Today Host Meredith Vieira, onscreen: You know, these games are all about firsts, and, this year, it's all about the women. For the first time ever, all 205 countries competing in these games are sending female athletes, and, on the homefront, on Team USA a first as well: Women athletes at these games outnumber the men. The London Olympics may just be the girls' games of 2012.
Vieira, in voiceover, over Sports Illustrated cover featuring the USA women's gymnastics team: The girls of the London Games have already made history.
Alan Ashley, USOC Spokesperson, onscreen: We have 269 women and 261 men on the team, and, as you can see, that really represents a strong group of women.
Vieira, in voiceover, over video of female Olympians training: And on the global stage, Middle Eastern countries Brunei, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia will send female Olympians to London. For the first time in history, every country competing in the Olympics will send women. Twenty-two-year-old Tahmina Kohistani is a sprinter from Afghanistan.
Vieira, walking alongside Kohistani: Can you believe that you're here?
Kohistani: No. [laughs]
Vieira: [laughs] When do you think it's going to sink in?
Kohistani: Sometimes I'm—I think that it's like a dream. But I'm here! [smiles]
Vieira: You're here!
Vieira, in voiceover, over video of performers: I met up with Kohistani at the Olympic village, where performers welcome athletes to the games. She understands this is a special time, and she recognizes her own place in history.
Vieira, now sitting down with Kohistani: Here you are at the Olympics, the only woman on your team—
Kohistani: Yeah.
Vieira: —only the third woman ever from Afghanistan [Kohistani nods] to compete in the Olympics, but it has been a hard road for you to get here, hasn't it?
Kohistani: Yeah, yeah. It was very hard and very difficult for me. There's a lot of people that they're supporting me, but there's also lots of people that they don't like me, and they just hate me.
Vieira: What do they say?
Kohistani: Sometimes they will saying that I'm not a good girl, because I'm doing sports. And they'll thinking that I'm not a good Muslim—like these ideas they have about me.
Vieira: Are you seen as less of a woman than those around you because of the fact you're in sports?
Kohistani: There's a lot of Afghan women that, that, they don't accept me and my—my rules, my way. They are thinking that I'm wrong, but I am not wrong. [smiles]
Vieiea: So it's not just the men; it's the women, too.
Kohistani: Yeah, yeah.
Vieira, in voiceover, over video of Kohistani walking, then photographs of her parents: She says her strength comes from her family. At every step, her parents encouraged her Olympic-sized dreams.
Kohistani, sitting down with Vieira: In my family, they don't have any problem with my sports, all the time. They just, ah, they are supporting me. I can say that the most supporter of my life is my father, all the time. My father told me that, "One day you will achieve your goals. Don't stop." And that was the reason for me that I am here.
Vieira, in voiceover, over video and stills of Kohistani: Tahmina is a Muslim and will compete in the Olympics in a traditional headscarf and Islamic uniform.
Vieira, sitting down with Kohistani: Do you feel in any way that that will limit you as a sprinter?
Kohistani: No. I never think that it's just disturbing me during the competition. I don't think like this.
Vieira: What do you think the likelihood is that you will medal?
Kohistani: It's very difficult to win medal from Olympic Games. [smiles] It's just like a dream! But, if I got the medal, I think that I will start a new way for the gals, for the women, of Afghanistan—know that I was right and on that time they will believe theirself that they can do everything that they want.
Vieira, in voiceover, over video of Kohistani training: With hopes for the future and a fierce determination to make a difference, Tahmina will compete in the 100 meters for Afghanistan. I asked her how to say "good luck" in her home language, Persian.
Kohistani: You can say me "movaffagh baashi."
Vieira: Movaffagh baashi?
Kohistani: Yeah. It means "good luck." [smiles]
Vieira: Movaffagh baashi.
Kohistani: Thank you!
Vieira: It's a pleasure! [they hug]
Vieira, at camera: Tahmina is a part of these historic games that they are calling the Year of the Woman. I mentioned that she is going to run the 100 meters; she is a long shot, but you never know—she has a sign in her room that she keeps about that says, "Dreams can come true." And she's looked at that every day, especially when she was under so much pressure from others not to compete.
Matt Lauer: She is going to inspire a lot of people by being here.
Last night's episode will be discussed in spoileriffic detail, so if you don't want any spoilers, please gather any medication you may need for the next few days and vacate the premises.
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Words. (Based on the way they sound, rather than what they represent. In any language.) Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
That's the actual cover of Newsweek's latest edition, and the cover story by Michael Tomasky, whom I usually really like, is an appalling mess of retrofuck sneering at Romney for insufficient compliance with traditional definitions of masculinity. Truly, when you are mocking a dude for riding on the back of a jet ski captained by his wife in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and twelve, you have lost the plot.
