The Dead Milkmen: "Punk Rock Girl"
Mitch
Am currently listening to my governor, Mitch Daniels, talk about what a great success privatizing the Indiana Toll Road has been.
An economic success, obviously. For the state.
The Hoosiers who actually use the Indiana Toll Road and now have to pay three times as much for the privilege of getting to work in Chicago because there are no jobs in Indiana can go fuck themselves. Obviously.
Question of the Day
What is a little thing you do to bring yourself comfort?
When I was a kid, I used to rub the corner of my pillow with my thumbnail; this would lull me to sleep almost immediately. These days, it's usually something warm to drink at night.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of genuine Shaxco brand press credentials.
Recommended Reading:
Hanne: (TW for ableist language) Real Women
Malada: My Brother Asked Me Why I'm a Liberal
CBS Local Boston: Disabled People with Service Dogs Turned Away from Restaurant
Geyser of Awesome: If the Beatles Started Today
deliciousnewyork: (TW for erotic imagery on the site) Hipster Trek
Saudiwoman's Weblog: Saudi Women Driving Movement
Sabria: This Hijabi Has a Legitimate Complaint
Leave your links and recommendations in comments....
MYOB, Peasants
It's hard out there for the uber rich. Sure, Obama may be keeping Dubya's tax cuts for the wealthy, and sure, you can fill your coffers while still fucking over the American people, and sure, your money gives you access to an obscene amount of political power, but doggone it, those darn whiny poor people just can't stop picking on you about your grossly huge salary. Can't someone make krajillions of dollars without everyone sticking their nose where it doesn't belong? Huh? Huh? Won't someone help the poor wealthy?
Here’s one financial figure some big U.S. companies would rather keep secret: how much more their chief executive makes than the typical worker.Of course, this has nothing to do with unchecked greed and smokescreening gross inequality.
Now a group backed by 81 major companies — including McDonald’s, Lowe’s, General Dynamics, American Airlines, IBM and General Mills — is lobbying against new rules that would force disclosure of that comparison.
The lobbying effort began more than a year ago. It involved some of the biggest names in corporate America and meetings with members of both parties on the House Financial Services Committee and Senate banking committee.
The companies and their Republican allies in Congress call comparisons between the chief and everyone else in the company “useless.”
Disclosing such comparisons “can mislead or confuse investors,” said Rep. Nan A.S. Hayworth (R[edonkulous]-N.Y.), who filed the bill to repeal the disclosure. “It creates heat but sheds no light.”Ah, I see, it's so we don't get our widdle bwains all confused.
Okay, player.
Blog Note
Posting will be lighter than usual the next two days, as I'm going to be attending the Clinton Global Initiative's CGI America, which is the Clinton Global Initiative's first conference focusing on the US' economic needs.
I'm really excited to be going. I may do some live-blogging and/or live-tweeting, but I'm probably more likely to take a lot of notes and then do a follow-up post afterward. I'm expecting to be absolutely overwhelmed with information, which is pretty much my favorite thing in the world.
In any case, you can follow the happenings on Twitter, or watch the plenary sessions live at the CGI America webcast. Highlights, news, and photos from CGI America will also be shared on the CGI Facebook page.
My governor, Mitch Daniels, is one of the speakers on Thursday. That should be fun. I can't wait to hear about ALL HIS GOOD IDEAS to help the US economy!
On Policing Femininity, and the Right to Be Wrong
This started out as a comment on Kate's post, but it got really long, so…
One of the real problems with feminist policing of expressions of traditional femininity (among many problems, which also include looking suspiciously like a thingy that polices from the other direction), is that it effectively ignores the reality that many feminist women (almost like real humans! wheeeeee!) tend to go through stages where they have different personal relationships with the accouterments of traditional femininity as they move through life accumulating experience and knowledge, and their feminist philosophy changes, deepens, broadens.
Many years ago, I rejected certain expressions of traditional femininity because I was a misogynist, raised in a misogynist culture to hate women (including myself). I was socialized to have axiomatic contempt for the feminine and all its associations with weakness and frivolity and being less than.
I was born into a world in which, given my particular set of personal circumstances and privileges, I was told that I was equal to men from the day I was born—and it was a real shock to me to find out that not everyone agreed. In theory, I was equal. In practice, I was decidedly not.
And the way I first learned to navigate that ego-rattling disparity was to assert myself as an Exceptional Woman. Not like those other women. Certainly not like those radical feminists. I wasn't like them. I laughed at dirty jokes and didn't take three hours to get ready and liked baseball. I was practically one of the boys.
