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Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker SugarLeigh as a follow-up to yesterday's QotD: If you were going to write your memoirs, what would the title be?
Obviously, I've got to go with I'm Not Offended—I'm Contemptuous!: The Totally True Stories of a Feisty Fat Feminist.
Speaking of Bipartipoop…
Obama's afternoon tea with Senate Republicans appears to be the impetus for his splendid new border proposal: You scratch my SCOTUS nominee; I'll scratch your costly and demonstrably ineffective exercise in racism down by the border. Or something.
Obama called on Republicans to … support his Supreme Court pick, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, and join him to advance immigration reform and energy and climate change legislation.And then when Obama promised 1,200 troops, McCain immediately criticized it as insufficient. Because THAT'S WHAT REPUBLICANS DO.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Obama that he must first secure the border with Mexico before Republicans will support a comprehensive reform package, according to GOP lawmakers in the meeting.
And because Obama has some kind of pavlovian pander response to Republican mendacity, he will almost certainly spend next week figuring out how to win over the coveted pro-Rand Paul vote.
Obama told Republicans that we would be willing to meet them halfway or 75 percent of the way on some of the big issues remaining on his agenda.No comment.
When they pressed him to support specific GOP-favored proposals, he repeatedly said he is constrained because of pressure from his party’s liberal base.
I'm So Excited I Just Bipartisaned in My Pants!
Obama Authorizes Deployment of More National Guard Troops Along Border. Of course he does.
President Obama has authorized the call-up of as many as 1,200 National Guard troops across the U.S. border with Mexico to assist with border protection and enforcement activities there, officials say.Jeralyn points out that $1.3 billion has already been authorized for the war on drugs in Mexico, all of which hasn't even been distributed yet. She adds: "Throwing more money into the failed policies of the past 40 years will do no good. The cartels will become stronger."
The president, who alone cannot formally authorize deployment of the forces, is expected to request $500 million in supplemental funds from Congress to make a state governor's decision to deploy troops financially possible.
The troops, expected to be spread across all four southwestern states, would largely assist border patrol agents and local law enforcement by providing intelligence and intelligence analysis, surveillance and reconnaissance support, and the ability to train additional Customs and Border Protection agents, sources say.
Meanwhile, far from being placated by this sop to teapartying nincompoops, Republican Senators are already caterwauling about how it's not enough troops.
Obama will biparisan his way right into oblivion by continually alienating the Left with this conservative bullshit, and galvanizing the Right merely by stubbornly having a D after his name. This is not 12-dimensional chess. It is utter foolishness.
[Previous Bipartipoop: One, Two.]
Daily Dose o' Cute
Dudley.
He closes his mouth with his tongue hanging out all the time, lol—although it's usually out the side of his mouth rather than right out the front.
Matilda. Picture by Mama Shakes.
Olivia.
Sophie.
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.]
I Get Letters
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
HeLLo, grrrlAs tempting as it is to meet someone who gets hot and bothered, immediately after reading a comprehensive description of the rape culture, by my mysterious ability to project "something WILD and ROUGH" in a photo, I think I'll take a pass.
i`m a brasilian guy. i red yr article bout rape culchur lol lol lolão
than i saw yr pic at dat site and... wow IT MADE ME HOT UNDER MY COLLAR you know? you are so cute but you seem to hide something WILD and ROUGH at the same time i dont know how to explain that ....
would you meet me when i go to your city????? we could go crazy 2gether it wolud be awesome we could have some ice-cream together i would be so happy.. lol lol lol
The reason I'm sharing this obnoxious missive is to note that this is the kind of thing I (and I imagine many other feminist writers, especially who do anti-rape advocacy) get all the time. And although it's clearly identifiable to anyone with a passing familiarity with the concept of the rape culture as a thinly-veiled rape threat, it's framed in such a way that the author leaves himself room for plausible deniability ("What?! I was saying I like her!"), and anyone who calls it a rape threat will be viewed as hysterical, reactionary, oversensitive, etc. by many, many average people who would never consider themselves rape apologists in a million years.
And that's how the rape culture works, right there.
[Commenting Note: This letter has not been posted because its author is Brazilian, nor because his English is imperfect, but because of its content. If you find yourself tempted to include in your comment some reference to his nationality or language skills, don't comment at all.]
