Shaker TheDeviantE emails (which I am sharing with permission):
I had a dream a few weeks back that we were gchatting. I was also a vampire being pursued by corrupt vampire hunters (though that may be besides the point). I believe in the dream you were trying to make me feel better about being pursued/chased (quite nice of you, thanks ;-).
Hee!
I asked E if I could publish his email as a jumping-off point for another thread about how frequently I and the other contributors and other Shakers appear in each other's dreams. Shakes-related dreams come up in comments fairly regularly, and one of the most common subjects among reader emails is telling me that they dreamed about me and/or another contributor. (And, no, the vast majority of these are not the least bit creepy.)
So: Fess up. Have I appeared in your dream as your first-grade teacher? Has a fellow Shaker met you for drinks on the moon in your sleep? Has Deeky come to you in the night as a gummi-worm wielding organ grinder? Did I just invent the quadruple entendre with that last sentence...?
Let us fervently hope this is not merely giving lipservice to an idea he thinks a disillusioned and alienated base wants to hear, but an authentic self-reflection that will result in fundamental stylistic changes over the next two years:
President Obama tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft that one of the reasons the electorate has become disenchanted with him was his failure to properly explain his policies and persuade people to agree with them.
..."You know, I think that over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn't just legislation. That it's a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone. And making an argument that people can understand. And I think that we haven't always been successful at that," Obama replied.
"And I take personal responsibility for that. And it's something that I've got to examine carefully as I go forward. You know, now I will say that when it comes to some of my supporters, some of my Democratic supporters who express some frustration," the president added.
Yes, that's right: Leadership really isn't just legislation. It is about laying narrative groundwork for legislation, about branding legislation simply and boldly, about selling it and standing behind it. All of those are things the administration needs to do better.
But there's a piece here that Obama is still missing: Leadership is also listening.
Not just "persuading people" and "making an argument that people can understand." But listening to what they have to say, so that you pursue the legislation they want in the first place, and so you don't fall into the trap (over and over and fucking over) of assuming that a lack of support is axiomatically down to people being too goddamned stupid to understand your sophisticated and awesome legislation.
Sometimes people fail to support you because they do understand the legislation and don't like it.
And there's still no evidence that reality is penetrating the rampart of arrogance that has been built around this White House.
Because they still aren't listening.
Great leaders listen. Hard.
Obama's a great talker, but he's a terrible listener. And he still doesn't even seem to realize that's a problem. He'll never be a great leader until he does.
In August, Shaker Andy wrote a guest post about the campaign "directed at Stonewall, the UK's, and indeed Europe's, largest LGB lobbying organisation" to advocate for marriage equality.
Gay lobbying charity Stonewall says it will campaign for lesbian and gay couples to have civil marriages in the UK.
...In a statement posted on its website, the group said: "Stonewall is pleased to be widening its campaigning objectives to include extending the legal form of marriage to gay people. We seek to secure marriage for gay people as a civil vehicle on the same basis as heterosexual marriage, available in a registry office but without a mandate on religious organisations to celebrate it."
Huzzah! As Andy says, "Now we can get on with the real work of, you know, actually campaigning for same-sex marriage." Which, naturally, will be easier with the UK's biggest gay rights organization on board.
Description: Video I shot with my camera phone of the annual Halloween Lantern Parade at Patterson Park in Baltimore last Saturday. The theme of the festivities this year was "Grow!", hence the giant, glowing gourd leading the parade. Note the giant Día de los Muertos skeletons at around the three-an-a-half minute mark!
Senator Murray is a progressive ally on many issues, and, most importantly, is a strong women's advocate in the Senate where there are vanishingly few vocal advocates for women. (Check out her pro-choice ratings.) It would have been a terrible loss for women if she'd been defeated, and her reelection is a huge relief.
Just a harmless sport: "A greyhound trainer is facing a charge of animal cruelty and may face additional charges as the investigation into the deaths of at least 20 dogs at Ebro Greyhound Park continues. ... It is not immediately known exactly how many dogs died or when and how it happened. Officials have said they are waiting on necropsy results, but the complaint that triggered the investigation was spawned by underweight dogs being turned over to Greyhound Pets of America."
If there's anyone in the NWI/Chicagoland area who's interested in fostering or adopting a greyhound, email me. Our rescue currently has over three dozen retired greyhounds in foster care or in the "2nd Chance at Life" prison program, all of which are awaiting adoption, and the more that are adopted, and the more homes opened up to foster, the more dogs that can be rescued.
If you're in another location, go here to find out about rescues in your area.
There are a lot of tracks closing right now, because of the economy, which means a lot of dogs are being retired. But that's only a good thing if they've got somewhere to go.
If you thought this post was hyperbole, watch this Bill Moyers speech, delivered at Boston University on October 29, 2010, as a part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series. A complete transcript of his speech is here. The Harper's article he recommends is here.
[If the video embed doesn't work for you, you can watch it here.]
I really cannot encourage you to watch/read this speech strongly enough. This is what's happening in the US. This is what you need to know and understand about our system, and what it means for our future.
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.]
So, Iain and I have been watching Law & Order: UK on BBC America, because, for evident reasons, US-UK mash-ups are rather popular at Shakes Manor.
It's actually quite a good show, and it's fun to see how some of the early episodes of the original Law & Order have been Britishized for a UK (and anglophile) audience.
One of the interesting things I've noticed about the show is its fat people.
Notably, it has them.
Particularly fat women. You can always find a fat guy or two in the US version—"Casting call for portly Italian to play butcher on national crime drama"—but fat women are few and far between, and, when they do show up, they are fat not because Fat People Exist, but because fat is routinely used as a lazy shorthand to convey negative attributes to American audiences.
