I'm not even watching American Idol anymore. I'm just going to the website after the show and watching whatever piece of magic Joshua Ledet spun into the world over and over.
I know this style isn't for everyone, but OMG how I love his voice. I love it I love it I love it I could listen to him sing all day every day forever.
Look at What Joshua Ledet Did This Week
BushQuotes!
Chapter 2, page 14: "I knew Robin had been sick, but death was hard for me to imagine. Minutes before, I had had a little sister, and now, suddenly, I did not. Forty-six years later, those minutes remain the starkest memory of my childhood, a sharp pain in the midst of an otherwise happy blur. I was seven. Robin was almost four when she died of leukemia."
That is very sad.
One might imagine such a formative event would have given him a unique appreciation for the fragility and preciousness of life. But evidently not.
I wish there were another quote I could have chosen, but the whole page is about his sister dying. I didn't pick it to make a political point, but there you go. Blame the fates we landed on this page on the same day as news about his cooking the case for a devastating war landed in the papers again.
[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.]
Reproductive Rights Updates: Wisconsin, Mississippi, Nebraska, & Ohio
You may have been wondering: have there been any moves lately to curb access to health care, particularly health care involving reproduction? And yes. Yes there have been.
In the latest in Wisconsin's totally not-terrorism case, the suspect made his first court appearance:
GREEN BAY — A Grand Chute man accused of setting fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic told a federal judge he was going to plead guilty, tried to fire his attorney and asked to be transferred to a different jail during his first appearance today in U.S. District Court.Can you hear that? It's the accusations of "crazy" and "lone wolf" getting EVEN LOUDER. Yes, clap louder people. I'm sure that'll make it true. Ahem.
Francis Grady, 50, was arrested early Tuesday and charged with arson of a building used in interstate commerce and intentionally damaging a property used to provide reproductive health services. Grady told investigators he used a hammer to break a window at the clinic Sunday night, poured gasoline inside from a plastic bottle and lit it.
Grady acted erratically at his court hearing, telling U.S. Magistrate Judge James Sickel he planned to enter a guilty plea and interrupting the judge to ask, “Do you even care at all about the 1,000 babies that died screaming?”
***
A couple weeks ago I wrote about Mississippi's House passing legislation that could potentially eliminate its ONLY abortion providing clinic. The Senate just passed the legislation as well:
Governor Phil Bryant is commending the State Senate for approving the bill aimed at controlling abortions in Mississippi. The Senate approved House Bill 1390. The legislation passed by 44 votes. It requires physicians who perform abortions to be Board-certified OBGYNs and have admitting privileges at a local hospital. To become law, all the bill needs is a signature from Governor Bryant.The state only has one clinic that provides abortion services and of the three doctors that work there (all are board certified), only one has admitting privileges. It is notoriously hard to get privileges in MS hospitals if you're a doctor who provides abortion services. Obviously this will harm people who need to access abortion care. Does Gov. Bryant care? No. In fact, Bryant claims this legislation "saves lives of women" (his words). Yes, it saves women SO MUCH by eliminating medical care they need. Reminds me of the guy who was arguing with me & Jessica Luther that Rick Perry TOTALLY SAVED the women's health program and it was Obama who gutted it first and then killed it. He kept saying over and over how Perry saved it! He did! SAVE! SAVE! SAVE! Obviously that dude and Gov. Bryant use the same dictionary that defines "save" differently from the dictionary used by, oh, everyone else.
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: Olivia and Sophie play with a toy mouse on a string, attached to their new cat tower, purchased for my office in the futile hope of keeping them off my desk for two seconds a day. Set to Paul Reeves' "Charleston."
So far, Matilda is having none of it. Obviously.
Olivia
Sophie
Sad Trombones For Everyone
Dave Williams in the Atlanta Business Chronicle—Newt Gingrich health care think tank files bankruptcy: "Newt Gingrich's health-care think tank has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Center for Health Transformation, which has offices in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and St. Louis, plans to liquidate its assets, according to a filing Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta. ... Political observers said the negative publicity surrounding the bankruptcy spells the end of the former U.S. House speaker and Georgia congressman's campaign."
