This blogaround brought to you by a spoon. (There is no spoon!)
Recommended Reading:
Happy Fourth Blogiversary to Shaker Moderator Scott Madin!
Jos: Girl Scouts of Colorado Support Transgender Youth
Resistance: "At last, honors for the first black Marines."
Latoya: [TW for rape culture and gender essentialism] Because Amber Cole Is Just a Kid and Boys Learn to Be Boys
Adrienne: [TW for racism and appropriation] Open Letter to the PocaHotties and Indian Warriors This Halloween
Jorge: [TW for racism and racist violence] Teen Accused in James Anderson's Killing Linked to Other Hate Crimes
[Trigger warning for homophobia and anti-gay violence] I have been closely following news about the murder of Stuart Walker, a gay man who was murdered in Scotland, not just because I have gay family in Scotland, and not just because I regularly write about homophobic violence, but because of the multiple rumors surrounding the killing, including a teen girl gang originally being sought and the rape accusations against the victim by a convicted rapist. So much fuckery. So much to be deconstructed, I don't even know where to begin. See Andy here and here.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Friday Blogaround
Wank Swap: S1 E1
Airing at 2200 GMT:
The grim specter of zombie Andrew Mellon returns to haunt Germany.
[Zombie Andrew Mellon stands in front of the
Brandenburg Gate moaning "You owe me your braaaaainnnz!"]
Meanwhile...
While visiting southern Indiana, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finds a surprising inspiration for future economic policy.
[Angela Merkel stands in front of a Waffle House,
thinking "Maybe I'll chunk it."]
Previously.
An Observation
It occurs to me that many things in this culture might be very different if we referred to women and men not as "opposite sexes," but complementary ones.
Not disparate and mutually exclusive constructs, not pieces of a binary opposition, not foes who do battle, but bookends, in between which exist a spectrum of experience and presentation.
Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up
Occupy Oakland protestor and veteran Scott Olsen holds a banner at a protest
before he was injured (TW for image at link). [Keith Shannon photo; via.]
The Guardian—Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen awake ahead of brain surgery:
Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a projectile fired by police during the Occupy Oakland protests, has woken up and is lucid as he awaits surgery, hospital officials and family members have said.Dahlia Lithwick at Slate—Occupy the No-Spin Zone: One of the best things about Occupy Wall Street is the way it confuses and ignores the shrill pundit class: "Think, for just a moment, about the irony. We are the most media-saturated 24-hour-cable-soaked culture in the world, and yet around the country, on Facebook and at protests, people are holding up cardboard signs, the way protesters in ancient Sumeria might have done when demonstrating against a rise in the price of figs. And why is that? Because they very wisely don't trust television cameras and microphones to get it right anymore. Because a media constructed around the illusion of false equivalencies, screaming pundits, and manufactured crises fails to capture who we are and what we value."
Olsen, a 24-year-old former US Marine, was struck in the head during anti-Wall Street protests on Tuesday night. He has been upgraded from critical to fair condition.
Olsen "responded with a very large smile" to a visit from his parents, Highland General hospital spokesman Warren Lyons said. "He's able to understand what's going on. He's able to write and hear but has a little difficulty with his speech," Lyons said.
Politico—Occupy to march on NYC banks: "Occupy Wall Street protesters will march to five banks in Manhattan on Friday and deliver thousands of letters to the companies—in the form of a 'mass paper airplane throwing.' ... Thousands of letters that were submitted to occupytheboardroom.org will be folded into paper airplanes, and at some of the banks, protesters will execute a 'mass paper airplane throwing event,' after which the planes will be collected in a large mailbag and left in the lobbies of the banks."
Google—What search trends tell us about Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: "Search interest for [Occupy Wall Street] jumped ahead of the [Tea Party] on September 24, and hasn't looked back. In a historical context, when viewing the snapshot of their nascent birth, we can see the peak of [Occupy Wall Street] has slightly more interest in American than searches for the [Tea Party] did during the groups peak in 2009."
Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch—Pat Robertson: Christians Should Oppose Occupy Wall Street: "On The 700 Club [yesterday], Pat Robertson told a questioner that Christians should not be involved in the economic justice movement Occupy Wall Street. Robertson dubbed the protests 'atavistic' and a 'rebellion' with 'no purpose' behind it. The televangelist even warned that the movement 'could be used for radicals who want to destroy this nation.' While Occupy Wall Street tackles issues of inequality and avarice in the financial system, Robertson alleged that it has nothing to do with Christian virtues of righteousness and fighting oppression. This wouldn't be the first time Robertson chastised Occupy Wall Street. He previously called the protestors 'nuts' and 'clowns' who are being used by President Obama to 'revolt'."
Speaking of Obama and his alleged revolution against Big Money (lulz)...
New York Times—Obama Backers Tied to Lobbies Raise Millions: "Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid. At least 15 of Mr. Obama's 'bundlers'—supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others—are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign. Because the bundlers are not registered as lobbyists with the Senate, the Obama campaign has managed to avoid running afoul of its self-imposed ban on taking money from lobbyists."
Meanwhile, in Europe...
Paul Krugman in the New York Times—The Path Not Taken: "Financial markets are cheering the deal that emerged from Brussels early Thursday morning. Indeed, relative to what could have happened—an acrimonious failure to agree on anything—the fact that European leaders agreed on something, however vague the details and however inadequate it may prove, is a positive development. But it's worth stepping back to look at the larger picture, namely the abject failure of an economic doctrine—a doctrine that has inflicted huge damage both in Europe and in the United States. The doctrine in question amounts to the assertion that, in the aftermath of a financial crisis, banks must be bailed out but the general public must pay the price."
And in related news...
Corynne McSherry at the Electronic Frontier Foundation—Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back—And It's Worse Than Ever: "As with its Senate-side evil sister, PROTECT-IP, SOPA would require service providers to 'disappear' certain websites, endangering Internet security and sending a troubling message to the world: it's okay to interfere with the Internet, even effectively blacklisting entire domains, as long as you do it in the name of IP enforcement. Of course blacklisting entire domains can mean turning off thousands of underlying websites that may have done nothing wrong. And in what has to be an ironic touch, the very first clause of SOPA states that it shall not be 'construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech.' As if that little recitation could prevent the obvious constitutional problem in what the statute actually does."
They're coming after our ability to connect and organize, folks.
Question of the Day
By what part of your current self do you think your younger self would be pleasantly surprised?
Photo of the Day
Yes, this is obviously going to be Dudley's Halloween costume.
[H/T to every single humanoid in the multiverse, and my thanks to each and every one of you for sending it along!]
Multidisciplinary Genius
Hey, remember our friend David Barton, whose very smart ideas about education we were just discussing yesterday...? Well, it turns out he's a genius about feminism, too.
On a Believers Voice of Victory episode that aired today, David Barton told televangelist Kenneth Copeland that women are most elevated in a society that has "conformed to the Scriptures." Citing Religious Right activist Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Barton said that the Bible is actually the basis of women's rights, while in "Islam" and secular societies like France and "the Norwegian countries," women have fewer rights and less respect.Oh, he's also a ninth degree black belt geography master. FYI.
Hobbity
Do you want to see a neat little video of the gentlemen who played Sam, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin hanging out together, made in conjunction with Empire magazine's LOTR 10th anniversary issue? Of course you do, because you're a nerd. Go look at it!
True Fact 1: The first book(s) that Iain and I ever talked about was Lord of the Rings, and the first movie we ever saw in the theater together was The Fellowship of the Rings.
True Fact 2: We own at seven different Lord of the Rings board games, and a Lord of the Rings chess set.
True Fact 3: We are hardcore nerds no doy.
Daily Dose of Cute
This video does not even do justice to how hilariously pathetic Dudley was being the other night, but I tried to capture and convey the desperate angst as best as I could.
Agony Antler: Dudley has an antler tragedy, but, luckily, I am able to save the day with my human problem-solving skills and opposable thumbery.
