We've done this one before, but not for a long while: If you were to have the good fortune of an admired singer/songwriter/lyricist offering to compose/sing a song just for you, by whom would that offer be made?
If hearing impaired Shakers, or anyone else, would prefer to answer what poet they would chose to write a poem just for them, please feel free to modify.
Question of the Day
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Grand Canyon
"Tom," the puppy said, licking its nose, "do you ever think about how an intangible thing like love can be so powerful?" And Tom said, "Sometimes I do think about that, puppy. I think about how love is a thing smaller than the tiniest grain of sand, but can somehow fill a space as big as the glorious canyon in which we find ourselves." And the puppy said, "I think that's the secret to the resiliency of love, Tom. It is so small and so big it can never be crushed, and just when it seems to have disappeared from one space, it emerges in another, having taken a wholly different shape." And Tom said, "I think you're right, puppy. I think you're right." And then they turned, and, as if it had been choreographed by a schmaltzy hack with a gift for the accidentally profound, they both yelled into the canyon, "LONG LIVE LOVE!" and the words reverberated through the vast and ancient space carved from stone.
On Brittney Griner and Media Frames
[Content Note: Heterocentrism.]
Jess has a pair of great posts about the WNBA's #1 draft pick, Brittney Griner, the first on Griner talking about being a lesbian in women's sports and the second on the ensuing media coverage and its heteronormative frame, which, as I've noted before, is also intertwined with the entitlements we feel we are owed by public figures—as if someone isn't really "out" until they disclose that information on the cover of a magazine to "us."
Anyway. Read them!
I love this: "Okay, Nike. Word is that you are eager to endorse an openly gay athlete. You best get Ms. Griner on the phone." YES.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Violence.]
"The investigation is proceeding apace. This is not an NCIS episode. Sometimes you have to take time to properly put the chain together to identify the perpetrators. Everyone's committed to seeing that that gets done in the right way."—Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, pleading for the public to be patient with the Boston Marathon Bombing investigation earlier today.
This is not an NCIS episode. Truth.
Garbage Treasures: Now With More Ed Hardy!
As you may recall, Deeky collects and saves useless garbage like we're beyond Thunderdome and useless garbage is now a form of currency and he's a garbageaire. Then, instead of throwing it away, he throws pieces of his fancy detritus collection into an envelope and pays money to ship it to me, at which point I put them in plastic treasure chests and put them out by the curb every week to be collected by the "treasure man," who buries them at the "treasure dump" for me for safe keeping.
But not before taking a picture of the bounty so that I can post it, natch.
[Click to embiggen.]
Counter-clockwise from top left: The packaging itself, a shiny bright red envelope featuring a sparkly sticker of a tween boy who I can only assume is a member of One Direction; some helpful educational materials authored by John Stossel; a pamphlet on "How to Pray the Rosary," which will obviously come in very useful; a "Growing Pains" trading card featuring "Jeremy Miller as Ben Seaver"; a burned copy of the conservative film Last Ounce of Courage on which Deeks has handwritten OBVIOUSLY; a burned copy of the Sean Penn film This Must Be the Place (which I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH) on which Deeks has handwritten OF COURSE; a burned copy of (what I am guessing is the remake of) Red Dawn (which I can't wait to NOT WATCH) on which Deeks has handwritten NO DOY; and a packet of orange-flavored Ed Hardy Energy Sticks: "All Day Energy 3-Pack. Pour on tongue."
LOL FOREVER.
In The News
[Content note: Racism, homophobia]
Thursday Morning News:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-epugnant) warned Wednesday that "radical Islamists" are being "trained to act like Hispanic[s]" and cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Whut?
The Church of Scotland is going to debate allowing gay ministers to have sex.
Jeremy Irons: Still a douche.
The world's largest gay club is opening in Las Vegas.
An Islamabad court ordered the arrest of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on charges of illegally detaining dozens of judges while in power.
Research suggests that Tylenol may help to reduce existential angst. I wish I'd know about this decades ago!
The final season of Breaking Bad will premier August 11th.
Tweet of the Day
Tweet of the day:
English is my native language. My words mean what I intend. If you read them differently because of "social context" that's your problem.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) April 18, 2013
It's probably a total coincidence that we had this exchange yesterday:
Do you really not understand the social context in which you are making your remarks? @richarddawkins
— Ana Mardoll (@anamardoll) April 17, 2013
What I'm Listening To
Also: Angie Miller, who is from Boston, performs "I'll Stand by You" for her hometown:
Blub.
Daily Dose of Cute
Lord Dudlington
You can't see it in this picture, but his grody beef tongue was hanging out and draped across the chaise, too. For maximum silliness, obvs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
R.I.P. Rita MacNeil
[Content Note: fat hatred.]
Rita MacNeil, folk singer and Cape Breton icon, has passed away at age 68. Gifted with a beautiful voice, great stage presence, and what seemed to be a genuinely warm personality, she overcome extreme shyness to become a widely-beloved figure in Canadian music:
MacNeil was famously shy, but said her parents helped her overcome that trait by constantly reminding her to believe in herself.MacNeil's themes were frequently rooted in the experiences of impoverished Atlantic Canadians, but her sweet, church choir-like delivery gave her songs a distinctive sound in the crowded field of Canadian folk music:
"You can be shy," she said. "You can work through all kinds of struggle. But somewhere deep down, you have to have belief or nothing's going to happen."
