Tina Turner & Cher, "Makin' Music Medley"
Commenting Note
[Trigger warning for violence.]
I realize that "I feel stabby" or "That makes me stabbity" and variations thereof are really rather common commenting turns of phrase, even (and maybe especially) on feminist blogs, but they are prohibited in this space, where the commenting policy explicitly prohibits violent imagery.
Commenters who are interested in not triggering trauma survivors might want to jettison that language from their lexicons altogether, given the fact that knives are not an uncommon weapon, especially to many survivors of gangs, rape, and domestic violence—particularly in countries which have tighter gun laws than the US (for example).
Cruel & Unusual
[Trigger warning for disablism.]
I'm not even sure where to begin with this story of a father who refuses to let his triplets see their mother, who was paralyzed while giving birth to them, because, he argues, spending "lengthy periods of time with a woman who can only lay motionless will traumatize them." I have a couple of immediate thoughts, though.
1. There's a long history of arguing that parents who don't fit the alleged ideal of two married, opposite-sex, hetero, cis, thin, able-bodied parents of the same race will traumatize children. Single mothers will traumatize children. Same-sex parents will traumatize children. Parents of different races (or religions, or nationalities) will traumatize children. Trans parents will traumatize children. Fat parents will traumatize children. Dwarf parents will traumatize children. Neuto-atypical parents will traumatize children. Physically disabled parents will traumatize children.
Despite the prevalence of this "conventional wisdom," there is precious little evidence of its alleged veracity. There is evidence that prejudice against nontraditional parenting can effect (not "traumatize") children of marginalized parents, but not that parenting by marginalized people does.
If anything stands to harm these children, it's the stigma against their disabled mother being cruelly perpetrated by their own father. (Who, by the way, divorced her once it was determined her paralysis was likely permanent.)
2. Being suddenly exposed to disability or injury, without explanation, can be upsetting for young children for whom disability is an unfamiliar concept; it can be the first time they're exposed to the idea that bodies can change or be different, which can be frightening for some children, while others might just be curious. In either case, children may have questions that need answers. (Like, ya know, everything else.)
Navigating those questions may be more difficult when there's a possibility the child/ren could wrongly assume blame for the injury by virtue of its having happened in the course of childbirth. But that's not even this father's concern. His concern is that his children merely spending time with a disabled person—who is their mother—will somehow inevitably traumatize them.
That's just naked disablism, right there. And shielding children from disabled people, treating disabled people as if they're something to be traumatized by, will instill disablism in those children. Call me kooky, but I have to imagine that breeding bias against their own mother while simultaneously keeping them away from her is infinitely more likely to cause trauma to those kids than letting them see their mother and giving them an empathic understanding of disability ever would.
3. The claim that their mother "can only lay motionless" is a lie.
[Abbie Dorn's mother, who is her primary caretaker] says her daughter expresses her emotions when she smiles or cries and that she communicates with others by blinking her eyes. One long blink means yes. No response to a question means no.
Blub.
When a Los Angeles Times reporter visited her last year and asked if she wanted to see her children, Dorn responded with a long, firm blink.
Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote an entire book by blinking using partner-assisted scanning. Just because someone is (nearly) motionless does not mean they cannot communicate, cannot interact. The claim that Abbie Dorn can do nothing but lay motionless may well be a profound underestimation of her capacity, and, if it is, her children's father should be ashamed of his deliberate misrepresentation, in service of his own prejudice.
[H/T to Shaker Azzy.]
Life Flashes By: Ready for Prime Time!
Deirdra Kiai's Life Flashes By, a game which I've posted about before, is now out of beta and is officially ready to be played and enjoyed by the public at large:
I would like to take the time to formally announce that Life Flashes By is now out of open beta! This means that a more or less final version of the game is now available for download, and, more importantly, the long-awaited collector’s edition is now complete! Hence, if you’re hankering for a shiny, tactile copy of the game to call your own, look no further, for you can now preorder one on my Donations & Merch page. Yay!Word has it that if you play this game, you'll instantly be the coolest at parties. It worked for me!
Seen
[Image description: A snapshot of the bottom right of my browser window containing two blog ads right next to each other. The ad on the left is the top of an advertisement for faster internet speeds. The ad on the right is simply an image of a guy completely passed out, and a bottle of Nyquil.]
For some reason this cracks me up. I think it has to do with the placement of the cropping relative to the full height of each ad. All I saw was faster internet = unconsciousness.
And Santayana Said, "Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It."
