"When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and our people. And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins and to look after my family and to make me an instrument of the Lord."—President Barack Obama, at today's National Prayer Breakfast.
Listen, I hate the National Prayer Breakfast, and I hate that our political leaders participate in it, not just because I'm an atheist who isn't a fan of public (meaning government-sanctioned) celebrations of faith, but also because it confers legitimacy on its organizer, The Family, whose agenda is objectionable even to most Christians.
But the reason I'm posting this quote isn't to have that discussion. The reason I'm posting this quote is because I really just want to say: That is one heck of a Jesus-y quote, right there, I mean, that is a man who loves him some Jesus, yo, no kidding, that Barry is a fan of The Jesus like whoa, AND THERE ARE STILL RIGHTWINGERS WHO THINK HE'S A MUSLIM LULZ!!!!!!!eleventy!!!1!
Okay, so, apparently Bill O'Reilly is fond of saying "Tide goes in, tide goes out," to prove the existence of God. Or something. I mean, I learned in grade school that the tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon (and the sun), but what the fuck do I know. After all, back then, I thought Spiderman was real. Oh wait, I do know this, Bill O'Reilly can't be arsed to google anything. I also know Bill O'Reilly thinks I'm a pinhead.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this debunking of science by O'Reilly. I know I'm convinced. Flag on the moon... how did it get there?
Poor Mars. All lonely out there.
Text Onscreen: "BILLOREILLY.COM Backstage Conversation."
(Transcript below the fold, thanks to Liss for the transcript. H/T to Shaker MMC.)
O'Reilly [sitting in his office, reading an email/letter, the text of which appears onscreen]: David, Beverley Hills, Florida—"What do you mean when you refer to the tides when you are asked about the existence of god? Science explains the tides…the moon's gravity pulls on the oceans." Okay, how'd the moon get there? [cut back to O'Reilly in office, looking directly at camera] How'd the moon get there? Look, you pinheads who attack me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the moon get there? How'd the sun get there? How'd it get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that, and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it—how come? Why not? How'd it get here? How did that little amoeba get here, crawl out there? [waggles fingers to mime an amoeba crawling out of the primordial ooze, I guess] How'd it do it? Come on.
You have order in this universe; you have an order in the universe. Tide comes in; tide goes out. Okay, yeah, the moon does it. Fine. How'd the moon get there? Who put it there? Did it just happen? Okay, if we have existence, if we have life on Earth, how come they don't have it on the other planets? Were we just lucky? Some meteor do this? [waves hand like exploding meteor] BOOM. Come on.
You know, I see this stuff—it's desperate. As I've said many times, it takes more faith to not believe and to think that this was all luck, all this human body, the intricacies of it and everything else—all luck!—then it does to believe in a deity. There you go.
Text Onscreen: "Become a BILLOREILLY.COM PREMIUM MEMBER for more weekly insights from Bill!"
Apparently in Shelby County, TN, teen pregnancy is "a problem". One minister, Ralph White of the Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church, thinks that abstinence isn't the only message young people should get--they should hear about "responsible sexual behavior" and that more programs in churches need to address pregnancy prevention. Well, ok. That sounds all right on the face of it, doesn't it?
However, Pastor White has come up with a, let's call it, not-so-all-right solution:
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - A Memphis pastor is taking a stand, refusing to baptize a baby unless the child's parents are married.Soooo...shame is the method here, eh? "You aren't married, so you cannot have your baby baptized in church!" Because shame works so well, amirite?! Just when did "not being married" = "man doesn't care for his partner and child"? Will Pastor White make an exception for rape survivors who may not know her attacker, become pregnant, decide to continue a pregnancy, and keep the child? Single parents are just SOL, it seems. Also SOL: parents who cannot get married because retrofuck jackholes in their state have made it illegal. Great solution you have there, Pastor White. I think we should call it a "bullshit solution".
Reverend Ralph White, the pastor of Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church in Memphis, is trying to set a precedent when it comes to teen pregnancies.
"We will do it, but not in the church setting," he said. "We'll go to the home or if they want to have an event somewhere, we'll go there and do it."
White said he hopes to send a message to young fathers: step up and provide for your family.
"Biblically speaking, a man who doesn't take care of his children or family is worst than an infidel," he said.
