[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Say It With Me: To Stop Rape, Get Men To Stop Raping
(Trigger warning for rape and rape apologia)
On the night of September 10, at a rave outside of Vancouver BC, a young woman was slipped a drug to incapacitate her, after which a group of young men filmed themselves repeatedly raping her (the video itself is not at that link; it's a link to a CBC report on an arrest of one of the suspects).
As seems to be all too often the case lately, this film has made its way onto the Internet, and though the police have made some efforts to have the video removed where they find it, we all know that once it's on the Net, it's never, ever going away. They anticipate using the child pornography laws to pursue anyone they can catch putting it up or possessing a copy themselves (as is the law in Canada; any depiction of sexual activity by people under 16, or looking like they're under 16, or of sexualized children, is deemed child pornography).
I can't find a media report of it (most have updated to the version linked above, replacing earlier stories with it), but Shaker Erin writes to say that their local station was reporting:
Listening to my local news station, they had a piece on it this afternoon. Christy Clark was asking whether parents feel that their daughters are safe, and how to educate them to stay safe, and whether those parents feel that their sons would step in to help in a situation like this, not stand around and watch. But nothing about teaching their sons (and daughters) about enthusiastic consent, not raping, etc. Even though, when first questioning the students at the high school the victim went to, almost all students were victim-blaming. Even though she had been drugged.As usual, the MSM focus is on victim-blaming: the advice all carries the usual "Well, if girls/women would just stay home and not do anything fun, they wouldn't be so vulnerable to rape," rather than what we know the situation to actually be: "If rapists would just stay home and not do anything fun, (girls/women) wouldn't be so vulnerable to rape."
If you would like to express that message to the superintendent of the local school district, who has been inviting police to give lectures on how girls can stay safe, then:
The superintendent for the Maple Meadows school district is Jan Unwin and her email is junwin@sd42.ca.I would suggest, as I usually do, a polite but very clear missive explaining how to conduct rape safety training (TRAIN THE BOYS NOT TO RAPE, DUH!).
The mailing address for the school district is: Ms. Jan Unwin
Superintendent of Schools
SD #42 (Maple Ridge)
22225 Brown Avenue
Maple Ridge, BC V2X 8N6
Phone: 604-463-4200
Fax: 604-463-0573
junwin@sd42.ca
Teaspoons up, Shakers.
ò,óP <-- is Caitie's Angry Face, with Teaspoon
Tip of the CaitieCap to Shakers Anelle, somebodyoranother, and Erin, as well as Liss for sending it on to me. Also, JenMR, who gave updated information on contacting the superintendent.
News from Shakes Manor
Iain, by email, under the subject header "Question": Do you like David Brooks?
Liss, by email, under the subject header "Answer": I'm leaving you for David Brooks.
Iain: I wish I could come up with a cogent argument for why you shouldn't do that, but he is such a superlative example of American masculinity that I can do naught but endorse your decision.
Liss: A wise and courageous gesture of this magnitude would undoubtedly stir within Mr. Brooks such a profound and fervent admiration for your moral fortitude that he would almost certainly advise me to remain your loving, doe-eyed bride. Thus shall we remain as one.
Iain: I would expect nothing less from such a magnanimous individual.
Liss: Just get your butt home already, cute stuff.
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.]
...Starring Deeky!
In which Liss re-imagines masterpieces of postmodern cinema, making them tinglingly better by adding me (Deeky: The Rutger Hauer of the Wax Trax Generation) to their classic posters. Today, the cyberpunkiest film of all time not starring Billy Idol.
Johnny Mnemonic
(Why do I look exceedingly prissy in this poster?)
(See also.)
Photo of the Day
Warrior Angels, courtesy of Gaydar, greet the pope in Twickenham, England, yesterday.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, producers of the upcoming Deeky W. Gashlycrumb biopic, Giant Jazzhands!, starring Deeky W. Gashlycrumb.
