Breakfast Club: "Right On Track"
Blog Note
I'm having a health issue which will hopefully and probably turn out to be nothing serious, but I'm feeling super shitty and have to get some tests done, so I'll be taking the next couple of days off. I apologize for being cryptic, but the only thing I hate more than being sick is writing about being sick.
Instead, I will just briefly note how nothing reminds you of how garbage the US healthcare system is than having to use it. Sitting in urgent care on Tuesday night, I was the only person with health insurance, and, even with health insurance, I was at urgent care, essentially an after-hours walk-in clinic, instead of emergency because our insurance covers more at urgent care than emergency.
Everyone sitting in the waiting room was talking about how they debated whether to go to urgent care or emergency, trying to balance the urgency of their distress against the potential costs of emergency care.
The people without insurance were having to provide proof of income, in order to qualify for the sliding scale subsidized healthcare offered by this clinic. Which is an amazing service, that nonetheless creates an administrative burden at a most inopportune moment.
Yesterday morning, I spent hours on the phone with my insurer, trying to figure out where I could go for tests that were in-network. They're not the places that the urgent care physician wanted me to go, because he's in a different network, so I don't know what will happen with the follow-up. It's a maze of bureaucratic bullshit, which we are required to navigate during illness in order to to try to maximize corporate profits while simultaneously minimizing our financial exposure, so we don't go bankrupt just trying to access the care we've ostensibly paid them to provide.
And that's if we're fortunate enough to have health insurance in the first place.
This is not the best healthcare system in the world. And as long as patients, healthcare providers, and insurers are primarily preoccupied with cost, by necessity or design, it never will be.
(Although I am always appreciative of well-wishing, there is no need at all to feel obliged; I just wanted to post something informational for the Shakers who tend to worry when I deviate from my routine.)
Tuna Time
In yesterday's OMG TUNA WATER! thread, Shaker itchbay casually noted that her tuna salad recipe includes relish, which made me think: "Relish?! In tuna salad?!" and then think, "Hmm. I bet a lot of people put relish in tuna salad." and then think, "I bet there's a lot of variation in tuna salad recipes by region and class and family tradition." and then think, "The diversity of tuna salad recipes is a weirdly fascinating sociological subject," and then think, naturally, "I should totes do a thread on tuna salad recipes," because: A. Interesting! and B. Yum!
So, Shakers Who Eat and/or Make Tuna Salad: What's your recipe?
Let Me Tell You A Story
[Content Note: sexual assault]
About an hour ago (from when I'm writing this) Todd Akin tweeted:
The media is against us. The Washington elites are against us. The party bosses are against us.It is kinda bizarro world for Akin, isn't it? He said something completely within his party lines and the party turns on him with blatant disingenuous horseshit all wrapped up in a craven PR move. I could never remotely feel pity for him but I can bet he thinks it's nothing short of surreal.
A lot feels surreal these days. How we have this media circus over terms like "legitimate rape" coming seriously out of the faces of major political people. I'd like to say we're having a serious national discussion (versus a media circus) but I really don't think that's the case. Perhaps I'm just cynical.
Here is a very short story. It took place a very long time ago, so long the years start being measured in big chunks of time and not individual years. It could be longer and more detailed. Cruel details that make it even more incomprehensible. They're important, personally, but not in this telling necessarily.
This is the conversation that happened. After.
Me: "Didn't you hear me say no?" (multiple times, I add in my head)
Him: "Yeah. But I thought I could change your mind." Shrug. Indifference.
Shrug.
Indifference.
That's rather what all this, this rape culture, feels like sometimes. That moment of seeing, of hearing...nothing. Of Shrug. Indifference. Politicians blathering on about "legitimate", "honest", "forcible" rape--and the people who vote and support them. Comedians saying audience members who heckle should be gang raped--and the people come out of the woodwork to defend them. Comic writers who exploit rape. People who use rape threats as a weapon to silence those they don't like. And so on.
Shrug.
Indifference.
Fuck you.
So Many Perfect Dogs
Would you like to read a nice story about a greyhound? Here is a nice story about a greyhound.
Which is a really a story about perfect dogs.
Which is really a story about loving guardians.
[H/T to Shaker Sharon.]
Quote of the Day
"What do women want? The conventional biological wisdom is that men select mates for fertility, while women select for status—thus the commonness of younger women's pairing with well-established older men but the rarity of the converse. ... From an evolutionary point of view, Mitt Romney should get 100 percent of the female vote. All of it."—Kevin D. Williamson, who is not writing for The Onion, but instead one of the premiere outlets of conservative thought [sic], The National Review.
The entire piece, "Like a Boss," is truly a thing to behold. In the way that, say, the Montauk Monster was a thing to behold—curiously, skeptically, and from a distance, so as not to get a whiff of rot.
