Shakesville

R.I.P. Lindy Boggs

Lindy Boggs, the first Congresswoman elected from Louisiana, the first woman to serve as an ambassador to the Vatican, and a key player in outlawing gender discrimination in credit lending, has died at age 97:

The velvet Southern charm she had absorbed growing up on two Louisiana plantations was her not-so-secret weapon.

She displayed it early in her first term when the House banking committee was composing an amendment to a lending bill banning discrimination on the basis of race, age or veteran status. She added the words “sex or marital status,” ran to a copying machine and made a copy for each member.

In her memoir she recalled saying: “Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I’m sure it was just an oversight that we didn’t have ‘sex’ or ‘marital status’ included. I’ve taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee’s approval.”

Thus was sex discrimination prohibited by the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.

She was also, according to the New York Times, noted for her support of civil rights, a position far from universal among white Southern Democrats:

Mrs. Boggs championed racial justice at a time when doing so invited the resentment if not hostility of most Southern whites. She saw the growing civil rights movement as necessary to the political reform movement of the 1940s and ’50s....While her husband was in office, she supported civil rights legislation as well as Head Start and antipoverty programs. As the president of two organizations of Congressional wives, she saw to it that each group was racially integrated.

Boggs was also an opponent of choice, a stance which deserved to be remembered alongside the positives in her social justice record.

You can read further obituaries at the Washington Post and NPR.

[Note: If there are further, less flattering things to be said about Ms. Boggs, they have been excluded only because I am unaware of them, not because they are unimportant or in an attempt to whitewash them. Please feel free to discuss all aspects of her life and work in comments. This does not include holding Ms. Boggs responsible for the actions of others, including members of her family.]

Three Things

1. I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous.

2. I'm not angry; I'm dissatisfied. (Except when I am angry.)

3. I'm not surprised; I am outraged. Because I expect more.

Me, on Twitter, last Thursday:

screen cap of Tweet reading: 'I love when my outrage at injustice gets misrepresented as 'surprise' so someone can assert higher enlightenment via their wise cynicism.'

screen cap of Tweet reading: ''I know so much about oppression that I don't even care about it anymore.' Well, aren't you special.'

screen cap of Tweet reading: 'That is a really bad habit of privileged progressives to justify their apathy. Good for you, but I expect more. [URL]'

[Link goes here.]
"I'm not surprised." I am explicitly calling that out as some silencing bullshit, because that is how it always functions. Whether it's deliberately misrepresenting informed outrage as "surprise" in order to justify one's own apathy, or in order to assert one's superior social justice cred by positing cynicism is evidence of wisdom, or both, it's hostile, unhelpful garbage, predicated on the implication that anyone else who is surprised is wrong, stupid, and/or overreacting.

To be sure, surprise genuinely expressed by a privileged person at some example of oppression is usually evidence of the ignorance afforded by privilege, which itself is also not helpful. But that's a whole different conversation than someone sniffing about their lack of surprise in a space where none has been expressed.

Because what "I'm not surprised" means, as it functions in a space concerned with social justice and expecting more, is: "Why are we even talking about this?" and/or: "I am so much more enlightened than you that I stopped thinking about this ages ago and resigned myself to doing nothing, unless you count trolling people who do still make a modicum of effort to care and make a difference by implying they are stupid rubes who are wasting their time."

If that isn't your intent, then you might want to consider replacing your "I'm not surprised" with an "I share your outrage."

All "I'm not surprised at this bit of bigotry" does is infuriate the fuck out of the people who dedicate their time and energy to calling attention to oppression and make the space feel unsafe to the people targeted by it.

(And really: If you think I still have the capacity to be totally surprised by any iteration of bigotry after doing this day in and day out for nine years, you are truly underestimating the toll this job takes.)

Surprise, or the lack thereof, isn't even relevant. If surprise indicates anything of any value at all, it's how far along someone is on their journey of unpacking and examining whatever privilege they have and understanding how to identify and process whatever pieces of marginalization they are obliged to navigate. What matters is the willingness to engage, and someone who boldly pronounces their lack of surprise in response to outrage, in response to the willingness to engage, is piping up just to say: "Not me. No thank you."

