I was checking to see whether there was any baseball on TV today, and ran across this ad campaign (image from copyranter):
It's bad enough that the Twins aren't on TV. It's worse yet that White Sox announcers will be calling today's Cubs-Sox game, meaning I'll hear approximately 557 references to balls prior to the third inning ([TW: homophobia]Welcome to [TW: Rape Imagery]White Sox Nation*, Population: Balls). But this, ad? Really?
Look:
1) People have in fact told me to grow a pair. This happens to a lot women, and not just the transsexual ones.
2) By "down there", I assume you mean vagina?
3) You know what takes a certain amount of courage? Growing a pair, and subsequently asserting one's right to not have said pair.
Summer's Eve is a product of the C. B. Fleet Company. You may contact them here.
–
*Okay, my personal biases are showing. There are plenty of wonderful people who root for the White Sox. I've just noticed an unfortunate trend in the last decade for said franchise to resort to mananalogies in tv broadcasts and promotional material.
Fair enough, I suppose. I actually contribute to one of the pensions in question, and I'm generally in favor of being able to retire one day.
This is where my non-understanding of capitalism shows. Or perhaps, my understanding begins to look depressing.
I pay a few thousand dollars a year into this pension plan. New York also puts some thousands of dollars into said plan. In 2060, I shall retire, and the State of New York will pay me $950,000 per year, hopefully for many decades. I know this sounds impressive, but do recall that in 2060, this amount will barely suffice to keep me in Rax (it'll be big again in the future-- just you wait) and subsidized housing. Anyhow, we'll have to find a way to make up the difference between several thousands and nearly a million, and presumably interest isn't going to cut it, so yeah, BP ahoy!
Therein lies the rub.
I think New York's got something of a case here. BP is clearly mismanaging the Deepwater Horizon spill, which is clearly hurting the value of its stock (although the CNNMoney article also suggests that I might consider cutting short my next Aldi run to buy BP stock). Perhaps if someone (BP?) gave investors a true sense of the risks involved, New York would have invested in funds that contained more stock from Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and other responsible corporations.
Honestly, I don't know what the solution is. However, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with the notion that BP owes it to me to be more profitable. As I see it, that's kinda how we find ourselves here to begin with.
Remember Will Phillips, the 10-year-old Arkansas kid who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in class because the continued prohibition on same-sex marriage in most of the US renders the words "liberty and justice for all" meaningless to him…? Well, he has been invited to be the Grand Marshal of the Fayetteville Gay Pride Parade.
And that CANNOT STAND according to American Family Values Children Christian Liberty Freedom Patriot Association Foundation Organization!!!
The American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., has called Will's selection to be grand marshal "a form of child abuse," and it has called on the city's mayor to "cancel his plans to issue a proclamation celebrating homosexual behavior and gay pride."
"We believe that it goes beyond the pale for adults to exploit a 10-year-old child for dark political purposes," said Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis at AFA. "He is too young to understand. There is nothing about homosexual conduct to be proud of and much to be ashamed of."
The AFA, according to Fischer, has sent an "action alert" to its members in Arkansas, and he says they have deluged the mayor's and city council's office with e-mails "asking him to stop this charade." Though there are no plans to actively protest at the parade, Fischer said, "as of noon Thursday our records show that the mayor and city council had received 12,300 e-mails asking them to stop the parade."
You know, it's funny—I can't recall the AFA ever issuing a press release about their passion to stop Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church Family Cult from putting "Gods Hates Fags" signs into the hands of five-year-olds.
Apart from the hypocrisy and evident bigotry emanating from the AFA, I've just got to call big-time bullshit on their contention that a 10-year-old is "too young to understand" the concept of equality or to have begun to rudimentarily develop his own set of ethics. A long time ago, I posted excepts from a journal I kept when I was 9, which included my contempt for an episode of Knight Rider centering sex and murder (instead of focusing on the technology and action stuff I loved, in no small part because it didn't feel upsetting to me).
The assertion that Will is too young to have come to his own conclusions about "homosexual conduct"—especially given that he has quite evidently been allowed the exposure to opposing viewpoints—is way more child-hating than offering him the chance to stand up for his beliefs at a Gay Pride Parade ever could be.
But I guess arguing he's being exploited is easier than admitting a 10-year-old kid is capable of more sophisticated thought than "God said so! I know because my dad said so! And he knows because his pastor said so! Because God said so!" which is the basis for the entire collection of unsupportable bigotries they call an ideology.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred and dehumanization.]
