Sure. That's definitely a pillow.
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
Sure. That's definitely a pillow.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Here He Is!
[Content Note: Oppressive humor.]
As you may recall, in May it was announced that NBC's current late night host, Jimmy Fallon, would be wrestling The Tonight Show away from Jay Leno's evil clutches come February, and current Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers would be taking over for Fallon.
At the time, NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt assured us that they definitely for sure totally had to hire Meyers, another straight white dude, for their late night line-up because "We think Seth is one of the brightest, most insightful comedy writers and performers of his generation." Sure.
I'll agree when I see a single episode of SNL that doesn't rely on fat jokes, rape jokes, transphobic humor, and the usual assortment of ancient bigotries being paraded as "cutting edge" jokes.
The bar is set pretty low for "bright" and "insightful" these days.
Anyway. Here's the first art for Meyers' show, which will debut on February 24, via Entertainment Weekly.
"What do you think of our new handsome white dude? Pretty terrific, right?!"—NBC.
The thing about Meyers is that, given his specific cohort of thin, young, handsome, white, straight, male comedians, he generally relies less on bigoted humor than average, and generally appears to actually consider women human beings. But that doesn't make him bright and insightful by a long shot. It just makes him slightly closer to (but still short of!) what, in a kinder and fairer world, would be the bare minimum of decency for a multimillion dollar job hosting a variety show on a national network intended for a broad audience.
And this is a systemic problem: Saturday Night Live has become a launching pad for a late night career for white male stars. Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon came to NBC's late night slot by way of SNL, too.
But SNL isn't fair in its hiring practices. The just hired six new cast members, all of whom are white (and only one of whom is a woman). The show hasn't had "a cast member to portray Michelle Obama for her husband's entire presidency"—a cavernous failing that is defended by current cast members saying shit like there aren't enough funny black women who are well-prepared for auditions.
Which is garbage. It's garbage even on its face, but when SNL now serves as the conduit to one of the most visible and lucrative jobs in television, to keep hiring more white dudes is bigger than just SNL. This isn't just a Seth Meyers problem. It's a who-comes-after-him problem, too.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
President Obama is facing criticism over new corporate powers extended in a new trade deal: "The Obama administration appears to have almost no international support for controversial new trade standards that would grant radical new political powers to corporations, increase the cost of prescription medications, and restrict bank regulation." I'm so glad we elected a Democrat etc.
Big Internet isn't happy about being obliged to participate in governmental privacy intrusions, and have "united to demand sweeping changes to US surveillance laws" to restore public trust in the internet: "Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter, and AOL have published an open letter to President Barack Obama and Congress on Monday, throwing their weight behind radical reforms already proposed by Washington politicians. 'The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favour of the state and away from the rights of the individual—rights that are enshrined in our constitution,' urges the letter signed by the eight US-based internet giants. 'This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It's time for change.'"
Congress is scrambling to pass a budget bill before the end of the week, so they can all go on their holiday: "The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health-care and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators' primary target. After more than two years of constant crisis, the emerging agreement amounts to little more than a cease-fire. ...Congressional leaders hope to finish work quickly and leave town for the holidays as soon as Friday."
[Content Note: Class warfare.] The biggest barrier to fixing wealth inequality? The financially insecure top 2%. "In a country where poverty is at a record high, today's new rich are notable for their sense of economic fragility. They've reached the top 2 percent, only to fall below it, in many cases. That makes them much more fiscally conservative than other Americans, polling suggests, and less likely to support public programs, such as food stamps or early public education, to help the disadvantaged."
[CN: Worker exploitation] Eight employees at US Steel Gary Works have asked the Supreme Court to determine when their shifts start: "The workers argue that they should be paid from the time they don protective gear their jobs require. They say they can spend two hours taking a bus to a changing area and donning gear before they arrive on the work floor, and they want to be compensated for that time. The company says the clock should start when they reach the work floor because federal law says companies don't have to pay employees for changing into their clothes."
Republican Senator has a terrific new coloring book, and Amy McCarthy wants to get it for me for Christmas, because she is the devil.
Did you watch NBC's live broadcast of The Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood? I did, and it wasn't very good! And I've never even seen the classic movie starring Julie Andrews, so the only thing to which I was comparing it was my own expectations of what a good production would look and sound like! Anyway. Carrie Underwood is praying for me.
