Pragmatic. According to Merriam-Webster. I'm sure President Obama is very proud!
Photo of the Day
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga (right) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leave the room after signing an agreement between the two countries on December 14, 2011 at the State Department in Washington. [Getty Images](A picture of the two of them working, in which their faces are visible, can be seen here.)
@scatx: @Shakestweetz >> Clinton being amazing in pink once more >> Photo from Getty Images bit.ly/sKvwXa
@Shakestweetz: @scatx I saw that set last night, and the same picture you picked out was also my favorite (of course).
@scatx: @Shakestweetz one day, we are going to meet and we are just going to talk for like three straight days. #samebrain
@Shakestweetz: That picture could totally be the Knope/Perkins ticket on inauguration day. #icanmakeanythingaboutparksandrec
@scatx: YES IT COULD.
Improvements, Part Two
[Part One.]
There's a hole in my driveway, dear Liza.
The vibrating has somewhat diminished, now that the destruction of concrete is mostly complete. Now I am able to hear the workers shouting and laughing and hollering all day. I certainly don't begrudge them having fun on the job; it just makes more difficult the task of writing when one's mind keeps seeking to listen to voices outside the window. Not that the vibrating was better.
(Yes, I have thought of earplugs, but my goddamn stupid ear canals are too shallow to keep them in. This has been the bane of my existence since the invention of ear buds, when I was still walking around with my Walkman earphones plugged into my Discman like a TOTAL LOSER! So I was told.)
We didn't find out when the end of our driveway was demolished until about 10 minutes before the work began. Iain was leaving for work, and the crew had to move so he could back the car out. It was then they told him our driveway would not be accessible "until further notice." Some of our neighbors were not so lucky, and their cars are landlocked in their driveways. Or were, until they drove across lawn after lawn down the street, until they were free.
Anyway! There's a hole in my driveway. But the improvements are coming. So I am told.
Top Chef: Texas Open Thread
Padma and Tim Somedude get all judgemental with Heather's dish.
Top Chef continues in some non-descript state that I think is maybe Oregon. Could be any state really. Cook cook cook, shop shop shop, in-fight in-fight in-fight. A villain emerges. So does Paul. Who is Paul? How come I never noticed him before? Is he new? He seems nice, which is refreshing. Stay nice, Paul, there are enough jerks on the show!
Spoilers below. Discuss!
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
The CDC has just released the results of a comprehensive national survey on rape and domestic violence. The study, The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, has found that nearly a million women are raped in the US every year.
One million women a year.
Here are some other key findings from the Executive Summary (pdf), none of which should come as any surprise to regular readers of this space:
Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.The study also addressed something that we've discussed previously—experiencing multiple acts of sexual violence in one's lifetime. According to the CDC's findings, more than a third of women who had been raped as minors were also raped as adults.
More than half (51.1%) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance; for male victims, more than half (52.4%) reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1% by a stranger.
Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime; most men who were made to penetrate someone else reported that the perpetrator was either an intimate partner (44.8%) or an acquaintance (44.7%).
An estimated 13% of women and 6% of men have experienced sexual coercion in their lifetime (i.e., unwanted sexual penetration after being pressured in a nonphysical way); and 27.2% of women and 11.7% of men have experienced unwanted sexual contact.
Most female victims of completed rape (79.6%) experienced their first rape before the age of 25; 42.2% experienced their first completed rape before the age of 18 years.
More than one-quarter of male victims of completed rape (27.8%) experienced their first rape when they were 10 years of age or younger.
Surviving sexual violence was also found to correlate with anxiety disorders and chronic health issues: "Both men and women who had been assaulted were more likely to report frequent headaches, chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, limitations on activity, and poor physical and mental health."
(Imagine if the amount of effort put into "ending obesity" because of its alleged drain on the healthcare system were put into dismantling the rape culture. But I digress.)
This news is being greeted with the usual shock and awe:
"That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people," said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey.I hate the shock and awe response. Shock and awe is a loyal accomplice to the rape culture, its job to lay the tidy, irresistible pathstones to overwhelmed, where indifference justified by presumed defeat takes root.
"I don't think we've really known that it was this prevalent in the population," she said.
I greet these numbers not with surprise, but with steely resolve. Yes, they are terrible. And I stare them in their ugly face and let them try to do their worst to my determination, and then I take a breath and get back to work.
