I don't know...he looks pretty guilty about something.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
I don't know...he looks pretty guilty about something.
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
David Bowie: "Life on Mars?"
This week's TMNS brought to you by songs whose titles are questions.
Reminder
Just a quick reminder to not use the reply function in order to maintain flat threads. Thanks so much for your understanding.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and we are working on finding a long-term solution.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: Torture] Juan E. Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, has called on the US to stop the use of prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement in its prisons. "The use of solitary confinement in the US penitentiary system goes far beyond what is acceptable under international human rights law."
The NSA "monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden." This shit? Is not making us safer. Spying on world leaders undermines national security, because global good will is crucial to national security.
[CN: Racism; slurs; dehumanization] The North Carolina GOP official who gave a racist interview to The Daily Show has been forced to resign.
President Obama wants to pass immigration reform this year: "Democrats in the House have introduced a bill similar to the Senate bill. 'So now it's up to Republicans in the House to decide whether reform becomes a reality or not,' President Obama said." Welp.
NBC plans to reboot Murder, She Wrote with Oscar winner Octavia Spencer in the role made famous by Angela Lansbury. Neat!
Tom Hanks is nice. Not "Jay Leno Nice," but really nice for realsies.
These mugs are THE CUTEST.
[CN: Misogyny; racism] Breaking News: White men run the country! (But for real: It's even more stark than you might think.)
The Cruelty of "Medical Necessity"
[Content note: Transphobia. Disablism. Disallowing people from being experts on their own lives and needs. This post also contains some very triggery stuff about depression and self-harm. Please note the commenting guidelines at the end of the post.]
Last week I wrote a piece about why I don't like "love your body" campaigns. When I wrote it, I made a deliberate decision to omit any of my issues with self-harm. I've been thinking about that a lot.
First off, I think it's inappropriate to start talking about self-harm at the same time that I'm raising money for my medical bills. The whole "give me money or I'll cut myself" thing is manipulative as hell.
Just to be clear that I'm not being passive-aggressive, I've long since decided that if I ever find myself insinuating that self-harm is eminent, I'm absolutely stopping raising funds prior to doing so. It's just not cool to put folks in that position, full stop.
And you know, since friends and family are likely reading, let me just say that I'm having a fairly decent week, all things considered. I'm an old hand at managing my depression. I've got a great support network. This being trans* shit ain't fun (nor is mental illness). If it was, all the kids these days would be doing it.
As much as I like to ground my writing in my experiences, I'm not really here to talk about me as much as I am why I'm usually careful to not publicly talk about self-harm.
If you're trans* (or intimately involved in a trans* community), you've probably already noticed this: we're constantly talking amongst ourselves about self-harm.
When I first came out and was involved in face-to-face and online support networks, the subject came up all the time. In some circles, self-harm is a badge of honor. In some folks' minds (and I'm talking about trans* women here, as I haven't spent the same amount of time in gender queer or trans* masculine circles), women who don't have a history of self-harm aren't really trans. There's this whole fucked up competitive aspect of sharing your history.
"Kid, I've being trying to kill myself since before you were born. I have done the following self-destructive things on the following large number of occasions. It's bad, and it's going to get worse and so on and so forth."
That's some toxic shit, and it's the single biggest reason I don't spend more time in trans* spaces. I've got my own issues to deal with, and as much as I really want to help my sisters, I don't have the bandwidth to address that dynamic on a regular basis.
Here's the thing, and this is important. Not only are these women not lying, but I need you to remember this: cis people are the ones who created this dynamic.
I'm gonna use some html so y'all can pay attention:
Trans* women are bragging amongst themselves about their suicide attempts and other self-destructive actions. While my sisters and I have to do the work to fight this dynamic, it's ultimately cis people's fault. You created this phenomenon. It's your fault. And it's your responsibility to help us fix it. You.And the first thing you need to understand is that trans* women talking about self-harm is not only a real response to a culture that questions our very existence and denies us access to necessary healthcare; it's also a thing we feel like we have to do in order to prove that our pain is sufficient enough to warrant access to healthcare.
