In my opinion, the ending of this song is the only portion you need.
Random YouTubery: Shangri-La (final part)
In my opinion, the ending of this song is the only portion you need.
Living Nightmare
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
In a New York Times article bluntly titled "Sexual Assaults Add to Miseries of Haiti's Ruins," Malya Villard, the director of Kofaviv, a grass-roots organization that supports rape victims, describes the situation in Haiti in the aftermath of the January earthquake as "an ideal climate for rape."
Police are overstretched, and convicted sex offenders released by the earthquake are back on the streets, where thousands of people are living without even the most basic security of a locked door to protect them. Women and children are kidnapped and raped and held for ransoms their families cannot pay.
The rage. It boils. I feel utterly, wretchedly helpless.
Doctors Without Borders is treating survivors of brutal sexual assaults. They provide "antibiotics for sexually transmitted diseases, anti-HIV treatment, pills for vaginitis, and over-the-counter painkillers," and they are still in desperate need of support.
Donate to Doctors Without Borders here.
Please feel invited to make suggestions in comments regarding other organizations to support, and share ideas about how else to help.
[Via.]
Daily Dose o' Cute
That video got pulled, so here's an older one. Sorry about that. I'll redo the slideshow and repost as soon as I can.
Seems Like Old Times
Ah, it's comfy, isn't it? Conservatives are feeling compassionate toward "the lesser people", Gen. Petraeus is running our war again, and working right alongside the troops who serve under him are those model warriors, the Boys of Blackwater — oops, I mean Xe of course.
The CIA has tossed a $100 million contract their way, for "protective services . . . in multiple regions." For $100 million, they must be doing a lot of guarding — of what, exactly, is not clear. The CIA doesn't like to talk about their bidness.
But the leak of this news follows last weeks' announcement that the State Department has awarded the Boys of Blackwater — oops, I mean Xe — a $120 million contract to guard consulates being built in Herat and Maza-e-Sharif. That decision was not well-received by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, which is investigating the use of private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oops, again — I mentioned Iraq, didn't I? Tacky of me, given that the Boys of — I mean Xe, well, they weren't Xe when it happened — I mean, Iraq expelled Xe Services from the country last year, owing to an unfortunate incident in 2007.
But, as a courageously anonymous U.S. official points out about the company, "Blackwater has undergone some serious changes." Well, of course they have! Hello! The name alone is 8 letters shorter. No-name continues:
They've had to prove to the government that they're a responsible outfit. Having satisfied every legal requirement, they have the right to compete for contracts. They have people who do good work, at times in some very dangerous places. Nobody should forget that, either.It makes you proud when a government official stands up for people's — well, a corporation, but legally it's a person — rights, albeit anonymously, which makes it more of a crouch than a stand-up, but still.
There's nothing more to be said on the subject then, except: nobody should forget this, either.
Stormy Weather
We've been having absolutely wild weather around here lately, with crashing storms at least once a day. I love storms (apart from the part where my electricity goes out every single time we have one), and one of my favorite parts of the thunderstorms in exurban Indiana are the ominous skies that portend them.
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.]
Quote of the Day
"This is what being president of the United States is all about. It's these tough, huge monumental decisions. It's not about how you run a campaign. It's not about whether or not you're popular. It's not about whether or not you're a celebrity, good looking, tall or short. It's in the time of crisis making these executive decisions. It's just like our job."—Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson upgrading the importance of her job duties to the same level as our President's.
Yay!
"I dreamed of being in the NHL my entire life and this certainly makes up for those dreams...Being amongst the first women to play at college and later at the Olympics, it certainly was worthwhile being a hockey pioneer"-- Cammi GranatoOn Tuesday, the Hockey Hall of Fame announced its 2010 inductees. The list includes the first two women inducted into the hall, Cammi Granato and Angela James.
Granato is probably best known for captaining the
Angela James won four International Ice Hockey Federation world championships with Team Canada. She may have won more, but the IIHF did not hold the first women's championship until 1992, decades after James began her fight to play the sport she loved. In 1997, James was controversially removed from Team Canada's roster, robbing her of the chance to compete for Olympic gold. James is also the only person of color to captain a Canadian national hockey team.
