"The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist. ... The only evidence for Obama's Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years."—Ann Coulter.
Ann, sweetie, you've got to dial back the hyperbole. I know your readership will always treat as earnest anything you write, no matter how absurd, but the rest of us are starting to cotton on that this is just sustained performance art, designed to expose the profundity of ignorance among the American Rightwing.
[Related Reading: On "Real" Christians and Christian Privilege.]
Quote of the Day
It's About Time . . .
. . . that my personal spammers started getting a little more creative with their names. I am so over m#rwzna;eodnf.
This morning I got a very important communication by electronic mail from Mrs. Rhoda Kammel. Ok, it's not exactly Wildean wit, but it beats m#rwzna;eodnf all to hell.
Open Thread on Discovery Eco-Terrorist
[Trigger warning for violence.]
Yesterday afternoon, as you've no doubt heard, a 43-year-old man named James J. Lee entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD, took hostages, and, after a four-hour standoff, was shot and killed by police.
Lee, who identified as an environmental activist, though his activism seems largely to have consisted of protesting the Discovery Channel, said he was inspired to action by "An Inconvenient Truth."
Thus has the meme that Lee was a leftwing terrorist begun.
But, of course, it's not quite that simple. Lee's manifesto is indeed leftwing insomuch as environmental protection has become associated with the left since conservatives haven't been particularly interested in conservation since Nixon started the EPA. Lee's eliminationist views on immigration, however, are closely aligned with several prominent rightwing anti-immigration groups, and his position on human population control ("NO MORE BABIES!") is, suffice it to say, profoundly anti-choice.
Like most of the other domestic terrorists who have struck recently, there's not a totally cohesive ideology underlying his actions. He is certainly more left-leaning than, say, Joseph Stack, but, like Stack, it's a mixed bag of grievances.
I don't have much to say about the situation other than that note of my typical "shades of gray" stuff.
[Commenting Guidelines: This thread is not an invitation to wax ponderous about Lee's psychological health.]
Question of the Day
What's your favorite holiday destination?
I am a vacationer of extremes: I either like to be in the center of a big, bustling city (London, New York, etc.) or in a small, quiet place along some body of water big enough in which to swim, even if it's the time of year where swimming isn't advised.
The Indiana Dunes, L.A., Nova Scotia, Siesta Key, Door County, Leith...I don't care. Just get me next to the water, and I'm happy.
I have but one question.
[Image Description: A picture of actor Tony Danza in a shirt and tie, next to a trailer for his new A&E reality TV show "Teach: Tony Danza," accompanied by the following show description: "Long before his iconic acting career, which includes roles in 'Taxi' and 'Who's The Boss,' Tony Danza received a degree in History Education. During the 2009-2010 school year, he took on his most challenging and rewarding role yet as he stepped into the classroom as a full-time teacher at Philadelphia's Northeast High School. 'Teach Tony Danza' follows the first year-teacher as he instructs a 10th-grade English class with 26 students."]
Lest anyone mistake my snark for bagging on teachers, I'm not. My parents were both public high school teachers, and two of my best childhood friends are public high school teachers; it is an honorable profession.
Particularly when it's done without the additional paycheck and glory that comes from doing it in front of the cameras of a reality television show.
[H/T to Deeks.]
Photo of the Day
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s hands rest on the railing of a boat during their tour of St. Andrews Bay in Panama City Beach, Fla., Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Michael Joseph Gross for Vanity Fair: "Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury."
It's terrible for a couple of reasons. One, because Sarah Palin is the worst. Except, and two, she's the worst for reasons that aren't even in this article.
No, she's not the worst because she's a bad tipper and reportedly has the unmitigated temerity to have loud fights with her husband. And she's not the worst just because she politicks with the mendacious, aw-shucks, insufferably affected demeanor that's been a central part of conservative identity politics since Ronald Reagan's carefully blushed cheeks. She's not even the worst because she, like pretty much every other politician who's angling for the presidency (not that that makes it right), consorts with political operatives who do shady things like set up questionable payment schemes for her speaking engagements.
