CNN: New state polls: Voters divided in race for White House.
I know it's early, but I don't think we're going to find any headline more totally trenchant than that today.
Headline of the Day
Happy Birthday, Eastsidekate!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
I wish you a nonillion biebers of happiness on your birrrrrrthdaaaaaay!
And creepy ice cream on your head, toooooo!
Happy Birthday, lady! I love you!
Open Thread
Hosted by: "Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don't go into yours; you don't go into mine. You gotta hold the frame."
Question of the Day
What is the last subject that drove you into full-blown rant mode?
Doesn't have to be a serious subject. Sometimes it's the little things—LIKE THE GRODY CENTIPEDES IN THE GARAGE WHO REFUSE TO VACATE THE PREMISES DON'T GET ME STARTED!—that evoke the most passionate diatribes.
Photo of the Day
The newly elected chairperson of the African Union Commission, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (left), greets US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (right) on August 7, 2012 at the presidential guesthouse in Pretoria. Clinton is on an official visit to South Africa to consolidate existing bilateral political and economic relations between South Africa and the United States. [Getty Images]When Clinton leaves the State Department, I am going to miss like whoa the images of her meeting with women all over the world. They always look so happy to see her (and she them).
I bet Larry Eagleburger never got that sort of reception.
I See What You Did There
[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual harassment; police misconduct.]
So, there's this article by Wendy Ruderman in the New York Times today, about the particular concerns of women, mostly women of color, who are targeted by the NYPD's stop-and-frisk campaign.
I am very glad there is coverage of this issue in the New York Times.
But!
I do notice something, the responsibility for which may be Ruderman's or may be her editor/s', or a combination thereof. I notice the very careful framing that reports women feeling vulnerable, harassed, humiliated, violated; women feeling like something isn't right, like the three women frisked by male police officers ostensibly looking for a male rapist; women feeling that they are "being groped simply for the officer's sexual gratification."
The notion that the women feel that way because they have correctly assessed the situation, because some male police officers are exploiting their positions to molest women, is never entertained, even in passing, even as a wild hypothetical.
The frame is that the cops are only doing their jobs, and, well, hey, it makes some women feel uncomfortable, but officer safety is of the utmost importance when a lady could have a gun shoved down her pants.
The article implicitly treats as inconceivable the notion that there are male cops taking advantage of NYC's invasive stop-and-frisk policy, which has long lacked sufficient oversight or accountability.
In reality, it's inconceivable that there are not.
Presumed Aurora Copycat Caught
[Content Note: Terrorism; violence.]
Fucking hell: Ohio Man Arrested for Carrying Weapons, Ammo into Showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
Police say a theater manager was suspicious of the man who was carrying a satchel when he walked into the 10 PM Saturday showing of TDKR. The manager and an off-duty police officer searched the bag and found a gun, ammunition and several knives, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. The man was arrested without incident. The newspaper says police search the man's home last night, but it's not known what, if anything, was found.Iain and I went with our friends A & M to see TDKR for a second time this past weekend. During the showing, the film stopped and someone came walking into the front of the theater. It was just a moment before the lights went up, revealing a theater employee who informed us there were electrical issues due to a terrible storm, but, in that moment, my heart skipped with panic.
That's the thing about terrorism. It leaves terror where none used to be.
We have a big problem. And no one in a position of power seems inclined to try to solve it.
Number of the Day
$3,392.77 (and counting): The profit made as of Friday by 9-year-old Detroit resident Joshua Smith, who started a lemonade stand in order to raise money to help his ailing city.
The attention and accolades just haven't stopped coming to Joshua Smith, the 9-year-old Detroit boy who's trying to help the city emerge from a financial crisis by selling organic lemonade, fruit punch, water and popcorn -- sizes small, medium and BIG!Joshua plans "to ask city officials to use the proceeds from his kiosk to maintain a park and playground near the family's home."
He has been attracting attention since Monday, when he set up his lemonade stand outside his home in the Russell Woods neighborhood on the city's west side.