Daily Dose of Cute
It is well documented that Dudley Q. McEwan is the Commandant of Contortionism, but even given his reputation, this pretzely position into which he twisted himself next to me Monday night was a rather magnificent display of whatthefawkward:
Immediately after I took this picture, he lifted his head and laid it on my leg, looking up at me with the goofiest smile I have ever seen. I did not take a picture of it, though, because I needed to immediately put my phone aside and snorgle him for one million years.
He is soooooo awkward and goofy and hilarious, and, then, moments later (or, the following evening, as the case may be), he will be the most graceful and regal thing on earth.
Dudley
Number of the Day
Zero: The percentage of support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney among African-American potential voters, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
"The numbers came from a statistically significant sample of more than 100 African-American voters out of 1,000 total voters in the poll," NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray told Lean Forward. "Given the sample size of these African-American respondents, the margin of error is well within the 95 percent-5 percent split with which Obama won this group in 2008. "Two things:
In other words, none of the roughly 110 black respondents to this poll said they would support Romney. The poll should not be taken to mean that Romney has no African American supporters at all. However, at the very most, he has far fewer than Obama.
1. As this has come up in comments before, that is not an unusually small sample size for national polling. The size of the poll beyond a minimum threshold matters less than the diversity of the poll. Meaning: If the poll did not reach a reasonable cross-section of potential voters, that would be problematic even if 100,000 people were polled. And, weirdly, it's often easier to get random diversity in a small-scale poll than a large-scale one.
2. It may be tempting for white progressives to laugh at the fact that Romney is polling at 0% among a significant US demographic, but, for real, that shit isn't funny. It's tragic. The Republican Party has made disenfranchising African-American voters, failing to serve African-American communities via their garbage policies, and using race and class (the latter inextricably tied to the former in the US) as a wedge issue to win elections, for decades.
That virtually all African-Americans feel, and rightly so, that voting Republican is not remotely an option for them means that, in a country already gridlocked and polarized and totally fucked by an entrenched two-party system that increasingly benefits no one but the One Percent and Big Business, African-Americans aren't even left with the shitty choice between two shitty parties, but the option to vote for the one party that is slightly less shitty or not voting at all.
Which, you know, is a similar position to that in which I find myself every election, based on the two parties' respective positions on reproductive rights. And I don't find that amusing.
I can't think of a more terrible result for people who had to fight for their right to vote than to be given no meaningful choice.
That we cannot exercise that hard-won right in ways that truly affirm our lives exposes the US democracy for the farce it really is.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by rage at for-profit health insurance companies.
Recommended Reading:
Deeky: Tweet of the Day [Content Note: Misogyny.]
Finaira: The Gamer Wife, Part 3
Tami: Four Reasons Buzzfeed's '34 Celebrities' Post Missed the Mark [Content Note: Racism; Othering.]
Andy: Paul Ryan Refuses to Revise His Position on Rape, Abortion
Helen: Who's Poor? Women.
Angry Asian Man: Bank of Canada Apologizes for $100 Bill Race Redesign [Content Note: Racism.]
GoddessWithin: Health at Every Size from a Massage Therapist's Perspective [Content Note: Discussion of fat bias.]
Fannie: Wut? [Content Note: Sexism; body policing; fat hatred; gender essentialism.]
Resistance: The Unbearable Whiteness of Being [Content Note: Racism.]
Mustang Bobby: Tropical Storm Isaac
Spooky: Woman Avoids Looking at Herself in Mirrors for a Year to Boost Self-Esteem [Content Note: There are some problems with the way this piece is written, e.g. generalizations about women, but it is a good summary of Kjerstin Gruys' year without mirrors.]
Lucas: Violence Makes It Harder to Sort the Good from the Hateful [Content Note: I'm recommending this because a lot of what Lucas has to say here is interesting, even though I personally wouldn't extend Dana Milbank an ounce of good faith; he used that up for me long ago.]
Also! There is SO MUCH good stuff at Flyover Feminism! And we are seeking submissions, as always. We want to hear from you. Please feel welcome to email me if you've got an idea on which you'd like feedback.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Racism; misogyny.]
Frank Deford for NPR: Serena Williams Takes Tennis for a Ride.
Jessica (scatx) sent this to me because she hates me. I MEAN LOVES ME! There is seriously so much wrong with it—EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH IT!—that I won't even try to deconstruct it all. I'll leave that to you in comments.
I will only say this: What I hate most about the piece is how Deford literally doesn't care a whit what Serena Williams means to millions and millions of girls and women. The adoration of millions and millions of girls and women is nothing compared to his singular contempt.
The expansive lack of mattering is simultaneously misogyny's greatest tool and most terrible consequence.
[Previous Deford: On the Olympics; On Ben Roethlisberger.]
Metaphor Watch
Yesterday, Paul Ryan said this:
[My opponents believe t]hat there's only so much money in America, it's fixed and that the job of the government is to redistribute the slices of the pie. That's not true. The job of government is to set the conditions for economic growth so we can grow the pie and everybody can get a bigger slice of the American pie. [Emphasis mine]That's wonderful. There's just one problem.
