Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker shedelurks: What was the last thing you (really) laughed at?
I laugh all the time, because all my friends are hilarious and I am a great audience. I laugh at everything, with my big ridiculous horse laugh.
But one day last week, Spudsy and I were having one of our almost-daily marathon phone calls, and now I can't even remember what we were talking about although I'm sure it was something completely stupid and probably about butts, but both of us were literally crying with laughter, which is not unusual for one of our calls, but this one was just endless gales of convulsive laughter. Honestly, even just remembering it, I'm choking back a guffaw and my eyes are tearing up. And I can't even recall what it was about!
The two of us are so cascadingly silly together. Once, when we were visiting Deeky, we drove past this shitty-looking casino, and we spent the next hour and a half singing the most terrible jingles for the casino we could think of. "The Whatever Casino: Our carpets are filthy!" "The Whatever Casino: Hey, look—there's your Uncle Ken!" "The Whatever Casino: We cleaned the toilets last year!" On and on and on, until we were weeping, and could barely squeak out the next line of utter garbage.
Spudsy can make me laugh like no one else. With a single raised eyebrow, he can turn me into a helpless specimen of structurally unsound mirth, liable to fall on the floor in fit of gigglesnorts.
And I love it.
Blog Note
Sorry for the light posting this afternoon. I'm dealing with some more tech issues, this time with my computer, which has made everything take twice as long and has been extremely irritating for about a week now. I'm slowly getting it sorted, though. Hopefully will be back in tip-top shape tomorrow. My apologies.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelly chases a squirrel who lives in the garden and loves to tease her. The squirrel jumps from tree branch to tree branch, with Zelly running around below. If she loses interest, the squirrel will creep down the trunk just far enough to capture her attention again, then scurry back up into the treetop when Zelly comes racing back.
"Confound it!"
"Where'd you go, Squirrel?"
There is a bluejay who loves to get in on this game, and will occasionally swoop down around Zelly while she's racing about, as if he's Maverick buzzing the tower.
People Are Arguing About This
[Content Note: Racism; minstrelsy; misogyny; implied violence; female genital cutting; appropriation.]
In Sweden, there is "controversy" surrounding video and photos of the minister of culture (and a bunch of other white people) cutting into a cake fashioned into the torso of a minstrelized caricature of a black African woman. Atop a neck covered in gold rings sat the head of a male "performance artist," donning minstrel make-up, who screams every time someone cuts into the part of the cake where the crotch would be, revealing dark red cake. This was allegedly an awareness-raising stunt about female genital cutting.
[Video of scene described above.]
Because the "performance artist" is himself black, there are people (mostly white people, naturally) arguing that the cake/stunt can't possibly be racist. That is, of course, not accurate. Marginalized people internalize the narratives of our oppression as thoroughly as the privileged people who use those narratives to their own advantage, and we are eminently capable of conveying the rhetorical bars of our metaphorical cages.
That is not an answer to the question of whether the above is racist. It is a response to the assertion that it can't be because its creator is black.
I am not an expert in finding the patterns of racism in order that it might be objectively assessed, so I will defer to people who are, who clearly and concisely lay out the case. This is racism.
I am, however, an expert in finding the patterns of misogyny in order that it might be objectively assessed: Appropriation of an almost uniquely female experience, reducing a woman to her disembodied reproductive parts, exhorting the mutilation of a female form for "art," demonstrable lack of concern or understanding for female reactions to appropriated female experiences ostensibly as an "ally" to women... I could go on, but I'm guessing I've made my point. This is misogyny.
And yet there are people arguing about these points, as if this breathtaking display might be something else.
BushQuotes!
Chapter 2, page 21: "It was during the spring of my senior year that my political talents first blossomed. I helped organize a stickball league and named myself the high commissioner. 'Tweeds Bush' was my self-appointed nickname, a play on Boss Tweed, the infamous political boss of New York City's Tammany Hall. In the spirit of Tammany Hall, I named my cousin Kevin as assistant stickball commissioner; we had a league umpire, a league scribe, even a league psychiatrist. We organized a full stickball tournament. Each dorm had a team, with creative names. Spirits ran high. The final game drew a huge crowd of admiring fans from the school. For me, stickball was a way of spreading joy, sharing humor, and lightening up what was otherwise a serious and studious environment."
That ol' Tweeds Bush. Always spreading something somewhere.
This is yet another anecdote that I imagine functions like a Rorschach test of Bush affinity. If you like George W. Bush, you probably find that a neat little anecdote about his super likeable fun side. If you don't like George W. Bush, you are probably covered in barf and rage.
[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.]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Violence; misogynistic slurs.]
