[Trigger warning for ableist language; diet talk.]
Shaker Jabes emailed the link to an article at MSN entitled: "6 Lamest Excuses for Not Losing Weight."
Actually being lame is not, for the record, one of the six lamest excuses. I guess being fat as a result of physical disability is not a lame excuse. Or maybe it is, but it just didn't make the top 6.
Suffice it to say, able-bodiedness is not the only privilege on display throughout the duration of the piece, which I frankly don't recommended reading, anyway.
Perfect
Quote of the Day
"While we agree that fundamental campaign finance reforms are needed, Karl Rove and the Koch brothers cannot live by one set of rules as our values and our candidates are overrun with their hundreds of millions of dollars. We will follow the rules as the Supreme Court has laid them out, but the days of the double standard are over."—Bill Burton, former deputy White House press secretary and current senior strategist for Priorities USA and Priorities USA Action, two recently-launched fundraising groups established "to counter an expected tidal wave of money from independent GOP-leaning groups in the 2012 battle for the White House."
The two groups are structured "to accept the same kind of anonymous donations that Democrats criticized Republicans for accepting in the last election cycle."
"Principles schminciples! If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"—FDR. Or maybe that was Gandhi. Whatever.
The point is that this is OBVIOUSLY a better idea than instituting strict campaign finance reforms when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress would have been.
And the race to the bottom continues unabated.
Daily Dose of Cute
Here are four things you need to know about Matilda: 1. She is very fuzzy. 2. She doesn't like being groomed. 3. She doesn't particularly like grooming herself, either. 4. So she gets mats.
Although she's not good about letting me brush her, she is pretty good about letting me cut mats out of her fur with scissors, so that's the routine. EXCEPT. She won't let me get anywhere near the backs of her back legs and around her butt, and so she gets these huge-ass mats that are just impossible to deal with—and they are certainly no fun for her to have, either.
So I summoned her infinitely patient groomer, who continues to work with Tils despite Tils having bitten her once, and requested that she get rid of all those difficult mats by giving Tilsy a lion cut for the summer. It's the first lion cut she's ever had, and I cannot stop giggling at how ridiculously adorable she looks.
"Oh the humanity!"
I can't get over the fuzzy boots.
"It's all the rage in Paris, you know."
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Matilda's Mane Care, for all your grooming needs.
Recommended Reading:
Michelle: Little Girl Lost: Early Puberty Hides Environmental Injustice
Faruk: [TW for misogynist and ableist language] Translation of General Misogyny to Uncomfortable Truth
Andy: White House Hosts First Meeting with Transgender Activists
Helen: US Equal Employment Policy Updated to Protect Against Discrimination Based on Gender Identity
Echidne: Santorum's Stupid Comments. Nothing Changes.
Tami: When Will "Glee" Stop Ignoring Race?
Fannie: Barber: "Practitioner[s] of the Homosexual Lifestyle" Can't Judge Marriage Cases
Leave your links in comments...
Actual Headline
Fox News: EXCLUSIVE: Joey Lawrence Says Obama Didn't Bring Change, Endorses Donald Trump Run. Seriously.
"Whoa!"
This is all well and good, but can some responsible member of the media please find out who Small Wonder is endorsing?
Last Chance to Shrug
Attention objectivists, Randians, and lovers of cinema. This could be your final weekend to see Atlas Shrugged: Part I on the big screen. So hop to it! It's a thrilling tale of steel production and ungrateful relatives. Oh, don't believe me? Check out this clip, featuring the greatest dramatic tension this side of Dog Day Afternoon:
Transcript:
Henry Reardon passes through the gate at his home (Robber Baron Mansion). Inside his house, his family (Mother Reardon, Lillian Reardon, Phillip Reardon) entertains his guest (Paul Larkin). Henry enters his parlor (the parlor). Their idle chatter stops as they notice his presence.
Mother: Well, look who's finally home. Henry, Paul's been waiting here for hours.
Paul: Hello Henry.
Henry: Hey Paul. I know. I'm Late.
Mother: Could have called.
Lillian: Henry, do you mind holding the tenth of December open for me?
Lillian pours Henry a glass of his whiskey and brings it to him.
Henry: That's three months away; I don’t know what I'm doing next week. We started a major new pour today.
Lillian: It's our wedding anniversary, Henry. December 10th.
Mother: Henry isn't interested in anything that doesn’t tie in to his work.
Lillian: I know you're very busy but I would very much like for you to be there.
Henry: Of course, Lillian, I'll be there.
