Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.
This is a (theoretically**) weekly post providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
NB: I have added a bit to the guidelines for what’s on-topic here, to allow the posting of useful job resources for progressives.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, if I were to comment - rather than taking advantage of my position by posting it up here in the OP! - I'd leave one saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
We also welcome appropriate job resource sites for progressives, e.g. Canada’s Charity Village, which specializes in jobs with non-profits and NGOs.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
** "Theoretically", because sometimes my life or my depression interfere. :)
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Twenty-Three. Twenty-Four. Twenty-Five.
Twenty-Six. Twenty-Seven. Twenty-Eight.
Bread and Teaspoons Twenty-Nine
RIP Dr. Dorothy Height
Dr. Dorothy Height, iconic civil rights champion, died today. She was 98 years old.
Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning of natural causes, a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women said.And sexuality: She was also a vocal supporter of gay equality.
Ms. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. … As a civil rights activist, Ms. Height participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930s. In the 1940s, she lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes. And in the 1950s, she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues. In 1994, Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
In a statement issued by the White House, President Obama called Height "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to so many Americans."
"Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality . . . witnessing every march and milestone along the way," Obama said. "And even in the final weeks of her life -- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest -- Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith."
There are fictional stories told about characters who bear witness to important historical events, characters like Forrest Gump or Harry Flashman. Dr. Height's real life was like one of those characters; she stood in attendance at nearly all of the important moments in 20th century Black American history, drove and bore witness to the greatest progressive victories for the nation. She was the only woman seated on the platform when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
In her acceptance speech at the 1997 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, at which she was honored for her civil rights work, Dr. Height said: "Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights. … We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together."
She was a woman who believed in teaspoons. And gorgeous hats.
Monica has more.
Blog Note
Apparently some people are getting error messages in place of images, because our photo host is under the misapprehension that I don't already pay for an unlimited bandwidth account, even though I do.
So...my apologies for the inconvenience. I've got a help ticket in to them and hopefully we'll be able to resolve the issue promptly.
Title IX Loophole to Be Closed
The Obama administration plans to change the so-called Title IX policy which governs gender equality in sports, eliminating what some women's rights supporters claim is a Bush-administration loophole in compliance, according to a senior White House official.Vice President Biden will announce the revision today.
...The 1972 Title IX education amendment required gender equity in sports programs at educational institutions receiving federal funds.
Universities initially faced three requirements to prove they were complying with the law: that the proportion of male and female students participating in sports at the university was proportional to the number of male and female students enrolled in the university; that the university was expanding opportunities for women students in athletics; and that the university was meeting the athletic abilities and interests of women students.
In 2005, the administration of former President George W. Bush changed the third requirement, allowing the university to prove it was meeting the athletic interests of women by carrying out surveys of students' interest in sports. The NCAA and women's sports advocates said a low response to such surveys could be interpreted as indicating a lack of interest in sports when actually it could indicate a lack of availability of sports activities.
Under the new policy, universities will no longer be able to claim that a low response to surveys means a low interest in sports, the official said. The new rules still will allow the use of surveys, but universities will have to go further to prove they are complying.
The offiicial told CNN the new rules "restore the system to what it was before" the 2005 change. That rule "made it easier for universities to avoid complying with Title IX," the official said.
Question of the Day
Could this [thing] be any fucking cuter?!
I figured we could use a thread of Very Cute Things. Please insert your own X into the question and provide photographic, video, and/or audio evidence as applicable!
Could this mama three-toed sloth with her behbee be any fucking cuter?!
Scenes from a Tea Party
There's a lot of whatthefuckery to behold here, but former Republican Representative (and presidential candidate!) Tom Tancredo suggesting that we "just send Obama back to Kenya" is really, truly breathtaking.
Quote of the Day
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes."—Senior Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
Sure.
P.S. Pat Robertson called. He wants his shtick back.
[H/T to Shaker Broce.]
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.]
Bi-Monthly Reminder & Thank You
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville.
