Zelda
If you just want the cute, stop here. If you'd like some animal rescue stuff, read on...
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda
If you just want the cute, stop here. If you'd like some animal rescue stuff, read on...
In The News
[Content note: Rape culture]
Thurzday Newz:
A prominent priest in Bridgeport was indicted on charges he was part of a drug ring that conspired to sell methamphetamine. Whut.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has joined the FOX News Channel. Obviously.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal to rename San Francisco International Airport (SFO) after Harvey Milk. Neat!
Brian De Palma and Al Pacino are to reunite for a biopic about Joe Paterno. Gross.
Scientists in Australia say they have made a breakthrough that could lead to a potential cure for AIDS.
The Marvel Comics superhero title X-Men will be relaunching in April with an all-female team of characters. Neat!
Here is a White House petition to officially recognize the Sasquatch. Okay then.
Our new Defense Secretary is a total badass, from the sounds of it.
Random Nerd Nostalgia: Morning Funnies Cereal
[Image description: A collection of characters from late 80's comic strips--Luann, Funky Winkerbean, Dennis the Menace, Hagar the Horrible, Beetle Bailey, Family Circus characters, and an annoying baby character whose name I can't be arsed to research,are all excitedly eating cereal. Over their heads a caption reads..."WHEN YOU ASK FOR MORNING FUNNIES...YOU'RE ASKING FOR SOME FUN!" Hagar the Horrible is sitting directly behind a box of cereal labeled MORNING FUNNIES (from Ralston!) whose back opens up to look like a comic. He is reading it (Hagar can read? HAGAR CAN READ.) Funky: "Wild fruit taste!" Luann: "It's New!" Beetle Bailey: "Yummy!" Hagar: "The back opens for more comics!" Dennis: "Check 'em all out!"]
Scanned from Wonder Woman Volume 2 # 19, April 1989.
On Manti Te'o, and Priorities
[Content Note: Coercion; misogyny; rape culture; self-harm.]
By now, you've probably heard the story about Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o and his imaginary girlfriend. If not, here is Deadspin's remarkable report about their untangling of this strange tale. An excerpt:
Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te'o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.According to Te'o, he was the victim of a cruel hoax, perpetrated by family friend Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Maybe so. But then there were the lies he and his family told about their first meeting in person, and their visits in Hawaii.
Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI's Pete Thamel described how Te'o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Thamel wrote.
...There was no Lennay Kekua. Lennay Kekua did not meet Manti Te'o after the Stanford game in 2009. Lennay Kekua did not attend Stanford. Lennay Kekua never visited Manti Te'o in Hawaii. Lennay Kekua was not in a car accident. Lennay Kekua did not talk to Manti Te'o every night on the telephone. She was not diagnosed with cancer, did not spend time in the hospital, did not engage in a lengthy battle with leukemia. She never had a bone marrow transplant. She was not released from the hospital on Sept. 10, nor did Brian Te'o congratulate her for this over the telephone. She did not insist that Manti Te'o play in the Michigan State or Michigan games, and did not request he send white flowers to her funeral. Her favorite color was not white. Her brother, Koa, did not inform Manti Te'o that she was dead. Koa did not exist. Her funeral did not take place in Carson, Calif., and her casket was not closed at 9 a.m. exactly. She was not laid to rest.
Could there be another explanation? Maybe. Tuiasosopo, the person behind the imaginary Lennay Kekua, is another football player, a friend of Te'o's. There is speculation they were in on it together. For publicity, goes the theory. I can imagine another scenario in which two devoutly religious young men trying to make careers in a sport deeply associated with traditional masculinity invent a female façade to carry on a relationship in an age of public love on social media. I'm not saying I think that's definitely what happened: I'm just saying sometimes there are reasons for these things that aren't immediately apparent, and aren't readily explained for the same reasons they happened in the first place.
Anyway. I don't know what happened. (Besides the evident failure of basic fact-checking at several major media outlets.) At some point, maybe we'll find out more.
Which brings me to Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, and his tearful promise at a press conference to pursue an investigation into what had been done to Manti Te'o. I'll turn it over here to Dave Zirin:
Swarbrick revealed that a private outside firm had been hired to investigate just who had perpetrated this "cruel game." The athletic director even cried. His behavior only raises more important questions than anything Te'o will face tomorrow.I will add only this to Zirin's keen insight: The Notre Dame community rallied around Lennay Kekua after hearing her story. They raised thousands of dollars for leukemia charities and research. They weeped upon hearing of her death.
