Shakesville

To: Mitt From: George Washington Re: Single Parents

In last night's debate, in answer to a question about preventing deaths from gun violence, Mitt claimed that encouraging marriage would answer this problem, because apparently children who do not live with married heterosexual parents are the source of this violence. Also, they are not fully in "the American system." As Mitt put it:

"...if there’s a two-parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will — will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity and bring them in the American system."

A brief response:

[Image description: George Washington meme image with the caption "Dear Mitt, STFU.")

Signed, George Washington, whose mother, Mary Ball Washington, was widowed at when he was 11. She never re-married.

Co-signed, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, each of whom spent at least a portion of his minority as the child of a single parent.

Presumably, they count as people who were in "the American system," since each also became a freaking president.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Simple Minds: "All The Things She Said"

Photos of the Day

My favorite images from the second presidential debate:

Obama stands in the foreground, calmly answering a question, while Romney screams in the background

Obama stands in the foreground, calmly answering a question, while Romney screams in the background

an image of the two candidates' hands, pointing at each other

Romney scowls mightily in the foreground, while President Obama grins all chillaxed in the background

The Post-Debate Thread

image from last night's debate showing

"Okay, player."—The Expression on President Obama's Face.
Well, a certain president decided to show up to the debate last night. (Nice to see you again, sir!) And it was pretty awesome. The full debate transcript is available here.

With the usual caveats about there being no perfect candidate, and any candidate for the US presidency being more militaristic than with which I'll ever be remotely comfortable, I thought President Obama hit a lot of fine notes last night.

And Mitt Romney was an even bigger garbage disaster than usual.

Interestingly, the President's best two moments and Romney's worst two moments were around the same two issues: Libya and women.

After an audience member asked a question about the Sept. 11 attack in Libya, Obama stole Romney's promised thunder by holding himself accountable (a bit of integrity a Republican could never see coming): "When I say that we are going to find out exactly what happened, everybody will be held accountable, and I am ultimately responsible for what's taking place there, because these are my folks, and I'm the one who has to greet those coffins when they come home, you know that I mean what I say."

Romney was left with petulantly accusing the President and his administration of deliberately obfuscating what happened and went on a long rant about how the response to the Libya attack "calls into question the President's whole policy in the Middle East."

Moderator Candy Crowley then asked the President: "Does the buck stop with your Secretary of State as far as what went on here?" What happened next was an extraordinary moment.

President Obama: Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job, but she works for me. I'm the President, and I'm always responsible. And that's why nobody is more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I do. The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror, and I also said that we're going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families. And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team, would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive. That's not what we do. That's not what I do as President; that's not what I do as Commander-in-Chief.

Candy Crowly: Governor, if you want to reply quickly to this please.

Mitt Romney: Yeah, I think it's interesting the President just said something which is that on the day after the attack he went to the Rose Garden and said this was an act of terror.

Obama: That's what I said.

Romney: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an attack of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration?

Obama: Please proceed.

Romney: Is that what you're saying?

Obama: Please proceed, Governor.

Romney: I want to make sure we get that for the record. Because it took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an attack of terror.

Obama: Get the transcript.

Crowley: He did, in fact, sir. Let me—he did call it an act of terror.

Obama: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? [applause]

Crowley: He did use the word. did call it an act of terror.

Mitt Romney: Offensive and Wrong. FOR AMERICA.

The other amazing (for Obama) and terrible (for Romney) moment came after an audience member asked about pay equality for women: "In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?"

Top Five

Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Words, 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.

Open Thread

Hosted by a hedgehog nail brush.

Presidential Debate Open Thread

photographed image to play off a boxing promotional poster, with President Obama's smiling face and Mitt Romney's scowling face in the background with a US flag, and text reading: 'GOOD GRIEF 2012: OBAMA VS. ROMNEY | Round Two'

I hope you appreciate my FAIR AND BALANCED images of the candidates!

Here we go!

Tweet of the Day

Great footnote: CNN reports Romney practicing sitting on a bar stool -- never been there.How many of us have THAT problem?.#cnndebate
— David Gergen (@David_Gergen) October 16, 2012

Good grief.