If you like Rebecca Black's ubiquitous track "Friday," then you are definitely going to love her new track "Saturday"!
Eating While Fat
[CN: CICO and diet talk, calorie counting, disordered eating, depression]
Eating in public is more than just eating, if you are a fat person. It's Eating While Fat.
Eating While Fat means carefully scrutinizing each choice from the party buffet, knowing that others are watching you, hating that it matters, but knowing it does. Are you choosing the celery sticks because you like them (I do), or because you know what people will be smirking if you grab the cookies? Because obviously, you are a terrible, lazy, terrible person if you pick the cookies.
Eating While Fat means then scurrying away from the buffet or the table. Because you don't want to get that "helpful" remark about being mindful about your food, not snacking directly from the plate, etc. Other people can hang around the food/kitchen/buffet because that's where the conversation and socializing is. But not you, because you are Eating While Fat, and standing next to buffets and mindlessly chomping away is obviously how you got that way.
Eating While Fat means then enduring the inevitable person who wants to "congratulate" you for eating celery, or ordering a salad, or skipping dessert, or whatever it was you did that society says will magically make you thin. Because obviously you are on a diet. It couldn't be that you eat that way all the time. If you did, you wouldn't be fat, right?
Eating While Fat means wondering if you correct the person commenting on your food choices, or just murmur a "thank you" and hoping the conversation will go away. Because, obviously, they were being nice. And you should enjoy the "positive" reinforcement. (But maybe correcting them will help another fat person? Or maybe they will simply snigger more at "Fatty in Denial." You smile and say nothing.)
Eating While Fat means enduring diet talk if you are seen writing down your food, usually with added more congratulations or commiseration about diets. It doesn't matter that your food diary is for allergies. Or IBS. Or sodium. Or the million other reasons you might have for keeping track of your food. Because obviously the only reason fatties have for tracking food is trying to become less fat.
Eating While Fat also means listening to people "helpfully" suggest you check the calorie count on your phone, because here's this great app, see, and it helped me lose TEN WHOLE POUNDS, blah blah blah. It means wondering if you tell them that yeah, you ALREADY know the calories in almost everything. Because you have spent years of your life trying not to be fat, dieting and still gaining weight, exercising and still gaining weight, putting off everything from getting married to visiting the doctor until you are less-fat. You don't say anything. Because obviously you have never dieted; if you had, you'd be thin.
Eating While Fat is wishing you could just ignore it. But you can't.
Eating While Fat is battling anxiety. Because you start dreading these looks and comments even before you get to the party, or dinner, or outing. It means trying not to lapse into diet-think, because you know where that downwards spiral leads: a full-blown depressive episode, because dieting still doesn't work. You will still be fat, but with the added effect of feeling like a failure. Again.
(But maybe this time, things would be different? The prospect of not having to deal with all this fat hatred flashes before your eyes. You are filled with sick yearning and adrenaline. Your mind starts to slide to the bad place. Maybemaybemaybe this time you could get thin if you just counted calories/exercised more/stopped eating carbs/used all the same methods which have never achieved that result before?)
You take a deep breath, and try to wrestle your thoughts back to reality. Because your sanity depends, in part, on the mental exercise of flipping the bird at the world and daring to be happy while fat.
Because what should be truly obvious is this: Eating While Fat is just eating. Maybe the world could take note of that.
It's Just the Messaging
It's not their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad garbage policies. It's just the messaging:
Virginia Republicans are in the midst of a three-day gathering to sort through what happened in their across-the-board losses at the ballot box in 2013.They just have to convince voters they're on our side. They don't actually have to be on our side! Ha ha of course not. That would be silly.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) spoke Saturday -- a speech in which he tried to offer a vision for how the party can start winning again. Here's the crux of the Cantor argument:
"Winning elections is about convincing the voters that the we have their back, that we're on their side. If we want to win, we must offer solutions to problems that people face every day. We have not done this recently and it has allowed Democrats to take power, it has allowed them to push their partisan politics, and even worse to enact their leftist agenda."
Sort of like how they need to hide their misogynist garbage policies behind less inflammatory misogynist rhetoric, rather than actually change those policies.