Primarily Terrible
Here's the latest from Bad Max 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold, aka the Republican Primary...
Frontrunner (whuzzat?!) Newt Gingrich was preempted by chanting Occupy Wall Street protesters at a campaign event at the University of Iowa. Smooth as always, and definitely showing his firm grip on the pulse of the nation, Gingrich shouted over them: "I appreciate the 95% of you, maybe even the 99% of you, who will actually have an intelligent discussion and are not going to be drowned out by the 1% who try to impose their will by making noise." LOL! GOOD ONE!
Former frontfunner (sad trombone) Mitt Romney, last seen attacking Gingrich on the basis of his "zaniness," has stepped up his scathing attack strategy by pointing out that Gingrich is "a wealthy man, a very wealthy man." Ooh BURN! It's true what they say: No one can identify a wealthy man, a very wealthy man, like a trust-fund kid who grew up to make millions running a private equity investment firm. You've got him on the ropes now, Moneybags!
Rick Perry is still definitely in the race! He has not dropped out yet.
Ron Paul has gotten the coveted Andrew Sullivan endorsement. It's no Gary Busey, but it's pretty good. It must have been hard for a guy who loves racism and sexism SO MUCH to limit himself to one candidate in the GOP field, so it's really a strong message to racists and sexists that Sully went with Ron Paul. Take heed, bigots!
Michele Bachmann is accusing Newt Gingrich of buying Tea Party support: She's "been hearing this all across the country, that money is changing hands. And that's not how I do business. In fact, I've told people, I've told evangelicals, I've told Tea Partiers—I don't pay people to come out and be my supporters, that's not what I do. When we have tea party groups and all of the rest, I don't do that because I'm just a real person." Oh, Newt Gingrich is a real person, too. A VERY RICH person! Who can buy Tea Party Support! Just ask Mitt Romney.
Jon Huntsman is gaining momentum in New Hampshire. Not a lot—just enough to beat Ron Paul. But enough to sustain an egomaniac's belief that he can definitely for sure totally win this thing!
Rick Santorum said something stupid and homophobic. In other news, today is Thursday.
Bonus Fun! Dynamic television personality and former GOP primary failosaur Mike Huckabee hosted an anti-abortion forum in Iowa for the candidates who bothered to show up (Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, and Perry, who is still definitely in the race). Each of the candidates had the opportunity to deliver "seven-minute speeches on their anti-abortion agendas" before the premiere of Huckabee's new anti-abortion documentary, The Gift of Life. That sounds like a GREAT event! SO FUN. Good job on being awesome, Republicans!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Today in Rick Santorum Says Something Stupid
Good nNews, everybody! Rick Santorum has his own Twitter account! It's certified too, so you don't have to worry about accidentally following a fake Santorum who says things that aren't total garbage!
Here's what the real, certified Rick Santorum had to say yesterday:
Here is 1 effect of changing definition of marriage: "@HuffingtonPost: Marriage rate drops to new low huff.to/tfhN1e" #fb
1. "#fb"?!? I see they're letting everybody on Facebook these days. Christ.
2. Not to be all professorial n' shit, but making more people eligible for marriage would tend exert upward pressure on the marriage rate. Still...
3. We did it bitchez! We reduced the pressure people feel to get married!
Oh, wait, Santorum is assuming that marriage is an inherent good, and that the over fifty percent of American adults who aren't married are awful people. I know US elections are confusing, what with the electrical college and all, but insulting half of the populace doesn't strike me as a very good strategy.
4. What mechanism is Santorum proposing, anyway? Is he suggesting that there are hoards of petulant straight people who refuse to get married now that (less than half of all) same-sex couples have access to their toy? "Fuck, I don't want to play marriage anymore. Marriage sucks. Now I want a pony that shits rainbows. What, queer people already have that too?!?"
In conclusion, America, you should totally elect Rick Santorum, because he's bad at math, hates gay people, thinks half of you are awful, and is convinced that lots of straight people are acting like petulant children.
Sure.
Your move, not-Romney.
Question of the Day
What is the single most important quality that you would like to have your president, prime minister, or leader of another name to have?
