Phytoplankton. If the mention of the tiny plant organisms that permeate the world's oceans isn't enough to pique your interest, consider this: They produce the oxygen in every other breath you take.
Still not interested? This is where it's hard not to take notice. In 2007, the reproduction rate of phytoplankton in the Gulf of Maine decreased suddenly by a factor of five — what used to take a day now takes five — and according to a recently released study by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay, it hasn't bounced back.
So what does it mean? According to Barney Balch, the lab's senior research scientist and lead author of the study, such a change in organisms at the bottom of the planetary food chain and at the top of planetary oxygen production could have disastrous consequences for virtually every species on Earth, from lobsters and fish that fuel Maine's marine industries to your grandchildren. But the 12-year Bigelow study focused only on the Gulf of Maine, which leads to the question, will it spread?
"I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to know that if you shut down the base of the marine food web, the results won't be positive," said Balch.
Balch said the study, which was published recently in the Marine Ecology Progress Series, provides one of the strongest links to date between increases in rainfall and temperature over the years and the Gulf of Maine's ecosystem. Key factors in the study's conclusions were driven by 100 years of records on rainfall and river discharge, both of which have increased by between 13 and 20 percent over the past century.
..."When you collect the amount of data that we've collected, it's hard to discount the significance," said Balch. "I know there are skeptics out there who still discount the issue of climate change, but the evidence now is just striking. We need to be thinking very carefully about trying to slow this down."
Emphasis mine.
We need to be thinking carefully about lots of stuff that we're dutifully ignoring, so I hope the phytoplankton won't get its hopes up! We're so busy ignoring our crumbling infrastructure and the impending demographic crisis of an aging population that we don't even have TIME to talk about ignoring the environment!
Zack Ford at Think Progress: "This morning, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee held a hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would extend employment protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. For the first time in the Senate's history, a transgender witness testified on behalf of the bill. Kylar Broadus, founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition, discussed his experiences coming out trans, including mistreatment by police, workplace harassment, and employment discrimination."
At the above link, there is a powerful video of Broadus' testimony with a partial transcript. [Content Note: His testimony includes incidents of transphobia, harassment, gender policing, and discrimination.] Monica has a complete transcript here.
What's remarkable is that, as Zack notes, "ENDA has been stalled in Congress for decades," and yet this is the first time a transgender witness has been invited to testify.
And that is the end of Chapter 4. Next up: "Harvard and Moving Home."
[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.]
"If you don't know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment. You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something."—Paul Krugman.
I couldn't decide which one of these I liked better, so you get both of them!
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright respond to applause as Clinton is introduced to a gathering of the Women in Public Service Institute at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., Monday, June 11, 2012. Both women are graduates of Wellesely. [AP Photo]
Madeleine Albright was the first female Secretary of State, nominated by current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses with a gathering of delegates at the Women in Public Service Institute meeting at her Alma mater, Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., Monday, June 11, 2012. [AP Photo]
CNN has coverage of the event, reporting some of the advice and personal experience Clinton shared with the delegates. The whole thing is worth a read, but I really loved this: "Be open to opportunities, because when I was here all those years ago I never could have predicted the course of my life, never."
Zelly lies in this hilariously weird position all the time. A lot of dogs lie with their legs stretched out behind them, of course, which she also does, but sometimes she makes it extra-weird by propping her feet up, too, like she's a dog track-and-field Olympian who might need to SPROING! into action any second.
Just to show I didn't catch her in a weird moment, here's a little video of her lying in Downward Sproing-Dog while she chews on a chewy thing. My favorite ever is when she wags her big bottle-brush of a tail while in that position. What a goofball.
Video Description: Zelly lies in her weird position with her back to me, chewing. "Zelly, do you like that?" I ask her. She looks at me and licks her lips. "You do?" She grins and wags her tail. "Oh, good girl!" I tell her. Wag wag wag. She returns to chewing.
Ten years ago at about this time on this day, Iain and I were making our way to a courthouse in Illinois to get hitched.
We'd known each other just over a year, and had spent less than two months total during that time in one another's company. We really only knew each other on holiday, without the stresses of work and bills. We also only knew each other under the duress of finite time. Because we were born in different countries, we had to get married to find out if we were as solid a couple as we thought we could be.
