[Content Note: Fat hatred; harassment.]
"I shouldn't have to prove my worth. We are all valid creatures. All of us."—Kath Read, aka Fat Heffalump, whose work will be familiar to anyone who regularly reads the blogarounds, because I love her so much, quoted in a powerful article about the personal cost of being a visible fat female blogger with the radical opinion that she is a valuable human being.
Kath has some follow-up thoughts on the article here.
Talking about one's harassment as a result of being fat and female and visible is, I cannot emphasize this enough, profoundly brave. Not only do you get the expected blowback from the usual fat-hating bozos, but you get blowback from people purporting to be allies who tell you that talking about harassment makes you look weak, or accuse you of "complaining," or engage in victim-blaming with concern-trolly admonishments to be less visible or less abrasive or less you in some way.
I am not just grateful to Kath for publicly talking about this; I stand in fierce solidarity with her.
Quote of the Day
It's the Hap-Happiest Time of Year!
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy; anti-choicery; homophobia; class warfare; eliminationism.]
The time of year when culture warrior Bill O'Reilly goes on epic fuckrants about the "war on Christmas." Here he is using his shitsquirt of a show to respond to The Daily Show's Jon Stewart having correctly noted there is no "war on Christmas."
It is not egregious, word of the day, to say "happy holidays." It is egregious to SUE!!! school districts and towns if they display the manger or sing Christmas carols. Are you getting this, Stewart? Are you hearing me?! You know what I think it is? Stewart just likes playing the Grinch.That would be totally fucking hilarious were it not for the fact that millions of people in the US hear that kind of shit and think, "Yeah, that sounds about right."
[edit]
What is interesting this year is that Hanukkah will be over on Thursday, so there are no more holidays between then and Christmas Day.
[video clip of Jon Stewart saying: "Damn you, O'Reilly. We've have been checkmated! Without Hanukkah, we have no excuse to say "happy holidays." Plural. Because apparently you can't include anything past Christmas, like Kwanzaa, epiphany, and New Years."]
The epiphany, Stewart? The epiphany? Well here's an epiphany for you and your 18 writers. You guys are now on double secret predation. One more time, buster, one more time, and you are officially voided from Christmas, with apologies to Dean Wormer.
Now the serious side of all this—it is quite clear to anyone with a brain that there is a war between traditional Americans and secular progressives in this country. I wrote an entire book on this called Culture Warrior. I sent it to Stewart.
In order to remake the United States into a progressive nation, the committed left must diminish Judeo-Christian tradition, which stands in opposition to them. So they must get the religious influence out—out of the public arena. All the so-called progressive countries are secular. Just look at the map. But here in America we have maintained most of our Judeo-Christian traditions—but they are under attack.
Here's what the secular progressives want: Number one—cradle to grave entitlements; number two—income equality. That means that Americans would be guaranteed a certain lifestyle courtesy of other Americans who would pay for it. That's what President Obama's trying to accomplish.
Now, there's no overt religious tenet against the nanny state, so those things come under "render to Caesar." In a democracy, the folks should decide what kind of political system they want.
But, number three, number three—unfettered abortion? That's another matter. The far left wants absolutely no restrictions on destroying a fetus—none. As you may know, we actually had a doctor in Philadelphia killing babies after they were born. Thank God—and I mean that literally—the man's in prison. Christians generally oppose abortion, unless there is a catastrophic situation with the mother. The far left despises that point of view.
Number 4—gay marriage. And here the secular progressives have won. They have turned public opinion around, and gay marriage is now legal in many places. Once again, the Judeo-Christian philosophy opposes marriage unless it is between one man and one woman. And it took years for the secularists to hammer that point of view into the wall, but they succeeded.
And finally number 5—legalized narcotics. The Judeo-Christian view is intoxication is morally wrong, because you're altering your state of mind artificially. Basically you are abusing your body and mind, which are from God. Again the SP's despise that point of view.
So any public display of Christianity is not good for the progressive cause; therefore, the far left has succeeded in getting prayer out of the public school systems. And if you want to say a prayer before a public meeting, get ready for trouble. That's the big picture.
