Reproductive Rights Updates: Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, & Tasmania, Australia

Legislation is moving, moving around the country--and around the world. Side note: Liss posted about the big news from Mississippi yesterday.

In Oklahoma, the state senate has advanced three bills, two of which concern the need of young people (under 18) who must bypass parental notification:

Two of the bills restrict the use of “judicial bypass,” a procedure that allows girls younger than 18 to ask a judge’s permission to get an abortion without parental consent. The first would eliminate the exemption that allows a minor to avoid parental notification of they seek a judicial bypass.

[...]

A second bill requires a judicial waiver be sought in the home county of the minor seeking an abortion, a move that Sen. Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said would prevent girls from “venue shopping” for a judge willing to grant the bypass. Treat’s bill also requires a parent granting consent of a minor’s abortion to present a government-issued identification.

A third bill adds more than a dozen questions to the list that abortion providers must answer, including several that are related to abortion-related measures that have passed in recent years. One example is a question that asks doctors at which hospital they have privileges at the time they perform the abortion, a requirement that was imposed by a recently approved law.

A republican legislator claims that the parental notification legislation is about the "sovereignty of the relationship between a parent and a child".

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In Ohio, the committee is still debating about the new budget, which I noted last week would defund Planned Parenthood and refuse to expand Medicaid per the ACA. Yesterday republicans added in an amendment--to the budget!--that would ban comprehensive sex education and allow a parent to sue a teacher:

New sex education standards that would ban any teaching that condones “gateway sexual activity” and allows parents to sue if their child receives such instruction are among the Republican amendments added to the two-year budget bill today.

[...]

The sex education addition says that any instruction must not promote “any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity.”

It goes on to prohibit distributing certain materials, conducting demonstrations with “sexual stimulation” devices, or distributing contraception.

If a student receives such instruction, a parent or guardian can sue for damages, and a court may impose a civil fine of up to $5,000.

So what is "gateway sexual activity", you may ask. Well, they use the same definition as the Ohio Criminal Code, which states it is: “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast.” Yes, that's right.

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Richard Dawkins Remains Deliberately Ignorant

[Content Note: Hostility to Reproductive Rights, IVF]

I'm just going to leave these here. (As screenshots because the Twitter embed is acting funky at the moment.)

Thinking in unfamiliar ways is one of the things academics do.
If you don't like that, hesitate before following an academic on Twitter (Link.)

As D Barash pointed out, if a certain edible berry had strong contraceptive effect on our ancestors,
we'd be phobic about it as if poison (Link.)

If our Pleistocene ancestors had easy contraception,
would natural selection have weakened sex lust at the expense of lust to give birth? (Link.)

I could point out that this line of thinking only makes sense if you assume without evidence that early humans treasured a "reproduce all the time, as much as possible" paradigm, rather than -- as many humans have demonstrably done at many times throughout history -- seeking a balance between quantity of birthed children as well as quality of upbringing so that the children are more likely to survive to adulthood and accrue the necessary skills to survive as adults long enough to live their own lives, parent their own children, and build their own societies. And that these "reproduce constantly" humans which supposedly existed are therefore (again, without evidence) our evolutionary ancestors rather than their early human counterparts who reproduced at a lower rate but nurtured their offspring more effectively to ensure a higher survival rate. 

I could also point out that there is no reason to assume without evidence that early humans didn't face the same concerns regarding the balance between adult providers capable of acquiring resources and child consumers incapable of fending for themselves that we still face today and which still drives many of us to adopt reproductive strategies other than "bear all the children", and that early humans didn't therefore devise their own reproductive strategies designed to cope with these challenges in order to ensure their own survival in the moment as opposed to some kind of "long-game" strategic attempt to position themselves as the ancestors of people on Twitter in the year 2013 A.D. 