A decade later, we'd do it again.
For 99% of the time, my happiest place on earth is next to Iain, wherever we happen to be. For the other 1% of the time, it's stormily pouting in the furthest room from him in the house, lol.
That is to say: Our relationship is imperfect. Iain annoys the fuck out of me. I annoy the fuck out of him. We fight. We say regrettable things. But it's also immensely rewarding. Iain loves the fuck out of me. I love the fuck out of him. We laugh. We say lovely things.
No one can give me a compliment that feels so uniquely tailored, so genuine, as Iain can. I feel profoundly known, and, because he does not judge me, I feel comfortable in that knownness. I try to offer the same in return.
All of that sounds pretty boring, and is, but creating a space in which we can be flawed and also valued, vulnerable and also safe, is something we both needed and wanted, very much.
We got married with the hope and expectation that we would be good partners in building a home like that together, for each other. I am grateful every day that Iain put his trust in me, and I put my trust in him. Quite a gamble. Quite a jackpot.
To my best friend Iain: I love you with an overflowing heart. Thank you for building this life with me. Onward.
-----------------------------------
When Iain and I got married ten years ago, we promised never to take one another for granted, and never to take for granted that we were afforded the privilege of marriage only because we are of different sexes. If you are in the US, please take a moment today to contact your representative and write to your senators and ask them to support the Respect for Marriage Act.
Fatsronauts 101 is a series in which I address assumptions and stereotypes about fat people that treat us as a monolith and are used to dehumanize and marginalize us. If there is a stereotype you'd like me to address, email me.
[Content Note: Fat bias; dehumanization; racism; heterocentrism; discussion of thin and fat bodies.]
#5: Fat is axiomatically ugly.
This is, by far, the most-requested entry for this series. And it's simultaneously the easiest and most difficult myth to address, because, on the one hand, that is obviously false: Beauty is subjective, and there are people of all sizes who find individual fat people beautiful, attractive, sexy, desirable—even in modern Western culture, which is the setting for this post. On the other hand, there are all sorts of qualifying narratives that are used to "explain" fat attraction and set it outside the rigid bounds of a "normal" spectrum of attraction, and those need to be addressed to really get at the heart of this belief.
"You have such a pretty face." This is probably the most common iteration of a theme that essentially boils down, in all its variations, to: "There is something vaguely attractive about you despite your hideous fat body." These sorts of "compliments" implicitly acknowledge the "conventional wisdom" that fat bodies are gross and unattractive, but one part of that body might not make strangers want to barf! It's a strategy often employed by fat-haters who fancy themselves tasked with the responsibility of bestowing upon wretched fatties the gift of self-esteem via the rhetorical equivalent of salvaging a diamond from pig slop.
This sort of salvage-complimenting is deeply harmful, because it's embedded with the message that our bodies are the pig slop—which salvage-complimenters treat as so axiomatic that they don't understand why their "compliments" aren't well-received. (Also because these "compliments" are deeply narcissistic, and don't really serve to compliment fat people, but to display the salvage-complimenters' imagined magnanimity. They are very confused when they are not rewarded for their "kindness" to fat people.) Salvage-complimenting works on the premise that fat is ugly, and identifying attractiveness in fat people is something you do out of the goodness of your heart, not because fat people are actually attractive.
This not only feeds the narrative that fat people can't be viewed as attractive by "normal" people, but also feeds the narrative that anyone who finds a fat person comprehensively attractive is "not normal."
The Exceptions. There are narratives of exception to the rules that fat is axiomatically ugly and fat attraction is axiomatically unnatural. BUT! These exceptions all exist in service to a kyriarchal beauty standard. For example: Women of color can "get away with" curves, or are "allowed" to be fat, in a way white women cannot. Or: Men of color like fat women, in a way white men don't. Or: Gay/bi women can themselves be fat, and also love fat women, in a way straight women cannot.
These narratives are, of course, not true. Fat women of color are just as likely to face fat hatred and discrimination as fat white women. See, for example, Keena speaking about her experiences in The Fat Body (In)Visible. Women partnered with other women are not magically insulated from institutional fat bias by virtue of their sexuality. Men of color have individual preferences and biases informed in part by the cultures in which they're socialized, just the same as everyone else.