Joshua set a $1,000 goal. By Wednesday, he topped it.
Then he set a $2,000 goal. By Thursday, he topped that, too -- gaining $2,175.64.
By the end of Friday, Joshua had made a $3,392.77 profit, and donations continued to come in Saturday, said his mom, Rhonda Smith.
Plus, the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation announced Friday that when Joshua graduates high school, it will give him a $2,000 scholarship, as long as he graduates with a grade point average of at least 2.5.
..."I'm just getting a lot of support, and that makes me feel good," Joshua said.
There was even more support: A caravan of tractor trailers from a volunteer group called the Detroit Mower Gang came into Joshua's neighborhood Friday and mowed the two parks closest to his home.
Tom Nardone, 42, of Birmingham started the group two years ago because he was looking for volunteer opportunities and heard about the city being unable to mow city parks.
There were more volunteers than ever for Joshua, he said: a dozen volunteers and eight tractors.
That is a young man who wields a mighty teaspoon.
[Via TDW.]
Neat
Via Entertainment Weekly, the first official picture of Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln in the upcoming Steven Spielberg biopic, Lincoln.
As you may recall, we got an unofficial peek last December.
Quote of the Day
"Obama represents everything bad about humanity and Romney pretty much all that is good. It is really that stark."—Ted Nugent, professional fucko.
[Content Note on source: Eliminationism; guns.]
Daily Dose of Cute
So, the cats aren't allowed in the bedroom.
The reason for this is because Iain is a light sleeper and can't get a decent night's rest with cats crawling all over him. If all three of our cats were like Matilda, who just settles in beside you at night and sleeps soundly if she happens to sneak in, the cats would be allowed in the bedroom. But Olivia and Sophie are nocturnal terrors, who want to roam, investigate, knock shit off every surface, noisily lick anything plastic, and destroy the toilet paper roll in the adjoining bathroom.
Because it's a pain in the ass to try to wrangle them all out of there every night, we just try to keep them out altogether. As a result, trying to dart into the bedroom, aka Cat Narnia, every time we open the door has become Sophie's favorite pastime.
Now, it's not like she never gets time in the bedroom, because she does sneak in and spend THE ENTIRE DAY in there ("Heyyyyyyyy! Everybody! I'minnabedroom! Wooo!") about once a week, and it's not like she never gets nighttime cuddling opportunities, because I occasionally end up in the guest room when Iain's snoring is rattling my brain.
And normally, she's cool at night. But every once in awhile, she spends the whole freaking night scratching at the bedroom door and whining pitiably. And there's no use letting her in, because she doesn't want to cuddle; she wants to explore. LOUDLY.
What I'm saying is: Sophie woke me up at 4:30 in the morning. I am exhausted, and Sophie is an asshole.
"What?"
Top Five
Here is your topic, suggested via email by Shaker ErinM: Top Five Favorite Things About Your Body. (Please note: Your answers do not have to be limited to aesthetics. "It feels nice in a pool" or "My legs are strong" or any variation on physical appreciation is as valid as "I love my eyelashes.") 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 Sounds Fun!
CNN—Santorum, Bush, Paul to speak at GOP convention: "Rick Santorum, who emerged as Mitt Romney's fiercest competitor for the Republican presidential nomination, will speak at the Republican National Convention, a senior GOP official tells CNN. The former Pennsylvania senator is one of four Republicans including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, who will be announced Tuesday as primetime convention speakers."
I can't waaaaaaaait! It sounds awesoooooooome! HIGH FIVES! Best. Convention. Ever.
Seen
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy.]
On our always-fun local church sign over the weekend: "Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil. It has no point."
That's a quote generally attributed to Billy Graham, I think, although I'm not sure if he coined it or just famously repeated it, or even if he ever actually said it at all.
Every time I walk the dogs, I walk past that church sign and am reminded that my life is considered pointless—just a friendly little bit of rank hostility, right in my neighborhood.
This morning, the church was getting ready for a rummage sale, and some of its members were out on the lawn, sorting through stuff. As I passed, they waved and smiled, and I waved and smiled back.