Recommended Reading:
[TW for sexual violence] Cara: On Birth Rape, Definitions, and Language Policing
[TW for sexual violence] Lisa: Welcome to Rape Culture: Sex with Drunk Girls is Funny
[TW for sexism] Fannie: Learning Gender Through Ads
[TW for racism] Shark-fu: On Bethany Storro
Andy: Gay Activists Target Senator Webb in 'DADT' Combat Boot Drop
Tigtog: It's not censorship when it's a personal decision over privately owned space.
Also: "Derailing for Dummies" has been updated!
Leave your links in comments...
"Weird" News
[Trigger Warning: Transphobia*, Objectification, Abusive Relationships. The TW also applies to the comments at Jezebel and AOL.]
For some reason Jezebel recently reposted a story from AOL's resident specialist on weird/"not normal" news:
Man Discovers Biological Mother is Bearded Lady
33-year-old Richard Lorenc's search for his biological parents revealed that his mother is Vivian Wheeler, the 62-year-old Guinness World Record-holder for "longest female beard." Lorenc was kidnapped by his father, a carnival worker, but has now reunited with his mother.
I guess (or at least, I sincerely hope) that kidnapping is kinda "weird", although I can think of better ways of describing it.
So I'm left to assume that the story of a woman who has facial hair is supposed to be weird and funny. Actually, I already knew that, what with all the people who have made this point to me in the past.
Basically this is a story about a woman who doesn't fit the gender binary (in this case she's intersex, although the author of the original article elects to use a different term), is taught by society and her abusive father to be shameful of this fact, finds a series of poorly paying jobs (which she was initially forced into by her father) based on the premise that she's funny to look at, ends up in an abusive relationship that ends with her young son being kidnapped by her partner. What a hoot!
--
*Vivian Wheeler isn't trans, but this gawkfest and ostracism is clearly driven by people marginalizing people who don't fit into the gender binary as kyriarchically defined.
Quote of the Day
"What we need to be focused on is growth, how do we create jobs, how do we expand businesses. That needs to be job one right now. And all these other issues involving, oh, fairness and things like that can wait."—My (allegedly) Democratic Senator, Evan Bayh (D-Ipshit), arguing in favor of cutting taxes for the wealthiest USians.
See also: LeMew, Susie, and BTD, who notes: "Bayh is retiring this year from politics. Thank gawd."
Indeed.
How to Write a David Brooks Column
1. Report something your "liberal friends" are saying. ("Many of my liberal friends are convinced that the Republican Party has a death wish. It is sprinting to the right-most fever swamps of American life. It will end up alienating the moderate voters it needs to win elections.")
2. Assert that they're wrong. ("There's only one problem with this theory. There is no evidence to support it.")
3. Base that assertion on an irrelevant caveat. ("The Republican Party may be moving sharply right, but there is no data to suggest that this has hurt its electoral prospects, at least this year.") Emphasis mine.
4. Insert 5-10 paragraphs of incomprehensible bullshit, peppered with folksy aphorisms, contextless factoids, and/or meaningless statistics. ("Blah blah independents blah blah 29% approval rating blah blah excesses of American culture blah blah fart.")
5. Make the very same fucking point your "liberal friends" were making. ("This doesn't mean that the Tea Party influence will be positive for Republicans over the long haul. The movement carries viruses that may infect the G.O.P. in the years ahead.")
6. Claim it's an entirely different point by virtue of irrelevant caveat. ("But that damage is all in the future.")
7. Write pithy and typically asinine conclusion. ("Right now, the Tea Party doesn't matter. The Republicans don't matter. The economy and the Democrats are handing the G.O.P. a great, unearned revival. Nothing, it seems, is more scary than one-party Democratic control.")
Now go get yourself a job at the New York Times!
You're welcome.
The Overton Window: Chapter Five
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!:
Deeky: IMFG. Chapter five is the worst one yet.
Liss: LOL! I can't wait.
Deeky: It is unbelievably bad.
Liss: That's such a surprise!
Deeky: It kind of is. I really thought the writing would be at least professional.
I know I complained, sort of, that nothing happened in chapter four. But somehow, even less happens in chapter five. What the fuck? Is this story going anywhere? In the last chapter there were phone calls and the burning of paper. Chapter five is just Noah wandering the halls of Doyle & Merchant.