[H/T to Jessica. Note: I changed the label on this post to make it specifically about Mitt Rommey never having sat on a stool, because the original way it was written "...how has anyone never sat on a bar stool" was ableist. My sincerest apologies to everyone who felt hurt and/or alienated by the original label.]

Question of the Day

What is one positive action you've taken in your life recently?

"Recently" can mean whatever you define to be: The past few weeks, the past year, the past couple of years. And the "positive action" can be as big or small as you decide: Treating yourself to a new pair of shoes, starting to read body acceptance blogs, starting a new job in a new city.

Sure

[Content Note: Sexism; racism.]

Possibly feeling they've exhausted race-baiting strategies a few weeks before the election, the Romney campaign is now pulling the old "Democrats are so weak they're practically women!" gambit: "Adviser says Romney will ask Obama to 'man up' on Libya attack at debate."

Former Ambassador Richard Williamson, a top foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said Tuesday that the Republican nominee would call on President Obama to "man up" and "accept his responsibility" for the terrorist attack on the American diplomatic mission in Libya.

In an interview with Fox News, Williamson, who served as ambassador to the U.N. for special political affairs, said that despite a town-hall debate format that involves more of an interaction with undecided voters than a back-and-forth between the candidates, he believed Romney could question "why we can't get transparency" about the attacks.

"They have a right to know, to make judgments about his stewardship as president and I think Gov. Romney, quite properly, will be asking questions, probing," Williamson said.

He added that Romney would try "to ask the president to man up, accept his responsibility and explain to the people the failure that resulted in four American deaths."

Actually, upon consideration, I suppose the picture of a white dude barking at the African American president to "man up and accept his responsibility" will be a pretty effective appeal to racists, too.

Gross.

Pre-Debate Thread

image of Romney and Obama greeting each other before the first debate; they are both smiling; I have added text indicating Romney is saying 'Ha ha ha I hate you' and Obama is saying 'Ha ha ha I hate you more.'

There will be an Open Thread for the debate tonight, but in advance of tonight's HOT DEBATE ACTION, I want to share some resources and thoughts...

You will be able to access livestreaming debate coverage online at barackobama.com/debate. The debate will also air in the US and parts of Canada on C-SPAN and the major television networks.

As always, I'll be on Twitter, too: @shakestweetz.

Please feel welcome and encouraged to recommend your own or other Twitter feeds, and additional resources, that will be covering, discussing, or providing analysis of the debate.

* * *

Tonight is the second of three debates, and it will be a town-hall style debate, the moderator of which was apparently hired to be a piece of furniture. In case you're not familiar with town-hall style debates, they're sort of like the regular debates, except even stupider.

Ostensibly, town-hall style debates are meant to allow "regular people" to ask questions of the candidates, but, despite the occasional absurd claim to the contrary, they are not spontaneous questions posed by average voters, but instead carefully orchestrated questions filtered through gatekeepers and asked by vetted queriers and/or via selected and edited pre-recorded video.

So, the illusion of democracy, controlled by two parties who are virtually indistinguishable on many major issues, including the issue of not wanting to be meaningfully accountable to voters or allow multiple-party access. In other words: A perfect metaphor for the entire election.

The AP has a great (ha ha) list of Five Things to Watch for in Tonight's Presidential Debate. When you're done reading that (ha ha), here are my Five Things to Watch for in Tonight's Presidential Debate:

1. Mitt Romney will tell some lies.

2. Mitt Romney will tell some more lies.

3. Mitt Romney will tell additional lies.

4. Mitt Romney will tell a few extra lies for good measure.

5. President Obama will either successfully or unsuccessfully refute those lies and/or make viewers reasonably aware that Mitt Romney is lying, or fail to do that.

If President Obama says during tonight's debate, "To quote my friend Joe Biden, this is just a bunch of malarkey," I will make a contribution to the Obama campaign just on principle.

I have some other ideas about some things President Obama could talk about tonight! I HOPE HE DOES! PLEASE, MR. PRESIDENT, I AM BEGGING YOU!

