The Guardian: "Rebekah Brooks, the News International chief executive, has resigned after 11 days of mounting political pressure over the phone-hacking scandal. Brooks announced her decision to News International staff in Wapping just before 10am on Friday, saying her resignation had been accepted by Rupert and James Murdoch. She said she no longer wanted to be a 'focal point of the debate' surrounding the company's future and reputation."
The UK and US Attorneys General held a joint press conference this morning in Australia, where they are attending a conference on cyber crime, to confirm that both countries are continuing investigations into News Corp's activities.
Which we knew, but it's still sort of amazing to watch two different governments say they're coming for Rupert Murdoch.
Rebekah Brooks Resigns
Question of the Day
Who is your favorite funny man?
I'm not necessarily suggesting that the funny man in question has to be famously funny, or even famous at all. You can interpret the question however you like, and if that means your answer is your best friend, or an author, or an actor, those are just as legitimate answers as a comedian.
[Related: Who is your favorite funny woman?]
Number of the Day
47%: The percentage of the vote a generic "Republican Candidate" is currently getting among registered voters in Gallup's latest 2012 presidential poll. President Obama is currently getting 39%.
That's people not voting on the economy and the unemployment rate, I guess.
This far out, those numbers don't mean a lot, but it is concerning for anyone who does not want a Republican to be president (by which I don't mean Barack Obama, Moderate Republican, but one of the Social Darwinist Dominionist Oligarchs currently masquerading as Republicans) that registered voters' confidence in Obama is sliding as the economy has taken center stage in the news.
Daily Dose of Cute
[Click to embiggen.]
Dudley's favorite thing ever is the Peanut Butter Spooooooooooooon! When he's hears the sound of my twisting the cap off the peanut butter jar, he comes running into the kitchen so fast that he has, on multiple occasions, slid and crashed right into the side of the counter. "I'M HERE! I'M FINE! WHAT? NO, REALLY! IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND! GIVE ME PEANUT BUTTER PLEEEEEEEEASE!"
And he will stand and lick the peanut butter spoon in this completely zen state for as long as I will indulge him, even well after every last molecule of peanut butter is gone.
Have I mentioned I love this dog? I love this dog.
Feel the Homomentum!
How about a little good news?
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation today "that makes California the first state in the nation to require the inclusion of the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans in school history lessons and textbooks."
The legislation addresses omissions in history books, according to Gil Duran, a spokesman for the governor.Naturally, there have been MIGHTY OBJECTIONS!!!1!!eleventy! from various upstanding members of the American Family Values Children Christian Liberty Freedom Patriot Association Foundation Organization. You can find that dinosaur scat at the link, if you're so inclined, because I ain't posting it. Fuck them.
Brown issued a statement in which he called the legislation an "important step forward for our state."
"History should be honest," Brown said. "This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books."
"It's an important step forward for the state of California," Duran said. "It revises existing law to make sure people are not excluded from history books. History should reflect reality."
The bill by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) had sparked hot debate in the Legislature where it was pushed through by the Democratic majority. ...Leno said it would reduce bullying by educating young people about the accomplishments of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community.
"Today we are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT Americans," Leno said. "Denying LGBT people their rightful place in history gives our young people an inaccurate and incomplete view of the world around them."
Thanks, Governor Brown!
Today in OH NOES OBESITY CRISIS!
[Trigger warning for fat hatred and body policing; sexual violence.]
Experts: Really obese kids might need foster care.
Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.I love that the only two options for fat children are "forcibly removed from family" or "forcibly subjected to invasive surgery."
It has happened a few times in the United States, and the opinion piece in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association says putting children temporarily in foster care is in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery.
Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston, said the point isn't to blame parents, but rather to act in children's best interest and get them help that for whatever reason their parents can't provide.So, let's say there's a kid who is very fat, and the reason is because hir family lives in abject poverty in a food desert, so zie is consuming too many empty calories in a desperate bid for nutrition that the family can't afford to provide, and doesn't get enough exercise because zie lives in an area with endemic drug-related violence in which open spaces originally designed for play are controlled by gangs, which describes millions of kids in the US, some of whom are very fat, framing that fatness as "parents failing to provide" is, despite the caveat about not placing blame, some straight-up victim-blaming bullshit that, as per usual, tasks individual people (parents) with responsibility for a systemic problem (poverty).