YOU CAN'T GROW PIE.
Obama wants to ensure the every American receives a sufficient amount of pie. Team Romney thinks we should pull pie out of
--
Ryan's opponent (at least, according to Ryan) thinks that there's a zero-sum element to the economics of Americans' lives. Apparently, Ryan disagrees with this position. Cool. Except that's not what Ryan implied. The whole "grow the pie" bit suggests that it's possible to increase everyone's share in a zero-sum game. We can't. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE PIE METAPHOR.
I understand what Ryan meant, but I also read what Ryan said. He accepted a premise while rejecting its implication. Either he's wrong or he's being dishonest.
The Latest Akin News
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
"Hi! I'm a d-bag!"
Here's the latest from the ongoing saga of Republican Congressman Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and his quest to become Missouri's Senator in spite of being thrown under the bus by his party who want to misrepresent his garbage rape apology as an aberration within the party to mask the grotesque reality of their extremist survivor-hostile anti-abortion agenda:
I dropped this into comments yesterday, but, in case you missed it—Bryan Fischer Says Todd Akin is Like a Victim of Rape: "After likening the backlash to Todd Akin's comments on 'legitimate rape' to the Pharisees' persecution of Jesus, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer is now comparing Akin to a victim of rape. After listing the growing chorus of conservative activists and media personalities who have called on Akin to quit the senate race, Fischer lamented that 'everybody is gang tackling Todd Akin.' 'You talk about a forcible situation, you talk about somebody being a victim of forcible assault, that would be Todd Akin,' Fischer maintained."
Other survivors of actual rape are obviously having a spectrum of responses to this onslaught of reprehensible horseshit, but, as for me, all I can do is laugh contemptuously at this point.
Igor Volsky at Think Progress—Akin Clarifies 'Legitimate Rape' Comments: Women Make 'False Claims' About Being Raped: "Arguing that he misplaced the word 'legitimate,' Akin explained, during a follow up interview with Dana Loesch, that he meant to argue that women sometimes lie about being raped. ... Since he first made the comments over the weekend, Akin claimed that he meant to say 'forcible,' rather than 'legitimate' rape."
Thank you, Rep. Akin, for plainly stating what we all knew anyway—that "forcible rape" was a euphemism for "real rape," i.e. the kind that bitches don't invent in their vindictive little ladybrains to ruin the lives of decent men.
Would that we lived in the fantasy world of men who believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that rape only exists in the imaginations of horrible women.
Taegan Goddard at Political Wire—Ryan Called Akin to Get Him to Drop Race: "Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) told NBC News that he received a call from vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan asking him to step down from the Missouri Senate race. Said Akin: 'He advised me that it would be good for me to step down. I told him that I was going to be looking at this very seriously, trying to weigh all the different points on this. It's not about me. It's about doing the right thing and standing on principle.'"
Principles like: Rape is rare, women are lying bitches, and forcing a person with a uterus to use hir body for nonconsensual sexual activity is terrible but forcing a person with a uterus to use hir body for nonconsensual pregnancy and childbirth is a moral imperative.
Meredith Shiner for Roll Call—Todd Akin Staying Put, as Top Missouri Republicans Tell Him to Exit: "Rep. Todd Akin said he is staying in the Missouri Senate race despite the national firestorm sparked by his controversial comments about rape and calls from the Republican Party establishment in his own state for him to step aside."
Lisa Mascaro and Kim Geiger for the LA Times—Todd Akin Touts Support from Crusader Who Espoused Theories on Rape: "Missouri Republican Todd Akin's troubled Senate campaign blasted out a letter of support Tuesday from the antiabortion crusader who promoted the theory that victims of rape do not usually become pregnant. Akin's decision to release the letter from Dr. Jack Willke, founder of the International Right to Life Federation, sends a mixed message from the GOP congressman, who has apologized repeatedly for having said 'legitimate rape' rarely leads to pregnancy." A mixed message! LOL! How very polite!
And in related news: The editors of the New York Times opine on What the GOP Platform Represents: "The Republican Party has moved so far to the right that the extreme is now the mainstream. The mean-spirited and intolerant platform represents the face of Republican politics in 2012. And unless he makes changes, it is the current face of the shape-shifting Mitt Romney. The [draft of the Republican platform circulating ahead of the convention in Tampa, Florida] is more aggressive in its opposition to women's reproductive rights and to gay rights than any in memory."
Gross. The Republican Party is just so. fucking. gross.
I am not surprised by their ever more cavernous lack of decency, but I am certainly appalled.
Top Five
It was the best of Top Fives; it was the worst of Top Fives...
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Opening Lines to Novels. 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.
Question of the Day
Who is your least favorite sitting US congressperson?
In case you need some help getting started, I'll remind you that Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, Steve King, Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence, and John Boehner all currently sit in the US House of Representatives.