Really, this is an excuse for another of Beck('s ghostwriter) to list off all the things he hates. In the guise of Darthur's brilliant PR accomplishments.
This particular corridor was the company's walk-through résumé, a gallery of framed and mounted achievements, past to present. Press clippings, puff pieces, planted news items and advertorials, slick, crafted cover stories dating back to the 1950s, digitized video highlights running silently in their flat-screen displays. It was a hall of fame unparalleled in the industry and the envy of all competitors.
So, what were these PR miracles? "Manufactured boy bands and teen pop music stars." Oh, how iconoclasty. Wevs. "Must-have Christmas toys (murders had been committed for a spot in line to buy some of these)." I'm rolling my eyes here. You can't see it, but I am. Of course, all conservatives hate Che Guevara T-shirts. I guess because he was a commie. "On a dare, Noah's father had once boasted that he could transform some of the century's most brutal killers into fashion statements." Okay. "And he'd done it; here were pictures of clueless college students, rock stars, and Hollywood icons proudly wearing T-shirts featuring the romanticized images of Chairman Mao and Che Guevara." Also note, the disdain for "college students, rock stars, and Hollywood icons." I'm guessing Beck loves country musicians. (Not the Dixie Chicks, of course.)
Other things Darthur invented, or at least created the PR for: Tobacco, pharmaceuticals, the lottery. As a youngster, Noah, it turns out, came up with the phrase you can't win if you don't play, "during a rare family chat at the Gardner dinner table." Apparently workaholics are to be despised too. And lottery players have been duped by a child:
No other product could demonstrate the essence of their work as perfectly as the lottery. The ads and jingles might remind all the suckers to play, but it was the PR hocus-pocus that kept them believing in the impossible, year after year. ... Take their money and give them nothing but a scrap of paper and disappointment in return, and then— and this is the key— make them line up every week to do it again.
Well, you know, there is one other product that fits this description. They're called Glenn Beck books. Okay, sorry, that was too easy. But lottery players aren't the biggest suckers of all. No. It's the "do-gooders." Those foolish dreamers who believe they can make the world a better place. People like Che Guevara. Or Peace Corps volunteers:
Noah had a friend in college, not a close friend, but a self-described bleeding-heart lefty tree-hugging do-gooder friend who'd gone to work for an African aid organization after graduation. She'd kept in touch only casually, but her last sad letter had been one for the scrapbook. It turned out that after all the fund-raising and banquets and concerts and phone banks, all the food and clothing and medical supplies they'd shipped over had been instantly hijacked and sold on the black market, either by the corrupt provisional government, the corrupt rebel militias, or both. Most of the proceeds bought a Viking V58 cruiser for the yacht-deprived son of a parliament member. The rest of the money went for weapons and ammunition. That arsenal, in turn, fueled a series of sectarian genocidal massacres targeting the very starving men, women, and children whom the aid was meant for.
Saps! Fuck Africa. Helping them is just helping warlords, facilitating genocide, and buying yachts for black people. Screw that noise! This is why Libertarians don't help anyone. It's a waste. If Africa wants to improve its situation, it needs to grab its bootstraps, pull itself up, and get its shit together. Durr. Umm, okay, sorry, where was I? Oh yeah.
Darthur has also been the PR machine behind every president since JFK, excepting the "too high-and-mighty" Jimmy Carter and the "too cheap" Richard Nixon. Both those clowns were run out of office, weren't they? Darthur even had a hand in fixing Clinton's impeachment. Man, this PR firm does everything. And when they're not fixing elections, they're drumming up support for war.
Noah was nearly to the end of the hall when a small, unassuming case study caught his attention. There was no title or description on this one, just a silent running video, the testimony before Congress of a volunteer nurse named Nayirah al-Sabah. She was the fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl whose tearful story of infants being thrown from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers became a podium-pounding rallying cry in the final run-up to the 1991 Gulf War.
Undeniably moving, highly effective, and entirely fictional.
The client for this one had been a thinly veiled pro-invasion front group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait. The girl wasn't a nurse at all; she was the photogenic daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. The testimony had been written, produced, and directed by Arthur Isaiah Gardner, the distinguished gentleman sitting just behind her in the video.