Wakefield struck from register
Back in January, I posted about how Andrew Wakefield was found by the General Medical Council to be "dishonest, irresponsible, and [to have acted with] callous disregard". To recall:
The verdict, read out by panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar, criticised Dr Wakefield for the invasive tests, such as spinal taps, that were carried out on children and which were found to be against their best clinical interests.By the GMC's procedures, sanctions are handed down at a later date. Yesterday was the date and Wakefield was struck from the medical register:
The panel said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London's Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.
The GMC also took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son's birthday party.
Dr Kumar said he had acted with "callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer".
He also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.
In making the verdict on the sanctions, Dr Surendra Kumar, the panel's chairman, said Dr Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute" and his behaviour constituted "multiple separate instances of serious professional misconduct".Two of his colleagues were also found guilty and one of them also struck from the register.
In total, he was found guilty of more than 30 charges.
Dr Kumar also explained the reasoning for striking Dr Wakefield off.
"The panel concluded that it is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession, and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him."
Wakefield, of course, believes himself innocent:
Dr Wakefield has consistently claimed the allegations against him were "unfounded and unjust"."Unfounded and unjust"? ORLY? Shall we remember?
As the GMC announced its sanctions, Dr Wakefield said: "Efforts to discredit and silence me through the GMC process have provided a screen to shield the government from exposure on the MMR vaccine scandal."
[T]wo years before his study was published, Wakefield had been approached by a lawyer representing several families with autistic children. The lawyer specifically hired Wakefield to do research to find justification for a class action suit against MMR manufacturers. The children of the lawyer’s clients were referred to Wakefield for the study, and 11 of his 12 subjects were eventually litigants. Wakefield failed to disclose this conflict of interest. He also failed to disclose how the subjects were recruited for his study.The ruling sounds about right, all the way around. Hopefully it will affect his ability to practice medicine here in the US (where I believe he has an autism clinic).
Wakefield was paid a total of nearly half a million pounds plus expenses by the lawyer. The payments were billed through a company of Wakefield’s wife. He never declared his source of funding until it was revealed by Brian Deer. Originally he had denied being paid at all. Even after he admitted it, he lied about the amount he was paid. Before the study was published, Wakefield had filed patents for his own separate measles vaccine, as well as other autism-related products. He failed to disclose this significant conflict of interest. Human research must be approved by the hospital’s ethics committee. Wakefield’s study was not approved. When confronted, Wakefield first claimed that it was approved, then claimed he didn’t need approval. Wakefield bought blood samples for his research from children (as young as 4) attending his son’s birthday party. He callously joked in public about them crying, fainting and vomiting. He paid the kids £5 each.
The General Medical Council accused him of ordering invasive and potentially harmful studies (colonoscopies and spinal taps) without proper approval and contrary to the children’s clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children’s symptoms or medical history. One child suffered multiple bowel perforations during the colonoscopy. Several had problems with the anesthetic. Children were subjected to sedation for other non-indicated tests like MRIs. Brian Deer was able to access the medical records of Wakefield’s subjects. He found that several of them had evidence of autistic symptoms documented in their medical records before they got the MMR vaccine. The intestinal biopsies were originally reported as normal by hospital pathologists. They were reviewed, re-interpreted, and reported as abnormal in Wakefield’s paper. [...]
[While the post is about Dr. Wakefield & the ruling against him (& his colleagues), it's inevitable that the conversation in comments will also include the topic of vaccinations in-general. Thus, we have some commenting guidelines on this one: We realize there are varying views on vaccines among Shakers, and no opinion is off-limits in the discussion, but we request that people make sure they are using "I" language to express those opinions and not making sweeping generalizations. Let's keep this a civil conversation, please.]
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning.]
"I am mortified by my mistake, and can only hope the purity of my motive, to find a way to connect with the graduates and encourage them to a life of service, will allow you to forgive me." — Journalist, but not fact-checker, Ann Curry, who while delivering the commencement address at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, erroneously cited as alumni graduates of Wheaton College in Illinois the Rev. Billy Graham, Tyrannosaurus of Turpitude Dennis Hastert, and Wes Craven.
Yeah, because movies about rapists and pedophiles is what service is all about.