As always, I'll close this thread once the Open Thread is posted later tonight. In the meantime: Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Discussion Thread: How is your life lovely?

Following up on yesterday's discussion thread, about how our lives are imperfect, I thought we might today share some of the ways in which our lives are lovely—that is, some of the ways that our lives make us happy and for which we are grateful, even (and maybe especially) if those things don't conform to common narratives about what should make us content, or what well-lived lives are supposed to look like.

Some of these things for which we are appreciative, about which we are joyful, may be evidence of privilege (or relative privilege). Some of them may be ours in spite of a lack of privilege. Which is which may not be apparent. I ask that we refrain from judging one another, and we engage in this thread with a spirit of gratitude that includes acknowledgement there are others with more, and others with less, and honoring the good things in our own lives is not undertaken at anyone else's expense.

Whoooooops Your "Scientific" Sexism!

[Content note: this entry contains discussion of gender essentialism, sexism, and mood disorders.]

Heya, you know all those ~~totally sweet~~ sexist jokes and discrimination and miscellaneous bullshit that gets lobbed at women on account of they go NUTS from PMS every month, amirite amirite? I know you do! Well, whooooops your "scientific" justification for that garbage!

So, of the published research, several large studies have found associations between various phases of the menstrual cycle and moods. But they vary as to which phase. And sometimes no relationship exists at all.
The review doesn't discount the organic nature of cyclic moods, but it does suggest that hormonal fluctuations related to the menstrual cycle aren't definitively or regularly to blame. And "when there is a menstrual cycle tie-up," Romans explains, "it's actually perimenstrual -- the premenstrual (3-5 days before menstruation) and the menstrual phases together -- not purely premenstrual."

Speaking as someone who deals with both depression and endometriosis, and who therefore has been known to track both my menstrual cycles and my moods fairly closely, I can definitely attest that the actual tracking has shown me (to my own surprise) that my moods have little, if anything, to do with my menstrual cycle and everything to do with exogenous stressors.

Other people are different, of course, and the study doesn't discount the experiences of people who DO experience menstrual-related mood disorders. But it suggests that the evidence certainly doesn't support the broad categorizations that are often made about women's moods and their menstrual cycles. Rather than stopping with "Oh, it's PMS," we should be asking wider questions about the suffering person's health, stress levels, support networks and the like. You know, take them seriously, and not just as a collection of unpredictable hormones! Makes sense to me.

And I kinda love Dr. Sarah Romans for calling it like it is:

"I think this can be seen as the modern day equivalent of the old wandering womb notion," she told me, "that women are hysterical because of their reproductive system....I go beyond that in my own thinking, which is that the whole PMS notion serves to keep women non-irritable, sweet, and compliant the rest of the time. There is a range of paradoxes -- world-turned-upside-down events -- like festivals, Mardi Gras, where people are socially prescribed to behave out of role. In Europe in medieval times there'd be one day a year where the lord would serve his own servants and workers, and then the rest of the time it's the other way, servant obeying the master. And these kinds of rituals serve to embed the normal behavior. I think PMS is a bit like that. 'We'll let you be cranky and bad-tempered now, but just for one or two days. The rest of the time you've got to be like a true woman.'

It's not PMS. It's Mardi Gras for Ladyfeelings!

[NB: Not all women have menstrual cycles. Not all people who have menstrual cycles are women.]

In The News

[Content note: homophobia]

News! For you!

Several paintings have been stolen from a museum in Rotterdam including at least one by Henri Matisse. Does Pierce Brosnan have an alibi?

Greek state television cut a gay kiss between the footman character Thomas and a visiting Duke on the British series Downtown Abbey.

Xbox Music debuts this week.

President Obama has received almost twice as many donations from the armed forces as Mitt Romney.

Do you want to listen to Diamond Rings new album a week early? Why wouldn't you?

I love this commercial for Encore Suspense's Halloween programming.

This is the worst email I will get today. From: Netflix. Subject: "For Wed: 2016: Obama's America."