Evil! Darthur is pure evil. Because all PR people do is lie. Which totally not what Glenn Beck and his ilk do. No, not at all. Anyway, I guess this New World Order thing is going to be a walk in the park. I mean, if he can fix the Clinton blowjob thing, and get Iraq invaded, he can certainly establish a new "political and economic and social structure." I wonder, is this is what's meant by "the banality of evil"? (The writing here. Not the starting of wars.)
On Lady Gaga
Earlier this week, I spent about an hour on the phone with Kira Cochrane from the Guardian, who was working on a piece exploring whether Lady Gaga is a feminist icon. We had a really interesting conversation, ranging from Gaga's musicality, to her privilege/narrative failures (particularly in the Telephone video), as well as her successes, to why Gaga is a household name but Janelle Monáe isn't—as well as the stuff about potties, Gaga's sexual independence, and her wardrobe as commentary on consent that ended up in Cochrane's article, which was published today.
Is Lady Gaga a feminist icon?
[Related Reading: Quote of the Day, particularly the comments thread.]
OMFG
Sacha Baron Cohen Set to Play Singer Freddie Mercury in Film Biopic.
Presumably, this film is meant to honor the trailblazing Freddie Mercury, but I can't think of more dishonorable casting than a purveyor of homophobic garbage whose last comedy film was based on the premise that anything gay/feminine is inherently absurd.
What a shame.
Oh My Aching Sides
Hey, remember last year when Joaquin Phoenix grew a "crazy" beard and declared he was abandoning acting to become a rapper, and he made a bunch of public appearances acting all "weird," and all over the teevee and the internetz, people speculated about his "insane" appearance on David Letterman's show, and debated whether he was mentally ill or addicted to drugs or drowning in booze, which naturally resulted in all sorts of disablist commentary and reinforcement of disablist narratives...?
Yeah, ha ha, it turns out that was all a joke.
CASEY AFFLECK wants to come clean.It must be fun to play crazy for "performance art," and then leave it behind as soon as you're done with it. Would that my mental illness were a costume I could slip out of and toss on the floor.
His new movie, "I'm Still Here," was performance. Almost every bit of it. Including Joaquin Phoenix's disturbing appearance on David Letterman's late-night show in 2009, Mr. Affleck said in a candid interview at a cafe here on Thursday morning.
"It's a terrific performance, it's the performance of his career," Mr. Affleck said. He was speaking of Mr. Phoenix's two-year portrayal of himself — on screen and off — as a bearded, drug-addled aspiring rap star, who, as Mr. Affleck tells it, put his professional life on the line to star in a bit of "gonzo filmmaking" modeled on the reality-bending journalism of Hunter S. Thompson.
...Mr. Affleck, who is married to Mr. Phoenix's sister and has been his friend for almost 20 years, said he wanted audiences to experience the film's narrative, about the disintegration of celebrity, without the clutter of preconceived notions.
So he said little in interviews. "We wanted to create a space," he said. "You believe what's happening is real."
The privilege here is astounding, frankly. Apart from the disablism, there's the fact that none of Phoenix's colleagues on the film he was promoting while engaging in this SO FUN! piece of performance art had any idea what was going on. It's one thing to risk tanking your own career by using a publicity tour to behave like a jackass for another project, but he and Affleck apparently didn't give two shits that blowback from the stunt might affect his co-stars and the producers of the film (which tanked, and might have, anyway).
And then there's the fact that part of this shtick was Phoenix's claim to be leaving his successful acting career behind to become a hip-hop artist. HOW CRAZY. That's not something white people do, amirite?!
I'm sure that's some kind of super-edgy, totally ironic, and way hilarious hipster racism that I'm just too square to appreciate.
Plus: HOOKERS!
Meanwhile, in the making of this exercise in vanity and privilege, two sexual harassment suits were brought against Affleck by female crew members, both of which have just been settled. Fun project. Very cool.