I could additionally point out that the concept of contraception is not a modern one; as far back as we have historical records to show, humans have been deeply concerned with controlling their reproduction. Abortions are not a new thing; hormonal methods of birth control are not new things; barrier methods of birth control are not new things; rhythm methods of birth control are not new things; reproductive abstinence is not a new thing. I could point out how foolish it is to assume that these methods only came into vogue with the existence of historical records, and that everyone who existed pre-historical recordings simply felt completely differently about the importance of reproductive control than most of their descendents did. (But their attitudes toward porn were obviously handed down to their Twitter descendents.)

I could perhaps point out that assuming our ancestors were stupid -- so stupid that they could not note cause and effect and would instead suspiciously treat a hormonal birth control berry as "poison" -- is a common error among people who have chosen to other our ancestors as fundamentally inferior to themselves, and that this error is commonly rife among (for example) religionists who seek to claim that the Bible must be divinely inspired because how else could a bunch of backwards pre-historical fools notice that people need to keep their blood inside their bodies if they want to survive? And I could point out that Richard Dawkins, as a professional atheist, would almost certainly have encountered this very same appeal to the supposed profound ignorance of our ancestors.

But I will instead point out only this: I am utterly amused at Dawkins' claim that he is an "academic" and that therefore he thinks in "unfamiliar ways" to his inferiors on Twitter.

Richard Dawkins, your way of thinking isn't unfamiliar to me, it's contemptible. I say this because you continue to deliberately choose to remain blissfully ignorant of the things you opine on as though they are nothing more than cutesy little brain-teasers even though you could easily research these topics and despite the fact that you know for certain that your ignorant opinings on birth control and IVF -- which you continue to trollishly repeat for attention and controversy -- adversely affect the lives of the women (and others with uteri) around you, as we daily struggle to maintain a hold on our right to control our own reproduction.

Please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up. If you absolutely must spout evo-psych bullshit, grab a hairbrush and American Idol that shit into your bathroom mirror. You'll get less Twitter drama out of it, but at least you'll still have your favorite audience.

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In The News

[Content note: Terrorism, misogyny, rape, homophobia, gun culture, fat hatred, racism]

Wednesday Newsies!

The Secret Service intercepted a ricin-poisoned letter addressed to President Obama.

Arizona wants to mandate firearms turned in during gun buyback programs (designed to get guns off the streets) be re-sold. Whut?

A New Hampshire Republican refered to women as vaginas in an email to lawmakers. He sounds nice.

Nancy Reagan supports marriage equality.

For anyone who didn't get a chance to watch Ken Burns' Central Park Five on PBS, it is streaming on their website.

Rand Paul is considering a presidential bid in 2016. Swell.

Tyrese Gibson thinks fat people are nasty.

20th Century Fox is being renamed 21st Century Fox. Didn't they do that on Futurama years ago?

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Tom Jones and Janis Joplin: "Raise Your Hand"

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Blog Note

It's not just you. Disqus is being glitchy again. From their status page: "Disqus is currently intermittently available. We're working to resolve this as soon as possible and appreciate your patience."

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Daily Dose of Cute

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's SUPERZELLY!
Y'all, this dog is so fucking cute 24 hours a day, I don't even know what to do. [Full Disclosure: I do actually know what to do. Give her ALL THE SNUGGLES FOREVER!]

I read a criticism of Shakesville a long time ago, which centered eyerolling about how I constantly post pictures of "that ugly dog." It has hung with me, not because I care if someone doesn't think Zelda is cute, but because the othering of Big Black Dogs is a Thing in the World, which devalues their lives. It's part of the reason that Zelly was on death row when we met her.

I do talk about how cute Zelly is because I love her, but also because I value her. (And because I valued the three all-black cats who have lived their lives with me, and all-black cats are judged by a similar prejudice.) I have seen this ugly dog settle into her new life in a way that makes our lives better; I have seen her manage her fear of other dogs to welcome visiting dogs into her home; I have seen her be gentle with children barely taller than she is and with adults who were fearful of big and/or black dogs. She is brave and indomitable, and she reminds me to be happy every day because IT'S A DAY!

She is a super dog, and a superdog, and I am the conveyer of her teaspoon.