Coming This Fall to CBS: Ugh
It's that time of year where all the networks begin to start marketing what will be their new fall series, in order to try to get advertisers' attention and start building an audience. As part of their 2010 fall preview, CBS has unveiled a new sitcom called "Mike and Molly," which they describe thus: "From the creator of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men comes a new comedy about finding romance in the most unusual places. Get ready for a whole lotta love—This Fall on CBS!"
Have you guessed the twist yet…? You need to "get ready for a whole lotta love" because THEY'RE FAT!
[Transcript below.]
Dismal stuff. And perhaps its worst aspect is its insistence on reaction shots in which the two fatties are obliged to smile at their own ridicule. Molly smiles "knowingly" when Mike mocks himself (even at the "safe space" of an Overeaters' Anonymous meeting) for being fat; Mike smiles "appreciatively" when his partner equates his gut to a pregnancy. The audience roars with laughter.
It is painful to watch—the tight grins masking swallowed indignities, offered ostensibly as a show of good humor, but in reality an indispensable self-defense mechanism, an emotional coat of the thinnest armor, precariously insulating one against the intolerable bullying that a careless display of vulnerability invites.
Every fat person knows that smile. It is not the stuff of sitcom fodder.
It's in moments like this that I realize how truly transgressive Roseanne actually was. Roseanne and Dan were never forced to suffer silently at the hands of friendly tormenters. And their characters weren't condescendingly discussed by the cast and crew as evidence that "fat people are normal people, too!" and "fat people deserve love, too!" and other self-evident truths regarded by bigots as radical.
[H/T to Shaker AnnaAnastasia.]
[Image of a clapboard with show details being closed.]
Director James Burrows, thin white man: And…action!
Text Onscreen: MIKE & MOLLY. Behind the scenes. [The words "Behind the Scenes" are seen on a scale, where the weight would normally be.]
Producer Chuck Lorre, thin white man: The series is about the difficulties of developing a relationship.
Melissa McCarthy, "Molly," fat white woman: Mike and Molly, they're trying to find themselves; they really find each other.
Unidentified Man in voiceover: They meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
Video clip of Mike at OA meeting: I had a pretty fair week. I lost three pounds. [other attendees applaud] Then I took off my shirt and I found it [he squeezes the fat on his upper arm] right about here. [studio audience laughs]
Billy Gardell, "Mike," fat white man: It's a pretty classic love story.
Burrows: This show's a romance, but it is really funny.
[Begin video clip of Mike, who is a police officer, and his partner Carl, who is played by Reno Wilson, a thin black man, eating at a diner.]
Carl: New diet?
Mike: Yeah, I read about it in a magazine at the dentist's office.
Carl: Men's Fitness?
Mike: No.
Carl: Sports Illustrated?
Mike: Modern Bride, okay?! [studio audience laughs]
Carl [putting up hands]: That's none of my business. But you better get married quick [points at Mike's belly] because you're starting to show. [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
Wilson: The writing is— [kisses fingertips] It's top of the line.
Swoozie Kurtz, "Joyce," aka Molly's mother, thin white woman: The jokes come out of the characters.
Katy Mixon, "Victoria," aka Molly's sister, thin white woman: It is about regular people. [shrugs] Just regular people.
[Begin video clip of Molly on an elliptical machine in her (?) living room, while her mother eats a piece of chocolate cake on the sofa right beside her.]
Molly: Mom! Do you have to eat that in front of me?
Joyce: Ohhhhh, I'm sorry, baby. You want a bite? [she holds out a piece of cake on a fork; the studio audience laughs]
Molly: What do you think I'm doing on this machine here—making butter?! [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
McCarthy: Her family comes from a good place, but there's a lot of just saying the wrong things.
[Continue video clip; Molly's sister has now joined Joyce on the couch.]
Joyce [to Victoria]: Instead of milk, I use pudding. [Molly looks at them exasperatedly; studio audience laughs]
Victoria: That must be why it's so smooth and creamy!
Molly: For god's sakes! Why are you doing this to me?!
Victoria and Joyce [with mouthfuls of cake]: What? What are we doing? [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
McCarthy: You can watch it and kind of think, "Oh my god." It's just funnier when it's real.