Asking for donations** is difficult for me, partly because I've got an innate aversion to asking for anything, and partly because these threads are frequently critical and stressful. But it's also one of the most feminist acts I do here.
So. Here's the reminder.
You can donate once by clicking the button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription here. We first made the Subscribe to Shakesville page available last March, which means most of the subscriptions are running out and have to be renewed if you want to keep your subscription active.
Let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
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* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.
** Why I ask for donations is explained here.
I Write Letters
[Trigger warning for violence and extreme fat hatred.]
Dear Telegraph India:
No, Naveen Kumar did not "burn his wife alive because she had grown too fat." Naveen Kumar burned his wife alive because he is a fat-hating murderous fuckhead.
Also: The rates of obesity in Andhra Pradesh are totally irrelevant. But the rates of domestic abuse certainly would have been appropriate to include.
Fatly Yours,
Liss
cc. Shaker Trabb's Boy and Bri.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
[Trigger warning for wordplay that includes imaginary violence.]
Liss: So…Nicolas Cage has reportedly bought himself a 9-foot-tall pyramid-shaped tomb in a New Orleans cemetery to be his final resting place. Like ya do.
Deeky: LOL!
Liss: I just saw TMZ's headline about it, and, even though they're the devil, this is hilarious: "Nic Cage Buys Pyramid—To Be Dead In."
Deeky: Brilliant. Of course, if I were writing the headline, I'd have figured out a way to refer to Cage as a "National Treasure."
Liss: LOLOLOLOLOL!!! "The Family Man" and "National Treasure" Nicolas Cage Proves He Is Still "Wild at Heart" by Purcharing a Pyramid to be "Trapped in Paradise" Once "The Weather Man" up in the Sky Decides It's "Bringing Out the Dead" Time and Delivers the "Kiss of Death" and Possibly Also a "Deadfall," or, Failing That, Ripping His "Face/Off" with "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" or Hitting Him Over the Head with "The Rock," But in Any Case Tells Cage His Time Is up and He's "Gone in 60 Seconds" and Has Moved on to the "City of Angels" and Become a "Ghost Rider," So Let's All Hope Cage Doesn't Get a "Vampire's Kiss" and Gets to Use His Death Pyramid, and, by the way, "It Could Happen to You!"
Deeky: LOLOLOL! "The Family Man" and "National Treasure" Nicolas Cage Proves He Is Still "Wild at Heart" by Purcharing a Pyramid to be "Trapped in Paradise" Once "The Weather Man" up in the Sky Decides It's "Bringing Out the Dead" Time and Delivers the "Kiss of Death" and Possibly Also a "Deadfall," or, Failing That, Ripping His "Face/Off" with "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" or Hitting Him Over the Head with "The Rock," But in Any Case Tells Cage His Time Is up and He's "Gone in 60 Seconds" and Has Moved on to the "City of Angels" and Become a "Ghost Rider," So Let's All Hope Cage Doesn't Get a "Vampire's Kiss" and Gets to Use His Death Pyramid, and, by the way, "It Could Happen to You" (Con Air).
Later, during a conversation about the cost of living…
Deeky: If I can't get a new job for at least as much as I'm making now, I may as well just sit my ass on your couch forever and not work at all. I mean, become your houseboy.
Liss: You can get a job in Chicago and commute with Iain every morning!
Deeky: LOL! And we could sing "My Baby Takes the Morning Train..." every morning.
Liss: On the way home, you two can sing "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. When you take POWER LUNCHES together, you can sing "My Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)" by Cory (Heart).
Deeky: LOLOLOLOL!! Cory (Heart) (Con Air.)
Liss: P.S. That was Timbuk3. Not Corey Hart. He sang the one about wearing sunglasses at night. So many songs about sunglasses in the 80s!
Deeky: It's not like there was anything else going on. P.S. I love songs with parentheses. Did you know that John Parr sang the theme song from "The Running Man"? It's called "(Restless Heart) Running Away With You."
