[Content Note: Misogyny; appropriation; sexual violence.]
I think it's supercool that the New York Times' Frank Bruni was able to find a white dude who is a professor AND a comic to talk to for a piece on "Tackling the Roots of Rape." He's so good at saying the things that feminist and womanist women have been saying for longer than he has been alive!
I am so glad that all of our free labor has gotten him a book deal and an interview in the Times! Good for him!
ETA. Maybe he said ALL KINDS of awesome stuff about women who laid this groundwork during the interview, and we will never know! That is definitely possible in an infinite universe! In any case, my ire is really with the Times, and Bruni, who think it's cool to feature a piece about antirape advocacy on the op-ed page with no reference to female advocates and no indication that the singular white male subject is not the progenitor of these concepts.
Neat!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Violent and predatory rhetoric.]
I have focused for so long, uhhhh, on the things that have made me miserable. I have told you in the past, and I know you feel exactly the same way, that we have watched people—our, our country, we feel deeply about. Those on the left don't. But we do. We feel it's an exceptional place. And I feel as though I have seen a killer that I can identify—the progressive movement—and we have seen them lie their way into our child's bedroom every single night and smother it with a pillow. And every day we get up, and we're like, "No, don't, no, no! He—he's a killer! He's trying to kill everything that you love! Don't—no, no! Will somebody listen?!" And every night, they come in and—and that's what I feel like my job has been: To try to ring the bell that there is somebody that's trying to smother everything that we hold dear and love—and kill it. And we have watched them do it.—Glenn Beck.
1. No, both sides are not just as bad.
2. *cough*PROJECTION!*cough*
3. I don't know if I love more that he refers to a child as "it," or that his metaphor is progressives sneaking into conservative children's bedrooms and smothering them to death, but then having to go back and do it again the next day. Are conservative children actually vampires in this metaphor? Are they all Jesus? What is going on?
4. I can't even believe conservatives are still yammering about progressives hating America. That old chestnut. Listen, dipshit—I think the US is an exceptional place, too. That doesn't mean I don't also think it couldn't stand to be fucking improved. "Exceptional" and "perfect" are not synonyms.
5. Shut up, Glenn Beck.
6. What, exactly, have conservatives lost that is so dear to them? Aside from the Constitutional Amendment that federally mandates no human being is allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore, OBVIOUSLY. I know it's hard knocks to have to exist on the same planet where two people of the same sex can legally wed one another in a minority of places and a few million more people will have health insurance, but I'm not sure that actually constitutes the loss of killing everything conservatives love. I mean, Two and a Half Men is still on the air, right?
7. Shut up, Glenn Beck.
[Via.]
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture; police malfeasance.]
This is rape culture:
Until last week, Norfolk, Virginia police classified sexual assault claims to be "unfounded" — or not valid — by default. According to the Virginian-Pilot, a 22-year-old woman's case prompted Norfolk police chief Mike Goldsmith to update the policy so that officers must now assume rape victims are telling the truth.The policy has since been changed, and "the department will also undergo training for post-traumatic stress disorder and rape trauma." But this is still a problem in many police departments around the country. And the world.
The woman reported the attack immediately to police, only to be told, "If we find out that you're lying, this will be a felony charge." Before giving her a medical examination, officers subjected the woman to interrogations during which they said things like, "You're telling us a different story than you told...the other detectives," and "This only happened hours ago. Why can't you remember?" Having had enough, the woman cut off the interview.
The police eventually arrested and charged the attacker for multiple other sexual assaults and felonies.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley, being all dudleyish.
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
Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, and Whitney Houston:
"That's What Friends Are For"
FYI
Point of Order: Telling a woman her perception of her lived experience isn't valid is not "disagreement." It's auditing. And it's horseshit.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 13, 2013
A Somewhat Long And Rambly Update On Transcripts
I keep feeling like I should give some kind of update on the heady, wild, busy whirlwind that is my life right now, and keep finding that I lack the words to convey things well. So here are some things.
[CN: Medical Problems] Within the last week, I've had large-and-mysterious-and-very-painful lumps flare up all over the inside of my lips and the roof of my mouth. I finally got in to see my dentist today (which is the one medical provider in my life whom I actually like, so at least that wasn't stressful) and he declared the problem to be entirely stress-related, though he finally conceded that my favorite brand of lemonade might also be at fault. But he strongly prefers the stress explanation.