Hot dogs! What's in them? Who knows! But they're convenient, so shut up and eat them!

Join forces to recreate a classic... The Empire Strikes Back: Uncut.

Did you know Hasbro sells a Words With Friends board game? Just FYI, this not Scrabble.

The Details of Mitt Romney's Tax Plan

At long last! All of the answers we've been waiting for! Just go here.

[H/T to everyone in the multiverse.]

Daily Dose of Cute

Did you know that October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month? It is! The ASPCA and PetFinder have some great ideas on how you can help shelter dogs this month, and of course I encourage anyone who's considering adopting a dog to consider a shelter or rescue dog. Even if you need a specific breed for allergies or some other reason, there are breed-dedicated rescues all over the place now, and, with a little extra time and effort, you can literally save the life of a dog.

Zelda, who has now been a part of our family for almost a year and a half, was on the fast-track to being put down when we found her at a high-kill facility in July 2011: She was a stray at a shelter with no known background (including whether she was fixed or even housebroken), a black dog, an adult dog, a mixed breed, and totally untrained on a leash. Five strikes. Five reasons that everyone else at the shelter that day was writing her off. They passed her cage like she wasn't even there.

But Zelda was worth seeing. She was worth saving. I can't even imagine my life without this clever, loving, Dorito-eared fuzzball who fills our home with infectious joy.

image of Zelda the Black-and-Tan Mutt lying in the grass, grinning broadly

image of Zelda lying on the floor with a rope toy, grinning

image of Zelda standing in the living room, grinning

image of Zelda's face too close to the camera to see it all, but one can still tell that she's grinning

image of Zelda looking into the camera and grinning

♥ Zelda ♥
[Some related reading: Zelda; Rescue in the Truest Sense of the Word; Mutual Rescue; Zelda's Anniversary.]

Quote of the Day

"I take responsibility. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. ... I take this very personally. So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we're going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice. ... What I want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game. I know that we're very close to an election. I want to just take a step back here and say from my own experience, we are at our best as Americans when we pull together."—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, taking responsibility for the attack on a US diplomatic mission in Libya on September 11, during which Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department computer expert Sean Smith, and security contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed.

And how did Republicans react to Secretary Clinton's being accountable and asking that the cynical political gaming about this incident, long before the investigation into what happened has been completed, be set the fuck aside for a minute?

Her remarks drew a quick response from three Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including ranking member John McCain.

Clinton's statement of responsibility was "a laudable gesture, especially when the White House is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever," the Arizona senator said in a joint broadside with Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. However, they added, "The security of Americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the commander-in-chief. The buck stops there."

But naturally only when a Democratic President is in office. I don't remember a lot of bucks stopping at the desk of George W. Bush.

And I sure as shit don't recall his Secretaries of State taking responsibility for anything, either.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Lou Bega: "Mambo No. 5"

Photo of the Day

image of GOP veep nominee Paul Ryan washing an already-clean pot at a soup kitchen

This is an AP photo of Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (his wife Janna is in the background) washing a clean pot at a soup kitchen for a photo op, after the campaign barged their way into the faith-based but apolitical non-profit, risking their donation stream. Sounds about right.

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

"We're a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations," Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. "It's strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors."

...Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned.

Upon entering the soup kitchen, Ryan, his wife and three young children greeted and thanked several volunteers, then donned white aprons and offered to clean some dishes. Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.

...Antal, a self-described independent voter, said that he "can't fault my volunteers" for letting the campaign in but said that the campaign "didn't go through the proper channels."

He noted that the soup kitchen relies on funding from private individuals who might reconsider their support if it appears that the charity is favoring one political candidate over another.

"I can't afford to lose funding from these private individuals," he said.

Antal said Ryan's impromptu visit, which, according to the Romney campaign, "had been intended to highlight the work of the soup kitchen volunteers," had caused him "all kinds of grief."

Way to go, Team Romney.

I'm not sure I can think of a more perfect metaphor for their campaign: Breaking the rules to stage a total lie that purports to care about people in need but actually makes life harder for them.

Top Five

Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Guitarists. 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.