by Shaker Maud, who is currently contemplating whether to become a contributor, or remain Shakesville's world champion guest poster.
There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of repealing the Don't Ask Don't Tell law, which punishes lesbians and gays in the military not only for being themselves but for being outed by anyone wishing to harm them, through including the repeal in this year's Defense Reauthorization bill.
Rachel Maddow reported last night that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-noMO) said Wednesday that's not going to happen. Rep. Skelton says he and the Committee's ranking Republican, Howard McKeon, have "agreed to support (Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Admiral Mullen and (Defense) Secretary Gates' request for time to study this issue". The Pentagon is studying how to implement the end of the policy.
That study is scheduled to continue until December; the Defense Authorization bill would take effect October 1.
Skelton was one of the authors of DADT and has opposed its repeal. But, pride of authorship aside, Rep. Skelton is perhaps just heeding the constant exhortation to "think of the children", and following the prudent example set by young Zachary Preenworthy, who has taken the following official position:Mother, Father - it is my earnest intention to cease my regrettable habit of neglecting to do my homework in favor of spending all my time following the twitter feeds of random people I do not know. I will, however, need the rest of the year to study the best method of implementing this plan. I know others have committed themselves to this course of action without fuss, notably my fellow students in Canada, Belgium, the UK and more than 30 countries around the world. But you have always encouraged me to see myself as exceptional, and I feel it would be irresponsible of me to rush into such a radical shift in policy without carefully preparing the way, lest celebrities like Justin Bieber misunderstand my action and unnecessarily alarm their fans.
Rep. Skelton is taking a similarly self-interested studious approach to allowing military women to receive credit for combat assignments. Female service members in Iraq and Afghanistan are risking death and injury just as their male counterparts are, but because they are officially not eligible for "combat assignments", their service records do not reflect that and they do not receive the same credit toward promotion. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) introduced an amendment to correct this discriminatory policy. Rep. Skelton, however, yesterday pushed through alternate legislation requiring the Dept. of Defense to "write a report on the implications of such a change."
You may risk, ladies, and you may die. But we must ponder at length the implications of recognizing and rewarding your doing so.
Gosh, it's no wonder that not everyone is feeling the exhilaration about keeping company with the Dem-Dems that once they may have.
Teh Gays have written an open letter to the Democratic Party, to be delivered by the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action. They're feeling unfullfilled in their relationship:For the longest time, I thought we had something special. Remember how much fun we used to have back when we were young, and control of the Congress and the presidency was just a crazy dream? You always used to ask me for help, and you knew I'd never turn you down.
They really, really need to feel some love, in the form of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. If you do, too, you can read the rest of the letter and sign it here.
You were so adorable when we were courting. Sure, you never really understood me, but I liked that you seemed to try. The White House cocktail parties were totally fun, and that Easter Egg Roll is something I'll always cherish. Or remember the time you let me march in the Inaugural parade! Other than that whole Rick Warren thing, I really thought we had a connection.
I know you kept telling me that you weren't ready for marriage, but I was willing to wait since you had promised so much else in the meantime.
But now, I've kind of had it. I'm just not getting what I need out of this relationship. You rarely call me anymore, and when you do it's to ask for money. We talked about joining the military together -- but now it seems like you are flaking on that commitment. You promised to protect me from the homophobes at work, but you don't seem to be in a hurry to actually do it. And that Department of Justice brief thing was just cruel. I'll never understand why you did that.
It almost seems like you're embarrassed by me in public. I know not everyone in your family approves of us, but before you got your new job, it seemed like you didn't care what they thought and were always ready to fight for me. Now, it's like you're a different person. . . . I still worry every day that I can be fired in 29 states just because I'm gay. And my friend who is transgender can be fired in 38 states.
P.S. - Ms. Aretha explains it to you another way.
It Ain't No Way
Big Oil
The latest video footage of the leaking Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico show that oil is escaping at the rate of 95,000 barrels — 4 million gallons — a day, nearly 20 times greater than the 5,000 barrel a day estimate BP and government scientists have been citing for nearly three weeks, an engineering professor told a congressional hearing Wednesday.Raising concerns? Insert a caustic chuckle here. I just love how no one in public office is willing to call out a corporation on anything anymore, no matter how patently obvious the offense is. There is no question here. BP, like every other profit-driven corporation who prioritizes public relations management to keep its stockholders (or board, or owner, or whoever's reaping the profits) happy, is spinning like a record, baby, right round. Corporations are not altruists. They are plunderers. That is their nature. And it's absurd that the government continues to tiptoe around this shit.