Nancy Goldstein's got a great piece in The American Prospect, "Preserving the Triangle Factory Fire's Lessons, 100 Years Later." An excerpt:
Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that trapped and killed 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women, on the upper floors of a New York City sweatshop. It's a time to honor and mourn the Triangle's victims, commemorate the tragedy's importance as a turning point in the history of the American labor movement, and reaffirm the crucial role of unions and regulatory bodies in advancing worker rights. Both are taking a beating in America's 21st-century iteration of the Gilded Age, as industrialists (hello, Koch brothers) paired with the craven politicians who do their bidding (greetings, Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Scott Brown, et al.), take another pass at ridding our country of all those nasty laws that protect consumers and workers, and cut into their bottom line.Go read the whole thing.
It was unions -- led by the International Ladies' Garment Workers (now Workers United) in league with the Women's Trade Union League -- that began harnessing public outrage in the wake of the fire to demand the regulations regarding worker health, well-being, and safety that protect many workers to this day, whether or not they belong to a union. Think workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, weekends, holidays, sick pay, employee benefits, and safety standards.
...And then think about how dangerously close America is to turning its back on Triangle's legacy because of this past decade's (mostly) Republican and corporate-led assault on regulatory bodies and policies. This is the very time when workers most need protection: As our country's recession deepens, unions have been eviscerated, and jobholders and job seekers have become more desperate. As one Harvard Business School lecturer memorably said about Harley Davidson's happy discovery that reducing the number of employees has actually contributed to soaring profits, "Because of high unemployment, management is using its leverage to get more hours out of workers."
Yet the public seems increasingly to hate, envy, and blame unions and unionized workers.
And More GOP War on Uteri
I literally just hit publish on my last post, and then I see this: Alabama legislators consider Nebraska-style bill to block elective abortions at 20 weeks.
Abortion opponents are hoping the big changeover in the Legislature, with new Republican leadership, will lead to a ban on elective abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy.And all of them were medically necessary to preserve the emotional health of the mother, not that we're supposed to give a shit about that, because, hey, it's "still a life," right?
...In Alabama, the Department of Public Health regulates abortions. State Health Officer Don Williamson, who isn't taking a position on the bill, said Alabama's current regulations prohibit the abortion of a viable fetus and a doctor must perform an ultrasound to determine the age of the fetus before performing the operation.
He said Alabama had 10,882 abortions in 2009 and 79 of those, or less than 1 percent, were at 20 weeks or later. He said some of those 79 were likely medically necessary to save the life of the mother.
The profundity of my contempt is cavernous.
The GOP War on Uteri
[Trigger warning for hostility to agency and bodily autonomy.]
Today in state-sponsored terrorism, in defense of an inherently violent ideology, the Idaho State Senate has approved "a measure that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and subject abortion providers who violate the ban to criminal prosecution and lawsuits."
The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives, where passage is expected. And a representative with the National Right to Life Committee, which is behind the legislation, predicted the ban will find favor with Idaho's Republican governor.That would be the Nebraska law which resulted in Danielle Deaver being forced to deliver a 1-pound, 10-ounce girl she and her husband named Elizabeth, who was known to have fatal birth defects and spent 15 minutes trying to breathe air into undeveloped lungs before she died.
The legislation is patterned after a law adopted last year in Nebraska and is pinned to some medical research suggesting a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks.
So: Well done, Idaho! Not that it's just Idaho engaging in this fundamental assault on reproductive rights, reason, autonomy, agency, and decency: "Idaho is one of 17 states considering bills that would outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of gestation unless it could be proved the pregnancy endangered the woman's life." The Idaho law, however, not only seeks to grant the state control over pregnant people's bodies and intimidate abortion providers, but to empower men: "The bill would make it a felony to violate the 20-week ban and open violators to lawsuits by the woman and the unborn's father. It also would allow others—a spouse, relatives, other doctors—to file legal injunctions against abortion providers who break the ban."
Don't like the way your girlfriend/wife/daughter/niece/patient makes decisions about her body and her reproduction? Sue the abortion provider! Naturally, this empowers both male and female relatives/associates of a person who terminates a pregnancy, but reproductive coercion between two women (or a woman and a trans man) is vanishingly rare. Like HR3, this legislation stands to give increased influence to male partners who seek control over female partners' reproduction.
That is, of course, not a bug but a feature of this absurd legislation—which, by the way, is likely to result exclusively in preventing terminations of pregnancies like Danielle Deaver's: "According to the state, out of 1,650 abortions performed in 2009 in Idaho, only 14 involved pregnancies at 16 to 20 weeks." The idea that there are hordes of women seeking 20+ week abortions is, as always, a contemptible fantasy conjured by vile people who hate women.