...MacNeil recorded 24 albums and sold millions of records over the course of her career.
She hosted a CBC-TV variety program, Rita and Friends, which ran from 1994 to 1997 and drew regular audiences of one million viewers. MacNeil's Christmas variety shows drew loyal viewers.
MacNeil was a member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of five honorary doctorates. In 1986, she opened Rita’s Tea Room in her hometown of Big Pond, where she also gave performances.
Once she got onstage or behind a microphone in the recording studio, “she became a force of nature,” LeBlanc said, her crystal-clear alto sweetly delivering an often-anthemic mix of hard truths and sentiment that could soften the coldest heart.And, of course, there was the body shame and fat hatred lobbed at her, even by those who admired her music. Such a lovely voice...too bad she is so fat, etc. It must have hurt tremendously, but MacNeil persevered. I note that, even with her death the Globe and Mail tribute to her keeps mentioning that she was not attractive, a framing Rita herself rejected:
Yet as sweet as that voice was, “it had something in it that was more than just pleasant, a little bit extra,” said long-time Globe and Mail and CBC Radio music contributor Robert Harris. “What intrigues us in the pop world is ambiguity and contradiction … two things that should be separate from each other but are together.” So while a major MacNeil song such as 1982’s Working Man was about the tough lives of Cape Breton coal miners, it “was presented in this angelic, church-choir voice … The sound she [was] making [was] so different from the experiences being described. That’s moving because the brain processes the two.”
MacIntyre’s best memory of MacNeil, date unspecified, happened on CBC-TV’s the fifth estate when the late Eric Malling asked MacNeil “if she might have been more successful were she, um, beautiful. She replied without hesitation: ‘But, Eric, I am beautiful.’ And from that moment on, if not before, she was.”Beautiful? Yes. She certainly was.
[VIDEO: Rita MacNeil and Men of the Deep perform 'Working Man,'
to a slideshow of mining images.]
[Note: If there are more negative things to be said about MacNeil, they are excluded because I am not aware of them, not because of any desire to cover them up. Please feel free to comment on the entirety of her life and work in this thread.]
The NY Post Is Reprehensible
[Content Note: Racism.]
This, right here, is why I am resolved to practice patience: The utterly contemptible NY Post has published an image of two young men (who appear to be men of color) on their fucking cover with the giant text "BAG MEN," reporting they are being sought in connection with the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Except: These are not the two men being sought by the FBI. They are high school runners.
YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS BACK, NY POST. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK. IT'S ON YOUR GODDAMN COVER.
I fervently hope for these young men's safety.
An Observation
Two observations, actually:
1. I am glad every single moment of every single day that Mitt Romney is not the US president. But I am especially glad this week.
2. Last night, as the news of the explosion in Texas broke, I thought about President Obama having to get this news. (And I thought about the person who had to be the one to tell him.) A lot of USians feel very overwhelmed right now—scared and sad and angry and emotionally spent. And I just can't imagine the weight of this on our President. I am sending him what strength I can offer.
In the late hours of the evening, watching grainy footage of triage in a football field where more than a hundred people needed medical attention, as the latest from Boston and updates about ricin-laced letters and quotes from parents of Newtown victims perplexed and disappointed and furious about the Senate's failure to enact even the most basic gun reform scrolled along the bottom of the screen, I texted Jess: "I just feel like the whole country is in need of care. Everyone needing it; everyone feeling empty. How can we fill each other back up when we're all running on emotional fumes? ...We need a national group hug. With President Obama in the middle. And that image just made me cry. I am a mess lol."
And that's pretty much where I stand. And I realize that aching from afar is a comparative luxury.
Major Explosion in West, Texas Last Night
[Content Note: Injury; death.]
There was an enormous explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, last night, which has left several people dead (there is no firm number on fatalities yet, although thankfully it looks to be far lower than original estimates of ~70 people) and hundreds of people injured, some seriously. Dozens of homes and business in the small town have also been damaged or destroyed by the explosion.
Right now, it does not appear to be anything but a terrible accident that began with a fire in the plant, followed by an explosion as the volunteer firefighters were working to extinguish the blaze.
And by "accident," I mean distinct from a deliberate action designed to cause harm—although I want to make clear that the investigation has only begun and has nothing has been officially ruled out at this time. It may be that it was not a deliberate action, but attributable to bad safety practices, in which case "accident" isn't a totally apt word.
The point is: We don't know yet, but it isn't currently being treated as a deliberate action.
I am not going to post pictures of the explosion, and I want to warn readers that there is a video being widely posted of the explosion, which is extremely jarring and potentially triggering. (It's generally described as something like "Man catches explosion on video from his truck" or "Dad and kid witness explosion," but sometimes as innocuous as "Explosion caught on video.") Last night, at least, it was being posted all over the place without any kind of content warning, so please proceed with caution.