The struggle between traditional Americans who believe that Judeo-Christian philosophy strengthens the nation, and the secular progressives who believe that America is an unfair place that must be drastically changed, is ongoing.
And the tactics are brutal. If you oppose unfettered abortion, you are declaring a war on women. If you oppose gay marriage, you are homophobic. If you oppose legalization of drugs you are out-of-touch—an old young foggy. And if you oppose cradle-to-grave entitlements, you hate poor people.
So I hope Jon Stewart will reconsider the situation because, in his heart, he knows I'm right. Christmas is a huge symbol of the cultural struggle in this country, and has been for years. And what a great Christmas gift it would be for Jon Stewart to finally admit it.
Obviously I love everything about this, but I think my very favorite part is this amazing dichotomy: "There is a war between traditional Americans and secular progressives in this country." Traditional Americans and secular progressives. It's neat how we aren't even "Americans" in this construction. (And naturally religious progressives don't even exist.) See how that works? We're not part of our own country. We're interlopers. We're aliens. We're others. We don't belong. We are enemies of the state.
Merry fucking Christmas, Bill.
[Related Reading: Quote of the Day; We Love Dreidels, We Swears It!]
Question of the Day
What is your favorite esoteric word you always wish you had more occasion to use?
RIP Nelson Mandela
Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who has been ill for some time, has died at age 95. His New York Times obituary is here.
"Our nation has lost its greatest son," South African President Jacob Zuma said in a televised address on Thursday night, adding that Mr. Mandela had died at 8:50 p.m. local time. "His humility, his compassion and his humanity earned him our love."What has always struck me most profoundly about Nelson Mandela was his determination to live a meaningful and expansive life, despite the pervasive attempts to deny him any kind of life at all.
Mr. Zuma called Mr. Mandela's death "the moment of our greatest sorrow," and said that South Africa's thoughts were now with the former president's family. "They have sacrificed much and endured much so that our people could be free," he said.
My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and admirers.
Photo of the Day
The manta ray is a graceful swimmer, cruising the world's temperate and tropical waters by flapping its large pectoral fins. When the mood strikes, however, those fins are used as wings to help launch the ray up to seven feet (two meters) in the air.Beautiful.
Mantas have few predators—only large sharks—so it's not known why they perform such aerial acrobatics. Because they sometimes leap in groups, scientists suspect the behavior may be a form of courtship—or simply a lot of fun.
[Photograph by Ralph Lee Hopkins, National Geographic]
Because "Freedom"
It's not like we didn't already know that these fights were coming (because they've been coming for decades, and because they are ongoing), but it's kind of terrific-horrible to see the strategy laid out so starkly:
Conservative groups across the US are planning a co-ordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers' compensation and the environment, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.Destroying the government while flaunting the law and raising massive amounts of cash from reprehensible assholes. Sounds about right.
The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as "free-market thinktanks", includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce the wages of government workers and eliminate income taxes, school voucher schemes to counter public education, opposition to Medicaid, and a campaign against regional efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
The policy goals are contained in a set of funding proposals obtained by the Guardian. The proposals were co-ordinated by the State Policy Network, an alliance of groups that act as incubators of conservative strategy at state level.
The documents contain 40 funding proposals from 34 states, providing a blueprint for the conservative agenda in 2014.
...Details of the co-ordinated approach come amid growing federal scrutiny of the political activities of tax-exempt charities. Last week the Obama administration announced a new clampdown on those groups that violate tax rules by engaging in direct political campaigning.
Most of the "thinktanks" involved in the proposals gathered by the State Policy Network are constituted as 501(c)(3) charities that are exempt from tax by the Internal Revenue Service. Though the groups are not involved in election campaigns, they are subject to strict restrictions on the amount of lobbying they are allowed to perform. Several of the grant bids contained in the Guardian documents propose the launch of "media campaigns" aimed at changing state laws and policies, or refer to "advancing model legislation" and "candidate briefings", in ways that arguably cross the line into lobbying.
