Saint Etienne: "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
Trayvon Martin Updates
[Content Note: Violence; racism; stalking.]
The major news today is that a white supremacist has hacked Trayvon Martin's personal online accounts and made public some of their content, like Facebook exchanges about dope. We are, of course, meant to be SHOCKED AND APPALLED that a teenager smoked weed, because no upstanding citizen has ever done that before. Only miscreants like our last three presidents.
Klanklannon included none of Martin's emails in his leak, because the picture they paint is of a normal high school junior preparing for college. A screenshot of Trayvon's Gmail inbox our source provided us is heartbreaking. Martin apparently used his Gmail account for his college search, and it's filled with emails about upcoming SAT tests and scholarship applications. ("Trayvon, now is the best time to take the SATs!") One email included the results of a career aptitude test, our source said. It "talked about his interest in aeronautics and stuff."I just don't even know what to say anymore.
Continually, people of color and white anti-racism advocates are accused of "making everything about race" by racists, but never has that been more clearly exposed as projection. Every single thing about Trayvon Martin looks different to these assholes because of the color of his skin.
I would bet everything I own that most of the white fucks trying to build a thug case against a dead teenager could themselves have been described as smoking weed, acting grown and tough, and trying to figure out what to do and who to be when they were teenagers. That sure sounds like pretty much every single person I knew when I was a teen, myself included.
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Recommended Reading:
Boston Globe: Trayvon Martin: "He's Just Like Us."
New York Daily News: George Zimmerman lost job as party security guard for being too aggressive, ex-co-worker says.
New York Times: Bloggers Cherry-Pick From Social Media to Cast Trayvon Martin as a Menace.
Chicago Tribune: Like Trayvon Martin? Unarmed teen shot, killed by New York police.
Democracy Now: Killed at Home: White Plains, NY Police Called Out on Medical Alert Shoot Dead Black Veteran, 68.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave additional links and recommendations in comments.
Primarily Terrible
[Content Note: Racist slur.]
Below is video of Rick Santorum giving a speech to supporters at The Armory in Janesville, Wisconsin on March 27, 2012. The video will begin playing in the middle of the speech (if it doesn't, jump to 34:23).
Santorum: We know. We know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like—the antiwar, government nig—uh, the, uh, America was a source for division around the world.
I'm sure there's a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation for this. Like the time he said "bluh people," even though it sounded like "black people." It's just SO WEIRD how Rick Santorum keeps stumbling over things that definitely sound like super racist garbage!
It's prolly because we anti-racists keep INJECTING RACE INTO IT! We're just LOOKING FOR THINGS TO GET MAD ABOUT! That's the problem.
I truly cannot wait to hear the explanation of what he was trying to say this time. What a fucking dirtbag.
[Via; H/T to Shaker Selina.]
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This might be my favorite sentence ever written about Newt Gingrich: "Newt Gingrich does not eat sandwiches; he fundamentally transforms them, radically changing them from solid foodstuff to masticated bolus to energy." LOL! That captures so perfectly Gingrich's belief that everything that is new to him (like online fundraising) is something he revolutionized. His outsized ego is truly peerless.
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Something something Ron Paul. Has anyone seen Ron Paul lately? I'm sure he's doing something GREAT somewhere. Maybe he can write some newsletters for Rick Santorum.
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Mitt Romney has been endorsed by Paul Ryan. Yippee. Who cares. It's not so much an endorsement of Romney as a message by a party leader to the other candidates to get the hell out of the race. George H.W. Bush was less circumspect: "It's time when to hold 'em and time when to fold 'em. Well, I think it's time for people to all get behind this good man."
Don't be fooled. Papa Bush is just angling for a ride in Mitt Romney's car elevator.
In other Romney-related news: "Bob McDevitt has filed paperwork to launch the super PAC Animal Lovers Against Romney. McDevitt, a longtime Democratic supporter and political operative, tells PI the goal is to 'get the message out just how callous in temperament Mitt Romney is.' The owner of a rescue dog said the issue is personal. The group, whose website is mittismean.org, has its official rollout next week and plans on targeting 10 battleground states with Internet ads. The budget: $1 million."
