What is your favorite thing about yourself?
Interpret however you like: Your favorite personality trait, your favorite accomplishment, your favorite part of your body, whatever.
I don't even know what my answer to this question is. I guess my tenacity, maybe.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please refrain from defining your favorite thing in contradistinction to another thing you find unappealing. That is to say, if your favorite thing is your feet, just say, "I love my feet," rather than, "I love my feet, because they're not gross like other feet that look like X." It's fine to expound on why you like what you like; just be considerate not to make other people feel shitty in the process.]
Question of the Day
Whoooooooooops
Arthur S. Brisbane, you are not helping your case by condescendingly implying that your readership is stupid.
The problem is not that the Times readership doesn't understand the nature of your examples. The problem is that you don't seem to.
Quote of the Day
"I mean we spent trillions trying to help poverty in America. But we don't cure poverty; we subsidize it when we make people dependent on the government and make it harder for them to get up the ladder."—Senator Jim DeMint (R-Evolting), offering up more of that compassionate conservatism we hear so much about.
It's a nice little racket the Republicans have going, isn't it? They defund every social program they can get away with defunding, and underfund every piece of the social safety net they can't defund out of existence, and then they whine and moan about how social programs don't work.
Leaving aside the fact that there are lots of social programs that do work, naturally the failure of the ones that don't has NOTHING to do with the Republican strategy of denying social programs a reasonable chance to flourish by withholding generous funding and other institutional support.
And then they blame the people whose quality of life is sacrificed in service to their ideological game for being lazy and weak and dependent. How truly, deeply vile.
Woman's Work
For a very long time, Democrats' agreement with progressive women was this: Vote for us, and we will be your champion. In practical terms, despite important pieces of legislation like the Violence Against Women Act and the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, being women's champion has largely meant making sure that progress women made wasn't allowed to backslide by standing between progressive women and the enforcers of the Patriarchy in all their guises—conservatism, religion, tradition.
But decades have passed with women on average still making less than men, still widely and primarily victimized by sexual violence (and still vanishingly unlikely to see justice for those crimes against them), still disproportionately affected by the nation's failure to provide a comprehensive and robustly funded social safety net, by unemployment, by food insecurity, by the lack of universal healthcare, by the lack of equal opportunities, by the lack of sensible and fair family-work policies. What social progress does happen frequently comes at the expense of women's reproductive rights.
Women who have multiple axes of oppression—women of color, women with disabilities, women in same-sex partnerships, women who are trans*, fat women, poor women, et. al.—are at increased risk of being marginalized and under-served by their government.
A government whose national legislative body, meant to be representative of the people, is still less than 20% female.
In recent elections, the Democrats' promise to progressive women has been reduced to ensuring (and only when it's politically expedient) that Roe vs. Wade would not be overturned, even as the GOP diligently works to render that ruling an empty statute.
Last spring, Shark-fu and I were talking about the blitz of anti-choice legislation in state legislatures across the nation, and she was telling me about lobbying in Jefferson City, Missouri—one of the many places bills limiting abortion rights are being considered. (The following has been published with her permission.)
Shark-fu: Jeff City was a train wreck. SEIU and others were there trying to stop the right to work bullshit. We were there trying to stop the 20 week abortion ban. And a whole bunch of losers were there showering the House and Senate with praise for giving it to the works and taking away women's rights. Ugh. I had a state Senator tell me that he "has" to vote for abortion restrictions so he can get other stuff done. The price of entry into negotiations with the MO GOP is women's reproductive freedom. I'm disgusted and dreaming of Canada.
Liss: "The price of entry into negotiations with the MO GOP is women's reproductive freedom." This is so depressing. I just don't even know what to say anymore. As I'm sure you know, the same legislation is making its way through the statehouse in Indiana. I'm not only dreaming of Canada; I'm dreaming of menopause, so I don't have to worry about the possibility of ever needing an abortion.
Shark-fu: OMG, it's so funny that you mention menopause! On the drive back yesterday I decided to write a post about how amazingly liberating it is to no longer have a uterus—every time I read a heinous bill I realize that they can't touch me. Sadly, plenty of the bills still apply to my post-hyster self. But they can't force me to get pregnant and that's so damn liberating it's sad.
Liss: If the fact that diminished cis female reproductive capacity (whether via hysterectomy, menopause, or elsewise) feels liberating for feminist women doesn't plainly expose how TOTALLY FUCKED UP the GOP's war on uteri is, I don't know what possibly could.
And then we lolsobbed forever.