James and Granato (along with Geraldine Heaney) were both inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2008. James' other honors include her 2009 induction to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. Granato was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008.
What I'm Listening To
[Lyrics available here.]
[Video paraphrase: The video features Monáe and other black women and men, dressed in tuxedos and black-and-white saddle shoes dancing in some sort of institutional building. Monáe is followed throughout by two mirror-faced wraiths, watching her and simultaneously reflecting herself back to her. Ooh, creepy!]
Thanks very much to Shaker neintales, who sent the link to this video as well as the link to "Many Moons."
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana*
(TW for discussion of domestic violence)
Louisiana Senator David Vitter — yes, that would be this Sen. Vitter, and also this one — yesterday accepted the resignation of one of his long-time aides, Brent Furer, after ABC news revealed that Furer had, on separate occasions, been charged with assaulting an ex-girlfriend, and driving while intoxicated.
ABC was informed of the assault charge by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), whose Executive Director, Melanie Sloan, said
It says something terrible about Senator Vitter's judgment that this is the kind of guy he wants to keep in his office.A spokesman for Sen. Vitter said that his office had been aware of Furer's arrest for the assault on his ex-girlfriend in 2008, but had not known of his other legal problems until ABC informed them. ABC says, however, that after Furer's 2003 guilty plea to the drunk driving charge, the director of Vitter's regional office in LA oversaw Furer's court-ordered community service while Furer continued to work as a campaign staffer for Vitter.
Vitter's office says that "significant disciplinary action" was taken against Furer following Furer's sentencing on the assault charge, but refused to specify what that action was. It did not involve removing from Furer his responsibility as the person in Vitter's Washington office who dealt with "women's issues."
Says CREW's Sloan:
Senator Vitter knowingly kept this dangerous person on his staff through his drunk driving arrest in 2003 and his chilling domestic violence assault conviction in 2008.Sloan says Furer's resignation now is "an obvious attempt by the senator to save himself with women voters as (he) heads into his reelection campaign this fall." May the Fates and Furies ensure that the attempt is in vain.
via (There is a prominent photo at this link of the stitched cut inflicted by Furer on his ex-girlfriend's chin. It is not gruesome, but be warned.)
*FTR, that's not an accusation; it's a lament.
On the Allegations Against Al Gore
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
As you may have read elsewhere, or seen on the cover of the Enquirer, in 2006, a Portland massage therapist, who is a 54-year-old white woman, alleged that Al Gore sexually assaulted her during a massage in his hotel room. Gore is accused of various unwanted touching and sexual coercion/assault, including putting her hand near his genitals, hugging her, kissing her, groping her breast, and pushing her onto the bed.
I can't even begin to express how much I don't want to write about this, but here we go.
I've spent the whole morning reading about the case, trying to get my head around the details, and the basic timeline is this: In 2006, after the alleged incident, the woman says she called a rape crisis hotline, where she was referred to the Portland Police. She then contacted a lawyer, who first contacted the Secret Service (Gore was not under Secret Service protection in 2006), the FBI, and the Oregon State Police, all of whom also referred them back to the Portland Police, who had jurisdiction.
Her lawyer then contacted the Portland Police on her behalf. After the woman declined to be interviewed, and refused to officially report a crime, canceling three appointments with detectives, her attorney asked that the investigation be closed, and told police they would be pursuing a civil case instead.
Then, in 2007, they tried to take the story to various media, who showed no interest in the story at that time. In January 2009, the woman finally decided to meet with Portland detectives, two of whom were from their Sexual Assault unit, as well as a survivors' advocate who works with the unit. She gave a prepared statement (which is available in full below, with her name redacted), but ultimately no charges were filed, according to police, because of a lack of evidence.
Earlier this month, the woman requested copies of her statements and reports on her claims from police. Portland police spokeswoman Detective Mary Wheat said the woman informed police she was taking her case to the media. The National Enquirer reported the allegations yesterday, after the woman reportedly offered her story to them for $1 million.