Lillian: Thank you dear. I want it to be special. Everyone will be there.
Mother: Have you had any dinner, Henry?
Henry: No. I was busy working. I'm not hungry anyway.
Phillip: That's the trouble with you, you work too hard.
Henry takes a jewelry box from his coat pocket and hands it to Lillian.
Lillian: (greedily) Oooh, what is this?
Henry: I had it made. From the first pour of Reardon metal.
Lillian opens the box, appears disappointed. She pulls out a bracelet that in no way resembles a railroad spike. She holds it gingerly between her fingers, as if it is made of dogshit.
Lillian: You're giving me a railroad spike? (Sighs) It's wonderful. It is. It's... It's original. I'll be ... the toast of the town wearing a piece of the same metal used to build railroads and bridges and sewer pipes and oil tanks and...
Phillip: You are so selfish, Henry.
Lillian: No, Phillip, it is not the gift, it is the intention.
Mother: The intention's pure selfishness, it seems to me. I mean, another man would have given his wife a diamond bracelet if he wanted to give her a gift. For her pleasure not his.
Lillian: No, a chain is appropriate. I think it's the chain by which he hold us all in bondage.
Henry sighs and turns away.
Lillian: Henry's poured his metal today and I have the first trophy. It's sweet.
Phillip: It's pathetic, Lil.
A servant interrupts, bringing refreshments. Henry takes a seat in his office. Phillips follows. The two exchange hellos.
Henry: What are you doing with yourself these days?
Phillip: I'm working for Friends of Global Awareness.
Henry: I know them. What do you want?
Phillip: Money. Doesn't everyone?
Henry: Call my office first thing in the morning I'll authorize a hundred grand for you.
Phillip: You really don't care about helping the underprivileged, do you?
Henry: No, Phillip, I don't. But it'll make you happy.
Phillip: It's not for me, Hank. It's for the benefit of the less privileged. You think I can have the money wired to my account?
Henry: A wire? Why?
Phillip: The thing is, it's a progressive group, they wouldn't appreciate your name on a check.
Henry: You're kidding me.
Phillip: No, it would embarrass us to have you on a list of our contributors.
Question of the Day
What would you say if you had hir in front of you?
Undoubtedly, people will wonder: Who? That's the beauty of the question. An ex-lover, an unrealized crush, a former boss, a dead friend, an estranged relative, that asshole who picked on you in 8th grade gym class, that poor kid you picked on in 8th grade gym class, a person whom you admire but have never met.... Who? That's up to you.
Identify hir or don't. All you've got to answer is what you'd say, given the chance.
[Suggested by Shaker Rachell Oct. 09.]
To the Daughters of the Angry Emailers
Occasionally, I get emails from disgruntled boyfriends or husbands who have been asked to read The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck by their girlfriends/wives, sometimes as explanation for why they're walking out the door. They are men who need to be angry at someone, and can't quite bring themselves to express that anger to the woman who directed them to the piece (or can't because all avenues to express that anger to her have been blocked), and so they express that anger at me.
I understand why they do it: It's certainly more satisfying than directing it at the intangible, diaphanous abstraction of a culture that has socialized them with the reflexive arrogance of privilege that impedes empathy and inhibits intimacy.
Nonetheless, I don't engage with them, if for no other reason than because most of them have been asked to read it by a woman expressing a desire their partner engage with her, and I refuse to provide an easier alternative to that invitation. I read the emails, and then I hit delete.
Many of them are funny, in an unintentional way. Some of them are a little scary. And some of them are deeply sad.
But none break my heart the way the ones I get from fathers do.
Now, partly that's because I have a fraught relationship with my own father, particularly around the areas of gender and politics. But, mostly, it's because the emails I get from fathers are so determined to defend themselves against the accusation they are somehow certain I made that they don't love their daughters—even as they explain to me in exacting detail why it is, precisely, that they don't have to respect them.
"I don't think of myself as anti-feminist, although I have become exasperated at the unwillingness of many women, including my daughter, who won't cut men any slack," wrote one father to me recently. "When I dare say that men and women aren't equal, but they are equals, she can go crazy."
"Just telling jokes about females being inferior doesn't make me a woman-hater," wrote another. "I am being ironic. If I really hated women, I wouldn't tell those jokes in front of females."
"If I didn't love my daughter, why would I pay for her education?" asked another, following his question with the bitter complaint: "But now that's not good enough, unless I agree with those premises that she's entitled to be superior to men."
And so forth.
