Shakesville

Film Corner!

There's a great new teen romp about the awesomest teen party evarrrrrrr coming soon to teen theaters near you—and it was produced by Todd "The Hangover" Phillips, so YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE SO TERRIFIC! The trailer is below.

Ferris Bueller is a flyboy! "Remember, guys—it's not just a job; it's an adventure!" He's like Maverick from Top Gun, only with less homoerotic tension with Val Kilmer. He's still a totes rebel, though! Sunglasses. Stealing a plane with Helen Hunt. Open bottle of champagne in the cockpot. (Typo, but I'm leaving it!) The point is, this guy is a maverick. Not to be confused, of course, with Maverick from Top Gun. Or John McCain.

Ferris Bueller has a pompadour and wears a Hawaiian shirt. Hey, remember the 80s?! He joined the Air Force to learn about leadership, run football betting pools (WE CALL THEM FANTASY FUSSBALLS NOW, THIS MOVIE FROM 2012!), and get asked out on dates by Helen Hunt. Hotsy totsy! Also: He would get to work on "space-age technology." See: Tron.

"But he never thought he'd meet anyone like Virgil!" says the voiceover man. Ha ha Virgil is a chimp! Hi, Virgil! Virgil and Ferris Bueller hug each other. They are becoming friends. Awwww. Helen Hunt is working with Virgil, too! Hubba hubba. But she is teaching Virgil how to be a hippie, and Ferris Bueller is teaching him how to use a simulator so he can dump nukes on the Russkies.

Ferris Bueller doesn't know that, though! Oh no! But Virgil knows! Virgil signs: "Get me the fuck out of here!" Ferris Bueller urgently calls Helen Hunt, who is asleep on the set of Moonlighting. Top secret project! Treason! "Let's get the hell out of here!" Run! Everyone run! Don't let the monkeys blow up the planet or whatever!

This movie looks really good! I can't wait to see it!

Voiceover: "From the creators of War Games. Matthew Broderick. Project X.

Whooooooooooooooooooooooops!

That was a long way to go for a shitty joke that is probably only meaningful to people my age, lol. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT, GENERATION X!

(The real trailer is here, if you give a shit.)

Truth

Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

Daily Dose of Cute

Cats!

Matilda sits on arm of the couch

Matilda!

Olivia sits on the stairs

Olivia!

Sophie sits on the back of the couch

Sophie!

Pres Obama's Women's History Month Proclamation Fails to Mention Reproductive Rights. Again.

Today, President Obama signed a proclamation, the full text of which is below the fold, recognizing Women's History Month, 2012. And, just like last year, he has failed to make even passing mention of reproductive choice.

This glaring omission by our ostensibly pro-choice president was made despite the all-out legislative assault on our reproductive rights which has seen on both the state and federal levels attempts to undermine access to abortion, to contraception, and even to woman-centered healthcare providers; and despite record numbers of anti-choice legislation being passed across the nation; and despite increasing incidents of anti-choice terrorism; on a day when the Senate was taking a vote on an amendment that treats women's basic reproductive healthcare as a negotiable item; in a week in which the Secretary of State testified before the Senate about the deadly effects of a failure to support family planning.

We're assured that "no dream is beyond [our] reach," but whooooooooooooooooops bodily autonomy remains elusive for women and other people with uteri as increasingly invasive and infantilizing legislation seeks to obtain ownership of our bodies and ever more control of our choices.

But, hey, our "struggles" are being commemorated. What more could we possibly want? And don't worry—"fair pay" got another explicit shout-out. Huzzah!

Someone who can loftily talk about "mak[ing] headway on the crucial issues of our time" while NOT EVEN MENTIONING THE ROLLBACKS ON REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE may be pro-choice in the most technical, most politically expedient terms, but they're no kind of pro-choice advocate, and they're no kind of ally.

The profundity of my contempt is cavernous.

Reproductive Rights Updates: Blunt Amendment, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Arizona

The Senate has, by a sadly small but still enough margin, voted down the Blunt Amendment:

By a vote of 51-48, the Senate agreed to table a Republican amendment offered by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that would have empowered employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections. The measure represented the GOP’s response to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception and other preventive health services as part of their health insurance plans. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) — who announced her retirement earlier this week — was the only Republican to join Democrats in “tabling” the amendment, while three Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (NE), Joe Manchin (WV), and Bob Casey (PA) voted to preserve it.

Of course they did.

***

In other big news:

Pennsylvania's odious mandatory ultrasound legislation was essentially shelved last night and there is no current time set to pick it back up.

HARRISBURG - House lawmakers postponed a vote that was set for later this month on controversial legislation to require women seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound exam to determine the gestational age of the fetus.