Provided the Experts who want to separate very fat children from their families take the time to exclude outsized fatness as a symptom of illness or disability, and/or as a side effect of treatment for illness or disability, and seeing aside for a moment fatness as a symptom of poverty, I will note again that are also children who compulsively overeat as an emotional salve. Children (for the most part) cannot access on their own the appropriate tools adults use to process trauma, like therapy.
They can't access "inappropriate" tools adults use to cope with trauma, either; they don't have access to drugs or booze, but they do have access to food—and children in emotional distress can use food to self-medicate.
Several studies have found associations between childhood sexual trauma and childhood and/or adult obesity, especially in girls and women (example). Even a child thought to be overeating out of "boredom" may really be eating out of loneliness or abandonment.
That we know children may self-medicate with food to fill an emotional void left by neglect or abuse means one of our primary concerns for any fat child is the potential that trauma is underlying disordered eating.
To ignore this possibility is to risk subjecting children not merely to the secondary trauma of indifference, but also to deepening wounds, by piling shame about their only coping mechanism on top of the original trauma.
And to ignore the potential of existent but unreported trauma in a child in order to forcibly separate that child from hir family and put hir in the care of strangers (provided the trauma was not of family origin) is to risk profoundly and irreparably exacerbating that trauma.
To assert to be concerned for the "health" of a very fat child with disordered eating while reducing the definition of "health" in its entirety to "physical benchmarks closely hewing to age-based averages," to the exclusion of all emotional concerns (besides, perhaps, "zie might get bullied because our culture hates fat people, so let's make hir skinny!"), is garbage.
This recommendation is garbage.
We have systemic problems. We need systemic solutions.
[H/T to Eastsidekate, who first sent this story to me yesterday. I've since gotten it from about a dozen other Shakers, and thanks to each and every one of you.]
Quote of the Day
"It makes perfect sense that it's News Corp. that finds itself at the center of this galloping controversy because, quite frankly, it's inconceivable that any other global media company would ever allow its employees to consistently misbehave the way Murdoch allows his lieutenants to skirt common sense rules."—Eric Boehlert, in a must-read piece on the unfolding News Corp phone-hacking scandal.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting: "The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations that media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims, a law enforcement official said Thursday."
Big news, that.
Texting*! With Liss and Deeky!
(* Emailing!, really.)
A little backstory is necessary here. Suede reissues (remastered, demos, bonus tracks, videos!) are starting to arrive at my door. Yesterday I got their debut album:
(Possibly NSFW image below the fold.)
Deeky: WTF? I've never seen this before....
(Artwork included inside the new packaging.)
Liss: Really? Well, I guess it's not so strange you've never seen it. That's a famous picture from Our Bodies, Our Selves. If you were a lady feminist, you would have definitely owned a copy of that book (a copy of which is sitting on my shelf two feet away from me, lol), and you'd have seen it before for sure. :)
Deeky: I think I always assumed it was an original piece for the album cover. I love how fucking subversive the entire image is.
Liss: I know, right? It's one of my favorite photographs of all time. I bought a copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves and got the Suede album in the same year, my first year of college. That photograph reminds me of who I am, and the time in which I was really starting to figure that out.
Deeky: Awesome. Totally awesome.
Two Facts
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and war.]
1. One in 3 female members of the military are sexually assaulted during their service, making them more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.
2. Via Christie Thompson: "A startling study released yesterday found that 80 to 90 percent of New Mexican women veterans with PTSD say the cause was sexual assault, not warfare."
In good news, due to a rule change by the Department of Veteran Affairs made last summer, it is now easier for servicemembers diagnosed with PTSD to get disability benefits.
Of course, that depends on getting an accurate diagnosis in the first place, which itself can be quite a challenge, to put it politely.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, body policing, disordered eating.]
Actual Headline: So much for the obesity epidemic.
Actual Lede: "Despite the obesity epidemic, North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin, and Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis are pushing legislation to encourage the media to produce healthier images of women. They say women and girls feel overly pressured to be thin."
There is literally so much wrong with the way the "obesity epidemic" and a campaign to promote "more positive images of girls in the media" are juxtaposed here that I hardly know where to begin.