I've also, possibly unrelatedly, broken out with some kind of entire-body-wide heat rash that itches like fuck and keeps me from sleeping well at night. This started in mid-July with no indication yet of easing up. I'm supposed to see my general practitioner on Thursday, but I suspect she'll just tell me it's stress-related because that's what doctors do. *shakes fist at sky in frustration*
[/End CN]
I don't feel particularly stressed, but it has been pointed out to me by a few people I love online that I've been going on this whole Texas abortion activism slash transcript project almost non-stop since June 25th, which might to an unbiased observer be classified as potentially stressful. Mmph. But I categorically refuse to abandon the project or even to consciously slow down on it, because (a) it's needed and it's needed now, not later, and (b) I'm completely incapable of relaxing when I have unfinished business hanging over my head. That's just how my brain works -- if I tried to slow down, the act of trying to slow down would stress me out even more.
So in an attempt to compromise, I've made a semi-decision. I had originally planned to work out the following videos for the transcript project:
• 6/20 Citizen Testimony
• 6/25 Senate Floor Filibuster
• 7/8 Citizen Testimony
• 7/9 House Amendments
• 7/13 Senate Amendments
The bolded videos above have been either fully spliced and sent out for transcribing or (in the case of the 7/13 video) have been mostly spliced and sent out. The remaining two citizen testimony sessions have not been spliced or sent out.
I would very much like to splice and send out the citizen testimonies, but I am not sure if I have the spoons to listen to the gut-wrenching testimony given in these videos. What I most need right now is one or two volunteers who have the spoons to listen to 11 hours and 16 hours of testimony respectively and mark out clear splicing points for me. The way I mark out splicing points is simple but time-consuming. I have an Excel sheet that looks like this:
| Start Time | End Time | Length |
| 0:00:00 | 0:10:53 | 0:10:53 |
| 0:10:53 | 0:25:51 | 0:14:58 |
| 0:25:51 | 0:40:13 | 0:14:22 |
| 0:40:13 | 0:52:32 | 0:12:19 |
| 0:52:32 | 1:02:32 | 0:10:00 |
| 8:03:50 | 8:19:46 | 0:15:56 |
| 11:55:30 | 12:03:59 | 0:08:29 |
| 8:19:46 | 8:40:20 | 0:20:34 |
| 8:40:20 | 8:55:23 | 0:15:03 |
| 8:55:23 | 9:16:28 | 0:21:05 |
I type in a Start Time. I listen until approximately 15 minutes have passed (or a major period of silence has passed, since I don't like long silent stretches in the middle of the tracks) and then I find a spot where someone stops talking and a new speaker starts. I mark down the exact moment where there is an audible pause between speakers in the End Time column. The Length column is calculated by Excel and is a simple (Column B - Column A) operation. Once the Excel sheet is filled out for the full video, it's relatively simple for me to do the actual splicing on my end.
If there are one or two* volunteers in the audience who have the time and the spoons to listen to these gut-wrenching videos and mark them out for me, please send me an email and I'll package these videos for download. (Which is in itself a time-consuming task I've not yet done, but I can do if I have someone to send them to.) I know of at least a couple male volunteers who have specifically volunteered to handle "extra-triggery stuff" (and bless you so, so much), but I don't feel right outright asking someone to donate 11-16 hours of their life to this.
This decision to "outsource" the listening-to-the-testimony work would greatly reduce my stress levels. If no one is able to step forward to do this (which would be completely understandable to me), then probably the citizen testimonies will have to be dropped from the project, because I personally-and-currently simply lack the spoons to listen to the full testimonies on my own at this time.
* It wouldn't be very feasible for me to split the task into more than a 1- or 2-person job because that in itself would require me to find certain stopping points on my own.
Here is a thing that happens.
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
1. I write a post about things men do to women that harm us. The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck. Or Survivors Are So Sensitive. Or How Men Are Socialized to Express Ownership of Women. Or How to Have Good Faith Conversations with Women about Feminist Issues. Or And Then This Happened. Or the post I wrote yesterday: I Write Letters. Etc.
2. I get an angry outpouring from men who accuse me of hating men. An actual sample quote in response to yesterday's piece: "It's no wonder men treat you like that since you obviously hate us."