Stephen Miskin, spokesman for House majority leader Mike Turzai, R-Pittsburgh, confirmed the delay Wednesday night, citing concerns raised by the medical community. He said there is no timeline to take up the legislation.

So, that's some good news!

***

In not-so-good news, in Virginia, HB462, the mandatory ultrasound legislation, could potentially come to vote in the House of Delegates:

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – The ultrasound bill that’s caused a commotion at the General Assembly and around the nation could be coming up for a final vote on Thursday.

HB 462 is on the schedule to be voted on by the full House of Delegates today, after being passed with an amendment by the Senate. That additional amendment would not require women who are the victims of rape or incest to go through an ultrasound.

However, there was some relatively good news from Virgina as the proposal to ban Medicaid recipients from being able to get abortions in the event of a fetus with severe anomalies was killed:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A bill that would have banned Medicaid funding for indigent women with severely deformed fetuses who seek abortions has been defeated in Virginia's General Assembly.

On a 13-2 vote, the Senate Finance Committee voted Tuesday to kill a bill by Del. Mark Cole that would have eliminated state funding for low income women who have learned that their fetuses have gross, incapacitating and perhaps mortal deformities.

Cole states that he just wants to comply with the Hyde Amendment like almost everyone else. Oh is that all? /snort

***

In Alabama, a senate committee approved so-called "conscience" legislation:

A Senate committee approved a bill Wednesday that would allow health care providers to refuse to perform abortions and other medical procedures they may find morally objectionable.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, the sponsor of the legislation, said it was intended to protect health care employees from termination over those issues.

"If that person is fired because it's against their conscience, they have no recourse," he said. "They could be fired on the spot for just doing that."

The bill allows employees to opt out of abortion, sterilization, cloning or human embryonic stem cell research, but would require those procedures to be performed if the life of the patient was at stake. Abortion clinics are exempted from the legislation.

This legislation is just part of several pieces legislation regarding health care: last week mandatory ultrasound legislation was cleared and there is proposed legislation banning abortion being covered by insurance.

***

A couple weeks ago I posted about legislation being introduces in Arizona:

Rep. Kimberly Yee (R-Epugnant) has intro'd legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation. Abortion would only be allowed if the person would die otherwise. This bill also includes mandatory ultrasound 24 hours beforehand, posting signs in clinics saying that no one can force anyone else to have an abortion ...

And it also requires the health department to provide information on fetal development and "abortion alternatives" on its website. Well, Yee has been successful in pushing this forward in a very quiet way:

PHOENIX (CBS5) - An abortion bill is one step closer to becoming law. On Monday, the bill passed though the Senate Judiciary Committee; however, many are being openly critical about the path it took to get there.

The bill stalled out in a House health committee several weeks ago after the board's chairman refused to hold a vote. But a backdoor maneuver allowed the bill's sponsor, Rep. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, to revive the proposal by flying under the radar.

[...]

The 'strike everything amendment' takes a bill that's gone through some of the legislative process and deletes it, then pastes another bill in its place.

In this case, Yee replaced a bill that regulates contracts between state and private attorneys with her abortion bill.

Yee, of course, doesn't think there's anything remotely sneaky about this. Of course not! There's nothing at alltelling about trying to quietly put in a bill that was refused a vote via backdoor legislative methods. Sure.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

The Monkees: "Randy Scouse Git"

Primarily Barfy

image of Mitt Romney with a microphone standing in front of a giant sign reading 'Ask Mitt Anything'

Sir, why are you such an enormous jackass?
This will just be a terrible Primarily Speaking post today, because the news is NOT NEWS! Mitt Romney is a stupid jerk. Rick Santorum is a vile bigot. Newt Gingrich is still in the race, for sure. Something something Ron Paul.

These and other GREAT HEADLINES in today's WHO THE FUCK CARES NEWS!

I did happen to read two stories back-to-back this morning, the juxtaposition of which was really interesting [content note: hostility to consent]:

1. Romney Comes out in Support of Controversial Birth Control Bill:

One day before a critical Senate vote that could loom large as a 2012 election issue, Mitt Romney came out for a congressional Republican measure designed to roll back the Obama administration's requirement that employer health plans cover birth control.

"Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM.

The Blunt amendment, which is scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday, would permit employers to deny coverage of birth control or other services they deem morally objectionable.

So Mitt Romney believes that people shouldn't have to be subjected to religious beliefs they do not share. (Which is not actually what the stupid Blunt amendment is actually about, but that's the Republican framing.)

