I've gotten a bunch of emails from people using IE who are having a hard time logging in and/or loading comments. If you have an alternate browser to which you can switch, you may want to give that a try, as users who switch to Firefox or Chrome have had success. If you don't, however, I've contacted Disqus and I'm waiting to hear back if this is a known glitch and if there's a resolution forthcoming they recommend these tips for changing your browser settings (the top part of the page) to ensure compatibility.
In either case, my apologies for the inconvenience. I'm so sorry that people are having trouble accessing comments.
There are a couple of other little issues that our generous tech guru Space Cowboy will be looking into tonight, as time permits, which will hopefully increase readability and restore mobile access.
Most of the problems and concerns people have reported are, unfortunately, out of our control, but we'll do whatever we can on our end.
Thank you for your patience.
Disqus Upgrade Notes
Quote of the Day
"Absolutely. Yeah, no hesitancy to say, for sure. Does that mean I will? I don't know. Does that mean I won't? I don't know. But am I thinking about it? Am I talking to people about it? Yeah, that would be fair to say."—Conservative nightmare Mike Huckabee, on whether he's considering running for president (again) in 2016.
I LOVE THIS ARTICLE THE END.
Nidhi Subbaraman, you are THE BEST: "Prehistoric cave prints show most early artists were women."
Alongside drawings of bison and horses, the first painters left clues to their identity on the stone walls of caves, blowing red-brown paint through rough tubes and stenciling outlines of their palms. New analysis of ancient handprints in France and Spain suggests that most of those early artists were women.That little italicized that is my favorite thing. It's possible that had something to do with it. *thatface* Love. Looooooooooooooove. Love.
This is a surprise, since most archaeologists have assumed it was men who had been making the cave art. One interpretation is that early humans painted animals to influence the presence and fate of real animals that they'd find on their hunt, and it's widely accepted that it was the men who found and killed dinner.
But a new study indicates that the majority of handprints found near cave art were made by women, based on their overall size and relative lengths of their fingers.
"The assumption that most people made was it had something to do with hunting magic," Penn State archaeologist Dean Snow, who has been scrutinizing hand prints for a decade, told NBC News. The new work challenges the theory that it was mostly men, who hunted, that made those first creative marks.
Another reason we thought it was men all along? Male archeologists from modern society where gender roles are rigid and well-defined — they found the art. "[M]ale archaeologists were doing the work," Snow said, and it's possible that "had something to do with it."
Anyway. I also love this article because of its subject, which is super cool, and because, once upon a time, I was an 18-year-old university student in an archeology class who asked her male professor: "Why are the handprints assumed to be male?" To which my male professor replied, after a stunned silence that quickly morphed into a seething resentment: "Because why would anyone assume they weren't?"
He taught me something very valuable that day. Not what he'd intended, I suspect.
Photo of the Day
The Aizhai Bridge on the G65 Baotou–Maoming Expressway near Jishou, Hunan, China.
Aizhai Bridge shrouded by clouds. The world's longest valley suspension bridge, opened in March and has a span of 1,176 meters and a maximum height of 330 meters. Photograph: Rex/Quirky China News. [via]So beautiful and dreamy. I absolutely love that photo.
An Observation
The US House of Representatives has always been a bit of an eccentrics' club, which is my polite attempt at acknowledging that there have always been people who weren't very smart and/or well-versed in government who could get elected to the House—like, say, someone who believes there are four branches of the US government. (Yikes.)
But up until my early adulthood, the US Senate was still generally a place for people who knew what the fuck was going on. Sure, Senator Richard Lugar and I might have disagreed on every single thing ever including the color of the very sky, but I never doubted that he was an intelligent person who knew how the government functioned. And believed that it should function.
And now that's just...gone. I have no faith that the Republican base will elect people, to either the House or the Senate, who aren't just ideological stomp-monsters without the faintest shred of interest in or understanding of how anything works. I listen to Republicans talk on the news, and a frightening number of them are essentially clueless about the business of governance.
The Republican Caucus is devoid of technocrats. They've all been replaced by rightwing protestors.
TV Corner: Sleepy Hollow Recap and Review
[Content Note: This post contains mentions of infectious disease, child endangerment, and child loss. There are also spoilers for episode "John Doe."]
