Here is some stuff in the news today!
Dan Froomkin says that US media coverage of the shutdown is failing USians. And he is correct!
[Content Note: Environmental harm] Dangerous levels of radioactivity have been found at a fracking waste site in Pennsylvania: "Elevated levels of chloride and bromide, combined with strontium, radium, oxygen, and hydrogen isotopic compositions, are present in...the water discharged from Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick Creek, which feeds into a water source for western Pennsylvania cities, including Pittsburgh." Fracking has also been linked to flaming tap water, earthquakes, contaminating water supplies, and organ damage. Y'all, I'm beginning to suspect that fracking isn't as safe as we keep being told that it is! (That was sarcasm. Fracking is the worst.)
[CN: Class warfare] Along with virtually all other government funding (don't worry—the heapshits forcing the shutdown are still definitely getting paid!), the most recent extension of the "TANF block grant that the federal government gives to states to share the cost of welfare programs...expired Monday night." TANF is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, aka welfare.
The Guttmacher Institute makes the compelling case that the nationwide network of publicly supported family planning centers, which ensure that women et. al. have control over their reproduction, is more crucial than ever now that the ACA is being fully implemented.
[CN: Rape culture] Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill into law that makes "revenge porn"—"in which a person electronically distributes or posts on the Internet nude pictures of an ex-romantic partner after a breakup to shame the person in public"—a crime. I hate for eleventy reasons that this is called "revenge porn," and I cannot believe a special law had to be passed to make this a crime.
[CN: Racism; police harassment] A federal district judge will review the guidelines governing police surveillance in NYC following charges that the city's Muslim residents are routinely having their civil rights violated by "an unconstitutional religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance program."
A new survey finds something about marriage according to a majority of married people with kids, or something. The thing I never understand about surveys and studies on marriage is that I'm pretty sure BUT MAYBE I'M WRONG that most people don't get married the day they meet? So what does "the third year of marriage" even really mean, when the third year of marriage for one couple is their fourth year of being partnered and for another couple their seventeenth year of being partnered? I'm pretty sure it means nothing, that's what!
[CN: Simpsons spoilers] Do you still care about The Simpsons, now in its 100th season? Just kidding! It's only in its 25th season. That still sounds like a joke, but it isn't! Anyway, if you ever cared and now still care about The Simpsons, then you may be interested to know that The Simpsons is planning to kill off a major character this season, which seems like an odd way to promote your show, if you ask me, but then I tend to like shows which love their characters, and The Simpsons is not really one of those. So this story isn't for me, but it might be for you!
In the News
Obamacare Implementation: A Health Coverage Guide's Perspective
by Shaker Kate O. This introductory post will help convey some of the basics ahead of a Q&A scheduled for tonight at 8:30pm EST.
Hey folks! I'm really excited about the chance to guest blog for you all about the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." I've been training as a Healthcare Coverage Guide, or Navigator, in Denver for the last few months, and I feel super overwhelmed by all of the details it entails, so I know you all have to be. I've been a fan of this blog and its readers for many years (despite being an irrepressible lurker!), so I thought I would reach out to Melissa to offer any help that I could to my fellow Shakers.
I'm a big old liberal and am pretty excited about this roll out. I'm English, so the idea of having to be wealthy to be healthy grosses me out. I want you all to be able to get the best answers you can to your questions in this field, and I know that so many of you are stuck in states that are not being vaguely helpful to their residents.
That said, ACA isn't perfect, and we are still unsure of lots of the ramifications, but I promise to do my best in answering your questions. We're going to have a Q&A session at Shakesville tonight starting at 8:30pm ET, so get your questions ready!
Please be super aware, though, that rules have a federal aspect, but they are also really state specific. If I can't answer your questions on the spot, I will try and research and either find you answers or resources. Some states are really kicking and screaming about this and are refusing to be any part of it. States like Florida won't even let Healthcare Coverage Guides to counsel people on state property, so those states are probably not going to have anything on their websites. Getting you answers may take me a little time. Plus, I am rolling this out in Colorado and about to be swamped. I beg your patience! But I will do my best.
To the overview!
