In honour of this holiday, on which we labour not, I'll ask you:
How are you celebrating/observing/keeping Canadian Thanksgiving this year, eh?
Me, I'm doing a great big bucket of bupkes. My American partner is visiting, because we had a wedding to go to on Saturday afternoon (which was very beautiful, and had a wonderful meal...mmmm), but we're neither of us inclined to do much in the way of some giant meal or something. We're relaxing together, watching stuff: Supernatural (anime and live-action!), Doctor Who, Criminal Minds, Primeval, and for the day's obligatory Can-con, Being Erica.
We'll probably do a Thanksgiving meal together with our polyamourous constellation around our neighbours' version of the holiday, late in November. Which always seems like an odd time to hold a harvest festival to me, when there's already snow on the ground! But there's no accounting for USans, I guess.
Edit: I forgot to include the wonderful comic today at Canada's own gamer webcomic Weregeek!
Happy Thanksgiving, Eh?
Number of the Day
6.7%: The percentage decrease in inflation-adjusted median US household income between June 2009, the official "end" of the recession, and June 2011.
In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found.Average US household income has declined almost 10% in two years, while corporate profits continued to break records, and there are still people wondering what Occupy Wall Street is all about...? LOL.
Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials.
...The full 9.8 percent drop in income from the start of the recession to this June — the most recent month in the study — appears to be the largest in several decades, according to other Census Bureau data.
Another Month, Another Celebrity Mom Who Doesn't Know How to Use "I" Language
Entertainment publicists evidently continue to fail their clients by not advising them on the value of "I" language to avoid alienating existing or potential fans: In August, we had Jennifer Garner telling us "There's no deeper want for a woman" than to be a mother; in September, we had Gwyneth Paltrow informing us that "everything you thought was an achievement really is nothing until you have a kid"; and now Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr offers: "Becoming a mother puts everything into perspective. You become more comfortable in your own skin."
Such a little thing makes such a big difference: If only she had said, instead, "Becoming a mother put everything into perspective for me. I became more comfortable in my own skin."
Because, of course, lots of women (though not all), in fact, do not feel more comfortable in their skin after giving birth, because of the ridiculous beauty standards dictated by the kyriarchy that devalues the permanent changes pregnancy/childbearing brings to many (though not all) female bodies.
The suggestion that any woman who struggles with body image after pregnancy axiomatically lacks "perspective" is both cruel and wrong on its own, but it's hilaritragically absurd given the context:
In the publication, Miranda poses naked, showing off her pert butt while lying on a bed and proves she has fully recovered her figure after giving birth.Perfect. Shame body-conscious mothers for their angst while tacitly exhorting them to compare themselves to a carefully staged, lit, photographed, and airbrushed photo of your own perfectly posed naked body.
I don't hate the players; I hate the game. But, fuck, Miranda Kerr et. al.: I really wish you wouldn't play the game quite so goddamn hard.
Occupy Wall Street: News Round-Up
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...
Paul Krugman—Panic of the Plutocrats:
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.Also see Echidne: "[The banksters] want the government money, the same-old lawlessness and to be left alone, too. ... The financial markets need proper regulation. That we are not getting it done tells me all I need to know who really is in power in this country."
...What's going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They're not John Galt; they're not even Steve Jobs. They're people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees—basically, they're still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can't bear close scrutiny—and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage.
New York Times Editors—Protesters Against Wall Street: "Extreme inequality is the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, dominated by a financial sector that is driven as much by speculation, gouging and government backing as by productive investment. ... It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That's the job of the nation's leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies."
CNN—Arrest outside White House as lawmakers debate protests:
Politicians fought Sunday to cast the ongoing Wall Street protests in a very different light, with two GOP presidential candidates calling them "class warfare" and prominent Democrats expressing support for the protesters' message.(LULZ and more LULZ.)
...[GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain] insisted the protests are "anti-American."
...Fellow GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told CBS that he agrees with Cain that the protests are "a natural product of Obama's class warfare. ... We have had a strain of hostility to free enterprise. And frankly a strain of hostility to classic America starting in our academic institutions and spreading across this country. And I regard the Wall Street protest as a natural outcome of a bad education system, teaching them really dumb ideas."
Both Cain and Gingrich described the protests as "class warfare."
...[Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin] added that divisive rhetoric is "troubling. Sowing class envy and social unrest is not what we do in America."
LA Times—Herman Cain steps up attacks on Occupy Wall Street protests: "Republican presidential contender Herman Cain amplified his criticism Sunday of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, calling the protesters 'jealous' Americans who 'play the victim card' and want to 'take somebody else's' Cadillac."
