How about you?
Open Thread
Hosted by original Pocky; perfection in a box.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by Pocky flavors.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Garbage Treasures: The Saga Continues
As you may recall, Deeky collects and saves useless garbage like we're beyond Thunderdome and useless garbage is now a form of currency and he's a garbageaire. Then, instead of throwing it away, he throws pieces of his fancy detritus collection into an envelope and pays money to ship it to me—priority mail, so he can track his garbage treasure's path across the country—at which point I put them in plastic treasure chests and put them out by the curb every week to be collected by the "treasure man," who buries them at the "treasure dump" for me for safe keeping.
But not before taking a picture of it so that I can post it, natch.
Some of the contents of the latest package of Deeky's Garbage Treasures: A pamphlet exhorting me to "get vaccinated to protect against SHINGLES"; an Atlas Shrugged DVD sleeve; a DVD of The Return of Bruno; a Royal Pine-scented car freshener; a "Fibromyalgia Awareness" ribbon bumper magnet; and unopened piece of Important Correspondence from Breath Right Nasal Strips; a business card for Dr. Victor H. Acosta, DDS; and a copy of George W. Bush's A Charge to Keep, complete with Not Bad for a Human bookmark featuring a gritty portrait of Lance Henriksen. Obviously.
Btw, the back cover of A Charge to Keep features the painting of the same name, which is Mondo Fucko's favorite painting because he's a narcissistic chowderhead: "He came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination. Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled 'The Slipper Tongue,' published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: 'Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.'"
Ah, the Bush years. Good times. By which I mean terrible, terrible times.
I can't wait to read what is sure to be a GREAT book!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by jeans.
Recommended Reading:
Andy: 18 Senators Join Call for Marriage Equality Plank in DNC Platform
Resistance: Evolution Plus [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and privilege.]
Dorothy: My Dear Watson [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and misogyny.]
Jorge: L.A. Mom Deported After Protesting Foreclosure of Former Home
Happy Second Blogiversary to the Crunk Feminist Collective! Crunktastic celebrates with a great post about sex! [Content Note: Some images may be NSFW.]
At Letters of Note, I want to strongly recommend this letter from Marilyn Monroe to her surgeon, who was to do an appendectomy. I do direct you there with the caveat that it includes a line which suggests to have ovaries is to define one as a woman, which of course we know is not true, but was certainly even more widely believed then than it is now. Anyway, it's a very interesting peek backwards to 1952, and fuck if it won't leave you thinking the more things change, the more women's worries about control over choices made about their bodies stays the goddamned same.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
"He encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women."—Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law school student who has been under attack by Rush Limbaugh for addressing Congressional Democrats on the president's contraception rule, describing the supportive phone call she received from President Obama earlier today.
Making the call was very generous of President Obama, and it clearly meant a great deal to Fluke, who deserves as much support as she can get. As a personal gesture, it was extraordinary.
But it was not merely a personal gesture: It was also a political gesture—"[MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell] received permission from the White House to discuss the exchange between Fluke and Obama" on her cable news show—and, as a political gesture, it is absolutely infuriating.
Fluke has been at the center of a national firestorm for days, which will almost certainly change her life in ways she hasn't even begun to understand, and she is no doubt being inundated with the ugliest threats imaginable, the severity of which she has no real capacity to evaluate, nor has she the means to protect herself against any potential serious threat, unless her family is wealthy and hasn't more urgent need for their resources than private security, all because she, a private citizen, still a college student, stood up and spoke on behalf of women.
And our President, the most fiercely guarded individual in possibly the entire world, who still has not given a single address dedicated to the issue of reproductive rights, who failed to mention reproductive rights in his State of the Union address, and who cannot even bring himself to include reproductive rights in his Women's History Month proclamation, instead calls Sandra Fluke to thank her "for speaking out about the concerns of American women," because he evidently has not considered the many ways in which treating the feminist/womanist fight for reproductive rights as "woman's work" is some fucked-up irony.
Seethe.
Project Runway All-Stars: Open Thread
(Spoilers are making it work herein.)
Remember when I said I am aware there are other designers on Project Runway All-Stars...? NEVER MIND! There is only one designer! And he is AUSTIN SCARLETT!
Please head below the fold to see Austin's heavenly creation from last night's episode...
Photo of the Day
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley looks on at the enthusiastic crowd before signing the Civil Marriage Protection Act in Annapolis, Maryland, Thursday, March 1, 2012. Maryland is the eighth state to legalize same-sex unions. [AP Photo]This photo made me joyblub so hard. That is a person who is genuinely thrilled to be on the right side of history.
