What is the last movie you saw in the theater?
Iain and I saw Oblivion, which was visually beautiful and had an amazing score. But the ending stunk.
Question of the Day
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit Silex Springs in Yellowstone National Park
"Tom," said the puppy, licking its nose, "what is it like to be able to contemplate your own mortality?" And Tom replied, "It's tremendous and it's tragic, puppy." And the puppy asked, "What do you mean?" And Tom explained, "Well, on the one hand, knowing you will die someday has the capacity to infuse every moment with poignant meaning, because you know it is an extraordinary thing to be part of a rare sliver of time and space in a vast universe where intelligent life is a vanishingly infinitesimal possibility. But, on the other hand, knowing you will die someday has the capacity to make the time spent scrabbling to survive, the profusion of which varies from individual life to individual life, feel empty of meaning. You must work, to eat and to shelter yourself, whether working means sourcing your own food and building your own shelter, or working a job, even a job you love, to earn money to access those things, or working within a hostile system to access resources you can't provide for yourself. You must survive to survive, and some parts of survival can feel wasteful, even though they are necessary, because they steal from us so many moments that we want to be rich with existential meaning." The puppy tilted its head at Tom and blinked. "Cats don't wear YOLO gear because they have nine lives," said the puppy. And Tom laughed.
This Fucking Guy
[Content Note: Misogynistic slur; classism.]
Aviva at Think Progress:
Steve Kush, executive director of the Bernalillo County Republican Party in New Mexico, took to Twitter on Tuesday to verbally abuse a 19-year-old Working America volunteer who testified in favor of raising the minimum wage. Bernalillo County, the largest county in New Mexico, was considering a proposal to increase the county minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50.I am officially out of words. Luckily, through the magic of technology, I don't need any!
Rather than listen to the 19-year-old woman's testimony, Kush mocked her on social media, calling her a "radical bitch":
...Despite the slew of hateful comments made by Kush over social media, the county passed the proposal to raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50 by 3-2 on Tuesday night.
Me, right now. Not offended; contemptuous.
I got your radical bitch right here, sir.
[H/T to Shakers Bearpaw01 and MammaBear, in comments.]
This is what I have felt like for two weeks.
Dracarys!
P.S. If you're interested, Jess and I discuss the latest episode of Game of Boners here.
P.P.S. Did I say two weeks? I meant thirty-eight years.
Prolly Cuz I've Got a Silly Ladybrain
I am really failing to understand how Choice USA's Bro-Choice campaign doesn't, as Alexandra observes at the link, "[attempt] to 'masculinize' a feminist effort so dudes can feel comfortable [and condescend] to the targeted men (who I'd imagine will join up because of their convictions, rather than a transparent gimmick and a 'p' switched out for a 'b') while simultaneously prioritizing them. The clear message is that guys can't be part of a generally woman-led movement, and we need to cater to their need to feel manly."
COOKIES! BRO-COOKIES!
Men can, and should, be pro-choice. Campaigns that seek to challenge the war on agency must be inclusive of people who don't neatly fit into the gender binary. Women and genderqueer people should not be deprioritized to "make space" for men in advocacy where there is already room for men, especially through borrowing the language of bro-culture, which is in many significant ways antithetical to the goals of empowering women and other people with uteri.
I couldn't be more in favor of men getting involved in pro-choice activism—for lots of reasons, not least of which is that leaving "women's work" to women is some richly ironic antifeminist shit.
But this type of campaign is not the way I want to see it happen. Not at all.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by oranges.
Recommended Reading:
Pam: Afro Inspections in the Age of Terror… [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussions of terrorism and racism.]
Chris: Face Blindness: The Misidentification of Sunil Tripathi as the Boston Marathon Bomber [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism, xenophobia, and violence.]
Relatedly, the Angry Asian Man reports that a body recovered from the Providence River may be Tripathi.
Mia: Hey, White Liberals: A Word on the Boston Bombings, the Suffering of White Children, and the Erosion of Empathy [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence, racism, dehumanization, and privilege.]