Shutdown, Day Two
The Republicans—who decided to shut down the federal government to stop the implementation of a healthcare plan that: 1. Was originally theirs; 2. Is a giant corporate handout to insurance companies; 3. Will give healthcare coverage to millions of USians; 4. Is so popular that servers were overwhelmed yesterday by people trying to sign up—tried their darnedest to give the terrible national media fodder for their garbage "both sides" equivalence tropes by proposing three appropriations resolutions last night in the House to fund the District of Columbia, veterans programs, and national parks, which were immediately rejected by Democrats.
GOP leadership decided earlier in the day to advance smaller spending resolutions as a way to ease the impact of the government shutdown that started today. But Democrats held out against this tactic, and most voted against the three bills in order to keep up pressure for a comprehensive spending package.Meanwhile, President Obama addressed the nation from the Rose Garden yesterday, and placed the blame for this crisis—during which 800,000 federal workers have been placed on indefinite leave, and countless more people will feel the reverberating economic effects associated with the shutdown—squarely at Republicans' feet:
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the piecemeal strategy would allow Republicans to pick and choose which parts of the government to fund, which she compared to a slow release of hostages.
"They took hostages by shutting down the government," Pelosi said. "Now they're releasing one hostage at a time."
...House Democrats were backed by their Senate colleagues and the Obama administration, both of which said they would oppose a piecemeal approach.
"These piecemeal efforts are not serious, and they are no way to run a government," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.
Striking a defiant tone in the Rose Garden of the White House – one of the many government offices operating on a slimmed-down staff – Obama declared that the Affordable Care Act was "here to stay". Flanked by citizens who will benefit from the reforms, whose central provisions came into force on Tuesday, Obama said: "They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans."That old chestnut.
The Republican leader of the House, John Boehner, focused on the refusal by Obama and senior Democrats to negotiate.
"The president isn't telling the whole story when it comes to the government shutdown. The fact is that Washington Democrats have slammed the door on reopening the government by refusing to engage in bipartisan talks," he said.
And 'round and 'round we go. Because this is what the Republicans want. This is the endgame of the race-baiting and poverty-shaming that has been their decades-long strategy to crush the New Deal.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite piece of art in your home?
Optional follow-up question: Is it as beautiful as this? Y/N?
Day One of Obamacare
And it's exceeding expectations. Good thing the Republicans shut down the government on behalf of the "will of the people," who all definitely hate having access to healthcare coverage.
In related news: "At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said."
Great party you've got there, Republicans. You've really got the nation's best interests at heart.
Homeland and Mental Illness
[Content Note: Discussion of Homeland's portrayal of mental illness; misogyny. Spoilers for Homeland through the first episode of Season Three.]
So, Season Three of Showtime's Homeland premiered Sunday night, but I was all BREAKING BAD! so I didn't get a chance to watch it until last night.
Let me start by saying that, generally, I really love this show. I love Claire Danes (Carrie), and I love Mandy Patinkin (Saul), and I love Damian Lewis (Brody) and Morena Baccarin (Jess) and Morgan Saylor (Dana), and the scene between Rupert Friend (Quinn) and David Harewood (Estes), where Quinn tells Estes "I'm the guy that kills bad guys" was one of my favorite scenes of any television show ever.
Also: I am totally intrigued by the reactions to this show, especially the character of Carrie, especially her emotionality, because it is so rife with rank misogynist tropes that I swear to Maude it looks like parody of misogynist heapshits instead of just straight-up misogynist heapshittery.
In the opening episode of Season Three, Carrie, who has bipolar disorder in the show, has gone off her medications. And, from the season previews, it looks like that's going to be a central arc of this season, with Carrie's mental illness being used against her and sidelining her in the CIA once again.
There's been a lot written about the portrayal of Carrie's mental illness on Homeland. Some people with bipolar disorder think it's a deeply sensitive and realistic portrayal, and some people with bipolar disorder have criticized the portrayal. I don't have bipolar disorder, so I'm not qualified to have an opinion on that, frankly.
[Here's executive producer Alex Gansa talking about the subject a little bit.]
What has always interested me about how Carrie's illness is portrayed in the show is that it seems to serve as a commentary on how women, especially professionally passionate women, are routinely marginalized and discredited as "crazy," or "unstable," or some variation thereof. And, on Homeland, the female protagonist actually is "crazy," and yet she is also almost always right, in her field of competency.