Obviously, this news would be way more tragic if Newt Gingrich hadn't filed for intellectual bankruptcy about 200 years ago.
Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey...
NBC News reports that Rick Santorum is currently meeting with unspecified conservative leaders in Virginia about the future of his campaign.
Or, one hopes, the lack thereof.
Quote of the Day
"If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we'd have problems with caterpillars. It's a fiction."—Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on the war on women and other people with uteri, in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt" to air this weekend.
So, not only is the war on women and other people with uteri "fictional," but women are the equivalent of caterpillars.
You know, comparing people to insects, a practice which has a long and demonstrable history associated withe eliminationist rhetoric, does not really bolster the Republicans' case that they're not waging war on us.
Pew Finds Racial & Partisan Disparity in Reactions to Trayvon Martin Coverage
The good news is that 54% of respondents in Pew's newest poll think there is the right amount or too little coverage of the case. The bad news is that 37% of respondents think there is too much—and that 37% is disproportionately white and disproportionately Republican.
National concern about vigilantism that stole the life of a young man should not fall along racial and partisan lines. That it does says something profoundly troubling, if not unexpected, about this nation.
Post-racial my fat ass.
Primarily Endless
GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE! If you are still maintaining maximum enthusiasm for the TOTALLY EXCITING and VERY AWESOME and HOLY SHIT ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME NEVER-ENDING Republican Primary, please check this box: □
If you failed to check that box, maybe this amazing news from the DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY will wake you out of your lethargic stupor: President Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination for president! Shocking, I know! That was a real nail-biter!
Now he's just got to trounce whichever Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination in the general election, and he can finally be all, "CHECKMATE!" in the 12-dimensional game of chess he's been playing for four years and finally be the progressive he's secretly been all along! THIS WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN FOR SURE! Just you wait and see! (Ladies.)
In a fun twist, this is actually the latest argument Mitt Romney is making: "Mitt Romney broadened his election-year critique of President Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying he misleads Americans about his true intentions in order to win re-election. ... The Republican front-runner said the president has shifted positions to curry favor with voters ahead of the election, saying that 'Candidate Obama' has 'experienced a series of election-year conversions'."
Oh, Mitt. Mitt Mitt Mitt. Did we learn NOTHING from yesterday's free advice? You cannot win on accusing the President of being "a little out of touch," and you also cannot win on accusing the President of flip-flopping etchasketchery.
I repeat: Mitt Rommey, do not start a debate about who is more unprincipled, opportunistic, and pandering during this election, because YOU WILL LOSE THAT FIGHT. And YOU WILL LOSE IT EVERY TIME. And the news of your loss will have to be delivered to each of your twelve gold moon mansions, because no one is sure where you live anymore. (That is a metaphor for your ever-changing positions, Mitt Rommey, JUST IN CASE THAT WASN'T CLEAR!)
And you will DEFINITELY FOR SURE WITHOUT A DOUBT lose that debate when you try that line of attack on President Obama the day after one of your surrogates went on CNN to try to peddle your presidency by saying "that voters—particularly women—would not be exposed to Romney's 'real views' until the general election."
When one of your major selling points is "I'll be different during the general election!" you can't go around accusing the other guy of inconsistency! GET A GRIP, MITT ROMNEY! JESUS JONES!
Oh, and while we're on the fucking subject of what a terrible candidate you are in every conceivable way and how your messaging has all the sophistication of "I'm rubber and you're glue," if you want to stick with the whole "Obama's out of touch" thing, you might want to cancel your birthday party at Trump Tower. I'm just saying.
Fuck is right, sir! Fuck. Is. Right.
Hey, here's something fun that former Republican Congressman and current news cable head Joe Scarborough said on his show the other day: "Nobody thinks Romney's going to win. Let's just be honest. Can we just say this for everybody at home? Let me just say this for everybody at home. The Republican establishment—I've yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won't say it on TV because they've got to go on TV and they don't want people writing them nasty emails. I obviously don't care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election."
Ha ha PERFECT.
Mitt Romney is such a terrible candidate. And now he's leading Rick Santorum in his home state. LOL FOREVER! How terrible a candidate are you when you're losing to Mitt Romney in your home state?! SO TERRIBLE!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
War Crimes
[Content Note: War, torture, violence.]
