Since we were talking about the screen adaptation of Life of Pi earlier today, I thought today's QotD should be: What book which has not had a big-screen adaptation would you like to see made into a film?
Bonus points if you add who you'd like to see write, direct, and star!
Chapter 5, page 56: "When you step outside in Midland, Texas, your horizons suddenly expand. The sky is huge. The land is flat, with not even the hint of a hill to limit the view. The air is clear and bright. The impression is one of the sky as a huge canopy that seems to stretch forever. Appropriately, 'the sky is the limit' was the slogan in Midland when I arrived in the mid-1970s, and it captured the sense of unlimited possibilities that you could almost feel and taste in the air. You can see as far as you want to see in Midland, and I could see a future."
This blissfully privileged bullshit is just rage-making. Just juxtapose that garbage with the Rape Culture Discussion Thread alone, no less the rest of the content on the main page today, and imagine living a life where none of it ever touches you, where the endless plains with nary a bump are the perfect metaphor for your life. Jesus.
[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.]
[Content Note: misogynist language and actions]
A tale of two stories.
1. Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown (D) has been silenced in state congress due to using the word vagina in her testimony on the floor against the heinous abortion bill (which passed, btw). Rep. Brown said:
”I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours? And finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”According to this report from Michigan Public Radio:
Ari Adler is the spokesman for the House Republican leadership.Another woman, Rep. Barb Byrum, also says she has been formally silenced as she was not called on during the debates (from RawStory):
“It is the responsibility of every member who serves in the House of Representatives to maintain decorum on the House floor and when they do not do that, there can be actions because of that. And the action today is to not recognize either representative to speak on the House floor," he said.
[...]
The House Republican leadership confirms that state Representative Lisa Brown will not be recognized during debates as a sanction for mentioning her vagina during a debate on anti-abortion legislation.
Video from the Michigan House floor shows Byrum attempting to speak about an amendment to the anti-abortion bills, but the speaker does not recognize her despite her status as the amendment’s author.
“As the spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party, I would have at least expected Ms. Roberts to call and ask a few simple questions about Kathy Petsas’ assertions before going to print, but she didn’t,” Wikfors wrote. “And Kathy Petsas never made any attempt to provide any constructive criticism to the State Party.”Wikfors has defended his phrasing claiming it's common and "Go to any corporate boardroom and you’ll hear that reference.” Right. Because THAT IS THE POINT, SURE. And that TOTALLY makes it ok! I'll really believe you didn't mean it any other way, either. Suuuure.
“Instead, Ms. Petsas ran off to Laurie Roberts and engaged her in a ‘bitch session.’”
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 14 June 2012: A skua perches on an iceberg in the Antarctic Peninsula. Canadian photographer Tony Beck snaps penguins and other Antarctic birds in their remote, natural habitat. [Tony Beck / Barcroft Media]
[Content Note: Misogyny; harassment.]
"Today, I ordered some food and was asked how spicy I'd like it. I replied that I'd like it to be very spicy, and immediately, the man taking my order winked suggestively and asked me if I 'liked things hot' all the time. I was in restaurant with my friends. I'm a 16 year old girl. I felt uncomfortable and appalled that, as a girl, even my food preferences had to be sexualized."—From the Microaggressions Project.
[Content Note: This post includes discussion of rape, Christian supremacy, institutionalized abuse, and hostility to reproductive health.]
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting in Atlanta, and have heard tough words about their record on priestly abuse.
The board's report mentioned the Dallas Charter's "zero tolerance policy," which requires the permanent suspension of a priest who is found to have abused a minor, saying some feel it is "too harsh if, for example, behavior occurred many decades ago." But the board continued to back the policy. "Convicted sex offenders cannot be police officers, Boy Scout leaders, or teachers," Notzon said. "They cannot be allowed to remain members of the Catholic clergy functioning in public ministry either."Now you might be encouraged by this statement:
"Our response will require all the energies the Catholic community can muster," [Baltimore Archbishop William Lori] said....except whoooops! He wasn't talking about dealing with predator priests. No, "all the energies the Catholic community can muster" will be turned towards making sure women don't have access to birth control if they work for Catholic-affiliated institutions. Here's the actual quoted response to the board's concerns about clerical rapists:
Oakland (Calif.) Bishop Salvatore Cordileone told the bishops that removing a priest from ministry is not the same as "removing a police officer or a teacher, but more like removing the head of a family from a home," Cordileone said. "We have to be very careful about how we go about this so as not to compromise the identity of a priest."Yes, definitely, compromising the identity of the priest should be your top concern when children are being raped and abused!
[Content Note: This thread contains discussion of rape culture narratives, tropes, and behaviors.]
