Hosted by a tuba-ma-ba. Er, tuba.
Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010
Hey, all! Once again, Blogging Against Disablism Day is hosted today at Diary of a Goldfish. Click the logo on the left to visit the BADD homepage at Diary of a Goldfish and read all the BADD posts as they come rolling in.
A reminder from Diary of a Goldfish's BADD 2010 introductory post about how BADD works is as follows:
My own situation, about which I blogged on BADD 2009, has become much more complicated over the past year. I will do my best to get a post up today, but I wanted to go ahead and let others know so they can participate and read along.
How to take part.
1. Post a commentbelow to say you intend to join in. I will then add you to the list of participants on the sidebar of this blog. Everyone is welcome.
2. Spread the word by linking to this site, displaying our banner and/ or telling everyone about it. The entire success of Blogging Against Disablism Day depends entirely on bloggers telling other bloggers and readers in advance.
3. Write a post on the subject of disability discrimination, disablism or ableism and publish it on May 1st - or as close as you are able. Podcasts, videocasts and on-line art are also welcome. You can cover any subject, specific or general, personal, social or political. In the previous three BADD, folks have written about all manner of subjects, from discrimination in education and employment, through health care, parenting, family life and relationships, as well as the interaction of disablism with racism and sexism. Every year I have been asked, so it's worth saying; the discrimination experienced by people with mental ill health is disablism, so naturally such posts are welcome too.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
CNN Headline Nooz
So now just letting some random people spout unsupportable bullshit is a news story? Okay.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning.]
The top two stories on today's UN Dispatch "Morning Coffee" are:
6 OUT OF 10 MIGRANT WOMEN RAPED - As many as 6 out of 10 women and girls attempting to cross from Mexico into the U.S. will be raped on her journey, according a new report by Amnesty International. Each year, thousands of migrants, most of whom set out from Central America, fall victim to criminal gangs who exploit them financially and sexually. AI is calling on the Mexican government to take action to protect migrants from rape and other forms of predation. LinkThere's nothing I can say that I haven't said a thousand times before. Time to pick up our teaspoons, Shakers.
UN: IMPUNITY AT THE ROOT OF RAPE - A senior UN Security Council official is back from a trip to what she calls "the rape capital of the world," the Democratic Republic of Congo. Margot Wallström is urging the Security Council to make the prevention of sexual violence a top priority. Link
Take action to stop abuse of migrants in Mexico here. Support UNIFEM's efforts on behalf of women in Congo 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.]
Quote of the Day
"We need to repeal the health care law and replace it with common-sense steps that will lower the cost of health insurance in America."—House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Hawaiian Tropic), on the priorities of House Republicans, should they reclaim the majority come November.
I'm glad to hear the Republicans are finally on board with socialized medicine!
What's the Matter with Arizona?
Well. I don't really know what to say about this (emphasis mine):
After making national headlines for a new law on illegal immigrants, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill Thursday that would ban ethnic studies programs in the state that critics say currently advocate separatism and racial preferences.I see. So, really, MLK and his dream? Eh, notsomuch. Scared of Latino/Latina people "taking over" and must have classes about their heritage eliminated (particularly aimed at Tuscon Unified SD's Mexican-American program)? That's more like it. How dare this man try and hide behind Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to promote his racism. (Bill text here)
The bill, which passed 32-26 in the state House, had been approved by the Senate a day earlier. It now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.
The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."
The bill stipulates that courses can continue to be taught for Native American pupils in compliance with federal law and does not prohibit English as a second language classes. It also does not prohibit the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide.
[...]
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne called passage in the state House a victory for the principle that education should unite, not divide students of differing backgrounds.
"Traditionally, the American public school system has brought together students from different backgrounds and taught them to be Americans and to treat each other as individuals, and not on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds," Horne said. "This is consistent with the fundamental American value that we are all individuals, not exemplars of whatever ethnic groups we were born into. Ethnic studies programs teach the opposite, and are designed to promote ethnic chauvinism."
Horne began fighting in 2007 against the Tucson Unified School District's program, which he said defied Martin Luther King's call to judge a person by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Horne claimed the ethnic studies program encourages "ethnic chauvanism," promotes Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States and tries to intimidate conservative teachers in the school system.
While on the subject of education in Arizona, the AZ Dept. of Education is up to, well...