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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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Being a Marathoner

by Shaker TC, who has spent a career working for the QUILTBAG community at places like GLSEN, PFLAG, and SIECUS, and for the AAPI community at places like the South Asia Resource Action Center and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. He now gets to live out his dreams supporting the work of intersectional leaders at the Rockwood Leadership Institute. His personal best for finish the marathon was 5 hours 7 minutes and 41 seconds.

[Content Note: Violence; terrorism; racism; xenophobia.]

Jessica Luther's Being a Marathon Spectator was profoundly moving for me. You see, I'm a marathon runner. It's taken me two full marathons and four half marathons to say that without qualifications, but here I am.

Jessica's experience as a spectator highlights the beauty of marathon running—you are not alone. For those of us who run, marathoning can feel like a very selfish activity. It necessitates, at minimum, training runs of four hours which end up taking six when you count warming up and cooling down. We are acutely aware of the accommodations people in our lives make to ensure we are sufficiently trained to cross the finish line. Along with frequently taking on a greater share of the chores and child care, there's the scheduling that means regularly cutting evening short and going to bed early preceding morning runs.

I have completed the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC twice. The Marine Corps Marathon is known as the People's Marathon. There's no qualifying time you need to have. You just need to sign up and hopefully be trained enough to finish. Around 40,000 people run the Marine Corps and you get to run with members of Congress, Hollywood folks (hey Blaine from Glee!), and Olympians. In that throng of people, there is a real sense that we are all in this together. I once ran into one of the runners who actually had a chance of winning and told him that I was hoping to finish in around five hours, approximately twice the time it would take him to run the very same 26.2 miles. His response? "That's amazing you can run for so long!"

I am part of a running crew with someone who has run 18 marathons and folks like me who are on their third. Our motto is: We're all in this together. At each water stop, we all pause long enough for anyone lagging behind to catch up. We collectively know that if it weren't for the crew, none of us would have paced ourselves enough to finish. So we are all committed to finishing together no matter how long it takes.

That sense of "we" extends to everyone who put the race together and cheers the runners on. Whole cities are put on pause just for a bunch of people to run 26.2 miles. Hundreds of volunteers are clearing trash, handing out water and Gatorade, and directing runners. In Oakland (where I run the half marathon), the local welding group BUILDS A FIRE ARCH for the runners. Seriously, a FIRE ARCH, just so I can run.

My marathon t-shirt says: "My name is TC. I am fat, diabetic, and ahead of you." People who have never met me are yelling my name and giving me high fives. And without that encouragement, I would never finish. There have been so many times I've kept myself running just to get the next high five. Our pit crew of friends and family is there every five miles for us to hand off sweaty headbands, wipe ourselves down with towels, and give us powerbars. I say all of this to make the point that for marathoners, we are all in this together—runners, friends, families, and strangers.

I am sad about the bombing at the Boston Marathon for the immediate destruction of unity. But I am also sad at the thought that the bombing could have longer-lasting effects that undermine unity.

I'm upset how little it takes for racism and xenophobia to rear its ugly head. We're already seeing some pretty nasty racial profiling with an injured Saudi man being taken into police custody AS A WITNESS. As an injured victim of the bomb, he should have been helped, but instead he was chased and tackled by other bystanders who assumed that he was responsible.

What will it mean for people of color who want to participate in, or spectate at, future marathons, if the bomber is black or brown? It shouldn't mean anything for us, like it won't for white runners if the bomber is white, but that is not how these things go. Arab, Muslim, and South Asian runners and spectators shouldn't have to worry about being profiled—this should be OUR safe space, in which to run and to cheer.

Marathoning doesn't exist in a void, and the prejudices of the world already infiltrate marathoning in various ways; the unity of which I speak isn't perfect. But as I did my six-mile run last night, I kept thinking of the elite Arab, Muslim, and South Asian runners who might be made to feel like interlopers in a place they once felt welcome. I kept thinking of my Arab, Muslim, and South Asian friends who are always there for me, to splash a cup of cool water in my face.

I am a fat, diabetic runner of color in a sport where I am made to feel welcome. I want everyone to have the same welcome I have.

