Deadly Violence at San Francisco Pride
[Trigger warning for violent homophobia.]
In a development in a story that isn't getting much national media attention for reasons I can't imagine (ahem), Ed Perkins, the man who was arrested on suspicion of firing seven shots into a crowd Saturday night at a San Francisco Pride event, killing 19-year-old Stephen Powell and injuring two others, has been released after investigators determined that "none of the seven shots fired into the crowd were from Perkins' weapon, and no witnesses were able to put Perkins at the scene," even though he was only in custody because "he was found near the crime scene in possession of a .357-caliber revolver."
(Of course, we all know that "near the crime scene" has a different definition when the suspect is a man of color, which could explain the seeming discrepancy.)
Earlier, police had believed Perkins to be one of at least two people involved, which was underlined by two more people being shot at the vigil for the first victim. But now police have released Perkins and are classifying the follow-up violence as a retaliatory gang shooting.
The picture that's emerging seems to be that Powell was killed (by members of his gang? a rival gang? a homophobic neighbor's or friend's or family member's gang?) for attending a Pride event, and things escalated from there in the way that gang violence tends to do. But at the root of it is this: Someone seems to have killed Stephen Powell because he was, or they believed him to be, gay.
The killer remains free.
[H/T to Cait.]
Sometimes What You Really Need Is a Potahto
Do you think Sens. Tom Coburn and Mitch McConnell have yellow ribbons on their vehicles? I'm sure they would be willing to go to that length to "support our troops" — unless it clashes with the color of their no doubt fine vehicles. Supporting the troops is one thing, but that degree of shared sacrifice is asking a lot of freedom-loving patriots.
But it would require no personal sacrifice on their parts to vote for the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans With Children Act (.pdf).
This bill, S. 1237, was originally introduced (with a somewhat different name) by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington on June 11, 2009. It has taken a year to get it through the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and to the full Senate for approval.
Approval which was denied it yesterday by Sen. McConnell, objecting to the unanimous consent for it which Sen. Murray had requested, on behalf of his fellow Republican, Sen. Coburn.
Sen. Coburn, it seems, is concerned. He is concerned about how the government would pay for the services authorized under this bill, especially since he believes the government should be taking in far less revenue. He supports eliminating the Estate Tax. He supports continuing tax reductions for the wealthy enacted during the Bush administration.
In fact, he supports eliminating the federal Income Tax altogether and replacing it with the Fair Tax, a national sales tax under which every U.S. resident, regardless of race, creed, gender — or income — would pay exactly the same amount of tax on things they freely chose to buy. What could be fairer than that?
But even before we reach this utopia in which the rich person stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the poor person in being taxed as equals, we need to cut spending. So we cannot afford the grants to support job training, counseling, child care services and placement services, including job readiness and literacy and skills training, to facilities and programs which provide services dedicated to homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children, nor the special needs grants to improve their care at VA and other facilities, which Sen. Murray's bill would provide.
In a Senate speech on June 22 urging passage of her bill, Sen. Murray said:supporting our veterans shouldn’t be about politics—it should be about what kind of country we want the United States to be. And about what our priorities are as a nation.
This bill is not dead. Sen. Murray has promised to "continue fighting." So, no doubt, will Sen. Coburn.
In his second inaugural address in 1865, President Lincoln said our nation had an obligation to "care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."
Well, in 2010, I believe we not only need to care for HIM—we need to care for HER. And for his and her families.
Some people think politics is irrelevant to their lives, because politicians are all alike. Certainly it can look that way, given the generous capacity for acting in a weaselly and self-serving manner which seems endemic to the species. It's been many a long year since I admired a politician.
That's why it makes sense to me to concentrate on working on behalf of, not politicians or political parties, but specific policies. Politicians are only as useful as the policies they can be induced to support.
Yesterday, Sen. Murray was concerned. Sen. Coburn was concerned. Sen. Mitchell was concerned on Sen. Coburn's behalf, since Sen. Coburn and his concern were evidently required elsewhere.
There was one difference. The senators were not concerned about the same things.
Via
The OFFS Awards: Kathleen Parker
With honorable mention to today's runner-up, the Washington Post, who inexplicably continue to pay Kathleen Parker to write this fetid shit:
If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.Oh my aching sides. The old "don't get violent with me, gender police!" chestnut never stops being heeeeelarious.
Phew. That was fun. Now, if you'll just keep those hatchets holstered and hear me out.