Samantha: All Skulls On: Teaching Intersectionality Through Halo [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of intersectional oppressions and some references to video game violence.]
Jorge: Hospitals Caught 'Deporting' Sick, Undocumented Immigrants [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism, violence, and disablism.]
Suzanne: UN Commission Opens Session Focusing on Migrants' Rights [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny, exploitation, and violence.]
Alan: West Virginia Republican: Make Kids Work as Janitors for School Lunches [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of classism.]
Adrienne: Armie Hammer Apparently Talked to Some Natives Who Love Lone Ranger [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and appropriation.]
And finally: Hi, Loki!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Wealth Gap
Meanwhile, as workers are striking in Chicago in pursuit of a livable wage, Pew reports that, from 2009 to 2011, "the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%."
From the end of the recession in 2009 through 2011 (the last year for which Census Bureau wealth data are available), the 8 million households in the U.S. with a net worth above $836,033 saw their aggregate wealth rise by an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the 111 million households with a net worth at or below that level saw their aggregate wealth decline by an estimated $0.6 trillion.Twenty-four times. Twenty-four times.
Because of these differences, wealth inequality increased during the first two years of the recovery. The upper 7% of households saw their aggregate share of the nation's overall household wealth pie rise to 63% in 2011, up from 56% in 2009. On an individual household basis, the mean wealth of households in this more affluent group was almost 24 times that of those in the less affluent group in 2011. At the start of the recovery in 2009, that ratio had been less than 18-to-1.
And our national conversation is still about austerity, and slashing funds to social programs, and fucking bootstraps.
Let me repeat myself: I'll leave aside for now the tropes about the legions of straw-people who could be earning a livable wage at an awesome job with excellent benefits, but inexplicably choose to work at a minimum-wage job without benefits, or choose not to work at all, living high on the hog off our generous welfare system. Suffice it to say, that is abject nonsense, and being poor is one of the most difficult things to be in this country. Poverty is not for lazy people.
My present concern is with the working poor, and the way they are regarded by the architects of the Ownership Society.
Those men—and they are indeed almost all men, most of whose lives have been dictated by inherent privilege and family connections, which we're not meant to note while admiring their shiny bootstraps—believe quite firmly, and without seemingly a trace of irony or compunction, that one gets what one deserves in life. From the imposing height of their handsomely recompensed sinecures, they will assert with the particular condescending authority bestowed only by unearned success that, with a little hard work, anyone can be a productive member of their magnificent Ownership Society.
Now, I don't feel inclined to get into a whole Marxist discussion about the means of production here, but what these insufferable, vainglorious, classist captains of self-aggrandizing bullshit seem never to grasp, or possibly just acknowledge, is that if you want to live in a capitalist society that gives you the opportunity to get nasty rich, then we can't all be wealthy. And if you want to be the kind of person who doesn't pump your own gas, or make your own sandwiches, or clean your own house, or manicure your own fingernails, or drain your own dog's anal glands, or build your own car elevator, then there are going to have to be people who fill all those jobs.
And most of those professional, hard-working people will put in at least 40 hours a week, or more, and even still, many of them won't be given healthcare benefits, and many of them won't earn enough money to feed a family, and many of them won't be able to save as much as they'll need for their retirement.
People who honorably dedicate their time, energy, and talents to jobs that might not pay well are indeed entitled to something—to not work their whole lives only to find themselves poverty-stricken, or hungry, or homeless after one small (or not small) financial crisis. And if we're not going to ensure that every job comes with a livable wage, access to affordable healthcare, and retirement benefits, then we've got to provide a robust and well-funded social safety net.
I don't think that's asking for much, in exchange for a lifetime of providing service to their chosen vocation.
Though I grant it's certainly easier to scream BOOTSTRAPS! and carelessly assert that people who don't have everything they need just aren't trying hard enough.
Funny how the Grand Advocates of Hard Work are always the ones making the easy arguments.