I'll let you tease out all the nuances in comments, and just quickly note my three biggest issues with this construction:
1. Within that headline and lede, there's an implicit suggestion that the cultural imperatives on girls and women to be thin and sexy is somehow a curative against obesity. Obviously, that's problematic for a dozen different reasons, not least of which is its inaccuracy. Our cultural obsession with thinness and the sexualization (and sexual abuse) of girls and women is associated with disordered eating, both compulsive self-denial of food and compulsive eating.
2. Treating a campaign to promote "more positive images of girls in the media" as a mutually exclusive concept from concern about the "obesity epidemic," or what I will redefine more appropriately as concern for fat people with disordered eating who need and want help, is dependent not only on treating "positive" and "obese" as opposite concepts, but also on ignoring that the campaign is not just talking about physical healthfulness. To have "more positive images of girls in the media" is to include images of fat female people who are happy and living full lives and serving a greater purpose than the butt of jokes, and to include images of girls and women who are whole beings and not one-dimensional cardboard cut-out sex objects. A lot goes in to creating a woman (or man) with disordered eating. This campaign is one small part of prevention.
3. For fuck's sake, the campaign isn't just about bodies. And OH THE HILARITRAGIC IRONY of an article covering a campaign that seeks to encourage media not to reduce female people to their bodies by talking exclusively about female bodies.
If your takeaway from three powerful and passionate women launching a campaign to diversify the way female people are presented in the media is OH NOES THEY DON'T CARE IF WOMEN GET FAT, you have missed. the. point.
Open Thread & News Round-Up: Debt Negotiations
Here's the latest...
Tom Junod in Esquire—The Debt Debate's Real Doomsday Scenario:
On Tuesday, in the late morning, I asked a banker to explain what will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised on August 2. ... He is a good source, and what he told me should have calmed me down about this whole government-created government crisis, because what he told me was that even if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling, the Treasury Department will not stop paying the interest on its debts. The Treasury does not talk about it, he said, because the Treasury doesn't want to get to this point. But if the United States comes to the outer limit of its indebtedness, it will not run out of money; it will simply run out of the money that comes to it through debt, and it will have to start paying the interest on its bonds — along with everything else — out of its tax revenues, which account for about two-thirds of its spending. The Treasury will "prioritize," and make sure that this country's creditors are paid before, say, anybody and anything else. We will not turn into deadbeats.New York Times—Tensions Escalate as Stakes Grow in Fiscal Clash: "The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday of a 'huge financial calamity' if President Obama and the Republicans cannot agree on a budget deal that allows the federal debt ceiling to be increased. Moody's, the ratings agency, threatened a credit downgrade, citing a 'rising possibility' that no deal would be reached before the government's borrowing authority hits its limit on Aug. 2."
Whew! And here I'd been led to think that what was at stake in this self-inflicted crisis was "the full faith and credit" of the United States of America (and hence our access to other people's money, on the cheap) when really what's at stake is everything else. The only problem, according to the banker, was that everything else really matters, and not just in human terms — in economic ones. The world's largest economy can't just stop spending the trillion-plus dollars it acquires through debt each year without putting itself and the rest of the world in peril. What worried the banker about missing the August 2 deadline was not that it would initiate a credit crisis but rather deepen the recession. ... Congress won't be risking the country's all-important credit rating if it doesn't raise the debt ceiling; no, it will just be risking economic turmoil.
More on that at Bloomberg and at Reuters.
So, that's what at stake. And as for how the actual negotiations are going...? Well, let's just say they could be going better. Ahem.
The Politico—President Obama abruptly walks out of debt ceiling talks:
President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations.The Hill—Obama warns Cantor: 'Don't call my bluff' in debt-ceiling talks:
"He shoved back and said 'I'll see you tomorrow' and walked out," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting.
Republicans said tense negotiations over raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit at the White House ended when President Obama stormed out of the meeting with a stern warning to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): "Don't call my bluff."Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) calls the Republican caucus a "hot, sloppy mess," and Boehner complains that Obama and the Democrats are like Jell-o:
...A Democratic source familiar with the negotiations said the reports of a dramatic or abrupt walk-out by Obama were overblown, but the source acknowledged that the president "said what he was going to say, he got up and walked out."