Let me say that again, in case you missed it the first time: Ciscentrism obliges us to contemplate and discuss self-harm to prove we hate our bodies enough to earn healthcare.
This is one more double-bind that cis people put my sisters and I in. See, we already have to deal with all sorts of gatekeepers and financial barriers to access health care. (Even in those countries with robust government-run healthcare systems there are still significant financial barriers, although that's a topic for another time.)
In order to receive healthcare, we have to prove that it's medically necessary. This is one of those areas where the threshold for necessity depends on who's doing the talking. It goes without saying (although we should talk about it) that it's medically necessary to extend affluent white cis hetero men's lives by a few months (erections included, natch).
The Trifecta of No
[Content Note: Public marriage proposal; pranking; misogyny.]
Just watch/read this, keeping in mind how much I hate 1. Public marriage proposals; 2. Pranks; 3. The narrative that marriage is more important than ANYTHING ELSE EVAR in any woman's life, and try to imagine the look on my face when I encountered this garbage.
Al Roker: Before we get to the weather, I wanted to bring in Simone Jhingoor, who's a part of a great non-profit. What's the great non-profit?Grossssssssssss. GROSS! Every thing about this is THE WORST! (I am sorry, Simone Jhingoor. I hope you are happy! I'm sorry I hate your marriage proposal! I really did want to hear about the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation, by the way!) When Al Roker says, to Shah, "She's very determined!" when Jhingoor says she thought she was there to talk about her work, I want to yell things loudly in his face!
Simone Jhingoor: It's called the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation.
Al Roker: That's fantastic. That's great you're doing that. And you—you've got a support staff here—you've got, uh, this is, uhhhhh, Chirag Shah. How are you doing, Chirag?
Jhingoor: This is my partner.
Chirag Shah: Hi, how you doing?
Roker: Your partner, huh? Nice. All right. Why—why are you here?
Shah: Actually— [grabs mic from Roker] Oh, sorry. [laughs] Sorry, actually the question is why is Simone here. Simone, you're actually not here to talk about the amazing work that you do. I'm sorry. BUT. You are here because, as a child growing up in Canton, Michigan, I held onto a vision of, one day, coming and living in New York. Had it not have been for the fulfillment of that vision, I would've never realized my larger purpose of finding such a beautiful and inspiring human being. I am more thankful at this very moment than I have ever been. Simone, you are here today because, yes, it is our anniversary [laughs] and this is happening. I am standing right here, at Rockefeller Plaza, live, on The Today Show, but with nothing on my mind other than to ask you one question. [crowd cheers and shouts as he gets down on one knee and offers her a ring] Will you marry me?
Jhingoor: Wow—yes.
Roker: I was worried there when she paused, Chirag. Congratulations. Wow. [Shah takes out the ring to put it on Jhingoor's finger as the crowd cheers] That's beautiful. Very nice. Congratulations. [Roker points the mic at Jhingoor] So, did you have any idea?
Jhingoor: No, not at all. I thought I was here about my organization and giving back to the community. That's what I thought I was here for!
Roker: Wow. She's very—she's very determined.
Shah: Yeah, if only you could see the rehearsal videos we had yesterday on the way in the car. She had me role-playing you—running through the lines she—
Roker: Ah, you have too much hair. And I like the, the knee switch there. What was that? You started on one knee; you went to the other.
Shah: Yeah, I never practiced the, uh, the "drop of knee" they call it, right? So…. [crosstalk]
Roker: Well, congratulations. Congratulations.
Shah: Thank you.
Roker: That's what's going on around the country. Here's what's happening in your neck of the woods.
I am so glad no one ever put me in the position of thinking I was going to get to talk about my work on national television, only to have it be a SILLY TRICK so they could propose to me instead. What a fun day! I'm engaged—oh, and I had the hugest disappointment of my professional life as my apparently not-even-real thunder was stolen by the person who loves me. Yay?
That would make me SO ANGRY. Which is something I would not even begin to know what to do with while there were cameras pointed in my face and millions of people were watching this shit go down live.
FUCK PUBLIC PROPOSALS! FUCK PRANKS! Throw them all in the garbage and then put that garbage bin in a cannon and fire it directly into the sun!
