Shakesville

Just F#@k

[Content Note: Sexual harassment; worker exploitation.]

Venessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek: Unpaid Intern Is Ruled Not an 'Employee,' Not Protected From Sexual Harassment.

The intern alleging harassment, Lihuan Wang, filed a suit against [Phoenix Satellite Television U.S.] in January. According to the complaint, in early 2010, two weeks after Wang started working at the Chinese-language media company's New York office, her supervisor and bureau chief, Liu Zhengzhu, invited her and several co-workers to lunch. Wang claims Liu asked her to stay after the meal to discuss her work performance and then asked her to accompany him to his hotel so he could drop off a few things. In the hotel room, she alleges, Liu [sexually harassed and assaulted Wang].

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that because Wang was an unpaid intern, not an employee, she could not bring a claim under the New York City Human Rights Law. This discrepancy's not new: Unpaid interns aren't covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and while local laws can protect them, New York's state and city laws do not.

According to the court's decision, the New York City Council has had several opportunities to amend the law to protect unpaid interns but has declined to do so.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that NYC has a vast workforce of unpaid interns, hoping to jump-start careers, many of whom are working for some of the most entitled, privileged, unaccountable men in the world, who consider exploiting their female interns a perk of their positions.

Fix this shit, NYC. Jesus Jones.

Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by fur tumbleweeds.

Recommended Reading:

Von: Lawmakers Among the 200 Arrested at Immigration Rally

Angus: [Content Note: Rape; violence; misogyny] $chwyz3r Quits. Apparently For Real This Time.

Echidne: On the Government Shutdown. Who Needs Governments, Anyway?

Mike: [Content Note: Racism; police brutality; dog bites] So Far This Year, L.A. County Sheriff's Dogs Have Only Bitten People of Color

Jeremy: [Content Note: Homophobia] Man Behind Politically-Motivated, Discredited Research Supports Same

Trudy: [Content Note: Racism; misogyny; street harassment; rape culture; PTSD] Street Harassment and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Sikivu: [Content Note: Violence; racism; homophobia; transphobia] Disposable Children: Whiteness, Heterosexism, & the Murder of Lawrence King

Lori: [Content Note: Misogyny] Why Twitter's "Woman Problem" Is about More Than Identity Politics

Joseph: Jellyfish May Be the Most Energy-Efficient Animals in the World

Joshua: Photo and Video of the Day: Bison Protests the Shutdown

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

LOL FOREVER

Let's all watch this video and/or read my terrific transcript about Fox News' shiny new News Center, so we can all laugh at it together FOREVER.

Shep Smith, Fox News Anchor, a middle-aged white man in a grey suit, is onscreen in the middle of the new "High-Tech Fox News Deck," to which I will be referring from hereon out as Gleep Glorp HQ. Behind him are a bunch of young white people sitting in front of GINORMOUS white monitors. Speaking directly to the camera, he says: "Welcome to the Fox News Deck at Fox News headquarters in New York. It's in this building seventeen years ago that Fox News revolutionized the way broadcast news is presented to the people. And it's in this room that we plan to do it all over again."

Cut to fast-motion video of the space being remodeled, over which Smith says: "It's been almost a month since I signed off for the last time from Fox Report, and what's happened in this studio since then has been nothing short of extraordinary. Construction crews, computer programmers, and journalists have been working around the clock to build the Fox News Deck." Audio of working. EXTRAORDINARY. "From the lights to the floor, everything has changed." Still image of two white men pointing remotes at a television that is turned off WHUT. "And for good reason—because you've changed as well."

Cut to another middle-aged white guy, who is identified as Jay Wallace, Vice President of News. Of ALL the news, or just Fox News? ALL OF IT! If there is news, he is the vice president of it! He says, in the most disinterested voice possible, "Viewing patterns are changing, uh, the way people consume news is changing, um, people aren't so linear—they don't sit down and watch TV at a certain hour, you know, and stick with the same thing from show to show to show." This is why he gets the big bucks, people.

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Sophie the Torbie Cat up close, as she is lying on my chest, staring at me with huge eyes

CAT FACE!!!
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

1980's Ubu Productions Logo

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today! (Your daily shutdown thread is here.)

A passenger landed a plane after the pilot collapsed and two flying instructors explained to the totally untrained passenger what to do. THAT IS AMAZING! Good job, everyone!