But I have always felt that the show is in danger of swinging widely away from any insightful commentary. And I have always wondered if I'm reading something into the show that isn't really there, because I am myself a woman with mental illness.
There's no right or wrong answer, really. I'm just curious to see what y'all think about it.
Relatedly: Is Saul really throwing Carrie under the bus by using her mental illness against her, or is he playing some kind of long game without having included her on the plan? Either way, I'm feeling itchy about where this is going.
TV Corner: Sleepy Hollow
[Content note: Racism, Cultural appropriations, depictions of suicide, domestic violence, gun violence, ableism]
SO! Apparently the writers of this show have decided to up the ante. It’s not enough just to be terribad, they need to be terri-racist. THAT SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA! If we also up the violence, this should make for a suuuuper neat combination!
The show opens with Abbie watching Ichabod working for the police force. She is seeing herself and her sister being interrogated for lying about the Demon Covered in White Paint (DCIWP) they saw in the woods. And eyeless people. Whoooops it’s a nightmare! Ichabod working for the police was definitely scary!
In the waking world, Abbie responds to a call regarding a suicidal woman who demands to talk to Abbie. She is a psychologist who has been treating Abbie’s sister Jennie. Turns out Jennie isn’t really crazy! There ARE REALLY DCIWPs OUT THERE! And the doctor is in the grip of them… JUST LIKE IN ABBIE’S NIGHTMARE! She’s eyeless! She kills herself, which is all kinds of fucked up. After she dies, she still has white film covering her eyes. The film pops! The socket is empty! It is gross!
Captain “Grumpy” Orlando Jones is notably grumpy. “Last thing we need around here is an episode from the Twilight Zone.” Hahaha SO TRUE! Because most of those were pretty well-written! We don’t need any of that, thankyouverymuch!
Ichabod and Abbie have a conversation. It goes something like this:
Ichabod: LEFTENANT! The Book of Revelation! George Washington’s Magic Bible!
Abbie: “Unless you have an encyclopedia of faceless nightmare monsters, let’s use a little old-fashioned detective work.”
Ichabod: QED! Prophetic dreams! Witness to the Apocalypse! TV is puzzling! WHAT TIME DOESN’T CHANGE, DEATH WILL!
(I swear his lines were written by randomly mashing up old epsiodes from X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
Next, Ichabod and Abbie go to visit Abbie’s sister, Jennie, in the mental institution. (The number 49 is significant! Flashback to Sherriff Kindly! We will never explain this!) Their conversation goes something like this:
ICHABOD: Apocalypse! Horsemen! Your doctor is dead! Help us! I certainly have a way with mentally ill people!
Jennie: Here is some useful information. Also, you are very weird, Tall Dark and British!
ICHABOD: Consequences! Your sister! I am definitely Tall Dark and British! In fact, it’s my entire character concept!
Afterwards, Abbie confesses to lying about what she saw in the woods in order to stay in her nice foster home. They decide to visit Farmer Eccentric who resuced Abbie and Jennie from the woods and saw the DCIWP too.
Flash to Farmer Eccentric, who spends a lot of time making birdhouses and shooting at DCIWPs. The police show up at Farmer E’s house, where he is holding his wife hostage at gunpoint. Abbie enters the house with her gun. The mirror is broken, so SPOOKY! Farmer Eccentric is now Farmer White-Eyed Spook Seer! He tells Abbie THE SANDMAN is coming for her next! Then he shoots himself. Which is all kind of fucked up.
Ichabod does not understand the Sandman! Or receptionists! Or energy drinks! So back to the police "archives" (aka, a dusty, musty old room with shit piled up every which way) it is. (By the way, they really need a federal grant to maybe climate-control that room and hire an archivist. CURSE YOU JOHN BOEHNER!)
Abbie finds that the DCIWP / Sandman is referenced in a Mohawk legend. Ichabod proudly explains that he fought alongside his Mohawk allies for George Washington. WHOOOOOOOOOPS your sides of the American Revolution, Ichabod!
Ichabod says they should visit a Mohawk shaman, and Abbie says there aren’t very many Native Americans any more. OH MY FUCKING GOD. WHO IS WRITING THIS? You are describing Stephen Harper’s wet dream. You are not describing reality. WHOOOOOOOOPS your racism.