I'm no highly-paid political consultant with a nifty sinecure at a conservative thinktank, but it is my estimation that if Republicans want voters to believe they have our backs, they could start by changing their reprehensible position on whether people are entitled to food.
Just a thought!
Compassionate Conservatism, Part Wev
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
In their continuing bid to eradicate any semblance of a social safety net, Congressional Republicans are set to let more than 2 million people lose their unemployment benefits by the end of the first quarter next year. 1.3 million will lose benefits by the end of this year. Paul Krugman explains the cruel rationale behind this decision:
Now, the G.O.P.'s desire to punish the unemployed doesn't arise solely from bad economics; it's part of a general pattern of afflicting the afflicted while comforting the comfortable (no to food stamps, yes to farm subsidies).Let them eat bootstraps!
... Here's the world as many Republicans see it: Unemployment insurance, which generally pays eligible workers between 40 and 50 percent of their previous pay, reduces the incentive to search for a new job. As a result, the story goes, workers stay unemployed longer. In particular, it's claimed that the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which lets workers collect benefits beyond the usual limit of 26 weeks, explains why there are four million long-term unemployed workers in America today, up from just one million in 2007.
Correspondingly, the G.O.P. answer to the problem of long-term unemployment is to increase the pain of the long-term unemployed: Cut off their benefits, and they'll go out and find jobs. How, exactly, will they find jobs when there are three times as many job-seekers as job vacancies? Details, details.
...Businesses aren't failing to hire because they can't find willing workers; they're failing to hire because they can't find enough customers. And slashing unemployment benefits — which would have the side effect of reducing incomes and hence consumer spending — would just make the situation worse.
...So the odds, I'm sorry to say, are that the long-term unemployed will be cut off, thanks to a perfect marriage of callousness — a complete lack of empathy for the unfortunate — with bad economics. But then, hasn't that been the story of just about everything lately?
I don't know in what fantasy world Republican lawmakers are living, that they imagine people can just go out and get a job with a livable wage tomorrow.
And I am constantly awed by their utter faithlessness in other people—their persistent belief that most people are always looking for an angle, always searching for a way to scam the government so that they don't have to work. That is just completely at odds with reality.
Sure, there are scam artists. And there are also people who are regarded as scam artists who are really just people comprehensively failed by their country, who lacked even the most basic educational and employment opportunities, who have little choice but to find a way to game a system that set them up to fail. And then there are all the people who would happily work, if only they had the option.
To hear the Republicans' tell it, it's nothing but scammers and "takers" as far as the eye can see.
But being poor isn't easy. Being poor is one of the most difficult things to be in this country. Poverty is not for lazy people.
There is evidence of laziness in this debate, such as it is. But it isn't people who quite rightly want their unemployment benefits extended while their elected representatives continue to pursue austerity strategies that limit their employment opportunities. It's the conservatives making the lazy arguments about US workers, to justify their garbage policies, reality and decency be damned.
Open Thread
This week's open threads have been brought to you by famous books from film.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
It's Time for a Flula Break!
Flula, a young, thin, white man speaking in German-accented English directly to the camera while lying in bed: [heaving sigh] I was just at a party. They were playing this game, and it is the most terrible gross of games I have seen in my life: Beer Pong.OMG LOL FOREVER.
It is like ping pong, but with no ping—with no nets, with no paddles. Paddlies. No. It is with beer, and with these balls—and bacteria. [makes face and disgusted noise]
People have the ball, and they like, they throw—they throw to hit a cup. Cups with beers inside. Yeah, they cannot do this; they are—everyone is a drunker here. They have no aims, no aims! They throw the ball—where's ball go? Not to cup! Ball is bounce, bounce, bounce—and then under the couches! With the dusties—dust and the, the spider corpses. And like old, old cornflakes! Yeah. The ball touch all of this!
And then they go reach— [mimics grabbing ball] "Oh, ahh, oh, we try again ha ha ha!" [mimics a lackluster throw] Mmwuuuuh. Bounce, bounce, bounce into the kitchens! With the cranberry juices on the floors—sticksy sticksy. And then the dog come— "Oh, look, rrow rrow, doggy. Rrow ball." [mimes licking ball] Lick, lick, lick. Bring back. Now the same ball—same ball! Nobody cleans the ball! Nobody clean it. Nobody's washing balls.
