Thelma Houston: "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Action Item: The Campaign to Save the Scott Sisters
[TW: This post describes a rape threat, in addition rampant abuse of power and the horrifying living conditions with one correctional facility.]
Yesterday, Bob Herbert used his column to draw attention to the disturbing case of the Scott sisters of Forest, MS.
Authorities accused Jamie (then 21) and Gladys (then 19) Scott of being involved in an armed robbery where around $11 may have been stolen from a man's wallet. Three teenagers pled guilty to the crime. Initially, these teens' stories supported the Scott sisters' claim of innocence.
Herbert takes up the story:
"A plea deal was arranged in which the teens were required to swear that the women were involved, and two of the teens were obliged, as part of the deal, to testify against the sisters in court.
Howard Patrick, who was 14 at the time of the robbery, said that the pressure from the authorities to implicate the sisters began almost immediately. He testified, 'They said if I didn’t participate with them, they would send me to Parchman and make me out a female.”
The judge gave Jamie and Gladys the extraordinary punishment of two life sentences.
But it gets worse. Now in her 16th year in prison, Jamie Scott has developed end stage renal failure, and will die without dialysis and otherwise adequate medical care.
Living conditions in the prison are harsh, as Jamie Scott wrote this spring:
"The living condition in quickbed area is not fit for any human to live in. I have been incarcerated for 15 years 6 months now and this is the worst I have ever experience. When it rain out side it rain inside. The zone flood like a river. The rain comes down on our heads and we have to try to get sheets and blankets to try to stop it from wetting our beds and personnel property...I am fully aware that we are in prison, but no one should have to live in such harsh condition. I am paranoid of catching anything because of what I have been going throw with my medical condition.
We are living in these harsh conditions, but if you go to the administration offices, they are nice and clean and smell nice because they make sure the inmates clean their offices each day. They tell us to clean the walls. Cleaning the walls will not help anything. Cleaning the walls will not stop the rain from pouring in. it will not stop the mold from growing inside the walls and around us. It will not stop the spiders from mating."
At this point, it's essential that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour grant Jamie and Gladys Scott clemency.
Gov. Barbour's office can be reached at 1-877-405-0733, or by mail at: P.O. Box 139, Jackson, Mississippi 39205. The email is: governor@governor.state.ms.us.
Free The Scott Sisters, a blog maintained in part by the Scott sisters' mother, Evelyn Rasco, has more information.
Mrs. Rasco asks that her daughters' many allies contact the parole board:
Shannon Warnock - Chairman
Bobbie Thomas - Board Member
Clarence Brown - Board Member
Betty Lou Jones - Board Member
Danny Guice - Board Member
State of Mississippi Parole Board
660 North Street
Suite 100A
Jackson, MS 39202
Fax: (601) 576-3528
Feel free to post copies of your own letters in the comments.
Glee To Do The Timewarp Again
I've never seen Glee. But I know you have. I guess they do themed episodes where they re-enact famous musicals and then release a new CD every week? Right? Who knows! I know you know. But I don't. Anyway, they're doing a Rocky Horror show this month. Yay for Rocky Horror! TV Guide has some exclusive photos from the set.
Florida Will Not Appeal Ruling on Gay Adoption
More good news on the homomentum front:
Florida child welfare administrators will not appeal last month's ruling that tossed out Florida's controversial gay-adoption law.Florida is the only state with a law that explicitly bans gays and lesbians from adopting children, although they can serve as foster parents.
George Sheldon, secretary of the Department of Children & Families, announced Tuesday his agency will not appeal a ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal that declared the 33-year-old law unconstitutional. The ruling involved two former foster children adopted by Frank Martin Gill, an openly gay North Miami man who took custody of the boys under DCF's authorization.
''It's clear that the District Court of Appeal decision is of statewide application, and it will be binding on all trial courts across the state,'' Sheldon said.
As of last week, the state had exhausted the time to challenge the Gill adoption, and so, regardless of the law's status, the two children will remain Gill's adoptive children, Sheldon said.
Here's to the happy families, and many, many more.
Injunction Issued on Don't Ask Don't Tell
A federal judge has issued an injunction to end Don't Ask Don't Tell, effective immediately.
Judge Virginia Phillips ordered that the military "immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced" under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sixty days to appeal.
Stanley Fish on the Humanities
Stanley Fish has an interesting op-ed piece about the demise of the humanities up at the Times.
