[Content note: Transphobia]
Love You till Tuesday:
You can all relax now! Mitt Romney found a job! Whew! I know you were worried.
LEGO tracked down a spare discontinued toy set for a boy who had saved up for two years to buy it. Nice!
I hope you find this useful: List of Choose Your Own Adventure books.
I know we're supposed to hate the weird neighbours in this commercial, but I'd rather hang out with them than the "normal" family.
The US government wants you to know the world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012.
But prep your bunker just in case.
CSI continues its long-time practice of defamatory transgender characters.
The Mars Rover found some neat stuff on the surface of the Red Planet.
Speaking of, check out this trailer for Red Planet starring Val Kilmer.
Or watch this: Video of a cat making friends with some dolphins.
In The News
I Write Letters
Dear Kate Middleton:
I hear you are pregnant. Congratulations! I hope everything goes well and that you are happy.
And that is literally all I will ever say about that, because fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Love,
Liss
I Like This Idea
[Actress] Ashley Judd (D) is seriously exploring a 2014 run for the Senate to take on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Politico reports.Judd is an eloquent feminist, and an outspoken survivor, and I would love to see her in the US Senate. And if she could rid of Mitch McConnell or Rand Paul in the process, all the better.
"In recent weeks, Judd has spoken with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) about the possibility of a run, has discussed a potential bid with a Democratic pollster and has begun to conduct opposition research on herself to see where she's most vulnerable in the Bluegrass State, sources say."
"Whether Judd jumps into the race remains far from certain. She's reportedly also weighing whether to wait until 2016 to instead take on freshman Sen. Rand Paul, sources say."
It's interesting, isn't it, how often male celebs are recruited for political office and how infrequently female celebs are. It would be swell if Judd, should she decide running for office is a good choice for her, started a new trend.
I mean, if Arnold Schwarzenegger can run California, that probably means Rosario Dawson could be president no problem.
Of Course
You know that photo Meryl Streep took of herself with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Last night, my pal Phil Barron tweeted at me: "Just keeps getting better. What Meryl did with the pic of her and Hillary" followed by this link, which leads to a listing page for a print of the photograph at Shutter to Think, "a project designed to use photography as a way to support programs for girls around the world. Through the sale of personal photographs taken by well-known actors, writers, directors, and musicians, SHUTTER TO THINK is able to help fund programs with globally recognized organizations that are focused on providing opportunities to girls."
Perfect.
Tha teaghlach math a' fuireach anns an taigh sin.
I love not being a mother.
To say that is simply a statement of fact about myself. It does not contain an implicit condemnation of other women's choices.
I have friends and family members who love being mothers, with the usual caveats and qualifications and moments of exasperation and even regret. And, quite honestly, I'm fairly certain if, by some strange and unexpected twist of fate, I had become a mother, I'd love being a mother, too.
But that near-certainty still doesn't make me want to be one. Because, with absolute certainty, I love not being a mother.
The only thing I don't love about not being a mother is being constantly asked why I'm not one.
It's such an intimate question, casually asked by perfect strangers, frequently in circumstances I don't anticipate will turn into a referendum on my reproductive choices. People trying to sell us something—furniture, a car, cabinetry, a major appliance—are the most egregious and shameless offenders, marching straight toward impropriety without hesitation and dragging my womb out onto the showroom floor for everyone to examine.
Intrusive questions about whether my parts work are deeply unpleasant, but the worst inquiry I get is: When are you two going to start a family?
I hate everything about that question, from its wanton familiarity to its profoundly contemptible implication that Iain and I aren't already a family.
We started a family the moment we decided to spend our lives together. We committed ourselves, long before we were married, to build a life with one another, and our shared life looks like that of any other family—we love, we fight, we make dinner, we go on holiday, we rake leaves, we pick out a paint color for the bathroom. But for the intentional absence of children, the snapshots of our life are totally unremarkable.
We are a family.
To ask when we will start a family is to miss the point entirely. It's not that our family hasn't been started; it's that our family is already complete.
[Originally published February 17, 2010.]
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker GoldFishy via email: "Where do you find/learn about new music? I have a few friends who are really awesome about sharing their music discoveries. That, and I listen to Minnesota Public Radio's The Current."