She's the worst because she's an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, anti-socialized healthcare, anti-social safety net, pro-social Darwinism conservative asshole, just another self-proclaimed bootstrapper who belittles feminists and their advocacy for the programs and policies that help marginalized women and girls, who trades on being a rightwing token while demeaning the very activism that has afforded her the public platform on which she brazenly basks in the luxury of her disdain.
Gross' article, however, amounts to very little but "Sarah Palin is the worst because she's in politics...and is A WOMAN."
Sure, it's covert sexism. Gross doesn't talk about her boobs or use identifiable misogynist epithets to describe her, but it's sexism nevertheless, as the (frequently dislikable) habits of many major politicians, of both parties, are used to build the case that Palin is remarkably awful. But there is nothing particularly remarkable about a politician who requires family members get permission to grant interviews. Nor about a politician who ambitiously trades favors and ruthlessly gets people fired who cross hir. Nor about a politician who acts like an entitled ass.
What makes this article the worst thing I've read all day is the fact that most of what's in it is the sort of shit that is considered (rightly or wrongly) the mundane business of doing politics, and yet is somehow ZOMG SHOCKING when done by Sarah Palin.
Monika Bauerlein, the co-editor of Mother Jones, tweeted: "I didn't think anything could make me rear up in Sarah Palin's defense, but this VF profile is close."
It's a sentiment I share.
I remain constantly infuriated at the number of pieces written about Sarah Palin that compel feminist/womanist women to come to her defense, or, at minimum, point out the absurdity of the coverage. (Bauerlein also tweeted: "'Sarah, these aides say, seemed comforted by having the children around, and she seemed lonely when they were gone.' Truly a monster.") To have feminist writers mock the paucity of legitimate criticisms in a hit piece on Palin can't have been the point.
And yet here we are again.
I will continue to defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because I endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works.
But I'd prefer not to be obliged in the first place.
[Related Reading: Same Boat; Grab a Paddle, Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, Part 28, On Choice, Parity for Palin.]
CNN: Go shopping; change the world.
Basically, there's this new cell phone application (CauseWorld) that sends you advertisements in exchange for which corporations make tiny donations to [mostly] non-controversial charities. [Edit: Although see the comments concerning the very problematic Autism Speaks, one of the 29 charities CauseWorld lists on its website here.] You open the app and it tells you what stores are nearby. In the process, you earn "karmas" (I know, I know), enough of which will allow you to funnel money to pay to plant a tree, feed a chimp, support the Red Cross, or any other number of things that are good.
I'm going to go on record as being mostly in favor of [mostly] non-controversial charities (my slight hesitation comes from my concern that they may detract support from controversial groups that do important work, often with less money going to administrative salaries).
But yes, I like chimps and trees and Haitians and dislike cancer, earthquakes, and hunger.
I have a couple of problems with this story, though.
"Changing the world" strikes me as a bit overblown. Actually, Citibank (one of the app's sponsors) has done more world changing than I'd have preferred. You know, if large corporations did want to change the world, they could start by changing their own practices. That would actually be much more direct than paying folks to plant trees.
Second, I object to the headline, "Go shopping; change the world". It's a bit misleading, in that one accumulates "karmas" merely by viewing advertisements. I'm also not anti-shopping by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd hardly consider shopping in-and-of itself world-changing. The global economy is complicated, but there are plenty of purchases that neither change the status quo nor improve the world.
So sure, huzzah for charity. But let's call CauseWorld what it is, a cost-effective way for companies to increase advertising exposure while making relatively small contributions to carefully selected, corporate-friendly charities. This isn't a bad thing, but it's certainly not revolutionary.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Lissy's Pirate Gear, for all your deck-swabbing needs!
Andy: Should Obama Be Worried About Growing GOP Support for Gays?
Scatx: Girl, you are TOO tall to ride the school bus
Advocate: Tasmania to Recognize Marriages
Roschelle: Who Gets Credit For Iraq...