Ugh. Embarrassing stuff.
I thought I was a feminist, but I only understood feminism in the most cursory way.
Then I was exposed to proper feminist theory for the first time—and suddenly I started REALLY LIKING being a woman, and other women, and all things feminine, in a way I had never liked any of those things before. It made me voraciously desirous of feminine things, many of which I'd always liked, deep down, but had rejected, shoving my affections to dark vaults at the bottom of my psychological sea. There they could be forgotten, or at least denied.
But feminism gave me permission to love the feminine, which I'd never had before. And I wanted to wear pink—not ironically—and to be pretty.
I lived on—and my perspective on the world changed, and I changed, and my feminism changed. Some of the expressions of traditional femininity I had embraced started to seem problematic to me. I didn't exactly ricochet back in the other direction, but I certainly felt less disposed toward, less fond of, certain expressions of femininity. Some of them felt, when on my body, on my skin, in my mouth, in my thoughts, like an artifice behind which I was hiding.
I lived on. Change. Etc. My life is not static. My thinking is not static. I interact with new people who introduce me to new ideas all the time. I am influenced by the world around me, which itself changes in ways that affect my thinking. I am influenced by the parts of myself that continue to emerge, and sometimes surprise me.
There has not been any point at which my personal feminism is/was "right" with regard to my expressions and/or rejections of femininity, according to every other feminist on the planet. It is a moving target, even for me, finding some balance between my feminism and my femininity.
All I have learned is not to judge, not to audit—because I have no idea where any other feminist is on her journey. I don't even know where I am on my own.
I don't want to be the police, and I don't want to be policed. What I want is the presumption I'm fumblefucking my way through this thing in good faith, that I don't want to make life any harder for any other person during my time on this rock.
What I want is the freedom to fuck up, and the right to be wrong.
Question of the Day
What food can you just not get enough of lately?
For some reason, after spending the first 37 years of my life relatively indifferent to pineapple—I mean, I liked it and all, but I never craved it and never went out of my way to eat it—I am suddenly desperate to eat fresh pineapple like it's going out of style.
All right then.
Whoooooooooops
Whoops, CNN! Your article is about how companies "must proactively work to create a workplace culture that matches their workplace policies" and create a workplace environment that is LGBTQI-friendly not just "by policies but by the attitudes and behaviors of mid-level managers and co-workers."
But your headline is: "Why gays should come out at work."
Nope!
Enough Is Enough
The brilliant Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on the floor of the Senate yesterday. To read the full text of the 90-minute speech, go here. To sign the letter (please sign the letter!), go here.
Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. In the coming days and weeks, decisions will be made about our national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American in this country for decades to come—and the time is now for the American people to become significantly involved in that debate and not leave it to a small number of people here in Washington.
Mr. President, at a time when the wealthiest people and the largest corporations in our country are doing phenomenally well, and in many cases have never had it so good, while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, it is absolutely imperative that any deficit-reduction package that passes this Congress not include the horrendous cuts, the cruel cuts, in programs that working people desperately need, that are utilized every day by the elderly, by the sick, by our children, and by the lowest income people in our country, that the Republicans in Congress, dominated by their extreme rightwing, are demanding.
America is not about giving tax breaks to billionaires and attacking the most vulnerable people in our country. We must not allow that to happen.
In my view, the President of the United States needs to stand with the vast majority of the American people and say no to the Republican leadership and make it clear that enough is enough! No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country—on our children, on our seniors, on the sick. No, we will not do that. Working families in this country have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, lost pensions. The working families of this country are hurting right now. Enough is enough.
But, Mr. President, now is the time to say to the millionaires and the billionaires in this country, and to the largest corporations, who in many ways have never had it so good, that they must participate in deficit reduction—that there must be shared sacrifice, that deficit reduction cannot be based on cutting back on the needs of working families and the middle class, but the rich and large corporations have also got to participate in this process.
Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary, if we are talking about a sensible deficit-reduction package, that we take a hard look at unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon.
And, Mr. President, let us make it very clear that we will not be blackmailed again by the Republican leadership in Washington who are threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States government so that, for the very first time in our nation's history, we might not pay the bills we owe. That is their threat. We will destroy the record of always paying our bills, never failing to do that, unless they get everything they want.