Like many other cultural narratives, these myths serve to monolithize and Other people who intrinsically deviate from the kyriarchal beauty standard and a heterocentrist model of partnering. They are not, as they are frequently positioned, authentic evidence of a more diverse spectrum of attraction within marginalized communities, but instead are myths told by privileged classes in order to suggest: It's okay for those people to be fat and/or find fat attractive, because they don't matter anyway.
(Which is not to say that there have not existed and do not currently exist communities, particularly communities of color, in which fat bodies are admired and valued. But this post is addressing a central fat-hating myth of the dominant modern Western culture.)
Often these attitudes among privileged people toward fat marginalized people are inextricably wrapped up in other marginalizing narratives, i.e. black women are sexually voracious jezebels, whose voluptuous bodies are vessels of insatiable sexuality, or Latino men are lustful lotharios whose sexually charged machismo renders their libidos impervious to the aesthetic discernment of cooler-blooded gentlemen. Within these frames, "women of color can have curves" and "men of color like fat women" are clearly not evidence of tolerance, but narratives in service to oppression.
Thus, do these narratives also reinforce the ideas that fat and "objectively attractive" are mutually exclusive concepts, and that attraction to fat is deviant.
And they also underwrite the similarly functioning narrative…
White men who prefer fat women are fetishists. To prefer fat women's bodies is not simply a preference, as it is considered to prefer thin women's bodies. It is considered a fetishistic sexuality—which, naturally, has its roots in the premise that natural body diversity does not exist (thin is "normal," and fat is "abnormal"), so attraction to fat bodies is thus deviant.
But, of course, natural body diversity does exist, and so it is eminently reasonable that it would follow a natural spectrum of attraction exists. (Brian has eloquently written about being a fat admirer here, for example.) If it seems there are fewer men casually expressing their preference for fat female bodies than men who openly prize thin female bodies, that may have a lot less to do with an assumed dearth of men attracted to fat women than the strong cultural disincentives against partnering with fat women.
Men, especially thin men, who partner with fat women risk being bullied by their peers, being questioned and criticized about their choices by family, being professionally disadvantaged by employers, and in other ways negatively judged, because fat attraction is seen as deviant, and because a straight man's worth is still valued in large part by the "quality" of the woman he dangles off his arm like a trophy.
Thus exists a self-reinforcing cycle: To be attracted to fat women is "deviant." Men are discouraged from expressing attraction to fat women. Few men express that attraction. Their paltry number is cited as "evidence" that attraction to fat women is "deviant." Rinse and repeat forever.
(Among men partnered with men, there are similar disincentives, and to be attracted to fat gay/bi men outside the bear community can carry similar stigma.)
There are men who do not fetishize fat women—that is, they do not reduce our qualities exclusively to our fatness—but nonetheless prefer fat female bodies. That shouldn't be controversial—and wouldn't be, if fat were not pathologized.
It would also be less controversial if we recognized that fat admirers, i.e. people with a preference for fat bodies, were not the only people attracted to fatsronauts.
No one is attracted to both thin people and fat people. Except for all of us who are, of course. I have been with thin men and fat men. Those men have been with thin women and fat women. I don't believe I've ever fucked anyone who only liked fat women, or who only made some wild exception for me in order to cross "fuck a fatty" off their bucket list.
This myth is deeply entwined with…
Only fat people are attracted to fat people. Except for all the fat people who are happily partnered with thin people who find them attractive, of course. Naturally, we're meant to believe that thin people who are partnered with fat people are just grody fetishists, or aren't really attracted to their partners, as if the world is just one big game of musical chairs and those poor skinny folks just ended up without a skinny chair partner when the music stopped. That's not how it works.
(There are, I will briefly note, d-bags who prey on fat people with low self-esteem, and that is not really about attraction at all. That is about exploitation and control.)
There are people who prefer thin bodies, and people who prefer fat bodies, and people who don't really have a preference—who find individual thin people and individual fat people attractive.
Again, an idea that shouldn't be controversial—and wouldn't be, if fat bodies weren't treated as though they were monstrously grotesque, instead of the different presentation of the same parts that they actually are.