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
An Observation
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Wednesday night, Iain and I were watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory, like ya do, and it was the episode where Howard has built a robot arm. In the opening segment, the robot hand is meant to give Sheldon the finger, but it holds up two fingers. "Peace?" says Sheldon, confused. "No, not peace," says Howard, returning to the keyboard to put in new instructions. The joke is that he meant for the robot to give Sheldon the finger, but, of course, on US network television, you can't even show a robot hand giving someone the finger.
Iain started harrumphing again about the weirdly inconsistent decency standards of US television, which drives him up one wall and down the other.
"In the same time slot, you can show people getting murdered and Law & Order: SVU can broadcast a discussion of vaginal contusions for our 'entertainment,' but fates forbid we be allowed to see a robot hand flipping the bird," he snarled.
I replied: "That pretty much sums up everything you need to know about our priorities: A primetime show can depict a woman being raped, but can't show her flipping off her rapist, because that would be obscene."
Question of the Day
Who is your nominee for Great Broad of the Day?
Just to keep things interesting (by which I mean, so this does appear to be a solicitation for compliments), no one is allowed to say me. Or Abe Vigoda.
Recommended Reading
Irin Carmon at Salon: How to Kill an Abortion Bill. I'm not going to excerpt it; just go read the whole thing.
The thing I want to say is that Jessica Luther is a friend of mine. We met through blogging, and, even though we live a thousand miles apart, it turns out we have some friends offline in common, through strange coincidence and the world being a small place sometimes.
She's not just a great activist; she's a great person. She's smart, she works hard like whoa, she's funny as fuck, and she is supportive and encouraging. A person who knows how to be a friend as well as an ally. There are days when a well-timed message from her has made the difference between collapsing into a useless heap and pushing back up against the grindstone with the teeth-gritting resolve and fierce determination that only is possible by knowing someone's got your back, someone who really understands.
She's a great fucking broad, is what she is.
And I'm not just sharing that to flatter her (although she deserves ALL the flattery); I'm sharing that because I think it's important to talk about how most of the women and men who do this work, who put themselves out there, and weather the threats and abuse, and navigate an ocean of legislative, cultural, and personal shit every day, are not just tough, but kind.
I love you, lady.
Monumental!
Hey, remember when I reviewed the awesome trailer of Kirk Cameron's awesome documentary Monumental? Sure you do! It's the one where he looks really confused!
ANYWAY! Here is a review of it! It sounds terrific!
[Please note that there is some ableist language in the review.]
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 29 March 2012: This is a new wooden roller coaster at Europa Park, Rust, Baden Baden, Germany. The ride is 40 metres high, with a a top speed of more than 100 km/hr, and a vertical acceleration which can reach a strength of 3.5G. Picture: SAUTIER PHILIPPE/SIPA / Rex FeaturesDo you love roller coasters? I loooooooooove roller coasters! Just looking at that picture makes my heart beat with excited anticipation (not that I'll ever get to ride on it, lol).
Iain hates roller coasters as much as I love them, even though he's never been on one. I keep telling him he might love them—I thought I'd hate them before I went on one and loved it!—but no dice. He won't get on a roller coaster for love nor money. Fair enough!
Number of the Day
2.1% The percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) to which Representative Paul Ryan's budget would cut domestic discretionary spending, i.e. the spending that funds little things "like homeland security, veterans, nuclear weapons, and foreign operations; safety net programs like housing vouchers and nutrition assistance for women and infants; most of the funding for the enforcement of consumer protection, environmental protection, and financial regulation; and practically all of the federal government’s civilian public investments, such as infrastructure, education, training, and research and development."
The current level of domestic discretionary spending is 4%, so Ryan's budget would effectively cut it in half, "the lowest level in over 50 years."
Daily Dose of Cute
When I don't go out in the yard with them, the dogs don't generally like being out there more than a few minutes. They do their business, run around a bit, but then they want to come back in the house. They are both dogs who want to be with their people.
Occasionally, though, Dudley wants a lie in the sun, and, since he's usually the one yipping pitiably to be let back inside after three seconds, if he decides to stay out, Zelly is content to stay out with him. I keep an eye on them through the kitchen window, and I noticed recently that, when I'm not out there, Zelda assumes a protective position and keeps a vigilant watch over Dudley.