Why hasn't there been any kind of privately funded, outside investigation into the alleged sexual assaults committed by members of the football team? Why was there no private, outside investigation into Coach Brian Kelly's role in the death of team videographer Declan Sullivan?
It says so much that Te'o's bizarre soap opera has moved Swarbrick to openly weeping but he hasn't spared one tear, let alone held one press conference, for Lizzy Seeberg, the young woman who took her own life after coming forward with allegations that a member of the team sexually assaulted her.
Swarbrick's press conference displayed that the problem at Notre Dame is not just football players without a compass; it's the adults without a conscience. Their credo isn't any kind of desire for truth or justice. Instead it seems to be little more than a constant effort to protect the Fighting Irish brand, no matter who gets hurt.
All this sympathy for an imaginary woman. And what did they offer Lizzy Seeberg?
Pro-Choice
Here are some reasons that a feminist/womanist woman married to a man might have taken her husband's name:
1. Because she was not a womanist/feminist when she got married.
2. Because it was a huge point of contention with her in-laws, or maybe even her own parents, and she was picking her battles.
3. Because a name change makes it more difficult to be found by a violent ex, a stalker/rapist, or anyone else by whom a woman might not want to be found—and a marriage-related name change is easy and doesn't create a public court record.
4. Because she or her husband immigrated for the express purpose of their marriage, and proving that they are a "real" couple to a government still steeped in patriarchal traditions is made significantly easier if she takes his last name.
5. Because she works in a field or at an employer or in a location where not changing her name risks revealing an ideological leaning that could affect her career or target herself/her family for ostracization.
6. Because her maiden name was her father's name and keeping it did not feel like any more a rejection of the patriarchy than taking her husband's name did, and she liked her husband's name better.
7. Because her maiden name was her father's name, and she likes her husband a lot more than her father.
8. Because her family was abusive and her husband's family is wonderful to her, and she wants actively to become a part of it and feels taking their name is a symbol of that joyful joining.
9. Because she and her husband want the same last name, but the law makes it infinitely easier for her to change her name to his than for him to change his name to hers, or for both of them to choose a new name they share altogether.
10. Because despite knowing it comes from a weird, fucked-up patriarchal tradition, there's still some weird, fucked-up place inside her that likes the idea of taking her husband's name—and no feminist/womanist lives a life free of compliance, consciously or not, with weird, fucked-up patriarchal narratives and expectations. But unlike privately calling another woman a bitch or playing the role of Exceptional Feminist with a group of male coworkers or secretly doing all the housework in her own home, the name thing is there for everyone to see and question, every day of her life.
This is hardly a definitive list. Not everyone who reads this selection will consider each (or any) item a legitimate reason for a woman to opt to take her husband's name. Still, few of us would feel inclined to directly tell a womanist/feminist woman who's survived and escaped a profoundly abusive family of origin and found a wonderful partner whose family she adores, and who adore her right back, that her desire to take their name is a betrayal of The Sisterhood.
Few of us would directly tell a rape survivor, whose attacker the justice (ha) system declined to prosecute thus allowing him to continue to stalk and harass her, that she's a traitor to feminist kind if she opts for a quick and quiet name change upon getting married.
Few of us would directly encourage a woman whose immigration status (or whose husband's immigration status) could be imperiled or delayed or made any more difficult than an already-labyrinthine process to prioritize her name over her entire future.
Et cetera.
Yet that is most assuredly what we're doing every time we publicly castigate or question women who have taken their husbands' last names—because there are reasons, not always evident and none of our fucking business, for that choice which can and sometimes do trump political statements on a personal, individual level.
This is not to argue that taking one's husband's name is inherently a feminist choice (although I'm not sure it's inherently not a feminist choice, either, depending on the circumstances). It is merely to say that we cannot (and should not) axiomatically assume anything about a woman who has taken her partner's name, rendering this yet another subject on which the casual passing of judgment is a pernicious affair indeed.
Quite evidently, we each have a responsibility to think critically about our individual decisions, and not pretend they happen in a void even when we make choices for no one's pleasure or security but our own. Just because one is doing something for herself doesn't magically turn it into a choice without cultural implications.
But it's eminently possible to critique the culture in which individual choices are made, and the cultural narratives that may affect our decision-making processes, without condemning those individual choices. Or the womanists/feminists making them.
Not every feminist/womanist will make the same choice, nor should they be thus obliged in order to prove feminism's value. Feminism has sufficiently demonstrated its own worth by providing that spectrum of choice in the first place.