Two interesting and terrible stories out this week detailing the Bush administration's rush to war and its use of torture in prosecuting the "war on terror."
Jonathan Own at the Independent: Man Whose WMD Lies Led to 100,000 Deaths Confesses All.
"Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction [starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds], smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.Spencer Ackerman at Wired: CIA Committed 'War Crimes,' Bush Official Says.
He tries to defend his actions: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression."
The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999. His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.
But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."
A top adviser to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned the Bush administration that its use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" interrogation techniques like waterboarding were "a felony war crime."The current administration's unwillingness to hold the previous administration accountable for its gross human rights abuses, and profound betrayal of the citizens of this nation, because it might look like "partisan rancor," is deeply regrettable. To put it politely.
What's more, newly obtained documents reveal that State Department counselor Philip Zelikow told the Bush team in 2006 that using the controversial interrogation techniques were "prohibited" under U.S. law — "even if there is a compelling state interest asserted to justify them."
Zelikow argued that the Geneva conventions applied to al-Qaida — a position neither the Justice Department nor the White House shared at the time. That made waterboarding and the like a violation of the War Crimes statute and a "felony," Zelikow tells Danger Room. Asked explicitly if he believed the use of those interrogation techniques were a war crime, Zelikow replied, "Yes."
For years to come, stories like this will slip into and out of the news with little notice. And the architects of one of the darkest periods in US history will go unpunished, but at least Lynndie England got hers.
[H/T to Spudsy for the Independent piece.]
Happy Birthday, Space Cowboy!
For reasons lost to the mists of time, Space Cowboy and I have a habit of calling each other Poopy. When he calls me, I usually answer by yelling: "POOOOOOOOPY!" When I call him, he usually answers by saying, "And how is Poopy today?" (Even typing this, I am laughing my ass off.) Last night, I said, "I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow since tomorrow is Poopy's birthday!" and promised to bake him a poop cake, to which he replied, "That would be so classy." Voila. Poop cake for Poopy!
Happy Birthday, Space Cowboy! You are such a dear friend to me, and to Iain. We love you. I'm so glad I made those note cards.
And, even though not everyone realizes it, this whole community is indebted to you for all the tech work you've done behind the scenes over the years. Thank you. You rock out loud.
Enjoy your delicious cake!
Question of the Day
We haven't done this one in awhile, and my brain is mush, so: What question would you like to see asked as a future Question of the Day?
Photo of the Day
Image via Jessica, who got it from Roger Simon, who tweeted it with the note: "When Secretaries of State roll, they really roll."
Naturally, this image is already a meme (via Shaker shutupmonica):
Let Loose the Dogs of Commenting! Or Something.
Well, after two weeks of test migrations, an easy and successful switch to a custom domain, and four and a half days of a less than easy but ultimately successful comment migration to that new domain, we are back in action!
And not only that, the commenting glitch for international readers, which was the impetus for this whole thing, should now be fixed. Huzzah!
Everyone is now on Shakesville.com, with all old links resolving to the new domain, and all comments threads visible to all readers without any special effort.
There are still some glitches we're following up on, but nothing that should affect commenting for now. Just don't be surprised if you see some test posts and comments over the next day or so.
Again, I just want to say that I'm sorry to our international readership that we you had commenting problems in the first place, and I'm sorry to everyone for the truly unexpected interruption in service since last Friday night, as well as the unsolicited email spam that you were getting if you'd ever been @-mentioned in comments.
I want to thank you for your patience and your support. Thanks to everyone who sent kind and encouraging emails over the past few days. Thanks so much to Portly Dyke who was a huge help during this process. And thanks to Disqus for finally sorting everything out.
I'm now going to take a month off. (Just kidding.)
Wednesday Morning Update
8:00am CT: It looks as though the migration was successful overnight. I'm going to go ahead and keep comments closed until I get confirmation from Disqus, because if something else does need to get done, I'd rather have kept comments closed than have to re-close them. So hold tight, and hopefully we'll have commenting back sometime this morning.