The figure of 5,000 barrels a day or 210,000 gallons that BP and the federal government have been using for weeks is based on satellite observations of the surface. But NASA's best satellite-based instruments can't see deep into the waters of the Gulf, where much of the oil from the gusher 5,000 feet below the surface seems to be floating.
Federal officials testified in hearings on Tuesday that they were putting together a crack team to get to the bottom of big the spill really is. That effort comes a month after the April 20 explosion that triggered the unprecedented oil spill in deep waters of the United States. Experts say knowing that amount is crucial for efforts to cap the broken wellhead and to monitor and clean up the oil.
..."The true extent of this spill remains a mystery," [Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chaired the hearing] said. He said the BP had said that the flow rate was not relevant to the cleanup effort. "This faulty logic that BP is using is … raising concerns that they are hiding the full extent of the damage of this leak."
And for all the lipservice to how BP's going to pay for the cleanup (yeah, right), the US is going to invest billions and billions of dollars dealing with this environmental catastrophe, money that could have (should have) been spent on green energy development.
What a clusterfuck.
Question of the Day
If a group of clever and rockin' folks were to flash mob you with a song to celebrate some milestone in your life or just let you know you're awesome, what song would you like them to sing?
("I would totally hate getting flash mobbed!" is a perfectly cromulent response to this question, although liking the concept isn't technically a requirement for answering. It's just a conjured conceit, and if you would prefer to answer with what song you'd like to be serenaded by one trusted person, or answer what song you most love to sing to yourself in the shower, that's okay, too.)
I've definitely got to go with the theme from Laverne & Shirley on this one.
Impossibly Beautiful
Angelina Jolie, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world, is still not beautiful enough to look like herself on the poster of her upcoming film, Salt.
Lest anyone be under the misapprehension that her character is inexplicably meant to look like a video game avatar of her actual self, the previously released teaser poster puts paid to that possibility.
In case anyone needs a reminder of what Angelina Jolie actually looks like...
I find it particularly objectionable that the face of a woman who has publicly spoken about being in recovery from an eating disorder has been made to appear more gaunt. Just UGH.
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By way of reminder: Comments that try to suss out what changes, exactly, were made, and even comments noting that, for example, the removal of laugh lines because they are ZOMG wrinkles actually robs a face of its character or humanity, are welcome. Discussions of how "she looks handsomer/hotter/better in the candid picture" and associated commentary (which would certainly make me feel like shit if I were the person being discussed) are not. So please comment in keeping with the series' intent, implicit in which is the question: If no one can ever be beautiful enough, then to what end is the pursuit of an elusive perfection?
[Impossibly Beautiful: 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.]
It Can't Be Terrorism
Because Muslims are the terrorists, not the terrorized.
And anyone who suggests anything different—anyone who says that it definitely was terrorism, and evidence of a virulent racism inextricably tied to anti-Muslim sentiment, and is a deeply anti-American attack on a community that is as integral and valuable a thread in our national fabric as whatever group the despicable xenophobic fucknecks who perpetrated this action—is a terrorist-sympathizer with 9/10 thinking.
...
Where are we headed, USA? Where the fuck are we headed?
[H/T to Shaker BlueRidge.]
Rand Paul: Republican Senate Candidate and Ignorant Disablist
by Shaker Maud
"Paul Vows to Remain True to the Tea Party", says the New York Times headline.
Oh, good.
Rand Paul is now Kentucky's Republican candidate for the Senate . His political views follow closely those of his father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, deviating only by a recent move somewhat vaguely away from the elder Paul's advocacy of bringing home all of the several hundred thousand U.S. troops stationed around the world. Not wanting the U.S. to dominate the planet militarily just doesn't fly in Kentucky (or any other) Republican circles.
Rand Paul (he was not, as I initially suspected, named for Ayn Rand, but it seems perhaps not wholly coincidental that he goes by Rand rather than Randall or Randy, either) is an ophthalmologist who has never held political office. His past political activity, other than campaigning for his father, has been rooted in the oppression he suffers as a well-off, cis, straight white man who is expected to pay taxes. So wounded was he by this scourge that he founded a group called Kentucky Taxpayers United, presumably consisting of people who hope to cease being Kentucky Taxpayers and be left in peace to enjoy only those amenities of life each of them has provided for hirself individually, with no governmental support of any kind.
