Shakesville

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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

It's Time for Another Edition of Shakesville MadLibs!

Congressman Mark Souder (R-Eprobate) has announced his resignation from Congress, effective Friday, citing his affair with a staffer.

Souder, who represented northeast Indiana, was a Family Values champion, who held strong convictions about abstinence and the sanctity of marriage.

Speaking of Racism…

So, there's this article in The Guardian, which is headlined: "A $95,000 question: why are whites five times richer than blacks in the US?"

Can you answer that in one word? I know I can.

The article itself spends more than 850 words answering the question in its title, detailing many of the current and historical institutional inequities that have resulted in this racial wealth gap. But none of those 850+ words is "racism."

Even though the systematic denial of equal opportunities based on race is the very definition of racism.

"[T]here are greater opportunities and less challenges for low and moderate income families if they're white in comparison to if they're African-American or Hispanic," [Tom Shapiro, one of the authors of the report by the Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy] said.

That's racism.

The report attributes part of the cause to the "powerful role of persistent discrimination in housing, credit and labour markets. African-Americans and Hispanics were at least twice as likely to receive high-cost home mortgages as whites with similar incomes," the report says.

That's racism.

Although many black families have moved up to better-paying jobs, they begin with fewer assets, such as inheritance, on which to build wealth. They are also more likely to have gone into debt to pay for university loans.

"African-Americans, before the 1960s, first by law and then by custom, were not really allowed to own businesses. They had very little access to credit. There was a very low artificial ceiling on the wealth that could be accumulated. Hence there was very little, if anything, that could be passed along to help their children get to college, to help their children buy their first homes, or as an inheritance when they die," said Shapiro.

That's the legacy of racism.

I'm not suggesting, of course, that there's something wrong with the article for exploring structural inequality—quite the contrary, it was unusually well done in that regard.

I do, however, question the reluctance (not unique to this article) to incorporate the word racism into discussions of structural inequality based on race. It would be like a medical paper talking about a cure for the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the human body without ever using the word cancer. I don't believe it's possible to properly address racism if we're unwilling to even call it by name.

This is part and parcel of privileged people trying to turn accusations of bias into an equivalent offense to expressions of bias; that is, we are now meant to regard being accused of racism as just as horrible an experience as being targeted by racism. (Poppycock.) Thus is any use of "the R-word" axiomatically treated as radioactive—or, conversely, the claim is made that its overuse will render it meaningless. These are straw-arguments of people who desperately want to avoid honest, sophisticated, productive discussions of racial injustice, lest that injustice which privileges them be replaced with an equality that robs them of their unearned advantages.

Racism is a word and a concept from which we cannot shy away if we are genuinely interested in challenging its effects.

I've been bombarded with racist messaging since the day I was born, everywhere I've been in the world, and it would have to be some kind of extraordinary bit of magic if I, a human being designed to be an intellectual sponge and socialized in a culture steeped with marginalizing narratives, had absorbed none of the racism (and other bigotries) pervading my environment. Like everyone else, I've internalized those negative messages so profoundly that even those biases of which I am a target get turned in on myself. The question is not whether any of us have internalized racism; the question is whether we leave that internalized racism unexamined.

And part of that examination, surely, is a willingness to call it by name. Again and again. Until we can discuss racism when we see it by using the word matter-of-factly, instead of treating it like a badge of shame, or a word/concept so radioactive it shouldn't be used in a straightforward conversation of structural inequality, but held under glass to be used only in cases of three-alarm racism.

Social justice is not the time for whispered tones and circumspect politeness, lest we offend the privileged.

Racism is why are whites are five times richer than blacks in the US. Let us not be shy. Let us speak about racism with the boldness that materially and enduringly subverting its grim consequences will require.

Texting! With Liss and Deeky!

Liss: Important News: Dana Carvey is still unfunny.

Deeky: I liked him in Wayne's World. 25 years ago.

Liss: You heart Garth Algar.