And even though not every one of those conceivable choices is implicitly feminist, having a choice is evidence of feminism's reach.
[Originally published November 05, 2010.]
Question of the Day
What have you done, for yourself or someone else, achieved, accomplished, embraced, or let go of recently that has made you proud of yourself?
Here's an Idea
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
If you are someone who has not been the victim of sexual violence, and you are about to say something asserting what rape (or some other form of sexual violence) is like, or say that anything else is like being raped, shut the fuck up.
I don't want to hear that losing a game is like being raped, and I don't want to hear that being raped is enjoyable, and I don't want to hear that it totally feels like you got raped by the IRS or an ATM machine fee.
I also don't want to hear that someone who has been raped has been broken, or had hir soul destroyed, or has been robbed of this or that, no matter how well-intentioned you are in trying to describe the horror of rape, because maybe so but MAYBE NOT.
And maybe the only thing that you know for certain when you've been raped is that how you regard that event can change, based on an infinite number of factors including obvious things like time and justice (or the lack thereof), and less obvious things like how you feel about yourself and what you may learn about culturally contextualizing rape and self-blame.
You think rape is this one thing, but it's so many things. Even for one person who has survived it.
If you seriously give a shit about people who have survived sexual violence, then shut the fuck up and listen.
And if you don't give a shit about us, just shut the fuck up.
I Don't Even
[Content Note: Rape apolgia.]
Daming Sanusi, a candidate for the Indonesian Supreme Court, has a fascinating platform of rank rape apologia:
In response to a question [during a parliamentary commission hearing to determine if he was a fit for the top court] about whether the death penalty should be applied in rape cases, Daming reportedly said, "Consideration needs to be taken thoroughly for the imposition of death penalty for a rapist because in a rape case both the rapist and the victim enjoy it."I don't even have the words. I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE FUCKING WORDS.
Later, he apologized but insisted he'd just been joking.
As the furor grew, Daming issued an apology, acknowledging that his words were "out of control."It must be amazing to live a life so insulated from the realities of sexual violence that you have no idea that saying survivors enjoy being raped might be problematic.
In a news conference, he said that he was nervous in the session in front of the lawmakers and made the comment as a joke.
"I made the remark without realizing it can harm people's feeling," Antara cited him as saying.
And as contemptible as I find this statement, I'm not pissed off because my personal fee-fees are hurt. I'm pissed off because someone who's tasked with justice doesn't understand literally the first thing about rape.
[H/T to Shaker Ventureforth.]
Headline of the Day
Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute: "Workers Don't Lack Skills; They Lack Work."
Perfectly to the point. The piece is recommended reading, as well.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by purple pens.
Recommended Reading:
Lena: Where Congress Stands on Guns
Chauncey: Ten Things to Keep in Mind When Talking about White Privilege in the Age of Obama [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of white privilege, male privilege, and violence.]
Digby: Anti-Choicism's Racist Birth
Tressie: Dear Parents, Thanks for the Humans. Signed, Society. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny and reproductive policing.]
Jess: Well Regulated [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of guns.]
Jorge: George Zimmerman's Attorneys Receive Trayvon Martin's School Records
Susie: Sandy Aid Amendment Passes, But…
Andy: Pro-Gay Episcopal Priest Chosen to Replace Louie Giglio for Inauguration Benediction
Trudy: The Stunning Michelle Obama Doll
Life with Dogs: Pit Bull Puppy Adopted by Paramedic Who Saved Her
Infinity Imagined: A Comparison of City Lights Photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons Imaged with Fluorescence Microscopy
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
In The News
[Content note: Guns, gun violence, rape culture, homophobia]
Wednesday News:
The man who sheltered six kids during the Sandy Hook massacre has become the target of conspiracy theorists.
A helicopter crashed into a construction crane in thick London fog Today, killing the pilot and another person.
A 23-year-old Southern California man has been charged with a felony hate crime after tagging buildings and a tree on the UC Berkeley Campus with anti-gay graffiti.
New York's Biagio Cru & Estate Wines has released Égalité, a sparkling wine from the Burgundy region of France which is meant as "a celebration of equality" for the LGBT community.
Fifty suspects where arrested yesterday, ranging in ages from 19 to 60, some teachers, in a child sex abuse sting.
Conrad Bain, who starred as the kindly white adoptive father of two young African-American brothers in the TV sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, has died.
