"Voters have figured out that President Obama has no message, no agenda and not even much of an explanation for what he has done over the past four years. His campaign is based entirely on persuading people that Mitt Romney is a uniquely bad man, entirely dedicated to the rich, ignorant of the problems of the average person. As long as he could run his negative ads, the campaign at least kept voters away from the Romney bandwagon. But once we all met Mitt Romney for three 90-minute debates, we got to know him—and to like him. He was not the monster Obama depicted, but a reasonable person for whom we could vote."—Dick Morris, in an opinion piece titled "Here Comes the Landslide."
And, as we all know, Dick Morris is never wrong, so.
[Note: Dick Morris is always wrong.]
Quote of the Day
Tater Time
Hey, remember when we did a thread in which we all shared our tuna salad recipes? Well, the last time I was at the grocery store, I noticed that the deli was selling not one, not two, not three, but FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS of potato salad. There was your classic mayonnaise and egg yolk potato salad, your mustard potato salad, your German potato salad, and your rustic redskin potato salad.
Because you're so smart, I bet you already see where this is going.
So, let's have it, Shakers Who Eat and/or Make Potato Salad: What's your recipe?
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda, chilling out in the garden, being happy as usual.
Zelda notices me. "OH HI!"
"LET US PLAY NOW, TWO-LEGS! YAY! I LOVE YOU! IT'S A DAY!"
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by wheels.
Recommended Reading:
Libby Anne: How I Lost Faith in the "Pro-Life" Movement
Jamila: Why Is Breast Cancer Killing So Many Black Women?
Christopher: Outrage in the Powerless Zone: A Dispatch from Downtown Manhattan
Donovan: Biden Says Transgender Discrimination 'Civil Rights Issue of our Time'
blackskeptics: How White America Prospers
Lori: Things I Didn't Know
Living ~400lbs: Reducing Heart Attacks
Avital: 5th Edition of the Feminist Odyssey Blog Carnival: Having It All
Angry Asian Man: This Dad and Daughter Are Going Back to the Future for Halloween
Mike: Halloween Treat: Dogs on Parade [video]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Storm Sandy Open Thread
Homes that are devastated by fire and the effects of Hurricane Sandy are seen at the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York October 30, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon StapletonThis morning, my cousin and her wife in New York got power back. My cousin-in-law posted on Facebook that they were captivated by the images they finally got to see on their television of the scope of the destruction. It's a phenomenon lots of east-coasters are experiencing as electricity slowly rolls back on: The realization of the vast devastation at which they were at the center, but from the extent of which they've been disconnected by virtue of little access to news, as even mobile usage is held in reserve, lest the batteries run out.
Lots of people are still without power (including the Space Cowpokes, who are in New Jersey). It is, of course, the most terrible thing ever to say, and makes me a terrible politicizer of the first order to say it, but parts of the New York electrical system are 100 years old. And we have spent the past decade nation-building halfway around the globe.
This makes me very angry. But that is all I will say about that.
Below, some of what I've been reading this morning. Please feel welcome and encouraged to share links, resources, and news in comments.
BBC: Storm Sandy: Eastern US Gets Back on Its Feet.
Angela Greiling Keane, Frederic Tomesco, and Alan Levin at Bloomberg: New York Subway System Faces Weeks to Recover From Storm.
Jamilah King at Colorlines: Who's Going to Fix NYC Subways After Hurricane Sandy? Public Workers.
Alexandra Sifferlin in Time: Lessons from Storm Sandy: When Hospital Generators Fail.
AP: Storm Sandy Brings Snow to North Carolina Mountains.
Julianne Hing at Colorlines: Maryland Readies for Hurricane Sandy's Impact on Early Voting.
Susan Cornwell and David Lawder for Reuters: Obama, FEMA Hustle Federal Disaster Relief to Sandy's Aftermath.
Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog: How Not to Politicize a Natural Disaster.
Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly: Mitt on Emergency Management: Status Quo Minus.
Benjy Sarlin at TPM: Politics Bleeds into Romney's Relief Event for Sandy Victims.
Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon: Mitt's Useless "Storm Relief"
Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed: Ryan 'Packs' Hurricane Relief Donations in During Wisconsin Photo-Op.
Adam Peck at Think Progress: GOP Congressman Warns of Hurricane Sandy Relief Aid Going Towards "Gucci Bags."
Deeks also has some updates In The News.
Random Nerd Nostalgia: The Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft
[Image Description: The title of the comic is "The Lurking Fear." A white man, with blonde hair and beard, in glasses and wearing jeans and a white t-shirt is digging with a shovel in what appears to be a graveyard. It is thundering and lightning. Behind him looms a large, hairy shape--is it a werewolf? IT IS SCARY, Y'ALL!.]
Happy Halloween!
In The News
[Content note: homophobia, misogyny, violence]
News and Everything:
The Romney campaign bought $5,000 worth of food for people to donate back to him at a phony hurricane rally in Ohio yesterday.
After two days of cancellations due to Hurricane Sandy, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley said early voting will resume today.
The Walking Dead's Prison storyline will not be introducing two gay characters featured in the graphic novel.
Likely Maryland voters are evenly divided on whether to make uphold marriage equality after opposition has grown in recent weeks.
Minnesota is about the same.
Related: The Supreme Court could decide next month whether whether to consider lawsuits challenging California's Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.
Pakistani police suspect two young boys are responsible for the attack on Malala Yousufzai.
Atlas Shrugged: Something Wicked This Way Shrugs plunged 85% on its third weekend out, and will likely disappear from theaters completely this weekend.
Now that Disney owns Lucasfilm, I hope they finally release The Star Wars Holiday Special.
Generally Speaking
Here is all the latest election news:
[Content Note: War/violence; misogyny; homophobia; rape culture.]
Mitt Romney is a terrible plutocrat who will literally do anything to win. Do you have a pile of shit that needs eaten? MITT ROMNEY WILL EAT THAT PILE OF SHIT FOR YOUR VOTE! He is definitely pro-scat devourment. Except when he's NOT! Which is sometimes. Like In Ohio, where they're not so fond of poop consumption. Buckeyes! They're so weird. Amirite?
HA HA JUST KIDDING. Mitt Romney won't actually do anything to win. Like, for instance, he will definitely not support policies that benefit the working- and underclasses! Eww gross! Keep them away!
But he will definitely be a terrible plutocrat with a jumbling mess of contradictory lies in the cavernous void where his principles should be!
YOU CAN COUNT ON THAT.
In other news, President Barack Obama is less terrible! He will still FOR SURE use drones to drop bombs on people on his omgthisisarealthing "kill list," and whoooooooooops anyone who happens to be strolling by at the time, but he probably won't invade Iran. So that's good news!
Ha ha that is the GOOD NEWS in this election! OMG THIS ELECTION!
Oh hey, here is more good news: President Obama will not pursue universal healthcare, BUT he won't roll back the health insurance reform that has insured more people. He will not doggedly pursue comprehensive reproductive rights for women, but he will absolutely say he supports them during the next mid-term election. He won't actively campaign on behalf of LGBTQI equality, but he won't propose remanding queer folk to Halliburton-brand detention centers, or whatever the fuck Mitt Romney's position is. And he won't nominate Supreme Court justices who are keen to overturn Roe, although they might FAIR WARNING rule that corporations are deities.
So, really, when you think about it, there's just a lot of good news all over the place. By which I mean suuuuuuuuuuper depressing news.
Which is not even really President Obama's fault! Because the US is a fearful, bloodthirsty, self-interested, bigoted, plutocratic empire that prioritizes building tanks we will never use over feeding hungry children. And when you think about it THAT WAY, he's actually doing pretty good, I guess.
Really the worst thing about every presidential election is not the two-party system (although that is terrible), nor the electoral college (which is garbage), nor voter turnout (the worst), nor voter suppression (so fucked up), nor the useless mainstream media (ugh), nor the influence of monied interests (horrendous), nor any of the other things that all conspire to make US elections a garbage nightmare, but is, in reality, the country itself, which is collectively very short on empathy.