I'm sharing this so we can all appreciate the absurdity of the thought that my appeals to men to stop engaging in mistreatment of women constitutes my hatred of men. What a fun bit of projection that is!
But I'm also sharing this because the reason I write these posts, aside from validating the lived experiences of other women, is because there are men who genuinely don't want to harm women and find these posts useful. And I hope those men appreciate the abuse I get as the cost of your education.
In The News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
This is a pretty good piece about #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, a great hashtag started by Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) challenging the white supremacy of movement feminism. Which is, of course, making a bunch of white feminists lose their fucking shit because they refuse to draw the same distinction between "white supremacy" and "white people" that we draw between "patriarchy" and "men." What if—and I know this is a ZANY IDEA, but hear me out!—what if white feminists spent as much energy holding each other accountable as we did lecturing black feminists? Could we try that and see what happens? LET'S TRY IT!
[Content Note: Racism] Charles Pierce says smart things about "unintended consequences."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives a speech weighing in on voting rights and says "anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention."
Anthony Weiner will not shut the fuck up, and is now bragging that he totally knows what role his wife Huma Abedin would/will have in a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. You know what, Weiner? How about the name Hillary Clinton never passes your lips again? You've harmed enough women. If Clinton does run, and you tank her campaign because you can't keep your goddamn mouth shut, there aren't words to describe the fury that will be unleashed.
Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law landmark protections for trans* students in the state, giving them the right "'to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities, and facilities' based on their self-perception and regardless of their birth gender."
[CN: Racism] Fifteen-year-old black teenager Anthony Stokes has been denied a lifesaving heart transplant by Children's Healthcare of Atlanta because his "performance in school and run-ins with law enforcement" indicate a "history of non-compliance."
Rick Santorum thinks that the US doesn't have classes and therefore the term "middle class" is "Marxism talk." LOL. Okay, Rick Santorum. You will definitely make a fine president of classless America someday, I'm sure.
Hey, Game of Throne-heads! Do you want to see an impressively detailed map of Westeros? Okay, here it is!
[CN: Body policing; reproductive policing] This is a real headline in the world: "Jennifer Aniston Addresses Pregnancy Rumors: It's Just a Couple of Pounds."
More Paula Deen
[Content Note: Racism; sexism.]
A federal judge ruled yesterday that the plaintiff in the racial discrimination lawsuit against Paula Deen could not have been adversely affected by racism directed at people of color because she is white:
Lisa Jackson sued Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, last year saying she suffered from sexual harassment and racially offensive talk and employment practices that were unfair to black workers during her five years as a manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. Deen is co-owner of the restaurant, which is primarily run by her brother.Wow. Two thoughts:
But claims of race discrimination by Jackson, who is white, were gutted in the 20-page opinion by U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. The judge agreed with lawyers for Deen and Hiers that Jackson has no standing to sue her former employers for what she claims was poor treatment of black workers, regardless of her claims that she was offended and placed under additional stress.
Jackson, at best, "is an accidental victim of the alleged racial discrimination," Moore said in his ruling. "There are no allegations that defendant Hiers's racially offensive comments were either directed toward plaintiff or made with the intent to harass her."
The ruling lets stand Jackson's claims that Hiers sexually harassed her when she worked at the restaurant from 2005 to 2010. However, the judge said he was reserving the chance to rule on requests from Deen's lawyers to dismiss other claims in the lawsuit.
The judge added that to allow Jackson to seek legal recourse for discrimination directed toward other workers "would serve to conscript federal courts as human resource departments that are responsible for imposing and monitoring a federally created standard for harmony in the workplace."
1. This ruling contends that it's impossible for a white employer to create a hostile work environment for a white person via racism, which essentially implies that no white person could care enough about a person/people of color to feel unsafe and upset by a racist environment. Jackson has biracial nieces. Certainly some of Deen's white employees are partnered with and/or parents to POC. Certainly some of Deen's white employees care enough about their non-white coworkers that they don't want to listen to them being demeaned by their employer.
One of the worst places I ever worked was for a guy who was loudly misogynist, homophobic, and racist. It wasn't like I was just upset by the misogyny and immune to the homophobia and racism. All of it made me feel unsafe and angry, even though I was affected differently by the racism than I was by the misogyny. My male coworkers of color were affected differently by the racism than the misogyny, but it wasn't like they weren't also upset that I was being treated like shit because of my womanhood.