Photo of the Day
A stunned Annette Swoffer thought she must have been hallucinating when she found [a young baby fur-seal pup] hanging out with her cats in her kitchen on Sunday night. The seal had made its way from the Welcome Bay waterfront, through the suburb's residential area, across busy Welcome Bay Rd, up a slip road, along Ms Swoffer's long driveway, under a gate, through the cat door and up some stairs before he was found in the kitchen about 9.30pm [and later] made himself at home on the couch. [Link; photo from the New Zealand Department of Conservation]
Quote of the Day
"Zany is not what we need in a president. Zany is great in a campaign. It's great on talk radio. It's great in the print; it makes for fun reading. But in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together."—GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, on his "zany" opponent, Newt Gingrich.
How the fuck boring are you if you think Newt Gingrich is "zany"? This is not helping your image as a total snoozefest, Mr. Romney.
Protip: If you don't want pundits incessantly talking about your habitual flip-floppery, make sure it isn't the most interesting thing about you.
Especially because "inconsistency in his voting record" is literally so uninteresting I fell asleep seven times just typing out the phrase.
Sad News, Y'all
Just three days after endorsing Newt Gingrich, professor of political science at Point Break University and actor Gary Busey has withdrawn his endorsement.
"It is not time for me to be endorsing anyone at this time! When there are the two final candidates, then I will endorse," Busey said Wednesday in a statement released through his representative.Aww, shucks. I hope you can still spectacularly flame out without him, Mr. Gingrich! GOOD LUCK!
"Why do I want ponies? They're for girls."
[Trigger warning for bullying/child abuse and gender essentialism.]
So, the other night, Jimmy Kimmel aired a segment which compiled viewers' video responses to his latest challenge for parents to pull holiday-related trickery on their children, after his "film your kids' reaction after telling them you ate all their Halloween candy" segment went viral last month. This challenge was to wrap up some random garbage and give it to kids as an early Christmas present.
I find this entire thing really troubling, because pranks are a form of bullying even between peers, and a prank played by someone in a position of power, especially a parent pranking a child, is bullying that can fundamentally undermine trust.
So I normally wouldn't even give this any attention, except that I thought it was very interesting (where "interesting" = "fucked up") how many parents interpreted "give your kid a crap gift" as "give your son a girl's item," and what effect that had on the boys who received them. Yikes.
Post-feminist world, etc.
Jimmy Kimmel: Last week, I issued a challenge: I asked the parents of America to pull a little holiday trick on their children—we did this on Halloween with candy, and it got a lot of response to it, so we did it again, this time for Christmas—I asked parents to tell their kids they were going to let them open one present a few weeks early, but instead of a good present, I said, "Put something the kids won't like in the box," and then upload the video of that to YouTube, labeled "Hey, Jimmy Kimmel, I gave my kids a terrible present," and a lot of people did do this, and, um, they did give their kids terrible presents, and a lot of the kids, surprisingly, reacted poorly to that.[Via.]
Clip of two little white boys opening presents; one unwraps a half-drunk bottle of juice and whines, "I don't like this!"
Clip of a white girl opening a present; she unwraps an old, brown banana. "What is it?" asks Mom from behind the camera. "An old banana," the girl says. "Isn't that exciting?" Mom asks. "No," replies the girl. She holds it up, sqooshes it, eats it.
Clip of two white girls who have just opened an onion and a battery. "Wow, a battery and an onion!" Dad says from behind the camera. The girl who opened the onion flops over and begins to cry. "What's wrong?" asks Dad. The other little girl says, "We don't want a onion!" Dad asks the crying girl, "Did you smell your onion? Here, smell it." She cries. "No, I smelled it!"
Clip of a white and/or Latin@ boy and girl opening presents; he unwraps a hotdog and she unwraps a carton of eggs. The little girl starts cracking an egg to see if there's anything inside.
Clip of three white children, a boy and two girls, opening presents. The little boy holds up a pink activity book. Deeply aggrieved, he complains, "I got a girl activity book with stickers!" Angry now, he adds: "I'M NOT A GIRL!" His sister, who got some "boy" gift, says, "And I'm not a boy!" Their sister adds: "I'm not a boy, either!" The boy begins to cry: "This is the worst present ever."
Clip of a white girl and a white boy; the girl has just unwrapped a half-eaten sandwich. She has an exchange with Mom, behind the camera, about how she likes Mom's cooking, so Mom thought she'd like the sandwich. The little girl replies she meant when Mom cooks things like "Hot Pockets." The boy offers to eat the sandwich.