PHOENIX—As the academic year winds down, Creighton School Principal Rosemary Agneessens faces a wrenching decision: what to do with veteran teachers whom the state education department says don't speak English well enough.Sounds more like it's from the Dept. of Really Ridiculous Ideas, Hello?!. WTF.
The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.
[...]
In the 1990s, Arizona hired hundreds of teachers whose first language was Spanish as part of a broad bilingual-education program. Many were recruited from Latin America.
Then in 2000, voters passed a ballot measure stipulating that instruction be offered only in English. Bilingual teachers who had been instructing in Spanish switched to English.
[...]
Arizona's enforcement of fluency standards is based on an interpretation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. That law states that for a school to receive federal funds, students learning English must be instructed by teachers fluent in the language. Defining fluency is left to each state, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said.
[...]
The education department has dispatched evaluators to audit teachers across the state on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing.
Teachers that don't pass muster may take classes or other steps to improve their English; if fluency continues to be a problem, Ms. Santa Cruz said, it is up to school districts to decide whether to fire teachers or reassign them to mainstream classes not designated for students still learning to speak English. However, teachers shouldn't continue to work in classes for non-native English speakers.
About 150,000 of Arizona's 1.2 million public-school students are classified as English Language Learners. Of the state's 247 school districts, about 20 have high concentrations of such students, the largest number of which are in the younger grades.
Daily Kitteh
Why it is so difficult to take a picture of Sovereign in daylight. Can you say over-exposed? I thought you could.
So Sexy Too Soon
I don’t think I knew, outside the realm of those beauty pageants for little girls, that 8-year-olds wore mascara. Not only does this phenomenon exist, according to a NYT article, but
From 2007 to 2009, the percentage of girls ages 8 to 12 who regularly use mascara and eyeliner nearly doubled — to 18 percent from 10 percent for mascara, and to 15 percent from 9 percent for eyeliner. The percentage of them using lipstick also rose, to 15 percent from 10 percent.We’re* prepping them earlier and earlier, with the assistance of the beauty industry, for conforming to notions of “beauty” and “femininity,” for life as the objects of the heterosexual male gaze.
From the article:
"There’s relentless marketing pressure on young girls to look older,” Ms. [Stacy] Malkan said. “Not just from magazines and TV ads, but from shows like ‘90210.’ Those kids are supposed to be in 10th and 11th grade, but they look 25.”Others have documented this ongoing sexualization of young girls. In speaking of her book, Girl Culture, Lauren Greenfield notes the “the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity.” Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne explore the role of gendered and sexualized marketing on young girls in So Sexy, So Soon. They tell a story of 7- and 8-year-old girls who feel they must be sexy so boys will like them and are upset that their parents won’t buy them sexy clothes. Levin and Kilbourne describe the messages transmitted over and over to young girls
Indeed, the aisles of Sephora and CVS are lined with cosmetics aimed at Miley Cyrus fans. Fashion runways teem with heavily made-up girls of 14. Neutrogena offers a line of acne-clearing makeup featured on the “Neutrogena Teen” section of its Web site. Even Dylan’s Candy Bar, the upscale candy store whose Upper East Side flagship has become a tourist attraction, has a “beauty” line that includes cupcake body lotion and strawberry licorice “lip saver.” (“Lips should always be candy-luscious and sweet to kiss!” reads the Web site.)
In today’s cultural environment, products that channel children into narrowly focused content and activities threaten to consume every aspect of their lives. For young girls, this usually means focusing on buying fashion items, looking pretty, and acting sexy. From newfangled Barbies and sexy Bratz dolls to “old-fashioned” princess fairy tales, young girls… learn to value a certain aesthetic and a certain behavior—be pretty, be coy, and… be saved in the end by the handsome prince. [T]hese gender stereotypes and sexualized messages are everywhere. **They are everywhere and apparently they are effective.
The author of the NYT article says that some young girls might be “sophisticated enough to make… their own beauty decisions.” He points to an 11-year old who denied trying to emulate anyone by wearing makeup; “I try to make myself look like me,” she said.
That immediately reminded me of a scene from Good Hair when Chris Rock tries to go into a hair supply store and sell “black” hair to the store owner who stocks primarily Indian hair. Black women, the store owner tells him, don’t want “black” hair, because they want to look more “natural.” You can see that scene beginning around the 2:09 second mark in the trailer below.