Iain and I have had a running argument about the veracity of Phoenix's "breakdown." I have been insistent it was a put-on; Iain disagreed. This morning, I sent him the link to this story with the note: "Told you." He responded: "Dang it, lol. How the hell did you know that?" I replied: "Because I'm a genius. Now be shushtelled." (eliciting another laugh).
But the truth is, I just had a feeling. A feeling of being made fun of.
This is a real thing in the world.
WTF? How is this possible? We have too many editorial pieces, too many websites to fill. Fuck, just watch Narwhals, for Maude's sake.
For those not willing and/or not interested enough to click the link, it's a piece on CNN by a couple of douchebags at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights . Hold on, it gets worse. Brook and Ghate, apparently inspired by that new Gordon Gekko movie, declare that that greed is good, that Jesus and Mother Teresa are assholes, and robber barons are something to aspire to. What? Yeah. How is this possible? Oh yeah: Too many websites, not enough Narwhal videos.
p.s. Go to hell, CNN (and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights).
It's Hard Out There For A D. A.
(Trigger warning for description of domestic violence, prosecutorial misconduct in a domestic violence case, and attempts to coerce sex from a position of authority. The first part of this piece is written from the perspective of a harasser.)
Hey, baby, hey baby, over here. Yeah, you, sugar.
Now, you know you're just a low-class bimbo who gets herself beat up by her boyfriend, right? I mean, that's the kind of guy a chick like you rates. But today is your lucky day, because I have got a prize for you!
"I am the prize"! The District Attorney who — if you're smart in distributing your assets, heh, heh — will be prosecuting the case against that guy who tried to strangle you to death. Hell, yeah, baby, how did you get so lucky!
I mean, you may be "the tall, young, hot nymph", but "I'm the attorney. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career." You sure don't think there's any other way a chick like you could get close to any of that, do you? So I can see why you would have "low self-esteem", but don't let that stop you from grabbing this prize! Because "you have such potential"! The potential "to be so hot" for my personal enjoyment, is what I'm thinking.
Maybe you feel this would be kind of risky, me being married, and the prosecutor on your case — against the guy who tried to strangle you. You sure wouldn't want him going free. He's probably really pissed off that you brought charges. Wonder what the guy who tried to strangle you before would do to you now he's mad, if he got the impression that the legal system had lost interest in what happens to you? But I digress.
I was talking about how risky this "secret contact with an older, married, elected DA" would be. Yeah, it'd be risky for me. "That's why it would have to be special enough to risk it all." Oh, man, so special. So risky. Soooo hot. "The riskier the better?"
"I would not expect you to be the other woman" (but you would be). No, no. "I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well" that I'd just forget I was married! "R U that good?"
C'mon, baby. You know I'm not going to take no for an answer. Why do you think I keep texting you? I started ten minutes after you left my office, after our interview about your case, and I don't plan on stopping til I get what I want. Oh, and that case against your ex-boyfriend? We can totally work the timing on this relationship "for his case to get done."
And, baby, nobody knows how to appreciate a good little victim like I do! "I wrote the law on crime victims in this state."
Don't you worry about a thing, baby. Hell, I'm the chair of the state Crime Victims Rights Board. We have the power to reprimand judges, prosecutors and police officers who mistreat crime victims. Or not.
So you know you can trust me, baby.
Does that sound to you like the right way for the District Attorney responsible for prosecuting a man charged with attempting to strangle a woman to death to communicate to the victim in the case? Yeah. Me neither.
But the D.A. in Calumet County, Wisconsin thought it was just right for him. Since the victim went to the police to lodge a complaint against him, and the matter has become public, he is concerned about the potential damage to the victim in this case, however. The victim being him.
"I'm worried about it because of my reputational interests. I'm worried about it because of my 25 years as a prosecutor, " says D.A. Kenneth Kratz.Kratz told Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press — shouted it, actually — that "this is a non-news story", and "expressed concern" that the publication of his text messages to the victim, soliciting a sexual relationship with her "would unfairly embarrass him personally and professionally."
After the story of his behavior toward 26-year-old Stephanie Van Groll became public, he withdrew from the prosecution of her ex-boyfriend, which was then taken over by the state Department of Justice. (An assistant state attorney general, acting as a special prosecutor, won a conviction on one felony count of strangulation against the woman's assailant.) D.A. Kratz also resigned from the crime victims board.