(Also see: AP and WaPo.)
My impression, after reading the 70+ page investigative report, which includes the transcript of the police interview, is that the detectives' response was very good. The lead detective, Det. Molly Daul, thanks the woman for her statement and tells her that it was "great" and "it was all-inclusive and that's just the things we need to hear." Det. Daul asks lots of very detailed questions and treats the complainant with respect.
There is no victim-blaming, and the only slut-shaming in the interview is when the woman making the allegations talks about colleagues who wear what she deems inappropriately sexy clothing while working, colleagues she believes to be prostitutes and would like to see arrested.
The only assessment I can make based on the available information is whether the complainant and her allegations are treated seriously, and they certainly appear to be. The police response seems to be pretty much the exact fucking opposite to that in the most recent Ben Roethlisberger case, and just about every other celebrity/politico sexual assault allegation about which we've written.
Investigative Report:
The Sashay Project #3: Walk Like a Man
Let Us Reiterate the Series Motto:
Free Your Ass and Your Mind Will Follow!
(Background HERE and HERE -- if you haven't read those yet, this probably won't make much sense.)
I’ve talked some about my relationship with Butchiness in the past, and I will confess that the prospect of adopting a true sashay challenges a lot of the identity I’ve constructed over the years as a butchy-dyke.
There are parts of my butchy walk that seem to be fairly native to me (see the btuchy post I link above for childhood pictures), but there are parts that I definitely know I have affected.
Like when I worked as a carpenter with construction crews comprised completely of men (until I arrived, that is) -- I would walk onto a new work-site with a very distinct gait and stance, relaxing into a more natural-to-me gait and posture only after the men I’d be working with seemed fully convinced that I knew what I was doing.
Many, many, many times I have “butched up” my walk when I walked alone at night in the city, or in some place where I wasn’t completely convinced that I wouldn’t be physically attacked.
When I played softball in a Portland summer league, I definitely butched it all the way up – mostly because I was insecure about my abilities and playing on a team that was 97% butch-identified dykes who were way more "athletic" than I was.
Even just thinking about these times right now, I have a visceral sense-memory of the tightening up and readjusting that this entails.
I tuck my ass under my spine and square my shoulders. I dangle my arms a bit further away from my sides. I compress my neck down toward my traps so it looks thicker, and when I walk -- nothing moves but my arms and legs.
My Beloved has been a massage technician for decades, and she has often commented on the locked pelvises of Western men. This is the pelvis I adopted and emulated, in order to perform My Butchy Walk. (It's like My Little Pony -- but stompier, and in no way pink.)
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the concept of Butchiness for years – on the one hand, I am actually pretty “yang” in my general expression, and I have been that way all my life, as far as I know – I’m kind of attached to thinking of myself as “butch” or “butchy” or “mostly butch”.
On the other hand, the more I’ve become aware of the concept of gender performance in the last twenty years or so, the more I’ve questioned my valuation of my butchiness as it relates to my feminist ethics.
Example: I’ve heard many, many conversations between dykes (of my age, at least), wherein butches have been offended if you implied that they were femme in some way, but I’ve rarely heard conversations wherein femmes bristled if you indicate that they are butch in some way.
I’ve always been aware that, at some level, this relates to the conscious or unconscious adoption of the notion that behavior and qualities associated with the performance of “manhood” are more highly valued than behavior and qualities associated with the performance of “womanhood”.
For me, as a survivor of severe abuse in my early childhood, I know for a fact that I associated all things “manly” with being "in control" and "powerful", and that at least some part of my desire to be perceived as butch/tough was an attempt to adopt that perceived seat of power and control. I’m not saying this is true for every butch, but I know it was true for me.
That’s hard to admit, because I’m terribly, terribly fond of my butch identity (tenuous as it is, sometimes). I think I’m afraid that I’ll have to give it up for Feminist Lent or something.
So, acquiescing to the sashay that my sacrum obviously prefers for hikes and walks right now is a little scary.
