A two-parter: What is your best talent, and what is the one talent you most wish you had?
Hold Onto Your Lightsabers, Nerdz!
J.J. Abrams to Direct New Star Wars Movie for Disney:
Star Trek director J.J. Abrams will be helming the next Star Wars movie. "It's done deal with J.J.," a source with knowledge of the situation told Deadline today.Okay. I'm on board.
Argo director Ben Affleck was also up for the gig, the source says. Abrams was courted heavily by producer Kathleen Kennedy to take the Star Wars job. Expected in 2015, Abrams' Episode VII effort will be the first new Star Wars movie since 2005's Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
Michael Arndt is writing the script for the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ franchise by Disney.
[Previously. H/T to Jordan.]
Photos of the Day
Shetland Ponies Fivla and Vitamin are the newest spokesponies for Visit Scotland—Scotland's National Tourism Organization. Aunt B, who emailed me about Fivla and Vitamin (and whom I'm quoting with permission), says: "It works! I now want to go to Scotland."
On their Art in Nature page, Visit Scotland explains: "Shetland Ponies Fivla and Vitamin pose with their beautifully knitted jumpers for the Year of Natural Scotland celebrations." Perfect.
Filibuster Deal
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have reportedly reached some kind of bipartisan deal on the filibuster. There are a lot of additional details at the link, but this strikes me as the most important bit of reform:
The two leaders agreed that they will make some changes in how the Senate carries out filibusters under the existing rules, reminiscent of the handshake agreement last term, which quickly fell apart. First, senators who wish to object or threaten a filibuster must actually come to the floor to do so. And second, the two leaders will make sure that debate time post-cloture is actually used in debate. If senators seeking to slow down business simply put in quorum calls to delay action, the Senate will go live, force votes to produce a quorum, and otherwise work to make sure senators actually show up and debate.Digby says: "Better than nothing, but still not much. The story of our time." Yup.
Thursday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Thursday.
Recommended Reading:
More from the "Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Today" series we're running at Flyover Feminism this week to mark the 40th anniversary of Roe [content note for war on agency on all of the below pieces]:
Mara Clarke: Choice and Access, Morality and Money
Soraya Chemaly: Roe Was the Start of the Fight, Not the End
Carolyn Jones: The Things I Didn't Know
Tawny Tidwell: A White Kid and Roe
René Nash: What Roe v. Wade Means to This Pro-Choice Mississippian
Betsy Phillips: Just Go to Atlanta: The Southern Anti-Abortion Solution
Anonymous: Abortion: A Provider's Perspective
Verónica Bayetti Flores: Forty Years Later: Reflections on Roe, Gender Identity, and Moving the Movement Forward
The Editors: Blog Round-Up: Roe v. Wade at 40
* * *
Other stuff:
Rachel: Roe Round-Up: Analysis on the 40th Anniversary of Legalized Abortion
Jess: Exercising Your Right [Content Note: Harassment]
Trudy: Critically Important Thought on Intersectionality
Chauncey: Racism Is Not an Opinion: New Research Shows How The Age of Obama Has Encouraged a Resurgence of "Old Fashioned Racism"
Libby Anne: Married, with Friends [Content Note: Gender essentialism; heterocentrism]
Andrew: Parliamentary Debate on Marriage Equality in England and Wales Set for Feb. 5
Vesta44: Association for Size Diversity and Health Video Project
Sign the Petition: Pardon Marisa Alexander [More background here.]
The President's Statement on the Opening of Combat Units to Women
Via the White House Office of the Press Secretary:
Today, by moving to open more military positions—including ground combat units—to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens. This milestone reflects the courageous and patriotic service of women through more than two centuries of American history and the indispensable role of women in today's military. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice, including more than 150 women who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan—patriots whose sacrifices show that valor knows no gender.Patriots whose sacrifices show that valor knows no gender. Beautiful.
Earlier today I called Secretary of Defense Panetta to express my strong support for this decision, which will strengthen our military, enhance our readiness, and be another step toward fulfilling our nation's founding ideals of fairness and equality. I congratulate our military, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the rigor that they have brought to this process. As Commander in Chief, I am absolutely confident that—as with the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'—the professionalism of our armed forces will ensure a smooth transition and keep our military the very best in the world.
Today, every American can be proud that our military will grow even stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters playing a greater role in protecting this country we love.
It's almost a perfect statement—except, once again, the construction in which women are defined exclusively by their familial relationships: Our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.