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Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by horseradishes.

Recommended Reading:

Amy: The Saudi Marathon Man [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racial/cultural profiling; violence and injury.]

Digby: Pity the Poor Reporters

Trudy: Self-Care in the Aftermath of a Trauma/Tragedy

Veronica: Back to the #FemFuture

Seth: The Senate Immigration Bill Has Arrived! Here Are Its Basics

Jess: Major League Soccer's Zero Tolerance on Homophobic Language [Content Note: The post at this link includes quoted homophobic slurs.]

Frank Lee: Dear Americans for Prosperity [Content Note: The post at this link includes description of racist imagery.]

Ana: Fat Acceptance: Compliments and Accusations [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of food policing, fat bias, and disablism.]

Angry Asian Man: I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story, Opening May 1

Lady T: Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in 'Game of Thrones' [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of misogyny and objectification.]

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

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So Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of Letter From a Birmingham Jail

[Content note: discussion of racism and violence]

Yesterday, NPR ran a nice story of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

King traveled to Alabama in April 1963 to attack the culture of racism in the South and the Jim Crow laws that mandated separate facilities for blacks and whites....With racial tension high, King began nonviolent protests before Easter, but the campaign was struggling. King wasn't getting enough participation from the black community. So on Good Friday, he and several other organizers decided to get arrested. Police took King to the jail and held him in isolation.

While King was in the Birmingham City Jail, he read an open letter from eight moderate white clergymen which, while claiming to support integration, urged patience and criticized protestors' disregard for unjust laws.

King wrote an open letter in response, which you can (and should) read in its entirety here.

Letter has always resonated with me for all the reasons that King's speech to the March on Washington doesn't.

Don't get me wrong-- King's "I Have a Dream" is masterful, and deserves its place among the most famous speeches in America. However, I've always felt that part of the widespread appeal of "Dream" is the way its eloquent plea for justice in the face of injustice plays into privileged narratives of civil rights.

King dreamed of equality for his children, just as good schoolchildren were asking for justice in the face of bad people with vicious dogs and firehouses. The fight against racial segregation included a lot of moments where the worst of humanity attacked the best of humanity. The firebombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The firing bombing of Freedom Riders' bus. Selma.

It's pretty easy to imagine one would be on the right side of history when the only other side is aligned with the Klan.

My problem with the ally narrative that emphasizes "I Have a Dream" is that it doesn't address the harm of apathy, indifference, or eight supposed allies begging for patience while privileged people prepared for the inconvenience of justice. I suppose this is one of the legacies of non-violent resistance to segregation-- it highlighted the monstrous violence of Jim Crow, leaving less and less cover for well-wishers on the sidelines.

Martin Luther King (and a hell of a lot of other people, but I'll leave that discussion for another day) spent most of the sixties tirelessly working to put enough pressure on white progressive to do what now seems like it was inevitable. Behind the scenes, there were shitloads of horrifyingly pragmatic discussions between the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, civil rights activists, and well, bigots.

And that's why I love Letter so damned much. It wasn't the inspiring parable that King wanted to tell, but rather the blunt rebuttal King need to make to would-be allies who insisted that the oppressed seek justice on privileged people's terms. A lot of Letter is specific to the church and to the effort to desegregate the US, but the sentiments King expressed are timeless.

I have so many objections to appropriative bullshit like this, but to the extent that we use the 1960's to frame the continuing struggle for social justice, let us not forget Letter and the lessons it holds for all of us.

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Bi-Monthly Fundraising Reminder & Thank You

This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.

It is also an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.

Running this strictly-moderated and independent space on donations rather than content-generated advertising, which is incompatible with safe spaces, means that my ability to keep it going depends on your support.

I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.

Women's service work, whether it's mothering, elder care, volunteering, philanthropy, social work, employment in any "pink collar" profession, or social advocacy, is gravely devalued, frequently to the point where it is unpaid work altogether. So, even though fundraising is not fun for me, not doing it is counterproductive to the work we do here every day. It's antifeminist.