Apart from the tiresome sexism, the piece gets it precisely wrong about the source of Romney's social ineptitude, unprincipled opportunism, and evident desire "to sneak into the White House through a side door, without having to do any of the difficult and controversial things candidates have to do." It's not that he's a wimp. It's that he's an entitled beneficiary of political nepotism with undiluted privilege.
It's that he's a bully, who's never known meaningful accountability.
And it's really too bad that Tomasky missed an opportunity to seriously explore what it means when we elect bullies who resist accountability to lead the nation, and instead wasted precious space with a snide schoolyard taunt of his own.
Coming this fall to a theater near you: The Turkey Slice Heist. This caper is as cute as it is delicious, but your turkey is long gone, fool. Starring:
Matilda as The Brains
Olivia as The Brawn
Sophie as The Feint
Zelda as The Lookout
And Dudley!
Shakes Manor's A-list stars come together to pull off the most daring heist the kitchen has ever known... Five animals, twenty legs, ten slices of turkey, one chance to pull it off!
U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is recognized by pedestrians at Grosvenor Place in London, July 27, 2012, as he was forced by gridlock traffic to walk from his hotel to the Irish Embassy to meet with Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny. [Reuters Pictures]
Aww, lol. No wonder he doesn't like mingling with the hoi polloi!
Former American sprinter and gold medal winner Carl Lewis today waded into the row over Mitt Romney's comments about London's preparedness for the Olympics.
...Carl Lewis, who spoke to The Independent as the First Lady, Michelle Obama, arrived in London to lead the US delegation, said: "Every Olympics is ready, I don't care whatever he said. I swear, sometimes I think some Americans shouldn't leave the country. Are you kidding me, stay home if you don't know what to say."
Ana: This Is a Real Thing in the Real World [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism; clicking through to the "Save the Pearls" site will also launch a video with blackface, and that site contains racism, heterocentrism, and misogynist eliminationism.]
That link leads to a Reddit thread in which a man admits to being a serial rapist, talks about why and how he raped women and got away with it, and answers questions about his history. He claims on one hand to be remorseful, but, on the other, still says a lot of stuff that suggests otherwise, including his rather chilling enjoyment of the fact that his anonymity will allow him to engage with other Redditors without their knowing who he really is: "I'm going back to my main account to do normal reddit looking at cats and posting pictures of bacon, and I think it's kind of funny that no one will ever know if the person they're talking to on reddit, or someone who moderates their subreddit, is me on my main account... just food for thought."
I just wanted to provide a space in which to discuss this thread, without worry of encountering an abundance of rape apologia, so I'm not going to say a whole lot about it. Only this:
There are a lot of disturbingly familiar details about his story. I'm not suggesting, at all, that this guy was the person who raped me. It's just remarkable to see the similarities in their approaches, down to the use of a blanket, and, later, in comments, the way in which he convinced his wife that a friend's warnings about him were the invented fantasies of a jilted crush—precisely the way the person who raped me convinced the girl he dated (groomed) after me that she should ignore me. (Unfortunately, she later told me he raped her, too.)
It's not coincidental that the details are similar.
If there is one thing that the Reddit thread makes clear, it's that no one is more intimately familiar with the rape culture, and how to exploit it to his advantage, than a rapist.
[H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you.]
South Dakota has long waged a war to be the state most hostile to autonomy (for those keeping track Mississippi is hoping to surpass them soon, with Kansas being heavy competition) and, as such, has spent some time in court defending its various legislation designed to interfere with access and autonomy in health care.
Last December I posted that a federal appeals court had agreed to re-hear arguments regarding one particular aspect of then-recently passed legislation that would require doctors to lie to people seeking abortions by informing them that abortion may lead to wanting to commit suicide. Lie. It's a well-documented outright lie (.pdf).
On Tuesday of this week, the court upheld the legislation requiring doctors to lie to people--and the state of South Dakota has apparently spent $377,335 dollars to defend this specious, unethical legislation.
The defense of a 2005 abortion law has cost the taxpayers of South Dakota $377,735, according to the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office.
On Tuesday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a provision in the informed consent law that requires doctors to tell women seeking an abortion that the procedure could lead to an increased risk of suicide.
From the 2008 American Psychological Association Mental Health and Abortion report (.pdf):
The most methodologically strong studies in this group showed that interpersonal concerns, including feelings of stigma, perceived need for secrecy, exposure to antiabortion picketing, and low perceived or anticipated social support for the abortion decision, negatively affected women’s postabortion psychological experiences.
[...]
[T]his Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion concludes that the most methodologi- cally sound research indicates that among women who have a legal, first-trimester abortion of an un-planned pregnancy for nontherapeutic reasons, the relative risks of mental health problems are no greater than the risks among women who deliver an un- planned pregnancy.