This, then, is the situation in which we find ourselves: We are demoralized to the point of imagining, if only in passing, life in another country, or in another body, because we have been abandoned by the only one of the two nationally electable major parties who were even ostensibly on our side, who have negotiated away our alliance because doing so is the price of entry into doing business with the other party.
There is a presidential election coming up. The Democrats will not only want our votes, but expect them. And male partisans, having not learned the lessons of the last election, will admonish any feminist/womanist voter who does not axiomatically promise to give her vote to the Democrats that she is a fool who doesn't even understand her own rights or recognize her own best interests. We will be excoriated for even considering abandoning the Democratic Party, as if the Democratic Party did not abandon us first.
But this is not a post about voting. This is a post about the way reproductive rights are regarded—by the women who are actually affected by them, and by the party who purports to be our ally, and the cavernous divide in between.
My right to control my reproduction—and the respect for my bodily autonomy, agency, and consent that is embedded within that right—is central to my sense of self and my worth to my community and country. I can't put it any more plainly that that. The value of my very humanity is predicated on that right.
That right is not some piece of shit bit of legislation to be used as a dangled carrot during elections and used as a bargaining chip to be negotiated away in between.
And I'm angry that the party meant to champion women's rights doesn't see it the same way. I'm angry that there are so many male Democratic partisans (and not a few women) who claim to be progressive and yet think that whether I am trusted to make the best decisions about my own reproduction isn't a big fucking deal. Or want to lecture me about what a Big Fucking Deal it is when they're trying to bully me into voting for the party whose indifference allows the GOP to chip away at the scope of that right.
If it's not a big fucking deal to you every fucking day, then don't come shouting at me about it every four years like you're Professor Roe V. Wade, foremost expert in Abortionology at Gliberal University.
And if it is a big fucking deal to you every fucking day, then get busy getting involved.
Believe me, I know: Getting involved stinks. You're forced to deal with people who, on the best end, are deliberately obtuse bullies and, on the worst end, spam your inbox with pictures of dead fetuses. These are not pleasant folks, and I'd like to avoid them myself.
Unfortunately, that would necessitate closing up shop, putting down my teaspoon, and going silent. And then, somehow, magically not being a woman who lives in a patriarchy anymore.
This is the hard truth for progressive men who care about reproductive rights: When you leave the public fight to others, you're leaving it mostly to women.
I'll give you a moment to contemplate the many ways in which treating the feminist/womanist fight for reproductive rights as "woman's work" is some fucked-up irony, right there.
*a moment*
Now here's the other thing about leaving the reproductive rights fight to the ladies: Misogynists don't respect women. They don't listen to women; they won't acknowledge a woman's authority on her own lived experiences; they're not going to learn anything from women, and certainly not feminist/womanist women.
Misogynist anti-choicers who believe women to be less than need to hear that they're terribly, infuriatingly, and demonstrably wrong from men. Publicly. Passionately. As loud as the loud, so very loud, voices on the other side. One of the ways their self-reassuring bullshit works is via the effective void of male dissension, which supports their erroneous belief that they are the "objective" arbiters of womanhood.
They count on feminist men never showing up en masse for the main event.
They count on the Democratic Party being too squeamish, too spineless, too unprincipled, too apathetic to stand up for reproductive rights, unyieldingly.
They count on reproductive rights being the first bargaining chip on the table.
They count on the still almost entirely male leadership of the Democratic Party and the vast number of male Democratic partisans giving themselves permission to not get publicly involved, or to get publicly involved only when it's convenient and not all that risky and not all that hard.
They count on men trading on that privilege of not having to get involved.
They count on Democratic partisans being more interested in hectoring dispossessed progressive women than in being their allies and fighting this fight alongside them, every day.
They count on reproductive rights being treated as Woman's Work, and thus being devalued as woman's work inevitably is.
They are trying to overwhelm and demoralize the (mostly) women to whom this work is being left.
If the Democratic Party wants to retain its alliance with women, they'd better send reinforcements. And soon.
By way of suggestion, I recommend that the allegedly feminist staunch defender of reproductive rights, President Barack Obama, who happens to be currently seeking reelection, give some of his fancy speech-making on behalf of the 52% of the nation whose rights are being eroded. The states enacting a record number of abortion restrictions last year seems like it warrants his comment. Ahem.
[This piece was originally published in similar form April 4, 2011. It's particularly relevant again lately.]
Get Swabbed, Baby
In November 2010, 11-year-old Shannon Tavarez, an actress who starred in The Lion King on Broadway, lost her life to leukemia. A year after her death, Shannon's story has inspired more than 15,000 new bone marrow donors to register with DKMS, which is the largest bone marrow donor center in the world, and 30 potentially life-saving matches have already been found for other patients.