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year."—Former rock star and current conservative fuckbag Ted Nugent, stumping for Mitt Romney at the NRA convention.
By any reasonable definition, Ted Nugent just implied he wants to assassinate the President. Why the fuck is he not in jail?
This is not the first time Ted Nugent has used violent rhetoric in association with Democratic figures. Here he is in 2007 in front of a cheering crowd telling "piece of shit" Barack Obama to "suck on" his machine gun and "worthless bitch" Hillary Clinton to "ride on" it.
[Holds up machine gun onstage] Suck on this one time, ya putz! [cheers and applause] I was in Chicago last week—I was in Chicago last week: "Hey, Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, ya punk!" [holds up gun; cheers and applause] You don't get it—Obama he's a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun! Let's hear it for him! [cheers] And then I was in New York. I said—I said, "Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, ya worthless bitch!" [cheers and applause]Etc. There's more, as he goes after Barbara Boxer, who he calls a "worthless whore," before shouting FREEDOM! You get the gist.
He is the grossest—just a hateful, vile, careless, violence-inciting dirtbag of colossal proportions.
And he's hugely popular.
UPDATE: The Secret Service is investigating.
Important Announcement
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Appropriate and necessary use of the word rape: To describe what has happened to someone who has been forced or coerced into a sex act.
Inappropriate and unnecessary use of the word rape: To describe what has "been done to you" by the IRS and/or US Government by requiring you to pay taxes.
Important Corollary, subject to same rules as Important Announcement #37: If you are a rape apologist and/or teller of rape jokes, you are not a progressive; you're a fauxgressive.
[This announcement will be made annually during tax season until further notice.]
Headlines of the Day
These are actual headlines about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in response to the pictures of her dancing and drinking a beer in Cartegena:
1. The Telegraph: Is Hillary Clinton becoming an embarrassment as Secretary of State?
2. The Atlantic: Hillary Clinton Loses the Scrunchie in Colombia.
3. Always classy, the New York Post simply went with: SWILLARY.
Ladies, this is your infuriatingly regular reminder that you can spend your entire life working at something, learning, practicing, training, honing your skills, building your talents, giving every piece of yourself, your nights and mornings and weekends and every spare minute you have, keeping a laser-like focus on your ultimate goal, inch by inch making your way to the top of your field, becoming the best there ever was, maybe the best there ever will be...and whether you're a presidential candidate or a vice-presidential candidate or America's best female skier or a popular actress, they can still put you in your place with a single slur, a single touch, a single image, a single shared chuckle over your nothingness, a single reminder that evidence of your humanity as a woman makes you less than.
And talk about a game of Can't Fucking Win: Hillary Clinton is too cold, too calculating, too hard, too humorless. [Insert texting, dancing, and beer.] Hillary Clinton is an embarrassment, a drunkard, a woman who wears a scrunchie but now isn't wearing one oh no oh god oh the humanity she is so terrible.
I don't write about this garbage because I believe Hillary Clinton needs my defense. In order to do what she does every day, she's so far beyond giving the tiniest infinitesimal fuck about headlines like this that they may as well exist in another dimension in another galaxy in a parallel universe, for all they affect her or her life.
I write about it because demeaning Clinton demeans all women, and vanishingly few of us are born into this world inherently prepared to counteract, or even process, the metric fucktons of misogynist shit that the Patriarchy throws at us in its grand bloody game of Fuck You, Ladies.
I write about it so that we may all feel less alone on this journey, and find some resolve and coping strategies in the shared space of acknowledged subjugation.
I write about it because this is how feminism works.
I write about it in solidarity.
And I write about it as a thank-you to Hillary Clinton, and all the feminist and womanist women who have gone before me, blazing a trail that I may follow, despite the personal cost.
Mississippi May Lose Its Only Abortion Clinic
Mississippi's governor, Phil Bryant, signed an anti-abortion law on Monday that could effectively shut down the state's only abortion clinic. The law, House Bill 1390, puts new restrictions on doctors who provide abortions and the facilities in which abortions are performed. The law requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and they must be board certified OB-GYNs.This is the same sort of goalpost-moving shit that anti-choicers have pulled (or tried to pull) in Virginia (see also), Kansas (see also), and elsewhere.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards condemned the law as an attempt to overturn Roe, saying, "Make no mistake, this law is based on a political agenda, not medical necessity. In yet another shortsighted attempt to ban abortion in Mississippi, Governor Bryant and lawmakers are putting their ideology above the health and safety of Mississippi women. This law is bad policy and endangers women's health."