[Via Marisa.]
Santorum vs. The Devil
Hey, remember how we all watched the trailer for Rick Santorum's terrific-looking Christmas movie, The Christmas Candle, and decided we will all definitely see it because it looks so great? Well, in case you were having any doubts that we all FOR SURE made the right, nay, the PERFECT decision, here is Rick "Lights, Camera, Jesus!" Santorum himself to close the deal:
Santorum, a devout Catholic, was speaking on the Christian-oriented Trinity Broadcasting Network about the film, and said: "This is a tough business, this is something that we're stepping out ... and the devil, for a long, long time, has had this, these screens, for his playground. And he isn't going to give it up easily."If you don't buy a ticket to The Christmas Candle, THE DEVIL WINS. Do you understand?! If you don't spend your money to support The Christmas Candle, Rick Santorum's Movie Emporium will not be able to keep making Christian films for white conservatives and THE DEVIL will keep making movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? IS IT?!
You know what to do, people.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Lostshadows: "What's the strangest thing you own?"
I don't even know what the strangest thing I own is. Probably Matilda. *wink*
How much cool stuff do you think can fit into Mitt Romney's hidden room? I bet it's a lot of cool stuff.
My BFF Mitt Romney is building a new mansion in Utah, because who can live without a fifth mansion these days, and it will be THE COOLEST HOUSE, because it has a secret room (at least, it was a secret until the Salt Lake Tribune went blabbing about it!):
The architectural drawings say it's for "office storage." It measures 11 feet long and is lined with cabinets. The "hidden door," as it's labeled on the documents, is masked as a bookshelf and swings into the study. There are no other details, and Romney's spokeswoman declined to comment.Oh man! I need to hear some comments about this sweet secret room!
What is Mitt Romney going to store in there?! It's definitely not office stuff. Ha ha no way. What kind of loser builds a rad secret room just to shove it full of No. 10 envelopes and binder clips? Not a loser like Mitt Romney, that's for sure!
Here are my top ideas for what Mitt Romney will store in his secret room:
1. Rubies.
2. Detailed plans for his moon mansion, which has TWO secret rooms.
3. Just piles and piles of cash.
4. A domino set that once belonged to Ernest Borgnine. (Unauthenticated.)
5. 10,000 mint condition "Romney 4 Pres" buttons.
6. Giant bricks of gold.
7. Gold nuggets.
8. Gold-plated gold.
9. Framed photos of Paul Ryan.
10. His plushy Grumpy Cat collection.
I feel you, bro. That cat is adorable.
Anyway! Those are just my best guesses. But what do YOU think Mitt Romney will store in his hidden room...?
Daily Dose of Cute
"Whuzzat?"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Puttin' On My Rage Face
[Content Note: Misogyny]
There are so many good things I could write about this article titled "The Angry Ladies of Jezebel" that Liss and I were snorting over yesterday. Written by Mark Judge, the entirety of the article consists of an extremely disconnected opening and the remainder is just him pointing and frowning at various encyclopedic entries in The Book of Jezebel and waiting for his audience to nod and agree with him that these modern feminist women are the worst, just the worst. No real argument is needed to make his case, because apparently we're all on-board with the starting premise that Bitches Be Flippin'.
I could point out that opening with the statement that the book is "a very angry book" is the sort of thing that really needs to be justified somewhere in the article. Because, honestly, everything he quotes in apparently self-evident support of that assessment strikes me as the sort of thing which can be, and often is, said with wry humor and a sparkle in the eye.
I could point out the extreme irony in opening the review with examples of Real Feminists who are all, totally coincidentally!!, men. It's particularly amusing when Mark Judge identifies Robert Bly as "a champion of genuine feminism", which manages to both make the point that the biggest problem with modern feminism today is all the women fucking it up, and to also accuse us all of being bra-burning bitches who won't graciously accept a nice champion to fight for us. (We probably insist on opening our own car doors, too.)