[Content Note: Torture] "The Roast of Dick Cheney" was filled with ha-ha jokes about waterboarding and war crimes, because of course it was.

The shutdown is having a terrible effect on scientific research.

Waukegan High School crowned a gay homecoming king and gay homecoming queen this weekend. Neat!

I'm sure you'll be totally SHOCKED to hear that the Romney campaign did not stop lying just because it lost the election. LIES 4EVER.

Do you care what Oliver Stone has to say about the finale of Breaking Bad? I don't! But if you do, you can read all about it here!

Happy Blogiversary to Us!

October 5 was Shakesville's ninth blogiversary, and I totally missed it! Whoooooooooooops! So happy belated blogiversary to us!

1. Everything I said last year.

2. I started this blog because George W. Bush made me SO ANGRY. And because some of the ways in which he made me angry, often ways having to do with how his policies affected women, weren't well-represented at progressive political blogs run by men. Sure, there was the occasional outrage about reproductive rights policies, but it was usually expressed in a way that urged left-leaning women to get the fuck in line, or we could expect more of that, rather than in a way that expressed any discernible authentic concern for what misogynist policy means for us in our real lives.

So I started writing stuff. Without any hope or expectation that it would ever mean anything to anyone other than me.

I'm surprised and thrilled that it has. My thanks to this community for their support. My profound gratitude to the other contributors and mods, for everything you put on the page and everything you do for me behind the scenes. And my thanks and appreciation to Iain, who first suggested I start this blog and always believes in me.

Onward to ten...

TV Corner: Agents of SHIELD

[Content Note: Discussions of violence. Spoilers for the most recent episode of Agents of SHIELD.]

image of Skye (Chloe Bennet) in the latest episode of Agents of SHIELD; she is wearing a pink dress and holding a small purse, and cocking her head to one side with an expression that seems to say, 'Oh, honey. Don't underestimate me.'

Underestimating this woman would be foolish, sir.
In last night's episode, the Agents of SHIELD team was tasked with being All In. Do you think they succeeded?! Let's find out!

A big truck carrying office supplies and driven by a dude named Mack (Mack the truck driver? seriously?!) is ambushed by an invisible force, lifting the truck off the ground and then crashing it. A bunch of armed shady characters rush in and steal the truck's contents—which, as it turns out, are not office supplies at all, but an Agents of SHIELD asset named Dr. Franklin Hall, who is a super duper scientist guy. How did the kidnappers know the secret route?! Is there a mole at SHIELD?!

Meanwhile, Chiseled White Hero trains new recruit Skye in self-defense, and she's pretty unenthusiastic about it. Which we know is partly because she hasn't fully committed herself to SHIELD yet. CWH suspects as much, and tells her that every agent has a defining moment, when they realize they're committed to the cause, but he won't tell her what his is, because that's how television storytelling works.

The team is assembled to be told of Dr. Hall's kidnapping, and they investigate the scene where a tiny gyroscope is discovered and revealed to be a device that controls gravity. Something something cowboy who sold the kidnappers their equipment. Something something businessman named Quinn. (Every show I watch has a Quinn in it!) Something something gravitonium. Something something Quinn's in Malta because they have great tax rates and an aversion to compliance with international law.

This puts the Agents of SHIELD in a real bind, because they are definitely required to comply with international law. (Sure. You know how the US government totally requires its secret ops to comply with international law.) Luckily, Skye isn't officially an agent yet, so she can infiltrate Quinn's compound. Clever girl! She hacks herself an e-vite to a party he's having, at which he will announce all his evil machinations to his stockholders.

"Nothing yields a better return on your investment than a gravity-manipulation device, so, if you can ever get in on one of those dealies, go for it!"—Warren Buffett.

At some point in the middle of all this, CWH reveals his defining moment to Skye. He had a brother, with presumably an even more chiseled jaw, who mercilessly bullied him. That's why he had to learn how to protect himself. And that's why he's committed to the cause. "Now get in there and distract that evil businessman with your boobies, then beat him with your wits, and also do some sharp moves that prove my training worked!" he says. Or something.

Which is exactly what happens! Sort of. Skye cleverly tells Quinn that she's been working with SHIELD, and, if we were silly people, we might imagine that she's decided to work against SHIELD after all, but we are not silly people, so we see this as the luring trickery it is soon revealed to be. Something something disabled security lasers. The team is in!