Of course, this might require Dr. Paul to give up his medical practice. The internet tells us that Dr. Paul has devoted his career to doing eye surgery. The commonest eye surgery done is LASIK, I believe. The Excimer laser used in this procedure was developed at the Northrop Corporation Research and Technology Center of the University of California, and I would hazard a guess that there was some, perhaps considerable, gummint research funding involved somewhere in the process. But presumably Paul is planning on leaving ophthalmology behind to become a full-time government employee, anyway, so no more profiting at the taxpayer's expense for him!
Expecting people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is the very best thing you can do for them, libertarians will tell you. It encourages them to work hard, first to acquire some bootstraps, and then to learn to pull themselves up by them (unless their daddies are doctors and politicians, and can give them plenty of nice, shiny bootstraps and pots of tuition that they may themselves become physicians and then use their daddy's mailing list of well-endowed political donors to also become politicians, but wev). Fighting gravity will make a man of you! (Unless you're, you know, that other one. No, there's just the one other one, I'm pretty sure. Dr. Paul may be "100-proof libertarian" according to Newsweek's Howard Fineman, but he's a proud Tea Partier now. Men on this side, other one on that side, and no switching off.)
But, you may wish to know, what of people who require assistance in pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, due to disability? What about those who cannot interact with bootstraps by any means, and therefore require alternative gravity-defying technology?
Well, Dr. Paul understands that you, being disabled, are probably all emotional about this bootstrappy-assistance shit. But try not to be so selfish - think of the poor business owner. This video shows an unidentified person briefly interviewing Rand Paul at an event in Lexington, KY last weekend. A transcript follows.Interviewer: Could I ask you a question?
Dr. Paul seems to be under the impression that the ADA specifies the particular accommodation which must be made for every disability in every situation. Which is not only not the case, but would be stupid. But perhaps he's just never given the matter the tiniest thought, and when he speaks off the top of his head, stupid is what he comes up with. To be fair, he is not alone in this regard, when it comes to questions of disability and accommodation.
Rand Paul: Sure.
Interviewer: Do you support the Americans With Disabilities Act? Or do you think that's the federal government getting too involved in things (inaudible)?
Paul: You know, I think a lot of things on employment should be done locally, you know, when it comes to figuring out what's right or wrong locally. Some of the things - you know, for example, I think we can come up with common sense solutions - like, for example, if you have a three-story building, when you have someone apply for a job, you might get them a job on the first floor if they're in a wheelchair as opposed to making the person in the business put an elevator in, you know what I mean? So things like that I think are unfair to the business owner. But I think we should try to accommodate people (inaudible) jobs.
Interviewer: (inaudible) voted against that?
Paul: You know, I - I've never looked at the whole thing and see, but I don't like the idea of telling a business owner that they have to put an elevator in versus (inaudible) making an accommodation to make it worse than what it was. So, uh, it's a very emotional issue for people, you know, but I think better to decide things like that locally rather than from Washington.
Interviewer: Now, do you think that Americans, based on the Second Amendment, do you think they have a Constitutional right to violently overthrow the government if they feel that –
(At this point a hand reaches from the side and partially covers the camera's lens, and the voice of an off-camera Rand Paul associate of some sort, is heard.)
Voice: Stop recording on this.
Interviewer: Public place, sir; this is a public place.
(But alas, the associate and Dr. Paul are already fading into the distance.)
The law does not impose a specific requirement on any business to build an elevator to the third floor. It requires reasonable accommodation be made to allow all facilities necessary to the hiring and work of disabled individuals to be available and accessible, and also to make that access available to potential clients of a business. If a business chooses to allow a disabled worker to work on the first floor, say, rather than install an elevator, that's not only not disallowed by the ADA, it may be a better solution for the worker, because the use of elevators with heat-sensitive call buttons makes using the elevator in case of a fire not such a good idea.
What the ADA does mandate is that you not refuse to hire a wheelchair user to work in a given department because that department is currently on the third floor and you don't feel like making a reasonable accommodation so as to permit a qualified candidate for the job who uses a wheelchair to work in that department. "Getting them a job on the first floor" which is not the job they have applied for and are fully qualified for is not an appropriate solution, however.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." However many of the signatories to that document actually believed that all men are created equal, it was certainly far less than all of them, and we as a people have been struggling ever since to get that "self-evident truth" recognized by the government we founded to replace the one we declared ourselves independent of with that document, and struggling further to expand the concept to include those of us not included in that otherwise fine assertion – women – and to recognize that those rights are inherent in all humans independent of the existence or definition of a "Creator."
