Ben E. King: "Stand by Me."
Random Nerd Nostalgia: The Vault of Evil
[Image description: An older white man with white hair and a prominent white moustache is screaming in terror, with one foot sticking out of the brass bed he is in, and his hands raised in the air. Basically it is a full-body scream...beacause a GINORMOUS disembodied head floats above him, giving him the stink eye. A small cat in the foreground appears to be screaming too. It's a scream! The tagline is "No man escapes alive from the Vault of Evil!" the story is titled "The Face that Follows!"]
Scanned from Vault of Evil, August 1973.
Quote of the Day
"President Bush was president for eight years—Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. He had two Supreme Court choice picks—Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. It's not going to be reversed."—Former Republican Senator and Team Romney campaign surrogate Norm Coleman, assuring attendees at a Republican Jewish Coalition town-hall meeting that Roe v. Wade would not be overturned under a Romney presidency.
Text Onscreen: Former Senator Norm Coleman, Republican Jewish Coalition Town Hall, Beachwood, Ohio, October 29, 2012.This might come as news to Mitt Romney, who has previously said that "overturning Roe is a personal goal."
Coleman: First of all, uh, for those who can't decide, what's important right now? What's gonna impact you right now? The reality is, is, uh, choice is an issue, uh, for a lot of people an important issue, uh— President Bush was president for eight years—Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. He had two Supreme Court choice picks—Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. [shrugs] It's not going to be reversed. We have fights over the edges on that—parental notification, uh, partial birth abortion, etc.
"My view is that the Supreme Court should reverse Roe v. Wade and send back to the states the responsibility for deciding whether it's legal or not," Romney said at a candidate forum hosted by Mike Huckabee last year. On his campaign website, Romney calls Roe v. Wade "a case of blatant judicial activism." In September, Romney promised to appoint justices "that will follow the law and the Constitution" when asked about Roe.Then again, Mitt Romney also once said he supported a pregnant person's right of agency and personal choice, so, y'know, maybe ol' Norm just didn't get the latest memo dispatched from the Magic 8-Ball that determines Romney's policy on the daily.
Storm Sandy Open Thread
Image of sea water flooding the construction site at Ground Zero in NYC. Via John Minchillo, AP.
Sandy is wreaking havoc all along the eastern seaboard and moving inland. There have been at least 16 deaths in the US attributed to the storm, in addition to more than 60 deaths in the Caribbean, and more than 7 million people in the US are now without power.
Late last night, in New York City alone, 911 emergency services were averaging 20,000 calls an hour. Federal relief has been dispatched to try to restore power as quickly as possible.
Below, some of what I've been reading this morning. Please feel welcome and encouraged to share links, resources, and news in comments.
New York Times—Northeast Awakes to Huge Damage in Storm's Path; Millions Without Power:
Power remained out for roughly six million people, including a large swath of Manhattan. Early risers stepped out into debris-littered streets that remained mostly deserted as residents awaited dawn to shed light on the extent of the damage. Bridges remained closed, and seven subway tunnels under the East River remained flooded.The Hill—Republican New Jersey Governor Christie Praises Obama Response to Hurricane Sandy as 'Outstanding':
A wind-tossed construction crane atop one of the tallest buildings in the city still dangled 80 stories over West 57th Street, across the street from Carnegie Hall, after coming loose during the storm.
The storm was the most destructive in the 108-year history of New York City's subway system, said Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in an early morning statement. "We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery," he said, but did not provide a timetable for restoring transit service to a paralyzed city.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey called the damage to his state "incalculable" and said the Jersey Shore had been "devastated."
... Hurricane-force winds extended up to 175 miles from the center of the storm; tropical-storm-force winds spread out 485 miles from the center. Forecasters said tropical-storm-force winds could stretch all the way north to Canada and all the way west to the Great Lakes. Heavy snow was expected in some states.
Businesses and schools were closed, roads were closed, and more than 13,000 airline flights were canceled. Even the Erie Canal was shut down.
"The federal government's response has been great. I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the president, personally, he has expedited the designation of New Jersey as a major disaster area," said Christie, in an interview with NBC's "Today."It's good to know that the administration is being so responsive and everything is going as well as can be so far. We have a long way to go, and I hope relief and response continue to be as good as possible for the millions of people affected.