Because empathy is what turns people into progressives, a key part of the Republican Establishment's cultivation of its hateful base has been the subversion of empathy. Othering is the foundation of hate-based scapegoating, and Othering can only happen in a void of empathy. Compassion is not merely out of fashion; its existence is an impediment to modern conservative politics.
That makes for colossally grim prospects for the survival of a democracy with any semblance of a functional social contract.
(Which, of course, is not a bug of modern conservatism but a feature.)
This shouldn't be such a close race. And we can make excuses about "low-information voters" and the terrible media and everything else, but, the truth is, it's a close race because this country is torn straight down its middle between people who want to be part of successful society and people who want to be individually empowered masters of the universe.
And it isn't that they don't know Mitt Romney will do anything to get elected: It's that they think it's awesome that he will. Ethics are bullshit when winning's on the line.
I despair about this divide. I despair about a country so polarized in fundamental decency that the President saying "Rape is rape" makes him look like a legit fucking superhero. I despair about the fact that so many people who might, in person, give you the shirts off their backs, will nonetheless go to the polls on Election Day and vote affirmatively for a candidate who would use any shirt you gave him to shine up the rims on the moonmobile in his gold-plated car elevator. And they'll feel good about that, because at least their shirt didn't go to some goddamned welfare queen. Sneer.
And I despair that, if Mitt Romney should win, it will validate his unprecedented campaign of deceit, hastening our race straight off the cliff into factless oblivion.
All of this is a long way of saying that, despite my profound disagreements with him, I hope President Obama wins reelection. And I hope if he does, he uses his second term not to inspire us to compromise for the sake of compromise, but empathy for the sake of progress.
And should the unthinkable happen, and Mitt Romney wins, I reiterate my heartfelt promise to you:
If Mitt Romney is elected, I will spend the next four years referring to him exclusively as Emperor Grodius Maximus.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 19, 2012
Maude Bless America.
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Things You Wish Your Government Did Better. 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 gravyrug: What movie that doesn't currently exist would you most like to see made?
Hold Onto Your Lightsabers, Nerdz!
George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm, which owns the Star Wars franchise, to Disney for $4 billion. And not only that: "Disney said it planned to release a new Star Wars film, episode seven, in 2015. That will be followed by episodes eight and nine and then one new movie every two or three years, the company said."
Mr Lucas said: "It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of film-makers."He added: "I've really ruined it as much as I can. Now it's time for someone else to put their own stamp of garbage ruination on it!"
I mean, he probably said that. Whatever.
* * *
Iain emailed this news to me under the subject line: "THRAWN. THRAWN. THRAWN. THRAWN. THRAWN. THRAWN. THRAWWWWNNNN!!!" And the entirety of his message was: "They had beter be using Thrawn or I will be PISSED, lol."
Admiral Thrawn, by the way, is a character from the Star Wars novels. He is terrible, and, in a lot of artists' renderings, basically looks like a blue Mitt Romney.
Here is Iain's favorite YouTube video about him. It currently has 3,223 views. Three thousand of those are probably Iain's.
Video Description: "A Romantic Tribute to Grand Admiral Thrawn." Pictures of Admiral Thrawn, set to "Deliver Me" by Sarah Brightman. Obviously.
Actual Headline
Michael Brown, ex-FEMA head, has advice, criticism for Obama about Hurricane Sandy.
That's so coincidental! Because I have some advice for Brownie, who is OBVIOUSLY still doing a heckuva job.
I Write Letters
Dear Spinach,
We haven't spoken in awhile, my how time flies, but I wanted to drop you another note to let you know that I'm still appreciating all your fine qualities.
Also: It seems that I really crave you like a motherfucker in October. What's that about?
Love,
Liss
Elementary, Part 2
Earlier this month, I mentioned that I was really enjoying Elementary, the newest iteration of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, starring Lucy Liu as Watson and Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes. Which, by the way, was just given a full season order by CBS. Yay!
Last night, Iain and I finally got around to watching last week's episode (the one in which Sherlock goes missing), and I officially love it. It was a decent enough whodunnit, although the mysteries (while fun) are almost incidental: Liu and Miller are great together, there are a couple of good laughs in every episode, and, in the last episode, Miller's scene with Aidan Quinn (the police chief) was really moving.