The rest of the piece is the usual patented Parker poppycock: Men and women are different in stereotypes whose respective Venn diagrams do not overlap (because one is on Mars and one is on Venus, amirite? HIGH FIVES!), Obama has feminine traits, therefore he's a woman, and women are stupid, which is why he's a failure, and we totes need a Real Woman, namely a conservative one who acts like a man, in that there Oval Office.
Blah blah blah.
Never mind the threadbare gendered analysis and the so-old-they-fart-dust [/spudsy] stereotypes on which it's based; Parker's ridiculous contention that Obama is the first female president isn't even fresh.
Kathleen Parker's column, this jalopy called. It wants its old, tired, and brokedown back.
Doctor Who Open Thread: S5E10: Vincent and the Doctor
Good $LOCAL_TIME_EXPRESSION, Shakers, and welcome to the Open Thread for (new) Season 5, Episode 10 of Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor.
Please be careful to avoid spoilers for upcoming episodes, as many of those in the thread are watching on the North American broadcast schedule, which is running three or four weeks behind the UK's one. Be aware that any and all Doctor Who media appearing before S5E10 are explicitly on-topic, and that there may be spoilers within for any of it.
My take, o my Whonatic friends, on this episode is that it was FRAKKIN' BRILLIANT.
I'll leave more, including spoilers, in the comments.
NQDTR Discussion Thread – W100630
Hiya, Shakers, past 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 – W100630
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco...
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
I Write Letters
Dear CNN.com:
It's really swell of you to offer a Gay in America section for Pride Month and all, but I was already uncomfortable with how much "Gays—They're Just Like Normal Straight People!" content was comprising the section (although I shouldn't be surprised you don't know how to write about gay families that don't have/want kids, since you don't even really know how to write about straight families that don't have/want kids), and that was before I saw the "Conversation" topic "Gay Couples as Parents?"
First of all, let's talk about the question mark. There are like gerjillions of same-sex couples openly (and frequently uncontroversially) parenting kids in the US already, and have been for decades, with various degrees of legal and cultural support in different locations. And there are gerjillions of adults who have parents who came out later in life, after producing children within an opposite-sex marriage. And there are multiple studies showing that same-sex parents make as good (or better) parents on average as opposite-sex parents, which only exist because researchers have had access to loads of kids with gay parents.
So, gay couples are parents. Period. No question mark required.
But, of course, the reason it's there is because this is a conversation, and you're inviting people to share their opinions on gay parenting. Which is a dubious way of honoring Pride Month in any case, no less when the solicitation of opinions is written in a way that explicitly excludes gay parents (emphasis mine):
How do you feel about gay couples having a family? Should they be allowed to adopt and be foster parents? What if you had a gay member of your family and they decided to have a baby through adoption, surrogacy or sperm donor? How would you react to it? Share your comments below.These are not questions designed to invite gay parents to share their opinions on gay parenting. These are questions designed to invite straight people to pontificate about a subject that should be none of their fucking business, but is because of the undeserved privilege that is continually reinforced by shit like asking straight people to weigh in on gay parenting in a way that deliberately excludes lesbians and gay men and bisexuals from the conversation.
If the objective was to challenge the marginalization of LGBs, I'm afraid we have a raging case of the megafails here, CNN. If, however, the objective was to engage in the same tired old habit of pandering to the delicate sensibilities of the intractably bigoted, then grab your codpieces and go stand in front of a Mission Accomplished banner on an aircraft carrier, bitchez, 'cuz that shit is solid.
Please do better.
Love,
Liss
Question of the Day
Where would you like to retire to?
I think, if i had my druthers, when it came to retire, I'd head to Prague. It's European, without being Paris (nothing against Parisians), it's smaller, but not provincial. It's got great architecture, and history and it's run head-on into the modern world. That's sort of typified by this photo I snapped while there:
You've Done It Again, Bachmann
Award-winning Professor of Smartology and Minnesota Congressperson Michele Bachmann is taking our Treasury Secretary and President to task for their devious plan to embrangle the US in a global economy which is "one short step to joining political unity and then you would have literally, a one world government."
President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy where all of our nations come together in a global economy. I don't want the United States to be in a global economy where, where our economic future is bound to that of Zimbabwe. I can't, we can't necessarily trust the decisions that are being made financially in other countries.She's so right. Thank Maude that a global economy in which our economy is affected by events outwith our borders doesn't already exist!
Now, about that plan to stop other countries sending us their goddamn weather...
Rinse. Repeat.