Video Description: Zelda, vigilant as always, sits in front of Dudley in a protective way, while he lies splayed out in the grass, oblivious to the world.
She is just such a sweet dog. I know that dogs aren't supposed to have the capacity for love, as we understand it, but whatever. Zelda is a dog absolutely filled with love for her family.
I got this.
There are lots of dogs in the world who love their families, so many, in fact, that it would hardly be worth comment, except for the fact that, once upon a time, Zelda was a stray mutt with numbered days and funny ears at an overpopulated city shelter, a dog who didn't even have a name. She was, when we met, the kind of dog that gets overlooked, and gets destroyed.
She was not the most playful dog at the shelter that day, nor the youngest, nor the cutest. She was barely even noticeable, sitting politely in her too-small cage in the corner furthest from the door. When I knelt down to look at her, she didn't bark or paw at the bars of her cage or lick my hand: She simply sat and looked back with her intelligent brown eyes, waiting for me to communicate to her what she needed to do to get out of that horrible place. While I gazed back at her, already knowing with an unaccountable certainty that she was my dog, I saw the tip of her bottle-brush tail wagging behind her.
There were other dogs there who would have made excellent pets, totally lovely companions for us, for Dudley, for the cats. But Zelda was the perfect dog for us, found, after months of speaking to rescues and meeting potential adoptees, in an unexpected place.
Since we've had her, I'm not sure if I'd heard more that people are dubious about mutts or dubious about dogs from the pound. You don't know what you're going to get. Well, that's true, insomuch as dogs' personalities emerge more fully once they feel safe. But if you buy a puppy from a breeder or a pet store certain of what your dog will be like based on breed standards, you might get a surprise.
Dudley and his cousin Alfie could not be more different in personality, despite both being greyhounds and literal genetic cousins.
So no one ever knows exactly what they're going to get.
It's not a good reason to dismiss out of hand the possibility of adopting a mutt, even adopting one from the pound with an unknown background. It just means a little more time, meeting more dogs, investing an afternoon or two to get to know a dog that the shelter workers may not know well themselves. Some pounds will even let potential adopters foster a dog now, a trial run of sorts.
Zelda was a dog who needed rescue in the truest sense of the word.
We didn't know exactly what we were going to get, but we got a dog who is filled with love for her family. The feeling is mutual.
[Part One; Part Two]
What I'm Listening To
This is the studio version of the song he performed on American Idol last night. The live performance was even better, but I can't find a good video of it.
I love his voice. Swoon, etc.
Quote of the Day
"Texting will teach you nothing about a person except how pithy they're able to be."—Bob Odenkirk.
LOLOLOL! Ain't that the truth.
Just kidding. Please look for Deeky's and my upcoming memoir TEXTING! How to Build and Maintain Beautiful Friendships with the Profoundly Socially Awkward, and its companion workbook Pithiness Is Underrated, in bookstores near you this Septober.
(For realz I love Bob Odenkirk's line. And for realz I love texting so hard, which is an integral part of both my professional life and personal life. I can't even remember what I did without it.)
BushQuotes!
Chapter 1, page 12: "We must not allow race to divide us, I warned [in my Texas governorship inauguration address]. 'There's a trend in this country to put people into boxes. Texans don't belong in little ethnic and racial boxes. There are such boxes all over the world, in places with names like Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda; and they are human tragedies. As we head into the twenty-first century, we should have one big box: American.'"
Ugh. He is THE WORST.
Spoken like someone with undiluted privilege, whose race, sex, gender, sexuality, stature, size, class, ability, and religion are all considered the default norm by the kyriarchy.
That is such classic conservative claptrap: It's the people who proudly identify with their marginalized class who are the problem, not the institutional oppression that marginalizes them.
This is a particularly timely quote, given the Trayvon Martin murder. Was the problem that Trayvon Martin didn't view himself as an American, or that George Zimmerman didn't view him as one? I think we all know the answer to that.