The ADA is part of that struggle. You cannot say that all are equal in a society until all have an equal opportunity to employ their skills and effort in supporting themselves, and until all have equal access to public accommodations. That's why accessibility is "a very emotional issue for people", Dr. Paul. Public spaces either welcome all of us as equals, or they accommodate one kind of person or a limited range of people as equals, and either disallow the rest or begrudgingly allow them a lesser, limited access, all the while moaning about how "unfair" it is to have to recognize their lesser, limited humanity at all. And so long as just how limited or unlimited - how much lesser - some people's humanity is judged to be varies from one locale to another within these United States, we self-evidently are not all created equal, and do not all enjoy equal access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I am almost inclined to be sympathetic to Republicans in the state of Kentucky. They had a choice between Rand Paul, endorsed by James Dobson* and Sarah Palin, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's protegeé Trey Grayson, endorsed by Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. But with candidates, not to mention policies (or lack thereof) like those being offered by the Republican Party, I can't feel sorry for anyone who still is a Republican. Rather, I feel sorry for the people of Kentucky and the United States who didn't vote for either of these sorry suits, yet may well have to live with Paul's presence in the U.S. Senate anyway, given the uncertain prospect of Kentucky's sending a Democrat to Washington come fall.
"The Tea Party movement is huge," Mr. Paul said to the crowd at his victory party. "The mandate of our victory tonight is huge. What you have done and what we are doing can transform America."
So it can. If we let it.
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*I don't know how a "100-proof libertarian" reconciles himself with the Dobson position on abortion and gay/trans rights, but I'm betting there's no good news there.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud endorsers of the UNOHDCTRDBWAE1 movement.
Recommended Reading:
The 99: Islamic Superheroes!
- I am totally in love with this, and will be downloading the whole series when I can afford it.
Renee at Womanist Musings: Tea Party Member Rand Paul Wants to Abolish The Americans With Disabilities Act
- There's a reason Renee shows up in almost every blogaround here: high-quality work, and lots of it.
Climate Progress: BP's dispersants are toxic - but not as toxic as dispersed oil
- Sure is nice to have that smaller government, ain't it, Reaganites? I mean, those extra few bucks every year that could have been spent on actual oversight were so much more useful being put in your SUV's tank and burnt for a trip to the convenience store 300 metres away...
The Sexist: Feminine performance and thinking of the children
- Excellent feminist analysis of reaction to a video of girls dancing to a very sexual song, and related trends.
The Mongoose Chronicles: The version of your body currently running is not bedroom compatible
- One of Barbados' best, on gym marketing to women
Alas, A Blog: If Iranian lesbian Kiana Firouz is deported from the UK, she faces certain death in Iran
- Includes a link to a petition.
The Thang Blog: Asserting identity in the hospital
- Rebecca posts about having to assert her identity while dealing with the medical care system. This rang so true for me - how many times I avoided hospitals for exactly the same reason. I once cut a ring off my own allergy-swollen finger, with a rotary tool, using my left hand (I'm very right-handed), because I didn't want to go to the hospital and face being misidentified all night.
Tami, of What Tami Said, at Psychology Today: Ending racism starts with accepting bias
- This should be required reading for anyone who's ever defensively shouted "But I'm not a racist!"...and maybe for the rest of us too.
Deeply Problematic: Brave teen fights back against transphobic school administration
- But hey, ENDA? Who needs that kinda "special rights" bullshit, amirite?
Leave your links in comments...
1 United Nations Organization for Helping DoucheCanoes To Recognize the Difference Between Women and Ewoks.
It Never Ends
[Trigger warning.]
I've got a new piece up at the Guardian's CifA responding to Robert Harris' assertion that a "media lynch mob is bent on destroying" Roman Polanski.
In a touching display of generosity to his friend and colleague, Harris describes Polanski as "fighting extradition to the United States after his 1977 conviction for unlawful sex with a minor," which is certainly a genteel way of noting that an admitted sex offender who drugged and assaulted a child continues to deny justice to his victim and the community by refusing to return to the United States and serve out the sentence for his crime. Harris is no doubt a very good friend to Polanski.Read the whole thing here.
He also appears to be very adept at victim-blaming.
Harris is extremely concerned about the "lynch mob" that is out for Polanski, and the evidence he provides of this violent predation is the reporting of allegations made by British actor Charlotte Lewis last week that she was also sexually assaulted by Polanski in 1983. "More than a thousand newspapers across the world have reprinted her story, unchallenged," complains Harris, in an opening salvo to an argument predicated on the truly preposterous idea that the international media is in the business of siding with rape accusers.
