Washington Post—Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits: "President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday's State of the Union address. ... Over the weekend, the White House informed Democratic lawmakers and advocates for seniors that Obama will emphasize the need to reduce record deficits in the speech, but that he will not call for reducing spending on Social Security - the single largest federal program - as part of that effort."
GOOD.
Of course, the Wall Street Journal reported precisely the opposite this morning, so I guess it's possible we'll still be surprised/disappointed during the State of the Union tomorrow. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
I love mysteries!
Good.
I Write Letters
Dear President Obama:
I know everybody's writing barfmessages for Ronald Reagan because February 6 would have been his 100th barfday, so you were obliged to write some barfatorial saying something nice, and it is totally understandable that you would choose to highlight his alleged love of barfpartisanship, since that's your favoritest thing ever.
But was it really not possible to do it without LYING?
President Reagan did not, in fact, put the US "on a bold new path toward" accountability. See: Iran-Contra.
President Reagan also did not "work with leaders of all political persuasions," except by the very narrow definition of "conservative" and "less conservative," because he had no time for actual progressives, anywhere in the world.
President Reagan was not so much a believer "in the importance of reaffirming values like hard work and personal responsibility" as much as he was an unapologetic social Darwinist.
And this? "But perhaps even more important than any single accomplishment was the sense of confidence and optimism President Reagan never failed to communicate to the American people." That's just bullshit, right there.
When I hear the name Reagan, I think of two things—neither of which are "confidence" or "optimism." I am reminded that his sunny fucking optimism didn't do much good for the thousands of people who died of AIDS while he ignored its fucking existence. His indifference to a grave health crisis left an entire community in a state of panic, abandoned by their government.
And I am reminded of the abject terror I used to feel when I was 10 years old and scared out of my mind that I was going to be killed by a nuke, because my president was a wanton fearmonger, just like the son of his veep/successor was. The Enemy was different then, but the game was the same.
In Northwest Indiana, even the children knew we were a "Soviet target" because we were—were, also thanks to Ronald Reagan—one of the epicenters of US steel production. "If they launch them," I remember my father saying, "at least we'll be dead right away." The thin plywood of my desktop that was meant to save me in case of attack would not. I knew that. And that attack always felt imminent—because I listened to my president. I saw him on the television, solemnly intoning grave threat. Two decades later, I understand he needed money for his ridiculous space weapon. Then, I was petrified.
I associate the name Ronald Reagan with deadly indifference and fear.
And reflexively citing Reagan's cheery, rouge-cheeked mask of optimism to obfuscate the reality of his grim, corrupt, militaristic, corporate-serving, middle class-dismantling, social safety net-destroying tenure is a conservative trick in which I cannot believe I must see a Democratic president engaging, even if it is in a polite memorial.
That is a dangerous whitewashing of history, for the sake of honoring a man n the basis that he could be friends with a Democrat after 6:00—which really isn't all that impressive when you consider he didn't say the word "AIDS" publicly until 1986.
It's not difficult to be friends with someone who's like you in virtually every way. It's tragic to pretend people not like you don't even exist. Especially when you're a democratically-elected representative of those people, too.
I don't know what it is that compels you to sing Reagan's praises, Mr. President, but I really hope, for all our sakes, you let go of it.
Sincerely,
Liss
P.S. Barf.
The Return of George Allen
[Trigger warning for racism and violence.]
As predicted, George Allen, the jerk who lost his senate seat in '06 after referring to one of his opponent's staffers, S.R. Sidarth, a Virginian of Indian descent, as "macaca," which is a kind of monkey, is running for Senate once again.
"Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate," Allen said in the almost three minute video. "You know me as someone willing to fight for the people of Virginia, and I'd like the responsibility to fight for you again. Hire me on for six years and I pledge to work hard restoring freedom, personal responsibility and opportunity for all."Great. What the US Senate really needs these days is a douchebag with a Confederate flag fetish who hangs nooses in his office and calls it part of a "Western motif."
This guy's so awful he makes Jim Webb look good. Ugh.
Liss and Nana II, Or: Mil Was a Feminist
After I posted the picture and story about my nana last week, Mama Shakes forwarded a couple more she hadn't scanned for me previously:
My nana, whose name was Mildred, which she hated and made me promise never to name a child "or even a cat," even though I think it's a beautiful name, and who was called Mil, was a working woman. She worked as a secretary for a Lutheran high school, in a room with other secretaries who were ladies with names like Mildred, and I thought visiting her at work was the most exciting thing ever when I was a little girl.
Her workspace was filled with all kinds of office supplies and ancient office machines I found fascinating. This was long before computers, or even copiers, were commonly found in any high school office, no less that of a parochial school, and the secretaries did their work on typewriters, surrounded by mimeograph machines and slot-punchers for old fashioned student IDs, which seemed like the height of technological sophistication. The room smelled of correction fluid, montan wax, and Avon perfume.
