Hosted by Chase & Sanborn instant coffee.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay. Skadoodlies.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Blogcation
We are taking the week off next week, because we could all use a break. Also because Deeky W. Gashlycrumb will be arriving at Shakes Manor in a little less than 24 hours and THERE IS MUCH BEING LAZY ASSHOLES TO DO. It's just too bad you can't all be flies on the wall (SO MANY FLIES! AHH!) to hear our awesome conversations about wieners and Breaking Bad.
Anyway!
We will be posting daily Open Threads, which will be moderated, but otherwise there will be no new content.
To those celebrating Labor Day this weekend, have a nice (and ironic!) holiday.
Have a great week, Shakers. See you soon!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by a tall glass of ice cold water.
Recommended Reading:
Yves: The More You Look, the More Bank Criminality You Find in Mortgage Land
David: FHFA Readies Lawsuits Against Top Banks in Mortgage Bond Scandal
Matt: The Conservative Recovery Teeters into Recession
crunkonia: Feminist Musings on Showing Up
Andy: Oscar De La Hoya Says Fishnet Drag Photos Were Him (I wish I had time for a whole post on this; suffice it to say for now that it's really too bad he feels obliged to "blame" cross-dressing on alcohol and drugs.)
Brian: The Continued Failure of Fat People Prevention
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
"This is a huge win for corporate polluters and huge loss for public health."—Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, on the Obama administration's decision to ask "the Environmental Protection Agency to pull proposed ozone standards," which the EPA says are "required to increase protection for children and at-risk populations against respiratory and cardiovascular diseases related to exposure to ozone in the air."
Apparently, implementation of the new standards was going to cost a lot of money, so Obama decided to kick the can down the road for another few years.
Which, of course, does no good for people suffering now, but does make Big Energy very happy.
Dan Weiss, CAP's director of climate strategy, was blunt: "It's unfortunate that the administration is siding with big oil over the health of children, seniors, and the infirm."
Indeed.
[H/T to @ericabarnett.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Dougie wants your tuna sandwich. Pleeeeeeeease?
Oh, so the answer is no? Fine, then Dougie will look askance at you while you eat...
...and then console himself with a rollicking round of armadillo tag.
Number of the Day
$12.5 million: Rupert Murdoch's cash bonus for the last financial year.
The News Corporation chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, received a $12.5m (£7.7m) cash bonus for the last financial year, while his total remuneration rose 47% year on year to $33m, according to the company's annual statement to shareholders.Sure. Perfect. Well done, gentlemen!
His son James Murdoch – who is chairman and chief executive of News Corporation in Europe and Asia – also benefited handsomely, with a $6m cash bonus taking his total remuneration to almost $18m – a 74% rise on his 2010 take-home pay.
The bonuses were for the year to the end of June, during which News Corporation became mired in the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed the News of the World.
Blog Note
It's not you: Comments aren't loading at the moment. Unfortunately, it's nothing that we can control, but Disqus is aware of the problem and one hopes will be able to resolve it soon.
My apologies for the inconvenience.
Um...
[Trigger warning for assault]
This June, I wrote about how two female Wisconsin Supreme Court justices reported that a third Justices David Prosser and Micheal Gableman bullied them.
Prosser has already admitted calling Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a "bitch" and threatening to "destroy" her, but claimed he had good reason to do so.
This June, multiple witnesses also told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Prosser held Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in a headlock during deliberations.
TPM reports that Prosser Justice Michael Gableman has an explanation for that episode, too:
1) She started it. (By hitting Gableman)
2) She threw her head at his fist Bradley ran into Prosser's arm while he was defending himself.
Prosser Gableman also couldn't quite remember the year in which Justice Bradley supposedly hit him (thus totally starting it), although as far as I'm concerned, that's the least problematic aspect of his account of why he assaulted his colleague.
Anyhow, that's my latest update on The Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
via @tcita
UPDATE: I've revised the post to reflect the embarrassing fact that I confused Justice Gableman with Justice Prosser. Whoops, I'm not careful enough to keep track of which dude on the Wisconsin Supreme Court assaulted which female justice. So that's pretty embarrassing, and also unfathomably depressing. Thanks to Shaker BlueRidge for the heads up.
Dispatches from the Two Americas
In the latest CNN/ORC poll, 80% of respondents believe we are in another recession. One-third believe it is a "serious" recession.
While the country isn't technically in a recession because the economy hasn't experienced two straight quarters of negative growth, the poll's results highlight the importance of President Barack Obama's jobs speech next Thursday night."Economic jitters" is a nice way of saying that a lot of USians are shit-toiling to pay their bills.
Americans have "a bad case of economic jitters," according to CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
About two-thirds think the president should focus more on creating jobs right now, even if it means less deficit reduction.
And, yes, the poll's results do indeed "highlight the importance" of President Obama's jobs address (and underline how inadequate it will probably be), but they also starkly reveal a simple truth: Most USians don't respond to this question based on reports of negative growth, but based on their own circumstances and the struggles and successes of the people around them.
The poll's results highlight that the US people are desperately in need of help, from a government who has abandoned its responsibility to them in pursuit of political gamespersonship and ideological fuckery.