Congratulations, Maryland!
Stormy Weather
There is just a shitload of really nasty—and, in some cases, deadly—weather ripping through the Midwest and parts of the South right now.
My thoughts are with Shakers who live and/or have loved ones in the affected areas. It seems coarse to wish that you and your loved ones are all okay, when we know that there are people who are not okay, but there it is. I am hoping you are among the people who are physically unhurt, with minimal damage to possessions.
Please consider this an open thread for discussion about the various storms shaking up communities at the moment.
Daily Dose of Cute
There are many, many things I love about Zelly—like, for example, the fact that she is currently lying on the floor immediately behind my chair, snoozing away and having a Very Important Conversation in her sleep that requires much huffing and yipping and growling and sighing—but chief among them is her grin. LOOK AT THAT FACE! Her grin is infectious. I cannot feel anything but happiness when I look at that smiling puppeh face.
The Parks and Rec Open Thread
[Spoilers hereafter.]
Oh my god, this episode. RAMP UP, PAWNEE! Ron Swanson's guttural visceral response to Chris' suggestion to hire more people for the Parks Department! CARL FUCKING REINER! The Pawnee water fountain regional quirk! Perd Hapley! "Let's start the show by beginning." LOL! The cappuccino maker! April! WATER FIGHT! Pretty much everything else.
It was super clever to have Leslie's insecurities about Ben's competency come out in backhanded compliments about his appearance. It was realistic, not very nice, true to Leslie's aversion to confrontation, and hard to watch.
And then came that moment, oh that great moment, when Leslie asked Ben: "What are we going to do?" and he said, "I dunno," and they both smiled, because somehow just acknowledging you're flailing always steadies you a bit.
I really loved Kathryn Hahn as Bobby Newport's campaign strategist who's forced to play chess with herself. Kathryn Hahn is funny as hell, and what a great addition to the show. I hope she gets to hang around awhile.
And yay Parks and Rec for finding room for yet another brilliantly funny lady.
Rape Culture and Bad Math
[Content Note: Rape culture including narratives and apologia, alleged sex crimes, Christian Supremacy.]
In Wheaton, Illinois, which has the distinction of being the town with the most churches per capita in the US, a professor at Wheaton College, a Protestant institution whose graduates include conservative luminaries such as Billy Graham and Dennis Hastert, has been charged with "possessing images and videos containing child pornography, according to a statement released Thursday by the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office." The 60-year-old man, who's been a faculty member at Wheaton since 2006, was a professor of Christian Education.
Much hay will be made of a Wheaton College professor of Christian Education being charged with possessing child pornography, and understandably so, given the sanctimonious moralizing that emanates from much of American Christianity about liberals and atheists and feminists and gays being responsible for the moral decay that causes Good Christians to do Bad Things. Until the Devil himself makes himself known, we're always a handy substitute.
The evident hypocrisy is not really the most important part of this story, and all the others like it, though.
It is it not impossible, though it would be unusual, if a 60-year-old male educator, whose background is in "educational psychology...with an emphasis on child development," had never raised any flags throughout the entirety of his career before arriving close to his retirement at a new institution.
Wheaton College has said only (so far) that "an administrative leave is in process," but has made no statement about reviewing its hiring process, whether the professor was subject to a thorough criminal and professional background check as part of the hiring process, or whether they were aware of any accusations made previously against their employee.
In any case, the professor was almost certainly afforded, as part of his employment, the usual enablement inevitably provided by conservative Christian organizations which operate on the presumption that anyone who self-identifies as Christian must be a good person. (The flipside of the equation being, of course, that anyone who fails to self-identify as Christian is automatically suspect for a total lack of morality.)
When I was about seven or eight, I sort of obliquely come into contact with the idea that there are people who like to lure children away to hurt them. I didn't really understand what that meant, but I knew it was bad, and I knew, somehow even at that young age, that it was somehow my responsibility to prevent myself from falling into the grips of a predator. The rape culture does start its indoctrination early.
A friend and I were walking home from school one afternoon and saw a man beckoning us to his car. We ran home and told our parents, who called the police, and much drama ensued before it was determined the man was the Reverend K. who was at the school to pick up his wife, our music teacher, and he'd just been waving to us.
All the adults around us made sure we knew we had done the right thing (including Reverend K.), even as they had a hearty laugh about the irony that we'd fingered a reverend! Of all people! For years, this story has been told in my family with "and it was the Revered K.!" as a punchline, the laugh being dependent on the widely shared agreement that it is a positively ridiculous notion that a "man of God" would hurt a child.
