[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!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Dudley's Goofyloungers with extra leg room.
A Blog Around The Clock: Are you going to listen to someone today?
PalMD: Listening
Maud Newton: Stop the clocks: how Twain celebrated Thanksgiving
Geek Feminism Blog: From comments: women in science, their history as told by… men?
Hadas Shema: Who writes health news?
FemaleScienceProfessor: Novel Retraction
Ideas in Food: Pumpkin Noodles
Share your links in comments!
Daily Dose o' Cute
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...peek-a-boo!
So You Think You Can Launder
Tom Delay, aspiring dancing star and professional criminal, was officially convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit said laundering. "The Hammer" could be facing quite a long stay in the big house:
Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge. [...] Judge Pat Priest has wide discretion in sentencing the former majority leader, who was known as “The Hammer” for his no-holds-barred style during 20 years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Delay could be sentenced from 2 years to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy count, and from 5 years to 99 years, or life in prison, for the money-laundering count.Damn those activist judges.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Dolphins Rule
CNN correspondent Randi Kaye visits the Baltimore Aquarium to watch dolphins check themselves out in a mirror—and it's pretty much the most adorable thing ever.
[Transcript below.]
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spend a day with a dolphin and you're quickly reminded of why they've always captured our imaginations. They are playful, sociable, and just incredibly fun to be around. But scientists say there's a lot more to these animals and they're just beginning to understand the intricate thinking of these so-called big-brain mammals.
KAYE (on camera): Here you go, Nani (ph). Good girl!
We came here to the Baltimore Aquarium to see just how intelligent dolphins are. You see them playing with their trainers all the time. But scientists who study them say there's a lot more happening there than just play. That their intelligence actually rivals ours.
Here you go.
KAYE (voice-over): To see up close what has scientists so excited, we climbed down into a tiny underwater lab with a window into the aquarium, where scientist Diana Reiss puts a two-way mirror up against the glass. The dolphins can't see us, but Reiss can study how the dolphins react to the mirror.
DIANA REISS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: We used to think we were the only species on the planet that could think. And now we know that we're amongst many thinking species. So the questions are no longer can they think, but how do they think? And what's amazing is, in this capacity, with giving them mirrors, it looks like they're doing a lot of things very similar to us.
KAYE: Reiss has been studying dolphins' behavior for 25 years.
REISS: Most animals don't even pay attention to mirrors. So if you put a mirror in front of your dog, most dogs won't even look in a mirror. Cats don't pay much attention. Other animals do pay attention but never figure out it's themselves. They think it's another of their own kind.
KAYE: But dolphins do figure it out.
REISS: And not only do they figure out that it's them, but they show interest to look at themselves. So one thing is to understand it's themselves, it's a whole other thing to say I want to look at myself. I want to see what my face looks like or what does it look like when I turn upside down and blow a bubble.
KAYE: We saw in awe as this group of dolphins explored themselves before us, unable to ignore the mirror. Several did hang upside down.
REISS: He's upside down. He keeps on doing that. He's going to get wild now. He's being very innovative. Watch this. (INAUDIBLE) show.
KAYE: Other dolphins opened their mouths and stuck their tongue out. They put their eye on the mirror to get an even closer look.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Not convinced yet? Wait until you see some of the other experiments. We're watching dolphins in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Have you ever watched your pets when they see their reflection in a window? What do they do? They usually slap it, right? They think it's another animal. But what about dolphins? Our Randi Kaye has been checking their reactions under water.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Take a look at this video of an earlier experiment from 2001. Scientists mark this dolphin on the side with a black pen, but did not mark the other. When released, the dolphin with the mark swims directly to the mirror and turns the mark towards the mirror, like he's trying to take a look at what's been done to him. The unmarked dolphin doesn't show the same behavior.
Dolphins aren't the only big-brain mammals who recognize themselves. Elephants do too. Watch what happens when Reiss tested them at the Bronx Zoo. This one with a white x marked on his face turns towards the mirror, over and over, to take a look.
Back at the Baltimore Aquarium, Reiss is now focusing her research on younger dolphins.
REISS: Bo is five.
KAYE: Just like human children, younger dolphins make lots of movements and watch their reflection. They quickly learn they are watching themselves.
KAYE (on camera): What are you trying to figure out with the younger dolphins?
REISS: So we're trying to figure out at what age, at what developmental age do they start figuring out that it's them in the mirror? And when are they showing interest in the mirror?