Congresswoman Wears Shoes, Eyeshadow
Conservative Hudson Valley Congresswoman Nan Taylor may be a conservative Congresswoman, but she's also feminine.
Courtesy of New York Magazine:
Hayworth's opponent in the traditionally moderate 19th District next year, Richard Becker, quickly sought to tie her to the tea party and the hostage-taking tactics of the debt ceiling. But while Hayworth might look the part — she's a member of the Hudson Valley Patriots and she wears Palin-red pumps — and sound like one of the bombastic female tea-party-affiliated GOP politicians currently having a (long) moment, there are more than a few very New York differences between her and someone like Bachmann. [Emphasis mine]Awesome paragraph. Great journalism. Trenchant as hell.
Moving along...
Hayworth has quickly learned to dress the part of a conservative politician: The morning we talked, the city was sweltering, but she was in full regalia: knotted bright scarf, prominent pins, dark blazer, nude pantyhose. Her shiny red pumps — Stuart Weitzman, obtained from zappos.com, she confided readily — looked like a slightly more sedate version of the Naughty Monkey peep-toes Sarah Palin famously wore onstage at the 2008 RNC. The semiotics of Republican fashion is a topic to which the former ophthalmologist has given some thought since entering politics in 2010 — "I never wore red shoes before in my life," she told me.Super. I'm so voting against that virgin/whore the first chance I get.
I'm pretty sure that
There's nothing wrong with wearing pantyhose. Femininity hurrah! But what would happen if Representative Taylor didn't wear pantyhose in August? Would she even be in Congress? She can conform to gendered beauty standards and have journalists ridicule her, or she can refuse to conform and be ridiculed for doing that. That's some choice.
And for the record, back the fuck off from the red shoes bit. Red shoes are the shit. I own three pairs of red shoes: tattered Chucks and well-loved tennis shoes, as well as amazing crimson patent leather Mary Janes with three inch heels. You bet your ass I'll be wearing those
Via @CapitolTonight
On Fat Hatred and Eliminationism
[Trigger warning for fat hatred; eliminationism; references to dieting and disordered eating.]
So this morning I see that professional fat-hater Jamie Oliver has posted a petition which he's asking people to sign in support of his "Food Revolution," and in which he's included the bullshit stat that "obesity in the US costs $10,273,973 per hour" (sure) and notes, in all-caps, "OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE."
Celebrities who have signed the petition are posted in rotation: Jennifer Aniston, Eva Longoria, P. Diddy, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres.
It's always nice to see wealthy people with access to the best food, comprehensive healthcare, personal trainers, private chefs, and individual nutritional plans put their names to a petition admonishing the fatties that OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.
When there are people for whom that is not true, people for whom obesity is not preventable, for myriad reasons, to bray about how their bodies (our bodies; ourselves) are "preventable" is to engage in eliminationist rhetoric.
I will never be not fat.
To get rid of my fat body, you have got to get rid of me.
This is where the fat-hating narrative of "calories in, calories out!" and the universal treatment of every human body like it's a Bunsen burner gets us: It's all just about personal choice and fatties' bad choices, without regard for natural variation among human bodies, including disease and disability, individual histories of fad dieting, disordered eating, and/or trauma, or systemic problems like poverty, racism, fat hatred, food deserts, lack of safe outdoor spaces, corn subsidies, meat subsidies, and an entire industry that makes lots and lots of money off of shaming fat people that wouldn't exist if some people weren't fat, just for starters.
OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE: Except when it's not.
Fat people are not only tasked with finding individual solutions to systemic problems; they are, in many cases, asked to somehow overcome their very physiologies and make their bodies do things that they are simply unable to do.
We are literally asked to be people we are not.
That is eliminationist. Plain and simple.
And the only way to convince oneself that it isn't is to believe things that are simply not true, to pretend that every fat person in existence is just a lazy, gluttonous piece of shit who would totes be thin if only some sanctimonious assholes got together and signed a condescending petition outlining how OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.
When the science eventually catches up to the reality that fat people who are not fat as a result of disordered eating already know, the people who are putting their faces and names to this campaign will be ashamed that they ever supported such naked bigotry, such rank hostility, such victim-blaming garbage. Paul Campos, who has written extensively about the OH NOES Obesity Crisis! and debunked many of the myths surrounding fat and health, has observed that the science, conventional wisdom, and cultural narratives of obesity closely mimic the science, conventional wisdom, and cultural narratives about homosexuality a generation ago, and has pointed out parallels between the gross "reparative therapy" touted to magically make gays straight and the gross "reparative therapy" touted to magically make fatties thin.
Once upon a time, most people thought not being gay was just an issue of willpower, too.
That's where we are with fat acceptance. And one day, people will look back at this revolting petition and wonder how the fuck such unapologetic hatred was popular enough that celebrities were tripping over each other to sign their names to it.
They'll say, "Oh, we didn't know back then." But they could know now—if they'd ever bothered to speak to any of the fat people they're so keen to help, from a safe and patronizing distance.
[H/T to @fatheffalump.]
Question of the Day
What is the worst thing you've ever deliberately eaten?