In the below video, model Evander Holyfield, Jr. tells his story while donating his marrow, after being "matched to a patient in desperate need of a transplant within two months of joining the registry."
Click here to find out more about becoming a bone marrow donor.
Hey, how're you doing? My name is Evander Holyfield Jr. Right now, I'm donating bone marrow. I guess you could kinda say I'm feeling like Robocop when he first got built. But you know what? It's all good. I'm filling up my stem cell sack over there and I'm progressing pretty well and hopefully that thing will be up full in maybe a couple of hours or so.[Full Disclosure: I was provided the video link and transcript by a representative for DKMS, but I am getting no compensation for passing it along. It's just something which is important to me. Please also see this post by William K. Wolfrum for more information, especially as regards the need for African-American donors.]
I absolutely feel... I feel pretty good because the IV I have in me has my blood circulating all over my body. I can feel the tingling. In a sense, I can almost feel every blood vessel I have in me and it feels good. But I also feel even better that this is going out for a good cause. This is actually helping somebody out there who actually needs this and who is actually dying of leukemia.
I registered for a very good reason. I heard the story of a young actress by the name of Shannon who was in the Lion King and she died of leukemia. So, I went to a fundraiser and I heard her story which was absolutely motivating and I got swabbed there. Two months later, it led to me being selected for an individual, a young teenager who needs my stem cells right now.
I dedicate this donation to my grandmother, who has breast cancer. I dedicate it to her because she means a lot to me, and this young lady means a lot to me, and Shannon, this is for you as well. I donate it to all of you ladies out there; I appreciate you.
I just want to stress the point that it's very important to donate, you know, to help keep people alive and help people when you can help them. It's a very important thing to do. If you haven't helped anybody in a long time, get off the couch, get up. Get out and go help somebody. You know, cut some grass, and donate! Most importantly, donate. Get swabbed.org, baby! [laughs]
So, Let Me See If I've Got This Straight...
Yesterday, it was fifty degrees. Today we're supposed to get fifty inches of snow.
All righty then.
Daily Dose of Cute
"Yes, hello, is this the Complaint Line? I have a complaint I'd like to make about a dog who keeps sniffing my ass despite my most fervent hissing protestations. Also, she continually steals my spot next to Two-Legs! The wanton thievery of this usurping interloper forces me to sit on THE OTHER SIDE of Two-Legs, which, yes, I will begrudgingly admit, is just as good, but that is NOT THE POINT."
"I have no idea who or what she is talking about." *wink*
Looking For That Perfect Gift?
Amazon is making it easy for you with:
Also known as:
True Fact: The New York Times Does Not Know What Journalism Is Or What a Journalists' Job Is
That can be the only explanation for this column by the Times' public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane: "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?"
I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge "facts" that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.OMFG. If I had asked these questions of my high school newspaper faculty adviser, she would have sent me back to retake Journalism 101. This is deeply embarrassing stuff. Or should be.
...If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:
"The president has never used the word 'apologize' in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president's words."
That approach is what one reader was getting at in a recent message to the public editor. He wrote:
My question is what role the paper's hard-news coverage should play with regard to false statements – by candidates or by others. In general, the Times sets its documentation of falsehoods in articles apart from its primary coverage. If the newspaper's overarching goal is truth, oughtn't the truth be embedded in its principal stories? In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn't the Times's coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. ... Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?
I don't even know how Brisbane can frame this scenario as a "reporter choosing to correct one fact over another." Does he know what the meaning of the word fact actually is? If it needs correction, it ain't a fact.
And howsabout the radical idea of not picking and choosing which not-facts to identify and/or correct, but identifying and/or correcting them all.
Meanwhile, Brisbane wants to know if a "separate fact-check sidebar" is insufficient. YES IT IS! "Do you like this feature, or would you rather it be incorporated into regular reporting?" Literally, the public editor of the "paper of record" just asked the paper's readership if they want accuracy inserted into their reporting.
That explains everything. *jumps into Christmas tree*
Wow
Video Description: Video, from a new BBC special called "Earthflight," of common cranes flying over Venice. What's remarkable is that the video is shot from among the V of the flying cranes, getting in slow-motion and amazing detail every feather and every sinuous move of the cranes' lovely long necks.
How did they do it? "Common cranes have been hand-reared to fly alongside a microlight to capture these images. Earthflight uses many different filming techniques to create the experience of flying with birds."
[Via Andy.]