Clip of a little boy of color opening a Hello Kitty sweater. "You stinking parents!" he shouts, throwing it down. He charges Dad behind the camera. "Take it back!" he shouts. "I want a refund." Later in the video, he is seen tantruming, extremely upset, about having received a girls' sweater.
Clip of a white boy unwrapping a half-eaten sandwich. "It's a half-eaten sandwich!" exclaims Mom from behind the camera. "Isn't that what you asked for?!" The little boy replies, "No, I asked for toys!" and throws the sandwich across the room.
Clip of three black children, a girl and two boys, opening presents. From behind the camera, Mom says, "What did you get, Jason? Some black beans, cheese, and a Waffle House hat!" To the little girl, she says, "What's in there?" The little girl pulls out a potato. "Oh, you got a Mister Potato Head!" exclaims Mom. The other son cries and accuses Mom of giving them the terrible gifts.
Clip of four white children, a girl and three boys, opening presents. One boy opens a hammer. Another exclaims, "I got ponies?!" Then, later: "I got ponies. Why do I want ponies? They're for girls." The girl adds, "And I got a stupid book." Mom says, "We thought really hard about what to get you this year." The boy who opened the hammer retorts, "Well, you didn't do a very good job!" The boy who got the ponies complains, "This is the worst Christmas I ever had."
Clip of three children of color, a girl and two boys, opening presents, which are of course terrible. Mom explains, "Well, Jimmy Kimmel told me to do it." Yells one of the boys from the other side of the room, "Well, tell him to suck my balls!"
The audience laughs and cheers. Jimmy Kimmel says: "Noted."
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by pretty, pretty paint.
Recommended Reading:
Vanessa: Newt Gingrich's Fidelity Vow Includes Promise to Defund Planned Parenthood
Sarah: [TW for rape culture] Disgusting UVM Fraternity Questionnaire Sparks Outrage
Ragen: [TW for fat hatred] Can't You Just Take a (Fat) Joke?
Resistance: [TW for Islamophobia] Dear Lowe's
Arturo: [TW for racism/white privilege] Reactions to 'If I Were a Poor Black Kid'
Adrienne: [Video] Students Respond to ABC's "Children of the Plains"
Michelle: [TW for discussion of eating and dieting] Emotional Eating (This is part four in Michelle's series on Learning to Eat, the first three of which have also been linked in blogarounds.)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Deeky: I am 55 seconds into Atlas Shrugged and Oh My Fucking God is it terrible!
Liss: LOLOLOL!!! Are you going to review it?
Deeky: I dunno. Maybe. Not sure I can. Physically or mentally.
Liss: Bootstraps, son. You need bootstraps.
Deeky: There is this headline on a newspaper at the start. The articles are full of misspellings and grammatical errors! Quality filmmaking.
Liss: That's the liberal media for you!
Deeky: From the paper: "One of the major reasons for gas shortages is that fact that inventories were not very high going into the beginning of the year."
Liss: Who says the Department of Education is superfluous?
Deeky: Another article: "Because houseing prices will keep falling in most places. Prices are still dangerously high compared to incomes and rent."
Liss: The obvious answer is that everyone should live on trains.
Deeky: Sure, no one is really supposed to see that, but come on! This is the age of Blu-Ray! People WILL pause and read the paper.
[Later.]
Deeky: Christ, this is so infantile.
Liss: Of course.
Deeky: It might actually be worse than Country Strong.
Liss: No. Way.
Deeky: I love that this takes place in some fantasy land where the US government isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate world.
Liss: Why do you hate the job creators?
Deeky: The politics of smelting! Dramatic! This is like the 12 Angry Men of train rail production.
Liss: LOL for realz!
Deeky: I have no idea what is going on.
Liss: It all makes sense if you sniff bootstraps while you watch it.
Deeky: HA! Also, in the future there is no Google. No one knows who John Galt is.
Liss: The government no doubt sold Google to the Russkies.
Deeky: The music is VERY majestic.
Deeky: Except now. Now it's soft. Because there's fucking.
Liss: Mmmmmmm conservafucking.
Deeky: Now they're in the deserts of Wisconsin. This is soooooo terrible.
Liss: That's weird because it sounds GREAT.
Deeky: Seriously: Google. This movie needs Google. How do you set a movie in the future and not have computers?
[Later.]
Liss: I can't believe you watched the whole thing.
Deeky: I still don't know what happened. Something to do with government interference of corporations. And smelting.
Liss: Was it a good cliffhanger?