FWIW, I work for SUNY (although not UAlbany), so I'm not in the mood or place to deconstruct Fish's column. Besides, I've got a lot of work to get to today.
I will, however, point out that much of the academic work on social justice goes on in departments within the humanities, or that otherwise face the same pressures Fish notes. I'm not implying that academia is the be-all and end-all of social justice movements, I just think it's important to discuss the disconnect between the corporatization of higher education and the world I'd like to live in.
Fish:
"[A reader asked:] 'What happened to public investment in the humanities and the belief that the humanities enhanced our culture, our society, our humanity?' And he speculated that it 'will be a sad, sad day if and when we allow the humanities to collapse.'
What he didn’t know at the time is that it had already happened, on Oct. 1, when George M. Philip, president of SUNY Albany, announced that the French, Italian, classics, Russian and theater programs were getting the axe."
And indeed, if your criteria are productivity, efficiency and consumer satisfaction, it makes perfect sense to withdraw funds and material support from the humanities — which do not earn their keep and often draw the ire of a public suspicious of what humanities teachers do in the classroom — and leave standing programs that have a more obvious relationship to a state’s economic prosperity and produce results the man or woman in the street can recognize and appreciate. (What can you say to the tax-payer who asks, “What good does a program in Byzantine art do me?” Nothing.)
Of course, in a bygone time seats in those programs’ classes would have been filled by students who were meeting quite specific distribution requirements...those requirements have largely gone away. SUNY Albany does have general education requirements, but so many courses fulfill them — any one of dozens will meet your humanities requirement — that they are hardly a constraint at all, something the Web site acknowledges and even underlines with pride.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
--
ETA: As lasquires pointed out in the comments, John Proveti has a very different take on things.
Daily Dose o' Cute
1. Curled up.
2. Asleep with eyes closed.
3. One paw on squeaky toy.
4. Using toy as pillow.
The only problem with a pose like this involving so many levels of cuteness is that you can barely contain yourself and you have to scream "OMG WHOSEAGOODBOY!" And then you're visited by...
Ears Mcgee!!
Blog Note
Liss is still away taking care of personal matters and will not be posting today. She should be back in a couple of days.
Radio Shakesville
A Grand Day Out
Here is a link to the podcast blog where you can download the show.
You can also play the show in a pop-up.
Track list is available here.
The show is available via Feedburner.
The RSS is here, if you need it.
Question of the Day
What was the last personal project you took on that did not go as planned? Did it turn out worse or better than expected?
I've been crafting a bit lately. Any new clothes and holiday or birthday gifts must be homemade this year due to budget considerations. But for various reasons, I have been catastrophizing the slightest difficulty or failure. I tried to make a body lotion the other day that failed spectacularly. "Flocculation" is fun to say, but considerably less fun to clean up. I was miserable, even though the first rule of DIYers must be, "have a sense of humor about your own disastrous attempts".
The bright side is that my lip balms, cleansers, and anhydrous body butters have been going splendidly. And I need those small successes to get past the EPIC FAIL of that ill-fated body lotion.
I also cursed about once per minute while making my new bamboo rib knit tee, which was a complete pain in the neck. The bamboo/cotton rib knit (from fabric dot com) is gorgeous and so comfortable to wear, and it does not pill as badly as bamboo jersey. However, it is difficult to work with. It is mushy to sew and very hard to keep on-grain. I had to cut everything out in a single layer. Worse, I had to cut the back out in two pieces and have a center-back seam. Now, the bright side of a center-back seam is that I can take the back in to make it fit better (my waist is a pattern-size or two smaller than my hips).
But I could not see the bright side until the thing was done. Turns out, you can't even see the center-back seam (photo below the fold). At the end of all the cursing, I did get the tee I wanted-- a bamboo knit with elbow-length sleeves, a neck high enough to protect against every itchy sweater winter has to offer, a nice drape, and supreme softness--for the cost of about $7.00.
Sure, there is some rippling in the sleeve hems*, in spite of the fact that I interfaced all the hems to prevent rippling. I don't know where my sense of humor about such SNAFUs went, but I think the solution is to keep at it and accrue some small victories.
*I think this is due to stretching the fabric over the free-arm of my sewing machine. 