Which is fine. No one can engage with everything all the time. But sit with that on your own. Don't project whatever you're feeling about that onto people who are engaged by trying to cast them as fools.

I fight against the creeping, frightening, alluring petition of indifference every day to maintain the fight that underwrites activism, and having my passion miscast as naivete in order that someone might salve their own indifference is truly contemptible.

If you've got nothing to add to the conversation besides your (totally impressive, I'm sure) lack of surprise that people harm other people in mundane and extraordinary ways, then, truly, you've got nothing to add at all.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Queen Latifah: "U.N.I.T.Y."

(Filling in for deeky while he wanders the Rue Morgue.)

In The News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

RIP Virginia Johnson—writer, researcher, sex therapist, and one-half of Masters and Johnson, the duo who helped the US talk about sex and orgasms and all that good stuff.

[Content Note: Hostility to agency; misogyny.] One-third of US women seeking abortions had to travel more than 25 miles to access services, according to a new Guttmacher report using data from 2008. I can only imagine that the number of restrictions passed in the interim has made accessibility even more difficult. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

American Dream 2.0: "Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream." Do conservative leaders really imagine that 80% of USians are just lazy? Come on. That bootstraps bullshit is always gross nonsense, but it's truly absurd at this point.

[CN: Homophobia; misogyny.] Pope Francis says he won't personally judge gay priests (he'll leave it to god to totes send them to hell or wev) and also says women can't be ordained: "The church says no. That door is closed." DAMN!

Cumulus Media, the second-biggest operator of radio stations in the nation, is planning to drop Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. A sad day for us all, I'm sure.

Gallup finds that 52% of US respondents in a new poll would cast their vote in favor of nationally legalizing same-sex marriage, if given the opportunity.

[CN: Homophobia] Someone send the memo to Baton Rouge, where, in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen, the police are still setting up stings to bust gay men arranging to have consensual sex in the privacy of their own homes.

[CN: Homophobia] Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee promises that Russia won't use its recently-passed draconian anti-gay laws to punish queer Olympians who participate in the 2014 winter games there. PINKY SWEAR? WELL, OKAY THEN! WE CAN ALL DEFINITELY TRUST YOU THEN!

Transphobia in the Academy: Feminist Edition

[Content note: transphobia and transphobic hate speech, rape, death, violence.)

Last week, Liss sent me a link to this story at the Transadvocate; it details a chilling letter sent to trans* activist Dallas Denny from a group of anonymous radical feminist academics. She asked if I would try to address the matter as an academic, since I am more familiar with that environment than she is. Academic or no, this is pretty terrible.

The threatening letter was in response to a year-old letter that Ms. Denny and Dr. Jamison Green had penned to Routledge Press. In it, they had expressed their concerns regarding the publication of an upcoming book by Dr. Sheila Jeffreys and Dr. Lorene Gottschalk, Gender Hurts, which included transphobic material.

That was a year ago. On July 26, Denny received a letter "signed" by an anonymous group calling themselves "Women for Academic Freedom," who are apparently Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs). In it, WFAF claimed that trans* activists were trying to silence women and feminists. They promised, as of fall 2013, to launch a wave of new classes that would ~~indoctrinate~~ teach an entire new generation of feminists to view trans* advocacy as a patriarchal silencing tool, and to distrust and denigrate trans* folk.

My first thought? WFAF's letter is remarkably reminiscent of the comments left by asshats who show up at Shakesville in response to critiques of Penny Arcade or Fat Princess. Quite remarkably.

The classic hallmarks were all there: conflating critique with censorship (nope!), lots of projection, circular arguments, embarassingly inaccurate reference to Orwell and McCarthy, and threats made behind the mask of anonymity. It's also reminiscent of right-wing concern trolls: references to a vast conspiracy, the promise to indoctrinate a generation of students into "right" thinking, mistaking criticism for hate speech, and a name invoking quite the opposite of what the group actually does. "Women for Academic Freedom"? Sure.