That's a Mighty Big Teaspoon
Would you like to read a nice story about a teenage boy who started an animal rescue that has already saved the lives of 20,000 animals? You should read it! Or not. Whatever makes you happy.
In any case: GOOD JOB, LOU WEGNER!
Number of the Day
$1.75 trillion: US corporate earnings in the third quarter, up 18.6% from a year ago.
Corporations are currently making more as a percentage of the economy than they ever have since such records were kept. But at the same time, wages as a percentage of the economy are at an all-time low...I'm sure that enormous wealth will start trickling down any minute now...
Corporations made a record $824 billion in profits last year as well, while the stock market has had one of its best performances since 1900 while Obama has been in office.
Meanwhile, workers are getting the short end of the stick. As CNN Money explained, "a separate government reading shows that total wages have now fallen to a record low of 43.5% of GDP. Until 1975, wages almost always accounted for at least half of GDP, and had been as high as 49% as recently as early 2001."
Sounds About Right
Santorum Launches Column for 'Birther' Website:
Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has taken a job as a columnist for World Net Daily, a conservative website best known for articles advancing "birther" conspiracy theories about President Obama.His column is GREAT, as you'd expect. I loved all of it. Especially this part: "The fact is, the United States leads the world in our respect and treatment for people with disabilities—something of which we as a society should be proud."
The former Pennsylvania senator will write a weekly column appearing on Mondays. Other writers for the site include actor Chuck Norris and fellow 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.
...Santorum's first column urges the Senate to vote down the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Santorum, whose daughter, Bella, suffers from Trisomy 18, a rare genetic disorder, argues the treaty "will do nothing to enhance the status of people with disabilities in the United States."
Is it possible to "lead the world in respect and treatment for people with disabilities" without universal healthcare? I vote no!
Fiscal Cliffery: Signs of Fight in the White House
I remain cautiously optimistic that Second-Term Obama is done playing by Republicans' rules:
This basic dynamic—Boehner cannot haggle freely with the president due to the intense opposition to a deal within his own ranks—has not fundamentally changed. What has changed is the president's hand. According to senior administration officials, Obama is not eager to go over the cliff, but he is willing. If no deal is reached by the end of the month, all the Bush tax cuts—for the rich and not rich—will evaporate. Obama would then demand in early January that the new Congress immediately pass legislation to reinstate the lower tax rates for the bottom 98 percent. Boehner and the Republicans presumably will find it difficult to say no and insist they will only vote for such tax relief if it includes breaks for the wealthy or cuts in Medicare and other government spending. As a Democratic strategist close to the White House says, "For years we've tried to make the case that the Republicans are willing to hold up tax cuts for 98 percent to help the guys at the top. This is the cleanest shot we've gotten at this."It's not like my household wouldn't be hurt if our taxes went up. It would. More than some, less than others. And I'm annoyed that anyone has to risk being hurt at all over what is truly a game built around a bullshit premise. Nonetheless, as long as this is going to be An Issue, I absolutely support the President drawing a line in the sand with the Garbage Obstructionist Party.
It's time to call their bluff on continually threatening to hold the country hostage over policies that entrench privilege.
[Please feel welcome and encouraged to drop links to whatever else you're reading/writing about the "fiscal cliff" negotiations in comments.]
The Walking Thread
The Happiest Place in the Zombiepocalypse!
(Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.)
Hey! Speaking of spoilers! My favorite part of last night's episode was how The Walking Dead ruined its own cliffhanger by showing Daryl in the end-of-episode preview of the second half of the season. Good job, The Walking Dead! Another fine moment of television excellence.
My second favorite part of last night's episode was the raging case of hiccups I couldn't shake.
Grimes: Something something paternalistic and condescending.
Liss: HIC!
Governor Niam Leeson: Something something I'm a grody creepazoid.
Liss: HIC!
Anyway. When last we left our
Except whoooooooooooooops the black prisoner whose name I never learned from the show and not for lack of trying (but it is Oscar), to whom I cynically referred last week as "future corpse," ended up dead. How sad for everyone except the writers of The Walking Dead who love to kill black characters as much as they love to masturbate to scenes of Rick Grimes pointing a gun at someone and monologizing about his responsibility to "my people." Probably.