Shaker Sherri sent me a heads-up about this new campaign by billboard advertising company Interbest Outdoor to recruit potential advertisers: "Your Ad Here" is out and "Give Us Money to Take Down These Disgusting Pictures of Fat People! HURRY! ZOMG Look at How Hideously FAT They Are! BUY AN AD ALREADY!" is in.
[Click images to embiggen.]
If you can't see the images, they are, respectively, of a headless white fat female body, neck to knees, clad in only bra and panties and standing sideways, and a headless white-but-vaguely-swarthy pot-bellied and hairy male body, mid-chest to mid-thigh, clad only in white briefs and standing frontways. The copy on each reads: "The sooner you advertise here, the better. Interbest Outdoor."
I am, as ever, a particular fan of the headless dehumanization. Fates forfend anyone's totes fun fat-hatin' be ruined by the reminder the fat bodies at which they're laughing belong to real human beings, who, if they're like most fat people, don't find in their real lives much of a distinction between, "I don't hate fat people; I just hate their bodies."
I also love the idea that Interbest Outdoor apparently doesn't think any of its potential advertisers are fat and/or hairy.
There is, by the way, a third in the series, which is a closely-cropped image of a man picking his nose. Because, ya know, being fat is just a bad habit you don't have the will or courtesy to break.
Deeky: OMFGLOL! This is sooooooooooooo hilarious. (It's not.)
p.s. Get off my lawn!
Liss: The reason why this is stupid, apart from the fact that no one would ever do that, is that the "joke" is predicated on the erroneous assumption that technology necessarily undermines intimacy. Which might have been passable as "humor" before every single person on the planet w/ the privilege of an internet connection had themselves or knew someone who had fallen in love or made a fast and lasting friendship over the internet.
Now that shit just reads as: "Relationships formed via technology aren't real."
To which my only response is to invite its author to kiss my ass.
Deeky: Seriously. Whoever drew that is a total butthole.
Earlier this week, the New York State legislature passed yet another one-week budget extender. This latest bill included provisions to raise the state tax on cigarettes by $1.60 on July 1, and on September 1, to collect (so says New York) tax on tobacco sold to non-indigenous visitors to tribal lands coterminous with New York State.
There's also commentary to be had about the following truths: 1) New York has a massive budget deficit. 2) Cigarettes are unhealthy (and in turn, presumably drive up medical costs).
Of course, I'd rather blather on about responsibility.
Excise taxes on tobacco are politically safe. Everyone, seemingly, loves to hate those reprehensibly irresponsible smokers.
I see a few massive problems with heavy reliance on hatred-based taxation.
Speaking of “particular groups of people”, I believe I've already mentioned that members of certain demographics are more likely to be targeted by cigarette marketers, and/or are more likely to smoke than others: people of color and/or LGBT people and/or lady people, as opposed, say, to straight white guys. As for hatred of indigenous people, yeah, there's a bit of that going on, too. Again.
In these tough times, it strikes me that it's been increasingly common for politicians to bemoan folks' lack of responsibility, and to talk of how we all need to sacrifice. People who rely on social services need to sacrifice. People who provide social services need to sacrifice. Teachers and others public employees need to sacrifice. Smokers need to sacrifice. People who buy shoes need to sacrifice. Indigenous tribes need to sacrifice (actually, that last one's usually a little less polite :ahem:).
This is all very interesting, given that I haven't heard much about the requirement for certain other people to make responsible sacrifices. These are largely the same folks whose continuous irresponsibility helped put New York (and much of the country) in the hole in which it now finds itself. Perhaps we could spend more time discussing the impact of an increasingly regressive tax structure (including a growing reliance on excise taxes and user fees). I haven't heard either the Demopublican or Tea Party Parties discuss this lately, so I thought I'd throw it out there for kicks. Have at it.
In a New York Timesarticle 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.
A slideshow of some of my better photographs of the furry residents of Shakes Manor—Matilda, Olivia, Sophie, and Dudley—set to The Rascals' "A Beautiful Morning."
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.
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.
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.
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.]
"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.
"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 Granato
Granato is probably best known for captaining the 1988 1998 team that won the United States its third Olympic hockey gold medal (US men's teams won gold in 1960 and 1980).
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.
[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."
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.)
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.
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.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
Donate to Doctors Without Borders 