Further, Abbie explains that it’s almost impossible to find a Mohawk these days! UNLESS YOU, OH, SAY, VISIT ONE OF THE MOHAWK NATION’S EIGHT COMMUNITIES. The next best thing, of course, is the local used car salesman.
Car Guy is Native, I guess, because of the Navajo(?) silver he’s wearing? He is offended when Ichabod asks him to do a ritual. GEE I CANNOT IMAGINE WHY.
Ichabod: Let me misquote Edmund Burke! That should convince you!
(It totally convinces him.)
Car guy agrees to help, but tells Ichabod to can it with the Indian stereotypes, which makes me YAY for a millisecond until he continues, “No one’s a chief, no one lives in tipis, no one has pow-wows.” OH MY FUCKING GOD. It is possible to be more racist, but you are going to have to work. Please stop doing your research in old Lone Ranger episodes. By the way, here is a thing you should Google.
Ok, so Car Guy has Abbie and Ichabod drink tea to enter the Dreamworld. The ritual also requires that they be stung by scorpions, because that is OBVIOUSLY part of traditional beliefs in fucking New York.
The Dreamworld goes something like this:
Ichabod: “LEFTENANT!”
Paint-Demon-Sandman: Growl! I can turn into water!
Abbie: Memories and gunfire! Creepy Sandman!
Ichabod: Let me finally try something useful (Tries something useful, gets his arm turned into sand for it.)
Abbie: I lied! I’ll do better!
THE SANDMAN TURNS TO GLASS BECAUSE OF HER TRANSPARENCY. Or something. Abbie shatters him(it?) with a chair.
She and Ichabod wake up. Ichabod: “No more scorpions!” (I’ve got an idea! How about no more racist appropriations!)
They are back at the archive. Captain Grumpy enters the archive. He is notably grumpy. Tells them to go home.
Ichabod:”THE THINGS ONE TRIES TO HIDE ARE USUALLY THE THINGS MOST EASILY SEEN.” Um, okay?
Abbie goes to visit Jennie. Jennie’s room is empty! Whoooooops! The End.
Also, John Cho was not in this.
If you can’t tell, the show really jumped the shark for me this week. The level of racism was utterly appalling; I cannot even fathom writing that garbage rendering millions of people invisible (dead, even!) while the continent is in the midst of Idle No More, one of the most sweeping civil rights movements in a generation. On top of that, the violence was really ramped up this week, with some truly needless shit in there. I didn’t like having the doctor kill herself in front of Abbie, and I really, really didn’t like seeing Farmer Eccentric holding is wife hostage.
I’m not even sure I want to watch again. If I do, it will mainly be for Abbie, who is emerging as the centre of the show, and I really do like the way her story is developing. The production values are still slick, and there is some great acting. But yeah, the racist shit. DON’T DO THAT, ‘K?
My Identity Isn't Your Costume
[Content Note: Discussion and imagery of fat hatred; racism; transphobia; dehumanization; appropriation; Othering.]
Every year, I end up writing a post about offensive Halloween costumes, whether it's costumes that uphold the rape culture; treating stereotypical markers of an(other) ethnicity as a costume; or some other gross manifestation of Othering for which Halloween is used an excuse.
Yesterday, Shaker Mod aforalpha emailed me this article about the Sikh Coalition having successfully persuaded Walmart and RiteAid to stop selling "turban and beard" Halloween costumes. I am thrilled that they were successful, and annoyed they had to address this contemptible shit in the first place.
Plus: For every win some marginalized group has in stopping major retailers from selling dehumanizing, appropriative costumes, there are legions of online retailers who will still happily sell the same shit.
All of these are widely available for purchase online:
• Afro Wigs
• Dreadlocks Wigs
• "Ghetto Fab" Wigs
• Mexican Mustaches
• Asian Mustaches
• Indian Costumes
• Eskimo Costumes
• Sheik Costumes
• Arab Costumes
• Ninja Costumes
• Geisha Costumes
• Gypsy Costumes
• Rabbi Costumes
Et cetera ad infinitum.
Naturally, these sorts of costumes are inevitably defended by the (usually white) people who wear them by arguing that there are cowboy costumes and German Beer Maid costumes and Scottish costumes and so forth and so on.