The working poor in the US—and all of the people who navigate a tenuous existence in the middle class, from which they could be unceremoniously exiled after a brush with unemployment or a health crisis—are not working any less hard than their wealthy counterparts (in fact, many of us work a lot harder, but had the silly idea to pursue a vocation not as highly valued as making privileged people and corporations wealthy), and we not are not fools, and we do not "deserve" to have twenty-four times less wealth and its attendant security and opportunity.
This cavernous disparity is the result of wanton avarice, of cruel greed, of a void of empathy and a colossally short-sighted contempt toward the notion of culture, toward the idea that we are all in this thing together.
Beneath all the bullshit conservative narratives of earned privilege and deserved prosperity and bootstraps lies the truth: This inequality is the result of the Ownership Society's inherent indecency.
And I invite its architects to own that.
[Related Reading: Racism is why are whites are five times richer than blacks in the US.]
In The News
[Content note: Terrorism, disaster]
Wednesday News:
The Elvis Impersonator accused of sending ricin-laced letters to the President and a Mississippi judge has been released. He says he was framed.
One Direction will tour the US in a replica Scooby Doo Mystery machine van. Neat!
Construction is set to begin on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood theme park. Neat!
An eight-story building collapsed in Bangladesh, killing at least 80 people and injuring hundreds.
Reproductive Rights Updates: Michigan, North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota, Hawaii, & National
Quite a bit has happened in the past few days, some good and some, well, the same anti-autonomy bullshit as ever.
In Michigan, some legislators are trying to make it so more people can legally opt-out of doing their jobs if they don't want to because they choose to believe in some sort of supernatural rule system.
For 35 years, Michigan law has protected health care providers who refuse to perform an abortion on moral or religious grounds.You know what? If you cannot do your job because of your choice to believe in some set of religious rules, you should find a different fucking job. ESPECIALLY when your job is to provide needed health care and services to people. You are supposed to be a HELPER. Be a sanctimonious asshat when you aren't on the clock.
Hospitals and clinics can't be sued. Doctors and nurses can't lose their jobs for objecting to terminating a pregnancy.
Legislation that could be voted on as early as this week in the Republican-led Legislature would extend the same legal protections for any medical service such as providing contraception or medical marijuana, or taking someone off life support. Employers and health insurers — not just medical providers — also could opt out of paying for services as a matter of conscience.
Supporters say the legislation protects religious freedom and is needed particularly in the wake of the federal health care law mandating employer-provided birth control in their health plans. ...
Also: we see your attempt at a workaround for employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control coverage, Michigan.
***
In North Carolina, eyeballs are now on the governor:
This session, [legislators] presented a bill that would require doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, which can be difficult to obtain.In his last election debate, Gov. McCrory promised he would not sign any new anti-choice legislation into law. His spokesperson said that McCrory will make the decision when the legislation is on his desk.
One recent bill would establish civil penalties for doctors who knowingly perform abortions in cases in which the child's sex is the driving factor. Another would broaden so-called protections of conscience and exempt businesses from providing contraception coverage to employees, which its sponsor acknowledges contradicts federal law.
***
Daily Dose of Cute
The puppies do their best American Gothic.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
LegisLaughter Corner
Here's this week's big story in Wisconsin:
Republican legislators in Wisconsin are outraged over the reasonably responsible budgets of thousands of academic departments in the University of Wisconsin system.
It turns out that various departments throughout the system maintain reserves that, on average, equal 25% of their annual budgets. According to the UW's president, that's less of a reserve than a lot of other state university systems.
Anyhow, some Republicans think he should resign.
State Senator Alberta Darling implied the existence of a conspiracy:
It looks like a scheme. It looks like you intended to put this money all over so that people wouldn't know what you were doing.Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald questioned why the UW sought to offset $250 million in budget cuts by raising tuition:
“How can you sit there and look at that cash balance and say, ‘You know what? We're still going to go in and ask for a 5.5 percent [tuition] increase in each year.’ I can't imagine what that discussion was like.”Senate President Mike Ellis tried (unsuccessfully) to show solidarity with the working class in the face of the elitists in
“There’s a degree of arrogance here on the part of the university [system]. They all think they're Ph. D's and we ought to be working at a Jiffy Lube.“I mean, I TOTALLY GET that the Republican legislature would have cut the UW System's budget EVEN MORE and would have cut student aid (rather than merely refusing to raise it) had they known that's how budgets work. I'm just not sure [I'm totally sure] they would have practically ended collective bargaining with public employees' unions had they known that some department at UW Oshkosh was sitting on three months' worth reserve funding.