Text Onscreen: I bought the dogs a pair of naturally shed elk antlers to chew on… [picture of two sections of elk antler] It was a HIGH VALUE TREAT, so Dudley immediately grabbed his and ran down the hall with it to the office, where he takes all HIGH VALUE TREATS. [retrospective video of Dudley taking a pig's ear from me and running down the hall with it] But, pretty soon, there was an evident problem… [video of Zelda chewing contentedly on her antler; I pan to the left, and Dudley is lying pitiably on the floor with no antler. I say, "Dudley, where's yours? Where's your antler? Where did you put it?" He looks miserable. "Are you pathetic?" I ask.] Yes. Very pathetic. [video of Dudley lying with his face right next to Zelda, staring at her while she chews contentedly on her antler, which she has not immediately lost like a glaikit] I went to the office to look for it. I looked all over and couldn't find it. I looked in the guest room, the bathroom, the loft…no sign of it. Dudley continued to look pathetic. [video of Dudley looking pathetic beside Zelda] I finally thought to look under the bookshelf that's right next to Dudley's bed in the office. And there it was. [picture of the antler placed to show that's there's just exactly enough room for it to slide under the bookshelf] I returned Dudley's antler to him, and the world was a just and joyful place once again. [video of Zelda and Dudley lying on their beds in the office, chewing happily on their antlers; video of Dudley resting on his bed, holding onto his antler with one paw] The End. [picture of Dudz and Zelly together on one bed labeled "Two Dogs!"]He literally must have run into the office with it, dropped it, and watched it skid under the bookshelf instantly, lol. He is SUCH a hapless goofball.
Sure.
In case you missed it, DeLorean is back, with an electric engine natch. For $90,000, why not buy two?
[DeLorean 2: This Time it's Environmentalable*]
*FYI, that's a photo of the planned 2014 DeLorean, not the 1982 model.
An Observation
It is amazing to me how many companies, in the year 2011, will not talk to me even if both Iain's and my names are on the account.
Number of the Day
Zero: The amount of credibility megapastor Joel Osteen has on the subject of gay people's lives—or any subject, for that matter, with the possible exceptions of "How to Gain Notoriety and Wealth by Exploiting Bigotry in the Name of the Lord" and "I Am a Shameless Fartsack."
Quote of the Day
"What Shannon and Casey are seeking is the same treatment that their straight counterparts, who are legally married, receive every day without question and take for granted."—Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, who is organizing a lawsuit brought by Massachusetts Army National Guard Major Shannon McLaughlin, 41, her wife, Casey, 34, five other troops, and two career Army and Navy veterans, who are "challenging the constitutionality of the federal ban on gay marriage and federal policy that define a spouse as a person of the opposite sex."
This was the inevitable result once Don't Ask Don't Tell was rescinded, because now DOMA prevents spouses of legally married gay servicemembers from accessing benefits provided to spouses of married straight servicemembers by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, including "military identification cards, access to bases, recreational programs, spousal support groups and burial rights at national cemeteries." Maj. Shannon McLaughlin, for example, is able to enroll their 10-month-old twins in her military-provided healthcare plan, but is not allowed to add her wife Casey, who instead has to pay about $700 monthly for her own healthcare coverage, despite the fact they are Massachusetts residents who are legally married in their state.
This patchwork of rights and access is unsustainable. It's only a matter of time before the US federal government is forced to recognize same-sex marriage, and soon thereafter the entire house of bigoted cards will crumble. Heh heh heh.
FYI
Hillary Clinton has been thinking about the limits of might and the advantages of cooperation for a very long time. She's also been thinking about how to leverage and maximize diffuse power, and the value of negotiation and alliances, for a very long time. Basically, she is very smart and competent. And probably a little under-utilized and marginalized, even though her personal experience makes her uniquely qualified as a leader and statesperson for this moment in history. But she does her job damn well anyway, because that's how Hils rolls.
This is all nooz.
Three Birds. One Show.