"You can tell she's a bad mother instantly because she's FAT and wearing unstylish clothes!"—The writers of Law & Order. Etc.
But on Law & Order: UK, fat women are just another part of the population. Across four episodes, I've seen a fat female cop, a fat female witness, a fat female attorney, and a fat female forensics analyst (and possibly some I'm forgetting), all of whom were fat for no other reason than because Fat People Exist.
And not inbetweenie fat—not "Bridget Jones" fat. But actually fat. Like me kinda fat.
It was remarkable to see these women on my television. Which is terribly sad, really. That shouldn't be remarkable, since the existence of fat women (and men), even in New York, is not remarkable.
I felt good seeing women who look like me in a show I was watching.
And then I felt bad, thinking about all the reasons I have so few opportunities to see women who look like me, and so many women I adore, in US-made entertainment, except as cautionary tales and punchlines.
Or, if you're more into fish, rays at the National Aquarium, Baltimore:
[Note: The video descriptions are as described. In the first, Potter the cat runs around the backyard. In the second, fish and rays swim around a tank at the aquarium.]
A few days back Liss laid down an [TW: body policing] epic post about the way in which people police themselves and each other against the perception that they eat a culturally inappropriate amount of ground beef. Having a body (particularly a female body that eats food) is a good way to disappoint strangers.
Two of my favorite ways to disappoint strangers who should really mind their own business are being queer and having a child. Gender non-conformance (and/or transsexuality and/or GLBQ-ishness) will get you some lectures and stern looks. If you have a kid, you've also probably experienced other people's disappointment, ranging from your doing pregnancy wrong to 'your kid does/doesn't do what for a living'?!? If you've decided not to have a kid, you've probably been lectured on that, too.
Thus enters the story of Boo and Cop's Wife, currently making the rounds on the internet.
Cop's Wife's child, Boo, is 5. This Halloween, Boo dressed up as Daphne, from Scooby Doo. Lots of kids dress up as lots of things, right? However, since folks are assuming that Boo is Cop's Wife's son, it wasn't that straight-forward. :sigh:
Boo was scared. Cop's Wife was supportive. Therefore, other moms chose to lecture Cop's Wife. She was [TW: homo/transphobia, ableism] having none of it.
Maude bless parents who get it. Parenting is not easy, nor is gender non-conformance. A 5 year-old dressing as Daphne is a 5 year-old dressing as Daphne. (I would have gone for Velma, but it's none of my business either). As Boo's mother said, maybe Boo's gay, maybe not. What matters is that zie rocked the orange wig.
Human rights experts have long pressed the administration of former president George W. Bush for details of who bore ultimate responsibility for approving the simulated drownings of CIA detainees, a practice that many international legal experts say was illicit torture.
In a memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.
[Image: A sign for Park Central Presbyterian that reads Sunday 10:30 am, Holy Ping Pong. There's also a website, and if you go to the website you can see that it's actually the title of this Sunday's sermon about God and life, but it's my camera, and do I look like I care? No, I don't.]
I hear The Lutherans play holy table tennis. Do not mess with The Lutherans.
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - NOVEMBER 04: The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton receives a Hongi (Maori Greeting) during a welcome ceremony at Parliament on November 4, 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand. Hillary Clinton is on a three day visit to New Zealand as part of a tour of the Asia Pacific region, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua-New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. [Getty Images]
I love this picture so hard.
(If any Kiwis can tell me who the woman in the photo with Clinton is, I'll add her name to the post.)
Clinton is pictured in the photo with Rose White–Tahupārae, Kaumatua of Parliament. (Thanks to Shakers The Bald Soprano and decodevo in comments.)
Since actor Charlie Sheen had a headline-making stay at the Plaza in New York and confirming that he's heading back to divorce court, ratings for Sheen's CBS hit "Two and a Half Men" have gone up.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show saw a 7 percent increase for Monday's episode, with 13.6 million tuning in.
Sure. Why wouldn't people tune in to see a self-destructive, violent, misogynist, racist, privileged jackass in a hilarious! sitcom the scripts for which are written with farts from the 1950s?
"Hey, Minerva—you read about this naked cocaine-face who held a woman hostage in his hotel room bathroom? Turns out he's got a sitcom. I gotta check that out!"
I know it's early, but I'm reasonably confident that nothing will be more deserving of the title than this piece of shit: Letter to a whiny young Democrat.
You know, just last week I was talking to a young friend of mine, a 21-year-old straight, white, cis man who knew going into the 2008 election that much of Obama's Hope and Change rhetoric was just that, but was still excited to cast a vote for him and was optimistic about his presidency. Two years later, he's profoundly disillusioned, not because he hasn't been paying attention or doesn't understand how politics work, but because he has and he does.
He's paid attention to the way Obama has governed, and to the hippie-punching. And—surprise!—after the Obama administration's strategy of alienating progressive voters (of any age) with not-progressive policies and contempt for the Democratic base, my young friend feels alienated. Huh.
And given that Obama was elected on the back of a promise to "change the way Washington works," and now he and his staff openly admit they were arrogant to believe they could do that, and have failed, why the fuck is anyone getting blamed for being disillusioned? His most significant campaign promise was made with foolish bombast. Blaming the people who believed him, particularly young liberals whose entire experience with politics had been the grim horror of the Bush administration and were longing desperately for something better, seems entirely misplaced.
And, frankly, as an experienced political observer who had no illusions about the nature of this president, but was eminently willing to give him a chance, I'm still disappointed with what he's done.
So scolding political n00bs for (alleged) apathy when they've been demonstrably let down is just seven layers of bullshit.
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