Shakesville

Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt

General view during anti-government clashes with supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 2, 2011. Egypt's army denied firing any shots in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where pro- and anti-government protesters were clashing, state television said on Wednesday. [Reuters Pictures]

Recommended Feeds: Follow Shaker @scatx and my friend and former editor @RichardA on Twitter, who are both providing excellent minute-to-minute coverage. And @AndersonCooper, who has witnessed molotov cocktails being thrown in the streets of Cairo and got roughed up himself earlier today, is, as always, great, too.

The Guardian has live updates here.

Al Jazeera has live updates here.

Recommended Reading:

CNN—Volatile scene unfolds in Cairo as opposing sides clash.

New York Times—Clashes Erupt in Cairo Between Mubarak's Allies and Foes:

President Obama's calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as a choreographed surge of thousands of people chanting support for the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak fought running battles with a larger number of antigovernment protesters in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The mayhem and chaos — with riders on horses and camels thundering through the central square — offered a complete contrast to the scenes only 24 hours earlier when hundreds of thousands of antigovernment protesters turned it into a place of jubilant celebration, believing that they were close to overthrowing a leader who has survived longer than any other in modern Egypt.

WaPo—Obama presses Mubarak to move 'now': "President Obama, clearly frustrated by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year, said Tuesday evening that he has told Mubarak that a transition to representative government 'must begin now'."

A transcript of the President's statement is here.

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave additional links and recommendations in comments.

Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be

[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia.]

The Penny Arcade Dickwolves Debacle rages on, with some of the most remarkably insensitive minimization of sexual violence and some of the most callous ridicule of survivors I have ever seen. (Which is really saying something.) I don't even know where to begin in describing the Twitter war, so, suffice it to say, at one point Gabe (one of the creators of the comic) tweeted at Shaker Mod Scott Madin: "#sigh if you don't understand humor I can't help you. There's no point arguing this. We disagree at very fundamental levels."

"Yeah, Scott, why are you so humorless?" I tweeted. "And I'm sure @cwgabriel is just using the silencing tropes of rape apologia IRONICALLY. #geez"

Which pretty much sums it up, I guess. Someone using the fundamental tools of rape apologia ("you're just humorless; you're oversensitive; you just don't get it") to argue he is not a rape apologist.

And make no mistake: Someone who defends rape jokes, which are the the primary means by which rape is normalized and its gravity diminished to make rape acceptable—so acceptable, in fact, that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be victimized by sexual violence at least once in their lifetimes, the vast majority of whom will never see justice for those crimes against them—is indeed a rape apologist.

To defend a rape joke that serves the rape culture, at which a rapist is more likely to laugh than a survivor, at which a rapist can laugh at all, is to defend what that joke exists in service to, intentionally or not.

But somehow, it's still worse to be offended than to offend anti-rape advocates and trigger survivors.

Leaving aside the reality that many of the people who object to this shit are not offended, but contemptuous, I just love (where love = disdain with the fiery passion of 10,000 suns) the idea that to be dismayed by trivializing rape and mocking survivors is evidence of moral failure but telling and defending rape jokes makes you some kind of fucking hero.

And let us all stop to appreciate, for just a moment, the narrative that someone offended by and/or contemptuous of rape jokes, and publicly says so under their real names despite knowing it will bring an onslaught of vicious ugliness upon them, is weak, but the anonymous mob who descends upon hir making threats and, without a trace of irony, admonishes hir to ignore stuff zie doesn't like, are Brave Champions of Reasonable Debate or whatever.

Everything is just totally fucking backwards. It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.

This whole ghastly affair comes down to this: Gabe and Tycho were insensitive. It's not that survivors and their allies were being too sensitive, but that Gabe and Tycho weren't being sensitive enough. And lots of people who afforded them the good faith presumption of decency asked them to be a little more considerate. That's it.

And they said fuck you and we're putting it on a t-shirt and wearing that shit to our convention because fuck you more.

