr. Katsnelson] states he hopes some day the victim will be able to take away something positive from this, as he has," the report's author wrote. When asked what that might be, Mr. Katsnelson "suggested that now maybe she will know to keep her doors locked, while adding the offence would have been devastating to her."
It takes someone really special to be considered an asshole among rapists.
"I am afraid of the dark and always sleep with the TV on," said [one of Katsnelson's victims], an aspiring dancer who added that dating relationships have been difficult to establish. "Rape is like a tattoo; it may fade away with time, but it will never be gone."Katsnelson, who gave his victims a life sentence, was sentenced to eight years.
The second woman broke down in tears two sentences into her statement. She said she had hoped the incident would be a "bump in the road," but instead described a rough, dark ongoing journey.
"For the past three years, I have spent every day pushing the thoughts of what happened to me out of my head, but it always comes back," she said. "I used to be a little too idealistic in believing everything happens for a reason ... but nothing good has come out of what happened to me."
I don't know that I can say that something good can ever come out of being raped. Not directly, anyway. But I know that it's possible to retroactively give meaning and purpose to an otherwise meaningless, senseless act. And there is some measure of peace in that.
I wish peace to both of these survivors.
[H/T to Shaker Sarah.]
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for graphic descriptions of violence. And a spoiler warning re: the plot of Kick-Ass.]
Roger Ebert, in his review of the new film Kick-Ass:
Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find "Kick-Ass" morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.Related Reading: Jezebel's Irin on Kick-Ass: Violence and "Cunt" for Fun and Profit.
…I know, I know. This is a satire. But a satire of what? … There are characters here with walls covered in carefully mounted firearms, ranging from handguns through automatic weapons to bazookas. At the end, when the villain deliciously anticipates blowing a bullet hole in the child's head, he is prevented only because her friend, in the nick of time, shoots him with bazooka shell at 10-foot range and blows him through a skyscraper window and across several city blocks of sky in a projectile of blood, flame and smoke. As I often read on the Internet: Hahahahaha.
On Triggers, Continued
So, after her first shot at trigger warnings, Susannah Breslin is back with more, this time explaining why "trigger warnings don't work."
In reality, trigger warnings are unrealistic. They are the dream-child of a fantasy in which the unknown can be labeled, anticipated, and controlled. What trigger warnings promise — protection — does not exist. The world is simply too chaotic, too out-of-control for every trigger to be anticipated, avoided, and defused. Even if every single potentially trigger-inducing blog post could be demarcated as such — a categorical impossibility — what would be the point?Well, I don't guess I ought to be surprised that someone who describes the feminist movement as "women who promote themselves as victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists" fails utterly to apply even the most basic feminist tenet to her argument: Recognizing and respecting individual agency.
A trigger warning does not promise to protect readers of potentially triggering material, but provide them with the opportunity to decide whether they need to protect themselves. As I said in my last piece (which she links in hers and thus ostensibly read): We provide trigger warnings because they give survivors of various stripes the option to assess whether they're in a state of mind to deal with triggering material before they stumble across it.
Breslin accuses feminist writers of "handing out trigger warnings like party favors at a girl's-only slumber party," which is certainly designed primarily to insult writers like me, but doesn't say much for what she thinks of feminist readers, either. I don't view my readers as children at a party. I respect them as adults, with autonomy, agency, and the ability to consent—their own best decision-makers, their own best advocates, and their own best protectors.
The provision of a trigger warning is not one-sided. It is an exchange. It is a communication: I provide the information, and my readers assess their own immediate capacity to process triggering material and proceed accordingly.
Breslin's argument only works if feminist readers are infantilized, if (primarily) women are treated like gormless, passive babies who can't be trusted to make decisions for themselves. Which is pretty much the founding premise of the entire patriarchy which totes doesn't exist anymore, ahem.
The thing is, Breslin is right when she asserts that "the world is simply too chaotic, too out-of-control for every trigger to be anticipated, avoided, and defused." But this isn't "the world." This is one very specific space in the world which seeks to be different from everything else.
