Question of the Day
What is your favorite unconventional household remedy?
You know, like using baking soda to destink the fridge or having a goat instead of a lawnmower. That sort of thing.
BushQuotes!
Chapter 3, page 33: "Governor Richards had always been mildly disparaging about my candidacy."
Ha ha no. How dare she.
[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.]
Food Network Star Open Thread
So, I've never watched Food Network Star, the 8th season of which premiered last night, and I really wasn't going to tune in because I have no interest in Alton Brown's rank fat hatred. BUT. I do like me some Bobby Flay (and guess whose team is three women and two men of color?), especially after the last season of Worst Cooks in America, and then there's this: Chef Michele Ragussis is not only on the show, but on Team Bobby.
OKAY YOU HAVE PULLED ME IN!
The only thing I know about Chef Michele is that I liked her on Chopped and 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, but I liked her A LOT. She reminds me of the sorts of ladies with whom I tend to be friends—tough, talented, funny, and nice.
Let's root for her! Or not, if you like someone better! To each hir own! But I am definitely going to root for her!
Anyway, there was a lot to talk about in this first episode, especially as regards how Alton Brown is a stupid jerk and how Michele Ragussis is awesome. So let's talk about all of it!
Photo of the Day
[Click to embiggen.]
From the Telegraph's Photos of the Day for 14 May 2012: A [murmuration] of starlings form what looks like one huge bird hovering in the sky, in this photo taken by Rob Wolstenholme at Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset. [Robert Wolstenholme/Solent News & Photo Agency]Previously: Murmuration, by Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith.
Ron Paul Comes out of Hiding to Announce He's Going into Hiding. Or Whatever.
CNN—BREAKING: Ron Paul to end active campaigning: "An announcement from Rep. Ron Paul indicates that the Republican presidential candidate will no longer actively campaign for the GOP nomination, but will continue to work to secure delegates at upcoming Republican state conventions."
Considering I haven't seen a wire photo of Ron Paul campaigning since mid-April, I'm not really sure this announcement was necessary, but okay. At least we know he's alive! Good job on being alive, Ron Paul!
Anyway. We're all super devastated about this news, I'm sure. Sadface.
P.S. How is it I never noticed until this moment how much Ron Paul and DJ Qualls resemble one another?
RIP Ron Paul's campaign and fully one million GOP Road Trip photoshops.
Quote of the Day
"I will point out Hillary is doing an extraordinary job as one of the finest Secretaries of State America has ever had."—President Barack Obama, during his commencement address at Barnard College earlier today. (Video here; transcript here.)
That is one thing on which the President and I agree (even granting that Clinton is still more hawkish than I am). And I am a damn sight happier to hear him say that Clinton is "doing an extraordinary job" than to hear him joke (ahem) about her throwing rocks at his window because she is passionate about her job.
I wish I'd heard it before he was running for reelection, before she had already announced that she's leaving, before he needed my vote again.
The truth is, the echo of "likeable enough" still reverberates in my ears. I believe it always will.
Lincoln Chafee Sneers at Your DOMA!
Washington Post—Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signs order to recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state:
Rhode Island's governor on Monday declared that the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones when it comes to health insurance and a slew of other benefits.And that's how you do it.
The order signed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee in a Statehouse ceremony directs state agencies to recognize marriages performed out of state as legal and treat same-sex married couples the same as [different-sex] ones.
Some gay couples married outside Rhode Island — where civil unions are allowed, but gay marriage is illegal — have not been afforded certain rights because state law is not clear on the subject.
In 2007, then-Attorney General Patrick Lynch issued an opinion in favor of recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages, but it was nonbinding. Chafee said his signing of the executive order is "following through" on that opinion.
The executive order is expected to have many real-world implications. Same-sex spouses of state employees and anyone covered by an insurance company regulated in Rhode Island will be entitled to health and life insurance benefits, gay rights advocates say.
Both partners in a same-sex couple will be able to list their names as parents on a child's birth certificate, and same-sex couples will be entitled to sales tax exemptions on the transfer of property including vehicles.
...Ray Sullivan, executive director of the group Marriage Equality Rhode Island, which supports gay marriage, called the executive order "significant" and "bold."
...Chafee called his order an important step but said he would continue to press for Rhode Island to enact gay marriage.