"Last night, I was on the phone with FEMA at 2 a.m. this morning to answer the questions they needed answered to get that designation and the president has been outstanding in this. The folks at FEMA, [Administrator] Craig Fugate and his folks have been excellent," he continued.
In a separate interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Christie added to the praise, saying that "the president has been all over this and deserves great credit."
CNN: Obama Updated on Sandy Through the Night.
New York Times Editors: A Big Storm Requires Big Government.
Aviva Shen at Think Progress: GOP Strategist Defends Romney's Plan to Dismantle FEMA.
Nate Silver in the NYT: Impact of Hurricane Sandy on Election Is Uncertain.
Jonathan Watts in the Guardian: Caribbean Nations Count Cost of Hurricane Sandy.
Kim Geiger in the LA Times: Storm Hits Maryland with Everything—Waves, Wind, Snow.
Steve Kilar in the Baltimore Sun: Power Outages Across Maryland Reach Nearly 300,000.
Michael Winter in USA Today: Mid-Atlantic Mountains Brace for Sandy Snowstorm.
The Leader-Telegram: Superstorm Sandy Impacts Midwest.
Brad Plumer in the WaPo: Yes, Hurricane Sandy Is a Good Reason to Worry About Climate Change.
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Services Provided by Your Government. 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
Suggested by Shaker Laurel_Cz: "What popular song would you really enjoy if only the lyrics were different? For example, I would love Bruno Mars' 'Grenade' if it wasn't for the horrible message he chose to make it about, but the tune itself I find great."
Quote of the Day
"It's a distraction. The entire war on women trope, and I think professional, educated women find it offensive."—Prominent conservative thinker [sic] George Will, explaining how women (but only the "professional, educated" ones) feel about the war on agency.
Will stated on ABC's This Week that "professional women with college degrees" resent the "condescension of the Obama campaign, which says" to women: "don't you trouble your pretty little heads about these men's issues like unemployment and all the rest, worry about contraception, which has been a constitutional right for 47 years." Will continued: "It's a distraction. The entire war on women trope, and I think professional, educated women find it offensive."In case you missed that, it's not the actual war on agency that women find offensive; it's the (according to Will) imaginary narrative about a war on agency invented by the Obama administration that women find offensive.
Sure.
Photos of the Day
Grand Central Terminal closed early on October 28, 2012 in advance of Hurricane Sandy. This photo shows the largely empty Terminal after the last trains had departed. Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Aaron Donovan
The Battery Tunnel (now the Hugh L. Cary Tunnel; formerly the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel) officially closed at 2pm today. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins
MTA New York City Transit makes preparations for Hurricane Sandy by evacuating trains from the Stillwell Trainyard. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins[Photos from the MTA Flickr feed.]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by business cards.
Recommended Reading:
FMF News: President Obama Endorses Marriage Equality on the Ballot
Nikole: Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law
Darron: Letter to Mitt Romney about Racism in the Mormon Church: From a Black Mormon Man
Nia: Is Obama Taking the Latino Vote for Granted? And Should We Vote for Him Anyway?
Analena: Can I Live? [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of life at the intersection of racism and misogyny in a toxic culture.]
Aaron: America Dads: Louis CK and Barack Obama [Content Note: The post at this link includes examination of gender essentialism; misogyny; policing women and children under the guise of protection.]
Julianne: How Did I Wind Up with a Pit Bull?
Kath: How NOT to Market to Fat Customers
Susana: Amazing Dad and Daughter Costume: Power Loader and Baby Ripley
And a follow-up to a piece linked in Friday's blogaround: Message from Eng Yang.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Two Facts
[Content Note: Violence; terrorism; racism; misogyny.]
As you may recall, in August of this year there was a shooting at the Family Research Council's D.C. offices, in which a security guard was injured but survived. Last week, as briefly noted here, the suspect in the shooting, Floyd Lee Corkins II, who was taken into custody at the scene has been indicted on a terrorism charge.
Here are two interesting facts:
1. The Family Research Council is a conservative, anti-gay organization which has been identified as a hate group by the SPLC.
2. Floyd Corkins is a person of color. I don't know how he personally identifies, but he was described in early reports on the day of the shooting as a "black male."