Skye and Quinn have a confrontation, during which she has her defining moment and declares that she realizes SHIELD is Big Brother only in the sense that they're the big brother who protects a little brother, which is a cute throwback to CWH's defining moment. She is ALL IN! She steals Quinn's gun with her hot new fighting moves, and then jumps out the window into the pool to make her escape. There is witty banter during this scene, and I am very fond of Chloe Bennett's acting! She is soon surrounded by Quinn's henchmen, but CWH shows up just in time to save her. Phew.

Meanwhile, Coulson has located Dr. Hall, who reveals he is the one who leaked his position to Quinn, and for a moment we wonder if he has turned bad, but it's a DOUBLE-REVERSAL and Dr. Hall explains he wanted to get here so he could destroy the device before Quinn uses it to make the one-percent even more one-percentier, or whatever. But he will kill everyone in the whole area! That is a price he is willing to pay to change the course of history. Coulson is not on board with that plan. He just got back from Tahiti!

Fitz and Simmons tell Coulson to find a catalyst to stop the gravity device's chemical reaction in its core. Coulson shoots through glass on which Dr. Hall is standing and he falls into the gyroscope. "Well, he wanted to be a catalyst for change," says no one, to my disappointment.

Skye feels like SHIELD could be the family she never had, and she is committed. Melinda May decides that she'll return to combat again, and she is committed. And once again the day is saved! Hooray! The gyroscope is secured in a locked safe by SHIELD—and in the final moments, we see a hand reach out of its inky core. GRAVITRON!!! The end.

George Will Is the Worst

[Content Note: Racism, slavery, appropriation]

Did any of y'all happen to catch the George Will interview that aired on NPR's Morning Edition? (Here's a link. I don't recommend it.)

He actually said: "I hear the Democrats say the Affordable Care Act is the law, as though we're supposed to genuflect at that sunburst of insight and move on. Well, the Fugitive Slave Act was the law. 'Separate but equal' was the law."

Not to be a pedant, but both of those examples undermine his supposed point (I think we all know what his actual point was) that governing is hard, and change is hard fought. Both of those things were the law (or in the case of segregation, a shitload of laws), and I seem to recall that changing them took a certain amount of effort beyond 40 douches in Washington refusing to do their jobs.

Oh, and also it's neat how white people keeping comparing the signature act of America's first black president to Jim Crow and slavery. That's especially so given that I'm not so sure that encouraging people to buy health insurance in open market is the same as allowing people to buy other people.

Bonus points, of course, for the word "genuflect."

Yellen to Fed

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

At long last, President Obama is reportedly set to nominate Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve.

Good.

It's just too bad that Yellen's nomination, despite her being the best candidate, will be forever sullied by the narrative that she was not the President's first choice, that she was picked just because she's a woman, just for the sake of "diversity."

This is the problem with so many privileged white men failing upwards throughout their careers, and being seriously considered as contenders for positions for which they're not qualified. It casts doubt on the women, and the men from marginalized populations, especially men of color, who succeed, even when we are the best candidates.

It is not fair to Janet Yellen that her appointment will be tainted with the suspicion she only got it because Obama wanted to cover his ass for even considering a misogynist like Larry Summers.

That's why a man like Summers should never even have been in contention.

Shutdown, Day Wev

Republicans still terrible. Government still shut down.

There was a thought that the impending default, if Congress failed to end the shutdown and raise the debt limit, would put some pressure on Congressional Republicans to do the right thing. But that thought was contingent on those Congressional Republicans understanding and caring that default could result in financial catastrophe. It turns out that was an unreasonable expectation: "Many in GOP Offer Theory: Default Wouldn't Be That Bad."

[President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner] were counting on the prospect of a global economic meltdown to help pull restive Republicans into line. On Wall Street, among business leaders and in a vast majority of university economics departments, the threat of significant instability resulting from a debt default is not in question. But a lot of Republicans simply do not believe it.

A surprisingly broad section of the Republican Party is convinced that a threat once taken as economic fact may not exist — or at least may not be so serious.

... In a news conference, Mr. Obama said repeatedly that those who doubted the repercussions of a default were making a huge mistake.