There is nothing aesthetically unpleasing to me about a fat body—not other bodies, and not my own. There was a time when I did not like what I saw when I looked at my own fat body in the mirror, but it was not because I thought it was ugly; it was because all I could see was how different it looked from what I believed all bodies are supposed to look like. Once I believed, truly believed, that it was okay to look the way I look, I found I was pretty damn happy with the curves and bulges and dimples of my fat body.
I'm not making the argument that everyone would find fat bodies beautiful if only they didn't subscribe to fat hatred. (Although undoubtedly a lot more people would.) I am simply saying that it made a difference to me, and that intrinsic attraction was not the issue. Perceived deviance from a "norm" was.
And that, really, is what the myth that fat is axiomatically ugly is all about—the failure to conform to a beauty standard structured to uphold the kyriarchy and routinely (mis)represented as a reflection of attraction designed by biological imperative. "Norms" are socialized. Failure to exist as a kyriarchetype is not "ugliness." It is deviance ascribed by privilege.
Until we make thorough examinations of whatever thin privilege and internalized fat hatred we have, as thin or fat or in-between, we can't truly know what we find unattractive, and what we simply find aesthetically transgressive.
39%: The percentage by which "the median net worth of US families plunged...in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992."
The data represent one of the most detailed looks at how the economic downturn altered the landscape of family finance. Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate. The promise of retirement built on the inevitable rise of the stock market proved illusory for most. Homeownership, once heralded as a pathway to wealth, became an albatross.
The findings underscore the depth of the wounds of the financial crisis and how far many families remain from healing. If the recession set Americans back 20 years, economists say, the road forward is sure to be a long one. And so far, the country has seen only a halting recovery.
"It's hard to overstate how serious the collapse in the economy was," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. "We were in free fall."
The recession caused the greatest upheaval among the middle class. Only roughly half of middle-class Americans remained on the same economic rung during the downturn, the Fed found. Their median net worth — the value of assets such as homes, automobiles and stocks minus any debt — suffered the biggest drops. By contrast, the wealthiest families' median net worth rose slightly.
Of course it did.
Meanwhile, Generation X and its successors are lollerskating all the way to the bank breadline, because the clusterfucktastrophe that was the 00's, culminating in The Great Recession, meant that, for most of us, even $77,300 of net worth is a hilariously unattainable pipe dream, since wage stagnation has stymied our ability to save, even if we're fortunate and privileged enough to have regular employment with a livable wage.
For those who aren't so fortunate and privileged, it is even more grim. And the best solution we're being offered is fucking austerity.
1. David Brooks is still inexplicably employed by the New York Times to pen a garbage column for them on a weekly basis.
2. David Brooks wrote this actual sentence in his most recent actual column: "I don't know if America has a leadership problem; it certainly has a followership problem."
Have y'all heard what a great candidate Mitt Romney is? I'm sure you've heard rumors and whispers about how he's totes the best candidate ever, but let me be the first to confirm the scuttlebutt: Mitt Romney is definitely for sure no question you bet the most awesomest candidate ever to run for the presidency of the United States of America.
[President Obama] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.
It's time for us to help the American people by getting rid of the people—who are themselves obviously not American people and even if they were would definitely be helped by being fired, because smaller government is better for everyone, especially people employed by the government—who provide services like putting out house fires, arresting rapists and murderers, and educating children. GET RID OF THOSE SCOUNDRELS! All they do is waste taxpayers' hard-earned money, which would be much better spent on academy tuition, elaborate security systems and private arsenals, and rebuilding homes burnt to the ground! Goddamn Democrats.
Suggested by Shaker Danikajaye: What book/movie/show did you read/see and love as a young child but only really come to understand when you saw it again as an adult?
So many...but the first one that came to mind is Working Girl. I was 14 when it first came out, and I liked it, a lot, and was also made really uncomfortable by it, for reasons I couldn't then articulate. It wasn't until I was an adult woman, and had been worked in Corporate America myself for awhile, that I really appreciated and understood all the nuances of that film.
It was later still before I could deconstruct the ways in which it dismantled some anti-feminist and classist tropes while upholding others. (Ahem.)