This morning, the sun came out, and the snow-covered world is just unimaginably beautiful, despite being inconvenient and dangerous. There is nowhere to safely walk Dudley—the snow in the backyard is knee-deep, the sidewalks are buried, and the roads are unsafe; when I was out walking him this morning, after strapping on his purple balloon boats and coat, we had to run out of the way of a fishtailing car and saw a big collision at the intersection near our house, when a car slid through the stop sign and plowed into an SUV, pushing it into a telephone pole. We're going to have to try to clear a path in the backyard tonight.
And we're fortunate that that's our biggest problem. We haven't lost electricity, we've had no injuries from the snow or ice (touch wood), and we've got a roof over our heads. Others are not so lucky.
So the snow is really no fun. But it does look beautiful.
Troll Logic:
1. It is censorship to criticize something with which you disagree.
2. It is not censorship to tell me to STFU.
For the record, neither of these things are censorship. (Nor, as an aside, is prohibiting certain types of content on one's personal blog.) I just find it interesting that if I say, "I object to this thing," I am a censor and enemy of the First Amendment. But if a troll says, "I object to your objection," which is frequently couched in silencing or overtly eliminationist language, they are champions of Free Speech.
All of this happens without a trace of irony.
A group of soldiers pass by anti-government protestors just outside Cairo's main square, Egypt, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011. Egypt's prime minister apologized for the attack by regime supporters on anti-government protesters in central Cairo, vowing to investigate who was behind it. The protesters accuse the regime of sending a force of paid thugs and policemen in civilian clothes to attack them with rocks, sticks and firebombs to crush their movement to oust President Hosni Mubarak. [AP Photo]The Guardian—Egypt's revolution turns ugly as Mubarak fights back:
Egypt's pro-democracy revolution descended into violence and bloodshed overnight as President Hosni Mubarak's regime launched a co-ordinated bid to wrest back control of city streets, crush the popular uprising, and reassert its authority.Al Jazeera's liveblog is here. Christiane Amanpour reports frome Egypt here. A sampling of other coverage:
Bursts of heavy gunfire rained into Tahir square just before dawn today and there were reports that three more people had been killed. Protest organiser Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance, while another witness spoke of 15 people being wounded.
Clashes had continued into the early hours even though the pro-Mubarak supporters had been pushed back to the edge of the square and explosions – possibly from gas canisters – echoed around the area.
There were extraordinary scenes in the centre of Cairo as anti-government demonstrators fought running battles with organised cohorts of Mubarak supporters, exchanging blows with iron bars, sticks and rocks.
At one point pro-Mubarak forces rode camels and horses into central Tahrir Square, scattering opponents. At least three people were killed yesterday and up to 1,500 injured according to medical sources.
This is my new desktop image:
Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth.
"The Kepler-11 planetary system is amazing," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "It’s amazingly compact, it’s amazingly flat, there’s an amazingly large number of big planets orbiting close to their star - we didn’t know such systems could even exist."
In other words, Kepler-11 has the fullest, most compact planetary system yet discovered beyond our own.
"I would like to think that fixing [the debt] and saving our kids' future could be a unifying moment for our country and we wouldn't stop our disagreements or our passionate belief in these other [issues like abortion and gay marriage], we just sort of mute them for a little while, while we try to come together on the thing that menaces us all."—My garbage nightmare of a governor, Mitch Daniels, who is a strong contender for the 2012 Republican nomination.
I just can't get enough of highly privileged straight white cis men telling me what the REALLY important issues are, i.e. the ones that effect them.
And, seriously, advertising you can't multitask or hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time isn't a great pitch for the presidency. Personally, I can be concerned about abortion and marriage equality and the economy ALL AT THE SAME TIME. In fact, I don't even regard them as mutually exclusive subjects.
Scenes from earlier today. We've had about three more inches since, and it's coming down hard again. Iain is out shoveling for the fourth time in 24 hours; I asked him if he'd rather be at work, and he just laughed and said indeed he would.
[this morning, over scenes of piles of snow] We officially have a fuckload of snow. In fact, it may be several fuckloads of snow. Um, all I can hear is the sound of people running their snowblowers in the distance, and sirens on a regular basis, 'cause I think there are probably a lot of car accidents right now. We've had about 10 inches of snow, and it's still coming down, so we will probably have some more.
[edit; later] Now it's coming down pretty hard again; here comes some more plows. It's really blustery, is the problem. Everything's getting blown around on top of there being more snow.
[edit; later] There's our neighbor, out snowblowing. Iain shoveled our whole driveway, uh, by hand with a shovel, because we don't have a snowblower! [laughs] And his back hurts, and I'm gonna give him a backrub later, because that's the least I can do since he did all the shoveling. Snowmageddon. Snowmygod.