These are what's called "supply-side abortion restrictions," targeting physicians, hospitals, and clinics in order to prevent them from being able to meet the legal requirements to perform abortions, because "demand-side abortion restrictions," targeting abortion-seeking women and other people with uteri, don't work, since pregnant people who don't want to be pregnant will find a way to not be pregnant.
Even shutting down abortion clinics will not stop terminations, though. (Recommended Reading: Jennie McCormack's Abortion Battle.) We know for a fact that criminalizing or denying access to legal abortion will simply drive abortions underground, make them less safe, result in more injury, sterilization, and death, and delay abortions until later in pregnancy.
The anti-choice brigade's resistance to internalizing and/or respecting these facts is hostile, cruel, irresponsible, and dangerous.
Restricting abortion is so inconsistent with any reasonable definition of "pro-life" that their chosen moniker would be laughable, if only their agency-averse movement weren't so comprehensively detestable.
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture, sexual violence, revictimization.]
Last week, Shaker nina_bruja sent me this item about a judge in Sacramento who had imprisoned a 17-year-old rape survivor in order to compel her to testify against her alleged rapist. There was due to be a hearing yesterday, to determine if the young woman would have to spend even more time imprisoned, in addition to the two weeks, she's already spent there, so I waited to see what the outcome of that would be.
She has been released—but she is now being forced to wear a GPS monitor.
A 17-year-old alleged rape victim who was placed in juvenile hall to ensure she would testify was released from custody Monday, a week before she is expected to take the stand in Sacramento.I understand that the prosecution wants to convict a man they believe to be a serial rapist. I understand that they don't want him to have the opportunity to create any more victims. But that admirable objective does not justify treating one of his known victims like a criminal.
News 10 in the state capital reported that the teen will be released with GPS monitoring to ensure she does not flee before the April 23 trail. The Associated Press reported that the girl, a key witness, has a history of running away from her foster home.
The teen is slated to testify against defendant Frank Rackley Sr., 37, who prosecutors say abducted and raped her in July.
Superior Court Judge Lawrence G. Brown apologized to the girl Monday, saying she showed "great courage" throughout the ordeal, the Sacramento Bee reported. The paper said Brown had ordered the girl jailed last month after she failed to appear at both Rackley's preliminary hearing and trial.
As a result, prosecutors were forced to drop charges against Rackley in February, but the charges have since been refiled.
Yes, that's right: One of his known victims. "Rackley has also been accused of rape in a second case. Rackley, who has a lengthy criminal record, is also accused of raping a prostitute who identified him through the Swastika tattooed on his chest."
One presumes that prosecutors consider the 17-year-old to be a more compelling witness than a prostitute, because of all the despicable rape culture narratives that argue sex workers can't be raped, or sex workers deserve it.
So not only is this 17-year-old young woman a survivor of rape; she's being revictimized by a justice [sic] system that has to treat her like a criminal because the rape culture makes it hard for them to do their job without her.
And while, again, I understand the urge to get this guy off the street, at some point once has to ask: At what cost? It's not fair to burden a victim with the singular task of helping (possibly) convict a serial rapist; if he rapes other people, that's his responsibility; not hers—and, even if it were fair, I guess I don't need to note that the possibility of being thrown in prison is a rather strong deterrent to other survivors of sexual violence when contemplating making a report.
Is conveying to survivors that this is what they risk by reporting, thus potentially discouraging multiple reports against multiple rapists, worth getting this one guy...?
Primarily Dreadful
[Content Note: Animal cruelty.]
GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE! I hope you are still maintaining maximum enthusiasm for this EXCITING political season! We are getting SO CLOSE to the conventions, which will definitely not be a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars while there are USians starving and desperate for healthcare and losing their homes to foreclosures because they can't find a job and their unemployment benefits have run out, and those orgies of political excess to celebrate nominations that have been obvious for a year will be super fun for everyone, I'm sure.
I am VERY SORRY, Mr. Romney and President Obama, but IT'S TRUE!
Let's play Write a Story with Headlines! Romney, Obama in Tight Race as Gallup Daily Tracking Begins. By Historic Standards, Obama Is in Trouble. Gender Gap and Likeability Keep Obama over Romney. Romney Rallies GOP, Faces Big Popularity Deficit for General Election. Romney Gaining on Obama. The End!
"That story makes no sense!"—You. Welcome to US politics!
In other news, Ann Romney, who is quickly becoming my favorite person in America, told Diane Sawyer that their family pet Seamus, who traveled on top of the car in a kennel on family vacations, "loved it."
"The dog loved it," Ann Romney said. "He would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation."
Zelda's not buying it.