"When I hear people trying to downplay the consequences of that, I think that's really irresponsible, and I'm happy to talk to any of them individually and walk them through exactly why it's irresponsible," he said. "And it's particularly funny coming from Republicans who claim to be champions of business. There's no business person out here who thinks this wouldn't be a big deal, not one. You go to anywhere from Wall Street to Main Street, and you ask a C.E.O. of a company or ask a small-business person whether it'd be a big deal if the United States government isn't paying its bills on time. They'll tell you it's a big deal. It would hurt."

The turmoil created by the partial shutdown of the federal government has already sent investors fleeing from stocks to the safe harbor of Treasury bonds, long considered the safest investment on earth because the full faith and credit of the United States government has never been questioned. If that safe harbor is undermined, most economists have said loudly and repeatedly, the impact could be catastrophic.

... But the voices of denial are loud and persistent, with some Republicans saying that the fallout from the continuing shutdown and the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration has been less severe than predicted.

Mr. Paul acknowledged that some economists disagreed with him, but said others agreed. Peter Morici, a conservative economist and a frequent guest on Fox Business, dashed off a column on Tuesday in which he argued that "House Republicans, by refusing to raise the debt ceiling until they obtain budget reforms, may be the country’s last hope to avoid a financial ruin."

Congressional Republicans have varied arguments. To Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia and a candidate for the Senate, it is a question of ranking the evils.

"There are a lot of things that are going to affect our economy," he said. "The greatest threat right now is Obamacare. It's already destroyed jobs, it's already destroyed our economy, and if it stays in place as it is now, it's going to destroy America."

Incredible. In every sense of the word.

This is a full-on breakdown of responsible governance. A large portion of the Republican Caucus simply does not deal with any facts they deem inconvenient. They have a story, and they're sticking to it, no matter how dishonest, incorrect, and dangerous it is for the country they are meant to serve. And I don't see any way out of it. Even if we manage to get through this crisis, the next one's just around the corner.

Open Thread

Hosted by an 8-bit ghost in a Haunted House.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker skirt, care of the Actors' Studio: What sound do you love and what sound do you hate?

This is a thing John Boehner actually said today.

This fucking guy:

"The president's position that ... we're not going to sit down and talk to you until you surrender is just not sustainable," Boehner said on Capitol Hill. "It's not our system of government."

..."Re-open the government, extend the debt ceiling," Obama said Tuesday afternoon. "If they can't do it for a long time, do it for a period of time in which in which these negotiations are taking place."

Boehner seemed to reject such a scenario, describing it as "unconditional surrender" by the GOP to the president.

Welp, at least he's finally tacitly admitting his party is waging war on the nation.

The "Sex Is Natural" Trope, and Its Communication Corollary

[Content Note: Rape culture; violence; disappearing people of various stripes.]

So, there's this trope about how sex is the most natural thing in the world for humans. It's a trope that acts in service to a whole lot of things—reproductive policing, evo psych explanations for gendered behavior, the rape culture (that's not a comprehensive list)—and it's harmful for a whole lot of reasons.

Treating sex as natural (and inevitable) disappears people who are asexual. Not every human being is desirous of sex. That doesn't make them "unnatural," but part of a long and varied spectrum of human sexuality.

It also disappears people who have survived sexual trauma, for whom sex may no longer be "natural," even if it's something they still desire. And people who have other aversions to or difficulties around sex, as a result of genital cutting, physical disability, health concerns resulting in painful sex, medications that cause diminished libido, and all sorts of other individual circumstances that make sex something less than the "natural," freewheeling, spontaneous activity that we're all meant to understand it to be.

Sometimes partners who want each other more than anything and have no other ostensible barriers just happen to have bodies that don't line up right, that don't fit together perfectly. When it can take experimentation just to achieve the basics, the "sex is natural" trope can make people feel like failures at the whole sex thing, which adds a whole other layer of unnecessary pressure. Virgins often expect sex to look like it does in the movies, instead of the fumblefucking that our first time looks like for many of us.

For lots of people, sex takes some planning, some creativity, some ingenuity. And it also takes communication.

The corollary to the "sex is natural" trope is that sex shouldn't need to be something about which people communicate—that it should just happen, and that talking about sex ruins it.