I could point out how incredibly dehumanizing it is to reduce every modern feminist to a monolithed stereotype, as Mark Judge does when he insists that, "The bogus “war on women” is really nothing but liberal women acting out against bad fathers." And thus so we are all the same woman, with the same bad father, and the same motivations for being feminists, and none of us are people in our own right who make decisions for ourselves and forge our own ideologies; instead, we are political automatons with Bad Father as an input command and Feminism as an output response. In contrast to Mark Judge, I'm sure, who would probably (correctly) maintain that he is a jackass for his own entirely unique reasons and not because he was exposed to Jackass Rays from the dying planet of Asshattery at the exact moment of his birth or whatever.
I could point out that the false assumption that all feminists are women cruelly invisibles people who are not women from the feminist movement, in an attempt to isolated the marginalized from their privileged allies while simultaneously trying to erase people outside the gender binary from existence entirely.
I could point out how the assumption that all feminists are just angry women who are angry at a bad father places feminist women with good fathers (or feminist women with fathers who are not good but at whom they are not angry, because love and family and relationships can be complicated) instantly on the defensive on behalf of their fathers and thus conveniently turns the conversation away from social patriarchy and instead derails to focus on the unwanted armchair psychoanalysis of a specific woman and her specific father.
I could point out that feminists who are also women who are angry at a bad father are allowed to be angry at a bad father. If a woman is angry at a bad father, and if that anger led her to identify as a feminist, that doesn't make feminism automatically a bad thing -- it could make feminism a great outlet for women with bad fathers who would like to protect other women from future bad fathers. Among other things.
I could point out that women (and other marginalized groups of varying intersections) constantly labor under the false assumption that anger is never valid, that anger always means the argument has been lost, that anger is the one thing they must never show, because the moment they are accused of anger is the moment they can be ignored forever. I could point out that anger is not automatically a bad thing, that there are many things in the world about which anger is an appropriate response, that the ability to never feel personally affected by oppression and tragedy may (not necessarily, but may) be a sign of immense privilege.
I could point out how sick and tired and, yes, angry I am at the repeated insistence that the only good feminism that certain privileged men are willing to support is the "good-natured" kind, a statement which tells me outright that I won't get any help from these would-be "champions" unless the cookies are always sweet and fresh from the oven and never, ever stale. And that the one time I run out of chocolate chips will be the time that they jump ship and sulk for eternity over how they tried to be an ally but those angry women didn't sufficiently appreciate him. I am bone-weary of that sort of "support".
I could point out the amusing juxtaposition of a man who doesn't want to be called a "Frat Bro" or a "right-winger" but has no problem with calling feminists apoplectic and liberals convulsed with rage. Okay, player, that seems super-fair.
But I would instead like to focus on the point made in the article that places the blame for feminism at the door of the Industrial Revolution -- "[Bly] indicted not only male irresponsibility but the Industrial Revolution, which separated fathers from their families." -- and which prompted me to note to Liss the following:
Ana: Lady, did you know that prior to the Industrial Revolution, fathers were always at home and never left their families or went to war or traveled as merchants or sailors or hired hands on another estate or sent their families from court or were separated from their families by forces beyond their control? Everyone worked alongside their family in the fields prior to the invention of the Steampunk Abortion Robots.
Liss: Except for Joan d'Arc's dad, who was a total d-bag.
Duly Noted
[Content note: Transphobia]
The chair of Jelly Belly Candy Company donated $5000 to the campaign to recall a new California law that respects the identity of transgender* students.
You know that feeling when you unwittingly bite into a buttered popcorn flavored Jelly Belly? That.
Via @TransEquality
Everything About This Article Terrifies Me
[Content Note: Hostility to agency and consent; addiction; medical malfeasance.]
Here is a sequence of events as I understand them:
1. Alicia Beltran, who is pregnant, helpfully informed her doctor during a prenatal visit that prior to her pregnancy she had lived with and eventually overcome a pill addiction to prescription pain meds.
2. The physician didn't believe her that the addiction was over and pressured her to get on an expensive prescription (which Ms. Beltran cannot afford) which would block the opiates that Ms. Beltran isn't taking.
3. After Ms. Beltran reused to take the prescription, the physician sent a social worker to her home unannounced. The social worker threatened Ms. Beltran with a court order if she wouldn't take the prescription.