This is an unfathomably enormous tragedy for the town of West, Texas. So, so many people injured. So much of the town destroyed. It is thought that many of their volunteer fire department may have been lost. People left without jobs and homes. Fuck. I hurt for the town. I am so sorry.
I will post additional information as it becomes available. Please feel welcome and encouraged to share info in comments.
UPDATE 1: The Dallas Morning News reports:
At a 10 a.m. press briefing in West, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said [he] still couldn't update the number of the injured and wounded but said three to five emergency workers remain missing. The confirmed number of injured remains at 160, and "we're still sticking with the number five to 15" dead, Swanton said.
Emergency workers, including crews from Burleson, Fort Hood and Texas Task Force 1, are still searching for survivors of the blast that devastated much of West. Oncor employees are accompanying rescue workers to make sure they don't step on downed power lines, and workers are "shoring up some areas before they go in," Swanton said.
"It's a very slow, methodical search," he said.
Arrest Made in Ricin-Laced Letters Case
[Content Note: Terrorism; intent to harm.]
An arrest has been made in the case of ricin-laced letters addressed to President Barack Obama and Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Paul Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., was taken into custody by federal agents last night.
His motivation is still not totally clear: It certainly isn't partisan politics, as Obama is a Democrat and Wicker is a conservative Republican. But apparently Curtis has posted pictures of guns and pro-gun/anti-reform material on his Facebook page, so it may be related to his views on guns.
I want to note that local law enforcement have told media that Curtis is believed to have some mental health issues. While acknowledging that information, I also want to underline that, if the report is indeed accurate, mental illness may or may not be a contributing factor to Curtis' crime. It is almost never as simple as "he's crazy, so he did this harmful thing," and let us be sensitive to that reality in this space.
President Obama's Statement on the Senate's Failure to Pass Background Check Legislation
Yesterday, in a vote of 54-46, the Senate voted down the Manchin/Toomey amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases at gun shows and online. Because of a Republican filibuster, 60 votes were required to overcome GOP obstructionism. The votes weren't there.
After the loss, President Obama delivered a brief but powerful address in the Rose Garden, in which he did not mask his contempt for the failure of Congress to enact legislation supported by 90% of the US public:
I've heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory. And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? All that happened today was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn't make our kids safer. Victory for not doing something that 90% of Americans, 80% of Republicans, the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the question: Who are we here to represent?!The above is just a brief excerpt. A complete transcript of the address is below the fold.
I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. "A prop," somebody called them. "Emotional blackmail," some outlets said. Are they serious?! Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions, their loss, is not relevant to this debate?
So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.
I am glad he is angry. I am angry, too.
See also this op-ed by former Representative Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting assassination attempt and supported this legislation.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker particolored: "Which famous (or not-so-famous!) author would you love to have a beer/coffee/water cooler drink with, and why?"
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Taj Mahal
The puppy licked its nose and said, "Tom, I love you so much that I would save one biscuit a day for my whole life to build you a Taj Mahal of dog biscuits. And, as you know, I am a puppy, so that is very impressive impulse control." And Tom said, "Stop it, you're making me all choked up and I can barely gaze with awe at the Taj Mahal through all these unfallen tears in my eyes." And the puppy said, "If only I had opposable thumbs. Oh well, guess I'll eat those biscuits. But I really do love you A LOT." And Tom said, "I love you too, puppy."
I Am Practicing Patience
[Content Note: Violence; terrorism; racism.]
Earlier today, CNN breathlessly reported the "breaking news" that investigators in the bombing of the Boston Marathon had arrested a suspect who, anchor John King reported, was a "dark-skinned male."
This report, based on anonymous sources, turned out to be inaccurate.
No arrest had been made. No suspect was in custody. Law enforcement had merely identified a person of interest in video footage—a person who might merely be a witness—and there was no information made public about the person's identity.
Never in my life have I been so determined to practice patience. The clamoring expectation that this criminal act of violence is going to be solved immediately is only going to increase the number of people, especially people of color, who are wrongly identified by anonymous law enforcement sources as "suspects," and is only going to increase the amount of deeply harmful reporting.
I am practicing patience.
The bombing of Centennial Park at the Atlanta Summer Olympics took place on July 27, 1996. The person who eventually confessed to the crime, Eric Rudolph, was not even identified as a suspect until almost two years later on February 14, 1998.
In the intervening two years, Richard Jewell, the man who found the pipe bomb left by Rudolph—which exploded before it could be safely detonated, killing one person and wounding 111 others—had his life torn to shreds by accusations that he was the bomber. Those accusations were wrong.
I am practicing patience.
To this day, when I think of the name Eric Rudolph, it is this picture of Richard Jewell that accompanies the name. I swear to fuck that picture was everywhere for something like six solid months after the bombing. Just now, I had to go look up what Eric Rudolph looks like; I couldn't call him to mind at all.
I am practicing patience.
I remember Eric Rudolph's name, but I remember Richard Jewell's face. That is the legacy of irresponsible leaking and reporting, in the aftermath of a public act of violence. That is also the legacy of public impatience, during a time when care must be taken.
It is my job to follow and report news. I understand the urge to want to know, and the urge to want to share. But I am practicing patience.