Liss: I did not know that. I love songs with parentheses, too. Especially when they're part of some line of the refrain repeated a thousand times in a song. "(I Will Always) Be There For You" or some bullshit. Really? That parenthetical is necessary? Are you sure?
Deeky: Wasn't every New Kids song like that? Their best was "(I'll Be) Loving You (Forever)" because you can never have too many parentheses.
Liss: Oh Donnie Wahlberg, how I loved you (Con Air).
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Giant Exfoliating Gloves.
Recommended Reading:
Larisa: What did Hank Paulson know and when did he know it?
Maha: Rackets and Racketeers
Thea: Torry Hansen & the Adoption Disruption Narrative; Getting Better, Still Needs Work
Abby Jean: Dr. Drew – Stop Policing Other People!
Andy: SLDN's Aubrey Sarvis 'Disturbed' by Reports That White House is Lobbying Congress Against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal This Year
And Happy Blogiversary to Cara at The Curvature!
Leave your links in comments...
Today in Being Radical
From one of our favorite repeat offenders, Psychology Today, comes a trenchant-as-hell question from Dr. Leonard Sax, "physician, psychologist, and author of Girls on the Edge: the Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls, which will be published next month by Basic Books" (heh):
Are there so many girl-girl couples out there [these days] because that's truly who they are - or because the guys are such losers?Fannie offers an alternative view in response:
Here's a thought, maybe "girls" who have "girl" partners do so for reasons that have little or nothing to do with boys and men.Another radical thought from the intersection of the radical gay and radical feminist agendas.
This Should Not Happen. Ever.
by Shaker Maud
[Trigger Warning: This story is potentially extremely distressing to people who are not protected by the privileges of legally recognized marriage, i.e. unmarried partners, especially gay partners, who have done everything in their power to protect their legal rights as partners, yet remain at the mercy of bureaucrats when they become elderly and/or in need of medical care because of disease or disability.]
Thanks to Onetimeposter, who left a comment in Sunday's open thread about this story at The Bilerico Project's site.
Clay, 77, and Harold, 88, had shared their lives for twenty years. They had prepared legal documentation to protect their rights as individuals and partners. Both had prepared wills, medical directives and powers of attorney, naming one another in each case. Then Harold fell, and needed to be hospitalized. Apparently hospital personnel refused to recognize Clay as Harold's family and legally-designated carer/advocate, and contacted county social services, who did likewise and took over significant decision-making for both men's lives, separated them, and essentially incarcerated the two men in separate nursing homes, despite the fact that Clay was healthy, and not in need of such a placement. Three months later, Harold died.
In the meantime, the county went to court to gain financial decision-making power for Harold, lied to the court by representing Clay as merely Harold's roommate, and auctioned off their joint possessions, presumably to recoup costs for their care in these various institutions, care which in Clay's case was neither needed nor wanted, and none of which was according to their joint desire and legal preparation.
Clay has lost his partner of 20 years. He and Harold were robbed of their final three months as partners. His home is gone, as the county surrendered Clay's and Harold's lease to their landlord when they institutionalized the two men. Clay has nothing left of his own life, nor of his and Harold's life together save only a photo album which Harold managed to put together for Clay during his final months. Just as you would expect someone to spend his dying days and remaining strength doing for his "ex-roommate".
What is left to say about this kind of behavior? Outrageous? Certainly. Heartbreaking? Unavoidably. Some people suck so hard it's a wonder they haven't swallowed the whole world? Yes. I'm only left to wonder whether the county workers who walked into these men's lives and devastated what was left of their time together, not to mention the continuing life of Clay, did so solely out of bigotry, or whether it may have made their jobs easier to treat Harold as someone with no family who need be bothered with, and Clay as an old man whose needs were unimportant, rather than treating the two of them as an elderly couple in need of assistance and support in carrying out their own desires for their lives under difficult circumstances. And whether making their jobs easier was a good enough reason in these people's minds to justify doing so.