Decent people with empathy are going to be upset by discrimination, even if the magical fucking intent of that discrimination isn't to upset them.
2. This ruling also effectively disallows privileged people to bring discrimination cases on the basis of general harm, which puts the exclusive onus for challenging privilege on marginalized people, who are already, by the very nature of this type of discrimination, more professionally vulnerable.
There have been several occasions in my life recently where women of color had been harmed by white people in which, after seeking their consent, I stood up on their behalf to challenge the harm done to them. It was easier for me to do, because I wasn't the one directly hurt, and the people who did the harm were more likely to listen to me, because of my privilege.
It shouldn't be that way, but as long as there are people with privilege, those of us interested in dismantling those systems of privilege have to leverage our privilege on behalf of marginalized people. This ruling is aggressively hostile to allowing that to happen.
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Intersectional misogyny; violence; rape culture; reproductive coercion; slurs.]
Dear Men:
You don't own women.
You don't own our bodies, and you don't own our voices, and you don't own our thoughts, and you don't own our emotions, and you don't own our lived experiences. They are not yours. They don't belong to you.
You don't own women.
I'm taking time out of my life to tell you this, to tell you that you don't own women, because there seems to be some confusion on that matter.
I'm not just talking about the men who literally buy and sell women without their consent, nor just the ghoulish specimens of humanity who keep women or girls captive in the disgusting predators' caves they call homes, nor just the domineering fathers and husbands and male guardians or partners of any disarmingly innocuous title who control women in their orbit with vicious and unyielding vigilance, nor just the men who invoke some deity or other, some ancient religious verse, to assert their dominance over womankind.
Although those men, too. They don't own women.
I'm also talking about the men who, in their everyday interactions with women, use their physical presence to intimidate us. Who touch us without our consent. Who talk over us. Who condescend to us. Who patronize us. Who silence us. Who gaslight us. Who invade our safe spaces. Who mansplain. Who make misogynist jokes. Who leverage male privilege against us. Who steal our ideas. Who take the credit for our work. Who use racism again women of color. Who use homophobia against lesbians and bisexual women. Who use transphobia against trans* women. Who use ableism against disabled women. Who use ageism against older or younger women. Who fat shame fat women. Who body police all women. Who use any axis of marginalization, any vulnerability, against women. Who won't promote women. Who won't pay women a fair wage. Who refuse to support our right to bodily autonomy. Who refuse to recognize our agency. Who deny us equality. Who audit our emotions. Who filter our lived experiences through their validity prism. Who demean us. Who contradict us. Who tell us to shut up. Who want us to disappear. Who tell us to suck their cocks and make them a sandwich and go away. Who tell us they are our allies, and then aren't. Who betray us. Who creep on us. Who avoid accountability to us. Who treat us however the fuck they want, because they can. Who abet other men treating us however they fuck they want. Who bask in the luxury of privilege to not have to give the tiniest, infinitesimal shit about the harm done to us by being treated the way we are treated by men every day of our goddamn lives, who never have to know the ache of this oppression.
Those men. They don't own women.
The men who rape us. Who harass us. Who use the rocking motion of a packed commuter train as cover for rubbing themselves on our thighs. Who masturbate in front of us. Who send us unsolicited pictures of their dicks. Who flush our birth control pills down the toilet. Who poke holes in condoms. Who trick us into bed, into marriages, with lies.
They don't own women.
The men who keep us out. Who won't vote for us. Who won't hire us. Who undermine us and say it's for any other reason than that we are women. Who accuse us of looking for things to get angry about. Who tell us we are oversensitive. Who call us hysterics. Who conflate their privilege with objectivity.
They don't own women.
The men who call us bitches. Who call us cunts. Twats. Whores. Sluts. Skanks. Slags. Slappers. Coozes. Tarts. Breeders. Slits. Gashes. Holes. Bimbos. Hookers. Hos. Tricks. Tramps. Squaws. Witches. Hags. Battle axes. Shrews. Nags. Muffdivers. Trannies. Chicks with dicks. Cows. Chickenheads. Butterfaces. Cum dumpsters.
They don't own women.