Me in my new black bamboo rib knit T-shirt. The back is similar to the front. You get to see my vintage Stetson instead of my face, because these are the Internets (hat from Alley Cats Vintage on Etsy).
Monday Random YouTubery
[Video Description: dancing clips from 40 different movies set to the song Footloose. A couple brief scenes may be NSFW]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by limes. Limes: purveyors of fine flavonoids, sesquiterpenes, and L-ascorbate for thousands of years.
Andy: Happy National Coming Out Day, to One and All and Tea Party's Anti-Islam Adherents Seek International Allies
Laila Lalami: I Am Fodail Aberkane
Deeky: Quote of the Day
David M. Dismore at Ms. Magazine Blog: October 10, 1911: A Suffrage Cliffhanger In California (via Sociological Images)
Maud Newton: E.B. White on the tricky valuation of a writer’s time. This post reminds me something else I read recently, Being a "Real" Writer, by Ladysquires.
blue milk at Hoyden About Town: For our sons but not for our daughters. (Update: please also see Echidne's posts on the subject of this survey. H/T dmriley7 in comments here.)
Lab Rat: Throat bacteria that destroy invaders
Audio links from The New York Times ArtsBeat Blog: Mario Vargas Llosa Speaks About the Nobel Prize, Literature and More. (There are eight audio clips; I am not able to transcribe them.)
Krystal D'Costa: What Are Those Darned Neanderthals Up to Now?
Language Log: Liu Xiaobo
Swift: Experiments in the workshop: Intense conditioner with all my conditioning agents
Share your links in comments.
The Overton Window: Chapter Fifteen
[TW for discussion of Rape Culture.]
I don't understand Glenn Beck. I don't understand this book. I don't understand his characters. Or maybe, I don't understand Glenn Beck's relationship with his characters. Because he doesn't seem to like them all very much.
Which is okay, if you're Bret Easton Ellis and your characters are supposed to be unlikeable dipshits. But Molly is our heroine. Why is Beck playing her as a goggle-eyed rube while at the same moment lambasting nefarious (and nameless) elites for viewing his precious teabaggers as goggle-eyed rubes?
They got out at the corner, and as Noah signed off with the driver, he saw Molly standing there on the sidewalk, looking all around as if she'd just stepped off the last bus from Poughkeepsie, taking in the ritzy sights of the Upper East Side.
"Is that where you live?" she asked, pointing.
"No, not there. See those flags? That's the French Embassy."
So Molly is too stupid to tell the French Embassy from Noah's swanky apartment building? But she knows the truth about Freedom and Patriotism? Maybe because she's a Real American she doesn't give two fucks about the French and their Socialist embassies. Or something. Incoherence, thy name is Beck. Though, it's not just outside that Molly is agog: "The instant he'd keyed them inside, Molly took off to explore, marveling at the panoramic floor-to-ceiling view, running from room to room like a toy-starved moppet cut loose in FAO Schwarz."
Also, douchebaggery, thy name is Beck. Backing up a bit to the elevator ride to the twenty-third floor:
They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.
As paragraphs go, that one is pretty fucking awful. Fine upstanding patriot is ogled by Noah's pervert neighbor. Sheesh. Really, on top of the writing ("fine feminine company") it's tasteless, offensive. It stopped me in my tracks, the objectification of our supposed heroine. And somehow, it manages to get even worse with the next few lines. Read it again:
They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.
The doors hissed closed again, leaving the two of them alone.
"Was that who I think it was?" Molly asked.
"Eliot Spitzer."
"The governor. Of New York."
"Former governor. And maybe you noticed just then, if you hadn't already read about him in the papers, that he's also a total horndog."
No. Fucking. Way. Right? This isn't possible, is it? This is not actually a book that someone wrote, someone else edited, some company published. Along the way someone created a cover (someone created several covers, actually), and someone typeset it, and there were marketing meetings and sales conferences about it. This shit was printed and bound and boxed up and loaded onto trucks and shipped to book stores all over the country and clerks at shops everywhere unpacked those cartons and put the books on shelves. This. This book. All of that happened with this book. With its paragraph about Elliot Spitzer being "a total horndog."
Sit down and think about that for a while.
Okay. Molly and Noah shower (separately) and head to their beds and things just get worse. I know I keep saying things get worse, but they do. They really do. Whenever I think this book can't possibly get any more awful, it somehow manages to. I mean, logically, you'd think, at some point, we'd reach the nadir and things would turn around. "Hey, that was horrible, but at least it wasn't as bad as chapter nine!" But no. There is some force at work here making each chapter exponentially worse, like a Fibonacci sequence of hack writing.