At some point, the court appointed an attorney, Anne Dennis, to represent Clay. She has since managed to secure his release from the nursing home. She and another attorney, with assistance from the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) elder law project, are now representing Clay in a lawsuit against the county whose workers treated him and his partner so callously. July 16 of this year has been set as the date for trial on this matter in Sonoma County, CA.
Neither the article at the Bilerico Project nor the one at NCLR gives a timeline for when these events occurred. Maybe Clay and Harold had not chosen or would not have been able to avail themselves of the opportunity to marry. Maybe the passage of Prop H8 did not affect them. But this story makes clear once again that the right to enter into the civil contract that is marriage, without regard to religious doctrine or ceremony, is fundamental to people's ability to build a family which is recognized by the state, and that denying that right to anyone is not only discriminatory, it is cruel and inhumane.
I Write Letters
Dear New York Times:
WHUT?!
"You want to talk about a contrast in American women," [Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Idiculous] said during the last presidential race. "Take a look at Nancy Pelosi, the third most powerful woman" in the United States. The speaker and [Sarah Palin, R-Etrofuck], she suggested, were so radically different as to be incomparable.No, really: WHUT?!
In reality, though, the three belong to what may be the smallest, most exclusive clique in American politics. The admission requirements are beyond most women, and all men: members must be prominent players in the United States political arena and must have given birth to not one, not two, not three, not even four — but five children, something that presumably gives them more in common than they might like to admit.
DID U JUST MAKE ME AGREE WITH MICHELE BACHMANN? WHUUUUUUUUUT?!
Whatever forces may be at play, taking a look at present dynamics, any American woman with long-range political ambitions might do well to also look to her nursery.WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! The plot, New York Times, you have lost it.
Unless, of course, the plot is BACKLASH 101. In which case, well played. And also: I HATE U.
Love,
Liss
cc. Shaker Sarah.
Thank Feminism for the Luxury of Your Disdain
Have I mentioned in the last three seconds that we're in the middle of a Big Fucking Backlash? Because we're in the middle of a big fucking backlash. The following are excerpts from Eleanor Mills' article for the Times titled (I shit you not) "Learning to be left on the shelf" (emphasis mine), in which feminism is blamed for women who were bred not to breed, or something:
This isn't just about me. One in five females of my generation will never have children; and the Office for National Statistics reports that the more successful you are professionally, the less likely you are to breed.Et cetera. Leaving aside the evident cis- and heterocentrism, and Mills' evident disbelief that there are a lot of women who are (or will be) happily childless and/or unpartnered in their 40s and beyond, and the reeking classism and entitlement that makes the piece nearly unreadable, I just have to ask on what planet, exactly, did she and her friends grow up where
...What has gone wrong? Last week Joanna Trollope, the novelist, blamed modern women's "absurd" expectations for their lack of husbands. She said women are looking for a man who "has to earn £100,000 a year, has to be able to cut down a tree, play the Spanish guitar, make love all night and cook me a cheese soufflé".
I don't think my single friends are on their own because they are too picky. I think it is because as a generation we were bred not to prioritise finding a husband and having a family. Unlike generations of females before us, we were bred to work. I was born in 1970, in the middle of women's lib. My mother and her peers were conscious-raising and feminist.
...At dinner with girlfriends the other night, the feeling was we'd been let down. That society, by leaving us to fend for ourselves and offering no guidance or advice on the crucial subject of finding a mate, had failed us. After all, throughout history, pairing off the next generation has been a key function of most societies, from Jane Austen's balls to Indian arranged marriages.
No one, not my family or my teachers, ever said, "Oh yes, and by the way you might want to be a wife and mother too."—because NO. I have lived in Britain, and the claim that little girls are not bombarded with images and narratives that they are to seek out wifedom and motherhood is absurd. Mills is only four years older than I am, and even from 4,000 miles away, I knew as a child that Margaret Thatcher was a WIFE! and a MOTHER! goddammit, not just a prime minister.