Obama's Address & Proposals Re: Gun Reform
President Obama just finished his address on gun reform, at which he and Vice President Joe Biden announced their proposals aimed at preventing gun violence in the US.
In the meantime, here are the main objectives of the President's plan:
1. Close background check loopholes to keep guns out of dangerous hands;
2. Ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines;
3. Make schools safer; and
4. Increase access to mental health services.
The President is taking a comprehensive approach here, proposing required background checks for all public gun sales (right now, 40% of guns are purchased at gun shows or over the internet, without mandatory background checks); urging private sellers to sell via licensed dealers to facilitate background checks, even if they aren't mandatory; strengthening state reporting of criminals and people with mental illness coupled with stronger guidelines regarding what constitutes required reporting; strengthening gun tracking; promoting safe gun ownership, including a campaign to encourage storing guns safely; reinstating the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban including its high-capacity clip ban; asking Congress to criminalize the ownership and transfer of armor-piercing ammo, the sale of which is already illegal; increased funding for police, for school counseling, for safe school programs, and research into gun violence; and increasing access to mental health services for those who cannot afford it.
Following, the list of Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions the President
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.I have Thoughts About This. I'm sure you do, too. Let's discuss them all in comments!
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
"Under Review"
CNN is currently featuring a prominent link on its front page to an essay by an atheist mother about why she is raising her children "without god." The piece does not tell anyone else what they should believe; it states only what she believes and why.
Currently, when you click the link on CNN's front page to get to the article, you are greeted with this screen:
To be clear, I'm not criticizing CNN, because I imagine this is just an automatic prompt after a certain number of "flags." Just an observation about how even the public disclosure that you are an atheist is still controversial, and how the people who incessantly whine about being an oppressed minority try to silence atheists.
I have never seen this warning generated for any story about Christianity on CNN.
Quote of the Day
"I am the most obstinate person you will ever meet. I have a streak of stubbornness in me that I think is what has accounted for some of my success in life. There is some personal need to persevere, to fight the fight. And if you just try and be stubborn about trying you can do what you set your mind to."—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who additionally noted that her personal determination was aided by affirmative action, which "was a door opener that changed the course of my life."
Sotomayor will be the first Latina to administer the oath of office to the US Vice President, when she swears in VP Joe Biden on Inauguration Day. Biden personally selected her.
[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Sexual violence; human rights violations.]
One of the key features of rape culture is, of course, that its defenders attempt to silence and intimidate anyone who challenges the culture, its systems, its narratives, and its gatekeepers.
In Somalia, there is a rape crisis—particularly in camps housing people displaced by the 2011 drought and subsequent famine. Rape is common, and prosecution for rape is vanishingly rare. Many allegations of rape emanating from the camps are directed at the government troops tasked with protection.
So, naturally, the Somalian government has arrested Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, a freelance journalist "who wrote a story about a woman who said she was raped by government security forces."
Human Rights Watch is demanding the immediate release of Somali journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, a freelance journalist who was arrested by police on Thursday after interviewing the woman. She was also briefly arrested and questioned by police before being released.Human Rights Watch has more here, including how the rape victim was compelled to turn in the journalist who helped her.
"The Somali police are detaining a journalist and harassing a woman who says she was raped, while letting those accused of rape run free," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The new Somali government needs to ensure that the police are part of the solution to rampant abuses by the security forces, not part of the problem."
...Repeated calls [by the AP] to the Somali police for comment on the journalist's arrest were not answered.
This is not an "over there" problem, even if certain features of how rape culture manifests in Somalia differs from how it manifests in the US, or anywhere else. This is a global problem. And until the ruling class of men the world over decide that they no longer want to institutionally defend some or all sexual violence against women, children, and marginalized men, there will never be peace.
The NRA Is the Worst
[Content Note: Guns.]
Of course: NRA TV Ad: Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite' Because His Daughters Have Armed Guards.
The National Rifle Association [which has called on Congress to put armed police in every public school in the nation following the Newtown shooting, a move rejected by many teacher groups] is amping up the political rhetoric in advance of President Obama's gun violence prevention announcement scheduled for Wednesday. On Tuesday, the NRA posted a video on its website accusing the president of being "an elitist hypocrite" because his daughters have armed guards at school. CNN reported Tuesday night that the video "is running on the Sportsman Channel, a cable network focused on outdoors programming such as hunting and fishing.""Fair share." Sure. Because every child in the US is under the same exact threat as the children of presidents.
..."Are the president's kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?" the NRA ad's narration reads. "Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security."
[H/T to Jordan.]