This blogaround brought to you from Shaxco, currently located at the bottom of a snow mountain.
Recommended Reading:
Sady: #DearJohn: Taking It Big [TW for rape] Related: Listen to Jaclyn Friedman on the Rick Smith Show last night here.
Rachel: Photo of the Day
Arturo: Top Gear Goes From Zero to Racist in Under Two Minutes [TW for racism and violence] Melissa has contact info here.
Suzie: Spying on the UN
Andy: Abandoned Cars in Snow on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive
CTJen: Fatties Run Around Outside and Have Fun
Renee: Snowmageddon Has Closed Everything Down
Leave your links in comments...
After I read Liss' post on Coded Misogyny and Institutional Prejudice, I had a million and one thoughts bouncing around in my head about how her insights could be applied to financial systems (Capitalism/Masculine Socialism/Feminine), national defense strategies (Imperialism/Masculine Nationalism/Feminine), politics (Conservative Daddies and Liberal Mommies), and many, many other arenas -- then something popped out at me.
In systems where kyriarchal assumptions become the default standard against which everything else is measured, there seems to me to be a consistent feature:
The standard doesn't have to be met by its own adherents -- only those challenging the standard have to meet or exceed it.
An example:
STANDARD: Functional financial systems produce escalating wealth and opportunity in a way that is sustainable long term, and everyone knows that USofA-style free-market Capitalism is the Best! Possible! Financial System! In the World!!! Everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps!!
Don't you just know this is true? I hear it all the time -- from adherents of the kyriarchy.
Never mind that the original U.S financial system was not a true free-market capitalist system -- that it was initially made possible by a massive theft/co-option of property and developed through slave labor.
Never mind that, in its entire history, the longest period that the U.S. has been without a financial panic, recession, or depression is 10 years (and that's fairly recent, between 1991 and 2001 -- the average time between any panic/recession/depression in U.S. history is just 2 years and 8 months).
In the 236 years that the USofA has been a nation, it's spent a full third of that time -- 77.5 years -- in varying states of economic panic, recession or depression.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that Capitalism is the worst economic system, or even necessarily a “bad” system -- but if you bought a car that was advertised as the Best! Possible! Car! in the World!!! -- and every third day it would only drive in reverse -- wouldn't you begin to question the quality claims?
So, why aren't we allowed to rationally assess the real sustainability and efficacy of Capitalism without being demonized as Anarchists, Socialists, or Communists?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: According to the Daddy Party, traditional family values are very, very important, fiscal conservatism is a must, and corruption in government has to go!
[Insert here myriad stories of Daddy Party members engaging in anti-family-values activities such as hiring prostitutes, having (and conspiring to cover up) extra-marital affairs, expanding the deficit every time they've been in power since 1980, and being found guilty of money-laundering, conspiracy, voter fraud, etc. -- all without being kicked out of the party that espouses the values listed above.]
In fact, the one thing that seemingly will get you kicked out of the Daddy Party is acting too much like a member of the Mommy Party -- then you become a RINO.
So why aren't we allowed to objectively assess, and call to account, the chasm between statement and practice vis-a-vis conservative values without being accused of being dangerous, radical liberals?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: Single-paired heterosexuality is "natural" and "normal". All other forms of sexuality are not normal.
Despite the fact that recorded human history is full of people who were not heterosexual -- despite the fact that the vast majority of those who identify as heterosexual are not single-paired for a lifetime in terms of sexual interactions -- despite the fact that queers of all varieties have been shown again and again to be "normal" in other respects (not that I consider that a good thing, necessarily, given what passes for normal in this society) -- being queer is still considered, well . . . queer. Abnormal. Deviant -- in all its shades of meaning, from the purely statistical to the moral/judgmental.
Why doesn't the collective presence of queers throughout history, the presence of verifiable clinical data, and the evidence of our own experience make a bigger dent in this standard?
Well -- you know . . .
I could go on and on with these examples, but . . . . enough already.
I want to draw attention to something in that last bit, though -- about the evidence of our own experience.
How many times have you found yourself bumping up against internalized oppression based on these standards, and subjugating yourself to them, despite your own experience that they were inaccurate or flawed?
As a person who is fat, I experience the health and strength of my portly form directly -- I have a visceral, intimate sense of my own vitality every single day, and have verifiable physical evidence that I’ve enjoyed far better health at my current weight than when I was thin -- but within me, I know I still harbor voices that tell me that I am wrong/bad for being fat.