Here is a variation on those facts:
1. The Family Research Council is not an abortion clinic.
2. Floyd Corkins is not a white man.
Discuss.
[Note: In case it isn't evident, I am not making an argument for less scrutiny in this case. I am making an argument for more scrutiny when the targets of terroristic acts are pro-choice women and they are committed by white men.]
In The News
[Content note: homophobia]
News, Etc.:
Reminder: Romney wants to defund FEMA. Because morality.
Here's a picture of Joe Biden looking at Wisconsin cheese.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion.
Obviously: Christian preacher blames gays for Hurricane Sandy.
The NYPD is offering $22,000 reward for information about the attack on LGBT activist Lou Rispoli, who died after being attacked last week.
The fight for marriage equality is in a statistical dead heat in Minnesota
Attention bargain hunters: 25% off all glow-in-the-dark dildos.
Steve Jobs' new yacht was designed by Philippe Starck. Also, I thought Steve Jobs died.
British acting legends Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi will star as a gay couple in a new sitcom.
The Death Star makes everything cooler, even a dog's Cone of Shame.
Watch this: Frankenstein, written and directed by J. Searle Dawley, Edison Studios, 1910.
Keep safe, everyone!
The Walking Thread
I think Michonne's expression speaks for all of us.
(Spoilers lurch undeadly herein.)
Hey! Speaking of spoilers, one of the things I love (DO NOT LOVE) about The Walking Dead is how their "Previously on this garbage show" montage at the beginning of every episode contains massive spoilers. Like, for instance, how this week they showed that "previously" there was a character called Merle who escaped by cutting his hand off. HA HA PERFECT! That really enhanced the surprise of Merle returning with an ungraded zombie-killing arm, didn't you think?! Knowing it was coming made it so much MORE special.
I know the idea is to help out the viewers who came into this shitfest after episode three or whatever, but COME ON! Maybe let the stragglers Google who the fuck Merle is after the episode! Maybe provide a helpful URL onscreen to the Walking Dead Wiki! Jesus Jones! Leave it to this show to punish you for being a regular viewer!
Y'know—just in case actually watching the show wasn't already punishment enough.
ANYWAY!
Michonne's armless and jawless pack-zombies were really creeping me out, so good riddance to them. That was the best part of the episode. Which was another snoozer of an episode from the writers who brought us Season 2: Interminable Zombie Farm.
This should have been an exciting episode because NEW CHARACTERS! Plus Merle. The problem is that the new characters are just Grimes Gang 2.0. I mean, the writers are either totally taking the piss or they're even lazier and less creative than I even imagined, because Grimes Gang 2.0 had a sneering patriarch, a hillbilly (who is the actual brother of Grimes Gang 1.0's hillbilly!), a black guy, an Asian guy, a churchy brunette white girl, a doctor... Good lord.
The only way to tell these Grimes Gangs apart is that Grimes Gang 2.0 has a low-rent Michael Emerson running around being sycophantic and nerdy.
The leader of Grimes Gang 2.0, Governor Niam Leeson, runs a tight Truman Show and is, for the record, not a man who sits pretty. Don't even think that he is. Like Grimes 1.0, he has lots of GREAT IDEAS. For instance: Murdering a bunch of friendly, unzombified army dudes for their food and weapon reserves, because trained military men would totally not be useful in defending Dystopiaberg from the zombie horde.
Oh! Another way to tell these two gangs apart is that Governor Niam Leeson has an aquarium display full of zombie heads. It's pretty cool, I guess. (IT IS NOT COOL.) The ZOMG MUSIC! during the reveal suggested that I was supposed to be HORRIFIED, but I was not horrified. I was thinking, "Where is this cool man-cave with the leather club chair and neat zombiequarium display? Is it on the set of a 90s serial killer thriller starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman? BECAUSE IT SURE LOOKS LIKE IT."
Ugh this show.
Discuss.
Daily Dose of Cute
Here's the thing about Matilda: She is the most irascible, grumpy, harrumphy cat ever, but also the sweetest, cuddliest, purringest cat ever. So she gets easily annoyed, but also has this endless capacity to indulge us when we annoy her.
Last night, Iain wrapped her up in his favorite fleece blanket, and she sat there looking totally pissy about it, while also purring up a storm and happily chirping at me while I took her picture and scratched her head.