KAYE (voice-over): Foster, who is three, started recognizing himself in the mirror about the same time toddlers do, when he was about a year and a half. Reiss says some dolphins pick up on it at just six months, much earlier than children.
REISS: This is Spirit. Now Spirit's testing this. She's still figuring this out. And what's funny is, we recognize this because it's so similar to what kids do, what chimps do. It's amazing. And they go through the same stages. These are animals that have been separated from us for 95 million years of evolution. Big brains, processing things in similar ways.
KAYE: With a mirror providing a window into the dolphin's mind, Reiss believe she is discovering that their super high levels of intelligence are in many ways much like our own. And if that's true, the question is, what does that tell us?
REISS: In the end, what this tells us is that we need to look at these animals in a new light with a new respect and really provide much more protection in terms of conservation efforts and welfare efforts for these animals. And also appreciate that we're not at the top anymore. We're not alone. We're surrounded by other intelligence.
KAYE (on camera): Oh, wow. So smooth. She's beautiful.
KAYE (voice-over): Remember the old saying, that it always seems like dolphins are smiling at you. Well, maybe they are.
Korea Crisis Round-Up
Christian Science Monitor—North Korea says on 'brink of war' as US, South Korea prepare for military exercises: "Officials in North Korea have warned that they are on the brink of war with the South, as the United States and South Korea prepare to conduct a joint training exercise in the Yellow Sea."
Washington Post—Many in LA's Koreatown decry island attack: "Residents in the bustling Los Angeles sector that is the largest Korean enclave in the United States are decrying the North Korean attack on a South Korean island as they phone relatives for updates from the country many once called home."
Korea Times—Parties diverge over approach to NK:
A day after adopting a bipartisan resolution denouncing North Korea for its deadly attack on Yeonpyeong Island, ruling and opposition legislators sparred Friday over the "right" North Korea policy.New York Times—South Korea Reassesses Its Defenses After Attack: "Responding to growing public criticism after a deadly North Korean attack, President Lee Myung-bak accepted the resignation of his defense minister on Thursday and announced changes in the military's rules of engagement to make it easier for South Korea to strike back with greater force, especially if civilians are threatened."
Speaking at an extended party meeting, Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said "The Lee Myung-bak administration is incapable in terms of security, with no ability to adequately prepare for and respond to a North Korean attack." He added that, "War can never be the solution, and we should follow the way of peace. There is no better security than peace."
Rep. Chung Dong-young, a member of the DP's Supreme Council, said that "The attack on Yeonpyeong Island has proven that the Sunshine Policy is the best policy for ensuring peace on the Korean Peninsula." Chung urged the government to shift its North Korea policy.
The DP is affiliated with the late former President Kim Dae-jung who was the architect behind the Sunshine Policy of engaging the North. Despite the bipartisan resolution on North Korea, the main opposition party has consistently been critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's relatively hard-line stance toward the North.
The ruling opposition Grand National Party (GNP) responded to the DP's criticisms. Rep. Kim Moo-sung, the GNP floor leader said, "We are in a quasi-state of war, and we should be united in what steps we will be taking next."
CNN—S. Korea names new defense minister amid war rhetoric from the North:
South Korea named a new defense minister Friday to replace the official who resigned Thursday amid heavy criticism due to North Korea's sinking of a warship in March and Tuesday's deadly shelling of an inhabited island.A CNN crew were the first western journalists to visit Yeonpyeong Island and examine the destruction.
South Korea's government nominated Kim Kwan Jin as defense minister, a Blue House media official told CNN.
The National Assembly will hold a confirmation hearing before Kim formally takes office.
Former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, a former general, resigned after coming under heavy criticism for the sinking of the South Korean war ship Cheonan and again after North Korea struck Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday.
The appointment comes amid continued war rhetoric from North Korea, which said Friday that South Korea and the United States are recklessly pushing the Korean peninsula toward war by scheduling a joint military drill for this weekend.
"The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again the war exercises targeted against [North Korea] in wake of the grave military provocation they perpetrated against the territorial waters of [the North Korean] side in the West Sea," said the North's official KCNA news agency.
Your Morning TSA Security Round-Up
[Trigger warning for general harm.]
If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't be worried about enhanced security screening, right? RIGHT?!