UPDATE 1: 10:10am CT: Disqus Support is still waiting to get confirmation from the engineer running the migration that it was successful. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE 2: 11:30am CT: Still no word. I've emailed Disqus to see what the hold-up is. Hopefully we'll get news soon.
UPDATE 3: 12:00pm CT: Okay, I still haven't heard anything, so I'm just going to go ahead and start posting new content below with closed comments. This post will stay at the top of the page as long as comments are closed, so updates are easily accessible.
UPDATE 4: 1:00pm CT: I still have received no information from Disqus today. No confirmation if the migration was successful, and no explanation if it wasn't. This continues to be suuuuuuuper frustrating. I understand if there are still problems that need fixing. What I don't understand is not bothering to communicate with me AT ALL, totally leaving me in the dark about what's happening with my account.
I did not expect today to go this way. This is really disappointing.
UPDATE 5: 1:30pm CT: I have received word from Disqus that the migration is mostly complete aside from "some stubborn threads from 2008 which we're still looking into but otherwise everything looks good to go." The delay in relaying this information to me was attributed to my point person's train getting delayed, which means we lost another 2/3 a day for no fucking reason.
Anyway.
I am going to slowly start re-opening comments. If you notice any glitches or problems, let me know. I'll post an announcement when we're back up in earnest.
Daily Dose of Cute
April is National Greyhound Adoption Month!
On April 28, 2010, Dudley came to stay at Shakes Manor. On the one hand, I can't believe it's already been almost two years since he arrived. On the other, I almost can't remember life without him, because he is so tightly woven into the fabric of our lives that it feels like he's been here forever, that we've always had a giant, two-dimensional dog strutting about the place and taking up egregious amounts of space on the furniture.
Dogs aren't for everyone, and Greyhounds aren't for every dog-lover. If you want a high-energy dog who can be your companion in cold-weather sporting and run around off-leash, the Greyhound probably isn't your dog. But if you want a low-key dog who can be your companion on the couch and is happy with a walk and the occasional breathtaking burst of speed at the dog park, the Greyhound may be just the dog for you.
In the two years we've had Dudley, I've had people occasionally express surprise that he is so sweet-natured, so friendly, so ebulliently full of life. There is some prejudice about Greyhounds that they are broken, that they are pitiable creatures who need a special kind of owner to love them despite their brokenness.
This is simply not true. Greyhounds are goofy, gangly packages of indomitable effervescence, whose capacity to give love and willingness to receive it, in spite of their beginnings, is extraordinary. They are survivors. And given the chance, they'll rescue you right back.
If you're thinking about adoption, please consider a retired racer. And if you are contemplating adopting a greyhound, and have questions, please feel welcome and invited to email me.
Video Description: A video I made December 2010 in association with a pro bono project on which I was working for local greyhound rescue, which documents the change adoption makes in dogs' lives. Footage and a still image of Dudley when he first came to us, followed by footage and still images of Dudley over the time he's been part of our family. Set to Angelo Badalamenti's "Love Theme" from the score for Cousins.
Dudley: This is the difference that rescue makes.
An Observation
I really hate the pejorative term "slactivism," which necessarily implies there's a hierarchy of activism, some of which is more valuable than other kinds.
Some activism is more demonstrable effective than others, and some people do less than the humblebrags about their awesome advocacy suggest, and other caveats, but the thing that I've noticed about the deployment of the "slacktivism" accusation is that it's most frequently used against nontraditional types of activism being done by marginalized people.
Online petitions and Twitter campaigns, as but two examples, are sometimes pretty useless but have also been employed with great effect and meaningful success by feminist/womanist activists, among others.
They are also very accessible ways of participating for people with disabilities who can't participate in marches or demonstrations, for poor people who can't afford a bus trip to D.C., for a person working two shitty minimum wage jobs a week to stay afloat and hasn't time for sustained immersive activism, for a young person just starting to dip hir toe into political activism, and lots of other people whose voices are minimized by many traditional forms of activism.
Frankly, the only time I look at someone's participation and think, "Well, your time could certainly be better spent" is when that participation consists exclusively of auditing other people's activism, and finding it to be insufficient.