That's a very dangerous attitude to hold.
And yet even after multiple Catholic Church scandals, hundreds of local incidents around the country involving ministers and youth leaders and scout masters, and various incidents within the Republican "Moral Values" Party, the equivalence is still drawn by most American Christians between "Christian" and "good person," despite the central story of their religion being a redemptive sacrifice rendered necessary because humans are flawed.
The thing about sexual predators is that they're very good at insinuating themselves into environments with lots of potential victims by whom they will be trusted. For pedophiles, the nature of most mainstream American Christianity, with all its logically flawed but intractably calculated "Christian axiomatically = good" equations, creates a practical heaven on earth for them—a space in which they can move freely, grooming their unwitting targets right in front of their parents' noses, more trusted and less scrutinized than they would be in any other part of society.
They know that "I'm a Christian" is the secret passcode to unlimited trust around children—or, in some cases, to keep harbor while engaging in the child pornography trade. And that makes religious organizations a safe haven for precisely the wrong people.
This is especially problematic in a country where reportedly one-third of the population say they are born again, because born-agains have a different attitude about "sin" than, say, traditional guilt-ridden Catholics or Lutherans, or even your average atheist. There's a sense of accumulation among all the latter—the feeling that life is a continuing thread, and bad behavior may be past, but hasn't disappeared.
Believers in souls might suggest that each sin leaves an indelible mark; absolution may wash the soul clean, but its shape is forever changed by the dings and dents of living a mortal, and hence imperfect, life. Non-believers might say that your mistakes stay with you, even after you have made amends, and leave a mark on your psyche, in your memory, on a strand of time.
Whatever the language, the principle is the same—our flaws are a part of us, and it's usually considered a good thing. You've learned. Built character. But born-agains start with a "clean slate" somewhere in life, and many of them mistakenly use the "rebirth" as an excuse to ignore all opportunity to learn from their past mistakes, often denying them completely. When I fuck up, the only concern is fixing it. My slate ain't been clean in 37 years; I'm not especially worried about a new chalk mark. But the born-agains intend to keep those slates clean. They carry around their erasers, fastidiously erasing any sign of a mark on their shining slates and bemoaning the states of ours, messy as they are. The only good slate is a clean slate.
They don't just see you and I and everyone else as a sinner, a criminal, separate from themselves; they see themselves in two pieces—the sinner, the criminal, the dead self that was bad, now gone through being born again, replaced with the new self who is good, and God-full, and gifted with the ability to avoid the same pitfalls that the old self knew so well.
And they see other born-again people the same way. Everyone gets the benefit of the doubt.
That's just not a practical or sensible option in a world all too full of people who want to use exactly that kind of blind faith as cloak to mask their life-fucking predation.
A lot of born-again Christians are great fans of this Charles Spurgeon quote: "When a man is his own ruler, he has all the responsibility of what he does—but when he implicitly obeys Christ's command, he is not responsible for the result of his actions—that rests with Him who gave the command."
They love it for the same reason it sends chills down my spine: It can't be wrong if God is telling me to do it.
I have an old friend who is a born-again conservative Christian, which is totally incompatible with the person she used to be (and still is). She cherry-picks doctrine in familiar ways—ignoring the admonishments to submit to her husband or revile same-sex relationships—but sometimes she finds it difficult justifying what she wants to do when it is simply irreconcilable with her ostensible beliefs. She has referenced that Spurgeon quote when contemplating a breach of her beliefs, and says: "Well, if God really didn't want me to do it, He'd stop me!"
And thus does anything become the Lord's will, if He doesn't intervene to stop you.
The absence of a no becomes a yes.
Unearned trust, safe havens, God's inferred consent, and clean slates: It is an enticing mix for predators, and a toxic mix for the rest of us.
And it all comes back to the bad math that calculates professed faith to be proof of goodness.
[H/T to Pam. A similar version of this post was published in April 2009.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Misogyny in myriad manifestations.]
She's a Keeper: 15 Signs That Your Girlfriend Is "The One."
#1 Sign That Your Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) Is Not "The One": Writes, reads, and/or agrees with piece of shit articles as above.
Normally I wouldn't even post something like this, because there are SO MANY of them that it's hardly worth singling out any of them, but this one is particularly uproarious in its abject fuckery. And the pictures. Oh, the pictures!
True Fact: I love cooking in a bikini top because nothing's sexier than getting my tits splattered with hot food.
[H/T to Shaker IndyM.]