Blue Texan at FDL: "One of the best byproducts of the Occupy Wall Street protests is that they’ve made Republicans show their true colors. America is watching as they cast off the faux right-wing populism of the Teabaggers—which was always a pose—and unabashedly embrace the monied oligarchy."
Slavoj Zizek speaking at Liberty Plaza this weekend:
Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let's establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Water War!
Would you like to watch Hugh Jackman and Jimmy Fallon play Water War? Of course you would! Who wouldn't?! EVERYONE LOVES HUGH JACKMAN! This is a True Fact, according to my friend Richard Adams. If you meet a humanoid who expresses anything less than undiluted love for Hugh Jackman: BEWARE. This is very good advice.
Video Description: Hugh Jackman and Jimmy Fallon dramatically battle via the classic card game War, but the loser of each turn of the cards gets doused with water.
Happy Blogiversary to Us!
Wednesday was Shakesville's seventh blogiversary, which I totally forgot because, no doy, I am the Most Terrible Blogmistress in all of Terribletown. (Please register your complaints here.)
I almost can't believe it's been seven years—and more than 20 million visitors—since young bones groaned and this blog was born, originally under the banner Shakespeare's Sister, from Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own," by way of one of my favorite Smiths' songs. Because I am the heir of all the Shakespeare's Sisters before me, who carved out rooms of their own, tiny pieces of space and time, in which they formed the habit of freedom and mustered the courage to write exactly what they thought, I took up their legacy with breathless gratitude and compelling need, and I created a room of my own, built of 1s and 0s, where I tried, and try still, to honor them, as best I can.
When a community started to grow up around this blog, and other writers began to join me in this space, Shakespeare's Sister, which was also my handle when I started in anonymity, seemed too personal somehow, and so we became Shakesville.
I am a better person than I was when I started. I know more about myself, both the good things and the things that need changing. I've made great friends and had great teachers. I've been challenged not to settle into the well-tread grooves of my socialization, and exhorted to deconstruct the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which I'd been socialized. I have been urged to expect more of myself and persuaded to believe in the possibility I can be the change I want to see.
I've learned more in this space than I ever could have imagined, and this is, by far, the toughest job I've ever had. I am forever changed because of Shakesville, and the people who visit or come to stay.
I'm going to continue to try to make this a space you enjoy visiting and make that space as safe as possible. I'm going to fail and disappoint you and piss you off once in a while, but I'll endeavor to balance that with some good stuff, too. The truth is, I'm just fumblefucking my way through this thing every day; there isn't a model for managing a space like this one, no well-tread path to follow. I don't always know what I'm doing, so we're all pretty lucky when it seems like I do.
Thanks, Shakers. Thanks to the other contributors and mods, for everything you put on the page and everything you do for me behind the scenes. And thanks to my beloved Iain, who first suggested I start this blog, and who makes Shakesville possible in every conceivable way.
Reminders
1. Meet-Up Cancellation: The Chicagoland Meet-Up that was scheduled for this Saturday has been canceled due to my health problems. I will reschedule as soon as possible.
2. Community Project: Operation Get Loved Up! Explanation and details here. Submit your pictures to Shaker BrianWS by email.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Jolie and the Green-Eyed Hero Cats.
Recommended reading:
Chicago History Museum blog: The perfect recipe for a great fire
woodturtle: a muslim in the TARDIS
The Society for Neuroscience is hosting a Brain Awareness Video Contest. Daniel.lende posts some favorites at PLoS Blogs' Neuroanthropology blog: Brain Awareness Videos by Brain Scientists!
crunktastic: I Saw the Sign but Did We Really Need a Sign?: SlutWalk and Racism
Jessa Crispin: If you'd like to donate books to the Occupy Wall Street Library, the address is
Occupy Wall Street Library
c/o UPS STORE
118A Fulton St. #205
NY, NY 10038
(Via Maud Newton's Twitter feed)
The Smithsonian's Surprising Science blog: Five Historic Female Mathematicians You Should Know
Michael Ruhlman: French Onion Soup
Deeky: Halloween 2011 Mix
Leave your links in comments.
Number of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence.]
$800,000: The estimated annual cost of prosecuting misdemeanors and jailing convicted offenders in Topeka, Kansas, which the Topeka City Council says it can no longer afford, so "city and county authorities have neglected to prosecute or charge people suspected of domestic battery since Sept. 8. In other words, the local justice system has spent a month effectively sending the message that misdemeanor domestic assault will go unpunished—at least for now."
I am without words.
[H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you for sending it along.]
Ada Lovelace Day: Polly Matzinger and the Rhetoric of Immunology
Happy Ada Lovelace Day, folks! The Finding Ada site will have a post roundup, Limor Fried at the adafruit industries blog started doing one post an hour at midnight, and the Twitter hashtag is #ADA11. If you write a post, do please leave a link to it here in this thread as well adding it to the stories at findingada.com. You do have to register, but that only takes a couple of minutes.