It was just loosely draped around her, and she could have scurried away at any time. (We never, ever, hold any of the animals against their will.) But that's Tilsy—officially contemptuous of any interaction she does not initiate, but unofficially LOVING IT.
She sat there all swaddled up and looking ashamed of herself for enjoying such an undignified display until Zelly hopped up on the couch onto the "blanket," and Tilsy harumphed and hissed and gave me this look as if to say, "See? This is why I don't approve of tomfoolery!" before she settled down again approximately two inches to the left.
Top Five
Here is your topic, suggested by Shaker Diverkat: Top Five Favorite Historical Figures. 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.
The Password Is: Consent
[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual violence; reproductive rights.]
The brilliant Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry uses her influential platform to make the observation that anti-choice legislating is hostile to consent, just like sexual violence is.
All the cheers. All of them.
This is, of course, something about which I've been writing for years, again and again noting that I am hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man who sits at a big mahogany desk in Washington making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of a man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.
I lament that the point has to be made. I am thrilled to see MHP use her show to make it.
Joss Whedon for Mitt Romney (lulz)
Joss Whedon, writer and filmmaker, a white, middle-aged man, stands in his kitchen, speaking to the camera, while doing little kitchen tasks.[H/T to Shaker Elky.]
You know, like a lot of liberal Americans, I was excited when Barack Obama took office four years ago, but it's a very different world now—and Mitt Romney is a very different candidate: One with the vision and determination to cut through business-as-usual politics, and finally put this country back on the path to the zombie apocalypse.
Romney is ready to make the deep rollbacks in healthcare, education, social services, reproductive rights, that will guarantee poverty, unemployment, overpopulation, disease, rioting—all crucial elements in creating a nightmare zombie wasteland.
But it's his commitment to ungoverned, corporate privilege that will nosedive this economy into true insolvency and chaos—the kind of chaos you can't buy back. Money is only so much paper to the undead.
The one percent will no longer be the very rich; it'll be the very fast. Anyone who can run, fight, make explosives out of household objects, or especially do parkour of any kind—you'll wanna stick with them. Unless they read Ayn Rand.
Look, I don't pretend to see the future. No one knows for sure if they'll be the superfast 28 Days Later zombies, or the old-school shambling kind. But they'll be out there. And they'll need brains.
So, whether you're a small business man just trying to keep his doors open, a single mom so concerned for her son's welfare that she'll run to embrace him when he's clearly infected and going to bite her, or a strung-out ex-military type who's been out there too long and is taking the kind of damn fool chances that'll get us all killed, you need to ask yourself: Am I ready?
Am I ready for the purity and courage of Mitt Romney's apocalyptic vision? Mitt's ready. He's not afraid to face a ravenous, grasping horde of sub-humans—'cause that's how he sees poor people already.
Let's all embrace the future, stop pretending we care about each other, and start hoarding canned goods. Because if Mitt takes office, sooner or later, the Zomneys will come for all of us.
Image of Mitt Romney as a zombie on a campaign poster-like graphic, with "Zomney" done in the style of the Romney logo, followed by the slogan "He needs brains." A voiceover says: "Paid for by the committee to learn parkour, like really soon, like maybe take a class or something."
[back to Whedon in his kitchen, looking into a cabinet full of canned goods] Mmm, Spam has its own key.
Storm Sandy Open Thread
States of emergency have been declared all along the East Coast of the US, and a number of eastern seaboard towns are urging residents to evacuate on a voluntary basis, warning that rescue may be be later impeded by the storm if they wait to leave.
My cousins and friends in the New York/New Jersey area are telling me the weather's getting pretty wild, and Deeky reports that Baltimore is battening down the hatches, too. His major was on CNN earlier, and she was all President Obama's been AWESOME helping us prepare. (Subtext: Fuck you, Bush!) Meanwhile, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell begrudgingly admitted on MSNBC a few minutes later that the President had personally been in contact with all the governors of affected states, and noted that this is not a partisan issue before reminding everyone he endorses Romney.
Anyway. I hope everyone is safe and that the storm never gets as bad as feared.
Please use this thread to share resources, report on the weather, suggest ways to prepare or help, etc.