TSA Groin Searches Menstruating Woman—"I was subjected to search so invasive that I was left crying and dealing with memories that I thought had been dealt with years ago of prior sexual assaults. Why? Because of my flannel panty-liner. These new scans are so horrible that if you are wearing something unusual (like a piece of cloth on your panties) then you will be subjected to a search where a woman repeatedly has to check your 'groin' while another woman watches on (two in my case - they were training in a new girl - awesome). So please, please, tell the ladies not to wear their liners at the airport (I didn't even have an insert in). I'm a strong, confident woman; I'm an Army vet (which is why those camo liners crack me up), I work full-time and go to graduate school full-time, I have a wonderful husband, and I don't take any nonsense from anyone. I don't dramatize, and I don't exaggerate. I'm trying to give you a sense of who I am so you won't think that this is a plea for attention, or a jumping on the bandwagon about the recent TSA proposed boycott. I just don't want another woman to have to go through the 'patting down' because she didn't know that her glad-rag would be a matter of national security."
Christian Science Monitor—For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing':
“Any type of violation of physical boundaries can set back a rape survivor in their treatment, in their therapy, in their recovery,” says [Dr. Amy Menna, a counselor and professor at the University of South Florida who has a decade’s experience researching and treating rape survivors].GSLfa—How the TSA policies impact transgender travelers, from the National Center for Transgender Equality: "First, it is important that you KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. Even if TSA personnel are not always familiar with travelers' rights, such as the right to decline a full-body scan, you should know them. You may need to politely inform the officer of your rights and choices.
“There’s a lack of sensitivity to individuals’ emotional states when undergoing this public violation,” she adds, citing the dismissive brusqueness of the procedure.
Many passengers don't know – and aren’t informed – that they have the right to a private screening, or to have another person present at that private screening.
“Know your rights,” Menna says, “and make sure they are not violated.”
CNN—Shooting video at a TSA checkpoint? Here's what you should know: "As Americans fly to and from Thanksgiving holiday gatherings this week, some travelers -- anxious about their rights at airport security checkpoints -- may try to follow Tyner's lead and video their TSA encounters. Is that legal? It depends."
Gothamist—Guy Shows Up in Boxers As Fliers Opt Out Of Opt-Out Day: "I wore my underwear to remind all the people who submit to security procedures that they have options besides blind compliance."
Thanksgiving
Things will be pretty quiet around here today and tomorrow, since it's the Thanksgiving weekend in the US.
To everyone who is marking Thanksgiving...Happy Thanksgiving!
To everyone who is not...Happy Thursday!
On this day, I recommend (re)reading Renee's great guest post, "What Are We Really Giving Thanks For?"
And on this day, I would also like to say that I am thankful for you, Shakers.
Question of the Day
If you were to have the good fortune of an admired singer/songwriter/lyricist offering to compose/sing a song just for you, by whom would that offer be made?
(If hearing impaired Shakers, or anyone else, would prefer to answer what poet they would chose to write a poem just for them, please feel free to modify.)
America 2.0
Glenn Greenwald: Anatomy of a journalistic smear job.
And therein lies the most odious premise in this smear piece: anyone who doesn't quietly, meekly and immediately submit to Government orders and invasions -- or anyone who stands up to government power and challenges it -- is inherently suspect. Just as the establishment-worshiping, political-power-defending Ruth Marcus taught us today in The Washington Post, objecting to what the Government is doing here is just immature and ungrateful; mature, psychologically healthy people shut up and submit. That's how you prove that you're a normal, responsible, upstanding good citizen: by not making waves, doing what you're told, declaring yourself a loyal Republican or Democrat and then cheering for your team, and -- most of all -- accepting in the name of Fear that you must suffer indignities, humiliations and always-increasing loss of liberties at the hands of unchallengeable functionaries of the state.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Trigger warning for TSA enhanced screening references.]
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.]
Just a Big Misunderstanding
by Shaker RedSonja
[Trigger warning for stalking, controlling suitor, general menace.]
This link popped up in my Facebook feed today from Kate Harding. It's the story of a poor, misunderstood dude who, after what appears to be single coffee date, felt entitled to "check up" on a woman after she declined his offer of a dinner date. With a concealed loaded gun.
On Nov. 17th, Thomas Hackbarth parked outside a Planned Parenthood clinic after hours and got out of his car with a gun tucked into the waistband of his pants. Unsurprisingly, the Planned Parenthood security guard called the police. Imagine their surprise at this story:
He said Tuesday that he is not familiar with the Highland Park area and didn't know he was at Planned Parenthood when he pulled into the empty lot so that he could look for a woman he had met online.Who the hell decides that, after meeting someone for coffee, you are immediately entitled—nay, obligated—to make sure that she's not with another man?! Oh, stalkery entitled douchebags with unchecked privilege and no sense of boundaries who believe that women are their property and have no respect for their autonomy, that's who!