I've seen some pretty bad behavior in academe before, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a group of feminists so perfectly mimic fanboy trolls and rightwing assholes. And lest anyone think that we get to hide behind the argument that they're not "real" feminists, let me direct you to the link Liss Tweeted last week about "real Christians." I hope you can see the parallel. I don't get to dismiss transphobic radical feminists as not "real feminists," but I sure as hell don't have to let them speak for me. Nor do I have to let their bullshit go by unchallenged.

So let's start with the claim of censorship:

Currently, we are in the planning stage of developing correctives that both counter and point up the dangers revealed in the letter to Rutledge Press. In order to highlight the numerous incidents designed to deny women and feminists the right to express critical theories we decided it best to focus on Ms. Jeffreys’ theories specifically.

First and foremost: the book is still being published. So, the claims of censorship seem exaggerated (to say the least). Academic presses, like any press, are under no obligation to publish anything. They send manuscripts to peer academics for review, and not-infrequently reject the manuscript at that stage.

They may also receive other feedback, like this letter, which they're free to consider or reject. And in this case, as Denny made abundantly clear in her post, Routledge wrote back explaining their plans to go forward with publication. A year ago. In Denny's words: "We thanked Dr. North for his letter, and that was the end of it."

So much for the all-powerful trans* activist "censors." And even if Routledge had decided not to publish... so what? That's their call. It doesn't mean Jeffreys and Gottschalk can't shop their manuscript to another publisher (again, happens ALL the time with academic rejections). It doesn't mean they are banned from speaking and teaching their theories. And while we're talking about silencing speech, is "Women for Academic Freedom" really proposing that no trans* activist should ever write letters about things which concern them? Okay, players.

WFAF also describe announce their plans to implement new courses for the fall:

In the classroom the first order of the day will confront the ever ubiquitous over used manipulative claim of “transphobia”—which sounds hollow when students see that the primary victims are natal women who happen to hold opinions and write things that you and others do not happen to like. Again we will address, why? The claim of transphobia, once undressed and parsed is revealed as a bullying and shaming tactic used specifically against natal women.

So identifying transphobia is mainly about silencing cis women? Yeah, that makes sense. To Bizarro, perhaps.

Me? I think that calling out transphobia is about things like trying to prevent violence against trans* women, who are disproportionately the victims of anti-LGBT*Q violence. About addressing a legal and social support system that makes it extraordinarily difficult for trans* women to escape domestic abuse. Can any decent person, when faced with the murders of Diamond Williams and Dwayne Jones, the attacks on trans* women in DC and all the other recent violence against trans* and non-gender-conforming folk, REALLY stand to make this claim? That discussing transphobia is all about silencing cis women? No. No decent person can.

And if I'm "bullying and shaming" by pointing out the moral disgust I feel at the re-centering of anti-transphobia activism around the criticism of cis academics, so be it. I support the academic freedom of professors to design courses as we wish, within the boundaries of our disciplinary methodologies, even when I find those courses repugnant. But that doesn't mean I can't express disgust at obscene bigotry.

I can't offer an opinion as to whether the methods of the courses proposed are acceptable under the professional ethics and methodology of the respective professors' disciplines, because of the anonymity of the letter. But the writers do seem pretty confused about many, many things. For example:

It will not go over students’ heads that certain forms of contemporary thought push toward Orwellian conformity and can be understood best as tools of the privileged, by which they manipulate the uninformed into imagining the victimizer is the victim.

Ah, yes, I remember that part in 1984 where Winston suddenly realizes that he's being tortured by O'Brien because he's so very privileged. Likewise, I'm sure trans* folk feel extremely privileged when they die due to being denied hospital care, or denied justice when sexually assaulted, specifically because of their gender identity. Because trans* folk are exactly as privileged and powerful as Big Brother's Party, re-defining words so that those things seem like evidence that trans* folk face deadly systemic discrimination.

I don't think.