Sitting in bed after 24+ hours awake, Noah attempts to read himself asleep, but is interrupted.
He heard a soft knock from the hallway, looked over, then sat up a little straighter when he saw her peeking in.
"Me again," Molly said.
"Hi." He laid his book beside him, holding his page.
"I used your phone. I hope that's okay."
"It's fine, anything you want."
"I was calling about Danny. Remember him? Danny Bailey, from the bar?"
"Yeah. I wish I didn't, but yeah."
"Nobody remembers seeing him after the raid, and he wasn't with the rest of us at the police station. I called around to see if anyone had heard from him."
Hey, Noah, remember that guy whose speech you derailed that ended with you up on stage giving your own speech? Remember him? No? The guy who was awful cozy with your date early in the evening? Not ringing any bells? Oh, oh, I know! He's the guy who was shot at! After which everyone ended up in jail? Remember him?
I hate stupid questions.
So, yeah, plot point, Danny is missing. He's no doubt been abducted by the "contract security forces" the busted up the teabagger rally. I know, I know, I just ruined the upcoming thrill of a later chapter when this is all revealed. I am a bad person. On the plus-side, we don't know if he's dead or not, so there is some suspense in this revelation. Right?
Who cares anyway? Let's find out what Molly is wearing!
The faded jersey was much too big, of course, and she'd gathered the slack and tied it up, leaving a spellbinding glimpse of a taut, smooth waist above the northern border of a lucky pair of his own navy boxers.
Her hair was down, towel-dry and glistening, dark and curly and caressing her shoulders as she walked.
Are you hot? I am totally getting hot just reading that. I'm not really. But Noah is:
"I thought you were going to sleep in the other room."
"Do you mind?"
"No, not a bit. It's just like that time my aunt Beth took me to the candy store and then wouldn't let me eat anything. I didn't mind that, either."
"I'll go if you want."
"No, stay, stay. I'm kidding. Kind of. Just try not to do anything sexy."
Just try not to do anything sexy. Or what? There is nothing quite as charming as being vaguely threatening to a half-naked woman in your bed.
She ran her hands through her hair and stretched again, wriggled herself under the covers, and rolled onto her side with one arm across him, the long, cool silkiness of her bare legs against his skin.
"Now see?" Noah said. "That's what I just asked you not to do."
Okay, let me interject here and tell you nothing happens. Good, bad or ugly. They just fall asleep cuddled up together. But Noah does deliver his now immortal line.
"I'm only getting comfortable." Her voice was already sleepy, and she shivered a bit. "My feet are cold."
"Suit yourself, lady. I'm telling you right now, you made the rules, but you're playing with fire here. I've got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don't tease the panther."
Don't tease the panther. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe it has something to do with his "outstanding record of success with the ladies." But, basically, it sounded like Noah was threatening to rape her if she got too sexy. I doubt that was what the author intended to convey here, but hey, welcome to Rape Culture. Our hero is a wild animal that can't be stopped once he gets all wound up, and that is supposed to be sexy.
Anyway, Molly kisses Noah (on the cheek) goodnight, and he lies there in bed, "having begun to dream quite a while before he finally drifted away."
And with that, Part One of this thriller draws to a close. I just hope Part Two is more than just Noah's Saturday night at the Knitting Factory. I can't take another night of speeches.
National Coming Out Day
Here in the U.S. and other places it is National Coming Out Day. Yay for coming out! Boo for shame and bigotry!
Forgive me if I may stumble into ineloquence here:
Hugs all around for those who come out today. Coming out isn't easy for many folks. But it can be one of the most important things we, as queers*, can do. Only once the atmosphere or fear, shame, guilt, self-loathing, bigotry and hatred has been done away with, will coming out no longer be an act of courage.
Gentle hugs and understanding too, for all those who cannot come out. For those who would suffer real consequences, at home, at work, in service to our country. One day things will be different. That day, hopefully, will be here soon.
And thanks to allies everywhere, for the support, for being friends, for being partners, for being lovers, for being there on the behalf of equality and justice, for being there for us, when we need it, and even when we don't.
Happy National Coming Out day.
*however you self-identify.