Every week, my Rape Culture 101 post is linked by numerous writers and commenters, at blogs and in forums and on social media sites, trying to refute the idea that the rape culture does not exist, an idea posed, inevitably, by some dude who believes the concept of a rape culture is an invention of man-hating feminists.
The Rape Culture 101 piece is a useful resource on its own, as are collections of stats and refuted myths like this one, and I'd like to complement these general commentaries on cultural narratives, practices, and realities with a thread on first-hand experiences of the rape culture.
This is not a thread in which to share stories of surviving sexual violence, as was The Survivor Thread, but a thread to share the ways aside from actual assaults that the rape culture manifests in our daily lives.
Some of the ways the rape culture manifests in my daily life, as examples:
• I get rape threats from people who disagree with me.
• I routinely hear "rape" used as a synonym for getting overcharged.
• I am often told someone or other "looks like a child molester."
• My rape-related PTSD is treated by people as though it's not a real thing.
• Rape scenes are mislabeled as "sexual content" in movie content notes.
• Rape is constantly euphemized as "having sex" (or some variation) in media reports.
Etc. What you share could be personal interactions, or things you see/hear/read, or narratives that are used to silence you. This thread is about collectively demonstrating how the rape culture functions in the daily lives of the people who live in it.
At the end of nearly every day, I walk out of my office, down the hall, and into the living room to find Zelly on the couch, wagging her tail excitedly as I come into view. (The days this doesn't happen, it's because Zelly's in the office with me, nudging me to FINISH UP ALREADY IT'S TIME LET'S GO PLAY!) Last night, I filmed a bit of her evening greeting.
[Content Note: Clergy abuse; rape culture; Christian Supremacy; secondary trauma.]
Laurie Goodstein and Erik Eckholm in the New York Times—Church Battles Efforts to Ease Sex Abuse Suits:
While the first criminal trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of covering up child sexual abuse has drawn national attention to Philadelphia, the church has been quietly engaged in equally consequential battles over abuse, not in courtrooms but in state legislatures around the country.Right. And there's no bigger victim than the poor Catholic Church. Victimized by survivors of sexual violence. Victimized by "homosexual priests." Victimized by the media. Victimized by gossips. The list goes on and on, but naturally never includes the Church's leadership who shielded and abetted rapists, thus ensuring multitudinous victims.
The fights concern proposals to loosen statutes of limitations, which impose deadlines on when victims can bring civil suits or prosecutors can press charges. These time limits, set state by state, have held down the number of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against all kinds of people accused of child abuse — not just clergy members, but also teachers, youth counselors and family members accused of incest.
Victims and their advocates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York are pushing legislators to lengthen the limits or abolish them altogether, and to open temporary "windows" during which victims can file lawsuits no matter how long after the alleged abuse occurred.
The Catholic Church has successfully beaten back such proposals in many states, arguing that it is difficult to get reliable evidence when decades have passed and that the changes seem more aimed at bankrupting the church than easing the pain of victims.
Already reeling from about $2.5 billion spent on legal fees, settlements and prevention programs relating to child sexual abuse, the church has fought especially hard against the window laws, which it sees as an open-ended and unfair exposure for accusations from the distant past. In at least two states, Colorado and New York, the church even hired high-priced lobbying and public relations firms to supplement its own efforts. Colorado parishes handed out postcards for churchgoers to send to their representatives, while in Ohio, bishops themselves pressed legislators to water down a bill.The Catholic Church is so invested in protecting itself from accountability that it is willing to fight state laws that would empower other survivors of sexual abuse.
The outcome of these legislative battles could have far greater consequences for the prosecution of child molesters, compensation of victims and financial health of some Catholic dioceses, legal experts say, than the trial of a church official in Philadelphia, where the jury is currently deliberating.
$1 billion: The potential amount of money conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson will donate to aid Mitt Romney's campaign for the US presidency. Or more, if need be.
Forbes has confirmed that billionaire Sheldon Adelson, along with his wife Miriam, has donated $10 million to the leading Super PAC supporting presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney–and that's just the tip of the iceberg. A well-placed source in the Adelson camp with direct knowledge of the casino billionaire's thinking says that further donations will be "limitless."Emphasis mine.
Adelson, who has built Las Vegas Sands into an global casino empire, will do "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama, this source says. And given that Adelson is worth $24.9 billion–and told Forbes in a recent rare interview about his political giving that he had been willing to donate as much as $100 million to his initial presidential preference, Newt Gingrich–that "limitless" description telegraphs potential nine-digit support of Romney.