A pointless moment in the pointless life of a pointless person.
Today in Mitt Romney Mingles with the Commoners
"Hello, sir. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me put my hardware stuff into your transit thing. I am about to board my gold-plated space jet, and the cargo hold is already full of all the fiduciary widgets I have liberated from the Cayman Islands."
Here Is a Thing
[Content Note: Eliminationist violence; white supremacy.]
Wade Michael Page, who on Sunday walked into a Sikh temple and started shooting, killing six people and wounding others before he was killed by a police officer, is described, like others before him who committed similar crimes, as a lone gunman.
Which is true. And not true.
Page killed alone, and he is accountable for every pull of the trigger. But his crime doesn't exist in a void. It exists in a culture that fetishes violence; in a culture that prioritizes gun ownership over gun safety; in a culture that privileges whiteness; in a culture that privileges Christianity; in a culture which Others the community that he targeted for mass murder.
He was a lone gunman with plenty of accomplices.
It's impossible to know what would have prevented his specific crime, if anything. But we know that violent acts of racist murder don't exist in a void.
What prevention there can be requires comprehensive solutions. Serious gun reform. Meaningful diversity that decentralizes Christianity in the public sphere. White people treating expressions of eliminationist racism with the gravity they deserve.
"He would talk about the racial holy war, like he wanted it to come," [Christopher Robillard of Oregon, who described Page as "my closest friend" in the service more than a decade ago] said. "But to me, he didn't seem like the type of person to go out and hurt people."Here, then, is a thing for all of us to understand: Privileged white men who talk desirously about racial holy wars are the type of person who might hurt people.
Just something to tuck away in the old brainpan.
That Page could be a person who spoke long and lustfully of a war in which white Christians would wantonly slaughter non-whites and non-Christians, for no other reason than white Christians merely having unassailable privilege is insufficient dominance to quell their restless insecurity, but nonetheless be viewed by his peers as a man who "didn't seem like the type of person to go out and hurt people," is incredible evidence of pervasive indifference to the fact of violent racism.
There are people who commit violent racist acts. If not the men who yearn for race wars, then who? Who seems like "the type" to hurt people?
That is an ignorance, an apathy, so cavernous that it engulfs the terrible lie of the lone gunman. Everyone who shrugged at his eliminationist fantasies, everyone who creates and maintains a culture in which eliminationist fantasies are so ubiquitous that they might be casually dismissed (and those who sound alarms deemed hysterics, rather than citizens), is complicit.
And we are all tasked with prevention. We are all tasked in imagining a culture in which violent fantasies of racial holy wars cannot be and are not considered an eccentric affectation, but a red flag—an unacceptable expression of an intolerable urge.
Question of the Day
Paraphrased from a suggestion by Shaker ShaunaG: What is your favorite musical instrument to listen to and what is your favorite musical instrument to play (if you play one)?
Oak Creek Shooting Updates
[Content Note: Eliminationist violence; racism.]
I definitely got the memo that we are Officially Not Caring about the mass murder at a Sikh temple yesterday, but I ripped up that memo and flushed the shreds down the toilet, so here are some late-day updates...
The "person of interest" mentioned in my earlier post has been identified by the FBI and ruled out as a suspect.
The names of the deceased have also been released: "Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, the temple president, was killed Sunday after attempting to tackle the gunman. Oak Creek Police identified the other victims Monday as Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Prakash Singh, 39; Paramjit Kaur, 41; and Suveg Singh, 84."
My sincerest condolences to their family, friends, and colleagues.
Lt. Brian Murphy, 51, the officer who was shot by Wade Michael Page, remains in critical condition but is expected to survive. Two other wounded remain at Froedtert Hospital in critical condition. The officer who killed Page has been identified as Sam Lenda, a 32-year veteran of the force.
My thoughts are with all of them, too.
And, because he just can't pass up any opportunity to be one of the biggest jackasses on the planet, Pat Robertson has weighed in on the shooting and decided it's all because "atheists hate God." Obviously.