Primarily Awful
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign event in Fargo, N.D. , Thursday, March 1, 2012. [AP Photo]GOOD MORNING! If you are still maintaining maximum enthusiasm for the TOTALLY EXCITING AND VERY AWESOME Republican Primary, please check this box: □
If you failed to check the enthusiasm box, perhaps the following news straight off the WHO CARES NEWS PRESS will help inflate your enthusiasm back to maximum enthusiosity: Mitt Romney has pledged that he will never embarrass the American people if he is elected president! "What we need in leadership is individuals who will tell the truth and will live with integrity. I will not embarrass you in the White House." THAT IS A PROMISE YOU CAN TAKE TO THE BANK! Or better yet, invest it with Bain Capital.
Either way, you're going to lose your money, because Mitt Romney will DEFINITELY embarrass us in the White House if he is elected president. I mean, if you think the fumblefuckery of President Mondo Fucko was bad—and it was bad! so bad!—the awkward bumblenutzery of a Mitt Romney presidency would, almost inconceivably, make Bush look like a stoic gentleman. We're talking about a guy who thinks saying "I love firing people" and "I own fully one billion cars" and "I'm unemployed har har" and "That lady pinched my butt" are great ways to make himself seem "relatable" to the average USian. Soooooooo it's pretty much a given he will say highly inappropriate and almost certainly racist things to foreign dignitaries, under the auspices of "being friendly."
Look, my fellow Americans: I'm warning you. If you elect Mitt Romney, you're gonna get an epic bozo who's a total international embarrassment. Which is THE LEAST of his problems! And it's a humongo problem!
I don't care how conservative you are and how much you hate President Obama and how you believe he's a half-breed Neptunian devil or whatever: YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT IT'S NOT A RELIEF TO HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO DOESN'T ROUTINELY MAKE AN ASS OF HIMSELF WITH OTHER HEADS OF STATE! If you tell me that, you are lying. So be quiet!
What I'm saying is: Mitt Romney's pledge isn't worth the million dollar bill, i.e. scrap paper, he scribbled it on.
In other Romney news, he is managing to maintain a small lead in Washington, and he's tied it back up in Ohio, where Rick Santorum had been leading.
Whooooooooooops Rick Santorum! It looks like people have started hearing you speak and noticed that you are a vile bigot who is also very, very stupid! TOO BAD! (Said no one.)
In other Santorum news, he says he's running a "guerrilla campaign," thus reminding us he is definitely a Republican who loves using violent rhetoric.
Also: Go here to listen to Rick Santorum lose his shit during a radio interview about the contraception issue. If what you're looking for in a president is a privileged bias-beast whose terse smile serves as the thin veneer over a churning roil of explosive rage, then VOTE SANTORUM!
Something something Ron Paul. Liberty, freedom, liberty, freedom, forcible pregnancy, honest rape. It's in the Constitution! Look it up.
Newt Gingrich is still a human being running for President of the United States of America. He says stuff.
And in Democratic Primary Newz, the genius laureate of US law enforcement, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, says that "his six-month investigation had found that 'probable cause exists indicating that forgery and fraud may have been committed' in the release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate." GOOD WORK, ARPAIO! YOU'VE REALLY GOT HIM ON THE ROPES NOW!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Question of the Day
Who's your favorite movie angel or devil?
The first one to come to mind is Tim Curry in Legend, which is a film I watched on a freaking loop for like a year when I was about 12.
Awesome. Totally awesome.
Photos of the Day
Reuters Pictures: "Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum displays a piece of North Dakota shale while speaking to supporters during an event at the Curb Center on Belmont University's campus in Nashville, Tennessee February 29, 2012, a few days prior to Super Tuesday voting on March 6, 2012."
Reuters Pictures: "Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum holds a piece of coal during a rally at Temple Baptist in Powell, Tennessee February 29, 2012. Santorum is campaigning in Tennessee before the primary elections on March 6, 2012."
AP Photo: "Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum holds a lump of oil he got from North Dakota which he said demonstrated the need for the Keystone pipeline deal while speaking at Temple Baptist Church Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012 in Knoxville, Tenn."
TRUE FACT: Rick Santorum|Rock are really going to give Goat|Paperclip a run for their money this year!
Nope!
I am aware that Rush Limbaugh is:
1. A human being in the world.
2. A garbage monster.
3. A nonstop, full-tilt, Grade A, world-class font of barfinating bile and vomitous bigotry, who is currently engaging in a revolting campaign of slut-shaming against a woman who had the unmitigated temerity to assert her right to participate in the public sphere.
4. Wrong. Gross. Contemptible.
And that is all I'm going to say about that, because anything more is an undeserved misdirection of my energy in his favor.