Then there's this:

In researching this situation we have found a deeply disturbing pattern of lies and manipulations coupled with threats and other unsavory tactics, all of which are documented, some even on video. As academics, as researchers and as writers we assert that this tyranny carries us right back to McCarthyism... We will continue to coordinate our efforts so that our classrooms will be at the forefront of questioning transgender as a valid political movement—or perhaps that is just a veil for a misogynist hate group. We will take a holistic approach and posit the distinct possibility of a fatuous diagnosis designed to camouflage less sympathetic and socially accepted issues. Students after they sift through the death and rape threats sent by Transgender “activist” to women and feminists will understand why the syllabi are not posted on-line or on the blackboard, and our decision to procure texts from other than usual sources will make clear sense to them.

In 1950, Senator McCarthy alleged a vast conspiracy by members of the Communist party to infiltrate American institutions and turn them over to Communism. He supported this claim by saying he had a list of 205---or was it 57? known Communists in the State Department, actively shaping policy. McCarthy's vague and fluctuating "list" helped fuel the years of investigations and persecutions that followed.

I explain this, because as I look at this letter, I do see some McCarthy-esque tactics. But they are not coming from Denny and Green. Vague allegations of "a disturbing pattern of lies and manipulations" ? Alleged, but not produced, documentary "proof" backing up these claims? A trans* activist-terrorist conspiracy so vast and powerful that even sending in textbook orders isn't safe? Sure.

Let me be clear: I do not doubt that female academics, including the letter writers, receive death and rape threats. Sadly that's a phenomenon female bloggers know all too well. Daring to be a woman in public is a dangerous thing. Further, I've no problem accepting that some of those nastygrams come from trans* folk. I've yet to meet an oppressed group that didn't include some individuals who would do that, or even groups of assholes who band together for the sole purpose of harassment.

But, based on the letter's tenuous relationship with logic and evidence, I have a wee problem accepting the allegation that activists like Denny and Green are part of an organized vast trans* conspiracy dedicated to silencing academics via death threats. I have a small issue with accepting that trans* activism is just a front for violence. If it were, why bother with the charade of writing a polite letter to Routledge? Surely some brass knuckles or whatever would be more effective. If this evidence is so persuasive, why keep it bottled up in the classroom? Surely the entire world needs to see the evidence for this "disturbing pattern," right? All 205 names and such?

Don't get me wrong: I sympathize with anyone receiving threats. And it would be hypocritical in the extreme for me to question why anyone would remain anonymous or pseudonymous. But I don't sympathize with using that anonymity to issue threats against oppressed people:

Simply put, we’re “stealth”. We’re confident that you realize this piece of correspondence is not meant in anyway to be interpreted as part of dialogue. It is meant to let you know that you just secured Sheila Jeffreys another generation and your attempts to censor her are a case study in: the reach exceeds the grasp. By the time we are done the transgender movement and those names attached will be more accurately seen as like carnival hucksters and boss man thugs and Sheila Jeffreys will drop a note on personal stationary thanking you for the spike in sales.

Well, that's productive, isn't it? I find it curious that a group dedicated the open discussion, critique and criticism is making it clear they have no interest in dialogue. And that a group inspired by the "silencing" of feminist academics is so happy to promise that they will smear trans* activists far and wide. This reads more like something out of The Sopranos than any academic writing with which I'm familiar.

I could critique the disgusting trans* hate and shitty reasoning in this letter for hours, but let me skip ahead. (Feel free to continue in comments, of course.)

I don't question the academic rights of these professors. I do, however, dispute the moral rightness of teaching this hateful shit.

Simply put, ignoring the lived experiences of trans* folk, sweeping aside the violence they live with, the employment discrimination, the fear that can accompany something as simple as going to the bathroom or shopping for clothes, or all the million other ways that trans* folk are treated as less than? That's wrong. Trying to teach students that they should hate and fear fellow students, teachers, loved ones, colleagues, who happen to be trans* men and women, is wrong. Re-centering discussions about trans* issues to focus on a relatively privileged group, cis women, is wrong. I know readers of this space know this, but it cannot be said enough.