And there was this really neat scene, which has just hung with me and I keep thinking about how well it was done, in which Holmes talks to Watson about what life is like for someone who is so sensitive to their surroundings. And Watson, who is becoming Holmes' protégé in the art of observation, is starting to understand that.
It sort of felt a little like a conversation a newbie feminist (or social justice activist of any kind) might have with a mentor.
Anyway, I know I am a huge sap (and you all know I am a huge sap), but I like this version of the classic. I like very much that it invites me to care about Sherlock Holmes. And I happily oblige.
In The News
[Content Note: Rape; misogyny; homophobia; transphobia.]
All the news that Deeky might have shared if he weren't hunkered down with Potter and Jack...
As you might have heard, there is a storm.
Mitt Romney said yesterday he was going to stop campaigning to focus on storm relief, and reportedly canceled the "victory rally" he was scheduled to hold in Dayton, Ohio today. Instead:
Romney will appear at the exact same venue at the exact same time with the exact same celebrity guests, but it will be billed as a "storm relief event." What about yesterday's promise about cancellations? A Republican official said Romney/Ryan hadn't broken its word because, technically, this is "not a campaign event per se."Digby has more.
The storm has absolutely devastated Haiti, which is still in recovery from the earthquake three years ago.
How far right has the Republican Party actually veered? Well, David Frum now sounds like a feminist.
Newt Gingrich, however, still sounds like a total asshole.
Speaking of assholes, someone smashed the windows at the San Francisco GLBT Historical Society. Fortunately, the museum was closed at the time, no one was hurt, and "none of the historical objects on display were damaged."
Would you be surprised to hear that Mitt Romney's campaign "has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading—and sometimes downright false—information about voters' rights"? Me neither! What a collection of dirtbags!
A judge in California rules that convicted sex offenders in Simi Valley won't have to post a sign outside their home on Halloween reading "No candy or treats at this residence," but they're still not allowed to hand out candy.
Whooooooooooooooooooooooops: During an appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Idiculous) accused the Obama administration of enacting regulations that harm auto industry workers at manufacturers like the American Motors Corporation, which is the company once run by George Romney (Mitt's dad). One little problem: "AMC was sold to Chrysler during the Ronald Reagan administration and its brands were then discontinued."
The Scottish Human Rights Commission says Scotland "can do better" in combating transphobia, and launches a National Action Plan to tackle anti-trans* bias.
This is a real and terrible thing in the world: Over 20% of female veterans have been sexually assaulted while serving in the US Army, making a female soldier serving in a combat zone more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.
Gallup reports that 15% of registered voters have already cast ballots.
Do you want to see pictures of Lauren Conrad's new puppy that she adopted from a shelter? Why not, right? Go look at them! They are so cute!
Daily Dose of Cute
Rory loves her some leaf piles.
October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month.
Recently, the Shelter Pet Project posted on their Facebook page: "Fact: People are three times more likely to adopt a pet if they know someone who already has! Will you promise to mention your adopted pet to at least one person?" Okay! So I'm mentioning my adopted doggie to all of you!
An Open Letter to Congressman Paul Ryan
by Shaker MB
[Content Note: Pregnancy loss; war on agency; institutional disablism; food insecurity.]
Dear Congressman Ryan:
I've had you much on my mind this election season. I've always been interested in politics and tried to advocate in my own small way for a better world for all of us, but this year I find myself more than just interested in the outcome of the election. This year, some of your comments stick in my head, and I find myself replaying them over and over as if they were stinging barbs meant specially for me.
I'm thinking about your vice presidential debate comments on abortion. By October 16th, you'd probably forgotten all about your own remarks, and you were probably praying for your running mate to demolish the president in that evening's debate. But I was thinking about your 6-week ultrasound, your beautiful bean of a daughter, because on that day I was in the hospital for an ultrasound myself, a first chance to get a look at my own beloved daughter, who at 16 weeks, would be much more than just a tiny bean on the screen.