4. After Ms. Beltran told the social worker to leave, the social worker sent county sheriffs to surround her home and take her to a jail cell in handcuffs.
5. Ms. Beltran was taken to a family court and was denied a lawyer or legal representation of any kind. (Her fetus was given a legal advocate, though! Because of course it did!)
6. One Dr. Breckenridge, who has not examined or even met in person Ms. Beltran, testified to the court that Ms. Beltran lacks self-control and should be incarcerated or the child will die.
“She exhibits lack of self-control and refuses the treatment we have offered her,” wrote Dr. Breckenridge, who, according to Ms. Beltran, had not personally met or examined her. She recommended “a mandatory inpatient drug treatment program or incarceration,” adding, “The child’s life depends on action in this case.”
7. I will note here in response to Dr. Breckenridge's medical opinion, that since Ms. Beltran was only 14 weeks pregnant at this stage, and the Wisconsin limit on abortions is 24 weeks, Ms. Beltran should still have a legal right to termination, should she so choose.
8. The court threatened to send Ms. Beltran to jail if she didn't submit to confinement to a treatment center; Ms. Beltran was placed in the treatment center until October 4th. (She was arrested on July 18th.)
9. Ms. Beltran has lost her job as a result of all this and is looking for temporary work. Her very real fear at the moment, besides not being able to find work, is that the government will take her baby away after it is born.
So just to be very clear, if you are pregnant in the U.S., it is entirely possible for your physician to accuse you of drug use (despite a clean urine test) and incarcerate you until your due date (at which point the baby may be taken from you against your will) and all without you ever being allowed to so much as speak to a lawyer or legal advocate.
I don't know what to add to that except an expression of personal terror and a hope that Alicia Beltran and her child remain safe and together. I am horrified to live in a society which has so thoroughly tried to strip her of her personal agency.
Teenage Boy Carrying Replica Rifle Killed by Police
[Content Note: Guns; police brutality; racism. Video begins playing automatically at link.]
Andy Lopez, a 13-year-old boy from Santa Rosa, California, was shot and killed by police Tuesday night, after they saw him walking down the street with a replica assault rifle and, according to their own report, repeatedly told him to put it down and he refused.
Lopez's parents, the parents of his friends and classmates, and school administrators all say that he was not the kind of kid who would have pushed back against police.
And even by the police's own account, this doesn't sound like a kid who was resisting, as much as a kid who was shot before he even had a chance to respond to what was happening:
The sheriff's department outlined the basic facts from the agency's point of view. Two deputies patrolling near Moorland and West Robles avenues in Santa Rosa about 3 p.m. spotted a "male subject" carrying what appeared to be an assault style rifle, similar to an AK-47 assault rifle.Other information provided in the news report: Andy Lopez was wearing "a blue hoodie."
The deputies hit their sirens and called for backup. Then, according to O'Leary, the deputies "repeatedly ordered the subject to drop the rifle."
Initially, officers said the subject's back was toward them, but as they ordered him to put down the weapon they said he began to turn toward them. The department issued this statement:
"One of the deputies described that as the subject was turning toward him the barrel of the assault rifle was rising up and turning in his direction. The deputy feared for his safety, the safety of his partner, and the safety of the community members in the area. He believed the subject was going to shoot at him or his partner. The deputy described that he is aware an assault weapon of this type is capable of firing a bullet that can penetrate his body armor, the metal exterior of his car, and the walls of the residential houses behind him. The deputy then fired several rounds from his service weapon at the subject, striking him at least one time."The deputies still commanded Lopez to move away from the rifle, the sheriff's statement read, but at this point, he was "unresponsive." Deputies handcuffed him, administered First Aid and called for medical help.
But it was too late. Andy was pronounced dead at the scene.
Information not observed in the news report: Andy Lopez was a young man of color.
There are people who will say: What were the cops supposed to do? And, on the one hand, I understand that. We live in a culture where children of Lopez's age can get access to deadly weaponry and in which some of them commit deadly crimes. Right now, one of the major news stories is the murder of a high school teacher allegedly committed by a 14-year-old student. Police understand as well as or better than anyone that teenagers are capable of harm.