But never fear! By the usual Walking Dead math, -1 black person = +1 new black person! So, after losing T-Dog and Oscar, Tyreese and Sasha show up—who I understand were important characters in the comic that showed up much earlier the story in the source material.
And who did not AT ALL react with what would have been a natural outburst of sustained laughter at the emergence from a darkened jail tunnel of a stoic tween in a cowboy hat brandishing a rifle and barking at them to follow him like he's King Shit of Fuck Mountain! I mean, sure, it's the zombiepocalypse, but they're only HUMAN.
Carl the Hat: Come with me, adults! And pay no attention to the silly hat perched upon my head! It does not diminish my authority in the absence of my father, Optimus Patriarch!
Liss: HIC!
Obviously Carl the Hat locks them in a cage, and when Sasha quite reasonably protests, Tyreese tells her to pipe down. Welcome to Grimes Gang 1.0, Tyreese! Looks like you'll fit right in!
Elsewhere in the prison, Mustache Prisoner skeeves on Hershel's 17-year-old daughter. Carol tells him to get to fuck, and he says he's hard up because she's a lesbian, as evidenced by her short hair. Carol tells him she's not a lesbian, because why would any sensible woman want a hot piece like Old Handlebar Mustache Head mistakenly thinking she's not sexually available? Carol immediately realizes her mistake.
Mustache Prisoner: You're not a lesbian? That's interesting.
Carol: No it isn't.
Liss: HIC! LOL!
Meanwhile, over in Unpleasantville, fighting and stuff as Grimes Gang 1.0 extract Glenn and Maggie. Michonne takes a detour to kill Governor Niam Leeson, and discovers his fuckquarium collection and his zombie daughter, whom she kills in spectacular fashion. She also jabs the Guv'nah in the eye with a piece of glass, which is pretty cool I guess except for the fact that he's still not dead.
Andrea, despite having now discovered she sorta looks like his dead wife, that he kept his zombie daughter in a straightjacket and chains, and that he has a nifty fuckquarium full of chompy zombie heads, still stands by her man, and almost kills Michonne, but then lets her go, freeing her up to go get yelled at by Grimes. UGH THAT GUY. SHUT UP, GRIMES!
Daryl gets captured, and Governor Niam Leeson, who is unhappy with Merle—who reported having killed the woman who just macheted the fuck out of his zombie daughter's brainpan—declares Merle a traitor and pits the two brothers against each other. Which would have been quite a cliffhanger if THIS SEASON: PART TWO hadn't included a clip of Daryl running on a hill with his bow. Whoops!
Well, I guess at least we don't know if he manages to kill Merle. I bet SOMEBODY kills Merle! I hope it's Daryl.
Merle, you only have yourself to blame! I told you to git!
Discuss.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda models her trendy new winter scarf designed by preeminent canine haute couture designer Iain McEwan:
Not only does this stylish scarf feature all the fashion-forward details we've come to expect from the Iain McEwan line; it is also extremely versatile for the fashionista pooch on a budget:
Zelly was a fan of her scarf. She ran about the house with it for awhile...
"I can haz treat?"
...then eventually shook it off when she was done, at which time she and Dudley commenced a rousing game of tug-o-war with it. Obviously.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by granola bars.
Recommended Reading:
tressiemc: Power in the Classroom [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of behavior policing, racism, classism, and disablism.]
Roxane: Eleven [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of child sex abuse and victim-blaming; it is an important follow-up on the case of the 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas.]
FMF News: Obama Administration Endorses Abortion Access for Military Survivors of Rape
Susana: The Hawkeye Initiative [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion and imagery that challenges misogynist/objectifying comic tropes.]
Helen: Don't Be Lonely: Introducing The December Project [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of trans* marginalization and self-harm.]
Angry Asian Man: "I can't imagine the kind of pain and torment that drove David Phan to such a tragic end." [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of self-harm, guns, bullying, and racism.]
Mike: Snow and Flowers
TDW: Floppy Disk Table (WANT!)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Restaurant Chains. Fast food, casual dining, formal dining, whatever. 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.
In The News
[Content note: Domestic violence, fat hatred, transphobia]
Monday News and Infotainment:
Scientists have found a secret unicorn lair in North Korea! Scientists have found a secret unicorn lair in North Korea!