I have a handsome son, who will be 10 in January. My husband and I have been trying for many years now to have another child. I've had three miscarriages, but God had not blessed us with a healthy pregnancy until now. You can imagine our joy at seeing those two little lines on the pregnancy test, our expanding hearts as the first trimester passed and our daughter continued to grow. You'd think I was excited for that ultrasound. But I wasn't. I went to the hospital in tears.
My doctors had scheduled this ultrasound urgently, because brand-new, innovative, highly accurate genetic testing had revealed that the baby I was carrying had a serious genetic disorder that causes developmental disability and other physical health problems. My doctors wanted us to have the opportunity to confirm the diagnosis, and to see if there were any other abnormalities. We wanted this baby more than anything, so when the genetic counselor had asked me, when we scheduled this testing, what my family would do in this situation, I had told her we would never consider terminating our pregnancy, no matter the results. We simply wanted the information to plan how to care for our child.
Easy for me to say. I had no idea what a positive diagnosis would mean for me, for our family, for our daughter-to-be. When the news came, we set out immediately, talking to friends who had raised or were raising children with disabilities, reading books, checking websites. We had no doubt that we would love our daughter. We just needed help figuring out what resources were available to help, what her life would look like over the long term. The college fund we had already started for her was no longer enough to meet her needs.
And do you know what, Congressman? What little we found made our blood run cold. Your proposals, your running mate's proposals, made our blood run cold. We're not rich people, but we're middle class and responsible. We have the resources to raise our children and love them until adulthood, and to launch them with an education so they can meet their own needs. But now we knew our daughter could never fully meet her own needs. We needed to plan not just for her childhood, but forever, for well past our own lifetimes. We learned that there are nearly no resources for adults with disabilities in our state or our country. She could not be guaranteed any kind of housing as an adult, once we can no longer care for her. If your proposals go through, or any version of them, we could not even count on health insurance for her. If Social Security goes bankrupt, or if you gut it, she'll have no income, and even left as it is now, she won't have enough to pay for her housing, her food. I cannot guarantee she'll ever be able to work for herself. If we could not provide for her ourselves, for her entire lifespan, all of her needs, we could not promise – or even realistically hope – that her basic needs would be met. I'm frugal and careful and I know how to save, but I'll never have enough for all that.
I imagined being an old woman, watching my grown daughter die for want of adequate health care. Watching my daughter become homeless, as I sat in a nursing home unable to help. I imagined my son or my future daughter-in-law or grandchildren resenting or hating my daughter for requiring their care – or simply being unable to care for her. For the first time, I thought I might have to have an abortion. Not because I couldn't love my daughter. Because I already loved my daughter, and like all mothers, I wanted her to have a decent life.
This is what was on my mind as I went to see her for the very first time, as the tech rolled her wand over my belly and the first photos of my daughter appeared on the screen. And I want you to know what I saw through my tears. It was no bean on that screen. I could see her little face, the beginnings of her gorgeous smile. I could see her perfect hands and feet, her fingers pointing. I could see the worried look on the tech's face as she tried to get pictures of her heart, her brain, her gut. The techs are not allowed to tell you anything about what they see, but if you watch their faces, you learn more than you want to know.
The doctor came in. My genetic counselor came in. My husband and I did not have the privilege of inventing nicknames for our girl. We had to pay attention. We took notes as they listed off the abnormalities the tech had carefully measured and recorded. We talked about cardiac abnormalities, brain abnormalities, bowel abnormalities. If she survived the pregnancy, which was unlikely, she faced a lifetime, however long it would be, full of pain. Pain that, because of her intellectual disability, she might never fully understand.
If you've never been there, Congressman, you have no idea what we felt. You have no idea how difficult the moral decision was that we faced. Figuring out what is "pro-life" in this situation is not easy, much less figuring out what is "pro-life" for whom. Is it pro-life to allow your baby to suffer through endless pain, if she even has the capacity to be born? Is it pro-life to fundamentally change the life of one child for another? Is it pro-life to bring a child into a world where modern medicine might deliver her into adulthood, only for her government to allow her to die in misery and suffering, with no health care, no food, no home?