2. Mormons Baptized Slain Reporter Daniel Pearl:

Members of the Mormon Church last year posthumously baptized Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was captured and killed by terrorists in Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to records uncovered by a researcher in Utah.

...Pearl's parents, Judea and Ruth, said it was "disturbing news" to learn that Mormons had baptized their son, in a rite that they understand was meant to offer him salvation. ...Pearl's wife, Mariane, who was five months pregnant with their son, Adam, when her husband was killed, said it was upsetting to learn that he was baptized. "It's a lack of respect for Danny and a lack of respect for his parents," she said.

..."But there is a more serious concern behind it, of respecting people's identity and integrity," said Mariane Pearl, who is Buddhist. "It doesn't traumatize me but, as a matter of ethics, I think it's wrong."

...In a video that Pearl's captors forced him to record just before they killed him, Pearl spoke of his religion, saying, "My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish."

In 2004, Pearl's parents published "I am Jewish," a collection of essays reflecting on their son's last words.

Last week, it was also reported that diarist Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, had been posthumously baptized by proxy in the Dominican Republic. This despite repeated calls from Jewish leaders for Mormons to stop with the posthumous baptism of Jewish people, and despite the fact that Mormon officials have supposedly prohibited posthumous baptisms of Jewish Holocaust victims.

Nobel-laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has called on Mitt Romney, as the nation's most prominent Mormon, to denounce the practice, but Romney has himself participated in posthumous baptisms—which, as I have previously noted, are deeply hostile to issues of personal consent.

Romney's position is obviously problematic, given that virtually every major pressing policy issue—reproductive choice, war, indefinite detention, same-sex marriage, trans* protections, immigration, TSA policies, prison reform, environmental policies, universal healthcare, etc. etc. etc.—centers around some aspect of consent, agency, and/or bodily autonomy.

But it's also profoundly hypocritical: He says he does not support mandated contraception coverage because it forces employers to act in opposition to their religious convictions, but, on the other hand, he subscribes to a religious tradition and has engaged in a religious ritual that subjects people who cannot consent by virtue of being dead to a religious rite that seeks to subvert their religious beliefs entirely.

And of course it's not supposed to matter, except that anti-Semitism is still a Real Thing in the World, and it's a problem that a potential presidential candidate is silent against this targeting of a religious minority for nonconsensual attempts at conversion, even as he argues hypocritically for religious freedom.

In other news: David Frum's a gross jackass. [content note for rape culture and misogyny] No, Mitt Romney getting the nomination is not like being the bride in an arranged marriage. Disgusting.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Top Chef: Texas Open Thread

So, when does Top Chef: Just Desserts start?

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Dehumanization; racism; misogyny.]

"It was not intended by me in any way to become public. ... This is a private thing that was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part. I did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is racist, I'm not that way, never have been."—Chief US District Judge Richard Cebull, a white man nominated by former President George W. Bush, who sent a racist email during work hours to "old buddies" from his official courthouse email address, but, naturally, isn't himself racist and never has been.

*that face*

I'm not going to reprint the joke, the "humor" of which turns on implying that President Obama's white mother doesn't know who his black father is and may have fucked a dog—which is not only a dehumanizing racist joke so old it's got dinosaur scat on its shoes that has merely been topically updated for the purposes of demeaning our biracial African-American president, but also conveniently plays into all the birther narratives used to attempt to delegitimize Barack Obama's presidency.

It's grossly racist on every conceivable level, and yet Cebull insists: "I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama." Oh, well, that's all right then.

Asshole.

[H/T to Deeks.]

Conservative Newser Andrew Breitbart Has Died

Whoa. At age 43, Andrew Breitbart reportedly died of natural causes last night. My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

For obvious reasons, namely our polar-opposite politics and wildly divergent set of professional ethics, I was not a fan of Breitbart, and I cannot say that I felt his contributions to the national dialogue were constructive or positive in any way. He hurt people, shamelessly and wantonly, for political gain.

I didn't know the man personally, and what I knew of him I did not like.

But I am not glad he's dead. I would have preferred instead that he'd lived long enough to change his mind.

Dane Cook to Star in "Gender Comedy" for NBC

image of Dane Cook sitting in the grass making a 'How you doin'?' face, to which I have added text reading 'Ladies.'

Dane Cook, he of the rape jokes and double-finger salute, will star in a new sitcom pilot for NBC called "Next Caller Please," in which he will play a "grouchy alpha male DJ." Sounds GREAT! And it gets even better:

The single-camera series revolves around Cam Doherty, a brash alpha male DJ and his feminist co-host set in the office of a satellite radio station.

Cook will play Cam, the disheveled, unshaven, hung-over and purposely detached magnetic grouch who doesn't like that his co-host is a woman.