But academic freedom (although it is far from perfectly applied) is supposed to work both ways. It protects the right to cover trans* issues accurately in class. It protects the right for professors to be trans* activists and allies off-campus and on. For trans* academics, to make their voices heard, and for cis academics to support them. That's what academic freedom is supposed to do, and by Maude, I will be using mine as much as I can.

It may be a teaspoon. But my teaspoon and I? We are all in.

ETA: typos

Uh Oh

screen cap from the movie 'Office Space' in which a female coworker says the main characters have a case of the Mondays

Looks like someone's got a case of the Mondays!

(Spoiler Alert: It's me!)

Open Thread

Hosted by Gumby.

Sunday Shuffle

Smashing Pumpkins, Thirty-Three
This song has become of of those songs that just resonate viscerally, for me. Life lately has been a bit overwhelming and had Really Big Changes™--and when I heard this song on the radio a couple weeks ago (after not hearing it for years), something about it just struck a chord. Plus there's that I am, in fact, thirty-three.

In looking up the video for this song, I found this Storytellers version where Billy Corgan explains:

Billy Corgan: ...[P]eople have often asked why I call this song 'thirty-three'. I had actually hoped to write three songs: thirty-three, sixty-six, and ninety-nine. Um, I never wrote sixty-six and ninety-nine. So. That's for the internet. Um. The reason I was attracted to the number thirty-three at that particular time, um, I had a friend read my tarot cards and the person said "when you're thirty-three years old"--this is when I was twenty-seven--"when you're thirty-three years old, your life is going to completely change". So, um, as I sit here today at thirty-three years old, my life IS going to completely change. So, this song serves both as notice, prophecy, and as sort of 'a hope un-hoped' or...'un-wished'...yeah, maybe that's a better word. (pause) This is 'Thirty-three'..."

Listen to the whole, much more detailed, explanation here

How about you?

Open Thread

image of actress Melissa McCarthy

Hosted by Melissa McCarthy.

This week's Open Threads have been hosted by ladies with alliterative names.

Open Thread

image of singer Leona Lewis

Hosted by Leona Lewis.

The Virtual Pub Is Open

image of a pub Photoshopped to be named 'The Beloved Community Pub'

[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]

Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
I've got some stuff to do this afternoon, so we're wrapping it up a little early today. I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Olivia the White Farm Cat lying on the arm of the couch, looking like she's grinning, with her front legs crossed

Olivia, just lying around looking super pleased with herself.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Aqua: "Cartoon Heroes"

(Filling in for Deeky while he travels to Casablanca for the waters.)

This week's music brought to you by visitors from outer space. Deeky's whereabouts brought to you by 1940s movies with Peter Lorre.

I Feel the Breeze

[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing.]

2008. I wear a bathing suit in public for the first time in many years, because Iain surprises me with a holiday for my birthday on which there will be swimming. Which I love. I haven't been swimming in years. I have been to the beach—there is a beautiful beach just minutes from our house. But I have gone to the beach in shorts and a t-shirt, and I have waded in the water, and I have not swam.

I am tired of not swimming.

I put on my new bathing suit, and I walk outdoors, and I feel the breeze on my skin. It is like a memory coming back to me. My skin reacts with goosebumps, although I am not chilled. I stand for a moment, with my face lifted toward the sun, and let my skin reacquaint itself with the breeze crawling around me. My entire body feels like a foot freed from a too-tight sock at the end of a long day.

I walk to the water and I slip into its cool embrace and I float. The wind caresses me, welcomes me back. I feel tears begin to slip down my cheeks, and I quickly wipe them away, so no one will see my private regret that I have denied myself this pleasure, this permission to feel the breeze, for so many years.

2010. I am running errands, and it is the middle of summer, and it is hot. So hot. I am wearing a tank top I love, knit chevrons of turquoise and navy and white and gold, covered by a cropped sweater. I cannot bear the heat, but I don't go out with uncovered arms in public. My arms are too fat.