These arguments, of course, elide a couple of key points. Like, for example, that "cowboy" styling emerged from an occupation, not an ethnicity. (And there are not a few working ranchers who aren't thrilled with being treated like a costume, either.) And, as another example, that the way privilege works in a white supremacist culture creates a disparity in power between white people and people of color. The power differential between a privileged and a marginalized class means there is no equivalence in an "Indian costume" and a German bar maid costume. (Which is to say nothing of the misogyny inherent in the latter.)
When I attended Lauren Chief Elk's amazing workshop at the Forging Justice conference about the sexual objectification of Native women via appropriation, one of the things I asked her during the Q&A was whether the way in which white USians tend to flatten white ethnicity into one giant mishmash, giving each other tacit permission to appropriate each other's cultural heritages, contributes to the borrowing of, and provides the justification for, appropriation of Native dress and culture. See, as but one example, the whole: "The Irish don't get all bent out of shape about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish" during any discussion about team names like "Indians," "Redskins," "Blackhawks," etc. (Even though there are some Irish people who don't like that shit at all.)
And Lauren said, essentially, yeah. White people appropriating from one another sure as fuck doesn't help.
But of course we rarely call that out among each other, for fear of being ridiculed as "too sensitive," no matter how much, say, a Scottish person's teeth might grind seeing their family tartan being worn by some dipshit as a Halloween costume.
Anyway.
Welp, I Guess It's Time To Rebrand Everything!
[Content Note: Stereotypes and othering; Misogyny; Racism]
Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standard has read new research in the European Journal of Social Psychology titled "The ironic impact of activists: Negative stereotypes reduce social change influence" which reveals the shocking (read: Totally Not Shocking) twist that lots and lots of people sort of generally support things like feminism and environmentalism as long as you don't use those words because popular discourse has succeeding in painting feminists and environmentalists as humorless austere assholes who hate fun.
In an article which appears (according to the hyperlink) to have been originally titled "Feminism? Maybe. Feminists? Ewww." and which is now titled "Environmentalism? Perhaps. Environmentalists? Ewww!", Mr. Jacobs dispenses advice to us icky feminists which I think we can all agree with, which is that we need to be nicer and smile more. (And would it kill you ladies to show a little cleavage? I mean, really. Etc.)
In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk—described both varieties of activists in “overwhelmingly negative” terms. The most frequently mentioned traits describing “typical feminists” included “man-hating” and “unhygienic;” for “typical environmentalists,” they included “tree-hugger” and “hippie.”I would like to maybe make a suggestion to Mr. Jacobs. Before you decide that the problem with stereotypes is that the victims of those stereotypes need to stop being so darn stereotypical, maybe you should do some studying up on how stereotypes actually work, and maybe also to read up on something called confirmation bias. Because, the thing is, Rush Limbaugh leveraging his media platform for decades in order to hammer terms like feminazi into popular consciousness wasn't just him politely pointing out some kind of established fact that Feminists Hate Men, and now we all need to accept his tough-but-fair criticism and reevaluate our man-hating platform because that's the one thing driving people away from the feminist brand. Nope!
[...] So the message to advocates is clear: Avoid rhetoric or actions that reinforce the stereotype of the angry activist. Realize that if people find you off-putting, they’re not going to listen to your message. As Bashir and her colleagues note, potential converts to your cause “may be more receptive to advocates who defy stereotypes by coming across as pleasant and approachable.”
One of the fun things about being a marginalized person (and especially being an activist for your own marginalized group) is that right off the bat, you have to spend a not-insignificant amount of time just coming up with an affirming name for your marginalized group, because centuries of language loaded with hurtful stereotypes have made a lot of the candidate words into either slurs against you, or words with triggery and negative connotations. And then once you do find a nice word for your marginalized group, the members of the privileged culture who resent your efforts will do their damndest to smear that word too -- as harshly and as quickly as they can. In a political piece I wrote last year about white racists whinging about the term "colored people" in the NAACP organization name, I said:
And if you've never had to expend a moment's thought about what to call yourself that hasn't been used as a slur or derogatory term by someone somewhere, well, that's the beautiful warmth of Privilege that you're feeling.Feminism isn't going to be any more warm and fuzzy for privileged people if we rebrand the movement and order new t-shirts and coffee mugs. And feminists aren't going to be suddenly accepted by privileged people under that label just because they Smile More. Because the problem society has with people who use the word 'feminist' aren't that their actions are just sooooo man-hating and everyone logically noticed that with their superior Vulcan Logic.