...Collette Wolfe will play his co-host, Stella, in the gender comedy, while Joy Osmanski is on board to portray Winnie, Stella's producer, who recruits her to the radio show.

Ha ha you see it's FUNNY because she's a FEMINIST (a character who I'm sure TOTALLY won't be written as an MRA-drawn caricature of a feminist AT ALL!) and a "brash alpha male" harassing, belittling, mocking, needling, and bullying a feminist woman in a professional environment is GREAT COMEDY FODDER, and not at all the very thing that makes life a fucking misery for countless women.

NBC, let me save you some trouble. You remember what happened to ABC after they broadcast the profoundly contemptuous "Work It"...? Well, get ready for a category 5 shit-storm if you have the terrible sense to actually produce and broadcast this misogynist swill.

And here's some free advice: Any project that can be described as a "gender comedy" in the age of a global war on women [content note: violence and hostility toward female autonomy] is straight-up GARBAGE.

Have a nice day.

Open Thread

A box of Pumpkin Pocky.

Hosted by Pumpkin Pocky. My faaaaaavorite.

Question of the Day

What is your biggest worry for your country right now?

(Note: If you are have joint citizenship, or maintain residence in another country from that in which you have citizenship, or have emigrated at some point in your life, etc., please feel free to define "your country" however you see fit.)

Quote of the Day

"I can't imagine what I'm going to do. I'm crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don't have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand."—Andrew Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., who got a lower bonus this year and says "the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country's top 1 percent by income, doesn't cover his family's private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental, and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square-foot Brooklyn duplex."

Schiff was quoted in an article about how rough the recession has been on the 1percenters. And if you, like me, are thinking, "Of course it is rough on any human to have to adjust their expectations downward, for any reason, but perhaps we could all try to maintain a modicum of perspective when millions of USians are losing their homes and putting their kids to bed hungry," then you just DON'T UNDERSTAND.

"People who don't have money don't understand the stress," said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. "Could you imagine what it's like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?"

Well, actually, I can imagine that. I imagine it's not easy to have to disappoint your children, but I also imagine it is a necessary life lesson, one which I certainly learned as a child, that we can't always have everything we want.

The truth is, people who have money don't understand the stress experienced by people who don't have money. They don't understand the oppressive anxiety of constant financial worry. I've been in a position where I'm worrying about cutting luxuries, or scaling back plans, and I've been in a position where I'm worrying about how to get food in my face the next day, and they are not the same kind of worry.

To not understand that is privilege of the highest order.

[H/T to Brian.]

LITERALLY the Greatest Post I've Ever Published

Here is a supercut of Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) saying "LITERALLY" in all its myriad inflections on Parks and Recreation, because why not?

[Transcript below.]

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Content Note: Reproductive rights; rape culture; misogyny; hostility to agency.]

At Slate, under the noxious headline "Crying Rape," Carole Joffe argues that pro-choice advocates should quit pointing out that mandated transvaginal ultrasounds to access an abortion, even in situations in which they are not necessary, is rape. And why, pray tell, should we stop making this point?

Most of the time, however, the transvaginal ultrasound is a useful and common tool that helps providers perform abortions safely and well.

But now that women have heard abortion supporters describe this form of ultrasound as "rape," will more of them be terrified when they arrive at a clinic and are informed they will have such a procedure? Or might they be scared off altogether? Will abortion clinic staff who perform the ultrasound be seen as "rapists," as the provider I mentioned earlier worried? This is a possibility not lost on the anti-abortion website LifeNews, which recently ran the headline, "If Ultrasound is Rape, Arrest Planned Parenthood Staffers."

Right. We should definitely stop calling a coercive penetration of a woman's vagina irrespective of its necessity what it actually is—a sexual assault—because anti-choicers who don't give a shit about women might mendaciously try to make hay with it.

Oh, and also because women and other people with uteri are too stupid to understand the difference between: A. Potentially medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds mandated by laymen who want to try to persuade women not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy; and B. Medically necessary transvaginal ultrasounds recommended by a trained medical professional who want to help women terminate an unwanted pregnancy in the safest and most effective way.

Gee, sorry if I scared you and your silly ladybrains by treating you as if you have agency and the capacity to understand the concept of consent!

MY MISTAKE!

Honestly, the whole article is based on what I can only assume is a willful misinterpretation of pro-choice—and anti-rape—advocates such as myself have actually been saying, which is not, in fact, that transvaginal ultrasounds are rape, full-stop, but that transvaginal ultrasounds mandated by law irrespective of their necessity in order to access a legal medical procedure are rape.