I'm not Catholic. My church doesn't have an easy answer for this question. We are observant Jews. My faith is profoundly pro-life – in fact, it requires that any religious law be broken to save or preserve a life. But in my faith, even among the Orthodox of my faith, a fetus is not considered a person. Parents are asked to make "pro-life" decisions for all the living people involved, while respecting the spark of possibility that a pregnancy represents.
With our rabbi's help, with God's help, we came to believe that God had revealed this terrible, painful information to us at this moment so that we had the privilege of making what felt for us a humane choice and sparing our daughter and our son future suffering. And that is how I came to have an abortion.
You don't know anything, really, Congressman, about an abortion. You've never had one. I'm guessing you've never even seen one. Before this week, I was just as naïve as you. I was frightened, and I didn't know what to expect, even though some of my friends could probably have told me. A lot of women go through an abortion, after all. Did you know that 1 in 6 pregnancies in this country ends in a legal abortion? I didn't know. Women don't tell these stories, because they are afraid of your judgment, the violence they might incite, because you have made them feel guilty for making what seemed the best, most moral choice to them at the time.
So I'm going to close this letter by telling you about mine. Abortions are all different, and my experience isn't universal, but this is what it was like for me: I got excellent care, from one of this country's finest high-risk OB/GYN teams. They deal all the time with parents going through the loss of their babies, efforts to save their babies, parents trying to make humane choices for babies that come into the world less than whole. They are compassionate people who do not judge, because they know that the world is not as perfect as we would like it to be. My abortion happened with just two pills, one that tells your cervix to soften and open, and another that opens it just a little bit more. After that, everything that happened was a natural process, a labor like any other labor, like you went through with your wife, and like I went through with my son.
I labored in the hospital, on an ordinary maternity ward, with my mother, my father, my husband, and a team of wonderful nurses and doctors working diligently alongside me to support me. My rabbi came to pray for me. My husband and mother stroked my forehead and rubbed my back when contractions came. I took no pain medication. Nothing more was done to my body or my daughter. After many hours, she was born. She was not alive, she did not suffer, and as soon as she was out of my body she was wrapped in a blanket and given to me. I want you to know that she was beautiful, but there's no way I can help you to know the heartbreak that my husband and I went through as we held our daughter in our arms and wept at what we had chosen to do. There's no way we will ever feel settled about it.
I read a story once about a Mennonite missionary who visited a family in an impoverished nation in Africa. Birth control aid was not available there, you'll be happy to know, so the family had many more children than they could afford to feed. The time had come, in fact, when they had so many children that if they divided what food they had evenly among all the children, all the children would die of starvation. The missionary noticed that one child was ill – that she had white hair, and was much smaller than the others – and she asked what was wrong with that one. She was told that this was the child her mother had chosen to starve to death, that the others might live. Is that a pro-life choice, Congressman?
And yet, what other choice did that mother have? She couldn't let her whole family die. She couldn't kill her daughter outright. She made the best choice she could. I also made the best choice I could. What other choice did I have, really?
When I look at your policies for children, for adults with disabilities, for those among us, like my daughter would have been, who are vulnerable, when I realize that these policies may become the law of the land, and already have influenced our country in ways that have made us meaner, harder, colder, and more desperate, I feel something like that African mother. You have no idea what that feels like, and if your wife were pregnant with my daughter I'm sure you would have the luxury of being able to choose to have her, knowing that you – unlike me – could afford to pay for care for her, whatever she might need, for the rest of her life. I'm not wealthy like that. If I had a million dollars in the bank for my daughter, she might still have had a miserable life, full of suffering.
But if I could have guaranteed that the world would treat her decently, that she would have the surgeries she needed and enough to eat and a place to live for the rest of her life, I can tell you I would have taken the chance.
The world you are trying to build is not a pro-life world, Congressman. And you cannot call yourself pro-life.
Yours Truly,
A Grieving Mother
[Commenting Guidelines from Liss: Judging or auditing this author's decision to terminate her pregnancy will make this an unsafe space for her and is thus prohibited. This is a pro-choice space, and one does not have to agree with another person's choice in order to respect it. Please be considerate of the bravery and vulnerability it took to share this piece with this community.]