[...] Demanding that an organization for marginalized people change their name after the terms involved were deliberately ruined by privileged people?
Yup. That's racism. It's also bullying.
No, the problem society has with people who use the word 'feminist' is that the people controlling our social conversations have worked long and hard to make sure that all of us know that a Feminist is a Very Bad Thing To Be, even as they carefully avoid giving meaningful airtime to what feminism is about. Which is why a lot of us grew up knowing that Feminism was a bad thing even as we identified with goals and ideals which are usually associated with feminism. The problem wasn't that we'd encountered real live feminists who left a bad taste in our mouths; the problem was that we had absorbed the surrounding cultural message that Feminists Are Bad.
Or, to put it more succinctly (with much thanks to Liss!): the problem isn't that we are reducing our own influence to effect social change; the problem is that we are operating within a system that already hates us.
The solution to that, Mr. Jacobs, isn't to turn around and waggle fingers at the feminists for being insufficiently smiley (and in doing so to reinforce the false assumption that feminists are... what was the word? "Overwhelmingly negative"?). The solution is to instead push back against the people trying to use their privilege to control the conversation; to push back against the many, many people who use their political, media, and social power to smear the name of feminism in order to intimidate people from claiming that term for themselves. There's even a popular discourse term you can use to describe that very phenomena when you eventually decide to write that article. You're welcome!
But I can understand why you might not want to write that article. After all, those same privileged people controlling the social discourse might turn around and use their media platform to tell everyone on earth that you are "overwhelmingly negative" and "unhygienic" and then it would be both magically true and your responsibility to fix.
Daily Dose of Cute
[Video Description: Matilda the Seal-Point Blue-Eyed Cat lies on the sofa, hanging over the edge of the seat. Olivia the White and Tabby Farm Cat sits on my lap on the loveseat, her tail curling and swishing near Matilda's outstretched face. Matilda bites and swipes at Olivia's tail. Olivia, from her perch on my lap, turns and looks at Matilda disinterestedly. I pan around to Zelda, sitting beside me and on my curled up feet, who regards all of this stoically. She gives me a look that seems to say, "Cats, eh?" I pan back around to Matilda, who is lying with her head hanging way off the soda. Olivia flicks her tail. Matilda rears up and jabs at Iain's tablet, which is sitting on the arm of the sofa, then flops back and reaches for Olivia's tail. Then she sees a ghost, sits up, sniffs at the tablet, and buries her head between the arm and a pillow.]
Matilda, who does this funny thing we call "seeing ghosts," where she appears to see Something Very Scary where nothing is, then run around or spin around in a really funny way, was doing so much ghost-spotting the same afternoon. Like a lot of cats, she just likes to fake-terrify herself for fun. Anyway, here's a little bit of Matilda being a super-goofy ghost spotter, too.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
(I am leaving news about the shutdown out of this round-up. There are threads about the shutdown here and here and here and here and here.)
[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault; misogyny] Jess has another important post on the gang rape case involving multiple Vanderbilt football players.
[CN: Infant death; racism] Here is an interesting, ahem, article that talks about the practice of sharing a bed, or "co-sleeping," with an infant, which breaks down the habit by race, but fails utterly to break down the habit by class, despite the fact that poverty is probably the number one reason that parents end up sharing a bed with their babies.
A team of engineers led by the University of Washington has developed a programming language that could soon enable chemists to "use a structured set of instructions to 'program' how DNA molecules interact in a test tube or cell." The hope is that it "will streamline efforts to design a network that can guide the behavior of chemical-reaction mixtures in the same way that embedded electronic controllers guide cars, robots and other devices. In medicine, such networks could serve as 'smart' drug deliverers or disease detectors at the cellular level." Whoa. That is so cool!
Would you like to see a new banner and the new trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug? I will definitely see this, but, I have to be honest, I kind of wish The Hobbit had just been one tight, great, rollicking movie! OH WELL.