I've spent a lot of time and energy arguing with those voices, and I wonder why I still sometimes allow them to trump my own actual life experience as an authority.
I think this may be one of the most insidious thing about kyriarchal standards -- their potential to get inside our heads and encourage us to stop thinking and feeling for ourselves.
These are the assumptions that we're soaking in, and challenging them is considered dangerous by adherents of the kyriarchy.
My experience has been that I assume that it's dangerous to challenge them, too, at some level.
I notice that, usually, as I muster up my courage to confront sexism, or racism, or homophobia, or ableism, or fat-phobia, or, or, or . . . . my palms get sweaty and the butterflies start up in my stomach.
In most cases, I also find myself assessing the person(s) I'm about to confront -- "Will it make any difference? Are they simply unconscious, but still teachable? How entrenched are they in the standard I'm about to challenge?"
Essentially, I'm asking myself: "Is it worth the risk of speaking up?" -- and that tells me that I have been successfully programmed to the concept that confronting the kyriarchy is risky.
The baffling thing is that, while many (if not most) of these standards can't hold up to the light of objective examination, and so many of them prove untrue in our direct personal and collective experience (turns out letting queers wed doesn't undermine the institution of marriage, and the human race did not die out because women stopped having children when they got the vote), the kyriarchy seems completely unembarrassed about having been so spectacularly wrong.
How often have you seen the kyriarchy successfully challenged on its own terms – with evidence and studies that adhere to the male-coded qualities of rational, scientific research – only to have the kyriarchy wave it away dismissively or simply skim to a new rationalization/justification to defend the standard?
[TW for discussion of rape culture]
Here’s a glaring example: The statistic that 1 out of every 6 women is a survivor of an attempted or completed rape at some point in their lives is not some magical claim that flew out of a unicorn’s butt – it comes from an agency within the kyriarchy itself: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/172837.htm
(My personal experience, and the experience of the women I know, tells me that this statistic is probably very conservative – but for the moment, let’s just go with their figures.)
Now -- think about how many times you’ve argued with a rape-culture denier – when you’ve pointed out these figures, or highlighted that this statistic is about rape only and doesn’t even touch on other forms of sexual threat and harassment towards women – and then you’ve received responses like these:
• Well, those are subjective reports! (dismissal relying on another assumption/standard -- women can’t be trusted)
• But men are more often victims of murder! (skim away)
• Hey! Men are raped too! (straw-person attempt at justification/skim away)
• Women can just accuse someone! (see #1)
• Yes, there are some bad apples, but there is no such thing as a rape culture. (dismissal)
(As a side note: I think that one of the reasons that the denial of rape culture is so strong is that it’s a key strand in a particularly complex and nasty basket – if you pull on that one, all sorts of other cultural tropes -- about men as the noble protectors of delicate womanhood, and equal opportunity, and shared power, and a host of other assumptions and standards -- begin to come unraveled.)
And yet another example (honestly, sometimes I wish these weren’t so easy to find):
When a person who fits the preferred kyriarchal profile of straight, white, male becomes wealthy, powerful, or popular, it’s assumed that their success is due to how well the various systems and standards of the kyriarchy work.
However, when a person of color, or a woman, or a disabled person, or a transperson, or a queer, or, or, or . . . actually succeeds on the kyriarchy’s own terms – say they amass great wealth, or attain a position of power, or develop a widespread audience – how often do you hear criticisms of them that imply that they must have “cheated” in some way?
Obama, born in Hawaii, needs to provide a birth certificate -- but McCain, born in Panama, does not.
Oprah Winfrey’s business acumen has clearly resulted in “success” by kyriarchal standards, but I often see coded misogyny in the criticisms of how she got there – the very fact that her audience and message are coded feminine seems to make her suspect. The coded misogyny seems to extend to men who pitch primarily to women, too. Dr. Phil is the second highest-earning talk-show host after Oprah -- but compare the attitudes you hear expressed about the value of these two shows as compared to what you hear about Letterman (the third highest earner).
Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be where she was unless she’d been married to a U.S. President, right?
Also, it’s often assumed that a person outside the preferred profile has only succeeded because of their difference, rather than in spite of it (just another lovely feature of tokenism).
I bring these examples up because they demonstrate again how the kyriarchy does not seem to feel obliged to adhere to its own standards. The USian myth that anyone can succeed, as long as they follow the formula of Hard Work! Clean Living! Moral Standards! is exploded by its own adherents over and over as they succeed in spite of poor work ethic, libertine behavior, and glaring moral hypocrisy. It’s exploded yet again when outsiders follow the formula but don’t succeed, or succeed and are then discounted.