Nearly every news account of the allegations I have seen included the detail that Lewis worked on the film Pirates with Polanski reportedly subsequent to the alleged sexual assault – which, by any reasonable measure, is a challenge to the veracity of her accusation, since "Why would she work with him/live with him/have consensual sex with him/have anything to do with him after he raped her?" is a classic victim-blaming trope, rooted in the erroneous idea that a "real" survivor of sexual assault would never voluntarily interact again with one's abuser.
As Harris sniffs: "Lewis alleged that the assault ('the worst possible') took place in 1983, but apparently it was not so horrible that it put her off working with Polanski, since she appeared in his 1986 film, Pirates."
Harris reveals that Lewis is "a former Playboy cover girl, who has not appeared in a film for seven years", and reports that her attorney "briskly responded: 'Next question'," when asked if Lewis was looking for a book deal, thus having slut-shamed Lewis for her past as a nude model and cast her as a desperate out-of-work actress who may be willing to make false rape allegations to find her way back into the limelight.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Trigger warning. Background.]
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.]
Quote of the Day
"I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds. But pigs, not so much. So I don't eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl."—Nicolas Cage, being Nicolas Cage.
Shaker Help Request
Shaker sunflwrmoonbeam emails:
I live in a solidly middle class neighborhood bordered by a lower middle class one to the west, very upper class one to the south, and lower class one to the north.I once intervened with a cop who was harassing black teens outside my building ("Officer, is this really necessary? These kids don't seem to be doing anything wrong to me," and stood there until he let them be on their way), but I'm honestly not sure what would be the best course of action after the fact, without the officers' names or badge numbers.
Today I was looking out my window and saw 3 cops harassing 4 brown teens on bikes for no ostensible reason. Kids weren't disturbing the peace or anything like that, and I highly doubt any of my neighbors called the cops on them.
It was my first ever witnessing of a "xing while brown/black" and I'm frankly disturbed. They're just kids! What the hell?!?! Yes, I realize I'm very privileged to have never seen, let alone experienced that.
Do you think there's some way I can leverage my privilege to help? Would writing a complaint letter do anything?
A lot of police departments, especially in metro areas with big forces, have community liaisons now, and I would probably try to contact the community liaison first (provided there is one) to report what I saw and inquire about the department's policy on suspected cases of profiling or officer harassment.
Shakers?
NQDTR Discussion Thread – W190510
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report – W190510
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by a bunch of lovely Danish people, and Mukhtar the Bus Driver. Happy Birthday, Mukhtar!
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
Because Why Should McCain and Fanelli Get All The Asshole Points?
In an offensive legal segment Tuesday evening Bill O'Reilly of the Fox New's O'Reilly Factor commented on the American Eagle decision to reverse its anti-trans policy. He made the offensive suggestion that "men who dress like Dolly Parton can be protected" and asked whether "people who dress like ewoks also deserve workplace protections?"Yo Bill: Lord Fuckley St.Fuckington of Fuckingtonshire called, and said, "Wtfsup, bro?
Because clearly, a belief that one is a woman is pretty much exactly equivalent, in ORLY's mind, to a belief that one is an imaginary furry creature from a galaxy far far away and long long ago. Subtract the same from both sides, and one could come to the conclusion that Bill O'Reilly has a difficulty distinguishing women from Ewoks. Which suggests that Mr. ORLY needs to spend some quality time with an optometrist, for a start, and perhaps a little time with a pshrink on that "can't tell small fuzzy aliens from females of my own species" problem.
Happy Birthday, Mukhtar
In Copenhagen on May 5, it was Mukhtar's birthday:
[Paraphrase: Copenhagen bus driver Mukhtar makes a stop, where a man in a tuxedo gets on the crowded bus and begins playing a trumpet. Mukhtar, filmed from the front by the bus' security camera, looks confused. Then a woman begins to sing a birthday song; it is his birthday! He laughs. Others on the bus begin to sing. Then almost the whole bus is singing happy birthday to Mukhtar. He drives on, and comes to a group of people in the road who appear to be protesting. He stops and honks the horn. They turn around and begin to chant his name and cheer. Their signs bear his name. The people on the bus sing more loudly. Mukhtar grins in disbelief. His friends run to the bus and bring him flowers and presents. He looks over the scene with tears in his eyes.]
The hat tip goes to Shaker Charlotte, who credits Zee, who explains: "For those who might consider it a fake, I'd think twice, it's actually a well planned event by Arriva (a European bus company). They've done a number of these style events to make a better work environment for their bus drivers in Copenhagen."
Lost Open Thread
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