"The climax of the meeting was the president basically saying 'what's happening in this room confirms what everybody across the country thinks about Washington, D.C.,'" the official said. "Which is that people are more interested in protecting their base and political positioning than solving problems."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized President Obama and White House officials for their lack of resolve in negotiations.All the infantile dramatics aside, there is news to report from the negotiations: As Digby notes here, "we know that any 'deal' will be a minimum of 1.5 to 1.7 trillion dollars in cuts," without the addition of any revenue. Which is obviously quite worrisome, given that those cuts will undoubtedly come disproportionally at the expense of people hardest hit by the economy. Starve the beast, etc. D-Day sums up where we are at this point thus: "The next 48 hours will be crucial as to whether we get a distasteful and harmful deal, or something that would at least avert catastrophe."
"Dealing with them the last couple months has been like dealing with Jell-o," Boehner said. "Some days it's firmer than others. Sometimes it's like they've left it out over night."
Boehner explained that talks broke down over the weekend because, he said, the president backed off entitlement reforms so much from Friday to Saturday, "It was Jell-o; it was damn near liquid."
Yikes.
And, just in case you thought the national conversation on the debt negotiations couldn't get any stupider or more irresponsible, cue Sarah Palin to interject her thoughts using a gun metaphor. What a cool lady.
Discuss.
Open Thread: Mumbai Blasts
[TW: violence; graphic images at some of the links]
At least 17 are dead and 131 injured after three ammonium nitrate bombs exploded yesterday evening in Mumbai. I've gathered a bit of information; please leave your links in comments.
The Times of India: ATS begins probe in Mumbai blasts; registers three cases
The New York Times: Investigators Search for Leads in Deadly Mumbai Explosions
The Economic Times: Terror attack in Mumbai: Mumbai blasts probe turns to key CCTV footage
The Guardian: Mumbai blasts prompt further questions over Indian intelligence
IBN Live: Mumbai blasts: Twitter joins hands to help
Mashable.com: Google Docs Spreadsheet Offers Help in Wake of Mumbai Blasts
Help and information:
Mumbai Help: Can We Help?
Oneindia mobile: Mumbai Blasts 2011: Emergency Numbers
#mumbai
#here2help
#needhelp
Back to Ohio
Back in June, I posted about the Ohio House debating and passing three hideous pieces of legislation.
Yesterday, the Ohio Senate passed SB 72, which is the companion/mirror bill of HB 78--both are being called "post viability abortion" bills. It passed 22 - 7 and now goes to Gov Kasich for signing (which he is expected to do).
As a reminder, SB72/HB78 says things like:
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.They are counting viability to be measured at 20 weeks gestation and abortion to be banned thereafter. More lowlights and link to full text here.
On Tuesday, new legislation was entered into the House that is designed to defund Planned Parenthood (companion legislation is expected in the Senate). HB 298 rewrites laws governing distribution of funds and is a Medicaid work around. The new legislation says:
Sec. 3701.033. (A) All funds distributed by the department of health for the purpose of providing family planning services, including funds the department receives through the "Maternal and Child Health Block Grant," Title V of the "Social Security Act," 95 Stat. 818 (1981), 42 U.S.C. 701, as amended, and through Title X of the "Public Health Service Act," 84 Stat. 1504 (1970), 42 U.S.C. 300a, as amended, shall be awarded as follows:If you were wondering, Planned Parenthood is not a federally qualified health center. And, of course, Planned Parenthood does not "provide comprehensive primary and preventive care services in addition to family planning services" as said in (b). So, basically, they'll "fully fund" state agencies first--then if any money is left: FQHCs, then any non-public clinics that provide comprehensive primary care, and then they might give money to organizations like Planned Parenthood. And we all know just how much money Ohio is rolling in these days, right?
(1) The department shall award funds with foremost priority given to eligible public entities that provide family planning services, including community health clinics and similar health facilities operated by state, county, or local government entities.
(2) To the extent funds are available after the department determines that all eligible public entities have been fully funded under division (A)(1) of this section, the department may award funds to nonpublic entities in the following order of descending priority:
(a) Federally qualified health centers, as defined in section 3701.047 of the Revised Code;
(b) Nonpublic entities that provide comprehensive primary and preventive care services in addition to family planning services;
(c) Nonpublic entities that provide family planning services, but do not provide comprehensive primary and preventive care services.
(B) This section does not apply to grants awarded by the department under section 3701.046 of the Revised Code.