Also of note, this all went down during a hearing on how the hippies in UW System administration wanted to adopt harsh personnel rules favored by Republican Governor Scott Walker.
In conclusion, PRINCIPLES.
--
Update: Earlier today, Democratic legislators joined the republicans in calling the surplus unjustifiable. Neat!
Quote of the Day
"I think I'm doing more than what I should, and for $8.25, it's not enough"—Esly Hernandez, a Dunkin Donuts worker making $8.25 an hour, who is one of the hundreds of service workers striking in Chicago today in pursuit of a $15/hourly wage and the right to unionize.
Hernandez, who said he lives "paycheck-to-paycheck," joined the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC) after being approached by a coworker. That workers organization, with the support of other local workers groups and unions, is leading the Fight for 15 campaign to raise wages and form a union.The striking workers in Chicago today include employees of McDonald's, Subway, Macy's, Sears, and Victoria's Secret.
Hernandez said he joined the strike in large part because he wanted to be a good father to his four-year-old son. "I want to be able to go to school, to pay for school, and for him to be proud of me," he said. Because his son—who does not live with him—is anemic, Hernandez said he is sometimes forced to choose between buying medically recommended nutrition for his son and paying his electricity bills.
"I don't want my son to go through the struggles that I've been through," said Hernandez.
Labor unrest in low-wage service and retail sector workplaces has become increasingly prevalent over the last few years, as those sectors have come to occupy increasingly central roles in the U.S. economy. Low-wage jobs in those industries have driven post-recession job growth to a great degree, leading observers such as labor reporter Andrew Kroll to refer to the American economy in its current form as "the McJobs economy."
...Wednesday's strike in Chicago is remarkable because it shows just how contagious this kind of labor unrest has become. Until now, major fast food strikes have been confined to New York City, which recently held a second strike, even larger than its first. The strike in Chicago is the first major labor action to afflict the fast food industry in a city besides New York.
STFU, Limbaugh
[Content Note: Racism; violence; terrorism.]
So, Rush Limbaugh, professional dirtbag, is complaining that there is "a media conspiracy to 'define deviancy down' by portraying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an adorable kid through teenage anecdotes and photos that make him look handsome." That would be objectionable enough, but then he went on to compare admitted terrorist Tsarnaev to murdered teenager Trayvon Martin:
"You notice also that the news media are doing to Dzhokhar what they did to Trayvon Martin," Limbaugh said on his radio show Tuesday. "They're regularly showing a photo of Dzhokhar that was taken when he was about 14. Soft, angelic, nice little boy, harmless, cute, big lovable eyes."I'm so fucking angry about that comparison, even and especially in service to one of Limbaugh's entirely typical bullshit media conspiracy stories, that I'm struggling to craft a coherent response.
Trayvon Martin was not a terrorist. He was not terrorizing George Zimmerman's community. He wasn't doing anything wrong at all. He was a kid walking down a street with a bag of Skittles in his hand, who was stalked and harassed and eventually murdered by someone who believed he was up to no good because he was a black kid in a hoodie in his neighborhood.
(And I utterly refuse to indulge any debate here about whether Martin "went after" Zimmerman. If he "went after" him, that was an eminently reasonable self-defense response to an unknown adult who was stalking him in a vehicle and then on foot, something Zimmerman admits doing, though he wouldn't call it "stalking" because he fancies himself some kind of goddamn vigilante hero.)