I loved being there.
At home, Mil had an office, too, which served as my sister's and my bedroom when we visited. There were two desks in the room, and one typewriter, and a cup with pens and pencils, some of them old and mysterious. I asked her if I could keep a tarnished mechanical pencil with four different colored leads I found one time, and, when she let me, I was thrilled, wildly giddy, as if it were a priceless antiquity.
I still have it.
I spent countless hours at my grandmother's big wooden desk, investigating its huge drawers that seemed endless to tiny hands. It was full of the junk that adults stuff in desk drawers—free calendars from the bank, old checkbook covers, stamps that are a penny less than it costs to send a letter. Rubber bands and paper clips. Plastic rulers branded with a dry cleaner's business name and address. Scrap paper.
The scrap paper was always there for keeping score during a game of cards, or jotting down a grocery list. And it was there in case my sister or I wanted to pull out the crayons and have a little doodle when we were visiting. Just junk paper that would otherwise be thrown out, something on one side but clean on the back—dittos from work that went misaligned, overprinted inserts from church bulletins, half-page fliers and one-sided adverts pulled from the paper.
At about six or so, I wrote my first book on the backs of a stack of half-size yellow paper, on the other side of which was probably an expired list of specials from a local Italian take-out place. It was a multi-page story with words and illustrations, and I stapled the pages together and I sold it to Mil, or maybe my mom, for ten cents.
Mil, like my mom, was always encouraging of my writing. She told me my stories were fabulous, even when they weren't, and complimented me on my artistic talent, though I had none. She kept paying those dimes, as long as I worked for them.
Sometimes Mil was brusque: She wanted what she wanted, and wanted it the way she wanted it. I don't remember ever feeling hurt by her directness, but I do remember, when I was very young, occasionally being surprised by it. She spoke to me like an adult, like I heard her talk to other adults. She challenged me to live up to her expectations.
Which is not to say she didn't indulge me. She did. Mil, with whom I watched my first episodes of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, listened to my playing Weird Al Yankovic tapes for her way longer and with more interest (possibly feigned) than any lady owes any child. Just because it was important to me.
Mil was very determined that my mom would go to college (she did), and she was very determined that I would go to college (I did), because Mil hadn't, and that's why, in her words, she was "only a secretary." She insisted that I get "an education," and at least twice she referred to herself to me as "uneducated," despite the fact that she was cultured, curious, and well-read.
I tried to tell her once, when I was a teenager, after she'd told me not for the first time that she wasn't as smart as I was, that I thought she was one of the smartest women I knew. She told me exasperatedly that I didn't know what I was talking about, lol. Too stupid to know how smart I was. Classic. Mil was funny like that.
She would almost certainly have rolled her eyes at me and possibly even made a disgusted noise of some sort if anyone had called her a feminist. Mil was a Republican, you know. (When I was allowed one piece of jewelry from her box after she died, I declined her elephant brooch in favor of a simple necklace with a scripted letter M, since we shared our first initial.) But her example to me was of a feisty, opinionated working woman who pushed the women around her to do more, who encouraged them to develop their talents and to succeed, who could be independent and still generous with her time and herself.
That's a pretty good feminist example. Intended or not.
I feel lucky and proud that she was a part of my life, and is a part of me.
Mama Shakes, by email: These were taken in June, 1975, so you were just a little over a year old. What a doll! Even then you got a kick out of putting hats on people. I love the pin curls in Nana's hair in the one photo where she is wearing your hat. In the other, you are wearing yours in a very rakish manner, while Nana sports a white paper bag turned into a chapeau for the occasion.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the Deeky W. Gashlycrumb memoir I Was a Teenage Gothwolf.
Recommended Reading:
Audacia: Roe v. Wade Anniversary
Digby: The Agenda
Melissa: Sundance Is Here and the World Discovers Women Can Direct
Amber: Do We Need a Best Female Director Oscar Category?
Andy: Kevin Smith Buys Up His Own Fred Phelps-Inspired Film 'Red State'
Arturo: Chromatic Casting: Remixing The Dark Knight Rises
Joe: Limbaugh Parrots Racist Mock Language for Asians
Leave your links in comments...
Terror Blast in Moscow's Domodedovo Airport
[Trigger warning for violence.]
At least 31 people have been killed and more than 100 injured by a blast at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said it appears to be an act of terrorism caused by a suicide bomber.
Reuters:
The Kremlin said Medvedev, who has called the insurgency in the north Caucasus the biggest threat to Russia's security, was delaying a trip to the Davos international business forum in Switzerland.BBC: "BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said immediate suspicion about Monday's attack would fall on militants from the Caucasus region."