Joe. My. God: SAS To Host In-Flight Gay Wedding
Leave your links in comments…
lolsob
Elle sent me this article (which is about the failure of this summer's rom-coms to draw female viewers to theaters in large numbers) with the note: "Girl, I swear the last paragraph was written just for you." LOL!
The last paragraph:
"Women like today's bromances better than the movies aimed at them. They're funnier. They're smarter. Especially Judd Apatow's movies. He understands women. 'I Love You Man' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' did really well with women," [Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com] says. "We're selling women short just thinking they want traditional romantic comedies."lolsob.
Yes, that's certainly always been my complaint: Hollywood not assuming hard enough that I want MORE THE HANGOVER!
Today in Body Policing—Now in Blue!
[Trigger warning for body policing, gender policing, fat hatred, and dehumanization.]
by Shaker Erica
Approaching the newsstand this morning, I had a suspicion I wasn't going to like what I was about to read.
[Image Description: The cover of Metro with a "headless fatty" color photograph of a fat white man from neck to waist, with his arms wrapped around himself, covering his breasts. The headline and subhead read: "Ashamed of your moobs? …You're not alone." Below that is the text: "With obesity rates rising, more men are turning to surgeon's knife to fix man boobs. What was once a private shame and laughing matter has become a problem that's easily fixed."]
A full-sized image of a naked and headless body on the front page with big bold letters that say 'ashamed' never really leads to any good place.
My friend immediately pointed out the gender policing. Moob? (Man+boob.) Because having breasts (having female qualities) is a serious source of shame, right? Of course, being fat in and of itself is also obviously a 'private shame and laughing matter' according to whoever is writing cover copy for the Metro.
In the corner of the cover, there is a text poll ("WIN $250!"):
What's the biggest turnoff in a guy?What!? Is this really a front page story? What exactly is the point in promoting all this body shame?
a: Man boobs
b: Unibrow
c: Hairy back
d: Bad breath
That's rhetorical.
The next full page devoted to this story (yes another full page—accompanied by an image of another headless body) reveals that "men with full breasts like these can have them surgically removed with a simple procedure." The article (viewable online here) goes on to discuss how easy and cheap it is to have surgery on your lunch break. "They don't need to take a lot of time away—just a couple of hours in the afternoon."
Leaving aside the inherent problems in promoting plastic surgery as a quick and easy way to 'fix' your body, why why why are we always meant to feel our boobs are too small or too big? That we are too fat, too thin, too hairy, too bald, too pale, too dark, too whatever else to live without shame?
That's rhetorical.
Meanwhile, hidden in a short blurb elsewhere in the paper, we get the news that New York Governor David Paterson signed into law a bill that protects domestic workers' rights and affecting overtime, weekly time off, and protection from sexual harassment.
I guess that's not important as fat-shaming though.
Email the author of the piece, Heidi Patalano, here. Email the editors here.
I Write Letters
Dear Time:
Does the news that "unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities" and work full-time jobs have slightly higher salaries "than those of the guys in their peer group" really warrant the headline "Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top"?
Leaving aside your crass, thinly veiled sexual reference, I fail utterly to see how a very small cohort of working women making more than their male peers justifies the assertion that women are, at last, "on top."
Especially when said toppery has been achieved in large part due to the collapse of male-dominated industries or because of the institutional racism that disproportionately derails the lives of young men of color:
[James Chung of Reach Advisors, who has spent more than a year analyzing data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey] also claims that, as far as women's pay is concerned, not all cities are created equal. Having pulled data on 2,000 communities and cross-referenced the demographic information with the wage-gap figures, he found that the cities where women earned more than men had at least one of three characteristics. Some, like New York City or Los Angeles, had primary local industries that were knowledge-based. Others were manufacturing towns whose industries had shrunk, especially smaller ones like Erie, Pa., or Terre Haute, Ind. Still others, like Miami or Monroe, La., had a majority minority population. (Hispanic and black women are twice as likely to graduate from college as their male peers.)Not to take away from the individual personal accomplishments of any women, but, despite our reputation to the contrary, I don't know many feminist/womanist women who are anxious to celebrate women's successes that are built on economic clusterfucktastrophes and/or pervasive inequality.