NASA has "mapped the 'cloud' structure of an alien world for the first time using its Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes, an early step towards finding planets with human-compatible atmospheres." Neat! Reached for comment, Mitt Romney was quoted as saying, "I do not believe people are entitled to food, nor do I believe in funding science, but I do believe that the One Percenters are entitled to this wonderful Project Elysium. Gold-plated moon planet with human-compatible atmosphere mansions for everyone!" Romney's spokesperson, Will Ardromney, later clarified that the former presidential candidate meant "everyone in the One Percent, obviously." In all seriousness, that's really cool news. I hope we find some great planets to visit and maybe even colonize. We've definitely done a terrific job with this one.
The global population is getting older, and it turns out that most places don't have a good plan for that.
10.3 million: The number of people who tuned in to the Breaking Bad finale. Were you one of them?! That is a lot of viewers!
Finally! National Geographic is having a photo contest about dogs, and there are SO MANY GREAT PHOTOS OF GREAT DOGS and you should go look at them, if that's something you think would make you happy!
I love this picture of a dog curled into a heart, while probably licking its butt. That pretty much sums you up, dogs!
Wisconsin News Corner
[Content note: racism, homophobia, and hostility to reproductive rights]
Since the Packers and US Congress are off this week (just kidding, the Packers have still been holding practices), folks in Wisconsin have had to find something else to talk about.
The Wisconsin Assembly may soon consider legislation that will make it harder for the state to force school's to stop using racist mascots. That legislation has proved controversial with the state's racist community. So much for our promises to the local native peoples!
[ProTip: While I was at high school, our local school ditched our racist mascot. I don't think it impacted white people much. And if y'all are worried that it'll be hard to demonstrate that you're town is full of small-minded bigots without that aid of ball sport teams with racist mascots, trust me, I'm sure you'll find a way.]
The state Supreme Court is getting ready to hear oral arguments in a case involving Wisconsin's domestic partnership registry. Now, before it gets all Trenton up in here, let me point out that the plaintiffs in this case are arguing that in the case of Wisconsin's registry, separate is a little too equal.
Lawmakers are debating whether it's a good idea to issue special "Choose Life" license plates to raise money for crisis pregnancy centers.
The main bridge over the Fox River at Green Bay is still closed. The roadway has been dipping 20 inches since one of its supporter piers settled. Oh, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia told Governor Walker's allies to stop bragging about creating 24,000 private sector jobs over a 12 month period, because it's just not that impressive of an accomplishment.
Wonder Woman Fan Trailer and Movie Thread
[CN: Violence, gun violence]
So, Rainfall Films has posed their own conceptual trailer for a theoretical Wonder Woman film. It is less about a storyline than about the look and feel of a Wonder Woman film. What do you think, Shakers?
[Video Description:Scene of a city street with ashes floating through the air; a sign burns. Men dressed in black with large meacing guns walk the street. In the background buildings burn. A female figure approaches them in a fur-lined robe; the men raise their guns. She throws back the robe to reveal--Wonder Woman, in a version of her costume that includes a handkerchief-hemmed Greco-Roman type dark blue leather battle kilt and large, bracer-type bracelets. She leaps into the air as the men fire at her. Deflecting their bullets, she punches them and throws them around, The scene shifts to Paradise Island/Themiscyra, where she stands with several other women, all wearing white chiton-type dresses, in what looks like a classical city. The Amazons approach the coastline, watching large, cyclops-like giants wading in towards their island from the sea. One of the Amazons tosses Wonder Woman a spear. Back to the city; a gunman tries to fire at WW from close range; she evades the bullet and fights off two gunmen. She turns to face the final gunman, wearing a black balaclava, and shakes her head slightly. The scene shifts back to Paradise Island. WW hurls the spear, hitting one of the menacing giants. Flash to the city as the gunman fires. Flash to Paradise Island: the Amazons cheer as the giant staggers back, hit by Wonder Woman's spear. Flash to the city as the gunman lowers his weapon. Wonder Woman turns her face to the sky; the camera pulls back to show her ascending. End. Credits.]
Personally, while this is not my Wonder Woman film, there are several things I like. I like including a sense of WW's cosmic battles. I like portraying WW as less violent, as more interested in neutralizing her opponents than "finishing them off." I like the costume's basics, even if I quibble with its details. I'm less thrilled other things, such as the lack of diversity among the Amazons. Yet this still looks about 100% better than most of the horsepucky that's been floated by DC lately.