[From George Bush's A Charge to Keep, gifted to me by Deeky, because he hates me. In the US, all people who plan to run for president write a shitty book. (Some are less shitty than others, by which I mean the Democrats' books.) A Charge to Keep was George W. Bush's shitty I-wanna-be-president book, published in 1999. I am blogging one random quote per page every day until I have either made my way through the book or lost it behind a couch.]
Primarily Disastrous
Above: Rick Santorum bowls with what is definitely not a pink ball yesterday in La Crosse, Wisconsin. [Getty Images]
What a great candidate he is! He hates women and queer men SO MUCH! No one can accuse Mitt Romney of slapping a pink bowling ball out of the hands of a young male patriot! Granted, that's because Mitt Romney only bowls in his private bowling alley in the penthouse of his garage, accessible by elevator ONLY, in his solid gold mansion on the moon, but STILL.
Mitt Romney got the coveted Marco "Please make me your VP" Rubio endorsement last night, which is really exciting for those of us who are raising money for undocumented immigrants in the Barf-a-Thon as the GOP tries to appeal to Latin@ voters while continuing to demonize migrant workers.
In other news, Mitt Romney had a secret meeting with Newt Gingrich, where I'm guessing they rolled around in empty Tiffany's boxes and then pooped on grey sweater vests and told their secretaries to Fed Ex them to Santorum HQ. Or maybe Romney just begged Gingrich to drop out, and Gingrich was all, "HA HA HELL NO! I AM FOR SURE TAKING SHELDON ADELSON'S MONEY STRAIGHT TO THE WHITE HOUSE!"
Speaking of which, Sheldon Adelson says Gingrich is "at the end of his line" with his presidential candidacy. Whooooooooooops! Looks like the ATM is closed!
My top secret sources tell me that Newt Gingrich will continue to raise funds using his "old reliable" from the '90s: His spot-on Church Lady impression.
Don't worry about Newt Gingrich. Between his impersonation of a sanctimonious panty-sniffer and his $50 photo ops, he'll be JUST FINE!
Something something Ron Paul. Liberty, freedom, liberty, freedom, forcible pregnancy, honest rape. It's in the Constitution! Look it up.
And finally! President Obama is fixing to win: "With Republicans locked in a contentious and expensive primary, President Barack Obama has spent a small fortune in recent months to build and maintain a campaign operation that is larger, more diverse and more focused on November's general election than any of his opponents' organizations. ... Obama, who faces no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination, has sunk his cash into an expansive brick-and-mortar operation with offices in nearly every state."
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Trayvon Martin Updates
[Content Note: Violence; racism.]
The most important news this morning is that ABC News has secured the police surveillance video (video begins to play automatically at link) of George Zimmerman's arrest on the night he killed Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman has claimed that Martin attacked him, breaking his nose and leaving his head bloodied, but the footage does not appear to show those injuries, or any injuries at all.
George Zimmerman's father, Robert Zimmerman, has also given an interview, "against the advice of others," in defense of his son, reiterating the version of events that had Martin attacking Zimmerman.
"It's my understanding that Trayvon Martin got on top of him and just started beating him," the 64-year-old Robert Zimmerman said.Even if it is true that Martin at some point got physical with Zimmerman (and, to be clear, I'm not at all convinced that it is), to pretend that happened unprovoked is absurd in the extreme, given the available recording of G. Zimmerman talking to police and being told they do not need him to follow Martin, after he describes nothing that reasonably warrants a call to police in the first place.
From Trayvon Martin's perspective, he was being stalked by a man in a vehicle who was describing his movements. If at some point he decided to try to defend himself, who the fuck could blame him?
In the interview, R. Zimmerman also says "he felt his son has been portrayed in the wrong way." Which, you know, is probably true to some extent. I'm sure there are people who have said wildly inappropriate things about G. Zimmerman, as if plainly noting that he is a man whose profound racist paranoia resulted in his taking a young man's life isn't bad enough. But it takes a special sort of chutzpah to complain about his son being "portrayed in the wrong way" after his son's internalized misportrayal of Trayvon Martin as a criminal motivated him to stalk and kill him, and while his son's attorneys are busily misportraying Martin as a dangerous thug who was a troublemaker at school.