A Conservative Problem
Via STFU, Conservatives, below is a video (with transcript) of Mitt Romney on the campaign trail during the last election, being confronted by a man with muscular dystrophy about his rigid position on medical marijuana. And not just rigid: It's a bullshit position, because Romney, like lots of people, asserts that synthetic marijuana or some other medication can be substituted for weed, which is not actually true for many patients whose bodies reject synthetics, much like how different antibiotics work differently in different bodies. Of course, Mitt Romney doesn't go around insisting that everyone should be able to use penicillin, but no one uses penicillin to (gasp!) recreationally get high, so it's not a naughty drug about which rigid, bullshit positions must be drawn.
Anyway! The point of this post isn't really Mitt Romney's position on legalizing weed, for medical purposes or full-stop. The point of this post is that the video is such a perfect example of what is required of people to maintain a conservative ideology: You must turn your back on every person whose individual experience and circumstance proves wrong your inflexible certitude about any issue.
Now, this is not to say that there do not exist in the world progressives who do a similar thing on certain issues (fat acceptance is a perfect example of endemic progressive fail in this very way), but the difference is in the ideology: Conservative ideology broadly asserts: "This is the one right way for all people," while progressive ideology broadly asserts: "Let us give people a choice." Which means it's easier for progressives not to pretend that people with different opinions, ideas, and, most importantly, needs do not exist.
When we are confronted with a person whose needs are not encompassed by a policy or position, we generally don't need to abandon that policy or position in toto; we can expand it to be more inclusive. And, when we can't, the habit of inclusion makes us better able to abandon an oppressively restrictive policy or position—to the point where we are the butt of sneering conservative jokes about bending over backwards to include everybody, as if that's a bad thing.
But here, Mitt Romney is confronted, literally, by a person whose needs are not encompassed by his policy, and he just reiterates his unworkable policy. When the man challenges Romney to answer for the practical realities of enforcing such a policy, Romney simply walks away as if this person doesn't even exist. The man is not a provocative cause for reconsideration of a bad policy; he is instead just an inconvenience, best quickly forgotten.
Thus can Romney keep on pretending that his policies exist in a void, just a collection of rhetorical devices that win him the most votes, without any real-world consequences.
This is the difference between people-centered politics, and policy-centered politics:
Top Chef: Texas Open Thread
The cast of Top Chef: Texas enjoy the bounty that is the Top Chef: Texas/Amarillo YMCA Rec Center pantry. Get cookin', cheffies!
Restaurant wars! Why is everything on TV wars this, wars that now? Cupcake Wars? Storage Wars? Lobster Wars? Swamp Wars? Border Wars? Shipping Wars? Enough, Hollywood Brain Trust, this is just getting silly.
Spoilers below. Discuss!
(See also.)
Primarily Horrendo
Here's the latest from These Bootstraps Are Made for Walking, and That's Just What They'll Do; One of These Days These Bootstraps Are Gonna Walk All Over YOU! aka the Republican Primary...
Looks like we finally know who farted, y'all.
Did you know that everyone hates Mitt Romney? It's true! Even Sarah Palin hates him, and went on Fox News to demand that Romney provide proof of the 100,000 jobs he keeps saying he created during his tenure as Chief Corporate Raider at Bain Capital. She also wants to see his tax returns. Mimeographs or it didn't happen!
Whooooooooooops my mistake! There is one person who hearts Mitt Romney, and that person is none other than John Bolton! In addition to offering his endorsement, John Bolton will "join [candidate Romney's] top team of foreign-policy advisers, according to people close to the campaign." Wowee wow! That is not only excellent news for all of us, because if Mitt Romney wins it means MORE JOHN BOLTON FOR EVERYONE, but also speaks to the moderation, wisdom, and fundamental decency of Mitt Romney that he would want on his team the guy who says assassination and sanctions in Iran are "half-measures" and calls for a full-on "attack."
Yay for war! More war! Aggressive mustaches for everyone!
Moving on.
Rick Perry is definitely still in the race! He has not dropped out yet!
Newt Gingrich confesses he should probably stop attacking Romney using the whole "greedy capitalist garbage nightmare" angle, because he sounds too much like a Democrat, and also too much like a human being with a functional empathy center.
Something something Ron Paul. Hey, did you know that Ron Paul is anti-choice? It's true! And yet some dudes who claim to be progressives nonetheless think he's awesome because they don't understand that allowing the state to force women to carry pregnancies they don't want is incompatible with freedom! Whooooooooooops you are misogynists!
Jon Huntsman zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. South Carolina zzzzzzzzz.