[Content note: the embedded video includes homophobic, Christian supremacist rhetoric that is also hostile to reproductive rights. There are links in this piece to news pieces referencing misogyny and rape.]
A group of conservative Catholics wants you to know: God is watching how you vote. And if you are Catholic and vote for Obama, you are PROBABLY GOING TO HELL.
Video description: DRAMATIC! MOVIE! MUSIC! to make Hans Zimmer WEEP! A hammer hits a piece of glowing metal. Text: "In generations past, the CHURCH has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her SACRED RIGHTS and DUTIES. This generation of Catholics MUST DO THE SAME." DRAMATIC MUSIC! Now with DRAMATIC CHOIRS and SOARING BRASS, probably left over from an Avengers preview. The camera swoops in on the back of a white man with a hammer at a forge--is it Thor? OMG y'all, THOR is the Catholic Church's new spokesgod! Neat!!!
Anyway, text continues: "This November... Catholics across the nation will be... put to the test." The camera now shows the white hammering dude from the front. He is older and white haired. Probably not Thor. Maybe Vulcan? I am holding out for Vulcan. Anyway! Whoever-he-is keeps hammering! We see what he is hammering--WORDS! BIG WORDS! The first is ECONOMY. While he hammers the text continues: "Many issues in America... require hard work." Now the forge-word is JOBS. Then we see fire. Then forge-word TAXES. Forge-word ENERGY. "But how do we know... if we are building in vain?" The hammer droops and falls (I am not kidding). Whoever-he-is now has a TRAY full of forge-words. Text: " 'Unless the LORD builds the house those who build it labor in vain.' Psalm 127:1"
Now the forge-dude approaches the fire as the DRAMATIC MUSIC adds more choirs and LUSH STRINGS! I think not-Hans-Zimmer has turned into not-Trevor-Jones! And forge-god has turned into the back of a white woman walking towards a door. Text: "Catholics across the nation... will have an opportunity... to shape the future... for our generation." Back to forge with fire foregrounded. Back to white woman, now shown from the front, walking down a long hall! In slow-motion, because it's more dramatic! And holding...a ballot! OMG I THINK THIS IS ABOUT THE ELECTION, Y'ALL!!!
The brass is back as the white lady pushes aside curtains. "And generations to come." Brass gets all lush again, as not-Trevor-Jones goes for not-John-Williams. Forge-word JOBS is on fire. White woman's hands raise her ballot in slow-mo. Text "Many issues are at stake." Forge-word: ECONOMY. White woman's fingers holding a pen make an X next to a box labeled "Congress." Where the hell do they use this ballot? The one with no candidates?
Anyway, back to the text: "But some issues are... not negotiable." Helpfully, forge-word LIFE appears to let us know which issues are non-negotiable, because apparently we were just kidding around with JOBS, ECONOMY, and ENERGY. Text: " 'The protection of life... from conception, until natural death.' Pope Benedict XVI." Back to forge dude. "Marriage should be reinforced... not redefined." Forge-word MARRIAGE is on fire! Back to white woman either filling out her ballot or writing the Declaration of Independence (it is dark and kind of hard to tell).
Forge word FREEDOM is on fire! Text, helpfully: "Forcing the Church to buy insurance that goes against her teachings is a violation of religious freedom... 'When the government tampers with religious freedom, one shudders to think what lies ahead.'- Cardinal Dolan."
White woman emerges from behind curtain, looking serious. Text: "Your vote will affect the future... and be recorded in eternity." Eternity! Wow! You will go to hell for voting wrong! But no pressure. Anyway, back to forge guy, standing by fire. He walks forward. Back to white woman's hand dropping ballot in an actual box labeled "BALLOT." Text: "Will you vote the values... that will stand the test of fire?"
The forge-words MARRIAGE LIFE FREEDOM are laying on top of an American flag, because this advertisement is very subtle. White man's hand places Mjolnir his totally not-Pagan hammer down next to the words. Music fades out on extremely long, extremely basso note. Text encourages: "Share this video with a friend." Credit is given to something called "Catholics Called to Witness: Inspiring Catholics to Live Their Faith." and then to "Creative Lab," presumably the actual makers of the video. Finally, the end, praise JesusThor the unnamed god of cheesy forge-words.