She frames that as delusional. Well, okay. But I call it being the change I want to see.
Tomato. Tomahto.
Actual Headline
New York Times: Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated.
Which, by the way, is true. A New York Times/CBS News poll did indeed find that "Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public."
But it also found that: "The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45."
Which means that a more accurate headline would be: Poll Finds Tea Party Backers More Privileged.
Digby's got a comprehensive review of the poll findings that will underline why that distinction is actually rather important. [SPOILER WARNING: They're racist.]
Question of the Day
What turn of phrase makes your teeth grind every time you hear it?
For the purposes of this question, we'll take all inherently offensive phrases (e.g. those with racist origins, or containing a gendered slur, etc.) out of contention. And it's not a question about a phrase that people frequently get grammatically wrong (e.g. "should have went" instead of "should have gone"), either.
It's about clichés, idioms, aphorisms, slivers of so-called conventional wisdom, and assorted one-liners of various stripes that just get on your nerves, either for no real reason other than you just bloody hate them or because they communicate an idea or attitude you can't abide.
My answer is: "Life isn't fair."
While it's aggravating when someone uses the phrase in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to be commiserative about something that either needs a better display of empathy or the wisdom of silence (like, say, when you've just lost a good friend suddenly at a young age), it's when those three horrid little words are offered up flippantly in response to a genuine injustice that I go all SET PHASERS TO FUCK OFF.
Extra bonus rage points earned by the even more excruciating "Nobody ever said life was fair."
I am not a violent person, Shakers, but when some privileged wankstain meets a legitimate grievance of the marginalized with a chorus of life ain't fair, I want to punch things.
Sure, We Do
Women 'have inbuilt fear of being fat'. If by "inbuilt," you mean "built-in by a fat-hating patriarchy."
Quote of the Day
"This week was a bit of a mixed bag for the journalistic ethics of Fox News. On the upside, we confirmed that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is familiar with the idea of journalistic standards. On the downside, Murdoch appears to be completely unaware that his news network doesn't have any."—Media Matters' Ben Dimiero.
Creative Office Design
I just read an interesting article online, linked somewhere (I opened the tab for later, but now don't remember who showed it to me), about creative office spaces in use around the world.
I was flipping down through the pictures, and at first was thinking, hey, those are really kind of attractive, some of them. But as I scrolled down, I had a growing sense of unease.
I went back and looked again, to see if I could spot what it was. Can you? There are too many of relevance for me to want to re-post them all here, but the site is work-safe, and has no obvious triggers of which I'm aware (as ever, if I'm wrong, I will gladly apologize and seek to educate myself further).
Answer below...
Did you notice how many of them are nightmares of inaccessibility? If not - and I mean this gently but firmly - perhaps it's time to re-examine some privilege you might be looking with.
Notice how many of these celebrated designs would be horrid for someone using a wheelchair? Or a person with severe visual impairment? Or even trying to negotiate the cluttered and narrow halls with a cane, as I do. See how many chairs - especially in waiting areas, worst of all! - are utterly appalling for anyone with serious back issues? For anyone with limited mobility?
And even when it's only parts of the area which are inaccessible, like the otherwise lovely little cabins shown in a few of the pictures, making any part of your office inaccessible can make it inaccessible completely to an employee who doesn't have the privilege which is shown here to those with free mobility or all their senses (as in sight and/or hearing, I mean).
What does it say to your fellow employee that your office is inaccessible to them?
What does it say to a client or visitor that you set aside not one chair in your waiting area that takes into account that not everyone is physically able to sit vertically without support?
I can read off the defences people would make about this, were I posting it elsewhere: they have accommodations for their employed PWD elsewhere, they would make ramps into fellow employees' workstations available on-demand, they don't have anyone like that working there now, et c., et c..
I trust I don't need to explain to a Shakesville crowd how these clearly represent both question and answer, that each is a form of "othering" which serves to make it harder for non-TAB employees; that the lack of said employees is both a cause and an effect.
These are the little ways in which the message goes out: we want you to work, just not here.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
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.]