Gardell: We've all tried to look cool and ended up looking foolish. And when you hit that chord, nothing better.
[Begin video clip of Mike talking to Molly at some event next to a table with snacks on it.]
Mike: I was wondering if you weren't doing anything, if we could— [he leans on table and it falls over; he goes with it and ends up on the floor] Ahhh! [studio audience laughs]
Molly: Oh my god!
Mike: Owww!
Molly: Are you okay?
Mike [getting up]: I'm good—but I don't think that table's up to code. [studio audience laughs]
Molly [averting her eyes but pointing at Mike]: Ohhhh, is your finger supposed to be pointed in that direction?
Mike [lifting his hand to reveal obviously broken pinky]: No, it's not! [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
McCarthy: Everything that's kind of happening with us shooting the show is pretty amazing.
Gardell: Chuck Lorre, Mark Roberts, and Jim Burrows—to be working with these guys is like playing for the Yankees.
Kurtz: You feel like you're in such good hands.
Wilson: In my opinion, you just have to say their words.
[Begin video clip of Mike and Carl hugging.]
Carl: Sweet Jesus, it's like hugging a futon. [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
Mixon: They want to bring the best out of you possible.
[Begin video clip of Victoria coming down the stairs into the living room, which has been disheveled by an apparent robbery.]
Victoria: They stole my pot. [she notices Carl at the front door; studio audience laughs] And my pan and my spatula and other cooking supplies! [studio audience laughs]
[End video clip.]
Gardell: I think we got a good one, man.
McCarthy: It just feels right and easy and we laugh all day, so, that can't be bad.
[Begin video clip of Mike, also at the house for the robbery, talking to Molly.]
Mike: Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?
Molly: I would love to.
Carl [standing across the room with Joyce and Victoria]: She better be good to him! [Joyce and Victoria give him a look; studio audience laughs]
Text Onscreen: MIKE & MOLLY. Coming this fall. [The words "Coming this fall" are again seen on the scale, where the weight would normally be.]
Ugh
[Trigger warning for mention of suicide.]
Ugh: "Really, Man? The The 10 Biggest Myths About Guys" by Brendan Tapley, which includes such helpful insights as:
Next time you see your mate's desire for sex as chauvinistic, remember that he may be asking for proof that you and he are the team he fantasizes about.And:
Women, the usual victims of these limitations, most likely buy into the idea because it elevates them. The thing is, men are not limited; and if women decide to sacrifice a little superiority, they will gain better treatment by men.And:
While men may appear to prize freedom and independence, in their heart of hearts they truly value loyalty. In standing by her man, a woman can fill a primal absence.Just ugh and more ugh. And the sad part is, this was one of the better male-authored articles marginally classifiable in the "Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too" genre. At least it gets the problem right. But WOMENZ NEED TO BE MOAR NURTURING!!!eleventy! is really, really not the solution.
This just about beats all in the Race to Ugh Mountain:
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, men commit suicide four times as often as women, and suicide currently ranks as the seventh leading cause of death for men. Watching for when a guy might be repressing reactions for the sake of masculine pride, and asking him to forgo that habit, is one way women can literally save a man's life.It's like, yes, good partners, irrespective of gender, should always encourage healthy expression of negative feelings, to avoid stress and anxiety and depression and rage and the other issues that a back-up of repressed emotions can cause. But, no, that does not translate into "women need to urge men to change their behavior so they don't kill themselves."
Have I mentioned UGH? Ugh.
Btw, someone inform Mr. Tapley that "All Men Are Straight" is also a myth.
[H/T to Shaker mschicklet.]
Same Boat; Grab a Paddle
Wendy Kaminer has a short piece in The Atlantic on "Kagan, Palin, and Lipstick Feminism," in which she examines what she imagines are the double-standards to which Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and Sarah Palin are held, because the former isn't a renowned fashion plate and the later is considered both fashionable and beautiful—and asserts that the disparity offers "complementary cautionary tales about the continuing appeal of an ersatz, 'Sex in the City' feminism that rewards beauty and punishes plainness with all the subtlety and compassion of a Playboy centerfold."