The documents also cast light on the nexus of funding arrangements behind radical rightwing campaigns. The State Policy Network (SPN) has members in each of the 50 states and an annual warchest of $83m drawn from major corporate donors that include the energy tycoons the Koch brothers, the tobacco company Philip Morris, food giant Kraft and the multinational drugs company GlaxoSmithKline.
SPN gathered the grant proposals from the 34 states on 29 July. Ranging in size from requests of $25,000 to $65,000, the plans were submitted for funding to the Searle Freedom Trust, a private foundation that in 2011 donated almost $15m to largely rightwing causes.
I note once more: The inherent problem with the conservative ideology of unfettered individualism is that it is intractably hostile toward and fatally incompatible with a functional society.
Nope.
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy; choice policing; war on agency.]
Richard W. Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, the latest organization to file suit over the federal mandate to provide healthcare coverage that includes birth control, has penned an op-ed for the LA Times entitled "The righteousness in Hobby Lobby's cause," and subtitled "Business people shouldn't be required to check their faith at the door."
Like millions of religious believers and groups, these challengers reject the idea that religious faith and religious freedom are simply about what we believe and how we pray, and not also about how we live, act and work. At the heart of these two cases is the straightforward argument that federal law does not require us to "check our faith at the door" when we pursue vocations in business and commerce.I don't doubt the sincerity of their beliefs. I do, however, question the integrity of the assertion that they are being "required to check their faith at the door." What they are being asked to do is to respect that not every one of their employees might share that faith. And what they are really objecting to is the fact that they're no longer allowed to ask their employees to check their faith at the door, as the cost of their employment.
There should be no question about the sincerity of the religious beliefs at issue.
No one is telling employers they have to use birth control. No one is coercing employers to pay for birth control, either. They are being asked to pay for insurance policies that, among other healthcare provisions, will cover contraception for employees who want it. That's it.
My Letter to Martin Bashir
by Shaker Mod aforalpha
[Content Note: Misogyny; slavery; violence; dehumanization.]
Dear Martin Bashir,
I don't watch your show, but it has come to my attention that recently you set out to explain to Sarah Palin the horrors of slavery. To conclude your history lesson you suggested that she would be deserving of the degrading and violent treatment that a particular slave owner preferred.
I take it as read that Sarah Palin either does not understand or, more likely, care, what the true nature of slavery was and is. But if you think for even a second, it's okay to wish that kind of abuse, exploitation, and humiliation on anyone, even to make a rhetorical point, then YOU haven't understood.
Your comments trivialize the history of slavery, the present reality of the same, and the enduring consequences of the belief that some people have the right to own other people. And in exploiting the degradation and dehumanization that Darby and Hector were subject to in their lives in order to commit an act of symbolic violence against a woman whose political beliefs you disagree with, you stood up to be counted among those who believe that people are NOT all equal in dignity and deserving of respect.
The lesson to take from the Thistlewood diary, which you seem to have missed, is that we are all people and it is of the utmost urgency that we never forget that.
Sarah Palin is a person, Mr. Bashir.
Sincerely,
aforalpha
P.S. Joy Reid should always have had your show.
Daily Dose of Cute
Matilda still can't stop thinking about Tony. Wondering where he could be, who he is with, what is he thinking, is he thinking of her, 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.
How Not to Talk About Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman
[Content note: body policing, fat phobia, eating disorders, dehumanization]
It's finally here: a confirmation that Wonder Woman will appear in a Batman/Superman movie, as Liss noted earlier. And we now know that Gal Gadot will be playing her.
Now there are lots of pitfalls involved in this appearance. As Liss has noted, it's shitty that she can't have her own damn movie in the first place. And shitty that, as explored in this piece, that the character's cinematic fuure could be ruined by this small cameo.[CN: ableist language, discussion of body size].)
But this is not about that. It's about the terrible and dehumanizing ways fans are already talking about Ms. Gadot.
