This blogaround is brought to you by dendritic cells. Congratulations and farewell, Dr. Steinman.
(image source and further information)
Pam Spaulding: Big news: DNC open to funding fight against anti-gay amendments
Elizabeth at Geek Feminism: Wednesday Geek Woman: Denise Paolucci, founder of Dreamwidth
Peter Daou: Occupy Wall Street versus Tea Party: a video comparison
Paul Harris: US firms cut thousands of jobs during last tax holiday, study reveals
Janet D. Stemwedel: In which I put Stephen Colbert on notice and announce the kick-off of DonorsChoose Science Bloggers for Students 2011. [transcript of video is at the end of this blogaround]
Stuart Farrimond: The Scary New Computer Program that spots Born Leaders and Predicts Election Results!
People of Color Occupy Wall Street (via Racialicious)
And a quick reminder that Friday is Ada Lovelace Day
Share your links in comments.
Janet's YouTube video transcript:
Text on screen:
"We're not Brainiacs on the Nerd Patrol"--Stephen Colbert
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias"--Stephen Colbert
Janet: Nation, the time has come to ask the question: what is Stephen Colbert afraid of? You may have caught his september 27th interview on the Colbert Report with Melinda Gates in which he recognized that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been supporters of Donors Choose.org for quite some time. I am happy to acknowledge that both Melinda Gates and Stephen Colbert have done much to help donors choose and have for some time, but you know who else has been helping donors choose for quite some time, someone who you will never hear Stephen Colbert mention--people who blog about science.
Text on screen:
June 2006: DonorsChoose Science Bloggers drive raised more than $26,000
October 2007: DonorsChoose Science Bloggers drive raised more than $72,000
October 2008: DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge raised more than $47,000
October 2009: Science bloggers in DonorsChoose Social Media Challenge raised more than $90,000
October 2010: Science Bloggers for Students raised more that $41,000
Janet:
But we know how the reality based community frightens Stephen Colbert and this must be why he refuses to acknowledge the fact that science bloggers have been stepping up to support public school classrooms that need our help. What is he afraid of? what kind of power does he think we have? Sure, we have these spiffy T-shirts from past challenges, some of us--some of us have been participating in these challenges since before there were even t-shirts for them. But it's not like we can afford big fancy boards to put him on notice, we can't pipe that out to our basic cable followers. We've just got our blogs and our blog readers.
We may not be able to afford big fancy boards to put people on notice like Stephen Colbert can, but we can't afford not to take care of kids who are trying to learn math and science to become part of an educated and informed electorate of tomorrow. Which is why we're going to step up and support the schools and the projects that donors choose helps whether or not Stephen Colbert recognizes that we're here doing it. Let him get the glory, let him sling his arm around Melinda Gates. we're gonna be in the trenches making sure learning happens, and if Stephen Colbert is too afraid to cope with that, it's his problem and not ours.
Text on screen:
DonorsChoose "Science Bloggers for Students 2011" 10/2-10/22
Join the challenge or follow our progress www.donorschoose.org/sciencebloggers
Visit StephenAndMelindaGates Foundation.org to help Colbert Nation support DonorsChoose.org
See you on the nerd patrol
(and on Twitter, Facebook, G +)
#scibloggers4students
Wednesday Blogaround
Daily Dose of Cute
"I still can't stop thinking about Tony. Wondering where he could be, who he is with, what is he
thinking, is he thinking of me, and whether he'll ever return someday."
Quote of the Day
"There isn't even any coherent theory why austerity 'should' be working. It's just: 1) suffering 2) ?? 3) profit!!!"—Atrios.
I'm no accredited economist like Atrios, but I'm pretty sure there is a coherent theory of why austerity should be working, which goes a little something like this: "Because unicorn farts, no doy."
It's economics. Look it up.
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Thanks to the massive pinkwashing of Breast Cancer Awareness, just about everyone knows about one awareness campaign for October. So it's not without irony that most people don't know that Oct is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Domestic violence occurs within every class, age group, race, and religion. It happens within same and different sex partnerships. It happens whether people are married, living together, or dating. Approximately one in four women has been a victim of domestic violence. Too often society--like with rape--places the blame on the victim and not the perpetrator. We need to change that.