It’s the old saw: A woman [you could insert any other “other” there] has to be twice as good as a man [insert “straight” “white”, etc.] to go half as far.
All of this is essentially about unearned privilege, and double-standards, yes – but it actually goes beyond just a double-standard, I think – it’s really a one-way standard – one that bristles and growls when you dare to challenge its validity.
So, where am I going with all this?
I’m going here >>> I’m currently using these three features of the Kyriarchy . . .
1. Doesn’t have to live up to its own standards, requires that all others do so.
2. Claims these standards as Universal Truth, despite clinical and experiential evidence to the contrary.
3. Gets cranky and threatening (and often, eliminationist) when standards are challenged.
. . . to examine attitudes and beliefs inside myself for hints of internalized oppression.
An example from my own life – a standard that I absorbed fully and still wrestle with:
Formal Traditional Education=Intelligence
As the daughter of two school teachers, I got the full spa-treatment with this one – it was soaked, scrubbed, and polished into me, at home as well as in the wider world, and I didn’t begin to question it within myself at all until I was well into my thirties.
I knew one of my best friends for nearly ten years before she revealed that she had quit school at fourteen and had no GED. Her mom was pretty much absent for a number of reasons, and there were four young brothers who needed care and supervision. My friend is brilliant – a gifted writer, thinker, and business woman -- and I said something asinine in response, like: “Really? I would never have known that – you’re so smart!” (Oy! It’s one of those moments that makes me want to curl up and die of shame when I think back on it.)
But do you see what happened there?
When the standard I had absorbed was challenged by my direct experience of my dear friend’s rapier wit (which brings me to tearful laughter on a nearly daily basis), penetrating mind (which I have marveled at in long, late conversations on myriad subjects), and success as an entrepreneur, and I experienced that “Zuh?” moment -- I didn’t stop and question the validity of the standard – instead, I dismissed her as an anomaly to it.
Of course, questioning and challenging this internalized entrainment can be a dicey business, according to the kyriarchy – because if Education !=Intelligence, then I begin questioning all sorts of other assumptions about what Intelligence is at all.
Is another friend whose grammar sucks (according to the standard), but who is able to instantly see connections that I miss, more “intelligent” than I am? Does my friend who simply says “I don’t read”, but who takes photographs of astounding beauty and fucking invents and builds impossibly weird, complex, and gorgeous stringed instruments, “intelligent”? Is my friend’s autistic, nonverbal son being “intelligent” when he’s effortlessly cutting a perfect freehand spiral from a sheet of paper in seconds?
This is why the kyriarchy hates being confronted. This is how the basket unravels.
I believe that we must unravel it, because the stereotypes arise from the institutional standards, not the other way around.
I often find that there is much more support for the confrontation of individual stereotypes than for thorough assessment and critique of the nasty basket from which they spring, even within communities of self-identified social justice activists.
Write a blogpost descrying a specific comment that accuses the unemployed of being lazy, and you’re likely to get a pat on the back and big huzzah – write one about how frequent swings in employment levels may indicate that Capitalism itself is an inherently-flawed economic system? – you are ZOMG RADICAL!!11!!1!!
Pen an article about the injustice of a specific rape case where “she was asking for it” tropes are trotted out, and at least some other progressives will applaud you – begin a series about how rape is institutionalized as Rape Culture, and point out how individual “jokes” and acceptance of those “jokes” promotes this institutionalized oppression, and you may find that those very same people tell you that you are being HYSTERICAL!!, and alarmist, and looking for trouble where it doesn’t exist – especially if you type that series with hands that happen to be attached to a woman’s body.
If you’re a queer speaking out about the false standard of hetero-normity, or a person of color speaking out about the false standard of white supremacy, or person with a disability speaking out about the false standard of able-mind/bodiedness – well, of course you’d speak out that way – you have an agenda. If you’re not a member of the marginalized group, but you speak out about these things, you’re being “politically correct”, or you’re “brain-washed” or part of an “echo chamber”.
The kyriarchy has a bazillion and one strategies to discourage true inquest into its baseline assumptions and standards -- that’s a feature, not a bug.
The one time I was absolutely believed that I was at real risk during an interaction with police was stimulated by the bumper sticker on a friend’s van. The cop who was pointing a gun at me even nodded toward it when I asked why he was treating us the way he was.
The bumper-sticker read: “Question Authority”.
I recommend it highly.