This blog started as a hobby, a part-time interest into which I could put as much or as little time as I wanted. It's not a hobby anymore; it's a job. And regarding it thus is a feminist act.

You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Donation page, for even more options.

If you value the content and/or community in this space, can afford it, and want to see Shakesville continue to be managed as a safe space, please consider setting up a subscription or making a one-time contribution.

If you have recently appreciated getting content-noted information about important stories, distilled news about politics, reproductive rights, and other items of interest; the Fatsronauts 101 series; being able to discuss aspects of the rape culture in a space interested in dismantling that culture; finding out where to direct your teaspoon in support of social justice or in opposition to inequality, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.

I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, video transcripts, Film Corner, the community in Open Threads, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.

I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.

My boundless appreciation as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways: Thank you to our regular contributors, our moderators, our guest contributors, to anyone who has provided a transcription, to those who have linked to, quoted, Tweeted about, and otherwise supportively recommended this blog, and/or to the people who have taken the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.

[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible. I also want to reiterate that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.]

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Empathy! How the fudge does it work?

[Content Note: Misogyny; cissexism. Part Three in an ongoing series.]

"I'm a man." and "I've got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills." These are two things actually said, out loud, by Eden Foods founder and CEO Michael Potter, in explanation of his decision to sue the Obama administration over its rule that companies must cover the cost of birth control in their employee health insurance plans.

I [Irin Carmon] asked why he said he didn't care about birth control, since he filed a suit about it and all.

"Because I'm a man, number one and it's really none of my business what women do," Potter said. So, then, why bother suing? "Because I don't care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel's or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That's my issue, that's what I object to, and that's the beginning and end of the story." He added, "I'm not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don't tell me I gotta pay for it."

HA HA PERFECT. I'd like to observe that this garbage argument is a natural outgrowth of narratives that wrench women's reproductive health from general healthcare and set it aside as some kind of special exception. He's fine with "being told" he's got to provide health insurance to his employees, but asking him to comprehensively fund women's healthcare is a step too far. Because he doesn't view women's reproductive care as a central part of women's health.

(And he certainly does not realize that there are other reasons besides pregnancy prevention that some women and other people with uteri/ovaries need and use The Pill, nor that there are even people other than women who need and use hormonal birth control.)

Obviously, Carmon took him to task on this curious argument.

But the federal government tells him to do a lot of things, I said. Why sue over this if he had no particular issue with contraception, as the suit — "these procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices," his court filing explained – clearly alleges he does out of religious conviction? Well, he said, he opposes "using abortion as birth control, definitely." But the mandate doesn't cover abortion, I reminded him, only contraception, and emergency contraception is not abortion.

"It's a morass," Potter said. "I'm not an expert in anything. I'm not the pope. I'm in the food business. I'm qualified to have opinions about that and not issues that are purely women's issues. I am qualified to have an opinion about what health insurance I pay for."

I floated by him the fact that contraceptive coverage is cheaper to pay for than, say, maternity coverage.

Potter replied, "One's got a little more warmth and fuzziness to it than the other, for crying out loud."

I don't even with this guy.

And as annoying as every other bullshit thing he said was, perhaps this annoys me most of all: "[A]t one point he called himself 'a pretty simple guy, a Midwestern homemade-soup guy.'" Fuck off, man. I'm a pretty simple Midwestern woman, and I don't have any problems understanding what the fuck contraception is or why it's necessary.

This ain't about your being Midwestern. It's about your being a privileged dipshit.

[H/T to @RachelPerrone.]

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New Zealand Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Congratulations, New Zealand!

New Zealand's parliament has voted in favour of allowing same-sex marriage, prompting cheers, applause and the singing of a traditional Maori celebratory song ["Pokarekare Ana"] from the public gallery.

Seventy-seven of 121 members voted in favour of amending the 1955 Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to wed, making New Zealand the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.

"Two-thirds of parliament have endorsed marriage equality," said Louisa Wall, a gay opposition Labour party MP who campaigned in favour of the bill. "It shows that we are building on our human rights as a country."