What is it?*
Physical Abuse It isn't "only" hitting, slapping, choking, shoving. It also is using the body to intimidate. Physical abuse is also causing fear and intimidation via punching holes in walls/doors and throwing objects. It is intentionally scaring a partner by driving unsafely. It is preventing a partner from leaving their home.
Sexual Abuse When a person submits to sexual acts out of fear or coercion, it is rape. Capitulation does not equal consent. If a partner must "give in" because of fear of the consequences of saying no: that is part of sexual abuse. Remember: You always, ALWAYS, have a right to say no. Married or not. "Been a long time" or not. Always and without fear.
Emotional Abuse It is real--not being hit or raped doesn't mean not being abused. Emotional abusers isolate their victims. Emotional abusers will use emotional blackmail, guilt, and shame to get victims to stay and may threaten suicide if they leave. They verbally assault their partners with name-calling, mockery, public & private humiliation, and threats. They may expect their partners to ask their "permission" to do things. Emotional abusers can also be ones who constantly "know what's best" and blows up/rages if their partner doesn't submit to their "advice" (control). Economic abuse is a sub-category of emotional abuse: abusers use the finances to exert control over their partners.
If you are in an abusive situation (physical or not) you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (US & Canada): 1-800-799-SAFE or see their site (they have a great list of resources on their site, as well)
RAINN is a particular resource for those who are being sexually abused: 1.800.656.HOPE or see their site
*Not intended to be a comprehensive listing
Support the Troops
Pat at Think Progress: Lawsuit Alleges Nation's Biggest Banks Defrauded Veterans.
According to a whistleblower lawsuit, some of the nation's biggest banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, "defrauded veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by disguising illegal fees in veterans' home refinancing loans." Under VA rules, mortgage lenders are not allowed to charge attorney's fees, so the banks allegedly instructed mortgage brokers "not to show attorney's fees on their estimates, but to add them to the title examination fee." The plaintiffs in the case claim that 90 percent of refinanced loans to veterans included the illegal fee.Yes, that whole Occupy Wall Street thing is a real mystery.
Personal Update
It seems as though the back pain and mobility issues I've been experiencing may be due to a herniated disk, so I'm still on bed rest. Because of my complicated back issues, aka Having a Back Made of Garbage, the last time I herniated a disk, I ended up needing surgery and a 5-day hospital stay, which I am obviously trying desperately to avoid. That means posting will continue to be lighter than usual for the next few days, at least.
I'm really not particularly good at self-care, to be honest, because I always feel like I'm disappointing someone, but, for a change, I'm trying to be smart about prioritizing getting better, lolsob.
Anyway! My apologies for the lighter content, and, again, I'm very sorry for having to cancel this weekend's meet-up. I'll reschedule it as soon as I'm able.
Occupy Wall Street: News Round-Up
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...
CNN—Unions endorse, will join Occupy Wall Street protests:
[T]he Massachusetts Nurses Association says hundreds of the city's nurses will rally with the Occupy Boston protesters on Wednesday. The association says the protest will be part of the opening day activities for a national nursing convention in Boston.CBS—Reinforcements to bolster Wall St. protests: "Among those planning to join the clamor are the liberal group MoveOn.org and community organizations like the Working Families Party and United NY. The growing crowd will also include members of the Chinatown Tenants Union and the Transit Workers Union, signaling that the protest is showing no signs of losing steam."
In New York, several unions endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement and plan to join the protesters' street theater Wednesday, labor leaders said.
"It's really simple. These young people on Wall Street are giving voice to many of the problems that working people in America have been confronting over the last several years," said Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which has 20,000 members in the New York area.
"These young people are speaking for the vast majority of Americans who are frustrated by the bankers and brokers who have profited on the backs of hard-working people," Hanley added in a statement. "While we battle it out day after day, month after month, the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street sit by -- untouched -- and lecture us on the level of our sacrifice."
David Callahan at Reuters—Occupy Wall Street's message: more than a sound bite:
Pop quiz: What's so bad about the financialization of the U.S. economy over recent decades?Leo Kapakos in the Examiner—Occupy Wall Street protestors a lot smarter then portrayed:
If you're like most people who are uneasy with the outsized power of finance, chances are you can't boil down your concerns to a pithy sound bite. So why is there such ridicule of the protesters "occupying" Wall Street for lacking a coherent message?