All of that leads me to wonder why looking “natural” is never equivalent to being "natural" (i.e. without artifice) for women. Instead, “natural” is constructed as the outcome of subjecting our bodies, head to toe, to various processes.
As girls began these processes at younger and younger ages, what will be the effect on their physical and mental well-being?
_______________________
*The article says that 2/3 of the girls surveyed reported getting makeup and makeup techniques from a “family member or adult family friend.”
**Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids (New York: Ballantine Books, 2009), 30; 32-33.
Fomenting the Mommy Wars
Or maybe the mommy/non-mommy wars, as for some people, motherhood seems to be the only reference for women's identity.
So, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa wrote an article entitled "Childless by Choice," in which she discusses her decision not to have children or get married, how she enjoys her life, and how she's felt distance grow between her married, "child-filled" friends and herself. In other words, she's describing her life.
I didn't like the blanket statement here:Take women with children, especially with young children. They get together -- at the park, at the grocery, at play dates – and can talk about nothing else but their beautiful, brilliant, amazing children.
When I did manage to get with my girlfriends when my kid was small, the last thing we wanted to talk about was the kids. We wanted mixed drinks and a break. I didn't like the generalization, but I don't doubt for a minute that might be her experience and again, she's describing her life.
Which should be just fine, right?
Apparently, that's not controversial enough. The AOL lede/link to the story is "Woman's Column May Anger Moms."* Because all moms decide other women's lives must be read through and judged by moms' experiences and because we get blazingly angry that all women don't make the same choices.
Or something.
_______________________
*Sorry, y'all, wanted to provide a screen capture, but my en-virus laptop is not cooperating. As of right now you can go here, and click to page 5 of 9 in the little lead stories box to see the link.
Assvertising
From the "Patriarchy Is Bad for Men, Too" Files...
[Click images to embiggen.]
This Jota Art Jewelry campaign [via Copyranter] attempts to sell diamonds to (straight) women—or, the (straight) men who buy diamonds for (straight) women—by reflecting the stereotypical "bad behaviors" of (straight) men in the stone (leaving the seat up; toothpaste mess), accompanied by the single word "Forgiveness."
Arguably, the ad is directed as much at (straight) men, conveying to them they should buy diamonds to beg forgiveness, as it is at (straight) women, conveying to them they should expect diamonds in exchange for forgiveness. In either case, the ad basically suggests that (straight) men don't have to be respectful, if they can afford diamonds. And (straight) women shouldn't expect respect, when they can just settle for diamonds.
Ugh squared.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104.]
Star Shocked by Changing Body as a Teenager
That's pretty much what the lede read where I found this on AOL today.
Anyway, from an interview with House's Lisa Edelstein:
In spite of her health-conscious eating habits from a young age, Edelstein still experienced a shock when she hit puberty later in her teen years. "When I was 19, I went from a size zero to a size 10 in six months," Edelstein told Prevention. "My boobs and my butt grew 3 and a half sizes. Suddenly, I was this voluptuous woman, and I had no idea what to do with my body. I hated it. Eating was so much fun until then. (Now) you sort of have to learn how not to eat potato chips."The idea that you have to counter a body that might be making natural changes blows me away.
To counter her drastically-changing body, the actress has always been active, and has been "doing Mysore [mahy-sawr] style Ashtanga yoga for 14 years. I like it because it's a self-practice-everyone's doing the practice they've learned. The teacher only gives you another pose because you're ready for it."
I Think This Is What They Call "Nooz"
Brace yourselves...
Joe Arpaio arrests 'very few' non-Hispanics.
Shocking, right?
Potent Quotables
Beaks at Ain't It Cool News calls Anchorman "the most quoted comedy of the last decade." Really? The only lines I can remember from that film off the top of my head are: "I love lamp" and "Great Odin's raven," neither of which I'd call mainstays in the pop culture lexicon.
I would argue the most quoted film in recent memory is The Big Lebowski (the Dude really does abide), but that predates the last decade.
I'm having a hard time coming up with last-decade contenders, though. Over at LG&M, where R-Far posted this, a commenter mentioned Napoleon Dynamite, which has gotta be up there. "Whatever I want to do today—gosh!"