That's what happened here.

But still the primary narrative, as it always is, is that some EASILY OFFENDED HYSTERICS just looking for things to get mad about got their panties in a bunch because they don't understand humor.

Easily Offended Hysterics is certainly more digestible than Triggered Rape Survivors, but it's not honest. Of course, honesty makes it much more difficult to marginalize concerns of people who can be easily dismissed if they're mendaciously cast as thin-skinned reactionaries, since we all know that Offended is the worst thing anyone can be.

[Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape.]

The Overton Window: Chapter Thirty-Three

Part three, of course, means new characters. We get two this chapter. One is Ellen Davenport ("of the East Hampton Davenports"), the other "an older woman, frail and thin as dry reeds." The second woman has no name. Yet! Or maybe she won't get one. Who knows? Who cares? No, seriously, who cares? Anyone?

The chapter opens with Noah in a cab (of course), heading to the hospital. On the way he calls his childhood "friend who was a girl," Ellen, and asks her to meet him at Lenox Hill Hospital.

As he walked down the hallway of the ward Noah saw three things: the crowd of people overflowing from the double doorway of the floor's small chapel, a smaller knot of visitors waiting outside a single room down near the end, and Dr. Ellen Davenport, still in her wrinkled scrubs, waving to him from an alcove near the elevators.

So, who thinks Beverly Emerson will be cured by The Power of Prayer? Or do you think she'll die holding Noah's hand, maybe after revealing some profound Truth to him? Or, back to my early question: Who cares?

Ellen gave him a hug when he reached her, and then held him away at arm’s length and frowned. "You look like hell, Gardner."

Oh, those old friends! What cut-ups! Ha ha ha. Bleh. Here, have some backstory:

Noah and Ellen both also seemed to realize that dating each other was the last thing they should ever do. They'd actually tried it once just to be sure, and the discomfort of that terrible evening was matched only by its comic potential when the story was retold by the two of them in later years.

Wow. That's just like When Harry Met Sally. But in two sentences instead of 90 minutes. Wow, this book isn't even trying anymore. Just pretend that was a charming moment between two old friends. If it's helpful, go ahead and imagine Meg Ryan as Ellen. (Link!)

So, blah blah blah, except not blah blah blah because this whole chapter is a page and a half long and there isn't exactly a superfluity of words spilling out of the pages here. But short story even shorter, Ellen tells Noah the pills he is taking is methadone (whatever) and Noah asks Ellen to get a good doctor for Beverly.

And somewhere in all that is this:

Noah was preoccupied, looking over the people milling through the hall, every bit as afraid that he might see Molly as that he might never see her again.

Whatever.

Noah was interrupted by the approach of a stranger. It was an older woman, frail and thin as dry reeds, and from the corner of his eye he'd seen her come from the direction of that room near the end of the hall. The woman nodded her respect to Ellen, turned to him, and then spoke with a gentle gravity in her voice that said more than the words (Link!) themselves would convey.

"She's awake now. Somebody told her you were here, and she says she wants to talk to you."

Whatever.

The chapter, of course, ends on that dramatic note. I think the author went to the Soap Opera School of Dramatic Writing. Ominous dialogue + Moody close up of smoldering eyes + music sting = Tension. Okay then. Cut to commercial. (Link!)

And for the record, chapter thirty-four picks up right where thirty-three leaves off, so the break serves no purpose outside of some misguided attempt to create suspense with page breaks.

Whatever.

Open Thread

Hosted by Fabio!!!

Question of the Day

What was your last positive personal milestone?

It could be anything that's important to your life: Graduating college, having a commitment ceremony of some description, getting a promotion, having an important surgery, learning a new skill, turning a meaningful age, coming out, getting divorced, becoming a parent, whatever you regard as a notable marker in your journey.

SnOMG

Scenes from the Snowpocalypse, throughout the day:

We're supposed to get two more feet of snow tonight. I dearly hope that is INCORRECT.

Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt

There's a lot going on today, so here's a place to discuss. Below is some recommended reading, and, as always, feel free to add links in comments.

Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on 1 February 2011. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA

The Guardian—Egypt's protesters refuse to leave the streets until Mubarak steps down: "Ten days ago 50 people demonstrating on a Cairo student campus would have been regarded as an event out of the ordinary, something to be quickly crushed by the Egyptian police. That was then. Today hundreds of thousands of people crammed themselves into Cairo's central Tahrir Square to call for an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power—and the government security forces were nowhere to be seen."

USA Today—Mubarak: 'I have spent enough time serving Egypt': "Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak indicated in a 10-minute televised speech Tuesday that he will not seek re-election, after eight days of protests over his 30-year rule."

The Guardian—Egypt protests: parties reject talks and try to restore credibility: "Egypt's fractured opposition movement has rallied together to emphatically reject talks with the ruling National Democratic party on political reform, insisting that Hosni Mubarak must stand down before any dialogue can begin. Whether Mubarak promising to step down at the next election, as was reported tonight, will satisfy them remains to be seen."

Reuters: Egypt tries to calm investors and get food to people.

Max Strasser: Beside Boys on the Street: Women and the Egyptian Protests

Stellaa: A Guide: How Not to Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt

Real Mature

Melissa and I were just watching this together on the phone and laughing ourselves into tears. Because we're five years old.

This video is just brief clips from The Empire Strikes Back, with fart sound effects included. If you don't like fart jokes, this won't be your cup of farts.

It's all about the reaction shots. And the AT-AT.

p.s. Fart.

Daily Dose of Cute

Naptime for Dudley and Matilda, BFFs.

Actual Headline

[Trigger warning for fat hatred.]

Actual Headline: Obesity a big barrier for getting a mammogram.

A "big barrier." I see what you did there. Har har.

Actual Opening Paragraphs:

Women are less likely to be screened for breast cancer if they are obese, according to a new study in the Journal of Women's Health. Despite having insurance and receiving reminders to get screened, "...a significant portion of the population is not getting screened," according to the study.

The reasons women gave for skipping mammograms are clear-cut, but the solutions are not. Among obese patients, the main reason cited for skipping mammograms was that the test is too painful, yet many women who are not obese also cite pain as a reason for avoiding the test.

Physical pain is what they're talking about here. But is that what fat women are talking about? Or are they really talking about the emotional/psychological pain of being a fat patient in a healthcare system that hates fat people...? These are questions the article never bothers to ask.

"Two Days in the Life of Fatty Fatastrophe" is all else I've got to say on the matter.

[H/Ts to Shaker Hatilda and Eastsidekate.]

Obviously

Of course James Franco is going to teach a class about himself. What—did you think James Franco WASN'T going to teach a class about himself? You're so weird.

#dearjohn: No On 3

To embed the above on your own website/blog, copy and paste this code:

Today's Items:

Sady's got a piece in Salon here.

NARAL's got a very easy form to contact your representatives here.

MoveOn has started a petition against H.R.3, which you can read and sign here.

Deanna Zandt has posted a helpful How To Guide re: the #DearJohn campaign here. There are so many easy ways to get involved, even if it's just retweeting the items you like under the #DearJohn hashtag.

Jonathan Capehart: What is 'forcible rape' exactly?

Evan McMorris-Santoro: Radio Silence On Rape-Redefining Abortion Bill From The Right.

Michelle Goldberg: GOP Abortion Bill Redefines Rape.

Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave other links or suggestions for teaspooning in comments.

Quote of the Day

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

"I consider the proposal of this bill a violent act against women. It really is—to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself."—Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), four-term member of Congress and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, on H.R.3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."

[Note: Although most people treat "women" and "people who can get pregnant" as synonymous terms, they are not. This is, in fact, a violent act against people who can get pregnant, and, in its redefinition of rape, a violent act against all survivors.]

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Marillion: "Kayleigh"

A Challenge

[Trigger warning for transphobia, transmisogyny, objectification.]