Suddenly the urge to be less hot overwhelms my self-consciousness about my fat arms. I ditch the sweater and walk across the parking lot with my arms uncovered. A black woman who is almost my exact same size, wearing a tank top under a jean jacket on this hot day, is walking to her car, parked beside mine. We smile at each other. "Cute top!" she says. I tell her thank you so much, and I give her a grateful smile that she understands. I want to hug her. I want to tell her that she can never know what it means that she said that exact thing in that exact moment.

I walk to the front door of the store, swinging my fat arms with the stride of a person who is allowed to take up space in the world. Like a person who is wearing a cute top. I feel the breeze on my bare arms.

2011. I cut off my hair. I tell my hairdresser I am okay with accentuating my round face, and I am okay with my double chin being more prominent, and I am okay with the melasmas on my cheeks and neck, and I want short hair. I advocate for the short haircut I've been told fat women aren't supposed to have.

I walk out of the salon with my fancy $20 haircut, and I feel the breeze on the back of my neck.

2013. I get my first tattoo. And then my second. They are places where they are seen, seen on my fat body, and I have the uncustomary experience of having people look at my fat body with admiration. I didn't expect this, and I'm not prepared for it. I am shy when people touch my arms and tell me that something on my body is beautiful.

A few weeks ago, I go to the doctor, and two of the nurses admire my tattoos. They ask for the tattoo artist's name and information, which I happily share.

I leave the doctor's office and go to the drugstore to fill a prescription, where the pharmacist admires my tattoos. On the way home, I go through a drive-through at a cafe for iced coffee. When I reach out my arm to pay, the young white girl working the window asks if she can see my tattoo, the one with the Virginia Woolf quote. I extend my arm and she leans in to look at it. She takes my hand between hers and holds it, my arm extended from my car window to the drive-through window, and I feel the breeze drifting across my skin as she tells me that my tattoo is beautiful.

She passes me paper and a pen through the window, and I write down the artist's name and number for her.

I drive home with the windows down. The warm air comes through the windows. I feel it on my bare arms, my tattooed arms, and on my face, and on the back of my neck. All of this skin that I hid under hair and clothes, because I was told that I should. Because I believed that I should. Because I was apologizing to people who hate my body, who want to deny me the breeze.

I love the breeze. I missed it so.

Why I Dislike Ross Geller

This post has been cross-posted from Ana Mardoll's Ramblings because of how much I dislike Ross Geller. LOL!

[Content Note: Nice Guyism]

So I wasn't going to write this because it seems a decade or so too late to be topical, but then I realized that I couldn't get any relevant Google search results for "Ross Geller Nice Guyism", and if there's one thing that motivates me, it's filling a Google search hole.

I've been re-watching Friends recently, ever since Mom got done with the complete box set and I've been largely confined to bed rest. I mostly like the show, despite the god-awful laugh track, and here is a note from me to television producers: Stop Using Laugh Tracks. I hate them. Hate, hate, hate. With a really good show, with something I like, with something like Friends, I can just barely manage to tune out the laugh track; with something I struggle with, like Big Bang Theory, the laugh track is the final nail in the "wouldn't I rather watch the Food Network anyway?" coffin. Stop using 'em. Hate-hate-hate.

Which isn't to say that, minus the laugh track, Friends is perfect. It's not. Despite being sort of progressive (depending on your circle) at the time for featuring a lesbian wedding and at least acknowledging in conversations and sub-plots that gay and trans* people exist, the six main characters are all still white, straight, and monogamous, with four ending the series "coupled-with-children", five ending the series as flat-out coupled, and six ending with the acknowledgement that "coupled-with-children" is clearly the ideal state for them to ultimately achieve. Diversity! The series is also deeply color-averse (background shots are usually entirely monochromatic casting) and the fat phobia on display is blatant to the point of being almost triggering for me. Ugh.

But zipping past all that, I still enjoy Friends. I like the quips and the one-liners and the close-knit relationship dynamics and the overall avoidance of zany It's Not What It Looks Like sitcom antics in favor of more palatable (for me) zany Guest Star Of The Week antics. But I don't like Ross Geller.