Goosebumptastic Gauge: 5/5
Historical Facepalm Level: 3/5
Awesome Abbie-ness Rating: 3/5
Intriguing Ichabod-ery Rating: 5/5
Mytharc Meter: 3/5
This week in scary openings: A young African-American girl dressed in a short white dress is walking in the forest. A white boy dressed in a puffy short and breeches is watching as she picks random stuff. Because poison ivy is fun, kids! As the children start playing, a Horseperson wearing either a feathered or horned hemet appears. I guess zie’s supposed to be Vercingetorix? Or maybe Suenaga. Wevs! It’s scary and the boy runs. There is dramatic horn music. And then boy runs onto a modern highway with cars! POOF! The Horned (feathered?) Horseperson disappears.
Commercial time!
After the fabric softener advertisement, we find the Bickersons Abbie and Ichabod, entering Sherrif Kindly’s abandoned cabin with groceries. Ichabod prefers to stay here rather than his motel. He has a different definition of “old” than Abbie. *imaginary laughtrack* He is confused by spackle and plastic. *imaginary laughtrack* He looks in a mirror and wonders if he looks out of place. Abbie tells him he looks good for 200 years but a change of clothes would be good. *imaginary laughtack*
Just as the dialogue threatens to go full-tilt 1950s sitcom, Abbie gets an emergency call. They leave the cabin, where it is daytime. At the emergency scene, it is night. (Because in Sleepy Hollow, like Narnia, time runs differently, see?) It is Breeches Boy from the opening! Detective Vaguely Douchey is there.
Abbie: Was he alone?
Detective Vaguely Douchey: He was unaccompanied. Wish I could say the same for you, in order to establish my continuing hostility towards Ichabod!
Ichabod: Your continuing hostility is duly noted. LEFTENANT (obligatory), has anyone else noticed this kid is dressed in the style of another time and place and covered in black veins?
(No-one has noticed.)
Boy: Something something archaic language!
Abbie: wtf was that?
Ichy: It is MIDDLE English. Spoken in the MIDDLE Ages. Thus the term MIDDLE. I studied it at Oxford, ya know. Something something LANGUAGE OF CHAUCER. The kid said, (and I quote), “Something something EVIL.” Also, MIDDLE MIDDLE MIDDLE.
Abbie: We get the extremely weird idea.
Abbie, Ichy, and Captain “Grumpy” Orlando Jones are discussing the kid. Detective Vaguely Douchey is still hostile towards Ichabod.Detective Vaguely Douchey: There’s been a lot of talk. He was a suspect. Now he’s a consultant. I am not only establishing my hostility, I’ve decided to expand on it, maybe build a hostile sunroom with a special hostility deck where I can throw hostility parties.
Captain Grumpy: You remain a douchebag who is jealous because you and Abbie broke up. I remain the one who calls the shots, and I call Ichabod as useful. You remain an asshat who should probably slink away now.
Detective Vaguely Douchey: (slinks)
Then Captain Orlando Jones stops looking grumpy and looks…. Furtive? Whatever it is, it is definitely not-Grumpy! Surely, This Will Be Significant. ANYWAY! The CDC arrives, quarantines the place, Ichabod continues to be baffled by plastic. But not, apparently, germ theory, which he doesn’t even ask about. (Ooookay!)The kid is in quarantine but hooked up to a video link. The CDC dude asks Ichabod to help them find out more.
CDC Dude: I’m going to keep calling the kid “the vector” in order to underline that I am a soulless bureaucrat. Because Republicans know we definitely should all be hostile towards the CDfrigginC.
Ichabod: He’s a CHILD. One who speaks CHAUCER. A Chaucerchild, as it were.
Chaucerchild: Something something Middle English.
Ichabod: (translating) His name is Thomas, he’s sorry he followed the EVIL GIRL into the woods, he left home, he’s from Roanoke. Not THAT Roanoke, probably the colonial one from 1588. Something something, Virginia Dare, AND THIS TOTALLY EXPLAINS THE MIDDLE ENGLISH.
(Now, if you are thinking to yourself, “Uh, shouldn’t that be more like the language of Shakespeare then and not the language of Chaucer? YOUR EXPLANATION IS FULL OF FAIL,” then you win a prize. I’m not sure what prize—the Orb of Obviousness, perhaps?—but you do win a prize. I’ll send it to you some time after my teeth stop grinding, which will be around the 24th century. When we’re all speaking STAR TREK ENGLISH.)
Captain Grumpy: The disease is spreading. Outbreak!
Ichabod: Plague! Apocalypse!
Infected Guy in Bed: It’s the Horned Horseperson!