1. Europe: Yeeeeeaaaaah, not so much. (Well...)
2. The United States: SUPERCONGRESS!
3. NBC: The Playboy Club (Whoops!)
Europe and the US clearly need to try something different, and NBC's desperate for a brand new show that's basically just a slightly repackaged version of an existing show.
I give you Wank Swap, the new reality show where European and American leaders trade places to weigh in on important issues of economic policy.
Because I once had forty-five minutes of free time and something resembling Photoshop, I've been able to track down some stills from the first season:
[French President Nicolas Sarkozy struggles to give the tiniest infinitesimal fuck about a county fair in US Representative John Boehner's southwestern Ohio Congressional district.]
[US Senator Mitch McConnell beats a hasty retreat through the Frankfurt airport after disrupting a European Central Bank meeting to suggest that Belgium could really "lighten up".]
[US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner saves London from a dalek, or vice versa.]
[In season one's most shocking episode, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi serves as New Jersey's governor for four months. His cover is blown during an impromptu concert with the floating head and torso of White House Council for Community Solutions member Jon Bon-Jovi.]
[In a very special episode, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a guest appearance, cooking dinner for
I'm not saying that this show is a good idea. I just think it's a lot better than anything anyone's tried so far.
If Only Women Could Think for Themselves...!
Then we wouldn't need laws like this:
One of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws went into effect Wednesday in North Carolina after a federal judge temporarily halted the law's most controversial requirement — that a woman getting an abortion must first view a narrated ultrasound image of the fetus.Because adult women are actually ninny-brained infants who need forcible help making decisions about their own bodies, and not autonomous rational actors who have already made a considered choice for themselves to terminate before they make an appointment for the actual medical procedure.
U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles ordered a preliminary injunction late Tuesday, ruling that the ultrasound requirement likely violates patients' First Amendment rights.
She upheld other sections of the law, including a 24-hour waiting period to provide information on abortion risks and alternatives.
Well, at least the mandated ultrasound portion has been blocked, and the ACLU is on the case.
The American Civil Liberties Union and four pro-choice groups contended in a lawsuit filed last month that requiring women to view ultrasound images and providing an opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat promotes government-mandated ideology. Proponents of the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in July over the veto of Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue, say the requirement would promote childbirth and protect women from emotional trauma.Indeed.
...Eagles said the provision is "likely to harm the psychological health of the very group the state purports to protect."
Again I will note—as I do each time one of these mandated ultrasound bills is being debated with the inevitable justification that its supporters are just trying to Very Helpfully "provide women with more information"—that if an altruistic helpfulness were the authentic motivation, then women would be offered a choice as to whether they want to get the ultrasound.
But, of course, these paternalistic scolds are not offering anything kind or decent; they are merely demanding the legal right to try to shame women into not getting abortions, because they believe, wrongly, that women seeking abortions are in denial about being pregnant, or detached from their natural desire to mother, or some other nonsense, and if only they see a picture of the BABY! they will change their fickle and delicate minds.
Being forced to view an ultrasound does not, however, change the reality for a pregnant woman—and there are few minds less persuadable than the mind of a woman who does not want to be pregnant. Which is why even straight-up criminalizing abortion doesn't stop women from getting them.
Forcing a pregnant person to look at an ultrasound will not change the circumstances that made her seek an abortion: If you don't want a child, if you can't afford a child, if you had a contraceptive failure, if you were raped, if you just lost your job, if you found out the fetus will die as soon as it's born, if you're pregnant by someone who became abusive, if you've been diagnosed with a life threatening illness, or a non-life threatening but life-changing illness or disability, if your existing child has become ill, if your spouse has become ill, if your parent has become ill, if your psychiatric medication is incompatible with pregnancy, if you lost your health insurance, if…if…if a million other variables, if any of a million reasons why women seek abortions, looking at an ultrasound will not matter.
The Ultrasound Gang just can't conceive that there are women who make the measured, rational, self-interested decision to terminate a pregnancy. "But there's a BABY in there!" they insist, and they don't understand that there are millions of women who will reply, with or without regret, "Yes, I know. That's the problem."