All the happy blubs! Yay!

My thanks to a VERY HAPPY Shaker bekitty for the heads-up first thing this morning.

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Open Thread

The Charles Bridge, Prague

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Question of the Day

If you have a mobile phone, what is your favorite thing about having it? If you don't have a mobile phone by choice, what is your favorite thing about not having one?

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Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the North Pole

For a moment, Tom Hardy and the puppy were all, "Oh shit—polar bears!" But then the polar bears were all, "Welcome to our home. We love you. Please tell the world to save us." And Tom Hardy and the puppy were all, "OMG, you guys. We totally will! We love you, too!" And then they all feasted on blubber. It was the best day ever.

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Boston Marathon Bombing Updates

[Content Note: Terrorism; violence; racism.]

Here is some recommended reading:

The Guardian has the latest on where things stand.

In case it wasn't abundantly clear already: The injured Saudi man, who was questioned after being tackled while running away from the scene covered in burns, is a witness, not a suspect.

The bombs used "appear to have been fashioned out of ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, packed with nails and other fiendishly lethal shrapnel, and hidden in duffel bags left on the ground."

The first picture here may show one of the bags in which a bomb was hidden. Investigators are reviewing the image.

Peter Daou, with a bit of perspective. [CN for violence and war.]

Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave in comments links to things you've been reading/writing.

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On Compulsory Security Screening in Australia

by Shaker Anonymous, a long time reader and some-time commenter on Shakesville and an avid traveler. She lives in Australia with her partner and infant son, and two cats who refer to the three of them as "staff".

[Content Note: Invasive security while traveling; sexual violence.]

For reasons of employment opportunity, I live in a different country than nearly my entire extended family. When my son gets sick, instead of asking my mother or another trusted relative if I should be worried, I call a nurse line. When my partner and I want to go out for a meal, we depend on the kindness of friends or paid babysitting. To see our families, and access (even for a short while) the kind of support it's nice to have when one has a new baby, we have to travel internationally: We have to fly. None of what I am about to tell you would be acceptable to me even if we were not in a position where we were under so much pressure to travel, but the fact that we are puts me in a position that feels almost untenable.

I am an avid traveler, and I have watched with dismay the roll-out of invasive security screening procedures. I have protested them in any way I can, spoken out about how they marginalise transgender passengers, ostomates, survivors of sexual assault, and other groups whose personal circumstances do not in any way need to be disclosed in order to fly. I have kept a close eye on the roll-out of the millimeter-wave and backscatter scanners, and decided two or three years ago not to travel to the United States because I did not want to go through one of them. I have a deep-seated fear or being seen, and of intimate images of my body stemming from a history of sexual assault. I am anonymous for this post because I am afraid—afraid that my ability to remain in Australia will be compromised if I speak publicly; afraid that I will be targeted by security personnel if they can identify me.

Recently, while my son and I were recovering from a bad cold, and I was desperately in need of some family time, we had a well-timed trip home booked. I looked forward to the trip with anticipation. While in the past I have had fairly aggressive pat-downs from airport security leaving Australia, they now use wands and, to the best of my knowledge, security screening in Australia was, while annoying, business as usual. Millimeter wave (MMW) scanners had been trialed, but that trial was optional. While travelling home at Christmas I had noticed the machines were in use again, but believed they were still optional, and families with small children were being directed through a standard metal detector anyway. My partner and I had been fortunate to be able to buy business class seats at a heavily discounted rate, and while we were not looking forward to the traveling portion of the trip, it did not seem to be anything to fear either. How wrong I was.

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RIP Krystle Campbell

[Content Note: Violence.]

Jess noted earlier in her piece that the 8-year-old boy who died in yesterday's bombing at the Boston Marathon has been identified as Martin Richard. The second person who died has now been identified as a 29-year-old woman named Krystle Campbell.

"My daughter was the most lovable girl. She helped everybody, and I'm just so shocked right now. We're just devastated," [her father William A. Campbell Jr.] said. "She was a wonderful, wonderful girl. Always willing to lend a hand."