[Via @TrustWomen.]
Top Chef Open Thread
Image from some corner of the internet: Robocop on a unicorn. Because I just don't care about this show anymore. I thought the finale was last week. But it is really next week? Will it ever end?
Important Announcement
Jeremy Piven Being Considered as Charlie Sheen Replacement.
That sounds about right.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Iain: What decade's fashions do you most admire?
He said his favorite is the 1930's, and then gave a long and detailed explanation about suits and hats and hair-dos I can't be arsed to transcribe, but will neatly paraphrase as: My husband wants to be Indiana Jones and do sexytimes with Mae West. The End.
As for me, I've got to say the 1980's, for the obvious reason that I was a tweenage fashion plate:
Hello, hot stuff!
You're History
Think Progress: Maine Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage (R) has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine's labor history from the lobby of the state's Department of Labor offices, claiming they received "some complaints" from business owners. The Governor has also directed that eight conference rooms named after labor leaders — including Cesar Chavez — be renamed "after mountains, counties or something."This country was built on the backs of men of color, women of color and their white sisters, queer folks, and poor folks (not mutually exclusive groups nor an exhaustive list), whom conservatives have endeavored to erase from the history books. Now they want to obliterate unions and erase the entire working class.
The directive comes amidst rising tensions between the LePage Administration and organized labor over the governor's support for a right-to-work bill and efforts to roll back the state's child labor laws.
While the state's AFL-CIO called the removal "mean-spirited", a spokesman for the governor has said that the removal was not meant to "antagonize" labor, but rather to correct the office's "one-sided decor."
...The mural was funded by a $600,000 grant from the federal government and includes depictions of Rosie the Riveter at Bath Iron works, a 1937 shoe worker's strike, and a 1986 paper mill strike. "There was never any intention to be pro-labor or anti-labor," the mural's artist, Judy Taylor, told the Sun-Journal. "It was a pure depiction of the facts."
Meanwhile, Chavez, FDR Labor Secretary Frances Perkins — the nation's first female cabinet secretary — and William Looney, a 19th-century lawmaker who sponsored a 10-hour workday law, would all have their names removed under the order.
By the time they're done rewriting US history, the nation will have been hand-built by the Founding Fathers, John Pierpont Morgan, Ronald Reagan, and Jesus.
"And they built it out of nothing but bootstraps and gumption!"
Quote of the Day
"The city feels empty physically, empty of people, empty of ambition, drive. It feels empty."—Detroit resident Samantha Howell, in a heartbreaking article about the city's wrenching and precipitous decline, which serves as "dramatic testimony to the crumbling industrial base of the Midwest."
Number of the Day
One zillion. The number of times Bill Kristol, famously wrong about every single thing ever, can evidently be wrong about everything before people will STOP LISTENING TO ANYTHING HE HAS TO SAY.
Oh look! WRONG AGAIN, BILL!
Bill Kristol, Senior Partner at the Law Firm of Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong Again, can be reached via email at billk@wrongitywrong.fart.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Dudley's naptime Zs, for all your napping needs.
Recommended Reading:
Jordan: [TW for sexual violence, transphobia, homophobia, racism, classism] Challenging Louisiana's 'Crime Against Nature' Law
Madame Thursday: [TW for fat hared and body policing] Body Policing and Fat Hate Are Related, But They Are Not the Same
Andy: [TW for homophobia] Indiana Senate Panel Approves Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Unions in 7-3 Vote
Renee: Pole Dancing for Jesus
Brinstar: In the Plants vs. Zombies World, There Are Only Men
Stephanie: Miniseries Preview: Mildred Pierce
Leave your links in comments...
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Tina Turner, "Legs," Live 1993
Btw, when you're done with this one, you should totes watch her do "Honky Tonk Woman," which would have been today's TMNS, if embedding hadn't been disabled on the video.
Sure
Glenn Beck Contemplates Starting Own Channel.
The possibility that Glenn Beck will exit the Fox News Channel at the end of the year has prompted a big question in media circles: if he leaves, how will he bring his considerable audience with him?Yep. Great idea.
Two of the options Mr. Beck has contemplated, according to people who have spoken about it with him, are a partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel, or an expansion of his subscription video service on the Web.
Let's discuss what its name should be. I nominate Whoooooooooooooops TV.
[Via Memeorandum. Commenting Guidelines: Disablist comments musing about Beck's psychological state or outright calling him crazy, nuts, deranged, delusional, unstable, a lunatic, in need of commitment, etc. are both unwelcome and not on-topic. I have a mental disorder, for example. It doesn't make me a lying rightwing dipshit.]