Deeky: LOL! Is that really his last name?

Liss: I think so, lol.

Deeky: Christ. Only you would know that.

Liss: The lint trap strikes again: Garth Algar.

Deeky: LOLOLOLOLOL!!!

Questions

What the hell is Bobo talking about?

And why does the New York Times pay him egregious amounts of money to soil its pages with unsubstantiated assertions and imaginary correlations masking as facts dressed up in shitty prose, week after fucking week?

Are there really no other writers in this country, or any other, who could be hired to write something substantive, factual, and interesting?

Open Thread

Hosted by Matilda.

Question of the Day

We've done this one before, but not for a very long time: What's your favorite word, based solely on its sound?

I have lots of words I really love, and I'm not sure I have a single favorite, but the first one that came to mind is tintinnabulation.

Two Notable SCOTUS Rulings

1. Federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous" after their prison terms are complete. This ruling applies only to federal inmates, and, like any extrajudicial detention policy, there is a huge potential for abuse.

But, unlike most other crimes, perpetrators of sexual assaults have a high recidivism rate and are more resistant to rehabilitation. Convictions for sexual assault frequently don't come with sentences that reflects that reality, with average prison terms being appallingly low. So, something's gotta give.

I'd personally prefer to see long mandatory sentences with multiple parole opportunities, with parole contingent on rigorous and comprehensive rehabilitation, some demonstrable evidence of success, and a required lifetime commitment to ongoing treatment, the failure to comply with which automatically triggers a reversal of parole.

Waiting until people re-offend is not working. For anyone.

2. Teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone. This is good news, given that the majority of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders, who may never have had the opportunity to learn how to live a life without violence quite literally until they were incarcerated. (Which is only true of those fortunate enough to serve time in a relatively safe facility.)

And, naturally, juvenile offenders of color are disproportionately sentenced to life without parole, meaning this is a covert civil rights decision, too.

Jill notes, however, "I wish that the court had gone further and held that no juveniles can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. After all, this decision doesn't apply to people like Sara Kruzan, who was put in jail at 16 for killing her abusive pimp." Indeed so.

Quote of the Day

"Hezbollah is laughing at us, tonight."—Conservative commentator and renowned genius Debbie Schlussel, on the occasion of Lebanese-American Rima Fakih (Miss Michigan) having been crowned Miss USA last night.

Daily Dose o' Cute

Seriously, how am I supposed to get any work done, when I've got this tremendous display of irresistible cuteness lying right in front of me?

"Rub my belleh!"
Resistance is futile. Of course I had to rub the belleh! What have I got—a heart of fucking stone?!

[Bonus Dudz below…]

It's so cold and rainy here today. I could not coax Dudz out of his bed for his midday potty, and getting him outside was like pulling teeth. (He's lazy enough on a sunny day, no less when it's pissing down outside!) We both got all rained on when we went out, and when we came in, I dried him off and he crawled up in his little bed. He still looked all shivery, so I covered him with a blanket.

"Thank you, Two-Legs!"
He's now tucked his head under the blanket and is fast asleep.

Care of CNN...

Your quarterly nooz story about (straight) women partnering with (straight) men who are less educated and/or make less money.

Oh the horror, etc.

[H/T to Iain.]

Just Seen at Target

Following up on SKM's post, I thought I'd share something I just saw at Target.

Celebrity Word-Finds:

Cool, whatever. Not sure who most of those people are on the cover, but hey, I'm not the target demographic, right?

Nonetheless, I peeked inside:

Oh, okay. I guess nothing gets celebrity nooz junkies hot like a Yves Montand puzzle.

p.s. And just FYI, "Wages of Fear" was one of the clues.

I Would Like to Say This Is Unbelievable...

...but of course it is eminently, rage-makingly believable:

A Catholic nun and longtime administrator of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix was reassigned in the wake of a decision to allow a pregnancy to be ended in order to save the life of a critically ill patient.