And then man take ball— "Oh, I try one more." [mimics a lackluster throw] Mmwuuuuh. [mimics throws] Lady. A man. Mmwuuuuh. Mmwuuuuh. Have you seen the hands of the people that are throwers? [makes face] Bleh. They go to eat chip. [mimics eating chips] Lick finger. Salsa. Lick finger. Oh, perhaps some chili! Lick finger, lick finger! Shake hands with other dirty person. [mimics grabbing ball] TOUCH BALL.
Oh, and then [mimics picking nose] in the nose. In the pants—let us make discover of adjusting in the pants! Ehhh wehhh. Lick finger, lick finger! TOUCH BALL. [makes a disgusted face] Everybody do it.
And then final, like forty-five minute later, one person—ball go bwooow bloop bloop. "It's in the beeeeer! Oh, so great! Now you must drink the beer with ball inside! It's beer pong! It's a fun game! Ha ha ha ha ha!" [makes face; long pause] What?
No, I will not drink this. This is not beer; this is—this is a liquid that has now touched the most dirty balls of all the universum. It is not beer; it is like DEATH JUICE. You drink it! I do not want it! I shall sit on the couches now at the party, watch the Seinfeld television, as everyone here make contraction of hepatitis because of dirty balls. [makes face] No. I will not play your game.
It's not beer pong. It's plague pong!
[makes face; turns off camera]
Photo of the Day
A blue Humphead Maori Wrasse throws some side-eye at scuba diver Henric Carlstrom in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. "Uhhh, this guy's a real human out of air."
[Caters News photo via. Here is some information on how to do environmentally conscious scuba diving, if you're interested.]
Seven Scenes with Doctors
[Content Note: Fat Hatred, Diet Talk, Doctor Indifference, Thoughts of Self-Harm]
[Much credit to Melissa McEwan for her excellent Seven Scenes, for a Reason and the format which inspired this post.]
Ana's Note: This spans a couple of years of events in my life, just to be clear.
Scene 1: Sitting my doctor's office, the doctor my parents had been bringing me to since childhood. I'm telling him that I don't feel well, that I'm frequently tired to the point where I can't do my job at work. I'm also nearly constantly cold, even in the warm Texas summer. I've been this way for months, and I think maybe there's something wrong with me. I've started having heart palpitations at night, and am wondering if I need an EKG.
He tells me that I need to lose weight and all this stuff will clear up. I tell him I'm already on a very restrictive diet. I show him my phone app, where I record all my food intake. Once I hit a set caloric intake per day, I don't eat any more for the day. But I don't fast, I assure him. I've gotten very good at stringing out my intake the way I'm supposed to. He doesn't notice that I started the diet a not-very-long time before my symptoms started. I don't notice it either. Diets don't make you sick, I think. Diets make you healthy. He doesn't notice that despite the fact that I'm doing everything right, everything I'm supposed to, I haven't lost more than two pounds in over six months. He doesn't tell me that those two pounds could (and probably are) normal weight fluctuations, even possibly dehydration in a particularly hot summer.
Daily Dose of Cute
Q: Could this dog be any cuter? A: No.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by winter flowers.
Recommended reading:
Imani: [Content Note: Racism; whitewashing] Paying Tribute to Nelson Mandela
David: Why Do They Hate Obamacare So Much? This Might Have Something to Do with It...
Sheila: [CN: Class warfare; food insecurity] Cutting Food Stamps Is Just Bad Policy
Jess: [CN: Clothes policing; misogyny; slut-shaming] How Accepting Leggings as Pants Made Me a Better Feminist
BYP: [CN: Racism; police harassment] Black Police Officer Racially Profiled, Falsely Arrested by White Cops While Off Duty
Andy: [CN: Homophobia] Judge Hears Challenge to Utah's Gay Marriage Ban; Will Rule Early Next Year
Sean: The Spark in the Park
Nick: Ballet Cat
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Vixen: "Edge of a Broken Heart"
This week's TMNS brought to you by Power Ladies of the '80s.