So, this past weekend, Saturday Night Live aired one of their fauxmercials for a fake product called Estro-Maxxx, a "once-daily" estrogen supplement for trans women on the go who don't have time "for five estrogen supplements a day." It was a standard SNL fauxmercial for an imaginary drug—except that the male actors playing the transitioning women sported facial hair, body hair, and men's haircuts. It was your basic dude-in-a-dress shtick, with a gag about airport scans and a side effect warning that "Men taking estrogen may develop an interest in TLC's Say Yes to the Dress." Such an absolute clusterfuck of fail, the entire punchline (such as it is) of which is: Trans ladies are funny! A man wanting to be a lady is weird! Ladies are stupid!

The video is viewable here at GLAAD's site, where there is also a teaspooning opportunity.

That the SNL piece is insensitive, dehumanizing, marginalizing, and contemptible is so self-evident to anyone with a shred of decency or an infinitesimal trace of a social conscience, I won't belabor outlining in this space why it is hateful garbage. What I want to point out is this: It's so blatantly hateful garbage that its creators cannot have been expecting anything less than for trans* people and their allies to react with outrage.

In the age of viral video, it seems deliberately designed to provoke controversy. And that is more shameful than ignorance.

Courting the outrage of marginalized people is a swell publicity strategy, but it leaves marginalized people in an untenable position. We are admonished to "get a sense of humor," or "get over it," or "don't let it bother you," or some variation on Not Reacting, but this shit doesn't happen in a void; the dehumanization of trans* people for shits and giggles has real-world consequences for actual trans* people. Urging silence in the sunlight of that knowledge is to urge trans* people to participate in their own marginalization.

On the flipside, to react with the anger that was calculatingly piqued means trans* people and their allies are reactionary and oversensitive, just a bunch of humorless hysterics whose concerns can be dismissed on the basis that we are YAWN boring in our predictability.

Heads they win; tails we lose.

If no one complains, it's proof of concept. If people get mad, hell, that's fucking hilarious, too! HAR HAR hypersensitive weirdos!

Heads they win; tails we lose.

I can signal tacit approval of SNL's transphobia by being silent, or I can get angry about SNL's transphobia and play right into the hands of the deliberate provocateurs, who would like nothing more than a story in a major media outlet pitting the comedians against the hysterics.

Heads they win; tails we lose.

I can marginalize my own voice, or I can raise it and be marginalized with the usual silencing tropes.

Heads they win; tails we lose.

This is an issue beyond the transphobia inherent in the video. It's not just that SNL is being irresponsible and cruel; it's that SNL is actively obliging trans* people and their allies to participate in the marginalization of trans* people, which is flatly unconscionable.

And it renders indefensible the typical argument that no one gets hurt by a comedy sketch.

The actors and writers at SNL (and actors and writers everywhere who do transphobic and transmisogynistic material) are depending on the existence of transphobia to inoculate them against consequences. Transphobia, including all the silencing tropes (humorless, hysterical, oversensitive) used against people who advocate for social justice, ensures that we will always lose this game, as long as it's played by their rules.

So I'm changing the rules. I'm not going to be silent, and I'm not going to detail my valid (and useful) anger.

I'm calling out the unethical and reprehensible use of transphobia as comedy fodder, as a way to court controversy, and as a shield against consequences, and I'm challenging the people who use transphobia in that way to stop.

I challenge you to do better, SNL.

Because I expect more.

Too Bad Facts Don't Deter Anti-Choicers

Because here's yet another piece of information dispatched from Reality that ought to make them question their determination to deny women abortion, but won't:

An authoritative new study from researchers in Denmark, noteworthy for its exceptionally strong methodology, confirms what the best scientific evidence has long shown—that there is no causal link between abortion and mental health problems. The new study, "Induced First-Trimester Abortion and Risk of Mental Disorder," by Trine Munk-Olsen and colleagues, was published in the January 27, 2011, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The piece notes that this study "succeeds in addressing several critical limitations that have afflicted some other studies that purport to show causation between abortion and subsequent mental health problems" and is "unusually rigorous for this type of research," having used a very large sample size (84,620 women) over 12 years, integrated complete patient medical registries with self-reporting, and had "strong controls for women’s mental health prior to abortion, a critical factor that many other studies do not control for sufficiently, if at all."