The rebels have vowed to take the bombing campaign to the Russian heartland, hitting transport and economic targets.
"Security will be strengthened at large transport hubs," Medvedev wrote on Twitter. "We mourn the victims of the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport. The organizers will be tracked down and punished."
Guardian: "The attack is the most deadly in Russia since last March when two female suicide bombers from Russia's Mulsim-majority Dagestan region set off explosives on the subway system, killing 40 people. It was Moscow's worst attack for six years."
More at the Times and CNN.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Actual Headline: Sarah Palin and the Battle for Feminism.
A garbage nightmare right from its title. Which, you'll note, engages the violent imagery of a "battle." Perfect.
Actual Sub-head: "The ex-governor and her Mama Grizzlies argue that the real women's issue is our country's fiscal future."
Yeah, they're really ahead of the curve on that one. If only womanists/feminists and other social justice advocates had ever thought to argue that the economy is a feminist issue, and if only they'd been doing that for like TWO HUNDRED YEARS. I guess we'd look pretty smart right now. Oh well!
I mean, seriously. Anyone who can write—with, presumably, a straight face—a line like, "The Palinites, then, have introduced an unfamiliar thought into American politics: maybe a trillion-dollar deficit is a woman's issue," really doesn't need to be writing about feminism and feminists as if she knows what the fuck she's talking about.
That's just embarrassing, right there.
Actual Author Bio: "Kay S. Hymowitz is a contributing editor of City Journal, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of the forthcoming Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys."
LOL! Sure. Of course she is.
Olbermann: Out
So, you probably heard that Keith Olbermann quit/was fired on Friday. Here's the place to talk about it, if you wanna.
If he'd actually been the progressive he was always alleged to be, this would be sad. But he is a fauxgressive whose ideas of justice had boundaries extend only as far as whomever he wants to make fun of, be cruel to, or marginalize as unserious or uncredible. He engaged in misogyny and rape apology on-air, and, for all his rap about accountability and self-reflection, he was rigid in his refusal to address his biases against women.
Olbermann is one of a bunch of straight white guys who became liberal champions during the Bush years just because they publicly hated Bush. That was no small thing, among a media who widely served as uncritical cheerleaders.
But being a progressive is not defined by hating conservatives. And at a time when we need authentic progressives more than ever in this country, that void of affirmative progressive ideals in Bush-era heroes like Olbermann is more glaringly evident than ever.
So the only thing I'm sad about is that his replacement is likely to be even worse.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for reference to violence.]
"The shooter wins if we, who’ve been elected, change what we do just because of what he did."—Tea Party-Backed Senator Mike Lee (R-epulsive -UT) on why our wonderful elected officials must continue to use violent, eliminationist rhetoric.
When Douches Collide
by Shaker NapalmNacey
Shakers, following is a piece of news so hilariously awful, if I could, I'd frame this shit and put it on the wall with the plaque, "People Are Assholes – An Illustration."
You've been warned.
Remember how Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes, and made fun of everybody in the most offensive way ever? Well, Judd Apatow didn't like it.
I'll let that simmer for a minute. Yeah. Judd Apatow didn't like Hollywood being the butt of thoughtless, horrible jokes.
Producers Guild Awards host Judd Apatow built his opening monologue around a profanity-laced attack on the way Ricky Gervais handled his Golden Globe Awards hosting chores a week earlier in the same room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.And he didn't just say this as an aside or anything. He centered his WHOLE SPEECH AROUND IT.
"What did you think of Ricky Gervais?" he asked the black-tie industry crowd Saturday night. "I didn't like him. I thought he was mean."
"He had that joke about the guy on Lost," said Apatow. "He said he ate everybody else. Let's be honest—Ricky Gervais just lost weight. Even now he's four pounds away from not being allowed to do a joke like that. Did he lose weight just to make fat jokes? You think that's how mean he is?"Okay, trying to understand the Apatow Code, here. Fat guys—not okay to joke about, especially if you're under the arbitrary Apatow Limit for Fat Jokes. Unless, of course, you're Judd Apatow making a joke about how you're not fat enough to do fat jokes. Or something.
Apatow had no problem with a Gervais joke about Charlie Sheen.Drug addicts and alcoholics – A-OK! Wonderful! Also, let's make fun of people with a long history of violence against women! It's totally funny!
But Apatow added, "(Jay) Leno did it the week before."
"I think he's an OK target," Apatow said of Sheen. "The people at CBS have said as long as he shows up on time, knows his lines, he can do whatever he wants."
All right, but to the serious stuff. Apatow wants Gervais to be FAIR TO MOVIES.