Here's how it should go: "...proud that our military will grow even stronger with the women who are playing an ever greater role in protecting the country we all love." That not only avoids the appearance of speaking to men about women and avoids defining women by their familial relationships, but has the added benefit of making sure the statement includes all the women who are serving, some of whom may not be mothers, nor wives, nor sisters, nor daughters.
Seriously, that shit has got to go, Mr. President.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War; sexual violence.]
"Societal norms are a reality, and their maintenance is important to most members of a society. It is humiliating enough to relieve yourself in front of your male comrades; one can only imagine the humiliation of being forced to relieve yourself in front of the opposite sex. Despite the professionalism of Marines, it would be distracting and potentially traumatizing to be forced to be naked in front of the opposite sex, particularly when your body has been ravaged by lack of hygiene. In the reverse, it would be painful to witness a member of the opposite sex in such an uncomfortable and awkward position. Combat effectiveness is based in large part on unit cohesion. The relationships among members of a unit can be irreparably harmed by forcing them to violate societal norms."—Former Marine infantryman Ryan Smith, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on why women should not be allowed to serve in combat positions.
Or, as Zack Beauchamp summed it up: Women Shouldn't Be In Combat Because Men Poop.
I love, ahem, the idea that male soldiers raping female soldiers is apparently not a "violation of social norms" that will "irreparably harm" troop cohesion, but male soldiers having to take a dump in front of female soldiers is.
GOP Caught Off Guard by Clinton's Integrity; Responds Predictably with Misogyny
by Shaker BrianWS, who may or may not become a full-time contributor someday, depending on how it goes when we meet with the Oracle.
[Content Note: Misogyny; terrorism.]
In case you hadn't heard, Hillary Clinton testified yesterday in a hearing about the attacks on a United States consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.
For months now, we've heard rightwingers breathlessly tell us how important it was that Secretary of State Clinton testified about this issue so that we could get Some Answers. When Clinton became ill near the end of 2012, they even accused her of faking a medical problem to avoid testifying, insinuating that her illness was a stunt meant to ensure that she could just ride off into the sunset when her term as Secretary of State ended without ever testifying.
Bullshit. Here she was. And in the course of the testimony, she had a very memorable exchange with Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson. Johnson spoke loudly, interrupting Clinton as frequently as he could, and, after the hearing, accused Clinton of "evading" his questions with "theatrics," which sure sounds a lot to me like the usual "women are hysterical" trope.
But here's the thing that really makes me mad: This hearing was ostensibly about Benghazi, but the back-and-forth between Johnson and Clinton couldn't have made it any more clear that this surely wasn't the case. In an all too typical rightwing move, they complained for months that she wouldn't testify, holding this whole situation over America's head as though it were going to be some serious "gotcha!" moment to hold against the Democrats. And finally she was there, answering questions, and Ron Johnson didn't even want to listen to her answers.
Johnson and the Republicans didn't want answers. They hate Hillary Clinton. They hate Democrats. And they saw this unfortunate event (that has clearly affected Clinton personally), as a chance to stick it to both. For Clinton's part, she seemed perfectly contemptuous of the manner and style of questioning, clearly annoyed that national security and politics are little more than a game to her opponents. Rightfully so.
It took me quite a bit of watching these Republicans aggressively attack Clinton yesterday before I finally realized it—these hearings weren't really about Benghazi at all. They were about grandstanding and giving the entire rightwing at least one more chance to call Hillary Clinton, currently the most popular potential successor to President Obama, a lying bitch.
In a special bit of irony, John McCain afterward claimed that Hillary Clinton's "adoring media" was giving her cover. Well, Hillary Clinton "got cover" because of the hearings, that's for sure, in this misogynist piece of garbage from the New York Post—
—and other outlets were gleefully giving Supreme Asshole Ron Johnson's "theatrics" comment, and his colleagues' similar dog-whistly complaints, as much space as they possibly could.
After months of claiming that Clinton was avoiding them, and using those dishonest claims to justify their ridiculous screaming about a "cover up!", Clinton showed her integrity by calling their bluff. She appeared before them to testify like they purportedly wanted all along—and when the pitiful facade of some massive government cover-up was crushed into little pieces, all they had left was their standard fallback: Misogyny.
Neat people.
In The News
Jueves noticias:
Aftermath of Chicago fire leaves warehouse encased in ice. Wow.
Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue. Yay!.
In malpractice case, Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren't people. Whoops!
Depeche Mode has a new album coming out. Cool!
North Korea has threatened to conduct another nuclear test that would target its greatest enemy, the US. Oh, dear lord.
Snoop Lion is being threatened with a lawsuit by Bunny Wailer for being a phony Rasta. Dang.
Today in the War on Agency
[Content Note: Reproductive coercion; sexual violence.]
Laura Bassett at HuffPo:—New Mexico Bill Would Criminalize Abortions after Rape as 'Tampering With Evidence':
A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.In good news: "The bill is unlikely to pass, as Democrats have a majority in both chambers of New Mexico's state legislature."
House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."
"Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.
Third-degree felonies in New Mexico carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.
In bad news: Members of the Republican Party still think shit like this is a good and reasonable idea.
This is reproductive coercion, but when an intimate partner seeks to control a person's reproduction, it's a deeply unethical and often criminal act, and when the GOP does it, it's Moral Values.
[H/T to mal black.]
Star-Spangled Controversy
This is all I have to say on the "controversy" surrounding Beyoncé's performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at the inaugural:
1. The "controversy" is some real racist and misogynist shit. If you don't believe me, ask yourself how many (straight, cis) white men have been accused of requesting they be whitewashed in adverts and on magazine covers, have been accused of faking their own reproduction, have been accused of lip-synching major performances (even when lip-synching is evident), have been accused of all manner of transgressions variously associated with inauthenticity? Identifying oppression is about pattern-spotting, and the pattern in criticisms of Beyoncé is obvious to all but those who refuse to see it.
2. To be filed in the Can't Win Files: If Beyoncé did lip-synch, for reasons having to do with the nature of outdoor performances on a grand scale, she's terrible. If she had chosen not to lip-synch, and had given a less than flawless performance, she'd be terrible. If, in fact, she did not lip-synch, and that was a live performance all her own, we congratulate her with a week of speculation about how she must have been lip-synching. I have a problem with this.
3. There is something deeply wrong with us that we feel owed some arbitrarily defined display of authenticity from anyone, no less a woman of color who is viciously judged in every aspect of her life, no matter in which way she elects to live it.
4. I love the conspiracy theorists' entire premise that I'm supposed to even care whether Beyoncé lip-synched to a track of herself singing. If she had recorded that in a studio a month ago with the best producer on the planet, I'd still be impressed because OH RIGHT Beyoncé is a great singer. The end.
Today in Projection
Speaker of the House John Boehner thinks President Obama wants to "annihilate the Republican Party."
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he believes the primary goal of President Obama's second term is to "annihilate the Republican Party."Welp, he's right about how President Obama can't get shit done because they're obstructionist wankers, but it's pretty rich to suggest that Obama, who fetishizes bipartisanship often to the detriment of meaningful progress and has tried in every conceivable way to work with House Republicans, is out to "annihilate the Republican Party."
"Given what we heard [at the inauguration] about the president's vision for his second term, it's pretty clear to me that he knows he can't do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans," Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. "So we're expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party."
"And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history."
This is what we call projection.
Like a thief who always thinks someone is stealing from him, Boehner imagines that Obama wants to "annihilate" his party and relegate them to "the dustbin of history," despite the fact that it has been members of the Republican Party and their Tea Party garbage base who have routinely used oblique or explicit eliminationist language and imagery when speaking about the President.
If anyone's trying to "annihilate" anyone, it's Boehner's indecent caucus with their racist dogwhistling and their extremist hyperbole, who have been trying to politically—and often personally—tank this president since before he even took office.
And if anyone is fervently endeavoring to relegate the Republican Party to "the dustbin of history," it's their own damn selves with their retrofuck policies designed to protect privilege and increase the wealth of the already-wealthy at the expense of the most vulnerable.
No one makes more manifestly apparent the total irrelevance of the Republican Party for most USians than the Republican Party.
Dispatches from Planet Republican
Taking a page from the Mitt Romney playbook, Republican Governor of Mississippi Phil Bryant said in an interview yesterday that healthcare reform is unnecessary because every USian already has access to healthcare:
There is no one who doesn't have health care in America. No one. Now, they may end up going to the emergency room. There are better ways to deal with people that need health care than this massive new program.I will reiterate what I said when Professor Mitt Romney of Dunnoshitboutshit University said the same stupid thing: There are, in fact, lots of people in the US who do not have access to insured healthcare, and do not go to the emergency room even when they need it, for fear of crushing medical bills.