Which backed up a 1990 report that came to the same conclusions. So, South Dakota, since you are all about "informed consent", I can't wait to see the legislation requiring doctors to inform people who want to continue a pregnancy about how doing so may lead to wanting to commit suicide. It's all about "protecting women", right?
***
I'm sure you recall the recent events in Michigan where a House legislator was sanctioned and silenced by the Republican leadership, not for saying "vagina" (though that did get a reaction from her colleagues), but for saying "no means no" in response to more anti-autonomy legislation (which ultimately passed the House). Well:
With only 19 hours public notice, the Senate Judiciary Committee met Thursday morning and pushed through a controversial anti-abortion bill that sparked controversy in the House of Representatives last month.
At the end of a two-hour session almost solely devoted to the abortion bill, the committee recommended the bill to the full Senate with a vote of 3-1.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Rendon, R-Lake City, would add regulations to clinics that perform abortions and requires fetal remains past 10 weeks to be treated as a deceased infant.
I have discussed my miscarriage (note: emotionally graphic) here before, in where I miscarried at home. I passed everything into the toilet. This is not uncommon. I was in my 10th week of gestation. But, you see, I miscarried at home. So, under this legislation, it wouldn't necessarily matter. Its aim is for people who have abortions.
"Miscarriage" means the spontaneous expulsion of a nonviable fetus that has completed less than 20 weeks of gestation.
[...]
(5) If a fetal death occurs without medical attendance at or after the delivery or if inquiry is required by the medical examiner, the attendant, mother, or other person having knowledge of the fetal death shall notify the medical examiner who shall investigate the cause and prepare and file the fetal death report. Except as otherwise specifically provided, this section and section 2848 do not apply to a miscarriage that occurs outside an institution.
[...]
Sec. 2836. (1) ALL fetal remains resulting from abortions shall be disposed of by means lawful for other dead bodies, including burial, cremation, or interment. Unless the mother has provided written consent for research on the fetal remains under section 2688, a physician who performs an abortion shall arrange for the final disposition of the fetal remains resulting from the abortion. If the fetal remains resulting from an abortion are disposed of by cremation, the fetal remains shall be incinerated separately from any other medical waste. However, this subsection does not prohibit the simultaneous cremation of fetal remains with products of conception or other fetal remains resulting from abortions.
(2) This section does not require a physician to discuss the final disposition of the fetal remains with the mother before performing the abortion, nor does it require a physician to obtain authorization from the mother for the final disposition of the fetal remains upon completion of the abortion.
All "fetal remains" are equal but some are more equal than others.
Via Women You Should Know: "Twenty-two year old, 5'3" boxer Marlen Esparza will be making history competing in women's boxing for the first time as an Olympic event. Boxing since the age of 11, Marlen is already a winner. She holds the bronze medal from the 2006 Women's World Boxing Championships, and is a six-time consecutive National flyweight champion. Ranked sixth in the world, Marlen is a serious medal contender in London and will be fighting her way to gold, turning her dreams into reality along the way."
Recently, Soledad O'Brien profiled Esparza for CNN's Latino in America series:
Marlen Esparza, a young Latina woman, stretches next to her car at sunrise, then begins to jog down a quiet suburban street. Cut to video of her in a boxing ring, punching another female boxer. Montage of her training, fighting, winning. In voiceover, she says, "When you beat somebody in the ring, you're not just beating them up or something. You're, like, beating the entire symbolism of them. You're beating who they are."
Montage of Esparza doing push-ups, fixing herself a shake at home, more training and sparring. In voiceover, CNN's Soledad O'Brien says, "Marlen Esparza's early mornings always start with math—how much to eat, how far to run, how many pounds, sprints, crunches, how many endless hours of training will it take to win?"
Video of O'Brien sitting down with Esparza in the gym. O'Brien asks, "Why are you here every day?"
Esparza, smiling: "Because I want to win. This is my life, and this is what I do, like, and I can honestly say, like, this is who I am, like, right here, you're with it, you see it, this is what I do."
More montagery of Esparza training at the gym. In voiceover, O'Brien says, "Esparza trains in a gym along a lonely stretch of Houston's I-10. Coach Rudy Silva took charge of her life when she was just 12. She's now 22."
Video of O'Brien sitting with Silva. "Is she allowed to have a boyfriend," O'Brien asks. "No." "Is she allowed to party on the weekends?" "No." "Is she allowed to just take a few days off and not train when she's worn out?" "No." "That's a lotta nos." "Yes." He smiles.
More montagery of Esparza winning bouts and showing off her medals/belts and grinning. In voiceover, O'Brien says, "Esparza won the first of seven national championships by age 16. She dreamed of fighting at the Olympics, even though boxing was the only sport that didn't allow woman."