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse and joking about rape.]
Some dingaling with buttplugs for brains* writes a glib comment about a priest who allegedly "inappropriately touched" women and girls for as long as four decades:
This is sad to say, but it's almost refreshing to read about a priest accused of good, old-fashioned heterosexual perviness.Ho ho ho.
The dreadful stuff between priests and boys has been going on for so long that I almost forgot that some priests have more mainstream sexual hangups.
Again, I say, it's time for a married priesthood.
There's so much wrong there in those three short sentence, I could spend the next two hours unpacking all the rape culture narratives that got pinged—that sexual assault is just "perviness," that sexual assault of women/girls is just a "mainstream sexual hangup," that priests who target children exclusively target boys or girls, that if we don't hear about female victims there must not be any, that there's such a thing as "good, old-fashioned" sexual assault, that married men don't sexually assault anyone, etc. etc. etc.—but what's most disturbing is the author's contention that it could be "refreshing" to read about the sexual assault of women/girls (or anyone else) for any reason.
Of course you already know what happens next, don't you?
People with a modicum of decency quite rightly call out the columnist for his incomprehensibly flippant remark.
Columnist responds with classic non-apology, which wouldn't even be necessary if survivors and/or anti-rape advocates weren't such humorless assholes:
If you have to explain humor, it has failed. My attempt here at some sardonic humor has obviously failed with a number of readers. I apologize. No offense was intended -- except toward pervy priests of any persuasion.See, the thing is, jokes that diminish the gravity of sexual assault don't offend predators; they offend victims. Perpetrators are perfectly happy to have torpid, incurious, disconnected wankstains perpetuate an environment in which they can create more victims every day, because we can't be bothered to take sexual assault seriously.
------------------------------
* With my apologies to buttplugs.
The Habit of Summer Reading: 12 weeks, 13 books
Twelve weeks lie between today and September 21st. I am going to read an average of a book per week between now and then. There are thirteen books planned because I have started a few already.
When I was in high school, we had a summer reading list each year. On the first day of class in September, our English and social studies teachers gave essay tests on the material. Manchild in the Promised Land, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Good Earth, Rebecca, and A Separate Peace kept us in the habit of reading, no matter how many other summer commitments we had. In "The Nature and Aim of Fiction", Flannery O'Connor writes that "[t]he scientist has the habit of science; the artist, the habit of art." So it must be, too, with the reader.
But my reading is sloppy these days. I read various books all at once, never quite finishing any of them. I see the same pattern reflected in other areas of my life. Time to go back to high school.
Below is my summer reading list as it stands now. I thought that if I wrote it down, I'd have to follow through.
At the very least, this list will fill me with an irresistible urge to read all the books I have that are not on this list. Either way, I complete some books.
Many thanks to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, AbeBooks, and to the friends and family who have given me books or gift cards over the past six months or so. I'm finally going to catch up on my reading!
(Names link to writers' blogs or faculty pages where available. Titles link to synopses at Powell's dot com.)
Batuman, Elif, The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who read Them (in progress)
Danticat, Edwidge, Krik? Krak!
Diski, Jenny, The Sixties: Big Ideas/Small Books (in progress)
Fox, Paula, Desperate Characters
Karkazis, Katrina, Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience
Longmore, Paul K., Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability
Marías, Javier, Corazón Tan Blanco/A Heart So White (translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa) (in progress)
Martin, Emily, Bipolar Expeditions (in progress)
Mockett, Marie Mutsuki, Picking Bones From Ash
Packer, ZZ, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Skloot, Rebecca, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Stott, Rebecca, Ghostwalk (in progress). I'm looking forward to The Coral Thief after this one!
Wailoo, Keith and Pemberton, Stephen, The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine : Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease
Feel free to share what you are reading and/or planning to read in comments.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning.]
"You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things."—Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle, explaining why she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and/or incest.
Yes, making laws to ensure no one interferes with "God's plan" is a terrific idea. I eagerly await Candidate Angle's proposal to criminalize hospitals and medicine.
As an aside, if an anthropomorphic god with a "plan" for every human being existed, and Angle's version of that god were accurate, and that god actively used rape as a way to execute parts of its "plan," then I would seek commune with that god strictly for the purpose of rejecting it outright, strongly preferring on principle an eternal consignment to hellfire than even inadvertently conveying an infinitesimal moment of confusion as to my position.