Three years after the 2008 financial crisis, it is still hard to neatly encapsulate the problem with letting bankers and traders dominate American economic life. Once Congress passed the Dodd-Frank reform law last year, most political leaders and commentators moved on to other issues, leaving behind an unfinished debate about Wall Street's influence.
Now, thanks to protests in New York and a growing list of other cities, this debate is percolating once more. And guess what: the supposedly incoherent protesters actually have a pretty strong critique of what is wrong with America's financialized economy.
Yesterday, this writer visited Occupy Wall Street to show support and solidarity with my fellow Americans. Hundreds of Americans from all classes and ethnicities, poor and middle-class, union workers and non-union workers were there in solidarity. They were demonstrating against an economic system in which the wealthy continue to prosper and gain power at the expense of the poor and middle-class. The common sentiment is that the current economic system and tax policies have benefited only those at the top but hasn't kept the American Dream alive for the poor and middle class who have fallen behind.Alexander Vatutin at The Voice of Russia—"American spring" on Wall Street: "Experts are at one believing that Barack Obama will lend an ear to the protesters' voices for the sake of his rating but hardly anything will change in his policy. The more so in conditions when an overwhelming majority of Americans are used to building their lives within the limits of the system and traditionally do not respond to revolutionary appeals."
...I spoke to a college grad Jerry from Queens, New York who had a lot to say and did a great job of summarizing the general sentiments of the protesters. I asked Jerry why he was there and his thoughts of the criticism from the right that this is just class warfare and hate for the rich and the corporations?
Jerry responded, "To them it's only class warfare when it applies to us. The class warfare has been against the poor and middle class in the country since Reagan. The gap between the rich and poor (income inequality) peaked just before the New Deal. After the New Deal and World War 2 up until Ronald Reagan the gap narrowed. Since Reagan, the rich have experienced a surge of power from tax cuts and the globalization of the economy that has enriched them and their businesses. They used that power to get more tax cuts, hire the most expensive accountants to find tax loopholes, and park their cash in tax havens. Despite the Bush tax cuts did they hire U.S. workers? No they shipped jobs overseas. Meanwhile, corporate profits and CEO salaries have surged while the average salary for the working class American has stagnated. Many have lost their jobs. Trickle–down economics has not trickled down. We have been cutting taxes for the rich for the last 30 years and they have walked away with the prize."
He then pointed to a lot of the younger college –age kids in the park and said, "Do you see all these college grads in here – most of them can't find work. You're even lucky to finish school today with all the education cuts the Republicans want to make. I feel sorry for the young kids in the poor neighborhoods. My sister is a teacher in Bed Sty (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn). They're cutting teachers and after-school programs left and right. A lot of those kids will wind up hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble and many never go back to school. Do you thing corporate CEOs think about that when they cry that they pay enough already (in taxes)? No. They care about exercising their stock options. That's all they care about."
Well-said Jerry from Queens, well-said.
Washington Post—"Occupy Wall Street" protesters sue New York City: "Wall Street protesters arrested in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge Oct. 1 filed a lawsuit claiming New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the police commissioner violated their constitutional rights. Five of the protesters, seeking to represent about 700 people arrested in the march, filed a civil rights complaint in federal court in Manhattan today. The protesters claimed officers from the New York City Police Department lured them onto the bridge's roadway to trap and arrest them."
Occupy Wall Street: How You Can Help.
Question of the Day
What's the last movie that made you cry (or, if you're not the blubbing sort, the last movie that hit you in that spot)?
Well, That Was Fast
The jobs bill is effectively dead.
Hey, remember how House Republicans claimed, upon recapturing the majority in the last election, that their number one priority was jobs? Good times.
Quote of the Day
"Citibank will soon charge $15 a month for checking accounts with less than $6,000. Finally someone is sticking it to those people with less than $6,000. About time. Great job."—Jimmy Fallon, in his monologue last night.
lolsob forever.
Breaking Bad Open Thread
Skyler and Walt have a moment.
Sunday's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, take your cigarettes and move along...