Ross Geller is one-sixth of the Friends circle, and is ironically one of the linchpin members of the group: he's the brother of Monica Geller, the college buddy of Chandler Bing, and the sometimes-lover of Rachel Green. I say "ironically" because, once the friends are established, Ross strikes me as the most expendable of the entire group, frequently going out of his way to hurt, offend, or upset the other members. He has a particularly antagonistic relationship with outliers Joey Tribbiani and Phoebe Buffay, and consistently speaks down to them for their "alternative" (i.e., not-middle-class) lifestyle choices. However, in a group where feelings are rarely hurt past a simple end-of-episode apology, everyone manages to make nice and plod along.

I dislike Ross largely because of the relationship dynamics he has with Rachel Green, but it's worth pointing out that I dislike Ross less than I used to. When Friends first aired, I hated him with the searing passion of a thousand fiery suns, but now that I know a little more about Nice Guyism and the traps the writers were falling in to, characterization-wise, I have a little more distance. But I still don't like him, and my dislike has at least as much to do with Ross' pervading Nice Guyism as it has to do with how much I like Rachel Green.

In The News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

[Content Note: Fat bias; body shaming; eating talk.] Laura Bogart writes a beautiful piece for Salon on choosing to be fat because "losing weight may be as simple as joining a walking after work Meetup or forgoing the homemade cupcakes a co-worker brings in on Monday, but I'm not interested in sacrifices. Not anymore. I've spent my whole life capitulating to other people's expectations."

[Content Note: Homophobia.] Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R-Eprehensible) will not appeal a temporary order to grant a dying man's wish in Ohio for legal recognition of marriage to his husband, but instead will "continue to defend Ohio's constitutional amendment and law banning same-sex couples from marrying and banning the state from recognizing such marriages," or, as Ian says at ThinkProgress: "In other words, while DeWine does not plan to appeal the judge’s recent temporary order, he still plans to put up a full legal fight against Arthur and Obergefell's right to be permanently recognized by Ohio as husbands." Asshole.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved the Jury ACCESS Act, which prohibits discrimination against jurors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Scientists were able to freeze light for an entire minute. WHUT.

The Senate has passed student loan reform legislation, which effectively turns student loans into the balloon mortgages that caused the foreclosure crisis. Senator Elizabeth Warren was one of the 16 Democratic Senators who voted against the bill, saying it "asks tomorrow's students to pay more in order to finance lower rates today."

[Content Note: Sexual harassment.] Another day; four more women come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.

Halliburon has pleaded guilty to destroying critical evidence after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Whooooooops!

Morning in America 2.0: "The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed." Fuhhhhhh.

Yes, Please

Hey, remember when we were fantasy-casting Paul Feig's upcoming project Susan Cooper, about a female spy? Well, check this out:

After successful collaborations on "Bridesmaids" and "The Heat," Melissa McCarthy is in early talks to reteam with director Paul Feig on his female spy comedy "Susan Cooper," multiple individuals familiar with the 20th Century Fox project have told TheWrap.

"Susan Cooper," which is being developed as a potential franchise in the same tone as "The Heat," will be a realistic comedy about a female James Bond-type.

McCarthy has an offer and her team is now negotiating her deal, which is subject to scheduling issues with her CBS series "Mike & Molly."

OKAY. SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES, THEN.

SCIENCE!

Whoa: "By planting false memories into the minds of mice, neuroscientists at MIT have created the first artificially implanted memories." WHUT.

Iain and I couldn't stop talking about this last night, and going down trail after trail of various possibilities of what this could mean, especially if and when researchers figure out how to capture memory as well as implant it. Which ultimately led to an interesting conversation about choice and consent and how we're all going to live in computers someday.

Gleep glorp!

Open Thread

image of actress Lucy Liu

Hosted by Lucy Liu.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker JudyBlue: "What is your favorite story about women's friendship? (book, movie, tv series, wev) I need more of these in my life."