Limbaugh's attempt to equate Trayvon Martin with a terrorist, for any reason, is a heinous personal attack on Martin, and a profoundly contemptible and harmful narrative that entrenches racist tropes about the violent nature of black men, but the thing that's making me seethe beyond measure is the breathtaking audacity and unfathomable cruelty of comparing one of the most well-known black victims of gun violence to a terrorist, while the country determinedly ignores that young black USians are being terrorized by gun violence.
[T]here exists a clear and unfortunate connection between race and gun violence in this country, and if you are African American, you are far more likely to be a victim of gun violence in America, whether the shooter is Black or White.Which is to say nothing of the murder of young black people by police, as in the case of Oscar Grant.
...[T]he Children's Defense Fund's Protect Children, Not Guns 2012 reports that in 2008 and 2009, Black children and teens accounted for 45 percent of all child and teen gun deaths, but were only 15 percent of the total child population. Moreover, gun homicide was the leading cause of death among Black teens between the ages of 15 and 19.
For too many Black families, these staggering statistics are not just numbers but ingrained into their everyday lives. For instance, Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old honor student, was fatally shot in Hyde Park just days after she returned from participating in President Obama's inaugural parade.
In Prince George's County, Maryland, six high schools students have died of gun violence this academic school year' five of these students were African American and the sixth was Hispanic.
A shooting in Chicago last month took the lives of seven people and injured six others. Ronnie Chambers was among those killed on January 26, 2013; he was the youngest son of Shirley Chambers, who had already lost three other children in three separate shootings. In 2000, Ms. Chambers presciently told the Chicago Tribune after she lost her third child, "I only have one child left, and I'm afraid that [the killings] won't stop until he's gone, too."
In another case, seventeen-year old Jordan Russell Davis was killed on November 23, 2012 by 45-year old Michael David Dunn for playing loud music in Jacksonville, Florida. Dunn pulled up next to Davis and his three friends outside a convenience store. While Dunn's girlfriend went inside to get food, Dunn, agitated by the loud music coming from the SUV, demanded the African American teens to turn down their music.
The teens refused. Dunn shot at least eight times at the SUV while the teens frantically tried to reverse; two of these bullets fatally hit Davis.
This was a letter to the editor in our local paper earlier this month:
While there are many troublesome aspects of gun violence in America, perhaps the most disturbing is the statistical disparity of death by gun violence of black Americans. This disparity is across the board, regardless if shootings are accidental, homicidal or suicidal.This isn't an abstract issue to me. This is happening in my community. Like Shirley Chambers in Chicago, Lenore Johnson of Gary has lost all four of her children to gun violence. Do you understand? There are multiple black mothers who have lost four children to gun violence just in this area. Now multiply that across the entire country. And then think about Rush Limbaugh equating someone who was probably not so dissimilar to their dead children to a confessed terrorist.
The National Institute of Justice reports that young black males from 15 to 19 are five times more likely to be killed by gun violence than their white counterparts. Black teens are dying at an alarming rate of 11.3 per 100,000 compared to white teens dying at the rate of 2.3 per 100,000.
Chicago further illustrates the incidence of gun-related deaths, as it is reported that in 2012 the 515 individuals killed in Chicago's streets outnumbered the 301 soldiers killed in that same year in Afghanistan.
Investigation into the causes of these racial disparities of gun violence in America can shed light on the larger question of how to reduce gun violence in our population as a whole.
- Sheila R, Taylor, Gary
Trayvon Martin was not a terrorist. He was terrorized. Being five times more likely to be killed by gun violence because of your race, and the dread of living under a heightened threat of violence, and the devaluation of your life by your country's indifference to this ongoing threat, is terrorism, if the word is to have any meaning at all that doesn't center exclusively around scared white people.
I don't have a well-tied bow to conclude this piece. Rush Limbaugh can fuck off.
[Note: Do not tell me that responding to Limbaugh is only giving him oxygen and my outrage is what he wants and blah blah. I don't want to hear it. Just don't. I am not raising my voice for Limbaugh; I am refusing to remain silent for the people he victimizes.]
Marriage Momentum: Delaware & Rhode Island
How about a little good news to start the day?