As opposed to, you know, accidentally getting something gross in your mouth.
And by worst, I just mean taste-wise, or texture-wise. Not cooked right, spoiled, salt used instead of sugar, didn't guess it would taste like THAT, forgot an ingredient, that sort of thing. Let's stay away from commentary that others delicacies outside of one's own culture, i.e. don't treat "gross" and "weird to me" as synonymous.
Number of the Day
$1,197,000,000,000: The amount of US dollars spent as of June on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's one trillion, one hundred and ninety-seven billion dollars.
I can't wait until Congress is back in session so we can listen to them continue to squabble over "entitlement programs" that we can't afford.
Today in Rick Santorum Says Something Stupid
I had Piers Morgan call me a bigot. Because I believe what the Catholic Church teaches with respect to homosexuality, I'm a bigot. So now I'm a bigot?! Because I believe what the Bible teaches! Two thousand years of teaching and moral theology is now BIGOTED! And of course we don't elect bigots to office. We don't give them professional licenses. We don't give them preferential tax treatment. If you're a preacher and you preach BIGOTED things, you think you're gonna be allowed to have a 501(c)(3) as a church? Of course not. No, this has PROFOUND CONSEQUENCE! To the entire MORAL ECOLOGY OF AMERICA! It will undermine the family; it will destroy faith in America!—Republican Presidential Candidate and World-Renowned Epic Dipshit Rick Santorum, getting all pissy about being called a bigot for expressing bigotry.
Following this outburst of colossally stupid whining, Santorum went on to argue with a college student about the existence of multiple studies that have conclusively proven children raised by same-sex parents are as well-adjusted any kids ever are in the fucked-up garbage nightmare we call a culture.
I can't be arsed to transcribe that bit, but here's a rough paraphrase: "BARF FART I AM SO STUPID LAWYER SCIENCE IS YUCKY POOOOOOOOOP!"
Anyway! My favorite part is definitely the bit where he claims people who express bigotry toward the queer community don't get any special privileges. DEFINITELY NOT!
(Via Gabe.)
Daily Dose of Cute
When Sophie isn't draped across my monitor, she likes to lie on my desk giving my hand a full-body hug, with her head curled around so that every time I move the mouse, I'm simultaneously giving her head scratches.
(No, I don't have giant hands and a giant mouse. She is really just that small, lol.)
Zelda is unimpressed. "Whatever with your adorable tininess! I get peanut butter!"
Random YouTubery: Stairway To Heaven
What if the Beatles recorded "Stairway To Heaven"? (Hint: It would have been a better song.) Well, the Beatnix (a Beatles tribute band) have the answer. And it rocks. Really.
You Go, Grrl. On Your Own Special Toilet.
There is a story going around the internetz today, care of the print edition of In Touch Weekly, about Madonna's toilet preferences. Stories about Madonna's toilet preferences come up once every few years (seriously): About five years ago, it was how she requires venues at which she performs to install new toilet seats for her arrival and dispose of them immediately after she leaves (to prevent resale on eBay, because people are gross and opportunistic). Before that, it was how she doesn't like using public toilets. Etc.
But this story is THE WORST YET ZOMG SHE IS SO HORRIBLE!—because, according to the highly reputable In Touch Weekly, Madonna won't allow either her boyfriend or her children use her toilet.
Someone tell Madonna that boy toys come potty-trained! According to a friend, Madge won't let her 29-years-younger lover Brahim Zaibat use her, ahem, throne.Look at how these stupid rags turn everything into a SCANDAL. "Madonna is very generous, but her toilet is one thing she doesn't want to share," is hardly a provocative statement, but stick it in between snide garbage about dating a man much younger than she is and the usual slut-shaming, and suddenly it's a game of LET'S JUDGE HER SHE IS TERRIBLE WHAT A WEIRDO SHE IS SELFISH AND AN AWFUL MOTHER AND SHE IS MEAN TO HER BOYFRIEND!
"Madonna doesn't even let her kids use her toilet," a friend tells In Touch. "It's just her thing. She is very generous, but this is the one thing she doesn't want to share," adds the pal, who explains that 53-year-old Madonna is very cautious when it comes to anyone else tinkling in her territory.
Apparently, she's got no such fears of bed-wetting - because she's more than happy to share her boudoir with the fetching French dancer!
Because, seriously, what is the story here? That a woman who has worked her ass off for three decades as a performer and producer and has earned gazillions of dollars wants to use a little bit of her money to live in a space in which she's got a toilet that's all her own? That she's putting one little desire for privacy and indulged preference in front of the her children and boyfriend (as if they have a right to access every part of her life and space)?
Stingy. That's the story. A woman is stingy because she wants something that is all her own, for whatever her reasons.
She's generous BUT.
I know, I know—it's such a little thing. But this kind of stuff is literally why I'm a feminist, as much as anything else, as much as the Big Stuff.
I want a right to my own goddamn toilet, if that's what I want and can afford, without judgment. And I want that for every other woman, too.
I want women to be able to want and to have, without being accused of being less than generous, simply because we occasionally put ourselves first.
Is that really so much to ask?
Don't worry: That's rhetorical.
