As promised, here is a dedicated thread to continue to discuss news and updates on yesterday's shooting in Arizona, in which Rep. Gabi Giffords was shot, along with at least a dozen other people.
[COMMENTING GUIDELINES: Speculation about Loughner's mental state and general commentary about mental illness are OFF-TOPIC for this thread. Reading the entire thread before commenting is required.
Please also note that mods will attend the thread as swiftly as we are able. In the event that someone tries to start a flamewar and no mods are around, refusing to engage with deliberate provocateurs is the best thing you can do to maintain the thread until a mod arrives.]
Open Thread: News & Updates on Arizona Shooting
Open Thread
Hosted by a horseshoe.
This weeks' open threads have been brought to you by symbols of good luck.
Best of luck to you all in the new year!
Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot and killed wounded
UPDATE: According to MSNBC: A hospital spokesperson just said that she is alive, in surgery, and in critical condition. Nine others are also in critical or serious condition.
UPDATE 2: [by Liss] Giffords' surgeon says that she has come through surgery, and that he is optimistic for her recovery. !!!
UPDATE 3: [by Liss] Giffords is reportedly conscious and responsive, following directions, which is excellent news (though she is by no means out of the woods yet). The suspect in the shooting is in police custody and has been identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, reportedly a veteran of the Afghanistan War. The gun, a Glock 9mm, has been recovered from the scene. Five or six people are dead, including one nine-year-old child. Ten to twelve more are in critical condition.
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Six other people who were shot were also killed. Earlier reports say nine people had also been injured--no word on the conditions of the surviving three people. Via NPR:
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six others died after a gunman opened fire at a public event on Saturday, the Pima County, Ariz., sheriff's office confirms. The 40-year-old Democrat was outside a Tucson grocery store when a gunman ran up and began firing indiscriminately. The suspect was taken into police custody.The Tucson Citizen apparently reported that she was "shot point blank in the head". Their site has been down since that was reported. There is no word yet about the gunman's motives.
Perhaps worth noting, is that Sarah Palin put Rep. Giffords on her infamous "target map" last September:
In a website launched on Thursday, the six-month anniversary of the health care law, Palin puts a bull's-eye on 20 House districts under a headline that reads, "We've diagnosed the problem…Help us prescribe the solution."This rhetoric may or may not be related, directly or not, to the events of today. It's certainly interesting, though.
HuffPo is continually updating the story as it happens.
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!
Extra Credit
Shaker GoldFishy just emailed the following question to me, which I am posting with his permission since I don't have the answer (and am now curious for the answer, too!):
I'm sure there's a term for an instance where one hears/reads the same somewhat unusual word multiple times in short order (hearing the word "perseverate" three times in one day, for instance…). Do you happen to know what it is?I'm fairly certain I've actually heard the word/phrase for this particular type of coincidence before, but I can't call it to mind.
Shakers?
2012
Rudy Giuliani Considering Second White House Run.
Absolutely.
Bachmann for President? 'I'm Going to Iowa – There's Your Answer'.
Yup.
This is all going to go great.
Daily Dose of Cute
This is an old video, shot in 2004, the day we brought Olivia home, or maybe the day after:
[Video Description: Olivia, then a tiny kitten, hops all around a cardboard animal carrier, sticking her paws in the air-holes and generally being annoying. After a few moments, while Livs isn't paying attention, Matilda sneaks out one side of the box, in which she'd been hiding, and slinks away undetected.]
For those who don't know the story, Olivia came to us one morning on our way to work, many years ago when Iain and I worked at the same place. I was driving that morning, and, as is not unusual in our exurban area, we were following a truck towing a big piece of farm equipment.
Halfway to work, two kittens tumbled off the trailer. One ran off like a shot into the field abutting the road. The other ran under our car, and I felt the dull thud as a rear wheel ran over it, killing it. Tears. I was driving and sobbing; Iain was reassuring me it wasn't my fault.