It is terrible—terrible—to be a woman in a relationship with a man who does not reflexively and uncompromisingly respect your inherent worth as his equal. It is terrible, too, to be the sister or friend or coworker of such a man. But there is something uniquely painful about hearing one's own father communicate you are less than.
There is something uniquely demeaning about being told by a man who brought you into this world, and/or brought you up in it, that it is not a world to which you deserve equal opportunity, equal access, your fair share, but a world in which you deserve less.
Less respect. Less dignity. Less agency. Less autonomy. Less opportunity. Less voice. Less ownership of self. Less of your humanity, because humanness is a zero sum game, and a little of yours must be given to him.
That feels like something less than love to a daughter.
Occasionally, these fathers copy their daughters on their emails to me. I think that's probably worse than never knowing your father embarrassed himself by raging in the inbox of the stranger who happened to give voice to your private pain.
I don't correspond with those daughters, either—unless they email me individually, which happens sometimes, usually to (needlessly) apologize.
But I do think about them. And I want them to know, even if their fathers never tell them, they are not less than. They deserve to be listened to, and respected, and loved without the condition they obligingly participate in their own marginalization, without being coerced to tacitly concede their own inferiority with silence to which the only alternative is tension and quarrel.
You may never get it, my sisters, but you deserve it all the same.
Fun with Zoning
Some Pennsylvania universities should consider drilling for natural gas below campus to help solve their financial problems, Gov. Tom Corbett said Thursday.
The Republican governor's proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in July would cut $2 billion from education and reduce aid to colleges and universities by 50 percent.
Following the governor's statement, Slippery Rock University announced plans to spend this summer waiting on tables and mowing neighbors' lawns.
You just can't make this stuff up. Well, I suppose there's an exception for the part I just did. But still, the part about the Governor of Pennsylvania? That's totally for real.
I Need to Borrow a REALLY Small Violin, Please
TW for homophobia and transphobia, including use of slurs and references to violence
Via a university newspaper, I first became aware a couple of days ago of a proposed Texas state budget provision "requiring state colleges and universities that use state funds to support 'a gender and sexuality center' to spend an equal amount to promote 'family and traditional values'." The amendment was proposed by Representative Wayne Christian and passed by a margin of 110-24. Christian identified the source of his consternation as centers "for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender, gender questioning, or other gender identity issues."
Inside Higher Ed has more on the story, including the observation that "Lawmakers supporting the bill have said that they favor only equal time for all kinds of sexuality" (Because cisgender heterosexual people aren't getting their fair share of time or money... or something).
But the Inside Higher Ed article and the school newspaper make it clear that other supporters are honest about their ultimate goal--getting rid of centers "that serve gay and lesbian students": [T]he Young Conservatives of Texas, a group that worked with Christian on the legislation, did so with the hope that public colleges would respond to a law, if the bill passes, by ending support for existing centers. Tony McDonald, senior vice chairman of the group and a law student at UT Austin, said in an interview that "we could try to get these groups defunded" in a law, but that the equal funding approach was viewed as more likely to pass (perhaps with the same impact).
And from the school newspaper:"State funding and student fees should not fund any university minority or political group whether it be black, white, gay, etc," John McClellan, Christian's Chief of Staff, said. "This amendment is just one step in the process towards getting rid of these centers."
The argument seems to be that traditional family values,* whatever the hell those are, and heterosexuality are in danger because of a conspiracy to "promote" homosexuality. Wherein promoting homosexuality is roughly equivalent to daring to exist as a gay person.
Poor Tony McDonald of the Young Conservatives of Texas is distraught that ""If I were to walk through UT law school with a shirt on that said, 'Homosexuality is immoral,' if I were to do that, there would be an uproar. People would be upset, and it would be considered out of place and not acceptable to do that. I'd probably get a talking to. But if you go through campus to promote homosexuality, that is the norm."
See how equivalent these things are? Being gay or supporting a university gender and sexuality center is the same as walking around wearing a t-shirt that actively promotes a hostile climate and condemns/others people.
Again, I ask where does this shit come from--these ideas that the most privileged people in our society are persecuted simply by the presence of truly marginalized people who are refusing to stay confined to those margins?! According to the article, students indicated that they just want "to create 'an equal playing field' for those who may disagree with the gay center."
Because the playing field at universities is so obviously leveled in a way that unfairly benefits gay students.
Dear Mr. McDonald, despite your righteous indignation, as the Inside Higher Ed and the linked Texas Observer articles point out, there are things you will probably never have to worry about:
1. Grown ass lawmakers won't "crack jokes and guffaw" when discussing your sexuality or gender identity.
2. As the program co-ordinator for the center at Texas A & M notes, I have never heard of any student who took their life because their college roommate outed them as being a heterosexual student.