Lincoln Chafee is one of the rarest of birds in the US: A politician with principles. He used to be a Republican, but left the party when he felt it had become too intolerant and stupidly pro-business. I don't agree with him on everything, but I respect him immensely.
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, listening to Iain mowing the lawn.
Sophie is an impossibly tiny cat, with hilariously oversized ears. In my very first post about her, I observed: "She may walk; she may fly." And she puts those ears to good use—she is a hardcore listener, her radar ears always scanning and twitching and gathering information. Cats do this generally, of course, but Sophie does it more—and more intently—than any other cat I've had.
She is fearless and highly empathic, and while part of those qualities are just down to her innate personality, part of them are almost certainly down to the fact that she is just an ardent listener, and uniquely understands the rhythms of the world around her as a result.
Here's Sophs, doing her listening thing.
Video Description: Sophie sits on the arm of the couch beside me, listening. She turns her head from side to side quickly at first, then settles in to let her ears do the work. They swivel and scan, and her stoic expression seems to say: PROCESSING.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by curry.
Recommended Reading:
Sybrina Fulton: "This will be my first Mother's Day without my son, Trayvon."
Autumn: Sexualizing a Victim; Telling Her Life in Terms of Salacious Details [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of transmisogyny, violence, and victim-blaming.]
Jos has details on how to take action in response to the Times' dreadful reporting, per the above link.
Andy: Meanwhile, on the Cover of the New Yorker...
Fannie: What If, Like, a Key Moment in the Game, Her Shirt Pops Open and Her Bosoms Come Flyin' Out? [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny; additional heads-up for Christian Supremacy.]
Mike: How Austerity Is Making You Sick: The Whooping Cough Edition
moyazb: On the Queerness of Self Love [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of homophobia, racism, and misogyny.]
Scott: Speaking of People Who Should Never Be Taken Seriously Again
Melissa: Julie Delpy and Her Love/Hate Relationship with Hollywood [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of misogyny and ableism.]
Hey, if you thought Fox were assholes for canceling Alcatraz, you'll REALLY think they're assholes when you hear how one of the show's stars, Jorge Garcia, found out about the cancellation.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Generally Awful
Isn't that a terrific picture of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney giving the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, an institution of higher learning [sic] at which students are taught that Mormonism is a cult? IT'S SO GREAT. What a cool candidate he is!
The big election news today is that Mitt Romney is terrible, and President Barack Obama is less terrible. Oh, and also he's gay. Obviously.
Please look for my upcoming presidential history, which will win ALL the prizes, My Big Gay Muslim President. It's definitely about Barack Obama.
In all seriousness, the most important election story to which I can direct your attention today is "Money Unlimited: How Chief Justice John Roberts Orchestrated the Citizens United Decision" by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker. It's really worth your time and attention, in order to understand how politics really works in the US now and why our democracy (such as it is) is so deeply and irreparably fucked up.
Once you've read that, check out this Bloomberg piece: "One-Man Florida SuperPAC Finances Attack on Obama in Ohio."
We are in real trouble.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Ignorance & Stigmatizing Only Education
This past Friday Tennessee governor Haslam signed SB 3301 into law. This bill amends current state law regarding family life education regarding sex education. Ostensibly pushed through because of the state having a high teen pregnancy rate, the bill further solidifies teaching abstinence and adds in a whole new layer of ingorance-promoting bullshit based on a fear, guilt, and shame belief system regarding sex, teenage sexuality, and concern trolling over teen pregnancy.
Gov. Bill Haslam’s office said Friday that he has signed legislation that adds the concept of “gateway sexual activity” to the state’s abstinence-first sex education curriculum.Yes, that's right. The language of the War on Drugs is now being used to discuss normal affection & sexual behaviors, with being "felt up" akin to marijuana and making sex little more than cocaine. Because that's totally healthy thinking on sex right there, amirite? And! And! Get this:
Haslam signed Senate Bill 3310 over calls to veto the measure from the American Civil Liberties Union and others. The measure says that sex ed teachers cannot encourage “gateway” activities that stop short of sexual intercourse.
The law also lets parents sue outside sex ed instructors, such as Planned Parenthood, if they run afoul of the state curriculum. Instructors employed by school districts are exempt from legal penalties.Yes, you read that right. A parent can sue if someone doesn't toe that line regarding stigmatizing and shaming so-called "gateway" sexual activities.