The men who don't respect our space, our boundaries, our rights, our humanity. The men who have contempt for our taking up space in the world. The men who listen, but don't hear. The men who roll their eyes at posts like this one. The men who are already formulating their protests as they are reading these very words.
They don't own women.
The men who think they are good men. The men who think that being our allies consists of saying it, but then turning on us like snarling beasts the moment we say they have made us unsafe. The men who think they have a right to tell us what it is that we need. The men who think they need to explain to us what feminism is, what womanism is, what womanhood is. The men who claim they don't even want to own women, and yet behave in ways, constantly, that indicate they believe that they do.
You men that I am describing. You don't own women.
You men who are thinking: This isn't about me. I don't do that. Even though every man—every single man—every last man I have ever known has done something, some thing, and usually lots and lots of things, that suggest he believes that he owns me, or another woman, even if just in a single moment, a fleeting moment. Because the message that you own women is powerful. But it is wrong.
You don't own women.
You don't own women.
You don't own me.
Sincerely,
Liss
Breaking Bad Open Thread
SYMBOLISM!
[Spoilers are running around in their underpants herein. Content Note for references to violence.]
After what felt like it would be an interminable wait, Breaking Bad finally returned last night with the second half of its final season. Eight episodes to wrap up this extraordinary, brutal, smart, difficult show, and give us some sort of resolution that will hopefully include Walter White getting his comeuppance because HE IS SO TERRIBLE. WALT, YOU ARE THE WORST!!!
When we last left terrible Walt and everyone he knows, his brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank, also known around these parts as HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNK!!!, had, while taking a dump, discovered a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass which had been inscribed from Gale to Walt, thus alerting Hank that Walt is Heisenberg, the mastermind behind the blue meth.
All great discoveries happen on the toilet! True fact!
Anyway. The episode started with another Lostian flash-forward, in which Walt is visiting his boarded-up house and scares his neighbor, who drops her groceries. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HIS HOUSE? WHERE ARE SKYLAR? AND JUNIOR? AND THE BABY WHO DEFINITELY HAS A NAME BUT I CAN NEVER BE ARSED TO REMEMBER IT? ARE THEY SAFE? DID SOMEBODY KILL THEM? DID WALT KILL THEM?! WALT, YOU'D BETTER NOT HAVE KILLED THEM, YOU TERRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF HUMANITY!
But Walt is the danger! Walt is the one who knocks! Whatever happened to them, it's his fault, even if he didn't pull the trigger, figuratively or literally.
Green smoke and credits.
And then it's back to Hank sitting on the pot, literally having just discovered that Walt is terrible, and he quickly secrets the book in Marie's bag before rejoining the festivities on the back porch. I would like to commend Vince Gilligan on writing a PERFECT SCENE in which the book that reveals Walt's true identity is stolen in Marie's bag, after Marie has long been regarded as the criminal in the family for shoplifting, all while Walt is running an international drug cartel and murdering the fuck out of anyone who stands in his way. DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW PERFECT THAT IS?! Vince Gilligan, you are a genius.
Unless someone else wrote that scene. In which case: Vince Gilligan, your team is full of geniuses!
Hank gets the fuck outta there, beating a hasty retreat with Marie, saying he's got an upset stomach, when really he's got A FRIED BRAIN, and he promptly gets into a car accident because he is overwhelmed with anxiety and anger and a whole flood of emotion that is drowning his melon pulp.
He's okay, though, and decides to work from home for a few days, much to Marie's quiet consternation. Some dudes from his office bring over all the Heisenberg Files, and Hank sets to work, and if any of us were about to scream at our televisions YOU HAD BETTER NOT BE LETTING WALT AWAY WITH THIS BY KILLING HANK WITH A STROKE, we didn't have to. At least not yet.
Meanwhile, Jesse is falling apart, smoking weed in his stupid mansion, with two bags full of $5 million in blood money lying around. He takes the money to Saul Goodman, Attorney at Law, and tells him to give half to Mike's granddaughter and half to the parents of the kid Todd murdered. And Saul does the only sensible thing (HA HA NOT THE SENSIBLE THING) and calls Walt and tells him Jesse's losing his shit.