Pamela Gorman is a Great American
Check this shit out, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks: Pamela Gorman, who is running for congress of Arizona or something, is the greatest American since Dale Peterson. She'd probably be even greater if I didn't have to deduct points owing to her being a chick and all. But I can't break the rules of Butch Pornstache's Great Patriot Analysisizer for anyone, no matter how hot they are.
Male Voiceover: [over picture of the Capitol Building next to the text "2010"] This year, a lot of folks think this is our best shot at changing Congress. [over video of Arizona congressional candidate Pamela Gorman standing outside, her hair blowing in the wind; she is young, white, and conventionally beautiful] 'Course, that all depends on the caliber of our candidates.Anyways, this is who I'm voting for. 'Cuz this is what politics is about, just like the founding fathers said. Taxes are for dumbasses, that's why that shit ain't in the declaration of independence.
[Cut to four seconds of video of Gorman firing a machine gun.]
Male Voiceover: [over footage of Gorman at a microphone at some townhall-style meeting] Meet Pamela Gorman, candidate for Congress in Arizona 3. [over beauty shot of Gorman with mountains in background] Conservative Christian, and a pretty fair shot!
[Cut to four seconds of video of Gorman firing a hand gun.]
Male Voiceover: [over video of Gorman inside, wearing a business suit with a flag lapel pin; a graphic of the word "taxes" underneath a red strikethrough appears beside her] The insiders in the State Senate wanted to have her hide when she fought against their plan for higher taxes.
[Cut to video of Gorman aiming the hand gun at the word "taxes" and taking a single shot; the word flies offscreen.]
Male Voiceover: [over footage of Gorman shooting the machine gun, and then showing a young man how to aim the hand gun, then shooting the hand gun again herself] But Gorman—she can take care of herself. Rated 100% by the NRA, conservative Pamela Gorman is always right on target.
Pamela Gorman: [over beauty shot, accompanied by "Pamela Gorman for Congress"] I'm Pamela Gorman, and I approve this message.
[Cut to more footage of Gorman shooting the machine gun.]
You all know I'm pro-nunchuck, but I'm also pro-gun, and I would totally hate taxes if I paid them. My hard-earned weed dealing money will not be used to pay for some art queer to take pictures of his boyfriend dressed up like Jesus and then display the prints in a hollowed out console TV and tell me it's an important commentary on the nature of modern religion or whatever. Don't get me wrong—I love art as much as the next dude; I got like 5 Thomas Kinkades and a bunch of nice artistic shit I got when my stepmom Cheryl was doing Home Interiors. But I don't think the government should be paying for that stuff. If those artsy-fartsy types need money, they can borrow some from Michael Angelo. Dude must be rolling in it after painting that big church.
I mean, my friend Harry Sachs makes shitloads, and all's he paints is nature scenes on the sides of vans.
What my weed dealing money does buy is commemorative shell casings engraved with Pamela Gorman's name. These fuckers are going to be collectable, especially when she ends up in the White House. It'll be like one of those Joe the Plumber books. You know it, and I know it. My ex-wife/fiancée Tammy don't know it. She's all pissed at me, because I spent our honeymoon savings on this business venture. She don't know shit about business, cause she's a chick, and doesn't realize I'm sitting on a gold mine. But whatever. I may be broke now. But that's temporary.
And what's more important, anyways—going to the Ponderosa Sun Club in Roseland, or helping Pamela Gorman get to the White House…?
Don't even answer that. It's wrecktorial.
[Previously by Butch Pornstache: Happy Taxes and Teabags Day, I'm a Proud Teabagger and Real American, Men and Trucks and Shit, Cats and Shit, Books and Cupcakes and Shit, Ron Swanson Kicks Butt, Dale Peterson is a Great American, I'm a Man and I Enjoy Mancations.]
Impossibly Beautiful
Now for dogs!
[Click to embiggen.]
That terribly, terribly photoshopped shit actually appears on the Ralph Lauren website. Along with another terribly, terribly photoshopped image of the same forlorn dog, who evidently looks less forlorn than the original pooch cast to suffer through a photo shoot clad in a Ralph Lauren shirt.
"Get me the head of a Labrador! This filthy mutt has no papers and is too fat!"
It's not like sticking the head of a Lab onto what looks like the short, squat body of a bulldog is objectively a big deal (although it's so poorly done that RL ought to be embarrassed)—but there is something I find bitterly amusing about the fact that RL treats its canine and female models with the same contemptuous indifference: If one part isn't right, just replace it with another. They're all the same, anyway.
[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., 41, 42.]
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.]