Buried somewhere beneath all the gender essentialist fairy-tale ending bullshit, Mills does have a legitimate complaint. Our culture's not really set up for optimal biological parenting in particular. It's easiest to parent financially if you've got a white-collar career, but a professional woman has to wait to have kids until she's established in her career, which usually means mid-thirties at least.
We need better family leave laws (Scandinavia is much better in this area, especially Sweden) that facilitate genuine co-parenting (not the fake-ass lipservice to co-parenting we give while it's still women who do the vast majority of the child care) and allow people to have children at an earlier age without fucking their careers. (Or their shitty jobs.)
But.
It's feminists who advocate for better family leave laws. It's feminists who routinely point out how easy it is for a man to become a parent in his 20s without missing a beat in his career, and how not easy it is for women to do the same.
And it isn't feminists who would recommend searching for "an exotic man who would open up a whole new kind of life for me" at the expense of being interested in "a nice man who wanted kids" if you are a woman who wants kids. Feminists tend to be the ones who suggest using romantic comedy plots as a blueprint for one's own life isn't, perhaps, the wisest idea.
Don't find someone to complete you; find someone to complement you is the romance section of the feminist didactic.
But I digress.
This is yet another in a long string of similar "Feminism told me I could have it all, but I got snookered!" articles—although this one is an even more self-indulgent reach than the usual twaddle, given that Mills did essentially get everything she ever wanted, but is apparently miffed she had to work for it—in which the author blames feminism for not delivering on its promises, with not a single shred of ire reserved for the institutional biases that serve as roadblocks to material progress.
And when I read of privileged women who have great careers, but are struggling to navigate the integration of career and partnerdom/motherhood, and blame feminism for that struggle, I can't help but wonder if they don't understand that even the existence of that imbalance is evidence of feminism's successes, even as it is muse for feminism's continued necessity.
There was a time when work/life balance wasn't an issue, because work (outside the home) wasn't an option.
Except for those un-privileged women for whom it was a necessity to survive. Who, I trust it goes without saying, didn't have their pick of careers.
Mills doesn't even realize she has feminism to thank for the luxury of her disdain.
But the biggest problem with this piece, and the others (so many others!) just like it is this: Mills says "This isn't just about me," but...it kind of is. The idea that partnership/kids is some kind of mystery to modern women thanks to feminism is patently silly.
There are plenty of feminist women who have well-developed internal selves and successful careers and great partners and/or kids, and manage to integrate it all into one big messy life, if imperfectly and with occasional sacrifices they wish they didn't have to make, sometimes small and sometimes almost inconceivably huge.
And there are plenty of feminist women who don't have everything they want, and maybe never will.
And, in either case, those feminist women look at the ways in which their lives have been limited, their goals made elusive, the balance of their interests made infinitely more difficult than it needs be, and they don't advocate for less feminism, but more.
Responsible Adults
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) offered the Republican response to President Obama's weekly address and, per Steve Benen, informed America that if we elect Republicans in November, they would offer "responsible, adult leadership."
And ponies. Everyone will get a pony.
Since the election of Barack Obama, we have seen responsible adults offer us death panels, Armageddon, outbursts on the floor of the House during a presidential address, egging on protesters from the floor of the House, a promise by a Senator to "break" the president, expressions of hope that the president would fail, threats of filibusters of Supreme Court nominees before their names have been submitted to the Senate, tantrums of legendary dimensions, blockage of a bill to extend unemployment benefits because it was cutting into watching a basketball game, and deliberate misinterpretation of a bill in order to claim that it contains the exact opposite of what is written. The list goes on and on; feel free to add your own. Meanwhile, can you name any legislative proposals such as economic recovery, healthcare, immigration reform, or anything else that was proposed by the Obama administration that didn't get instant GOP opposition based solely on its origin rather than its merit? And can you name any GOP legislative proposals, such as their 2009 budget proposal without any numbers in it, that passed the laugh test?
So these are the responsible adults they're promising, huh? I can't wait.
Crossposted.