So Walt goes to visit Jesse, and Jesse tells Walt he knows he killed Mike, because Walt never would have orchestrated the murder of Mike's minions in prison if Mike were still alive (YOU ARE SO SMART, JESSE! WHY DIDN'T YOU APPLY YOURSELF IN SCHOOL?), and Walt straight-up lies to Jesse right in his face, because Walt is THE WORST! He is SO TERRIBLE!
Something something Lydia visits Walt at the carwash because just when he thought he was out etc. I'm not skipping past that because it's boring, but because I want to get to the most important part of the scene at the carwash, which is Walt talking to Skylar before Lydia shows up about buying a second carwash to launder more money, and Skylar is all "OOH YES I LIKE THAT LOCATION!" and it gives us this brief flash of insight into her character, and how she is, in her own way, kind of in the empire business.
Just like Walt.
So when Skylar runs out and tells Lydia to go the fuck away and never show her face in these parts again, it's not just that Skylar doesn't want her family in danger again; it's also that Skylar doesn't want her emergent empire getting derailed.
There's a reason that Skylar married and stayed with a frustrated and bitter man who felt he had been cheated out of the fortune to which he was entitled. And there's a reason that Skylar is trying to make it work with him once again, now that he's out and their kids are ostensibly safe. Walt was always in the empire business, long before he had an empire, and that's a pretty comfortable place for Skylar, even after everything. Or at least a familiar one.
The thing is, Walt was pretty terrible to Skylar even before he was terrible to everyone else. In Season One, he nearly raped her in their kitchen. The "normal" inside their relationship was always fucked up.
Anyway! Speaking of fucked up, Jesse is sleeping in his car when a homeless man approaches him, and Jesse gives him a stack of bills. Which feels freeing, maybe? It makes Jesse feel something, which is more than he felt the moment before, so he drives through a poor part of town throwing money out the window.
Some of this money will be used to buy meth. There's no way for Jesse to really detach himself from it. Which is not something in the show, but just something for us to think about together!
Meanwhile, Walt, whose cancer has returned, is throwing up from chemo in his toilet when he notices Leaves of Grass has gone missing. He looks around for it before bed, but can't find it. And then he can't sleep. So, in his underpants once again—huzzah for the return of the tighty whities!—he feels around underneath his car and discovers a GPS tracking device.
SHIT!
In the final scene of the episode, WHICH WAS SO FUCKING INTENSE, Walt goes to visit Hank, and at first it's just awkward and Walt is trying to pretend like nothing's up, but Hank's version of a poker face is pretty much an "everything I feel is on my face right now" kind of face, so Walt decides to confront him and whips out the tracking device. HOLY SHIT!!! And then Hank closes the garage door, right behind Walt's back and PUNCHES WALT IN THE FACE OMFG YESSSSSSS!!!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNK!!!
And Hank is SO MAD and SO SAD and FEELING ALL THE THINGS, and he yells at Walt, and Walt tries to weep his way out of it by saying his cancer is back and he's going to die and he'll never even see the inside of a cell, and Hank is all GOOD I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO DIE, and Walt still gives the pity strategy one more try, but then Hank says, "I don't even know you," and Walt WHO IS SO TERRIBLE HE IS THE WOOOOOORST says in this bone-chilling voice, "If you really don't know who I am, then you should tread lightly."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
And I don't even know what is going to happen next, but I am PRETTY CERTAIN that it will have something to do with Walt being terrible.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by women.
Recommended Reading:
Flavia: Whose mental health? On feminist responses and who is STILL centered. See also: Kristin Rawls. [Content Note: The posts at these links include discussion of abuse, ableism, racism, and privilege.]
Tressie: The Ridiculous Excesses of For-Profit College Marketing [CN: The post at this link includes discussion of classism.]
Fannie: Quote of the Day [CN: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny.]
Jacob: For Now, Social Security Benefits Limited to Same-Sex Couples in Marriage Equality States [CN: The post at this link includes discussion of homophobia.]
Jamilah: The Secret Weapon in the Prison Phone Rate Fight? Families. [CN: The post at this link includes implicit discussion of racism and classism.]
BYP: Grand Jury Will NOT Charge Officer Who Shot and Killed Unarmed Teenager Ramarley Graham [CN: The post at this link includes discussion of police brutality, gun violence, and racism.]