Campbell was at the finish line with a friend, Karen Rand, to cheer on her boyfriend, who was running the race. William Campbell said he doesn't know if Krystle's boyfriend finished the race before the bombs went off.

Karen Rand survived, but was in surgery for her serious injuries through Monday night. Cheryl Rand Engelhardt, Karen Rand's sister-in-law, wrote on Facebook that Krystle's parents at first believed that Karen was their daughter, and that she had survived the attack, because Karen was carrying Krystle's ID. Krystle's family was finally ushered into Karen's hospital room after one of her leg surgeries by hospital staff, only to discover their daughter's friend instead of Krystle. Krystle was then declared missing, and the family found out on Tuesday she was among the dead.

The heart, it never stops breaking.

My condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.

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I Am Thinking

[Content Note: Discussion of violence.]

In the wake of any public event of violence, there are the offers and promises and solicitations of prayer. I understand this: In times of crisis and trauma, religious people turn to prayer for solace and in hope of response, and I live in a deeply religious country.

But I am not a praying person. I cannot offer prayers.

I can say that I will keep people in my thoughts, which is generally received as a sufficient equivalent, but, for many religious people, praying constitutes an action, an asking for intervention, a hope that something will change; something will be done by someone.

Because I don't believe in a god, I cannot depend on intervention. I cannot ask anyone but myself to do something.

And so instead of offering prayers, I offer instead: I am thinking about what I can do better.

Violence doesn't exist in a void. Violent people and their violent acts happen in a culture that rewards domination, facilitates oppression, makes war profitable, maintains hierarchies of human value, devalues pacifism, glorifies brutality, abets cruelty, inequality, injustice, and tolerates colossal amounts of bigotry under the guise of "both sides" having a point in a false debate that equates the ache and effects of marginalization with the discomfort of having one's undeserved privilege challenged.

I am thinking about what I can do to dismantle the culture of violence.

Terrorism as a specific act of violence is effective because it is such an incomprehensible thing. It is an act that most of us cannot imagine, that many of us will never personally experience. While the act itself may be impossible to wrap our heads around, the context for terrorism—the circumstances in which terroristic ideas are born—can be better known. It is a difficult and discomfiting exploration, and we tend to avoid it.

I am thinking about what I can do to better contextualize and understand terrorism.

Talking about violence, especially acts of mass violence, as the work of a "madman," or any variation on attributing mass violence exclusively to mental illness, or as "senseless," or in any way categorizing these acts as existing in an unfathomable void torn from the culture in which they happen, comprehensively Othering people who commit acts of mass violence, is a way of giving ourselves permission to not feel obliged to change, ourselves or our environment. We thus exclusively task the people who want to do harm with harm prevention. In the same way we acknowledge we need to define and critique and dismantle a rape culture that abets rapists, we must define and critique and dismantle a culture of violence that abets violent people and their violent acts.

I am thinking about what I can do to speak about violence in a way that effects change.

Condemning violence is not sufficient, irrespective of its absolute rightness. Public violence is an action, undertaken by people who feel empowered by violent acts. Certainly, not every act of public violence would be halted by empowerment, by listening, by options. There are many ideas underwriting acts of violence that should not even be entertained as serious discourse. I don't know what to do about that, about the seemingly irreconcilable tension between people with reprehensible beliefs who turn to violence because they are not heard. I don't know how many violent people hold garbage beliefs as a mask over insecurities that aren't meaningfully or easily addressed, except by violent ideologies. I suspect early intervention with alternative ideological trajectories would be a deterrent, sometimes.

I am thinking about what role I can play in providing alternative ideas to violent ideologies.

I am thinking about these things, so that I may act. Because I don't want to feel helpless. Because I don't exist in a void, either. And because I do not pray.

[Note: This is not a criticism of people who do pray, nor am I suggesting that people who pray and people who think about what they can do are mutually exclusive groups. This is a first-person essay on my own experience in response to a common cultural meme.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Daily Dose of Cute

Sophie, being all sophslike.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!