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia: What are you thinking about, Tilsy?
Matilda: I still can't stop thinking about Tony. Wondering where he could be, who he is with, what is he thinking, is he thinking of me, and whether he'll ever return someday...
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Liss and Ana Talk About Elementary
I love this: Breakfast and slippers.
Ana: Lady, I seriously think the writers are trolling me at this point, lol. I have so many conflicted feels about last Thursday's episode.
Liss: Ha ha! Go on then. You start.
Ana: To start, and I meant to mention this last week, but last week after we turned off, Husband said to me, "Remember when the cases were just good instead of easy ripped-from-the-headlines stuff?" I mean, I know this is a YMMV thing, but I feel like we're watching CSI now or something. We've had 3D printing and P versus NP and now this week we get to have Edward Snowden / Julian Assange with a thinly disguised Anonymous. NEAT! Remember when we actually had victims who were people and we cared about them? The writers don't!
Liss: Yeah. And, I have to say, I always find the thin veil stuff really distracting because of its inevitable silliness. "Everyone" instead of "Anonymous," etc. It just doesn't work for me. It comes across as cutesy, even if it's not meant that way.
Ana: Moving into the actual episode, I was almost ready to give up when Sherlock was all "gee, I wonder why he only used single-source journalism since that's usually not a good way to leak secrets" and Joan was all "oh, hey, the reporter is hawt, so." Really?! That's what we're going with? Our SUPER AMAZING DECTECTIVE LOGIC has boiled down to the delightfully misogynistic opinion that no one would deal with a lady reporter if they don't have a boner for that lady reporter. Thanks, Elementary! It's not like that's an actual accusation that gets leveled at lady professionals all the time, that we only get ahead because of Boner Magic.
House GOP Offers Garbage Deal; Obama Rejects It
Congressional Republicans have offered a plan to end the shutdown—which the White House has already rejected, on the basis that it contains unacceptable reforms to the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has also rejected the plan, saying it will never pass the Senate. And he doesn't mince words: "This bill is doomed to failure, and it's so awful, awful, awful for our country."
Can't wait to see what terrific proposal seeps out next from GOP HQ.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today! (Your daily shutdown thread is here.)
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
Here's what happens when the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Acts: States start making plans to disenfranchise voters. Specifically, states with Republican legislatures start trying to find ways to disenfranchise people who disproportionately vote Democratic.
[Sexual violence; victim-blaming; self-harm; arson] This is rape culture. I may have something to say about this case in a later post; I may not. It is a difficult story for me, as any story about a teenage girl being raped by a high school athlete who gets away with it is. There are lots of those stories.
The NSA is reportedly harvesting "hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden." I just basically assume the NSA has access to every part of my digital life, at this point.
There have been serious problems with the Obamacare roll-out. Not good.
[CN: Racism; othering] This is an interesting headline: "'Very anxious': Is America scared of diversity?" Because who, exactly, is "America" in that construction? Maybe the people who are "scared of diversity" are that way because they are routinely told in overt and implicit ways that they are "America" and the people who constitute "diversity" are somehow not "America." Just a thought.
Sir Anthony Hopkins wrote to Bryan Cranston about how much he loved Breaking Bad. HE LOVED IT SO MUCH! Here is his gushing fan letter.
New Disqus Interface
So, I'm told the changeover to the new interface will happen sometime today, although I've no idea when. In the meantime, I would like to remind you to remove any avatars you don't want to be viewable by the community, and direct you to the updated commenting policy. If you have any questions or concerns, I'll be happy to try to address them now.
Shutdown, Day Wev
Republicans still terrible. Government still shut down.
The Hill reports that Senate leaders are close to hammering out a deal to end the shutdown and temporarily raise the debt ceiling:
An emerging deal to reopen the government and raise the nation's debt ceiling until February gathered political momentum Monday evening after Senate Republicans signaled they would likely support it.E.J. Dionne was on MSNBC last night, and said that when Republican Senator John McCain was handed the newest round of increasingly terrible poll numbers yesterday, he just responded by exclaiming, "We're living the dream!" LOL! I mean, I am definitely a fan of sarcasm, but maybe part of the problem with the Republican Party being an indecent shit-heap with straight-up garbage for a platform is that even its senior statesman who is supposed to be the integrity-bearer of the party is more concerned about THE NUMBERS than he is about the fact that people are having a difficult time getting enough to eat.