Is this something you would send to DC? Feel free to leave responses below.
Quote of the Day
Hmmm, are there any other ways in which a democracy might assess the people's will? I can think of three — which we're all aware of but which are worth revisiting:—The Atlantic's James Fallows.
1) Just last year, a presidential election was fought over this exact issue, along with economic policy more broadly. When the votes came in, Barack Obama scored a runaway Electoral College win — and became the first person since Dwight Eisenhower to get more than 51% of the popular vote twice.
...[W]e very recently had the most formal test a democracy offers of a president's policies, rather than some set of push-polls, and Obama won in a walk.
2) In that year's elections for the Senate, the Democrats increased their majority by two seats and overall received 10 million+ more votes than all Republican candidates.
3) And last year even in the elections for the House, Democrats — who for better or worse were forced to run on Obamacare and the president's economic policies — gained 8 seats and received 1.7 million more votes than did all Republican candidates combined.
...[A]ll evidence suggests that without post-2010 gerrymandering, the Democrats might well control the House right now, along with the Senate and White House.
In short, we have a faction making historically unprecedented demands — give us everything, or we stop the government and potentially renege on the national debt. And it is doing so less than a year after its party lost the presidency, lost the Senate (and lost ground there), and held onto the House in part because of rotten-borough distortions.
You can call this a lot of things, but "gridlock" should not be one of them. And you can fault many aspects of the President's response — when it comes to debt-default, I think he has to stick to the "no negotiations with terrorists" hard line. But you shouldn't pretend that if he had been more "reasonable" or charming he could placate a group whose goal is the undoing of his time in office.
The fact is that in our gerrymandered, money-soaked, manipulated representative democracy, the smallest number of vote-getters are running the country. And claiming to be serving the will of the people.
Other recommended reading:
Reuters: A Million U.S. Government Workers, Unions Brace for Shutdown.
Think Progress: Federal Workers May Not Get Paid Even after the Shutdown Ends.
TPM: House of Turds.
This Is Shutdown
[Content Note: Class warfare; disablism.]
Me, on Twitter last night:
[Related Reading: A Thing about Disablist Language; I Write Letters.]
I don't even know what else to say anymore. We are not been governed by people of good faith. And even the conversation about that is harmful. Grim stuff.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to discuss all aspects of the shutdown, including the tone of the national debate, how the shutdown will personally affect you, your fears, your anger, whatever.
Question of the Day
When was the last time your treated yourself to a little something special, whether that means buying yourself something you didn't totally need, or taking a day off to spend it hiking, or eating/drinking something delicious you normally don't, or whatever it is that feels like a delightful indulgence to you?
This is what we're dealing with.
[Content Note: Violent imagery; reference to rape.]
It is a well-known fact of US politics that Newt Gingrich is a garbage nightmare with balled-up paper towels and discarded coffee grounds where his sense of decency should be. So it is no surprise that Gingrich has a terrific new op-ed for CNN arguing that it would be catastrophic if Congressional Republicans were to "cave" on the shutdown.
Every single thing about this is terrible, but his list of examples about why "it is time to stand firm," as if Republicans have done anything else but stand firm as petulant obstructions hellbent on grinding federal governance to a halt ever since President Obama was elected, is absolutely incredible, even by Gingrich's typically execrable standards. Especially this:
When a senior, unnamed Democratic official is quoted Monday morning calling for no negotiations and saying "it's time to punch the bully in the nose," it is time to stand firm.Okay. Let's concede that point for the sake of argument. If it is, indeed, "time to stand firm" when an anonymous Democrat is quoted by rightwing stenography outlet Politico, then for what is it time when Grover Norquist, a key conservative figure for decades, says:
I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.Or:
Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.Or:
Our goal is to inflict pain. It is not good enough to win; it has to be a painful and devastating defeat. We're sending a message here. It is like when the king would take his opponent's head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see.Just as a few examples.
These are old quotes. This is nothing new from the conservative movement, and for Newt Gingrich to try to justify supporting the shutdown of the federal government on the mendacious basis that it is Democrats who have failed to be sufficiently conciliatory is the height of temerity.
Which he knows. He's just banking on the fact that the proudly uninformed ninety-nine percenters of the Republican base won't.