3. No one is ever going to accuse you of promoting heterosexuality just because you exist.
[snip]
I have never had a student come up and complain that someone comes up and out of the blue calls them a 'hetero' and slapped them, but that happens to my students, who are called 'dyke' and 'fag.'
4. I agree with the Observer that you probably won't have these worries on the first day you're on campus: How will he fit in? Should he tell his new roommate about his alternative hetero lifestyle? Will he be bullied, just like he was in high school, where he was mercilessly teased for being a sexual deviant? Where does a straight person turn?
No, you'll bounce through life willfully oblivious to the ways that heterosexuality is promoted, via everything from media outlets to tax benefits, imagining yourself egregiously put out and put upon.
But it's everyone else that has a "grievance-based" identity, right?
________________________________
*It would've taken another post to unpack the ongoing assumption that only people who are straight and cisgender (and to a certain extent, married/aspiring to be married) have family values and that "traditionally"/historically no one but those people have existed--I find the term "traditional" neatly and conveniently disappears the lives and experiences of a whole lot of people.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for racism.]
"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."—Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern (R-OKC), expanding on what she meant when she said "minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative".
Rep. Kern was commenting on recently passed legislation to eliminate affirmative action in regards to state government.
Photo of the Day
The above photo [AP Photo/Birmingham News, Jeff Roberts] is taken from The Atlantic's collection of photos, which can be viewed here, documenting the aftermath of the tornadoes that have been devastating the US south and midwest: "Powerful storms swept through the South and Midwest regions of the United States over the past several days, bringing with them heavy rainfall, flooding, hailstorms, lightning, and hundreds of devastating tornadoes. As of this morning, the death toll from the storm system has nearly reached 200—at least 128 of those in hard-hit Alabama. Neighborhoods have been flattened, thousands are without power across the region, and efforts to aid the trapped or injured continue in regions where many roads have become impassable. As residents work to recover what they can, they are preparing for yet another storm system predicted to pass through starting Saturday."
We have had terrible storming here all week, but fortunately have not had any tornadoes touch down (yet).
My thoughts are with Shakers who live and/or have loved ones in the affected areas. It seems coarse to wish that you and your loved ones are all okay, when we know that there are people who are not okay, but there it is. I am hoping you are among the people who are physically unhurt, and you have my profound compassion and sympathy for the hurt you are all certainly feeling.
The American Red Cross is providing temporary shelters and other support to the thousands of people who have been left homeless by the storms. They are in need of donations, which can be made via their website, via phone at 1.800.RED.CROSS, or via text: Text "REDCROSS" to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
Also: There will be so many pets and livestock in need of help, shelter, medical aid, food, and protection in the wake of such devastating storms. Please consider making a donation to a southern/midwestern chapter of the Humane Society, ASPCA, or other rescue organization. If you live in the area, they will also be desperate for foster homes for rescued animals, so please consider volunteering if you can.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave other ideas for teaspooning opportunities in comments.
On Why My Governor Shouldn't Be President (Again)
As I mentioned yesterday, my state of Indiana was one of two states considering defunding Planned Parenthood. And then, as Misty reported yesterday, the state legislature passed the bill, sending it to Governor Mitch Daniels.
Which puts Daniels in a bit of a conundrum, since he's the one who keeps saying that we all need to leave aside social issues like abortion while we focus on fixing the economy.
Or, it would put him in a conundrum, if he had any principles.
(Don't worry—he doesn't!)
So until he figures out how to navigate this quagmire in a way that makes him look like he's got principles, while simultaneously sorting out what's the most politically expedient response for a bloke considering a presidential run, he's officially remaining undecided about what to do.
Gov. Mitch Daniels said this morning he does not know yet if he will sign House Bill 1210, which makes Indiana's abortion restrictions among the tightest in the nation while also defunding Planned Parenthood.Spoiler Alert: He will sign the bill.
"I haven't decided yet," Daniels said.
The defunding of Planned Parenthood "has been attached to a bill I strongly supported," he told The Indianapolis Star. "But we've got a little research to do."
...Gov. Mitch Daniels has not said whether he will sign the bill into law. But on a radio show earlier this year, he described his administration as "the most pro-life" in Indiana history.