Trudy: Janelle Monáe Drops a Few Minutes of Womanist Wisdom
Rebecca: Go Back in Time with GE and See Some of the Awesome Ladies Responsible for Today's Tech
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
While I was at the conference, Iain sent me a picture of Zelda sitting at the front window, looking out. "Zelda has been at the window looking for you, A LOT. She says she misses you." And when I got home, she went absolutely bananas, leaping all over me and giving me the "I want to crawl inside you and live there FOREVER!" look. Eventually, she settled down, but she kept her eyes on me all evening, making sure I wasn't planning on going anywhere.
"Don't ever leave again, Two-Legs."
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In The News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
On Friday, President Obama said he would "pursue reforms to open the legal proceedings surrounding government surveillance programs to greater scrutiny," because: "It's not enough for me, as president, to have confidence in these programs. The American people need to have confidence in them as well." I think that ship may have sailed.
At the same time, the NSA was defending itself by explaining it only "touches about 1.6%" of global internet traffic (ONLY!) and that "NSA personnel are obligated to report when they believe NSA is not, or may not be, acting consistently with law, policy, or procedure. This self-reporting is part of the culture and fabric of NSA." Oh. Well, I didn't know the NSA was working on THE HONOR SYSTEM. I feel all better now.
US Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to issue new guidelines today that exempt non-violent drug offenders from the mandatory minimum sentences judges are currently required to impose on anyone convicted of possession of any drug in an amount deemed evidence of intent to distribute. But then who will fill all the for-profit Halliburton prisons?! Can it be no one? Can they all go empty and disintegrate to dust?
Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin has ruled that "the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York, and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms." GOOD. If only we could have confidence that real reforms will actually happen! DO IT, NYPD! FOR REAL. PROVE MY CYNICISM WRONG!
[Content Note: Racism; violence] At a Missouri State Fair rodeo this weekend, a rodeo clown donned an Obama mask and an announcer asked the crowd if they wanted to see "Obama run down by a bull." A scene from post-racial America, brought to you by white people who don't see color.
[CN: Sexual harassment and assault] Democratic San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, who has now had 14 women accuse him of sexual harassment, has reportedly entered intensive therapy for his "problem," and has already completed it! Neat! I bet he's all better now! Just kidding. He is still definitely fucked up and definitely needs to resign.
Democratic US Senator from California Barbara Boxer, who knows Filner, has called for him to resign, since he apparently doesn't understand, even after his five seconds of intensive therapy, that he NEEDS TO RESIGN. "Bu now I must say this directly to you: Bob, you must resign because you have betrayed the trust of the women you have victimized, the San Diegans you represent and the people you have worked with throughout your decades in public life." GTFO, Bob.
[CN: Racism; segregation] A Reuters/Ipsos poll has found that about 40% of white USians "are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race." That is not good. To put it as bluntly as possible.
Forging Justice
Wednesday afternoon of last week, I left for Detroit to attend the Forging Justice conference. It was an intense experience, for a lot of reasons, and I will write more about that later, but, for right now, I want to direct you to this site, where you can watch many of the sessions from the conference. You can watch the closing plenary, on which I was a presenter, here. By request, the text of my presentation as prepared (though I gave an extemporaneous introduction explaining #FemFuture which isn't part of the prepared remarks) is below the fold.
I want to thank Shaker masculine_lady, who was the conference organizer, and her incredible Haven and Haven-adjacent team of women—Kathryn, Leah, and Ellen—for inviting me and being awesome. I love those women.
I also want to thank my co-panelists on the closing plenary—Heather Corinna, Ashon Crawley, and Alex Goddard—and the panelists on the opening plenary—Jessica Luther, Kristie Dotson, and Emi Koyama—and the keynote speaker, Lauren Chief Elk, who are all so brilliant and so full of creative, loving energy. I love these people, and I learned so much from them, personally and professionally.
As for everything else, more to come. And for now, this will suffice:
If I hadn't already written The Terrible Bargain, I would be writing it right now.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 12, 2013
* * *
Quote of the Day
"Hypothetically speaking, I really do hope that we have a woman president in my lifetime. Our country has to take that leap of faith."—Hillary Clinton, quoted in a WaPo article which asserts that she's making women's empowerment her "pre-2016 theme." Because of course Hillary Clinton, who has spent her entire career advocating on behalf of women, only wants to see a woman as President of the United States as a result of personal ambition.