As evidence of how women and their "ersatz lipstick feminism" are to blame for their own oppression, Kaminer describes the following scene:
Years ago, I watched an array of law students lingering in a hotel lobby, waiting to be interviewed by visiting firms. The men were completely, conventionally covered by their suits; the women seemed half naked by comparison, in fitted jackets, often showing a little cleavage, and above the knee, or shorter, skirts. Maybe they hoped to benefit from these reveals, but I suspect they were subtly disadvantaged by them. The men were free to focus on their interviews; at least some women were likely to be distracted (however, unconsciously) by concern about their looks and the need to sit and display themselves appropriately. How much skin is just enough? Stilettos, kitten heels, or flats? Hollywood or D.C? These are questions men never have to ask. Will they ever cease to matter to women?That last question is a doozy, no? Implicitly holding women responsible for caring about a Beauty Standard by which they are judged even if they don't want to be is spectacularly unfair in any context, but in the milieu of a professional cattle call for an industry with a lingering, persistent gender disparity at its top levels, the apportioning of blame in one direction rises to the level of the absurd. Is it really women to whom prospective female employees showing cleavage and calf matters?
Certainly Kaminer is right that the conservative men who facilitated Palin's rise to the veep slot on the last GOP presidential ticket would not "have responded to her quite so enthusiastically had she been homely and 30 pounds heavier." And she is also right that the disgorged proclamations of noted dipshits like Bill Bennett about feminists hating Palin 'cause she's pretty are as laughable as they are patently irrelevant. But here she is wrong:
Kagan's appearance and fashion sense are mocked or savaged, especially but not exclusively by pundits on the right, following a familiar script. Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano endured similar hazings. Sarah Palin, to say the least, did not.She did indeed. (That is the most recent entry in the Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, with older entries linked at its end.) And while one could argue that mocking a woman because she wears pantsuits and mocking a woman because she was a Beauty Queen are different flavors of ridicule, I daresay the distinction matters very little to the women who are marginalized in either case on the basis of their appearance.
Nor should it matter to us.
All the pedantic distinctions in the world about how Palin "brings it on herself," or arguments that the savaging is somehow justified because she trades on her appearance, or the denial that she is demeaned on the basis of her looks at all, or whatever other rationalizing contortions are made in order to extricate one flavor of belittlement from another, are just damnable subterfuge to avoid addressing the rage-making reality that there is, seemingly, no way for a women to publicly present herself that is just…acceptable.
And the discovery of that grim reality is what has turned many ersatz feminists into the genuine article.
There have long been, and long will be, sparkly fauxminist substitutes for the Real Thing which are little more than "Patriarchy for Privileged Girls—now in pink!" Going after women who subscribe to such alluring prescriptions for self-hatred with our blame and ire isn't especially productive; going after them with a meaningful alternative, on the other hand, is.
Women sometimes do convey the bars of our own cages, hoping by some sort of magical alchemy that the self-defeating service of transmitting the marginalizing narratives upon which the Patriarchy depends will someday be rewarded. But one can never be an unconstrained beneficiary of one's own oppression, no matter how devotedly complicit, no matter how tantalizing the promises of a system that sustains itself with the energy of desperate captives eternally chasing the dangled carrot of exceptionalism.
When the veneer on the alleged bargain wears thin enough through which to see, feminists/womanists must be waiting on the other side with compassion, not judgment. It's no fun realizing you've been a sucker.
[H/T to Shaker MJ.]
David Byrne v. Charlie Crist
Okay, what is it with right-wing pols using music by noted lefties in their campaign ads, without permission, and then getting sued over it? Here's some advice, stick to Ted Nugent.
This week's copyright-infringing asshole: Charlie Crist.
David Byrne filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court over Crist's unauthorized use of the Talking Heads "Road To Nowhere" in a campaign ad. "They didn't approach anybody, they didn't ask anybody, they just used it," says Byrne's lawyer.
Byrne said in a statement that he has never licensed a song for use in an advertisement.Byrne is seeking $1 million in damages. The Crist campaign could not be reached for comment.
"I'm a bit of a throwback that way, as I still believe songs occasionally mean something," Byrne said.
He added that if his audience thought he'd license a song to a political campaign, "they might not respect me as much in the morning."
Black Ops Are Totes Bipartisan
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Military Acts in Mideast Region: "The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. … Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate."
Swell.
While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said. Its goals are to build networks that could "penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy" Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to "prepare the environment" for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said.Superb.