These distinctions are critical, because many of the studies (for example) cited as evidence of a causal link between abortion and mental illness are deeply methodologically flawed.

Not all studies on the mental health impact of abortion are created equal. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, methodological flaws are "pervasive in the literature on abortion and mental health." Antiabortion activists often attempt to capitalize on the fact that the public and many policymakers cannot distinguish between studies that allow legitimate conclusions to be drawn about the effects of abortion and those that show only associations between abortion and mental health outcomes.

Antiabortion activists have relied on questionable science in their efforts to push inclusion of the concept of "postabortion syndrome" in both clinical practice and law. This latest study strongly confirms the existing body of methodologically sound evidence in clearly refuting the idea that abortion causes harm to women's mental health. The body of evidence is now so robust that researchers should consider shifting their focus to related issues that might be more valuable to explore, such as the factors that cause women to experience mental health problems in the first place.

Snicker. *fist-bumps the Guttmacher Institute*

Open Thread

Hosted by Fabio!

Question of the Day

In honor of Snowmageddon, what's your favorite thing to do when you're snowed in?

(For those who don't live in snowy areas, your favorite thing to do when you're in for some other reason, whether it's inclement weather or unbearable heat/dryness or allergies or a bad cold is fine, of course. And for anyone who doesn't go out at all for whatever reason, your favorite activity will do!)

They Hate Us for Our Freedom or Whatever

Long ago, in a blogosphere far, far away, bloggers toiled away in their soiled pajamas in dusty basements, writing posts about things called national security letters and pointing out how breaches of the federal government into citizens' privacy were constantly dismissed as "accidents."

These bloggers were accused of a brain fever caused by a terrible disease identified as Bush Derangement Syndrome by graduates of the renowned Michelle Malkin Medical Institute.

But, in a SURPRISING TWIST, it turns out these bloggers were right to be concerned:

The FBI disclosed to a presidential board that it was involved in nearly 800 violations of laws, regulations or policies governing national security investigations from 2001 to 2008, but the government won't provide details or say whether anyone was disciplined, according to a report by a privacy watchdog group.

The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain about 2,500 documents that the FBI submitted to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board.

...In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general told Congress that the FBI may have violated the law or government policy as many as 3,000 times since 2003 in the course of secretly collecting telephone, bank and credit card records without warrants, instead using so-called national security letters. As many as 600 of the violations could be "cases of serious misconduct," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said, based on his audits. Those figures were far higher than the FBI acknowledged or reported to the oversight board.

The violations were largely unintentional, Fine said, but were the result of "mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance and lack of adequate oversight."

The records obtained by the foundation go beyond national security letters. About a third of the reports of violations involved rules governing internal oversight of intelligence investigations, and about a fifth involved potential violations of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence-gathering activities, the report says.

Whooooooooooooooops!

Well, good thing we've finally got a new administration, and all of that shady nonsense is well and truly behind us.

Though the report focuses on conduct during the George W. Bush administration, it faults the Obama administration for refusing to say whether anyone is currently serving on the intelligence board, a failure that "continues to call into question the legitimacy of current intelligence oversight efforts."

Oh.

[Previously in Nobody's Paying Attention So Bush Totes Gets Away With It Again: Warrantless Wiretapping Program Ruled Illegal, No Charges in Destruction of Torture Tapes, Bush Admits Being a War Criminal, Bush Administration Broke Elections Law.]

Daily Dose of Cute

Dudley on the couch, his head and delicately-crossed paws resting on the arm

Lord Prettypaws of Shakesington