...Thanks to the Citizens United decision, there are no curbs on how much Adelson could give the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restoring Our Future. Given that he's one of the 15 richest people in the world, the Sands chairman could personally bankroll the equivalent of entire presidential campaign–say, $1 billion or so–and not even notice. (The $10 million donation he just made to Romney is equivalent to $40 for an American family with a net worth of $100,000.)
[Content Note: Violence; rape culture statistics and narratives.]
Today on its front page, CNN is featuring an article about a serial rapist in Cleveland who is "thought to be linked to four rapes and a homicide dating back to 1996." The article is linked with the text:
Of the 120 rapists in the sample [identified in the study Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists by David Lesak and Paul M. Miller, published in Violence and Victims, Vol 17, No. 1, 2002 (Lisak & Miller 2002)], 44 reported only one assault. The remaining 76 were repeat offenders. These 76 men, 63% of the rapists, committed 439 rapes or attempted rapes, an average of 5.8 each (median of 3, so there were some super-repeat offenders in this group). Just 4% of the men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes.Emphasis original. Four percent of the men surveyed were, by their own admission, serial rapists. Not four percent of the rapists—four percent of all the men surveyed in an ethnically diverse group of 1882 college students, ranging in age from 18 to 71 with a median age of 26.5.
Yesterday, Ontario added protections against discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" and "gender expression" to its human rights code. Versions of bill 33 had been brought to Ontario's unicameral legislature three previous times since 2007. Yesterday, it passed with the support of all major parties.
Xtra! reports:
The passage of the bill marks a changing in the tides for the trans movement in Canada. Similar bills are being considered in Manitoba and at the federal level. The House of Commons, too, seems poised to pass a similar bill after seven years of trying.
The bill has enjoyed bipartisan support that all parties have recognized as extraordinary. While the final vote was not carried unanimously, it received two very vocal Progressive Conservative endorsers in Christine Elliott -- who co-signed it -- and Rod Jackson.H/t to CaitieCat
“This isn’t the end; this is probably just the beginning,” Jackson said.
Liberal MPP Glen Murray, grinning, said, “It’s not often I get a chance to be a part of making history.”
This victory for the trans community comes on the heels of the passage of Bill 13, the anti-bullying law that will work toward including gay-straight alliances in all Ontario schools.
1. TPM—Senators Fawn Over JPMorgan CEO After Massive Trading Debacle: "The long-shot big hope for Wall Street reformers Wednesday was that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would trip up before the Senate Banking Committee and expose the need for tighter rules governing big banks. His firm, after all, recently lost billions making risky bets with depositor funds on the line. Instead, with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination into a coronation, and exposed the extent to which elected officials still feel compelled to genuflect to powerful financial interests."
2. Reuters—Foreclosures Up for First Time in 27 Months: "Foreclosure starts rose year-over-year in May for the first time in more than two years as banks resumed dealing with distressed properties after a mortgage abuse settlement earlier this year, data firm RealtyTrac said on Thursday. The $25 billion settlement between major banks and states, formally approved in April, had been expected to jump-start foreclosure proceedings that were previously stalled by uncertainty about the liability of banks."
Banks are beautiful.
Dianne Bauer opened up her cafe to Mitt Romney and his campaign for a small round table discussion Friday morning before his speech at Bayliss Park.Yes. Yes that is exactly how he is going to be if he gets in office—arrogant, mocking, contemptuous of working people's concerns, and breaking everything in sight.
...Bauer's issues with the campaigns staffers started the night before when they started staging the cafe for the event. She described many of their demeanors as "arrogant". She says her cafe was not treated with the respect it deserved. "Stuff got broke. My table cloths they just got ripped off, wadded up and thrown in the back room."
She says the boom truck she allowed the campaign to borrow to gain access to the roof now has an 8-inch gouge in it that she'll have to take the time to repair. The campaign told her to send them an itemized list of anything that was broken, and they would pay for it, but Bauer says that won't fix everything. "My dad's picture, an emblem my dad gave me, it got broke. Those aren't things you can replace."
Bauer says she never even got to meet the candidate she closed half of her restaurant down for. "Every time we tried to go out or look, secret service was right there," she said. She was complaining about the event to a friend when reporters overheard her and posted about it online.
That's when Romney called Bauer himself. She says he explained that it was just a misunderstanding that she did not get to meet him, but the phone call didn't smooth things over for her. "He responded 'well, I'm sorry your table cloths got ripped off, wadded up and thrown in the back room' and I took it as mocking," she said. "We're the ones he's wanting to get the votes from, you'd think we would have been treated better."
She says the whole experience left her wondering.
"With how he treated me, is that how he's going to treat others? You know, if he gets in office is he going to be that way to us little people?"
Suggested by Shaker BlueJean: If you could live in one book/movie/TV show for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The Golden Girls.