Here is from the bill summary:
Random Nerd Nostalgia: Superman is a Commie
[Description: Title: "Superman Says: Hop on the Welfare Wagon!" A panel of two white men in hats talking outside a hospital. Man 1:"Say Mr. Stanton, I hear Superman's going to speak for our hospital fund drive." Mr. Stanton:"Bah! Who needs a hospital? I can take care of myself. I'm not giving a red cent, Superman or no Superman!" From off-panel: "Did I hear my name mentioned?" Panel 2 shows Superman swooping down, or maybe "SUPE-ing" in, on a startled-looking Mr. Stanton. Supes:"I think you have the wrong slant, Mr. Stanton--and you're liable to give other the wrong one too." Panel 3 of Supes looking serious. Supes:"Since the days of the earliest settlers, Americans have helped each other when sickness and trouble came. (Aphra's note: Apparently the history logs in the Fortress of Solitude don't cover the pre-Columbian period, so whooooops your history, Supey!) Today we help, through taxes and contributions, to support health and welfare services in our communities, so that anyone, rich or poor, can have them available at any time." Panel 4: Supe's disembodied head floats over a picture of a white male physician and white female nurse attending to a white male patient. Super-head:"A Hospital offers people the advantages of modern science, through its doctors, nurses, and other trained experts..." Panel 5 of a silhouetted male figure in a laboratory, with off-panel Superman still narrating. Invisible Supes: "Health department laboratories provide tests to aid in diagnosis.If it's a contagious disease, specialists will go into action to prevent it spreading to other families..." Panel 6: A white nurse holding a white baby, talking to a white woman with three children standing near her. Invisible Supes: "Many communities have visiting nurse services in time of need, and family service agencies and other social workers are available when problems arise..." Panel 7:Superman looking serious-but-smiley. Or smirking? It's hard to tell. Supes:" All these public and private agencies help to protect the welfare of your community--and that means your welfare too!" Message at bottom: THIS PAGE IS PUBLISHED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE IN COOPERATION WITH LEADING NATIONAL SOCIAL WELFARE AND YOUTH-SERVING ORGANIZATIONS."]
Brought to you by the 1950s, and that dirty, dirty Red, President Eisenhower.
Wank Swap Election Special
Wank Swap asks: Is anyone else excited about Eurovision 2012?
Due to austerity measures, Wank Swap has been unable to scrape together funds for a next season. However: MASSIVE NEWS! There were elections! (Yeah, we do that in Europe, too.)
Let's start and end with France, the nation that popularized modern concepts of "democracy" and "invading Russia":
OH NOES WHERE HAVE YOU GONE JOE DIMAGGIO FRENCH PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY?
Nicholas Sarkozy joins George W. Bush at his ranch.
Meanwhile:
Newly elected French president Francois Hollande makes a surprise visit
to the increasingly lonely Austerity Clubhouse.
[Previously: Season Preview, S1 E1, S1 E2, S1 E3, S1 E4, S1 E5, S1 E6]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Elizabeth Day in the Guardian: Lagging at school, the butt of cruel jokes: are males the new Second Sex?
Everything about this article is terrible, including and especially the idea that feminists/womanists do not give a fuck about the ways in which the Patriarchy also subverts a spectrum of acceptable male expression and encourages men to behave in ways that are detrimental to themselves, to each other, and to women.
It's hard to choose a single passage that encapsulates what is so terribly wrong with this piece, but this is as good as any, I suppose:
In a Guardian article on Friday, it was pointed out that the stereotyped image of a man incapable of growing up has become a staple of US film comedies – the most recent example being Jeff, Who Lives at Home, starring Jason Segel as a man still living with his long-suffering mother who lets him smoke weed in her basement.Well, maybe David Benatar isn't the best person to ask, considering he's a professional antifeminist with an agenda and a book to sell—and there's also the little issue about how colossally wrong he is. Of course humor that promotes stereotypes is leveled at women—and the stereotypes of womanhood are typically more dehumanizing than "kind of an immature slacker."
Would the same humour be levelled at women? [David Benatar, head of the philosophy department at Cape Town University and author of The Second Sexism] thinks not.
(When MRAs play the Oppression Olympics, they're always going to lose. I would, however, happily trade ALL the gold medals for meaningful equality.)