Hackbarth said he had coffee with the woman on Nov. 15, and asked her to dinner the next night but she told him she couldn't because of a commitment she had with a female friend in Highland Park. Hackbarth said he felt that she might have been seeing a man instead, so he parked his car and walked around the block looking for her car.
…"I was not a jealous boyfriend," said Hackbarth, who is in the process of divorcing his wife of 25 years. "I was just trying to check up on her. It's totally a misunderstanding."
Hackbarth [who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon] said that he always carries his fully loaded gun, and understands why the security guard was alarmed.
While stalking is frightening enough, the loaded gun makes this even scarier. Hackbarth does have a permit for concealed carry, so his actions weren't illegal. But since he began his controlling behavior immediately after meeting this woman, I'm skeptical of his ability to shrug off this event—and, from his twisted perspective, her "lie"—without having a douchetantrum of massive proportions. When guys like this escalate, altercations easily become fatal with the addition of a loaded gun to the mix.
I sincerely hope this woman has a strong support system around her, as I would be terrified at the moment. And IANAL, but I'm guessing that this story alone isn't enough to get an order of protection, despite its being full of more red flags than a World Cup final. Which says something about our society—a man admittedly stalking a woman to check up on her with a loaded weapon isn't cause enough to make him legally stay away. Ugh.
Oh, by the way: Thomas Hackbarth is an eight-term Minnesota state legislator. Are you terribly surprised to find out he's an anti-choice Republican? Smelling salts for everyone, please!
The 100 Books
The origin of this meme is, to quote one source, "murky and mysterious". I got it from some reliable friends who both say it is a list that the BBC says "most people will have read only six of the 100 books" listed below.
I could get really picky and say that since the entire Harry Potter canon is included, all you have to do is read those seven books and you're ahead. There also seem to be some redundancies; how can you list The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and Hamlet and count them separately? The same with The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I also quibble with the inclusion of the entire Harry Potter series and only one of the Arthur Ransome books, but that's me. They're are all fiction, which is why they included The Bible and left off A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
I have no idea what the criterion was for the selection process; certainly it wasn't the quality of the writing or else they wouldn't have included such crap as The DaVinci Code. (If so, my respect for the BBC is destroyed.) I'm guessing it's based on popularity and sales. But then, there are some books on here I've never heard of, and I consider myself to be fairly well-read.
Anyway, Open Wide for the list.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
I came up with about 40. How did you do?
2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: Dudley comes upstairs and gets startled by Sophie, then play-bows at her to try to get her to play.
(Erm, I don't usually leave Pepsi cans on the floor. I didn't know that was there. Embarrassing!)
As always, still pix of the whole crew below the fold (on most browsers)...
Olivia
Sophie
Matilda
Dudley
The Overton Window: Chapter Twenty-Nine
Remember last chapter? The one where Noah woke up? Yeah, thrilling stuff, huh? In this chapter, there is three times the action! I'll just sum it up before we get started, in case you feel like skipping ahead.
First, Bailey sets his watch. Then he sends an email. And finally Kearns puts the cat out.
Seriously.
I think I've figured out why this book is called a page-turner. It's keeping me intrigued. Not in the usual sense, mind you, that one would apply to a thriller. I am not soldiering on to see what happens next. I keep reading to see if anything happens next.
I am tempted just to skip this chapter myself, but duty compels me to give you all the lowdown, as it were. Do people still say "lowdown"? Or did that go out of fashion when Starsky & Hutch was cancelled?
For a man so worldly and knowledgeable, Bailey is ignorant of time zones:
"What time zone is Nevada?" Danny called out toward the trailer's kitchenette. His watch was a Rolex knockoff and it wasn't easy to reset, so whenever he was traveling he always put off messing with it for as long as possible. This, however, was shaping up to be a day when he'd need to know the time.
I guess knowing the time is good if you're going to sell a nuke to terrorists? Maybe? Okay. Duly noted.
They'd both overslept a bit and now there was a rush to get on the road. To add to the tension Kearns had said he'd been unable to reach his FBI contact the night before, and this morning he'd received a rather cryptic e-mail from their new terrorist brethren.