The directive is called the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order. "Unconventional warfare." Awesome. And, naturally, this "unconventional warfare" is executed without any oversight from Congress. Terrific.
The secret order was signed last September and "may also have helped lay a foundation for the surge of American military activity in Yemen that began three months later." This is the exact same shit that then-SecDef Rumsfeld and then-president Bush were pulling during Bush's presidency.
During the last election, any hint of a suggestion that one might vote for a third party was swiftly met by an onslaught of preemptive accusations that the blood spilled in service of Republican militarism (or, during the primaries, Clinton's hawkishness) would be on your hands! But a vote for Obama was a vote for peace, and all that.
Obama had better hope that most of his voters have shorter memories or fewer principles than I do, because, in the immortal words of Mondo Fucko: "Fool me once, shame on—shame on you…? Fool me, can't get fooled again!"
DADT "Deal" Reached
This was discussed briefly in yesterday's thread, but here are the details of the DADT compromise: Craven Democrats will vote to repeal the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, possibly as soon as this week, thus (provided the measure passes) allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual soldiers to serve openly in the US military, but with the caveat that the change in policy does not have to be implemented until December 1 after midterm elections "the Pentagon completes a review of its readiness to deal with the changes."
And what if the Pentagon decides it's not "ready"? Who knows. But despite the supposition that the Pentagon is totally on board with this policy change, given Defense Secretary Robert Gates' purported opposition to DADT, and the whole "Pentagon review" business is a perfunctory step being used to justify pushing implementation as far back in the year as possible, the terse response here seems to belie the assumption everyone's definitely on the same page:
"Given that Congress insists on addressing the issue this week," said Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Mr. Gates, "we are trying to gain a better understanding of the legislative proposals they will be considering."Oof.
The primary legislative proposal being considered is, according to The Advocate, one whose "language would not include a nondiscrimination policy but rather will return authority for open service by gays and lesbians to the Pentagon." That's a worrying non-commitment to codified equality, in my estimation. Certainly there's an argument to be made that a nondiscrimination policy could potentially be interpreted to tacitly discriminate against any group not explicitly protected, but, at the moment, given the polarized opinion on gay rights between the two major parties, I'm more concerned that, in the void of a concrete nondiscrimination policy, a new Republican administration would mean a new policy at the Pentagon.
I'd rather see a firm (and thus difficult-to-unwind) nondiscrimination policy guaranteeing LGB soldiers the right to serve openly, necessitating the need to add more inclusive language as is required, than allow open service in the negative space where a guarantee should be.
But that requires spine and a serious commitment to equality, obviously. Neither of which are in abundant evidence among the Democratic Party.
Question of the Day
Drawing inspiration from the news that Mark Twain's autobiography is soon to be published, today's QotD is: What is your favorite autobiography/memoir?
The first one that comes immediately to mind as a favie is Tennessee Williams' Memoirs, a short excerpt from which I once posted here.
Bonus Cute
Sophie tries to make friends with Dudz. He's still not sure he trusts this wee little furry beastie. Sophie will settle for some love from Two-Legs in the meantime, and does her darnedest to solicit attention with redonkulous cuteness. Matilda and Olivia observe the proceedings with varying degrees of disinterest. Set to "Can't Hurry Love" by Diana Ross and The Supremes.
(Also at DailyMotion here.)
Twainspotting
The recent trend for celebrities to hit the bookstores with their memoirs sixteen minutes after they've made it big -- I hear they're already lining up for Speak, Puberty by Justin Bieber -- makes this news all the more exciting.
Speculation abounds as to why Samuel Langhorne Clemens put the 100-year restriction on the release of his memoirs, ranging from avoiding the discomfort of alienating friends and family to insuring that a century later he'd still be a celebrity.Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published.
The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.
That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist.
Another potential motivation for leaving the book to be posthumously published concerns Twain's legacy as a Great American. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image.I can't wait to read it and find out more about the man behind some of the best writing in American literature. And I'm sure that Hal Holbrook will be delighted, too; he's got a lot of new material for Mark Twain Tonight!.
"He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there."
In other sections of the autobiography, Twain makes cruel observations about his supposed friends, acquaintances and one of his landladies.
HT to Liss.