Rick Santorum announces that he is unelectable: "[Mitt Romney]'s the most electable because the establishment feels comfortable with him. Right? That's it. Well they're not going to feel comfortable with me!" Welp, we already knew that Rick Santorum was totally unelectable, for myriad reasons. Nice to see he's caught up and is finally on the same page. Good job, Santorum. Now go home and take a nap.
Hey, want one more reason to hate Mitt Romney? Here's a doozy: "According to a passage from a forthcoming book, The Real Romney, while serving as bishop of a Mormon congregation near Boston in the early 80's, Romney once threatened to excommunicate a young single mother if she did not give her soon-to-be-born son up for adoption." Neat! What a neat guy with such a neat religion!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Good Morning! Here Are Melissa Harris-Perry and Stephen Colbert Being Awesome!
My profound thanks to Shaker shutupmonica for providing the transcript for us! For people who have not seen The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert is playing a Bill O'Reilly-like character, but he is actually politically liberal, and his guests are very much in on the joke.
Question of the Day
Would you sign up for a ticket to Mars, with no guarantee of survival or return?
Background here.
If my personal circumstances were different, I think I would. That would be a journey so intensely fascinating that it would be worth unfathomable risk to take it, if I only had myself to consider.
Of course, I'd no doubt be too fat anyway, lulz.
[H/T to @BoraZ.]
There Is No Such Thing As Second-Hand Consent
[Content Note: This post contains reference to a sexual assault and discussion of intimate partner violence.]
In July 2010, I wrote a piece called "Your Underdog Lovelorn Romantic May Be My Rapist," about public romantic gestures in which strangers' participation is elicited, and the potential for people's good judgment to be undermined by the belief they're helping facilitate a grand romantic moment. Relatedly, male predators often get access to female victims by claiming to already be romantically involved with them.
Today, Shaker Courtney forwarded me this terrible story (which is rife with rape apologia right down the headline and its use of the loaded word "claim" vs. a less dubious word like "allege") about a woman who "is suing Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, [alleging] staff at one of their hotels gave her room key to a drunken man who allegedly sexually assaulted her in her bed."
This guy had, according to Alison Fournier, hit on her earlier that night, and, after she'd made it clear she was not interested in having sex with him, she "retreated to her room to get away." So why did a hotel employee just hand out her room key to this guy?
That same man, according to the suit, later went to the front desk, said that he was Fournier's husband, and obtained a key from hotel staff to her room.Nor, evidently, did they even bother to pick up the phone and ring Fournier's room to get her permission to hand out a key to her room—which is something they should have done even if this guy had been her husband.
The staff did not ask him for any identification or proof that he was in fact Fournier's husband, according to the lawsuit.
There is no such thing as second-hand consent. A husband cannot consent on his wife's behalf to give himself access to her room. There are husbands in this world who hit their wives, who rape their wives, who murder their wives. There are reasons that a wife could be in a hotel room to which she doesn't want her husband to have a key.
"In a statement given to ABC News by Starwoods Hotels and Resorts, Worldwide, the company said it is investigating the incident." Ya think? Fuck.
This Is Your Irregularly Scheduled Reminder to
Be All In, Whenever and Wherever You Can Be
[Content Note: This post contains discussion of police violence. The video contains images of police violence, and its transcript contains corresponding descriptions.]
Here's the thing: Jermaine Green is hero. And what we're going to talk about is how he's a hero, not just because he filmed an incident of police brutality against a disabled woman, and not just because he refused to hand over the video to the deputy whom he'd just filmed, but because he is a man of color who did these things at the same personal risk any of us would face in standing up to police, plus the fuckload of additional risk because he is a man of color, and did them even when the white police deputy was being racist right in his face. (White men are not typically asked, "Do you have any warrants?" by police.)
What we're not going to talk about is how not all cops are bad (I know; my grandfather was a cop), nor are we going to talk about how hard cops' jobs are (I know that, too), nor about some supposed additional difficulty of dealing with mentally disabled people (because fuck that and look at the video where he punches her in the face for no reason, and no, "she's a constant pain in my ass" isn't a reason). We're not going to defend that bullying fuckery in this space.
I'm posting this video because I want to say thank you to Jermaine Green for being All In, even when there are mightily strong disincentives not to be, and thus encouraging us to do the same. And we're going to talk about him, and the woman to whom he made himself an ally, even though she was a stranger, because she was a stranger who needed his help.
[Transcript below.]
Also: "A sheriff's department spokesman told NBCLA over the phone the department would not comment on this case and would not look at the videotape, but the spokesman said the department does investigate all use of force claims." So they're going to investigate the claim without looking at the video? Awesome. Great job as always, LA Sheriff's Office.