Two things: 1. Let's just say, for terrified shits and giggles, that Seamus did actually "love" riding in a kennel strapped to the top of a car. That doesn't magically make it responsible pet ownership. Zelda loves eating chocolate, but chocolate is bad for dogs, so I don't give it to her, and I don't leave it out where she can get to it.
Just because a dog might love something doesn't mean it's okay: The reason dogs are the pets and humans are the guardians is because humans have the ability to assess that some things aren't good for dogs to do. It is wildly unsafe to strap a dog to the top of a car in a crate, irrespective of the dogs' feelings about it, and the fact that the Romneys are using Seamus' alleged affection for riding on top of the car to justify having done something dangerous to a dog for their own convenience is some straight-up bullshit.
(I will also note that it's all kinds of hilarious that the Romneys are basically arguing that it was Seamus' choice, which they indulged and respected, but refuse to extend the same respect to adult human women who want to make choices about their own bodies.)
2. Perhaps one of the reasons that people aren't letting this story go is because of how the facts keep changing.
Adding to the left's narrative that Romney had little compassion for the animal is a detail from the 1983 trip that Ann Romney confirmed to Sawyer. The dog became sick, defecating all over itself and the windshield of the car, leading Romney to hose them both off before they continued on the drive to Canada.If the kennel was enclosed, how did the shit get all over the windshield of the car? "It was explosive diarrhea! It exploded the crate wide open!"—Ann Romney, next week.
"Once, he — we traveled all the time — and he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs," Ann Romney said, laughing as she explained how the dog got diarrhea.
In a 2007 blog written during Romney's first campaign for the presidency, Ann Romney said the dog rode "in an enclosed kennel, not in the open air" and compared the experience with a person riding on a motorcycle or roller coaster.
The Romneys seem hurt and perplexed that people keep bringing up this story, but it's a story that's emblematic of lots of problems with Mitt Romney's candidacy: The less-than-truthfulness, the cluelessness about how it would be perceived in the first place (when offered by the Romney campaign as evidence of his creative problem-solving), the callousness to the vulnerable with whose care Mitt Romney was entrusted, the prioritizing of convenience over decency, and the sort of miffed arrogance with which being questioned about this issue has been greeted.
Whooooops for Seamus. And whooooops for America.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Dornier Pfeil: What are your favorite nature sounds?
The thundering hooves of a herd of wild buffalo or mustang is pretty extraordinary. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything I've heard that beats that.
Giving away my Hoosier Region roots, I also dearly love the sound of the wind rustling through leaves or fields of corn, especially at night. If it's an ominous wind, foretelling the imminent arrival of a crashing thunderstorm, so much the better.
BushQuotes!
Chapter 2, page 20: "Andover taught me how to think. I learned to read and write in a way I never had before."
What a splendid endorsement for that fine institution, I'm sure.
[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.]
Number of the Day
47%: The percentage of USians who think the amount they pay in federal income tax is "about right," in Gallup's latest poll.
About 46% think the amount they pay is "too high," and about 3% think the amount they pay is "too low."
Too high, too low—I'm more concerned about the percentage of my taxes going to fund war and defense at the expense of social programs. Dirty hippie etc.
Bi-Monthly Reminder & Thank-You
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.
It is also an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.
Running this strictly-moderated and independent space on donations rather than corporate advertising means that my ability to keep it going depends on your support.
You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Subscribe to Shakesville page, for even more options.
If you value the content and/or community in this space, can afford it, and want to see Shakesville continue to be managed** as a safe space, please consider setting up a subscription or making a one-time contribution.
If you have recently appreciated getting distilled news about the election, reproductive rights, or the Trayvon Martin shooting; being able to discuss aspects of the rape culture in a space interested in dismantling that culture; finding out where to direct your teaspoon in support of social justice or in opposition to inequality; getting election news about candidates who are discussed on the basis on their policies alone, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.
I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, video transcripts, Film Corner, the community in Open Threads, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.
Let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
My boundless appreciation as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways: Thank you to our regular contributors, our moderators, our guest contributors, to anyone who has provided a transcription, to those who have linked to, quoted, Tweeted about, and otherwise supportively recommended this blog, and/or to the people who have taken the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.
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* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.
** Managing Shakesville as a safe space requires, in addition to the time of our volunteer mods, my full-time commitment, and my salary is drawn exclusively from donations. I do not raise funds by corporate or content-generated advertising, as past attempts have resulted in ads served that violated the safe space, and I do not raise funds by required subscription, i.e. locking content behind a pay wall, as I want Shakesville to be accessible as possible irrespective of one's financial situation.
I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.
[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible.]