This is a terrible piece of misinformation for about eleventy-twelve different reasons, not least of which is that it serves to reinforce precisely the sort of aversion to explicit consent-seeking that was demonstrated in the "Luring Your Rapebait" frat bro letter.

Sex is so natural that you shouldn't have to talk about it; it should just happen through reading each other's body language. So goes the trope. But, as the letter amply and revoltingly demonstrates, coercion is a language all its own. "If she starts putting her hair over her ear," writes the author of the vile missive, "THAT MEANS SHE WANTS A KISS. Therefore, try to give her a kiss on the cheek."

Signals are just communication for people who don't want to risk talking and possibly hear "no."

The desire for sex is not intrinsic in every human being, but the desire for agency is. That's natural. And because that is natural, sex without explicit communication cannot be—because sexual interaction sans communication is exponentially more likely to be sexual violence.

So, fuck this trope, basically. Not only is it actively harmful to anyone who, for any reason, experiences sex at some point or forever as something less than totally natural, but it acts in service to rapists, who rely on the idea that sex just "naturally happens" to justify indifference to explicit consent.

Liss Says Stuff #4: I'm Not Offended; I'm Contemptuous.

So, one of the things people asked me to address is why I say "I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous." And, well, in the spirit of saying what you mean, the reason I say it is because, normally, I am contemptuous, and not offended.

Um, the other thing is that it's a pretty easy rejoinder to the very common silencing strategy of, um, telling someone who's opposing some sort of bigotry that, um, they're easily offended—and, the truth is, I'm not easily offended. If I were easily offended, I wouldn't have been able to do what I've been doing for the past decade.

So, the fact is, I'm usually not offended. There's nothing wrong with being offended; there are times when I'm offended, and I am not in the business of telling other people how they should and shouldn't feel, especially as regards, ahh, what offends them.

Um, but the truth is, whether I'm offended or not isn't even the most important thing when I'm objecting to some type of bigotry. Um, what's the most important is that I'm contemptuous of it—I don't like it, I'm hostile toward it, and I find it loathsome. And that, to me, is a more important idea to convey, irrespective of what my personal feelings are about it.

[edit] By which I mean how personally affected I am by some iteration of bigotry. Because there's this idea that only people directly affected by it have a right to object—and that's a way of shutting down allies; that's a way of shutting down people who want to leverage their privilege on behalf of marginalized people, who they don't to see subjected to bigotry, either.

[edit] So basically what we're left with is a situation in which people who are directly affected by bigotry can't object, because they're just being oversensitive, and people who aren't directly affected by bigotry can't object, because they're not directly affected [and thus can't claim offense]. So we're left with: No one's allowed to object to bigotry. And I just can't get down with that.

So I just take offense out of it altogether. I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous.

Quote of the Day

"It's just not that big a deal, as it turns out."—Fox News Senior Political Analyst and Full-Tilt Garbage Generator (but I repeat myself) Brit Hume, on the shutdown.

Nothing to see here! Move along! In fact, it's so NOT a big deal that LET'S JUST KEEP THE GOVERNMENT CLOSED FOREVER!

*headdesk*

These fucking people.

TV Corner: Sleepy Hollow Recap

[Content Note: Gun violence, poisoning, fire, torture, beheading, self-mutilation, ethnic stereotype (German), child abuse. This also contains extensive spoilers for episode 4.]

Icabod and Abbie contemplate a spiderweb

Is that a plot hole?

Our story opens in Boston Harbor, December 16 1773. Blah blah, men in tights destroying the heck out of crates. Other men, including Ichabod, are stealthily stealing into a building via mega-stealth. The leader informs Ichabod that “Colonel Washington’s orders were clear! Bring back the crate… and you!” (Now, if you are wondering what George Washington is doing ordering around anyone before he’s even had time to get mad about the not-yet passed Intolerable Acts, well, that WILL BE EXPLAINED!)

They surprise a red-coated soldier. The stealthy commander steps forward and says “IN THE NAME OF THE VIRGINIA MILITIA! We claim this cargo!”( Now, if you are wondering what the Virginia militia are doing in Massachusetts, and considering looking it up in your college history text, well, that WILL BE EXPLAINED!)

The officer responds: Praying in German! To somebody evil in German! (Now, if you are thinking, “But didn’t the Hessians arrive in 1776?” and pondering writing a sternly worded letter to your former history professor, well, THAT WILL BE EXPLAINED! –ish.)