On the other hand, the kid was carrying a toy gun. And it sounds like all he was doing was turning around to see who was talking to him when police asked him to put it down.
If the majority is going to agree that we're all going to live in a culture in which there a fuckton of guns, and it's considered acceptable for kids to play with plastic replicas of those guns, and we're definitely not going to enact any kind of gun control even after a bunch of mass shootings, some of which were carried out by kids, then we also need to be realistic that those decisions mean that kids are going to die.
Because police are scared for their own safety, which is yet another consequence of our failure to take action on guns. Additionally, there is increasingly little public expectation that law enforcement agents risk their lives to save other people, even people suspected of being perpetrators, so we defend their right to shoot anyone anytime they have reason (or not) to feel scared.
And, you know, I think it matters that the people who tend to end up dead because cops felt scared, because those people didn't instantly respond to police instruction in the way that was anticipated, are young men of color. Who are, culturally, stereotyped as perpetrators of gun violence.
Truly, at this point, if you don't support meaningful and comprehensive gun reform, you do support the occasional killing of innocent people, including children, as an acceptable cost of unfettered gun ownership. That is a price no decent person should be willing to pay.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: Violence; death] Fourteen-year-old freshman Philip Chism has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old math teacher Colleen Ritzer. He is currently being held without bail, and there is still no information on motive. This story is so awful. I am so sad for everyone who's been affected by this heinous crime.
[CN: Sexual violence; misogyny] MRAs don't care about female rape victims, because "when it comes to really marginalizing rape victims, to proving you don't give a shit about what happens to people, nobody has anything on feminists when it comes to the subject of rape, nobody." Okay, player. You know, even if that were true and not MRAs' typically bizzaro world version of reality, all female rape victims aren't feminists, so feminists' (allegedly monolithic) disposition toward rape still wouldn't justify not giving a shit about female rape victims.
Terrific: "Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has called the US ambassador to a personal meeting to discuss allegations that US secret services bugged Angela Merkel's mobile phone." You know, even if it turns out the US didn't actually bug the German Chancellor's mobile phone, just the fact that it's even considered to be within the realm of possibility is appalling.
[CN: Drunk driving; death] Matthew Cordle, the man who confessed on YouTube to killing someone while driving under the influence of alcohol, knowing he would be tried and punished, has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison after pleading guilty.
[CN: Racism; police malfeasance] Trayon Christian, a 19-year-old black man, was detained by police after he bought a $349 belt because they didn't believe he could afford it. "The detectives were asking me, 'How could you afford a belt like this? Where did you get this money from?'" He got the money from his job, by the way.
Nicolas Cage says smart things about the lack of visible Asian actors in mainstream US movies and demonstrates an awareness of his own white privilege.
Japanese scientists "have successfully tested a space cannon that will be used to blast a hole in an asteroid as part of an upcoming mission." That is great news, as it means my giant cannon from which I will be able to shoot stuff directly into the sun can't be far behind.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handles a heckler in her inimitable way.
Tom Hardy will play Elton John in Rocketman. Now y'all know I love Tom Hardy with eleventy million hearts, but I'm PRETTY SURE there are gay actors in Britain who might be able to play this role who would also do a very good job! I'm just saying.
"Elton John sure has a lot of sunglasses." "He sure does, puppy. He sure does."
This is a real thing in the world.
Brogurt, packaged to appeal to manfluencers.
It remains a mystery who, if anyone, identifies with the ups and downs of Jamie Lee Curtis' digestion—but it's probably not young men.Aaaaaaaaaand I'm already annoyed, because Activia, though the potential benefits of probiotics are not female-specific, is a product that is explicitly marketed to women. The only reason anyone would care whether it's appealing to young men is because there is this expectation that every single purchasable and consumable item ever in the world has to be valued by young men to have any value. And because there is an expectation that women should and will buy something of use to them personally, even if the marketing is geared toward men, but that men will never, ever, buy something of use to them personally if its marketing is directed primarily at women.