Lawmakers and aides said the legislation would fund the government until Jan. 15 and extend the nation's borrowing authority until February but leave ObamaCare largely untouched.
It would also establish a Senate-House budget committee to craft a replacement for the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, which would have to report its work product to Congress by Dec. 13.
Senate Republicans, who have seen their party’s approval rating plummet during two weeks of a government shutdown, are eager to accept a deal as long as it keeps spending levels consistent with the 2011 Budget Control Act in place.
...Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was briefed on the deal Monday, and members of his conference were taking a wait and see attitude.
...The Senate Republican Conference had been set to meet Monday evening to review the tentative compromise but will instead meet Tuesday morning when more lawmakers will be available to attend.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the party's brutal poll numbers had made it clear to many of his colleagues they need to accept a deal and end the shutdown as soon as possible.
When asked why he was confident, he pointed to a piece of paper in his hands and read, "74 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Republicans in Washington are handling the nation's budget crisis. That's why!"
Just a thought.
Here's a great headline: Senators Near Fiscal Deal, but the House Is Uncertain. Of course they are.
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Updated Commenting Policy
As mentioned this morning, I have made some changes to the Commenting Policy to reflect new guidelines that will help us maintain the commenting space as safely and accessibly as possible. Following is the updated section on Disqus commenting at Shakesville:
The latest iteration of the Disqus system (2013) has some features which are not very compatible with the community format for this space. In response, members of the community are requested to be aware of and observe the following:
1. Vote Up, Not Down. Upvotes are encouraged so that community members can see that their comments were valuable to others. Downvotes, however, are prohibited, as we share a lot of personal stuff here and downvoting will, in many cases, serve as negative policing of someone else's lived experiences. Thus, we do not allow downvoting.
(If you accidentally downvote someone else's comment, you can undo it by clicking the down arrow a second time.)
Naturally, because there are always people who willfully disregard the rules of this space, sometimes comments will get downvotes by people deliberately trying to stir trouble. This would definitely be a problem if we were the humorless feminists we are oft accused of being—but we are not! We are and always have been stronger, wittier, and more creative than anyone who tries to get us down!
So, in recognizing that the only people doing downvoting are misogynist heapshits who flagrantly violate our commenting guidelines, we recognize downvotes as Feminist Experience Points! "Congratulations—you said something so awesome that a pathetic wreck with nothing better to do expended energy on giving you a Feminist Experience Point!" No need to feel bad about a downvote, Shakers—it's just evidence that you're LEVELING UP!
[If you are not a gamer and need some background on experience points and leveling up, here you go!]
2. Sort Comments by Oldest. To ensure that you're reading comments in chronological order, which is necessary to follow the conversation and understand in-thread moderation, make sure you sort comments "by Oldest," using the sorting drop-down box under the Disqus response box.
3. Don't Use the Reply Function. The new Disqus "nests" (or indents) comment replies rather than sending replies down to the bottom of the page. Nested comments can be difficult to navigate for people with visual processing disorders and makes moderation more difficult. For that reason, in order to maintain flat threads, we ask that people avoid using the reply function. It'll probably take some getting used to, and we'll be issuing reminders as needed.
4. Read Before Commenting. Even though Disqus has moved and fixed the comment composition box at the top of comments, as always, please read any thread in its entirety before commenting, so you are aware of any in-thread moderation. For your convenience, at the bottom of every thread is a link that will quickly return you to the comment composition box at the top of the thread.
I hope everyone will take a moment to refamiliarize themselves with the Commenting Policy in its entirety. It's always good to get a refresher!
I know there may be some questions about the new guidelines, so I will host a thread for questions tomorrow morning.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Phoenix_in_ash: "Which historical figure would you like to see a movie made about?"
Shirley Chisholm.
I remember reading awhile ago that Regina King, whom I love, was maybe going to play Chisholm in a movie, but there's nothing on her IMDb page about it. There's a great documentary about Chisholm made a few years ago, but a feature film would be pretty damn cool.
Number of the Day
$1.85 million: The amount of money raised for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which "provides health care and other services to entertainment-industry workers and retirees," by Hugh Jackman on his birthday, which he spent performing a benefit concert "at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, where he sang, danced, and told stories for One Night Only" for 4,500 paying attendees.
That guy.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by pretzels.