He retains his position as County District Attorney, and says he plans to run for re-election a year from now. Thus the concern about his "reputational interests".
Presumably, the treatment the victim received from the local police in handling the case of her ex-boyfriend's attack on her was respectful enough that when the D.A. continued to harass her after she had told him she was not interested, she felt it was worthwhile reporting the D.A.'s behavior to the police, which she did out of fear that her assailant would not be prosecuted if she did not give in to the D.A.'s ongoing sexual importuning.
But if the way the police had initially handled her original complaint had seemed to treat it less than seriously, as has so often happened to victims of domestic violence, if they had treated her with skepticism or disdain, how and why would she have found the courage to return to them, given the horrendous situation she was already dealing with?
There are entire classes of victims, within the already vulnerable class of victims of domestic violence, who are even more frequently treated with disdain — poor women, women of color, trans women, sex workers, homeless women, and of course there are many women who are in more than one of those classes.
It is vital that women, and all victims, be able to trust police, prosecutors, and the court system. All too frequently they can't. I fervently hope the voters of Calumet County can be trusted not to return this excrescence on the public weal to his position. But there can be no justification for the people, and particularly the women, of that county having to rely on this man's participation in the criminal justice system between now and November of 2012.
Yet that seems to be the case. Her courage in returning to the police to lodge a complaint against someone whom they depend on to prosecute the cases they put together resulted in the local police — because they do have to continue working with the local D.A. — referring the complaint to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. That Division has taken no action against Kratz. The victim says she was told that, "they didn't think he did anything criminally wrong."
Kratz says that the Office of Lawyer Regulation found he did not violate any rules governing attorney misconduct. The Office itself cannot comment on investigations.
So, a central figure in the county criminal justice system uses his position to attempt to coerce a crime victim into a sexual relationship with him, harasses her by sending her 30 text messages in 3 days, beginning immediately after interviewing her about the case he will be prosecuting against the man who tried to strangle her, and the official verdict seems to be: no criminal wrongdoing on the part of this officer of the court, and no lawyerly misconduct.
And had Ms. Van Groll been afraid to return to the police, afraid that if she reported him no one would do anything and the man who tried to kill her would not be prosecuted, if in her desperation she had acceded to the vile Kratz' proposition, what then?
Why, then, she's a dirty gold-digging slut who slept with a married, middle-aged man because he's an important guy with a lot more money than her. In this situation, initiated by a man in a powerful position, on whom the victim was dependent for legal resolution of the case against her attacker, anything she does may be wrong. But somehow nothing he did is really wrong. Just kind of embarrassing.
[The italicized text above is my representation of the nature of the D.A.'s approach to the victim, not a literal description of his communication to her. The words in quotation marks within that italicized text are direct quotes from the D.A.'s text messages to the victim, as well as some from his interview with the AP's Foley. Emphasis given by bolding was my addition. But the emphasis which the bolding is meant to highlight, the total focus on himself, his own desires and interests, at the expense of a victim of serious violence, who is a member of the public whom he was entrusted and well-paid to represent, was provided entirely by the atrociously, criminally (in my view, if not that of the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice) egotistic asshole himself.]
Edited to correct attribution of some quoted material. Kratz was interviewed by Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press, not by the Wisconsin State Journal, as I originally wrote. The link in the post is to the State Journal which carried Foley's article. Thanks to Shaker shiftydiscogirl for bringing the error to my attention.
H/T to Liss, who sent me this story.
Question of the Day
Earlier today I looked at the paperwork regarding legal name change and--even though it's something I had given years worth of consideration to--just looking at those blank spaces to fill in a new name presented a mighty big temptation to impulsively write in something offbeat and fabulous like, say, Leaf. For me, anyway. All this power (for a fee) to rename yourself!
Which brings me to the question which, yeah, we did do not too long ago:
Have you ever considered changing your first name, or have you already changed it for some reason, e.g. transitioning, adoption, immigration, etc.?