Naturally, Benatar blames "partisan feminists" for the problems plaguing men, but "partisan feminists" didn't, for example, write and direct Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Men did that. The primary decision-makers—the legislators and cultural leaders—who shape and facilitate societies in which violence against men is tolerated and in which men are not valued as nurturers (some of Benatar's other complaints) are not women, but men. And privileged men, at that.
The oppressions of men identified in the article are natural outgrowths of the Patriarchy—and of the Kyriarchy, which disadvantages queer men, men of color, men with disabilities, poor men, etc. But MRAs are so intractably invested in the idea of the binary "battle of the sexes" that they cannot see their argument is not with feminists/womanists, never has been and never will be.
(Except, of course, where their argument is really about the straight-up loss of male privilege. Which is what distinguishes MRAs from pro-feminist men, who don't let an unwillingness to dismantle undeserved privilege stand in the way of allying themselves with feminist/womanist women.)
Men like Benatar shake their fists and aim their rhetorical arrows at feminists, because they don't want to hold other men accountable. Thus do they effectively mask the real sexism that is directed at men—the Patriarchal narratives that continue to encourage displays and expressions of a "traditional masculinity" (and the systemic misrepresentation of that construction as evolutionary imperative to discourage alternative displays and expressions) which are increasingly at odds with modern culture.
It is the same gossamer promise that holds poor Republican voters in thrall—the lie of the American Dream that they could be wealthy and powerful someday—writ just for men: The Patriarchal Promise that every man could be an Alpha Male, a man of influence, a man in charge. Just follow the prescriptions of the Patriarchy and you, too, could be Somebody!
There are vanishingly few spaces, and fewer every day, for men who achieve sheerly by might and entitlement.
We're moving into a service economy, which favors patience, impulse control, empathy, intuition, a keen awareness of and sensitivity to others' needs, and the will and ability to be a team player—all of which are attributes discouraged in men (and encouraged in women) by the Patriarchy.
And we're moving into an egalitarian culture (despite what backlash broadcasting and conservative ideologues would have us believe), which favors the decentering of self, empathy, sensitivity, inclusiveness, and the will and ability to be an equal partner, in friendships, partnerships, and parenting—all of which are attributes discouraged in men (and encouraged in women) by the Patriarchy.
The world is changing, but the Patriarchy isn't. This is putting men who most buy into what the Patriarchy tells them they should be at the greatest disadvantage in almost every professional and personal situation.
That's the sexism that most stands to hurt men. And it ain't women who are the primary gatekeepers of that bullshit. It's other men.
Rand Paul: "ur so gay lulz"
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
Because the remaining part of the Republican Party that isn't comprised of robber barons and robber baron aficionados is comprised of schoolyard bullies, Rep. Rand Paul (R-Onpaul), son of legendary gold fancier and presidential candidate Ron Paul, "drew big laughs at a gathering sponsored by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition" when he quipped: "Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer." Good one. Very solid joke. 100% approval rating from homophobic fourth graders.
Even professional homophobe Tony Perkins (!) thought Paul crossed the line, but Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus wasn't so sure, responding to David Gregory's question about the joke on Sunday's Meet the Press by stammering nonsense about not understanding what Paul meant (seriously) then pivoting to say some crap about Mitt Romney.
He also said in the same interview that gay rights aren't civil rights, and wheeled out this gem: "People in this country, no matter straight or gay, deserve dignity and respect. However, that doesn't mean it carries on to marriage."
After that, Iain and I were both screaming at the television so loudly I could barely hear the rest of the illogical, indefensible, hateful garbage shooting out of Priebus' face.
This, then, is the current state of the Republican Party: Even juvenile gay jokes cannot be condemned by national spokespeople, lest the base revolt at the whiff of decency.
Sure
Continuing their marathon of awesome covers, Newsweek has unveiled this week's cover featuring President Barack Obama sporting a rainbow halo, yiiiiikes, accompanied by the headline "The First Gay President." Story by Andrew Sullivan. Obviously.
[Click to embiggen.]
So, Bill Clinton was our first black president, and Barack Obama is our first gay president. All righty then. I can't wait for our first female president—President Neil Patrick Harris.
Sunday Shuffle
Since today is Mother's Day (in the US)...
My fantastic daughter is named Elanor, named for the yellow flower of Lothlórien (and elanor means "sun star" in Sindarin).
That's the song I sang to my children at night when they were babies.
So, how about you?