Gender identification has been rocky ground for me at many points in my life. I’m one of those dykes who’s always had a “psychic dick”, but who never wanted to “be a man”. As a kid, I never felt like a boy in a girl’s body – but neither did I feel like a girl in a girl’s body. I never really felt like anything – I just felt like me.
I will confess that I resented sprouting bodacious tatas long before anyone else in my class had anything resembling breasts – but for me, this didn’t seem to be about gender – they just got in the fucking way. (Sometimes I’ve wondered if I developed this bubble-butt simply to provide ballast for The Girls.)
I still feel ambivalent about my tits from time to time – they’re lovely, yes, and they are a part of me, but I feel about them the same way I felt about every egg that popped out of my ovaries month after month after month for forty years. When I’d get my period, I’d kind of apologize to that monthly egg -- you know -- like: “Sorry you wasted all that time and energy . . . but don’t expect any sperm next month, either!”
It’s not that I feel like I was born in the wrong body – it’s just that I’ve never really identified with living in a female body very strongly.
So, it’s ironic to me that now, when all those ova have, at last, been spent, and I’m fully Crone-o-fied, my body seems more visibly “female” than ever. My hips and ass are more voluptuous, as are my breasts, and my jaw- and shoulder-lines have softened.
And now, my back tells me that it wants me to sashay.
Fer fuck's sake. Oy gevalt. Oh, maaaaaan!
There’s the tiniest little part of me that worries that I will be betraying my Inner Butch with this new walk.
There are parts of me that caution that I will not be safe if I walk this way. That people will assume things about me that I don’t want them assuming. That I will make myself vulnerable to those who will point at my fat ass and say shit I don’t want to hear. That I will look ridiculous.
That I will look Straight.
When I contemplate the morass of fears (and yes, it all seems to boil down to fear) engendered by a few inches of hip movement, I am, once more, aware of how the tiniest (and seemingly most "natural") acts we perform each day are affected by the fact that we’re soaking in it.
(Series note for the Sashay Project: This is a series of posts that explores the way I locomote through the world and how it is affected by sexism and the gender binary -- people who locomote through the world by means other than walking are welcomed and encouraged to share their insights about how sexism/gender performance might impact how they move through the world.)
Choosy Bodies Choose — uh, not sure yet
University of Adelaide professor Sarah Robertson thinks the likelihood of fertilization is based on chemical communication between a man's sperm and a woman's body, which determines whether it accepts the presence of the sperm by making changes in her immune system.
Robertson says that the assumption in treating infertility has been that if a man's semen tested as normal, that meant there was something wrong with the woman's reproductive system which prevented her from becoming pregnant. Her research suggests that the problem may not lie with either individual, but with compatibility in the signaling between sperm and host.
And a degree of familiarity, in this case, breeds not contempt but greater likelihood of acceptance. A woman's body is more likely to accept the sperm of a man whose semen she has been exposed to for a period of at least three months.
Another factor in whether the sperm is accepted could be whether environmental conditions are favorable for a pregnancy, Robertson says.
Robertson's research has mostly been in mice and pigs thus far, as well as some with human cells. She is currently recruiting female subjects to continue her research in humans.
Despite the fact that the actual research done to this point has not been in women's bodies, some news outlets could not let pass by the opportunity to suggest that men are right when they say "women are too picky". Every good news story needs a hook. There is none more tried and true than, "And another thing that's wrong with women is . . ."
Speaking of Numbers
There's a new Rasmussen poll out that indicating more people think Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president than Obama. She also beats out Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin.
The breakdown:
57% of responders Clinton is qualified to be president, with 34% saying she's not.
Obama earned a 51% for, and 44% against, squeaking just two points above Romney who pulled in a whopping 49% (whut?!) responders saying he's qualified. 32% said no way, and another 20% were unsure. Okay.
Gingrich tips the scales the other way pulling in more nos than yeses: 35% said he's qualified for the presidency, and 48% disagreeing.
Palin, however only pulled in 26%, with more than double, 61%, saying she was unfit to be president.
Funny, the first thing that came to mind when I read the numbers, was the memory of how Clinton spent most of the primary season being told to drop out of the race. For the good of the party. For the good of the country. Which, really, isn't funny at all.