A side note about Zimmerman's defenders using Martin's school records to justify the shooting: Apart from the fact that it doesn't matter whether Martin was a scoundrel or an angel, or something in between like most of us, Zimmerman didn't know he'd been suspended from school, or anything else about him. All he knew was that a young black man in a hoodie was walking in his neighborhood in the rain.
Let's not lose sight of that.
Finally: Judd at Think Progress has the five key unanswered questions about the investigation.
The Anti-Pink Presidential Candidate
"Hi, I'm Rick Santorum, and I want to be your Vile Bigot in Chief."
Rick Santorum jokingly chastised a boy for using a pink bowling ball during a campaign stop in Wisconsin on Wednesday. According to Reuters reporter Sam Youngman, Santorum told a boy who reached for a pink bowling ball: “You’re not gonna use the pink ball. We’re not gonna let you do that. Not on camera,” adding, “Friends don’t let friends use pink balls.”Because pink is for icky girls and sissy boys! Don't even touch it!
This has been your reminder that Rick Santorum is running for President of the United States.
And he wasn't joking.
President Obama's Message to Planned Parenthood Supporters
For you, and for most Americans, protecting women's health is a mission that stands above politics. And yet, over the past year, you've had to stand up to politicians who want to deny millions of women the care they rely on, and inject themselves into decisions that are best made between a woman and her doctor.Planned Parenthood has a form you can use, should you be so inclined, to thank the President here.
Let's be clear here: Women are not an interest group.
They're mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives. They're half of this country. They're perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health.
So we're grateful that, through it all, you never forgot who you're fighting for: The woman with a new lease on life because a mammogram caught her cancer in time; the woman who can sleep easier at night because of a cervical cancer screening; the woman who is able to choose when to start a family, because she could afford contraception.
So when some professional politicians casually say that they'll "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, don't forget what they're really talking about: Eliminating the funding for preventive care that millions of women rely on, and leaving them to fend for themselves.
That's why, last year, when Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government unless we stopped funding Planned Parenthood, I had a simple answer: No.
But we know this debate is far from over. We must continue to send the message loud and clear: If you truly value families, you shouldn't play politics with a woman's health.
It's why I know that Planned Parenthood will continue providing care, no matter what. I know you'll never stop fighting to protect the healthcare and the choices that America's women deserve.
As long as I have the privilege of being your president, neither will I. Thanks.
I am genuinely grateful that the President took time out of his schedule to record this message. It is important and valuable to hear President Obama say: "Let's be clear here: Women are not an interest group." and "If you truly value families, you shouldn't play politics with a woman's health."
Thank you for saying those things, Mr. President.
It is also important and valuable that he made clear Planned Parenthood does more than provide abortions.
But. I'm not sure how helpful it is to not acknowledge at all that Planned Parenthood is a reliable abortion provider to this nation's women, 1 in 3 of whom will have an abortion at some point in their lives. To not even mention abortion, when this entire "debate" is centered around abortion, once more gives the appearance that Democrats think abortion is icky, morally dubious, and a "necessary evil," not a legal medical procedure of which a third of the nation's women will be in need.
Shying away from it empowers anti-choicers and their rhetoric of "evil abortion." In a recording titled "A Message to Planned Parenthood Supporters," there should be no qualms about speaking about abortion. And if you're going to presume to tell us "who [we]'re fighting for," you'd better be willing to mention women and other people with uteri needing abortions, because we are definitely fighting for them.
* * *
I also want to note that the President, and he is not alone among male politicians here, continues to have a problem talking about/to women without defining them in relation to men. "They're mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives." Well, some of us are those things, and some of us are not. It is enough to simply say: "They're half of this country."
And what's with the "they" stuff, anyway? A message to "Planned Parenthood Supporters" is disproportionately a message to women. And yet the message still isn't really to us as much as about us, as if the President is talking to men. It's weird, and it's alienating.
I point this out as a constructive criticism, not because of some variation on "she doesn't like anything Obama does," of which I am routinely accused. It might feel like nitpicking, but it's these "small" things, like the ability to speak authentically and inclusively to women, that can win and lose elections. I want my president to be a successful ally to women.
I don't bother to offer advice to Mitt Romney, one might notice.