Instead of yielding to the incessant, extreme Republican demands, as the President in many respects did in last December's tax cut agreement and this year's spending negotiations, the President has got to get out of the beltway. He has to connect with the needs of working families and ordinary Americans, and rally the overwhelming majority of our people who believe that deficit reduction must be based on shared sacrifice, that the wealthy and the powerful and the large corporations cannot continue to get everything they want while we wage a cruel and unprecedented attack on the most vulnerable people in this country.
It is time for President Obama to stand with the millions who have already lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, instead of the millionaires, who in many cases have never had it so good.
Unless the American people in huge numbers tell the President not to yield one inch to Republican demands to destroy Medicare and Medicaid while continuing to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful, unless the American people rise up and say enough is enough, I am afraid that what will happen is the President will yield once again, and the wealthy and the powerful will laugh all the way to the bank, while working people will be devastated.
So, today, I am asking the American people that, if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice; if you believe the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction; if you believe that, at a time when military spending has almost tripled since 1997, that we begin to take a hard look at our defense budget; and if you believe the middle-class and working families have already sacrificed enough, I urge you to make sure that the President hears your voice—and he needs to hear it now.
I would urge the American people to go to my Web site, sanders.senate.gov, and sign a letter to the President letting him know that enough is enough…
Ohio News
The Ohio House is currently in session (which you can watch live here). Within the past hour, they've passed two oenerous pieces of legislation, HB 78 (I believe was 64Y - 33N, but I didn't record it) and HB 79 (62Y - 35N).
HB 78 is an appalling, hideous bit of legislation (underlines & strike-outs theirs, not mine):
(A) "Fertilization" means the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum.
Read the full text here. There are many hoops a doctor must jump through to even do an abortion to save the life of a women--not to mention a shitload of tracking paperwork to be submitted to the Dept of Health.
(B) "Gestational age" or "gestation" means the age of an unborn human child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of a pregnant woman.
[...]
(F) "Medical emergency" means a condition that a pregnant woman's physician determines, in the physician's good faith and in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, based upon the facts known to the physician at that time, so complicates the woman's pregnancy as to necessitate the immediate performance or inducement of an abortion in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to avoid a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman that delay in the performance or inducement of the abortion would create.
(G) "Physician" has the same meaning as in section 2305.113 of the Revised Code.
(H) "Pregnant" means the human female reproductive condition, that commences with fertilization, of having a developing fetus.
(I) "Pregnancy" means the condition of being pregnant.
(J) "Premature infant" means a human whose live birth occurs prior to thirty-eight weeks of gestational age.
(J)(K) "Serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" means any medically diagnosed condition that so complicates the pregnancy of the woman as to directly or indirectly cause the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, including, but not limited to, the following conditions: A medically diagnosed condition that constitutes a "serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" includes pre-eclampsia, inevitable abortion, and premature rupture of the membranes, may include, but is not limited to, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and does not include a condition related to the woman's mental health.
(1) Pre-eclampsia;
(2) Inevitable abortion;
(3) Prematurely ruptured membrane;
(4) Diabetes;
(5) Multiple sclerosis.
(K)(L) "Unborn human child" means an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.
[...]
(B)(1) It is an affirmative defense to a charge under division (A) of this section that the abortion was performed or induced or attempted to be performed or induced by a physician and that the physician determined, in the physician's good faith medical judgment, based on the facts known to the physician at that time, that either of the following applied:
(a) The unborn child was not viable.
(b) The abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.
(2) No abortion shall be considered necessary under division (B)(1)(b) of this section on the basis of a claim or diagnosis that the pregnant woman will engage in conduct that would result in the pregnant woman's death or a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or based on any reason related to the woman's mental health.
You can read the text of HB 79 here, though it simply says: [A]ny qualified health plan as defined in section 1301 of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," 42 U.S.C. 18021, offered in this state through an exchange created under that act" will not offer abortion coverage for "non-theraputic" abortion.
The House has not yet moved onto the notorious HB 125, the so-called "heartbeat bill". Will keep you updated if/when there is any news on that.
ETA:They did already vote and HB 125 passed 54 - 43. As a reminder: SCOTUS has deemed it is unconstitutional to pass laws preventing abortion before viability.
An Observation
If, as I am routinely accused of being, I actually were constantly looking for things to get mad about, following Judd Apatow and Seth Meyers on Twitter so I could stay on top of everything they're doing would be an excellent idea.
[For Shaker Teaspoon.]