There is so much fail in this video that I hardly know where to start. Here are my observations:
1. While the video does not name any specific candidates, the issues that it says are non-negotiable are clearly associated with Obama, particularly the birth control mandate. So whooops even the thinnest veneer of non-partisanship! Telling people they will go to hell for how they vote is, ah, pretty much the definition of violating the tax-exempt status thing, although I'm sure hiding behind an interest group makes this crap legal. I await with breathless anticipation a statement from the Vatican explaining that this group is not an "authentic teacher" of the faith, just like they did with the nuns. (Just kidding! I am actually expecting nothing of the kind!)
2. Notice which issues are non-negotiable--and which ones don't even appear in the video. Where are words like POVERTY or HEALING? I certainly recall from my years in Catholic school that Jesus had a thing or two to say about these issues. He told Peter (the first Pope, if you're Catholic) THREE TIMES: "Feed my sheep." (John 21: 15-17). He didn't add, "...unless they're gay!" Again and again, he healed the sick. (Too many sources to quote, but see here if you are interested.) He didn't say, "...unless it's endometriosis or another icky lady-problem requiring birth control." PRIORITIES: JESUS HAD THEM. I get that Biblical interpretations differ, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that poverty and healthcare don't even warrant at least a MENTION in the flaming forge-words of God's will.
3. Not to be all history-nitpicky, but marriage is about the worst institution to choose if you want to claim it shouldn't be "redefined." Considering that St. Paul gave marriage the not-exactly-ringing endorsement that it was second to celibacy, but better than burning with lust, and the Catholic Church didn't even rank marriage as a sacrament until the 12th century, I'd say it's been "redefined" a time or two already, by the Church itself. Aside from that, it's been redefined by secular governments in all kinds of ways, from recognizing married women's right to their own bodily autonomy to making allowances for divorce. Pretending that the world will come to an end if the Catholic Church isn't allowed to define secular marriage is mendacious and historically indefensible.
4. It's also pretty astonishingly obnoxious to claim that religious freedom is being threatened by the birth control mandate, only to turn around and insist that the Catholic Church should be specially privileged to define civil marriage in a nation that includes Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, Quakers, Unitarians, agnostics, Wiccans, Heathens, Pagans, Buddhists, Baha'i, and approximately a gazillian other belief systems and philosophical frameworks. But okay, players.
Finally, a word of advice for future crappy conservative Christian video makers, from Liss: "You know what that video needs...? More Kirk Cameron looking confused."
INDEED.
UPDATE: Here's an interesting exercise. When you Google "Test of Fire" and "parish," you get a rather impressive string of results for Catholic parishes that have embedded this video on their homepages. For an "unofficial" video, it's certainly getting a lot of "official" stamps of approval.
[Hat tip to Republic of Gilead. Commenting note: please take care when commenting to remember that Catholics are not a monolith, and many of them are in disagreement with the statements and actions of their leadership.]
I've been having a bad chondritis flare-up since last Friday, and I thought I could get through today, but I can't. *sad trombone* So I'm going to take this afternoon off, and hopefully I'll be back tomorrow.
(Although I am always appreciative of well-wishing, no need to feel obliged; I just wanted to post something informational for the Shakers who tend to worry when I deviate from my routine.)
Chapter 4, page 54: "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years. We developed a great sense of camaraderie and teamwork. My fellow pilots were interesting people, a mix of airline pilots, businessmen, and entrepreneurs. We were different, but we worked well together."
This book was, of course, Bush's opening salvo in his bid for the presidency, so naturally one of the running themes is how well he gets along with lots of different types of people, since one of the Republicans' favorite memes is how they're a Big Tent that welcomes diversity. (Ha ha sure.) But even accounting for that, I am shocked at how frequently Bush (and his ghostwriter) go on about making friends and being liked and getting along with people. It doesn't make Bush come across as affable: It makes him come across as deeply insecure and immature.
I still can't believe this guy was our president.
[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.]
[Description: A Pitcure of cartoon Marty McFly and the Doc with a dog in the Delorean is headlined: "The Adventure Continues on Saturday Mornings...on CBS!" Subtitle: "Back to the Future."]
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