We turned from the country road onto the highway, and had just accelerated to full speed when a third kitten came flying off the trailer, hitting the pavement and bouncing back into the air before landing in the verge. I pulled over and Iain ran into the long grass and collected the wee thing, running back to the car clutching her against his chest. His sweater was covered in blood.
I drove to our vet. The little grey kitten's paws were scraped and her chin was badly hurt. We left her in their capable hands and went to work.
At the end of the day, we went to the vet to check on the kitten and pay the bill. We didn't intend to adopt her. They told us she'd come through her surgery fine; they'd given her a chin implant to replace the smooshed bone, stitched her up, and, when she'd come to, she immediately went to her bowl and started munching on hard food like nothing had happened. When we arrived, she gave us this look, like, "Hey! I remember you! Whuzzup?!" She was a character. We couldn't let her go.
We took her home and cleaned her up. Turns out she was white under all that dirt.
Iain noted that she'd had a rather Dickensian start, being a filthy little orphan and all. I proposed calling her Olivia Twist.
"Got any treats?"
Number of the Day
43.2 Million: The number of Usians receiving food stamps.
The number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to a record 43.2 million in October as the jobless rate stayed near a 27-year high, the government said.Let them eat
Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 15 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.7 percent from September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a statement on its website. Participation has set records for 23 straight months.
Film Corner
[Trigger warning for misogyny, dehumanization, implied violence.]
So, Jennifer Aniston is in yet another movie evidently produced by Backlash Productions: Just Go With It, an "an uncredited remake" of Cactus Flower, is the story of a man [Adam Sandler] who "enlists the help of a woman and her kids to land the woman of his dreams."
Gee, let me guess: His co-conspirator turns out to be the REAL woman of his dreams. Negative one billion biebers for hackiness and predictability.
If only hackiness and predictability were the only problems with virtually every Jennifer Aniston film ever. Nope. Bring on the anti-feminism!
Below the fold (in most browsers) is the first poster released in support of the film.
Here, we see Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler sitting on the beach fist-bumping each other, sealing the deal in which she'll help him "land the woman of his dreams." In the background, her bikini-clad back turned to the camera, is, presumably, said dream woman.
But take a closer look at the way their fists are positioned as they bump. Shaker Eileen notes via email: "They appear to be about to pull apart the model's legs, like a turkey wishbone. This might take some kind of prize as the subtlest version of violence against women in movie posters that I've ever seen, but it still definitely suggests a violent act."
This is not a coincidence. The entire premise of the movie is that Sandler has enlisted Aniston's help to get laid, and here is the visual representation of the two of them working together to pry apart a woman's legs.
Ghastly.
Not to let Adam Sandler off the hook, he not only stars in the film, but serves as a producer. (Happy Madison Productions is also responsible for such gems as the Deuce Bigalow series, The House Bunny, and The Hot Chick.) One would have hoped that after he had two daughters, he'd be interested in making films that aren't steeped in violent misogyny, but apparently not!
Jennifer Aniston (and Adam Sandler, for that matter) can afford to not care about perpetuating a culture of inequality and violence against women. But I've gotten about a dozen violent threats this week alone—more violent threats than donations. What am I supposed to do? What are all the women like me supposed to do? The women who can't afford the best private security money can buy...?
Aniston can afford to not care about that, too, I guess.
[Previously in Jennifer Aniston is the Worst: Shouldn't What's Best for Your Uterus Really Be Left to a Man to Decide?, That's Entertainment!, Sigh, Texting! With Liss and Deeky!, Quote of the Day, Film Corner!, Great News from the S.S. Sarcasm, Insert the Sound of Wild Laughter Here.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Romantic films put too much pressure on guys?
It's hard to pick what the worst quote of the piece is, but I'm gonna go with this one:
"Molten," apparently a very fastidious fellow, wrote that he would have answered, "Yes, if you will clean it from floor to roof and wall to wall every day for the rest of your life."Fastidious. Misogynist. Tomato. Tomahto.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky W. Gashlycrumb's newest fragrance, Buttered Popcorn for homme.