Curtis' endorsement of Dannon's Activia yogurt is by no means the only female-geared marketing tactic to beset the dairy aisle, where pastel colors abound. But with more "manfluencers"—or, men "responsible for at least half of the grocery shopping and meal preparation for their households"—taking the reins of the grocery cart, the gender identity of food products is undergoing a major shift, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.Just so we're all on the same page: A woman who is "responsible for at least half of the grocery shopping and meal preparation for their households" is just a woman doing her womanly duty as prescribed by nature. A man who does the same is a "manfluencer." Perfect.
Lu Ann Williams, who works for the marketing firm that coined the manfluencer term, tells the Journal that the grocery store shelves are littered with branding and packaging that undermines masculinity.
"A beer or soda in a long-necked, brown bottle makes a man feel like a man. Drinking out of a straw does not—puckered lips and sunken cheeks are not a good guy look," she says.
So how do you sell yogurt, which is inherently gender neutral, to men? Black labels, bold fonts, more protein. One new product, Powerful Yogurt, features the slogan "Find Your Inner Abs," which may be the meathead pitch for probiotics.
Enjoy your brogurt, dudes.
[H/T to Shaker MMC.]
This is rape culture.
[Content Note: Rape; rape apologia.]
In 1992, Mike Tyson was convicted of raping Desiree Washington. He faced as many as 60 years in prison, was sentenced to 10, and served 3. Tyson still claims that he did not rape Washington: While he was in prison, he wrote a letter to sportscaster Jim Gray, saying in part (as recalled by Gray), "Mr. Gray, I will never admit to raping this woman, even if it lessens my time, because I just didn't do it, and I'm not going to say I did. However, there have been five to seven other things throughout the course of my life that I have done which are far worse than that of which I've been accused, so I feel I'm in the right place."
Tyson may say he did not rape Washington, but Washington, Tyson's limo driver, and a medical examiner testified otherwise. And a jury convicted him. And a judge sentenced him.
Along the way, he has been accused of (and confessed to) domestic abuse, settled a lawsuit with two women who alleged he physically assaulted them after they rejected his sexual advances, was sued by an exotic dancer who alleged Tyson punched her while she was working, and has been again accused of sexual assault. These are only the reports of sexual violence. He has also bitten a boxing competitor, knocked down a boxing ref, thrown glass ornaments at a journalist, assaulted people during various confrontations.
Tyson is a violent, dangerous man. That is the undisputed truth.
Tyson's Undisputed Truth, the title of his memoir to be published in November, tells a slightly different tale, it seems:
Description: A bare-knuckled, tell-all memoir from Mike Tyson, the onetime heavyweight champion of the world—and a legend both in and out of the ring."Criminal proceedings." Well, that's certainly a neat euphemism for having been tried, convicted, and sentenced for rape.
Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon—Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes, expectations, and a lot of conventional wisdom during his three decades in the public eye. Bullied as a boy in the toughest, poorest neighborhood in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become one of the most thrilling and ferocious boxers of all time—and the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But his brilliance in the ring was often compromised by reckless behavior. Years of hard partying, violent fights, and criminal proceedings took their toll: by 2003, Tyson had hit rock bottom, a convicted felon, completely broke, the punch line to a thousand bad late-night jokes. Yet he fought his way back; the man who once admitted being addicted “to everything regained his success, his dignity, and the love of his family. With a triumphant one-man stage show, his unforgettable performances in the Hangover films, and his newfound happiness and stability as a father and husband, Tyson's story is an inspiring American original.
Brutally honest, raw, and often hilarious, Tyson chronicles his tumultuous highs and lows in the same sincere, straightforward manner we have come to expect from this legendary athlete. A singular journey from Brooklyn's ghettos to worldwide fame to notoriety, and, finally, to a tranquil wisdom, Undisputed Truth is not only a great sports memoir but an autobiography for the ages.
"Tyson's story," and it is indeed quite a story, is hardly an "American original." The powerful man who spends his life harming women, only to be publicly rehabilitated again and again, is about as routine as American stories come.
This is rape culture: A space in which a survivor of rape will never be remembered as anything else, and in which a violent rapist will be remembered as a happy, stable, tranquil, wisdom-dispensing legend.
[H/T to Jess.]