Deeky: LOL! NO! There was an oil fire and Dagny screamed "Nooo!" and there was a voiceover from Wyatt saying "I'm going on strike."
Liss: Whut? Fuck that noise.
Deeky: I think some of the dialogue was missing. Maybe they only took every other line from the novel. To save time.
I Write Letters
Dear Western Pop Culture and Everyone Who Pays Attention to It:
The Kardashian Sisters are human beings. I just thought we all needed that reminder, since it seems like many of us are incapable of speaking about them without using the most hateful, objectifying, exploitative, and straight-up eliminationist rhetoric.
While I have everyone's attention, I'd also like to specifically address famous men, like Daniel Craig or Jonah Hill, for whom publicly trashing the Kardashians has become a great new pastime: The constant whinging about how the Kardashians aren't famous for "doing anything," because what they do—put themselves out there as entertainers—doesn't meet your threshold for the sort of entertainment that deserves fame, is really ugly.
You don't have to like what they do, and you don't even have to like them. But there's a market for reality programming, and it's a niche they're willing to fill. I sure as shit wouldn't be willing to live my life, or some partially-scripted and highly-edited version of my life, on camera, for the entertainment of others—not for all the money in the world. I wouldn't be interesting enough, anyway, even if I did.
That's not incidental. People want to watch the Kardashians. Whether it's to love them or to hate them, people want to watch them. I don't know if they've got talent, but they've evidently got charisma.
I get that there may be some haunting Video Killed the Radio Star anxiety about the increasing popularity of "unscripted" television, when your multimillion-dollar paychecks are dependent upon the popularity of mega-produced mega-polished mega-productions. But, listen, if there's really not enough room in this media-saturated world for the Kardashians and James Bond, that's not really their fault. Fame is fickle because it's based on the whims of the consumer.
(And the television executive. And the tabloid editor.)
Now back to the general audience for one last thing: In many (most) of these multitudinous attacks on the Kardashians, I have detected a little (a lot) of the sneering hostility that tends to get reserved for women who have the temerity to take up space in the world. Which is really gross, and really pathetic in the year 2011. And don't even get me started on the transmisogynist "humor" used against them, or the heinous ubiquity of "jokes" intending to demean them sheerly on the basis of observing some of their partners are/have been Black men.
Maybe we can all just lay off the Kardashians already. By which I mean: Save our criticisms for things that deserve criticism (like, say, the casual use of transphobic slurs), and stop talking a stream of nonstop rubbish auditing their "right" to be famous.
I'll end with his note of irony: Despite my well-known reputation for consuming all manner of garbage television, I have never seen an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, or any of the spin-offs. The primary reason I even know who the Kardashians are is because of all the people who can't shut up about how horrible it is that they're famous. Whoooooops!
Love,
Liss
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Trio: "Da Da Da, Ich Lieb' Dich Nicht Du Liebst Mich Nicht Aha Aha Aha"
On Rape Prevention Tips
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
In the wake of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's victim-blaming anti-rape campaign, and much ensuing debate, Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory has written a piece taking a look at the nature and usefulness of "rape prevention tips" directed at women. I was interviewed for and am quoted in the article.
I do understand the impulse among decent people who have no desire to preemptively victim-blame to nonetheless share "rape prevention tips," really, I do. I even understand the urge to defend the need to share "general safety ideas" with women, during discussions of rape prevention. It is, of course, "common sense" that tips to avoid being mugged are equally as useful to avoid being raped.
But to reiterate the point I made to Tracy: Even the "rape prevention tips" typically offered under the umbrella of "general safety ideas" aren't really practical rape prevention advice. Millions of people get home alone after drinking every night in this country, and the vast majority of them aren't sexually assaulted, so is it actually meaningful advice to warn women against walking home alone, or is it just advice that sounds useful in the void of effective rape prevention (i.e. advice directed at predators, potential predators, and their peer enablers)?
The truth is, there's no such thing as a meaningful "rape prevention tip" for potential victims, because the only surefire way to prevent being raped is to never be in the same space as a determined rapist, over which we often have no control, which is why most survivors have been raped in a familiar place by a person known to them.
Real practical rape prevention is dismantling the rape culture, but that's a lot harder than telling a woman to take a cab to her door, as if everyone can afford cabs—and as if cabbies don't sometimes rape people, too.
Read Tracy's piece here.