I sat by the snow-stained window of a conference room at Major Research University in Pennsylvania, drinking bitter coffee from a styrofoam cup while the residents and scientists around me bragged about their sleep deficits. Our department was refining a grant proposal to address inflammation in the digestive system. They had invited an immunologist from the National Institutes of Health to consult. At 8AM, the snow finally stopped. It seems now like I felt the air transmit an at-home-anywhere ease familiar to me as a native Californian even before I turned from the window and saw Dr. Polly Matzinger walk in, but that can't be right.
Polly Matzinger had been a cocktail waitress in Davis, CA. But the scientists talking shop while she served drinks got her thinking. She started asking questions, went back to school, and earned her Ph.D. in 1979. Now, more than thirty years later, she directs an immunology research lab at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Her lab is nicknamed "The Ghost Lab", because it stood empty for the first few months, while Matzinger brushed up on chaos theory.
At the head of our conference table, Dr. Matzinger slipped off her black cowboy boots, folded herself into a lotus, and told us about how watching her sheepdogs back in Davis gave her an idea that changed the field of immunology.
Her dogs barked at some strangers who came by, but not at others. They were responding not to strangeness, she realized, but to perceived danger. Dr. Matzinger’s “danger model” breaks from the traditional self-versus-other narrative of immunology.
For a century, science has used military imagery to conceptualize the immune system with tales of heroic cells conquering stealthy foreign invaders. But Matzinger realized that immune cells are more like sheepdogs than border patrol guards: they respond to proteins they deem potentially harmful, regardless of foreignness.
Stories have power in science. There is a story, a narrative, at the heart of each scientific hypothesis. The rhetoric of our culture influences which stories we tell and therefore which ideas occur to us.
The popular immunology rhetoric of wars, sentinels, foreign invaders, and moral and ethnic impurity influence which scientific hypotheses form. Moreover, this rhetoric affects how researchers and society in general respond to diseases such as AIDS and cancer. But Matzinger’s danger model is changing the direction of immunology research by re-conceiving the narrative around how our bodies protect themselves.
Further Reading (below the fold in most browsers):
About Matzinger:
The Danger Model: A Renewed Sense of Self, by Polly Matzinger. (originally published in the journal Science)
THE REAL FUNCTION OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM or TOLERANCE AND THE FOUR D's (danger, death, destruction and distress), by Polly Matzinger
A Conversation With Polly Matzinger; Blazing an Unconventional Trail to a New Theory of Immunity, by Claudia Dreifus
On the rhetoric of immunology:
Behind a subscription wall (if you have access to a library with a JSTOR subscription, you should be able to download it):
Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State.
Emily Martin, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
New Series, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 410-426
Stefan Helmreich: Flexible Infections: Computer Viruses, Human Bodies, Nation-States, Evolutionary Capitalism (PDF)
Flexible Bodies: tracking immunity in American culture from the days of Polio to the age of AIDS, by Emily Martin
Illness as metaphor ; and, AIDS and its metaphors By Susan Sontag
On the research:
David C. Holzman, New Data Cheer Champions of the Danger Theory, JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (2010) 102 (2): 76-78.
Oxford University Press Online Resource Center: Videos of leading immunologists
NIAID's Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Immunology
(Behind a subscription wall): Polly Matzinger and Tirumalai Kamala, Tissue-based class control: the other side of tolerance Nature Reviews Immunology 11, 221-230 (March 2011)
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Previous ALD posts: Happy Ada Lovelace Day: Telling Our Stories; Happy Ada Lovelace Day; Ada Lovelace Day
Quote of the Day
"When she started to get really vocal at first I thought she was calling to the kittens, but then it became clear that she was actually calling to me."—RSPCA inspector Jon Knight, on the rescued cat who led Knight through a garden, across a plowed field, into a farm yard, through an old farm machinery barn, and behind a stack of old wood to her litter of four kittens, so they could be rescued, too. The rest of the incredible story is here. [Via.]
Mr. Knight with Jolie the Cat.
Who Votes for These Damn People?!?!
The best that Florida State Rep. Ritch Workman (no, I didn't make that up) could come up with to help spur job growth was a bill that would repeal the state's "dwarf-tossing" ban:
"I'm on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people," Workman told The Palm Beach Post. "This is an example of Big Brother government."Well, hell, if we're going to ignore exploitation as a justification for employment law, why stop there? I eagerly await Rep. Workman's proposal to repeal child labor laws ASAP.
"All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get," he added. "In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?"