Over on her Facebook page, Ms. Gadot shared this news with her fans. Most responses were positive. The negatives? Extraordinarily cruel.
"Eat a sandwich."
"Oh noNo no no no r u kidding me Pls dont spoil Batman for me oh whom m i kidding its ben affleck there its already dead ...might as well ur boobs keep us busy."
"Where's the boobs of WW? Just sayin'"
"Aren't you a bit of a beanpole to be playing a commanding amazonian warrior woman?"
"Objective opinion: I like your work and you are a very beautiful woman, but you are not a Wonder Woman type.... We swallowed Ben Affleck as batman, because if he'd train and prepare like fe Heath ledger he might pull this off, but you, even with superior acting skills, just do not have the physique to pull that role off. No matter how hard you'd train, no matter how much you'd prepare....its like seeing a trainwreck before it happens."
There are more, but I think that provides enough of a crash course in How Not To Talk About Gal Gadot.
Implication of anorexia? Check.
Reducing the actor to her breasts? Check. (Bonus points for both suggesting her breasts are not sexy enough AND ALSO suggesting that her boobs are the only things to keep the audience "busy." Well played, patriarchy!)
Body-shaming, complete with name-calling? Check.
Explicit comparison to male actors who successfully change their bodies for film, combined with certainty that Ms. Gadot cannot do this. (Why is that? Could it be... sexism?) Double check!
What the fuck, people. What the ever-loving fuck. And it's not just Facebook. In an article about fan reactions to the casting [CN: body shaming], Metro.co.uk helpfully provides these gems, among others:
GarrettWBecker posted: ‘Does Gal Gadot have large enough breasts to play Wonder Woman? That’s a valid question?! #LookatHer #BodyImageinMedia.’
haz_elnino wrote: ‘The only thing I’m worried about Gal Gadot getting cast as Wonder Woman is that she’s too skinny, like anorexic skinny. Time to gain weight.’
...all of which are super-helpful. WONDERHELPFUL, even. Not.
There are certainly valid concerns to discuss about systemic misogyny and fatphobia affect the portrayal of Wonder Woman. About the way Hollywood shies away from portraying powerful female bodies that are bigger than the Hollywood norm. About the way even a superheroic Amazon cannot be played by someone outside Hollywood's standard of thin.
But frankly? Those thing are not about Gal Gadot. That shit is not her fault. Nor is it her problem, individually, to fix.
And those conversations must not perpetuate sexist body shame. Shaming her eating habits, reducing her to her breasts, and pre-determining that she will be a failure-- nope! And certainly, none of that is reason to assume that she won't achieve a more "superheroic" look, to ignore all the ways that weight training and costume and direction and camera angle and whatever create such illusions on film all the damn time
(For fuck's sake, Wolverine in the comics is officially 5" 3'. Hugh Jackman is 6' 2". Yet, MYSTERIOUSLY, Jackman, along with his trainer, costume designers and directors, has made that work.)
Ms. Gadot is under tremendous pressure, and bears a heavy and unequal burden. She will be blamed for whatever aspects of her cameo don't live up to expectations, even if those have nothing to do with her. She will be put under suspicion if the movie does poorly--after all, it must be her girl cooties that kept fans away. And her body will be policed, scrutinized and reduced to its parts in a way utterly disproportionate to the way her co-stars will be examined.
And, may I further point out: this is fans talking to and about her when she has just unexpectedly lost a close friend and colleague, Paul Walker. Most of her recent Facebook posts are about her grief, shock, and mourning. The shit being flung at her would be cruel and unjustified at any time; it is a grossly indecent way to speak to someone in mourning.
What's the right way to talk about, and to, Gal Gadot? How about this:
As a human being.
Good luck and best wishes, Ms. Gadot. May the glory of Gaea be with you.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
Surprise! Despite claims to the contrary, the NSA tracks the locations of cellphones worldwide: "The NSA collects 5 million billion records a day in order to track the movements of individuals, according to documents and intelligence officials interviewed by the Washington Post. The agency taps into cables that connect cellphone networks globally. The NSA does not purposefully target American devices, but collects data on Americans' locations 'incidentially,' according to the Post."