Sec. 5101.101. (A) All funds distributed by the department of job and family services for the purpose of providing family planning services, including funds the department receives through Title XX of the "Social Security Act," 88 Stat. 2337 (1974), 42 U.S.C. 1397, as amended, and funds received through Title IV-A of the "Social Security Act," 110 Stat. 2113 (1996), 42 U.S.C. 601, as amended, to be used for purposes of providing Title XX social services, shall be awarded as follows:
(1) The department shall award funds with foremost priority given to eligible public entities that provide family planning services, including community health clinics and similar health facilities operated by state, county, or local government entities.
(2) To the extent funds are available after the department determines that all eligible public entities have been fully funded under division (A)(1) of this section, the department may award funds to nonpublic entities in the following order of descending priority:
(a) Federally qualified health centers, as defined in section 3701.047 of the Revised Code;
(b) Nonpublic entities that provide comprehensive primary and preventive care services in addition to family planning services;
(c) Nonpublic entities that provide family planning services, but do not provide comprehensive primary and preventive care services.
(B) This section does not apply to the medicaid program.
To realize some of the effect this will have on Planned Parenthood in Ohio, here is information about how Title X (mentioned in Sec. 3701.033.) works there:
•In 2006, 79 family planning centers in Ohio received support from Title X. They included:Planned Parenthood saw more patients--and this is just for Title X services--than all the rest combined (which totals 51,850).
Health department clinics: 16
Community health centers: 4
Planned Parenthood clinics: 26
Hospital outpatient clinics: 11
Other independent clinics: 22
•These centers provided contraceptive care to the following numbers of clients:
Health department clinics: 11,360
Community health centers: 1,570
Planned Parenthood clinics: 68,300
Hospital outpatient clinics: 13,940
Other independent clinics: 24,980
You can read full text of the proposed legislation & its list of sponsors and co-sponsors here.
Question of the Day
Who is your favorite funny woman?
I'm not necessarily suggesting that the funny woman in question has to be famously funny, or even famous at all. You can interpret the question however you like, and if that means your answer is your best friend, or an author, or an actress, those are just as legitimate answers as a comedienne.
Q: How hard is it to boycott Rupert Murdoch?
A: Pretty hard, if you're someone "who consumes media of any kind in today's world."
Note that that's a "heavily abridged" list. Yikes.
Mila Kunis Is SO HORRIBLE! (This, too, is sarcasm.)
[Trigger warning for misogyny, coercion, rape culture.]
OMG you guys, remember that TOTALLY CUTE story I told you about, the one where a marine made a YouTube video inviting actress Mila Kunis to go to the Marine Corps Ball with him and then her Garbage With Barfs co-star Justin Timberlake totes put her on the spot to say yes and acted like he owned her during a promotional appearance for their nightmare film...? Gawd that was SO CUTE!
Anyway! It turns out that Mila Kunis now claims to be "working" a lot around the time of the Marine Corps Ball in November and so she's not sure she can go. She is a total bitch! Which is DEFINITELY TRUE, because basically every person on the internetz is saying she is!
And everyone is saying that because everyone suspects no doy that she's using "work" as an excuse to avoid going on a date with a perfect stranger, and there's NO WAY that she should be allowed to bow out gracefully, or adhere to her actual work commitments, because SHE PROMISED after Justin Timberlake pressured her to!
So WHAT A BITCH she is if she doesn't go on this very awkward date with a very nice Marine who gives interviews about how excited he is in which he says things like: "Justin Timberlake's encouragement definitely helped; I owe him one," and "I think I'll keep [any special plans I have in store for Kunis] a secret for now; we have to iron out the details," which aren't GROSS AND CREEPY THINGS TO SAY at all!
In case I'm not laying the sarcasm on thick enough, I believe this entire situation is absolutely disgusting, and I feel immensely sorry for Mila Kunis, who's now been put in a no-win situation by a couple of guys who can't stop metaphorically high-fiving each other over treating her like a fucking trophy.
After thanking Timberlake for being such an awesome wing-man, Sgt. Scott Moore also says in his interview: "I do feel bad for putting her on the spot, but it's not like I was going to bump into her on the streets of Musa Qala between now and the ball."
Which is pretty much the rape culture in a nutshell: Look, I know this is a shitty thing to do to another person, but WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?!
Seethe.
Number of the Day
80: The number of abortion restrictions enacted so far this year in state legislatures across the United States. That number is "more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005—and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. All of these new provisions were enacted in just 19 states."