The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, who indicated the woman was "automatically excommunicated" because of the action.

What was the action, exactly? It was terminating an 11-week pregnancy with the patient's consent because the patient "had a rare and often fatal condition in which a pregnancy can cause the death of the mother."

The choice here, to be crystal clear, was terminate the pregnancy, or let the woman die, naturally taking the fetus with her.

James J. Walter, professor of bioethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Catholic university ... said a pregnancy may be terminated only in limited, indirect circumstances, such as uterine cancer, in which the cancer treatment takes the life of the fetus.

Catholic teaching, he said, is that a pregnancy cannot be terminated as a means to an end of saving the life of a mother who is suffering from a different condition.

Asked if the church position prefers the mother and child to die, rather than sparing the life of one of them, Walters said the hope is that both would survive.

Which really isn't much of a fucking answer, now, is it?

[Thanks to everyone who passed this along.]

Feel the Homomentum!

From the New York Daily News: "New York City clerk's offices will soon conduct civil ceremonies for gay couples."

Cool, eh?

"Sounds like a small step in the right direction," said Joseph Hagelmann, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club in Manhattan. "But we're not going to be happy until we have full marriage equality."

Registering as a same-sex domestic partner is not the same as gay marriage - which the state Senate nixed last year - but it does convey some legal benefits, especially if one partner is a city employee.

Baby steps, I guess.

[H/T to Shaker Bruno.]

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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

Dale Peterson is a Great American

All right, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks: You wanna talk about campaign ads? Let's talk about campaign ads.

Specifically, let's talk about how this campaign ad is the Greatest Campaign Ad ever made since Adam rode a dinosaur out of the Garden of Eden and into this wild, woolly world of ours. Watching this ad brings a goddamn tear to my eye, and that hasn't happened since those liberal bastards canceled "The Dukes of Hazzard."

I told my stepmom Cheryl last night that this ad makes me want to move to Alabama just so's I can vote for Dale Peterson. She said that was a good idea, but I think it's more just 'cuz she's tired of me selling weed and ammo out of the garage.

Anyway, this is what a Great American looks like. Take note, traitors. Pornstache: Out.

[Transcript by your oh-so-sensitive ringleader below.]

[The ad opens with a shot of Peterson's Marines pin and dogtags lying on a reproduction of the Constitution; orchestral music that wouldn't sound out of place in a Ken Burns documentary or Glory swells. Cut to Dale, who is a white man wearing a cowboy hat, sunglasses, a button-down shirt, and dungarees, riding a horse in a field on a sunny day.]

Peterson: I'm Dale Peterson, and I'm after the Republican nomination for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner. [Peterson gets down off the horse.] I've been a farmer, a businessman, a cop, a marine during Vietnam, so listen up! [Peterson takes off his sunglasses.] Alabama Ag Commissioner is one of the most powerful positions in Alabama, responsible for five billion dollars. Bet you didn't know that! You know why? Thugs and criminals! If they can keep you in the dark, they can do whatever they want with all that money! And they don't give a rip about Alabama!

Here we are, losing three family farms a day, illegals bust in by the thousands, and Alabama's unemployment's at an all-time high. And what are my opponents doing about it? Stealing yard signs in the night from my supporters!

Norman Grace brags on his Facebook page about receiving contributions from industries he would regulate. Bragging about receiving illegal money on Facebook! [inexplicable close-up of horse's face] Who on earth would support such a dummy?! And why?! [back to Peterson, who's just pulled out a rifle] We're Republicans—we should be better than that!

I'm Dale Peterson. I'll name names and take no prisoners. [he swings the rifle around] Give me the Republican nomination for Ag Commish and let's show Alabama we mean business!

[Previously by Butch Pornstache: Happy Taxes and Teabags Day, I'm a Proud Teabagger and Real American, Men and Trucks and Shit, Cats and Shit, Books and Cupcakes and Shit, Ron Swanson Kicks Butt.]