TV Corner: Scandal
[Content Note: Spoilers and violence will be discussed in the comment thread.]
Pretty much.
I'm not even going to attempt a recap of this episode, because I DON'T WANT TO RELIVE IT! OMG THIS EPISODE. So here is my executive summary: WHUT. No. Noooooooooo! HUCK WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! AHHHHHHHHH. FUCK ALL OF THIS. No. Nope. No. Absolutely not. Jake, please immediately remove everyone to a shimmering golden forest full of unicorns where everyone will be safe. CYRUS YOU ARE A DIRTBAG! Nooooooooooo. No. No. HELL NO. OMG. I can't even watch this. Holy shit. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. FUCK! Fuckity-fuck. WHUT.
Discuss.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
It's been one year since same-sex marriage became legal in Washington state, and now 1 out of 6 new marriages are between same-sex couples. In other news, society has not crumbled!
[Content Note: Racism; appropriation] Rick Santorum is the worst, so naturally he appeared on The O'Reilly Factor last night to "memorialize the passing of South African leader and global visionary Nelson Mandela by equating Obamacare with apartheid." Because of course he did.
[CN: Rape culture] Jameis Winston, the leading candidate to win the Heisman Trophy, will not be charged with sexual assault after rape allegations one year ago. Tallahassee state prosecutor Willie Meggs stressed that the decision was not driven "by any Heisman demands or football schedule," in case you were wondering whether Winston being cleared days before Heisman ballots are due was kinda fishy. Nope—just a big coincidence!
[CN: Racism; class warfare] The Federal Housing Finance Agency has threatened to take legal action against and/or deny credit to communities that try to use eminent domain to modify mortgages for underwater homeowners whose communities aren't experiencing the housing recovery beginning in other places. And, "because communities of color were especially targeted for predatory loans during the subprime boom," the FHFA is siding with the very predatory lenders who exploited these communities in the first place.
President Obama says he thinks both Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be "outstanding" presidents. Such a shocker! Why the hell would the media even ask the least confrontational president in US history to publicly pick sides? LOL. Never gonna happen. What a waste of air.
[CN: Eating; class warfare] The cost of eating fresh, unprocessed foods is about $2,000 more annually for an average family in a wealthy nation. Remember that next time some sanctimonious shit is going on about how healthful eating isn't a privilege and anyone can do it blah blah fart.
Photographer Shannon Johnstone saves the lives of unwanted dogs with her camera. Blub.
Plan Your Fat Hating Holiday Today!
[Content Note: Fat Hatred]
So I got this email from Amazon Local this week:
It's a "deal" notice for four different 1-week stays at "The Biggest Loser Resort" in Malibu, Niagara, Utah, and Chicago. All four stays are available for approximately $1,800 dollars, and the advertisement claims that this is a 40% savings from the usual price. And just to make things very clear to everyone, two of the locations are further named Fitness Ridge (Malibu) and Fitness Way (Utah).
There are times, like when I was writing this post earlier in the year, when I wonder why The Biggest Loser even exists. Are there really that many people who want to watch the terrible, truly terrible*, treatment of fat people on this show? And the existence of these "resorts" seems to indicate that there are not only people willing to watch this show, but that there are people willing to pay extremely good money to go to a place where they hope to be treated similarly -- or, more chillingly to me, where they hope the fat spouse / relative / friend they've brought with them to the resort will be treated similarly.
This is what breaks my heart about fat hatred in our society: that spending huge sums of money in the hopes of escaping the widespread prejudice against fat people is a thing that exists, and is a thing that is popular. And I understand why it is popular. If I could write the universe a check for $1,800 to avoid fat-shaming for the rest of my life and to receive better, non-fat-shaming healthcare, I would consider that a good deal. That makes me so sad, when I weigh the prejudice I experience as a fat person against a dollar amount I would spend for a Get Out Of Prejudice Free card.
And it makes me sad that vultures like The Biggest Loser (and really, I feel, the bulk of the for-profit diet industry) are happy to peddle that impossible dream to people desperate for some peace and quiet and decent health care.
* I noted this in my previous Biggest Loser post, but for people who have joined us since then, the show has a harmful history of deeply unhealthy behavior, such as encouraging contestants to become dangerously dehydrated in order to lose weight.