In fact, lots of people with shitty insurance—hell, lots of people with GOOD insurance!—make the same decision, because insurance doesn't cover everything. There are deductibles and "patients' portions," that can be 20% (or more) of extraordinarily expensive medical treatment.
I suppose that's something that doesn't matter to a dude like Bryant, insured by the government on the taxpayer dime, who probably hasn't looked at his own medical bills in years (if ever) and has no idea that his personal assistant pays whatever his patient portion is along with the rest of his bills.
But to average USians, taking on the cost of medical care, even with insurance, is something to consider, even in emergencies.
This guy doesn't understand—and evidently doesn't care to understand—a most basic reality of average people's experiences in this country.
For the record: "Emergency rooms serve as a place of last resort, but 45,000 Americans still die every year because they lack health insurance, or one every 12 minutes."
Fuck off, you cloistered plutocrat. And take the rest of your garbage party with you.
Question of the Day
What movie character most reminds you of yourself?
I don't necessarily mean who you look like, although that may or may not be part of your selection, but to whom you most relate or with whom you most identify.
There are parts of many characters—both comic and tragic, hero and villain—that feel very familiar to me, but the character I always feel the most like is Diane Keaton's Carol Lipton in Manhattan Murder Mystery. Which is weird in one way, because I am hardly a thin, beautiful, rich New Yorker, but OMG the silliness, the breathless pursuit of a conspiracy with an indulgent friend, the conscious enjoyment of letting herself get wound up, the dogged insistence, the barking at her dubious husband to "Keep ringing!"—oh, Maude, I'm laughing just thinking about it.
"If you recall, we solved a mystery! Yep! We solved a mystery once, remember? It was the Noises in the Attic Mystery!"
That is literally something I would actually say to Iain, as he tried to resist my dragging him into another one of my "crackpot schemes."
Tweet of the Day
Panettaremoves ban on women in combat, aliens everywhere shit their pants twitter.com/DeekyMD/status…
— Deeky(@DeekyMD) January 23, 2013
LOL FOREVER.
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture; harassment; police misconduct.]
Three female detectives in King County, Washington, are suing the county after alleging they were sexually harassed and bullied by two male sergeants. All of the officers were part of the Special Assault Unit, which is tasked with handling crimes of sexual violence.
What the male sergeants reportedly did to the female detectives is bad enough:
[The suit] alleges that [Sgt. Anthony Provenzo] routinely boasted about his sexual prowess and the size of his penis, and at one point strapped a fake phallus to his ankle in the office so it protruded from the bottom of his trousers.But their victimization reportedly extended to the very survivors of sexual violence they were supposed to be helping:
It alleges that the sergeants would routinely ridicule the female detectives over the sizes of their breasts and buttocks. He referred to one female detective as "Malibu Barbie" or "Vegas Barbie."
Sometimes, the complaint says, visitors to the SAU were sent by the sergeants to look at one of the female detective's breasts while she sat at her desk.
The lawsuit also alleges the sergeants mocked the statements of sexual-assault victims — sometimes asking the female detective to read salacious parts over slowly "so I can close my eyes."Native American women have the highest rates of sexual violence of any population in the US. Of women who identify as Native American, American Indian, Alaskan Native, or Indigenous American (which is not a comprehensive list of identities for members of the United States' more than 500 tribes), one in three will be raped in her lifetime. [Relevant factsheet. (pdf)] It is breathtaking, if grimly unsurprising, that members of law enforcement tasked with justice would use the proliferation of rape as a justification for inaction and indifference.
...Provenzo also allegedly told one of the female detectives "not to fully investigate rape or sexual-assault cases that occurred on the Muckleshoot Indian reservation, because rape happens on the reservations 'all the time,'" the lawsuit alleges.
My heart, it never stops breaking.
Further:
The lawsuit alleges Provenzo brought photographs of bikini-clad teenage girls into the SAU and made "sexual comments" about them.Which, depending on the age of the girls and the context of the photos, could constitute an act of sexual assault.
So here we have in the unit tasked with responding to crimes of sexual violence two male officers who sexually harass their female colleagues, practice and encourage indifference to the community most in need of their help, and possibly committing acts of sexual assault right in the workplace.
And then rape apologists wonder why at least half of rapes go unreported.
[H/T to Shaker Kathryn.]