A 21st-Century Fox?

File under Wonders, Unceasing: Fox News publishes an editorial saying the War on Drugs might, might, mind you, have been a less than perfect idea by the Blessed Saint Nixon¹, Father Mighty Whitey on the Drug War trail, and that Ronny Ray-gun's² law-enforcement-centred budget bump might have been somewhat ill-considered, and that (gasp) the additional billions thrown at the problem by the Kings George (I³ and II⁴) and Slick Willie⁵ may have exceeded their imperial reach.

That spending untold billions of dollars to absolutely no effect might, possibly, in some uncharitably liberal light, be seen to be an imperfect, not to say completely pointless, approach to the illegal drug "problem".

We here at Shakesville would like to welcome Fox News to the 21st Century, and hope that they will enjoy their stay in...well, the modern world. We'd like to think they'll stay in the 21st, but we know it's really hard for them to avoid digging into that nostalgic wellspring of good non-exploitative government, the Victorian Age, as predicated by their Great Prophet, Karl Rove.

¹ A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.

² A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.

³ A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.

⁴ A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB. Anyone sensing a theme here?

⁵ Do I even need to say it? A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.

Monday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, producers of OFFS: The Deeky W. Gashlycrumb Story.

Recommended Reading:

Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 94

Melissa: "A Life-Changing Amount of Money" [TW]

Resistance: We Are America

Lisa: Condoms for Kids (These would protect both boys and girls, methinks.)

Kevin: What About Teh Dad?

Andy: This Weekend's 'Great Global Kiss-In' [video]

Deeky: Seen

Leave your links in comments...

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

The Specials: "Ghost Town"

All That Was Missing from the Polanski Story...

...was definitely: But what does Woody Allen think? [Trigger warning.]

The controversy surrounding fugitive film-maker Roman Polanski on Saturday drew strong words in his defence from fellow director Woody Allen after fresh allegations that he abused a minor.

...Allen, 74, said Polanski, who is fighting extradition from Switzerland to the United States to face sentencing in a 1977 child sex case, had paid a high price for his actions and that it was time to draw a line under the case.

"It's something that happened many years ago... he has suffered.... He has paid his due," Allen told French radio station RTL.

"He's an artist, he's a nice person, he did something wrong and he paid for it. They (his critics) are not happy unless he pays the rest of his life. They would be happy if they could execute him in a firing squad," he said.

"Enough is enough," he added.

Oh, right. I forgot how the child rapist is a nice person, and how child rape doesn't matter if you're an artist. Forget it, Jake. It's Moralrelativismtown.

As one of Polanski's "critics," I'll just note once again that Polanski did not, in fact, "pay his due," but skipped town specifically to avoid "paying his due," and, despite the absurd memes evidently floating around the entertainment industry that Polanski's been banned from the US by virtue of some exorbitant and extraordinary retributive gesture by the provincial and puritanical California government, the reason he's been "in exile" from the US is because he's a fucking fugitive.

I don't want him executed and his "paying for the rest of his life" would bring me no goddamn happiness. I would only like for the same justice that I would want to see in any case—and the reason this has gone on for 32 years is because Polanski himself has avoided that justice for all that time.

To turn his critics into insatiable witch-hunters is not merely spectacularly unfair, but an assertion predicated on ignoring Polanski's responsibility in this situation.

Which, granted, is hardly surprising from someone defending a child rapist.

Meanwhile, I love this:

Another of 76-year-old Polanski's prominent defenders, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, also spoke out, rejecting the new allegations by British actress Charlotte Lewis, while Cannes Film Festival president Gilles Jacob said no one was above the law.

Oh, well, if world champion child rape apologist Bernard-Henri Levy says the allegations are untrue, they must be!

Because, as everyone knows, in a rape culture, surviving rape renders you irrevocably compromised on the subject of rape, but defending rapists turns you into a goddamn bastion of objectivity.

Forget it, Jake. It's Rapeculturetown.