In Delaware yesterday, the state house of representatives approved a bill legalizing marriage for same-sex couples:
The bill, which was introduced less than two weeks ago, will go to the Senate for a vote before heading to the desk of Gov. Jack Markell, who has said he would sign such a bill into law.Yay!
The state has extended civil unions rights to all same-sex couples since 2011. The legislative procedure to make marriages legal for Delaware's same-sex couples is relatively simple. Current law restricts marriage only to two "people [not] of the same gender," but there is no constitutional ban on marriage equality. The proposed legislation will revise the statute language to establish marriage equality. With a strong Democratic base of voters, Democratic control over both the house and senate, and Gov. Markell's endorsement, equality supporters don't anticipate a drawn-out fight toward equality.
Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, the state senate judiciary committee approved a bill which would legalize marriage for same-sex couples:
By a vote of 7 to 4, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, while allowing religious leaders who oppose such marriages to refuse to perform them. The landmark vote by the full Senate could come on Wednesday. Gay rights advocates said that they think they have the votes to prevail, all but ensuring adoption of same-sex marriage by the only state in New England that does not already allow it.Yay!
"We think that when the vote is called, we can win," Ray Sullivan, campaign director of Rhode Islanders United for Marriage, said Tuesday afternoon of the imminent Senate vote.
A similar bill passed the House in January by a vote of 51 to 19, and Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a onetime Republican who is now an independent, has strongly supported marriage equality.
There are, of course, states where achieving marriage equality for same-sex couples is going to be even more difficult, because of constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and the continued existence of DOMA. The more states that legalize same-sex marriage through the legislatures, the more pressure it will put on states with constitutional bans to lift those bans and do the right thing. These legislative victories will not only be crucial for same-sex couples who want to get married in Delaware and Rhode Island, but for same-sex couples in states who are still awaiting the first steps toward marriage equality.
Question of the Day
What is the one recipe you have totally perfected, and what is the one dish you just can't get exactly right?
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Patrick Dougherty Environmental Sculpture at the Morton Arboretum
"Tom," said the puppy, licking its nose, "I've been thinking about the nature of humor." Tom nodded agreeably, with a lifted eyebrow. "Oh, really?" he said, with piqued interest. "And what have you been thinking about it?" And the puppy said, "I've been thinking about how when humor challenges privilege, it's a radical act, but when humor mocks marginalized people and puppies, it's just bullying." And Tom said, "You know, puppy, the great Molly Ivins had a marvelous quote about that. She said: 'Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it's vulgar.' She was a smart lady." And the puppy wagged its tail and said: "She sounds terrific!" And then the puppy added, ruefully: "Tom, I wish people wouldn't be bullies." And Tom said, "Me, too, puppy. Me, too."
Headline of the Day
Ha ha NOPE!
This story is currently posted at the conservative National Journal, to which I won't be linking, but it's easy enough to find it if you're really so inclined.
There are few bad faith arguments I more loathe than the one which implies anyone who criticized George W. Bush did so exclusively for partisan and personal reasons. I don't give a fucking shit whether George W. Bush is "a good man" (whatever that means). What I care about, and always have, is that he was a terrible president.
[Related Reading: Rehabilitating Bush.]
Shakers Are So Dreamy
Part four in an ongoing series.
Recently, I have received not one, not two, but three separate missives from Shakers who have had dreams incorporating me, Tom Hardy, and a grey pit bull puppy! Which is obviously awesome.
Naturally, we shall use this as the jumping-off point for another thread about how frequently I and the other contributors/mods and other Shakers appear in each other's dreams. Shakes-related dreams come up in comments fairly regularly, and one of the most common subjects among reader emails is telling me that they dreamed about me and/or another contributor. (And, no, the vast majority of these are not the least bit creepy.)
So: Fess up. Have I appeared in your dream as your first-grade teacher? Has a fellow Shaker met you for drinks on the moon in your sleep? Has Deeky come to you in the night as a gummi-worm wielding organ grinder? Did I just invent the quadruple entendre with that last sentence...?
Tell the tales of your Shakesville Dreams here.
Your dreams are weird.