Important News: I'm Packing Nail Polish For My Vacation
A few days ago, Flavia Dzodan let everyone within twittershot know that Julie Bindel's had just written a piece for the Guardian attacking femininity. I'm not going to link to it, because the world would be a better place if people stopped pretending that Bindel has anything to bring to the table.
I'm not going to set up a straw-feminist, but this is hardly the first time I've heard would be progressive ladies bad mouthing femininity.
I'm also not going to claim that feminine women are uniquely oppressed by society. Indeed, society does pressure some women (especially the ones born without penises) to display culturally-accepted levels of femininity. Transgressing these gendered expectations will get you in trouble.
However, those of us who display feminine traits do catch grief from two sides. First, there are folks who argue that femininity is a sign of weakness, in that it's associated with being a woman. Second, there are our supposed allies who argue that femininity is a sign of weakness, in that it shows signs of being corrupted by the patriarchy and corporate interests.
Both of these philosophies of marginalization assume that femininity is an artifice (unlike, say, masculinity), and that femininity is weak.
No, and no.
I am who I am: me. Women come in different flavors (That's what she said!). We are all real. We are all natural. We are all strong.
I'm feminine because that's who I am. If I can't be me, I'm not happy.
My gender expression is about me, not anyone else.
So, I'm going on vacation tomorrow. If you're in Syracuse, don't touch my stuff. My family's going to the mountains*. I'm bringing the nail polish.
Honestly, vacation is one of the few times where I get to do my nails. Most days my nails are pretty ratty looking. I'm frequently "at" work, whether I'm in my office or not. Three or more nights a week I'm busy with roller derby. I tend to our garden. We have a daughter. She makes messes (although to be truthful, my partner does the bulk of the picking up).
I've recently begun to militantly set aside time just to read.
As much as I'd like to end each day with a nice long soak in a clawfoot tub, shave my legs a few times a week, trim and polish my nails, and drift off to sleep (or thereabouts), that's not my reality. Most nights, I take a sleeping pill to quiet my mind, get to bed when I can, and (hopefully) wake up at the last conceivable second, with just enough time to throw on some a t-shirt and jeans, brush my teeth, shave my face, and head out the door.
So, you'll excuse me if I laugh at the occasional assertion that wearing pretty clothes and hair and makeup is work. For me, it's something I get to do if I'm lucky, and it makes me happy.
I'm not denying that society doesn't make the display of femininity a de-facto requirement for a lot of women, for whom these requirements are, in fact, an oppressive burden. And yes, we should continue to fight that oppression.
However, I'm not on board with the idea of replacing one type of conformity with another. Shave your legs. Or don't. Either way, you'll look great. Diversity is beautiful.
*As defined by New Yorkers
Gilded Age News
Whoooooooooooooooooops this is why pretending that global corporations have even the tiniest shred of patriotism is a terrible idea:
Less than three years after receiving $10 billion in bailout money from American taxpayers, Goldman Sachs informed its employees recently that it will fire 1,000 workers in the United States and elsewhere, shifting their jobs to the cheaper Singaporean labor market.Ha ha remember when President Obama nominated Judd Gregg to serve as Commerce Secretary? GOOD TIMES!
...Goldman Sachs has also worked to [inoculate itself from the impending blowback] by hiring former Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (NH) as an "international advisor." It is not unreasonable to assume that Gregg's 26 years in Washington will help the investment firm's attempts to placate critics.
Anyway, over at the Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio makes the point that Goldman Sachs is eliminating the same sort of jobs here that it's taking to Singapore, where the standard of living doesn't make the reorganization a cost-saving maneuver. So why the move? Well, one issue is the shitty US economy. (You didn't actually think global corporations would stick around and help rebuild the economy they ransacked for profits, did you?) The other is the possibility of tougher regulations. Faced with the terrible specter of being forced to do business with some semblance of responsibility, accountability, and ethics, Goldman Sachs is taking its jobs and going somewhere else.
So this move may be best characterized as a bet against the U.S. economy and a way to escape some new U.S. regulation. Put simply: the U.S. is not the place to be anymore for big banking profits.Awesome.
Seeing Goldman begin to take these steps isn't great news for the U.S. The bank tends to be out in front of the economic trends, as it was with its bet against mortgages in the final days of the housing bubble. If Goldman is right, then the U.S. is going to be in for a rough time over the next decade or so. And other Wall Street firms moving more workers overseas will make matters worse, as the U.S. will lose out on some of its highest paying jobs and the contribution to GDP growth that some lost banking profits would have provided.
The Invisible Hand is hailing a cab.