[Content Note: Worker exploitation] A woman named Laurentina answers questions about working at McDonald's and why she's striking today.
[CN: Clergy abuse] In July, Pope Francis made it a crime to abuse children in the Vatican. Now he is "creating a commission to prevent the abuse of minors and to support victims of abuse, Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley announced Thursday in Rome. The new commission is expected to tell church officials to collaborate with civil authorities and report cases of abuse, O'Malley said." I don't hand out cookies for doing the bare minimum, but I will congratulate Pope Francis on finally doing the bare minimum, which his predecessors couldn't be arsed to do.
[CN: Misogyny; slavery; violence] I was out of town when this story first broke, but MSNBC journalist Martin Bashir said on-air that former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's is "an outstanding candidate" for "a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood," a slave owner who violently punished and humiliated people he enslaved, including making them shit in each other's mouths. Following a leave of absence, he has now resigned (because apparently there's nothing so bad any male journalist can say about a woman to warrant his firing). And the statement from MSNBC President Phil Griffin is fucking incredible: "Martin Bashir resigned today, effective immediately. I understand his decision and I thank him for three great years with msnbc. Martin is a good man and respected colleague—we wish him only the best." A good man and a respected colleague. There is also apparently nothing so bad any male journalist can say about a woman to warrant not calling him a good man a respected colleague.
Heads-up: Two million Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Twitter passwords have been stolen in a massive hack. If your account was affected, you will be notified. But, as always, be careful of phishing scams, which will almost certainly increase after this news. Hover over URLs in emails to make sure they direct back to the site whence they claim to emanate.
Scientists have found "ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years." Whoa!
[CN: Violence] The Massachusetts teenager accused of killing his teacher in October has pleaded not guilty. There is still no known motive in the murder.
Senator Elizabeth Warren says she will not run for president in 2016. That doesn't preclude her being asked to run as veep on the eventual nominee's ticket, though! HILLARY?
Supermodel Joan Smalls bluntly calls out racism on the runway: "People hide behind the word aesthetic. They say, 'Well, it's just that designer's aesthetic.' But when you see 18 seasons in a row and not one single model outside a certain skin color…? There are people in the industry who are advocates, who support diversity. And there are people who do not. I don't get it. Beauty is universal. These doors have to open."
Gal Gadot is your new Wonder Woman. I don't know who she is, but good luck, Gal Gadot! I hope you make a terrific Wonder Woman! Too bad you're not getting your own movie and have to be shoved into the background of a Superman and Batman movie!
And Good Luck with This, Too
[Content Note: Homophobia. Part One.]
Also at Politico today: "GOP rep.: Deny money to gay candidates."
Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes, a senior House Republican eyeing a powerful committee chairmanship, is causing friction with some of his colleagues by pushing the House GOP campaign arm to deny support for some of the party's gay congressional candidates.Big tent! BIG TENT!
Forbes has waged a lengthy crusade to convince his colleagues and the National Republican Congressional Committee brass they shouldn't back some gay candidates.
...In recent years, Republicans have slowly tried to make inroads with the gay community. As gay marriage becomes more common, many GOP officials have softened their stance. Since the 2012 election, Republicans have similarly tried to make inroads with other neglected voting blocs, including women and Hispanics.
...In an emailed statement to POLITICO in response to this story, NRCC Chairman Greg Walden of Oregon said, "Our decisions on the Republican nominees we support will not be based on race, gender or sexual orientation but will be based on the strength of their candidacy and their ability to defeat Democrats."
Well, I'm no Professor Karl Rove, but it seems to me that the bestest idea would to tutor straight Republicans in talking about gay candidates, since Maude knows that exiling homophobic dipshits from the party would be a terrible idea because Jesus.
I mean, hey, the GOP leadership thinks women are stupid enough to be hoodwinked by misogynist garbage policies as long as they're veiled by "more sensitive" language, so I'm sure the same approach toward the queer community will be equally as successful.