There is a big explosion, which segues to Ichabod, in the present, sitting in a car talking about his wife and true love. A female voice thanks his for putting it all into perspective. Ho ho ho! Ichabod is not just remembering his wife, he is counseling the OnStar person! LOL ~~forever~~ briefly!

Abbie and Captain Orlando “Grumpy” Jones are discussing Jenny’s escape. Abbie asks for more time to investigate. Captain “Grumpy” is wondering what Ichabod said to set Jenny off.

Ichabod: I merely informed her of a bunch of gruesome, possibly paranormal shit. PS She’s actually totally sane.

Captain Grumpy: “You’re the last person I want vouching for sanity.”

Abbie: BACK TO THE POINT—I can catch my sister.

Captain Grumpy is grumpy, but gives them 12 hours. Switch to Jenny at a bar. Bartender has been keeping something for her. They converse. Jenny: Something something, remember when I told you I’d go straight to hell? Switch to a piano lesson (whut.) A blond white man is supervising a student. He gets a call from a deep voiced person. They converse. Deep Voice: Something something, she has escaped, find her, something something thirty-sevens. Switch to the bar. Piano Guy shows up with bonus blond Menacing Dudes. The Bartender is there. They converse.

Piano Guy: Jennifer Mills?

Bartender (totally lying): Nope!

Piano Guy: You are totally lying.

Bartender: *whips out +4 Stereotypical Bartender Shotgun of Intimidation *

Piano Guy/Menacing Dudes: *pin Bartender to billiard table, evoke confession, commit grotesque murder.* “Hell will come to us.”

Switch to Abbie and Ichabod. They are trying to find Jenny and quarreling. Abbie reveals that her father left when she and Jenny were young, their mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized, she and Jenny were put in foster care. Ichabod suggests they go see Jenny’s last foster parents. Switch to Jenny in the +6 Stereotypical Washroom of Spectacular Ick, rummaging through a bag. She pulls out some documents, and newspaper article about Abbie, and a gun. (This, btw, is exactly how I pack.) She heads to the bar but whoooops! The police are there investigating the bartender’s murder. His body has been pinned to the wall, while his head is on the Billiard table. Captain Orlando “Grumpy” Jones is discussing the murder with Abbie’s ex, Detective “Vaguely Douchey” Nicholas Gonzales.

Detective Vaguely Douchey: We have this solved. Smirk. Head chopped off, must be the same as the murder of Sherriff Kindly. Smirk smirk.

Captain Grumpy: Here are your obvious mistakes. Here are all the ways these killings differ. Here is your ass on a platter.

Detective Vaguely Douchey: Where did my smirk go?

Switch to: Jennie and Ichabod visit Jenny’s former foster mom.

Former Mom: Troubled kids need “discipline and order.” I am obviously a neglectful, abusive, shitty person who should never have foster kids. I’m terrible.

Abbie: You’re doing a shitty job and abusing the kids in your care. You had better tell me about my sister’s possible whereabouts.

Former Mom: I’m terrible.

Ichabod: Leftenant!

Abbie: “I will rain legal brimstone down on you until it makes God jealous.”

Former Mom: I’ll help. You’re terrible.

Abbie: You’re still in deep shit.

Former Mom: Cutting remark, because I’m terrible.

Abbie and Ichabod have discovered that Jenny used to go visit a Cabin in the Woods, because ~~Joss Whedon~~ Sherrif Kindly. After a brief flirtation/lockpicking session (Ichabod: “Imagine the delinquency we could perpetrate if we really put our minds together….” = HAWT!) they discover that Sherriff Corbin had a huge painting of General Washington on the wall. Then Jenny appears in a most dramatic fashion!

Jenny: boo! I’ve got a gun!

Abbie: I’ve got a gun!

Ichabod: This is awkward! Let’s go to an ad.

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt lying with her paw on top of a giant plush duck, and her chin on her paw, looking at me

Zelly and her ducky.
She's so adorbz with this thing. She'll go grab it from her toy box, trot into the living room with it, and heave it up onto my lap, which is my cue to use it for the most awkward game of tug-o-war ever. Then, when she's finished, I have to toss it across the room, where she chases it, grabs it, and cuddles up with it. "I love you, ducky."

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

1980's HBO Feature Presentation Intro