However, Apatow took exception to Gervais making a joke about The Tourist.That's amazing. This from a person who routinely takes the piss out of those whose experiences he's never tried to understand or comprehend. Hey, you've never been a woman, or listened to a woman, but I'm sure you have plenty of grounds to write movies that reduce them down to two or three frustrating and limited stereotypes to serve your story. That's just good comedy! He goes on!
"(Gervais) says the characters were two-dimensional," said Apatow. "Then he says he hasn't seen The Tourist. So as a comedian, that's not fair, is it? To make jokes about a movie you haven't seen.
Apatow also came to the defense of Cher, Hugh Hefner, Tim Allen, Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr.—others who were Gervais targets.Okay, amendments to the Apatow Code: No making fun of men who profit from routinely objectifying the bodies of young women, men who profit from reinforcing the archaic stereotype that men are stupid cavemen who women must corral and tame, or men who promote an institutionally homophobic organization. Also: Hands-off Apatow-approved addicts. (Reminder: Charlie Sheen is AN OKAY TARGET.) I think Cher was probably an afterthought.
"Tim Allen did 200 episodes of Home Improvement. He was in three of the highest grossing movies of all time. And his latest just crossed the one billion mark. Whereas The Invention of Lying made $18 million dollars worldwide...Leave Tim Allen alone."Yes, you just read that. Judd Apatow totally really said that, with a straight face and everything. Apatow's biggest problem with Gervais having viciously mocked celebrities in ways that entrench the marginalization of oppressed people (like fatties, and addicts, and victims of abuse) isn't that it's shitty; it's that he didn't have "the right" to do it because his last film didn't make enough money.
WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, WITH HIS MEASLY $18 MILLION?
I'll be over here, lolsobbing and being stunned that the great social justice crusader Apatow draws the line at making fun of rich straight white guys.
I'd like to close on an observational quote by my dear friend Apolla: It's like Elvis saying to Liberace, "I think you overdid the rhinestones."
Open Thread
Hosted by the GNK (Gonk) Power Droid.
This week's open threads have been hosted by Star Wars droids.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Back in high school and college, my BFF Todd and I used to make these ridiculous sketch comedy videos, and one of the recurring themes was a bar (always unseen) named Skadoodlies, to which characters were always flouncing off to, usually after stealing money from someone else's wallet. "I'm off to Skadoodlies!" It was basically our homage to the singles bars of the '80s, which always had names like "Zingers" or "Passions." LOL.
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Quote of the Day
"The radicals have infected the party. They have been brought in by politicians who don't really care about anything. They just want to win. They've been tolerating the revolutionaries—the Democrats have."—Professor Glenn Beck, PhD in Garbageology, ominously warning his viewers about how extremism has infected the Democratic Party.
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, mid-stretch.
Olivia, mid-zuh.
Matilda, mid-disdain.
Dudley, running.
Dudley, determined.
Dudley, demonstrating what he is a machine built to do.
Public Comment Period, eh?
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
The State of Illinois has announced proposed revisions to the rules governing the changing of birth certificates.
You can find them here.
Here's my summary of the rules pertaining to changing the sex on one's Illinois birth certificate:
If you're a trans woman, and you want your birth certificate to say you're a woman (and you undoubtedly do), you need to...:
"present the Department with a completed affidavit, signed by a physician licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. or its territories, clearly demonstrating that after a personal examination of the applicant, who provided positive proof of identity in the form of a passport, State/territory-issued driver's license or State/territory-issued photo ID card, the physician has personally determined that [you've got a vagina]."
If you're a trans man, you have to provide an similarly creepy affidavit (from a physician licensed in the U.S.) that details how you don't have a uterus, and do have a penis.
This isn't the worst policy I've seen regarding changing the sex on birth certificates (in some places, you can't change the sex at all), but it's pretty bad. Illinois could do a lot better.
I don't have the energy to explain why this is bullshit. It just is. I don't have a vagina, and I'm a woman. There's my explanation.
If you would like to comment on the proposed revisions to Illinois Vital Records Code (77 Ill. Adm. Code 500), the state has a convenient link that you can access between now and February 28th.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming dog-owner's memoir, Whooooooops You Got the Too-Small Poop Bags and Now There's Poop on Your Sleeve.
Recommended Reading:
Michelle: Notes on "Heavy" [TW for fat hatred, discussion of disordered eating]
Fannie: Lessons in Feminism from Non-Feminists
Resistance: Asians in the House!
Andy: Hundreds of Long Island High School Students Hold Rally Demanding Gay-Straight Alliance
Renee: Black Women and Beauty
Mustang Bobby: David Brooks vs. History
Midwest GenderQueer: Dear Pop Culture: Leave TransFolk Alone!
Leave your links in comments...