Actual Headline: "Could Being Fat Make You More Jolly?"
Kasandra Perkins was brutally murdered over the weekend by her athlete boyfriend.
Carrie Underwood will star in a Sound of Music remake for some reason.
Remember when Eric Stoltz was on Mad About You?
A transgender student in Canada is now allowed to use the men's toilets after the school previously banned him.
Mitt Romney is kind of a mess now. Heh.
A retiring Minnesota grocery store owner is giving his roughly 400 employees ownership of his three stores. Neat!
Allen West is just like Lincoln, basically.
More Decency, Please
[Content Note: Reproductive auditing.]
So, next-gen conservative thinker [sic] Ross Douthat's latest column for the New York Times, "More Babies, Please," is all about the US' plummeting birthrate. And he has a lot of great theories about why that's so—"economic instability and a shortage of marriageable men," for instance—but my favorite theory is definitely this one:
Beneath these policy debates, though, lie cultural forces that no legislator can really hope to change. The retreat from child rearing is, at some level, a symptom of late-modern exhaustion — a decadence that first arose in the West but now haunts rich societies around the globe. It's a spirit that privileges the present over the future, chooses stagnation over innovation, prefers what already exists over what might be. It embraces the comforts and pleasures of modernity, while shrugging off the basic sacrifices that built our civilization in the first place.Ah, our old friend "not having children is selfish," but dressed up in the ugliest clothes imaginable.
It takes a special sort of asshole to accuse people who choose not to have children with "privileging the present over the future, choosing stagnation over innovation, preferring what already exists over what might be" when many people are choosing against childbearing because of a very uncertain future, economically and existentially, thanks to Douthat's cohorts in the corporate conservative trenches who have facilitated economic turmoil and a global climate crisis in pursuit of satiating a voracious greed that could not possibly be more contemptuous of progress or more disconcerned with the future.
To assert that the decadent ones are those who opt out of childbearing because of the fucked-up world created by the optimism-hostile greed-fiends for whom Douthat carries water is not just a mendacious position to take; it's a profoundly indecent one.
Most of my friends do not have children. Some do not have children because they can't—one couple because of fertility issues but the rest because they are same-sex couples in states that either won't let them adopt and/or won't let them both have equal standing as parents if only one is a bio parent. Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Some of us do not have children because we cannot afford to, thanks to our shitty economy and/or bleak job prospects and/or towering students loans and/or the lack of health insurance. Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Some of us do not have children because we do not live in a country that supports in a meaningful way a woman's ability to have a career and be a mother, and, when forced to choose, we choose ourselves, because we know we would not make good mothers to children we may resent. Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Some of us do not have children because, despite Douthat's contention that "government's power over fertility rates is limited" with zero mention of its intervention in reproductive rights, the GOP has been eroding access to reproductive healthcare in state governments across the nation, and women who live in states where they are not guaranteed access to abortion even if our lives hang in the balance, are reluctant to get pregnant at all. Some among us may want children, but don't want to risk our lives to have them. Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Some of us do not have children because we worry about passing on dysfunctional and abusive family dynamics. Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Some of us do not have children because we simply don't want them. (And no one makes a worse parent than someone who doesn't want to be one.) Decadence, says Ross Douthat.
Most of us do not have children for a combination of these reasons, many of which are better described as "valid responses to conservative policy" and/or "our own fucking decisions about our own fucking lives which is none of your fucking business," rather than "decadence."
If conservatives like Douthat want more USians to have children, perhaps they could set about making the US the sort of country in which more people with the privilege of choosing not to have children choose otherwise. Naturally, however, Douthat prefers to take the usual conservative route of tasking individuals with solving the systemic problems they created:
Such decadence need not be permanent, but neither can it be undone by political willpower alone. It can only be reversed by the slow accumulation of individual choices, which is how all social and cultural recoveries are ultimately made.Just feed your babies bootstraps. Everything will be fine.
Photo of the Day
Actress Meryl Streep uses her iPhone to get a photo of her and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following the State Department Dinner for the Kennedy Center Honors gala Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 at the State Department in Washington. [Kevin Wolf/AP Photo]Welp, wrap it up. We're done here.
[H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you!]