Recommended Reading:
rikyrah: One Day In, and the GOP is Already Disenfranchising People of Color
Sady: Why I Didn't Delete Tiger Beatdown [TW for sexual violence, threats, harassment]
Charli: Actually, We Don't Know How Many Civilians Are Dying in Drone Strikes.
Joel: The Agonizing Last Words of Programmer Bill Zeller [TW for suicide and sexual violence; this link is extremely difficult to read, but important. More on Bill here.]
scatx: Oh, Science – What's Your Point?
Andy: GLBT History Museum Opens in San Francisco's Castro District
Renee: Zora Neale Hurston Biography
Strumpet: 32nd Down Under Feminists Carnival
Leave your links in comments...
Ugh, Joe Biden, Shut Up
During the Congressional swearing-in ceremony, Vice President Joe Biden was on hand to greet new members and pose for pictures and other stand-here-and-smile-and-hope-the-president-doesn't-die duties, and every time a daughter, niece, grand-daughter, or whatever young female relation was introduced to him, he made the same joke: "No dates/no men until you're 30." Har har.
[Video Description: Just scene after scene of Vice President Joe Biden meeting little girls and young women, and saying some variation on "No dates/men until you're 30," followed by family members laughing politely.]
Apart from the fact that Biden's a hack, and a hetercentrist hack at that, and the fact that there is a distinct (and creepy) difference between making that horrible garbage joke to a little girl and a woman who is in her 20s (especially while you're sort of leering at her? ew), I can't even begin to put into sufficiently contemptuous words how NOT the job of the Vice President of the United States of America it is to even jokingly be the hall monitor of young women's sexuality.
That Joe Biden loves to make sexist jokes (and express his sexism in other ways, ahem) is not news, which is why he shouldn't have been made vice president. But of course treating women as less than isn't a disqualifying characteristic for the executive branch.
Being a woman is.
I Love the Smell of Corporatocracy in the Morning
President Revs Up Campaign to Make Peace With Business:
The appointment of Mr. Daley begins a reshuffle of the senior White House staff that is expected to bring more business experience into the president's inner circle, administration officials say."Where "the American people" equals Wall Street executives.
...The president has been reaching out directly to U.S. companies, meeting with 20 chief executives last month to ask for ideas on policies that would inspire them to invest and hire. And on Feb. 7, Mr. Obama will cross Lafayette Park from the White House to the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, his longtime political nemesis, to discuss working together on job creation.
"The administration took some positive steps recently, striking a bipartisan agreement to extend current tax rates, moving the ball forward on the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, and reaching out to the business community," says Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president. "We're not going to agree on everything, but there's a lot we can get done for the American people."
Meanwhile, Obama is also set to name Gene Sperling as director of the National Economic Council. I like Sperling: He was Clinton's chief economic advisor during her campaign, and he helped run an international charitable project designed to assist women in developing countries start and run their own businesses.
The catch is that the helped run it for Goldman Sachs, and got $800,000 for his services. He's also made about $200,000 in the past few years as a speaker for various Wall Street firms.
As much as I like Sperling for some reasons, appointing him to head the NEC isn't a move that dissuades the appearance that Obama's administration is too enmeshed with Wall Street financial firms and the banks. I don't believe there's no one in the nation who's got the same talents at Sperling but doesn't have what ought rightly to be considered a conflict of interest re: ties to Wall Street.
Also: Sperling's had the job before. He headed the NEC from '96-'00 under Clinton. Ezra Klein notes:
Obama's personnel decisions have shown a strong preference for prior government experience. William Daley, who was named chief of staff earlier today, is a former Secretary of Commerce. Jack Lew, who replaced Peter Orszag as head of the Office of Management and Budget, held the same position under President Clinton. Robert Gates, who leads the Defense Department, was a holdover from George W. Bush. Larry Summers, who Sperling is replacing, was Treasury Secretary under Clinton. And the list goes on. Expectations that Obama would begin to turn to people whose primary experience was outside government have not, thus far, been borne out in his staff shakeup.Hope and change looks more and more like the same old shit.