What naughties film(s) do you nominate for most quoted/quotable, Shakers?
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud sponsors of Deeky's Shiny White Teeth.
Recommended Reading:
Eric: We're Losing Ground in Afghanistan
LJ: Help Kentucky A-Fund
Andy: Hawaii Approves Civil Union Bill; Measure Goes to Governor
Resistance: I'm Going to Get a White Guy Mask
Angry Asian Man: The Kid Can Eat However He Wants
Sean: Einstein Should Be Grateful He Didn't Have Email
[Trigger Warning for sexual violence in this next link; please be sure you are in a good space before clicking through.] Cara: This is Not an Analysis of Rape Culture. This is a Rant.
Leave your links in comments...
Baby Sea Lion!
by Shaker RedSonja
As an aspiring exotic animal behaviorist, I spend a LOT of time working for free. Internships and volunteering have turned out to be a great way of getting experience and networking, and my favorite place for that so far has been at Oceans of Fun (oceansoffun.org), a seal and sea lion training program at the Milwaukee Zoo.
On April 8, I had the privilege of watching one of the California sea lions at our facility give birth to her fifth pup. She was born tail first, which meant that only her hind flippers were visible for quite some time—and she was wiggling them in her effort to be born! She was approximately 14 pounds when she was born, and is growing like a weed. I just wanted to share some pictures of her with you guys. (The third pic is a newborn pic, as you'll be able to see by the umbilical cord, and the rest are older.)
[For the Facebook people, Oceans of Fun is there too and is posting pics of her pretty regularly.]
Dems Unveil Immigration Proposal
So the Democrats are on the immigration reform tip, and I just love the WaPo's lede:
Senate Democrats officially unveiled a proposal to reform America's immigration system on Thursday, looking past the fact that no Republican has offered support for the effort and President Obama a day earlier played down the chances of legislation passing this year.OMG the Democrats are defying the Republicans! And President Bipartisan! IT'S LIKE THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THEY ARE ANYMORE!
Seeking to woo Republicans, the 26-page framework, which has not yet been written into a formal bill, emphasizes first taking steps to limit illegal immigration before offering new rights for those here illegally. But the REPAIR (Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform) proposal, as Democrats dubbed it, also would create a pathway to legal status for an estimated 10.8 million people who are already in the country illegally, an idea opposed by many conservatives.You know what would be a great story for the WaPo to do…? Interviewing prominent rightwingers to see if they think the Democratic Party should change its name. Or possibly disband altogether. Because every day, I wonder: What do conservatives think of the Democrats and their policies? If only someone would write an article telling me whether conservatives tend to oppose or support Democratic initiatives.
Anyway...
Under the proposal, illegal immigrants currently in the United States would be eligible for legal status in eight years, as long as they learned English, had not committed a crime and paid their taxes. The federal government would increase funding for border security and require all American workers get a new version of their Social Security card that would include a biometric identifier to protect against the creation of counterfeits.I love the smell of conditional amnesty in the morning!
I remain unconvinced that someone should have to learn English to live in the US, and I don't see why it should take eight years to attain legal status (when other countries, such as Brazil, have successful amnesty programs that don't require such rigmarole), but I'm definitely in support of an amnesty program of some description, and this frankly sounds better than I would have expected. I'll withhold final judgment until the actual bill is written, though…
Meanwhile, in totally depressing news, Gallup has found that of the three-quarters of Americans who have heard about Arizona's new immigration law, more support it than oppose it, 51%-39%.
What. The. Fuck.
For the Losties
Damon Lindelof deliciously teases us:
The great thing about series finales is: They have to fit the show. So, the M*A*S*H series finale is so specific to M*A*S*H, and the Newhart finale is so specific to Newhart. Other shows could not get away with—Matthew Fox can't wake up at the end of Lost and basically be in his Party of Five Charlie Salinger self [grins] and say, "I just had this dream about an island!" 'cause we're not Newhart, you know?
So, what we're trying to do is to end Lost in a way that feels Lostian, and fair, and will generate a tremendous amount of theorizing, which the show in and of itself has always done. We're gonna be as definitive as we can be, and say, "This is our ending," but there's no way to end the show where the fans aren't gonna say, "What did they mean by this?!" Which is why we're not going to explain it. [laughs]