Video of O'Brien standing with Esparza in the ring at the gym. "The Olympics is a goal—a big goal," says O'Brien. Esparza replies, "Yeah, it's huge. It's probably—I honestly, truly feel like if I go to the Olympics and medal, that, uh, I could probably be totally happy for the rest of my life." O'Brien chuckles. "Yeah," adds Esparza, "like completely happy."
More montagery of Esparza training, shooting a Coke advert, meeting fans, and signing autographs. In voiceover, O'Brien says, "Now the Olympic glass ceiling has been shattered, women will be boxing at the London Games for the first time in history. Sponsors have lined up behind Marlen—Nike, Covergirl, Coca-Cola. And her community is excited to have a Latina star." In voiceover, Esparza says, "The Mexicans are tooootally gonna love it—they're gonna freak when it happens!"
Video of Esparza boxing. In voiceover, O'Brien says, "Esparza was the first American female boxer to qualify for the Games. Her dream of going to the Olympics is now just around the corner."
Onscreen, Esparza says, "I think like the atmosphere and the energy is just gonna be like something I've never felt, and I think that's one of the main things that I'm kind of looking forward to. I think that's really gonna put me over the top and ready to compete." Video of Esparza being given a USA boxing medal after winning a fight.
I've spent part of the morning on Twitter expressing my regret that Chick-Fil-A's right to use its corporate profits to advocate against marriage equality is protected free speech, because corporations are people and money is speech, but Chicago (or anyplace) has no legal right to protect its citizenry against corporate-funded advocacy against their basic rights.
(Please note I'm not arguing that the private citizens who own Chick-Fil-A should not be allowed to do whatever they want with their private money; I'm just grousing about corporate donations being used in pursuit of legislating discrimination. Also: Slippery slope arguments blah blah, I believe it's eminently possible to draw clear distinctions between corporate agendas that seek to limit rights, which hurts populations, verses those that seek to expand rights, which benefits populations.)
I feel like it's super fucked-up that, in a democracy, we prioritize protecting the right of for-profit enterprise to operate anywhere with any political intent, over empowering states to expand and protect the rights of their citizenry.
I know that's the way it is; I don't think that's the way it should be.
Anyway. Whatever. There are some other progressive writers who disagree with me, and that's fine.
But of course I couldn't get through the discussion without tweets calling me a communist (sure), and then this brilliant observation:
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
$2.5 million: The amount of money pledged by Amazon.com founder and president Jeff Bezos and his wife, author MacKenzie Bezos, "to help pass a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington State, instantly becoming among the largest financial backers of gay marriage rights in the country."
With the gift, the couple have doubled the money available to the proponents of Referendum 74, which would legalize same-sex marriage in the state by affirming a law that passed the Legislature this year.
...Mr. Bezos was approached via e-mail on Sunday by Jennifer Cast, one of Amazon's earliest employees and a lesbian mother of four children who is now a fund-raising chairwoman of the pro-referendum effort.
In her e-mail, sent Sunday evening, Ms. Cast, 50, implored Mr. Bezos to understand the importance of the issue to her and her longtime partner.
"I want to have the right to marry the love of my life and to let my children and grandchildren know their family is honored like a 'real' family," Ms. Cast wrote. "We need help from straight people. To be very frank, we need help from wealthy straight people who care about us and who want to help us win."
In an interview on Thursday night, Ms. Cast said she had no idea how Mr. Bezos would respond. Though she had worked closely with him when Amazon had only a few dozen employees, she left the company in 2001 and said she had never talked about same-sex marriage with him.
"We were chatting about the biz. We weren't chatting about our lives," she said, recalling her time at the company. "I never, ever in my life talked to him about gay marriage."
In the e-mail, Ms. Cast described in detail the pain she endured as a young adult and the difficulties she faced publicly acknowledging her sexuality. At the end, she pointedly asked him to donate between $100,000 and $200,000 to the referendum cause.
"Jeff, I suspect you support marriage equality," she wrote. "I beg you not to sit on the sidelines and hope the vote goes our way. Help us make it so."
She hit "send" and waited.
Two days later, on Tuesday, she received a reply while in a car with her family. Recalling that moment, she said she had to read it out loud twice to make sure she had read it right.
"Jen," the e-mail said, "this is right for so many reasons. We're in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie."
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos will quite rightly get a lot of credit for donating such a substantial sum to marriage equality. Without taking anything away from them, I want to congratulate Jennifer Cast for being so brave and making herself vulnerable, on behalf of her community. It's not easy to put yourself out there in the way she did, and we all get a lot of cultural discouragements against the simple and intimidating act of asking.
Asking can be a radical act. And so can answering. What a great story.
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