Things Are Looking Up — Also Down and Kind of Sideways
The Pew Research Center did some phone polling for Smithsonian magazine in April and May, questioning U.S. residents about what they expect the next 40 years to bring.
71% of USians believe cancer will be cured by the year 2050. If you're not one of them, you need not necessarily despair about the chances of eliminating the over a hundred different diseases which share that name. Maybe you're one of the 41% who believe that Jesus Christ* will return by then. If that happens, the world war that 58% of USians expect within the next 40 years, the asteroid that 31% of us anticipate, and the whole cancer problem will presumably no longer matter.
Oh, and a big 89% believe a woman will be elected president of the US by 2050, which is no doubt encouraging news for those of you who anticipate living that long. But while only 11% of USians doubt any woman is wise enough to reach that position within the next 40 years, a full 31% don't think you wise Latina women should bother to aim that high, or wise Latinos, either, for that matter.
Respondents were questioned only about which things they thought were likely to occur, not which things they would like to see occur, however, so it's not clear how many of the nearly one-third who thought a Hispanic person would neither definitely nor probably be elected to the U.S. presidency in that time were expressing doubts about the ability of Hispanics to progress to that position and how many were expressing doubt about the willingness of their fellow non-Latin@ USians to vote for a Hispanic. (Hispanic is the designation used in the poll.)
More generally, 68% of those questioned think race relations will be "better" in forty years — exactly the same percentage as gave that response to the same question in 1999. Oddly enough, that's the only response which was not less optimistic in a series of questions about the future of the U.S. asked both then and now. I guess better race relations in the U.S. are always right around the corner. That corner down the road a ways.
A somewhat optimistic note was struck, for those of you not in the U.S., by responses to a new question as to whether the role of the U.S. in the world would be more or less important in 2050 than it is now. 40% thought it would be more important, but 53% thought it would be less so. So who knows? Maybe we'll come on home, start fixing the joint up, and mind our own business for a change.
If J.C. is planning a return trip in the near future, I do think the decent thing to do would be to show up before the world war, so we don't have to have it. But that's my lefty bias showing. No doubt there are many in the U.S. who would find the prospect of a world war entirely agreeable, but who are fervently praying that Jesus comes to get them before a woman is elected to the presidency.
I wonder if he'll ride in on that asteroid?
*I assume we're talking about the one in the bible, not the one formerly resident in Ohio.
via
Dream Journal No. 3
I'm at the dentist, and I'm lying down in a bed. And a spider fell from the ceiling and landed on the blanket. The hygienist (played by one of the techs from my vet's office) handed me a rolled-up newspaper and told me to squash it. So I did. Then I noticed more spider webs hanging above the bed. I got up to get a better look and saw a huge web with like hundreds of spiders. Then a snake slithered across the bed. Eep! Then another! Then another! So I walked out of the examination room, and told the staff I was leaving. But they were having a meeting and paid no attention to me. I apparently left my shoes in back by the bed. Out in the parking lot I see another snake. Except this one is huge. (Hello, Dr. Freud!) Like Anaconda-starring-Ice-Cube huge. A stranger shows up and starts fighting the snake. He punches the snake, and the snake bites him, and he says shit like "bad snake." This thing is his pet. Also, it's the middle of the night for some reason. After a while the man throws the snake into the passenger seat of his truck and drives off. The hygienist shows up, my shoes in hand. I ask her if she saw the snake fight.
[Cross-posted.]
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Eric Ripert requests the honor of your presence in the Top Chef Open Thread.
Question of the Day
Oops!
Today at the supermarket, I grabbed the requisite bottle of cranberry juice off the shelf, and somehow (they were stacked too close, that's how!) knocked the bottle next to it off the shelf.
Splash! It was "light" cranberry juice, so it would be no big deal, except it got all over my shoe. Argh!
Anyway, I love me some cranberry juice. It's yummery. (Is that even a word? It is now!)
So, what's your favourite type of juice?
(And if you don't/can't/won't drink juice, what is your favourite beverage?)