Recommended Reading
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
Cath Elliot: Facebook is fine with hate speech, as long as it's directed at women.
The specific clause in Facebook's statement of rights and responsibilities that's supposed to protect groups against violence and hate speech instructs the user: "You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." However, Facebook has now defended the numerous pages that clearly violate these terms by claiming: "Groups that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs – even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some – do not by themselves violate our policies." Which is strange, because if a page entitled "Roses are red, violets are blue, I've got a knife, get in the van" isn't hateful, threatening or gratuitously violent, I don't for the life of me know what is.Presumably, Facebook is also just fine with rape humor directed at men, too, because it's typically directed at men who "don't matter," like incarcerated men, gay/bi men, trans* men, etc.
I Write Letters
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
Dear Johnny Depp:
Since your despicable rape apologia on behalf of your pal Roman Polanski, I've had no illusions that you are anything but an epic failmonster on the subject of sexual violence, but even despite my subterranean basement garbage expectations, my breath was taken away by your casual comparison of photo shoots to rape: "Well, you just feel like you're being raped somehow. Raped. It feels like a kind of weird—just weird, man."
No, Mr. Depp. Sitting for a photo shoot to which you have consented does not feel like being raped.
What a privilege you have to not know what a terrible comparison that truly is.
Contemptuously,
Liss
Open Thread & News Round-Up: Debt Negotiations
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...
We Are the 99 Percent.
Nathan Schneider in The Nation—Occupy Wall Street: FAQ.
Michael Scherer in Time—Occupy Wall Street: A Tea Party for the Left?
In its broadest outlines, this new outpouring of protest is driven by the same fuel that gave fire to the Tea Party: Anger at elites, a feeling of injustice, a concern about jobs, fear about the direction of the economy and a clear desire to take action. Whereas the Tea Party focused these furies on government, Occupy Wall Street focuses the fury on corporate America. It seems, quite simply, to be the left's answer to the right's size-of-government critique that has dominated national politics for the last two years. "If you are like me and you see the Tea Party on the television and the news all the time, and you wonder why the hell isn't there a radical left answer to the Tea Party, you should be here," says one participant, in a YouTube documentary of the Wall Street event, which is worth watching.David Graeber, one of the initial organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protest: "In New York, according to law, any unpermitted assembly of more than 12 people is illegal in New York. Space itself is not an openly available resource. But the one resource that isn't scarce is smart people with ideas. So we're trying to reframe things away from the rhetoric of demands to a questions of visions and solutions."
...No one knows what will happen next, but chances are better than even that more and more Americans will be taking an active role in making it happen. That is, after all, how politics works these days.
Lee Fang at Think Progress—Top 5 Reasons Why The Occupy Wall Street Protests Embody Values Of The Real Boston Tea Party.
New York Times—Anti-Wall Street Protests Spreading to Cities Large and Small:
A loose-knit populist campaign that started on Wall Street three weeks ago has spread to dozens of cities across the country, with protesters camped out in Los Angeles near City Hall, assembled before the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago and marching through downtown Boston to rally against corporate greed, unemployment and the role of financial institutions in the economic crisis.Greg Sargent in the WaPo—White House on Occupy Wall Street: "We understand": "The story here is not what the White House said but that it was asked to weigh in on the protests at all—another sign of the remarkable speed with which it has grown from a crowd chanting at police two weeks ago."
...Publicity surrounding the recent arrests of hundreds in New York, near Wall Street and on the Brooklyn Bridge, has only energized the campaign. This week, new rallies and in some cases urban encampments are planned for cities as disparate as Memphis, Tenn.; Hilo, Hawaii; Minneapolis; Baltimore; and McAllen, Tex., according to Occupy Together, an unofficial hub for the protests that lists dozens of coming demonstrations, including some in Europe and Japan.
In the nation's capital, an Occupy D.C. movement began on Saturday, with plans to join forces on Thursday with a similar anticorporate and antiwar group, October 2011, for an encampment in a park near the White House.
Drew Grant in the New York Observer—Exclusive: Occupy Wall Street Activist Slams Fox News Producer In Un-Aired Interview [Video + Transcript].
The Guardian's live coverage is here.