Recommended Reading:
Tressie: [Content Note: Misogyny; racism] Academic Whores
Joy: [CN: Misogyny; birth pain; sexual violence] The Disbelieving of Women
Andy: Michigan Could Get Same-Sex Marriage on Wednesday; Hundreds Poised to Wed
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism] An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church
NaturallyCurly: [CN: Racism; hair policing] Life on My Curly Planet
Rebecca: Minimalist Poster Designs for Wonder Woman, Battlestar Galactica, The Neverending Story, and More
And congratulations to Sikivu Hutchinson, 2013 Secular Woman of the Year!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
This Movie Looks Terrific and Let's All Go See It
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy.]
As you may recall, following his most recent failed presidential bid, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum decided he would try his hand at filmmaking, and soon thereafter became CEO of EchoLight Studios, a "faith-based film company."
People have asked me how is it that I can go from politics to working in the movie business. I simply say: if liberal Hollywood actors and producers can get involved in politics then conservative politicians can get involved in Hollywood.Ha ha sure. Anyway.
Via Raw Story, below is the trailer for EchoLight Studios' upcoming Christmas film, The Christmas Candle, which is based on a book of the same name. According to a press release from Patriot Voices, Santorum's nonprofit, The Christmas Candle will be "the only Christmas movie slated for release this fall, and it actually talks about the real, true Christmas story."
I was pretty sure that it says in THE CONSTITUTION that there must be at least one new Christmas movie every year starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sinbad, and it turns out I was actually wrong about that, but, in the process of Googling "christmas movies 2013," I did immediately discover that, in fact, there is a film to be released this Christmas called Black Nativity, based on the Langston Hughes play of the same name, which is a modern retelling of the Christian nativity story with a black cast.
So, I guess Santorum means that The Christmas Candle is the only Christmas movie slated for release this fall with all white people in it.
Which also explains why he overlooked Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas, even though it features Larry the Cable Guy, who is almost certainly the favorite white comedian of everyone who would ever vote for or see a picture made by Rick Santorum.
Well, I suppose Rick Santorum quite rightly assumed none of the recipients of his email blast would bother fact-checking it. Not when there's so much OUTRAGE to be generated about the WAR ON CHRISTMAS.
Blah blah here's the trailer:
According to the YouTube description of this trailer, it is 1890 in "the enchanting village of Gladbury" which is "deep in the heart of the English countryside." Sure. Here is the rest of the description:
Legend has it every 25 years an angel visits the village candlemaker and touches a single candle. Whoever lights this candle receives a miracle on Christmas Eve. But in 1890, at the dawn of the electric age, this centuries old legend may come to an end.And now you know what we're dealing with as I launch into my transcript.
When David Richmond (Hans Matheson), a progressive young minister, arrives in Gladbury, the villagers discover a new formula for miracles: good deeds and acts of kindness. While David's quest to modernize Gladbury sets him at odds with the old world candlemaker, he finds an unlikely ally in the lovely skeptic, Emily Barstow (Samantha Barks). Now, the fiery candlemaker must fight to preserve the legacy of the Christmas Candle. But when the candle goes missing, the miraculous and human collide in the most astonishing Christmas the village of Gladbury has ever seen.
Lady Skepticpants is stuck in the mud in her horse-drawn carriage. Reverend Jesusmagic comes riding by in his carriage and stops to offer his assistance. He carries her on his back. She calls the new minister "high and mighty." He says, "Revered High and Mighty, at your service." OH DAMN. Flirty grins. This banter is so witty I can't believe Jane Austen didn't write this. Does anyone know if "Max Lucado" was one of her pen names?
"Welcome to Gladbury, home of the Christmas Candle!" Reverend Jesusmagic needs to have the Christmas Candle explained to him, but it isn't actually explained in the trailer. At all. Lady Skepticpants is skeptical. There is music. Some lady is praying for a husband by Easter. "All their hopes, wrapped up in one candle," says Reverend Jesusmagic, to whom it isn't clear, because even this trailer is nonsensical garbage.
Revered Jesusmagic decides to give everyone light for Christmas and has the church wired with electricity. When he turns it on, the lights all blow out. WHUT. This is completely stupid. I guess the reverend leaves? Then comes back? With doubts? Some lady tells him his doubts are inspiring. He has some conversation with Lady Skepticpants. Someone (her?) tells him to stay, "just until Christmas." Something something hope. Something something faith. Some lady knows "just who to give the Christmas candle to this year." WHUT. Music!
Also: Susan Boyle is in this movie. And it looks like it's going to be a happy Christmas after all! Yay. Down with science! The end.