Which is accurate. And I will absolutely not stop calling it what it is.

[H/T to @ScottMadin.]

Photos of the Day

[Content Note: This post contains misogynist and ableist slurs that are commonly used in discrediting narratives against Hillary Clinton and other influential women.]

close-up of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton making what I shall describe as a 'Wow, you're quite the asshole, aren't ya, Skippy?!' face.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing "Assessing U.S. foreign policy priorities amidst economic challenges: The Foreign Relations Budget for Fiscal Year 2013." [AP Photo]

I looooooooooooooooove this photo. Especially after watching that clip of her testimony from yesterday. I know—believe me I know—that this is one of those classic "Hillary's Such a Crazy Bitch!" photos that have been used against her throughout the entirety of her career, but I RELATE TO THAT CRAZY BITCH FACE! I make that crazy bitch face. That is the face of a "crazy bitch" who has HAD IT UP TO HERE with the nonsense of the privileged dipfucks who control the fucking world and want to bicker over whether providing access to contraception to a starving woman in a developing country will make the Baby Jesus cry condom-shaped tears. I LOVE THAT FACE. It is the face in my mirror, and it is the face of every woman I know, of every color, of every age, of every country of origin.

"Really? REALLY?! We're really going to have this conversation?! AGAIN?! Really?! All right, buddy, fuck you, let's go." *that face*

The AP also has this offering among their wire photos today, which I also love, for entirely different reasons.

close-up of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looking thoughtful

close-up of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looking thoughtful

Everyone Can Relax!

Ben Affleck finally has a son! THANK GOD IT WASN'T A THIRD DAUGHTER! Phew!

[Note: This isn't a commentary on how Ben Affleck, actual human being, feels about having a son vs. having a third daughter. I don't know how he feels. It's a commentary on the tone of a particular portion of the media coverage.]

RIP Davy Jones

When Elizabeth Taylor died, I said: "It's such a strange feeling when someone so iconic dies. It's not a personal loss for most of us, but, often even if one isn't a fan, it still feels like something has shifted. When someone like Elizabeth Taylor dies, someone whose presence has loomed large for so long, it's like a pop culture quake."

When I read a few moments ago that Davy Jones had died, I felt shaken by exactly that quake I described.

I was a fan of The Monkees. I used the watch their show every day when I got home from school, watching each episode over and over and over until I had them memorized—every lyric, every pratfall, every line of horrendously cheesy dialogue.

And ohhhhhhhhhhhhh swooooooooooooon do you remember when Davy Jones was on The Brady Bunch? Marcia Marcia Marcia!

I owned all their albums, and had multiple "best of" compilations on cassette tape, to which I would listen on my purple boombox, singing along while lying in my yellow-walled bedroom, staring at their pictures ripped from teen magazines and tacked to the wall with plastic thumbtacks.

The brooding Mike Nesmith was always the object of my crushful longing, but Davy Jones—small and gorgeous and flirty and fun—was the one with whom I most wanted to be friends. Around the age of 8, I wrote a short story about going on a picnic with Davy Jones, during which we drank Shirley Temples from martini glasses. The only other detail I can now recall is having described him wearing a suit "the color of Grandma's curtains."

My first concert ever was a Monkees concert. It was 1987, and I was 13 years old, and their opening act was Weird Al Yankovic.

image of Jones, Tork, Yankovic, and Dolenz

I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever see in my entire life (even though Mike Nesmith had flown the coop). I have seen better things in the intervening 25 years, but it still remains near the top of the list, because every one of the hundreds of concerts I have seen since has been compared, in some way, to the bar set by Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz, and Davy Jones.

The Monkees, who were in reality the first incarnation of the now-ubiquitous fabricated market-ready boyband, were often dismissed as out hand as having nothing to contribute to the serious world of music (besides, perhaps, Davy Jones' indirect contribution to the creation of "David Bowie"), but they made me love music. No—I certainly loved music before I ever heard The Monkees. They made music I love.

And I love it so much.

Thanks for that, Mr. Jones. And everything else.

The Monkees, "Daydream Believer"
[Note: If there are less flattering things to be said about Jones, they have been excluded because I am unaware of them, not as the result of any deliberate intent to whitewash his life. Please feel welcome to comment on the entirety of his work and life in this thread.]

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Sophie the Cat sitting on the counter, tucked in between the food processor and the electric kettle

Sophie is: 1. A very naughty little monster who sits on the kitchen counter in defiance of the house rules. 2. The titchiest wee kitty in the world! Look at how tiny she is! She is dwarfed by a six-cup kettle! OMG! Squee!

Very disobedient, though. I will have to punish her with kisses immediately!