Do you feel that? The tension? Yeah, it's there. It says so right in the text. It's tense. Because they overslept. And they are going to be late for
About that cryptic email:
The message had been from the missing man, the one named Elmer. There was to be another meeting this afternoon, the real meeting this time, at which the weapon would be exchanged for the money, and some final brainstorming would take place on the eve of tomorrow's planned bombing in downtown Las Vegas. The rendezvous was set for 5 p.m., out somewhere in the desert so far from civilization that only a latitude and longitude were provided as a guide to get there.
I guess the meeting in the desert is the cryptic part? Just points on the GPS. I hope Kearns has a spare GPS. Because his other one is strapped to a bomb! If not, they're going to have to stop by Radio Shack.
And in case you forgot this is faction, check this out: "Between the two of them Danny was more capable on the computer, so it had been entrusted to him to plan the route to this remote location through a visit to MapQuest." Mapquest! For authenticity! That's what all terrorists use. And soccer moms. Are there still soccer moms? Anyone know?
Also, did you note that the man in charge of a vast internet-based sting operation is not all that computer savvy? Oh, that can't be good. That can't be good writing, I mean. Though, that is in line with him being a sorry agent all the way around:
While Kearns was in the bathroom Danny had logged on to his favorite anonymous e-mailing site and fired off a quick text update to his staff in Chicago, with a copy to Molly and a short list of other trusted compatriots:
* FYI ONLY DO NOT FORWARD DELETE AFTER READING *
Big mtg today, Monday PM, southern
Nevada. If you don't hear from me by
Wednesday I'm probably dead*, and this is
where to hunt for the body:
Lat 37°39'54.35"N Long 116°56'31.48"W
> S T A Y A W A Y from Nevada TFN < * I wish I was kidding
Kearns has let Bailey off the proverbial leash long enough now to get out text messages and emails? And this is the guy standing between Harry Reid's office and a nuclear bomb? Between five yokels and the largest act of terrorism the U.S. has ever suffered?
And Bailey has a staff? Does Double Rainbow guy have a staff too? I guess someone has to hold the camera when you're making Youtube videos. Sounds a little... what's the word? Not-boot-strappy? Don't tell me Bailey is a dilettante. Is that the right word? And why the hell is this chapter inspiring so many questions? Nevermind.
Bailey and Kearns load up the bomb again, and Bailey settles into "the shotgun seat."
Kearns appeared a minute or so later, but when he was halfway out to the vehicle he stopped and lightly smacked himself on the forehead as though something important had almost slipped his mind. He turned back and hurried to the front door of the trailer, unlocked it and held it open, called inside, and gestured for half a minute until that moth-eaten cat appeared and scampered past him out into the barren yard. Then Agent Kearns knelt and filled an inverted hubcap with water from the hose and set it carefully near the stairs, in a spot where it would stay cool in the shade for most of the day.
And that is that. The watch, the email, the cat. Yay for chapter twenty-nine.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for rape apologia and disregard for consent, autonomy, respect, and dignity.]
Approximately 97 million people (that's just rough estimate, and thanks to each of you) have sent me the link to a rather editorially curious piece at Jezebel, "American Guy in Paris Freed from the Idea of 'Consent'", in which a fella details how much more awesome Parisian women are because they are empowered by being groped. No, I'm not being funny:
Having just returned from living in Paris, I feel more convinced than ever that America gets many things wrong about sex. Right there near the top of the list is our attachment to the idea of consent.I'll just briefly note, then swiftly file away under "No Doy," the fact that our French female readers do not express any less interest in the concept of consent than do female readers from other countries.
In Paris, it seems as if the straight male attitude toward consent is that it doesn't exist. At clubs, bars, bistros, in the street or on the Metro, Parisian men lobby very aggressively for sex. At the clubs in the 8ème, off the Champs-Élysées, and all along Rue de Rivoli, it is fairly common to watch men literally grab and touch the girls who weave through the crowd.
...Parisian women seem to derive a feminist power from this chauvinism that makes them come across as strong, self-determining, and completely aware of themselves as permanent objects of desire. And drunk or sober, it seems Parisian women get exactly what they want while their men, if rejected, are left to hammer doggedly away at other targets. It's anybody's guess whether the Parisians are more sexually satisfied by this arrangement, but one thing seems sure: Parisian women seem empowered by it. They make the decisions.
In America, by contrast, the discourse on consent impresses upon us all, men and women alike, that sex is something more important than a decision.
Beyond that, my reaction can be accurately, if succinctly, summed up thus:
UPDATE: Also see Sady.