And, given the number of caveats behind your misleading "on top" headline, a more cynical person than I, ahem, might suggest there is a deliberate mischaracterization of the sort usually found in the middle of a backlash against women's progress, to justify policies that bolster the male privilege such mendacity asserts no longer exists.
Just sayin'.
Love,
Liss
Quote of the Day
"I was asked recently which of the political leaders I had met had most integrity. I listed George near the top. He had genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I ever met."—Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on former US President George W. Bush, in his memoirs.
Blair also calls Mondo Fucko a "true idealist" who is "very smart" while having "immense simplicity in how he saw the world."
That sounds more like a description of Forrest Gump than the sneering warmonger who spent eight years endeavoring to run this nation into the fucking ground.
The Honorable Citizens Restoring Honor to America
Yesterday, I gave this New Left Media video a quick link, but didn't have time to do a transcript for it. Shaker Mudkip was kind enough to transcribe all the dialogue; this morning I refined it and now the entire transcript is available here. Thanks very much to Mudkip for the help!
[The hat tip goes to Gabe, whose commentary I'll just second.]
So, the President Gave a Speech Last Night
And he declared an end to the combat mission in Iraq. (Gee, where have I heard that before?) The full transcript of the speech is here.
My response is mixed. It was successful for the reasons Steve details here, and yet I still found the bile rise on the reiteration of the lie that "A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency." That there were no weapons in Iraq is not even a debated point anymore; if he'd even just said "A war ostensibly to disarm a state" that would have been something.
I grant my own bias, having typed my fingers to bloody stumps about the Downing Street Memo and other evidence the Bush administration cooked the case for war, but that is a bias of which I am proud, quite frankly. It infuriates me that the former president's lies are still having veracity breathed into them, no less by the current president, who ran on the claim that he was someone who knew better once upon a time.
There were a few other little (but not incidental) details like that, which stuck in my craw. But I won't belabor the point.
The war is (ostensibly) over. And the dirty hippies were right.
Good Morning! Ruth Bader Ginsburg Rules.
And Dahlia Lithwick explains one of the many reasons why:
The Ginsburgs not only prevailed at the 10th Circuit but also obtained—as Justice Ginsburg has detailed elsewhere—the solicitor general's Exhibit E, a "printout from the Department of Defense computer" that listed, title by title, every provision of the U.S. Code "containing differentiations based upon sex-related criteria." According to the brief filed by the solicitor general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Moritz, the 10th Circuit decision "casts a cloud of unconstitutionality upon the many federal statutes listed in Appendix E." And as Martin Ginsburg noted in his speech, that computer printout proved "a gift beyond price" in his wife's future litigation career.Read the whole thing here.
The Moritz case launched Ginsburg into her association with the ACLU Women's Rights Project, and Exhibit E offered a roadmap for litigation. She scored five victories in six Supreme Court appeals, using the 14th Amendment to slowly and systematically eradicate gender discrimination in one law after another, pushing the courts to scrutinize laws that classify on the basis of gender with a standard higher than the deferential "rational basis" standard.
...Those who like to believe they have picked themselves up by the bootstraps sometimes forget that they wouldn't even have boots were it not for the women who came before. Listening to Palin, it's almost impossible to believe that, as recently as 50 years ago, a woman at Harvard Law School could be asked by Dean Erwin Griswold to justify taking a spot that belonged to a man. In Ginsburg's lifetime, a woman could be denied a clerkship with Felix Frankfurter just because she was a woman. Only a few decades ago, Ginsburg had to hide her second pregnancy for fear of losing tenure. I don't have an easy answer to the question of whether real feminists are about prominent lipsticky displays of "girl-power," but I do know that Ginsburg's lifetime dedication to achieving quiet, dignified equality made such displays possible.
[H/T to Shaker Phyllis.]