And Planned Parenthood will lose funding, and low-income healthcare will be scarcer, and access to contraception and abortion will be tougher, and unwanted pregnancies will be more frequent, and pregnant women will be at greater risk, and the already-struggling residents of Indiana—which has an unemployment rate higher than the national average, ranks fifth highest in the nation in bankruptcy filings, and now ranks tenth highest in the nation in foreclosures, after spending years at number one—will have yet one more struggle.
Welcome to Indiana, the Crossroads of America 2.0.
Baratunde Thurston on the Indecency of Birtherism
I linked this video in the comments of Elle's post yesterday, but I didn't have the chance to provide a transcript. Shaker doubletrack graciously provided a transcript last night, so here's the video, with transcript. Video of Trump can be seen with Baratunde's original posting of the video, here.
[Haltingly] It's been a very… difficult morning… for me. Um, got the news, that President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, ah, due to the increasing media circus surrounding… claims that he is not one of us, that he is not an American, and it comes at an interesting time for many reasons, well… one of which is it's April 27th 2011, and this just happened. So that's really interesting to me.
Also, because I'm reading, right now, a book by Manning Marable; it's called Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, and he unearths a lot of amazing detail and correspondence around this exceptional American, but through this book you also get a window into the Civil Rights movement throughout this country's history, especially the forties, fifties, and sixties—and you are reminded, if you read this book, or see a documentary special, or know anything about the complete history of the United States, you are reminded of the extraordinary level of sacrifice that has been involved in allowing all Americans to exist as, be treated as, participate as… Americans. To be that which they are [chuckles mirthlessly]… took [shakes head]… a lot!… of work! A lot of tears, a lot of pain, a lot of death.
There were people who dropped out of their ordinary lives, sacrificed their personal safety, their reputation, their ability to earn money, to intervene on behalf of those who they also saw as American. They got on buses in freedoms rides, they sat in, they died… in waves and waves of domestic terrorism so that someone like me [pointing to self, voice breaking] could go to a voting booth and not be asked by some racist poll worker to pay a tax or prove that my grandfather wasn't a slave or pass a literacy test which got increasingly difficult the more I might pass it.
And today… the President of the United States [sniffs derisively] had to prove that he was an American to the satisfaction of the seventy-five percent of Iowa Republicans who doubt that, or the forty-three percent of national Republicans who doubt that, or the one, heinous, low-class individual who took credit for it after: Donald Trump. A man who was given every advantage, who inherited millions and lost it all twice, but had that opportunity because no one's ever had to ask him to prove anything. A man who lacks intelligence, compassion, common sense, respect, decency, or [voice rising] an understanding of what the FUCK it means to be an American, that he would come out, moments after the President of the United States, and I stress that, the PRESIDENT, released his long-form birth certificate, and Donald Trump comes out moments later and says "I'm really proud of myself… but! Shouldn't have taken so long. I wanna see the birth certificate for myself. I wanna test it for au-then-ti-ci-ty. I don't want the press asking me about birth certificates anymore!" [sniffs].
I find it hard to… summarize in mere words the amount of pain and rage this incident has caused. [tears up] It's… humiliating. Not just to Barack Obama, not just to the office of the President, not just to Black Americans who died and those who supported our quest for freedom; it's embarrassing to the entire nation that we would sit and let this happen. We have all been debased by this incident—by a charlatan, by a conman, by a mere promoter of himself.
And for him to take credit for this [chuckles] and for him to revel in it and yet and still not be satisfied makes him no better than a Klansman, no better than a Bull Conner, no better than an anonymous, privileged white man in the 1950's who, regardless of his position in society, knew his position was higher than that of the common nigger. And that is what the fuck Donald Trump has done… to the President of the United States. To the office, of the President of the United States. To me… and to you.
I am disgusted. I have cried, because I know my own ancestors paid a very high price, and never would ever have imagined that we might have the President that we do, but certainly part of their joy in the ancestral celestial skies right now has been greatly diminished by what has happened here today. I hope that eventually, not just in the post-mortal world of karma and spiritual justice, Mr. Trump pays an exceptional price; I hope that price comes during his life. To then be able to walk around, a super-free, super-white, super-privileged man, lording over all who would pay attention (which is far too many) at what you have done… [sniffs]… has got to cost you something in this life as well.
I don't wanna hear about The Apprentice. I don't wanna hear about your new cologne, I don't wanna hear about the new tower you're building in whatever fuckin' town. That cologne smells of racism, that tower is built on the blood of disrespected slaves and freedom fighters, and that show was merely a showcase… [sniffs]… for the dishonor you have brought among anyone who would call themselves an American.
My name is Baratunde Thurston, I'm heartbroken over this. [On the brink of tears, covers mouth, ends video.]