Basically, whatever it takes, definitely keep those garbage policies!
My contempt for these reprobates cannot be measured on a scale fathomable by human intellect.
Good Luck with That
[Content Note: Misogyny; rape apologia; war on agency.]
Santorum. Akin. Walsh. Mourdock. Koster. Greig. These are just a few of the names of Republican politicians who have said colossally stupid things about women, abortion, and sexual assault during the last two election cycles.
It's a Big Problem (official political term) for the GOP, who need female voters to remain a viable party, even with gerrymandered districts that already give them more seats than a fair electoral landscape would, so, every once in awhile, we get a story about how the GOP is working on being "more sensitive" when talking about women's issues.
To wit: "GOP men tutored in running against women." That is an actual headline at Politico today lol.
The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it's meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman.Once again, I am laughing mirthlessly at the GOP's goal of keeping their misogynist garbage policies, but just strategizing ways of communicating those misogynist garbage policies with less nakedly offensive language. Neat!
Speaker John Boehner is serious, too. His own top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents.
"Let me put it this way, some of these guys have a lot to learn," said a Republican staffer who attended the session in Boehner's office.
There have been "multiple sessions" with the NRCC where aides to incumbents were schooled in "messaging against women opponents," one GOP aide said.
Well, good luck with all that, boys.
[Related Reading: This is such a fun story!]
Question of the Day
[Content Note: Minor injury/pain.]
When you hurt yourself or get hurt in a way commensurate, say, with stubbing a toe, do you immediately yelp or do you get very, very quiet?
I go very quiet. Pain almost freezes me. And then when the freeze passes, I usually curse mightily, lol.
Photo of the Day
[Click to embiggen.]
The Grand Canyon shot from Mather Point during a rare temperature inversion, in which fog was pushed down into and filled the entire canyon. Via PetaPixel, "a full inversion like the one that happen this last Friday takes place only about once every ten years." [NPS Photo by Erin Whittaker.]
This is a real thing in the world.
[Content Note: Fat hatred; eating talk; misogyny.]
Microsoft's prototype of the stress-detecting emotional eating avoidance bra.
While I can see (sort of) the potential value of a bra measures "heart and skin activity," naturally there's no better purpose than alerting women when they might start stress-eating!
The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood levels.ALERT! ALERT! YOU ARE STRESSED! DO NOT PUT FOOD IN YOUR FACE! A MOMENT ON THE LIPS A LIFETIME ON THE HIPS! ALERT! ALERT!
The aim was to find out if wearable technology could help prevent stress-related over-eating.
Mood data was provided to the wearer via a smartphone app in order to highlight when "emotional eating" was likely to occur.
Personally, I'm not a stress-eater. (Because I'm a stress-smoker. Whoops!) (That's half a joke.) (I tend to lose my appetite when I'm stressed.) But if I were a stress-eater, I can only imagine how thrilled I'd be to have my phone gleep-glorping at me about THE FATZ when I'm already feeling anxious.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War on agency.]
"Why did they start with abortion clinics? Because it begins with the letter 'A'?"—7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, sarcastically questioning Daniel Lennington, Wisconsin's assistant attorney general, "about why lawmakers singled out abortion clinics in requiring their doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals."
At times appearing exasperated, Posner repeatedly interrupted Lennington, asking why lawmakers — if it's true they saw the law as primarily a public health measure and not an anti-abortion bill — focused on abortion clinics and not other outpatient clinics, such as those performing laparoscopic surgeries.Amazing.
"Why did they start with abortion clinics? Because it begins with the letter 'A'?" Posner asked.
Lennington answered, "I don't have a conjecture (about why)." Later, in response to similar questions, Lennington said it was the prerogative of legislators to act as they did.
Posner also cited figures that just .3 percent of abortions have medical complications. Asked if there were records of women dying in Wisconsin after abortions, Lennington said he didn't know.
At that point, Posner said about the law, "It doesn't sound reasonable. It sounds irrational."
[Via @TrustWomen.]
