I have mentioned previously that Matilda purrs like a fuzzy wee lawnmower. When she's upstairs napping, I can sometimes hear her all the way downstairs.
Yesterday, she was lying on my desk beside me, just purring away contentedly, so here is 30 seconds of Tils purring. In case you need a virtual cuddle with a happy cat.
[Content Note: Racism; misogyny.]
"I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt. People don't hold guilt for a woman."—The always terrific Rep. Michele Bachmann, on why people in the US "aren't ready" for a female president.
Because of course the only reason people voted for President Barack Obama is out of guilt.
Personally, I voted for President Barack Obama (twice) because he was a qualified candidate; because I was voting positively for someone other than a white man to inhabit the White House; because I support a number of his policies; and because he was neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney.
That's not a comprehensive list, but I can assure you that "guilt" is not on the list.
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: War on agency] The Iowa House has passed a bill banning telemedical abortion, which allowed "women to consult with doctors through video technology before being prescribed the abortion-inducing pill. It has been heralded as a safe and effective form of reproductive health care since its implementation five years ago, and allows women living in rural areas to obtain the medication without having to travel." So let's definitely ban it. Perfect.
[CN: Homophobia] The Arizona Senate has passed a bill "which would effectively allow businesses to deny services to LGBT people" under the auspices of "religious freedom." Fucking gross. There's no way this will pass constitutional muster.
[CN: Guns; police brutality] A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed by police in Georgia after he answered the door with a Wii remote in his hand, which the officer thought was a gun. Jesus Jones. I want to note, again, that our collective unwillingness to address our garbage gun policies is making police objectively less safe (as it is making all of us less safe), and surely there are individual officers whose fear about gun proliferation will inform an urge to use deadly force in situations where none is needed. That is not to absolve these officers of their crimes, not even a little bit, but to highlight yet another consequence of our failure to take action on guns. My point is not to make excuses for the officers, but to address what our communal responsibility is in having failed their victims.
[CN: Guns] Speaking of guns: "Rep. Jared Wright leaves loaded handgun in House committee room." The Republican Colorado state legislator says "he often carries a concealed handgun inside the Capitol" and: "I feel it's my duty to be a first responder wherever I am at. That's why I carry it." Good grief.
Astrophysicists have "made use of a high-energy X-ray observatory to perform an autopsy on a dead star," figuring out how stars explode into supernovas. Neat!
Sir Patrick Stewart has some fun on Twitter after the Guardian "outs" him. My favorite: "Well, @guardian it makes for a nice change...at least I didn't wake up to the internet telling me I was dead again." LOL.
The cast of the Fantastic Four reboot has been revealed, and they are: Jamie Bell, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Miles Teller. Are you excited for this casting? Y/N?
Finally: Here is a picture of Peter Dinklage on the cover of the latest issue of Esquire. You're welcome.
[Content Note: Guns; violence; police brutality; racism.]
In Bastrop County, Texas, Sheriff Deputy Daniel Willis killed Yvette Smith, a black woman, when she came to her door after officers were called regarding a fight near the residence:
Just after 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Bastrop County sheriffs were called to a home on Zimmerman Avenue. The caller said two men, who KVUE News has learned are father and son, were fighting over a gun.Naturally, I find it deeply suspicious that the sheriff's department originally claimed that Smith "had a gun and didn't follow the deputy's commands," thus blaming her for her own killing. This is an echo of the Jonathan Ferrell case, in which Ferrell, a black man, was tased and shot ten times and police claimed that he had acted "aggressively" and charged the officers, a claim that was later walked back. And these are hardly the only two cases which fit this same pattern.
When deputies arrived, one of the men was outside. The other was inside. Smith came to the door and was shot by 28-year-old Deputy Daniel Willis. She was taken to the hospital, where she died.
Initially, investigators said Smith had a gun and didn't follow the deputy's commands. Hours later, they retracted that statement saying they don't know if Smith had a gun.
The home owner and neighbors said she did not.
...No one with the sheriff's office would talk about the investigation. Willis started working with the department last May. He is on administrative leave pending the investigation.
[Content Note: White privilege; racism; transphobia; disablism.]
Two more cis white feminists have weighed in on how tough it is being a cis white feminist, in a world where Twitter exists and people who do not share our privileges may criticize us if we fuck up and be heard.
Julie Burchill: "Don't You Dare Tell Me to Check My Privilege." (Please note there is all sorts of TERF and racist rhetoric in this piece.)
Helen Lewis: "The Uses and Abuses of Intersectionality."
And once again, from Lewis' piece, here is the familiar implication that it's dangerous and terrifying for cis white feminists to even speak aloud their thoughts on being criticized by women of color and/or trans* women (and other marginalized groups of women):
So, here I am, underneath the bait, steadfastly not rising to it. But when I saw Burchill's piece, I realise that I thought: god, I had better not talk about this in public, or even acknowledge that I have read it. Then I thought: wait, what? In the last year or so, it feels like intersectionality has become a subject that it is too painful to talk about online, too mired in grievance and counter-grievance...This is like the commenter who prefaces a comment here with "I'm scared to say this, but..." or ends a comment with "ducks!"—playing into the narrative that feminists are violent, that feminists will harm you if you disagree with them. Except here it's privileged feminists, invoking the same sort of bullshit while talking about feminists who critique and/or criticize them.
But....(deep breath, I'm going in) this approach is not without its problems. Because people are not perfect, and they do not have unlimited time and resources.
When was the last time you congratulated yourself? For what? Was it just an internal celebration, or did you treat yourself in reward for a job well done?
[Content Note: Violence; racism.]
One of the jurors in the Michael Dunn trial has spoken out about why the jury was hopelessly deadlocked on the murder charge:
In an interview with ABC News, a juror identified only by her first name, Valerie, said three of her fellow jury members wanted to acquit Dunn of the first-degree murder charge.You could have had another option.
Initially, she said, two of her colleagues had believed Dunn's self-defence argument that Davis charged out of his car at him after being asked to turn the music down, with the defendant then taking his 9mm pistol from his glovebox and firing at the teenager.
That number rose to three, she added, during almost 30 hours of deliberations in which they scrutinised jury instructions containing an explanation of Florida's controversial stand-your-ground law, which states that a person has no duty to retreat from an attack.
"It said if he believed that he had an eminent threat to himself or his fiancee, so that was a thing that those two folks believed … [that] he was frightened and there was no other option for him in regards to Mr Davis," Valerie said.
"The rest of us were 100% sure [that] you didn't have to react, you could have had another option. We all believed there was another way, another option. Roll your window up, ignore the taunting, put your car in reverse, back up to the front of the store, move a parking spot over. That's my feeling."
She said it was clear during the first hour of deliberation that the jury of seven women and five men was deadlocked on the murder charge, and that their subsequent discussions sometimes degenerated into shouting and screaming. "At one point we were all trying to get our point across," she said.
"For me, the most feminist thing I could do for my body was begin to love it for exactly what it is, even though it wasn't 'healthy' according to a lot of people."—Amy McCarthy, in an article on the latest "is it feminist?" debate about waxing one's bikini line. (Spoiler Alert: Amy takes the radical position of supporting women to make their own individual choices.)
[Content Note: Abuse culture.]
Dear Jimmy Fallon:
Congratulations on your new gig hosting The Tonight Show.
I want to tell you that I think it's pretty neat that the host of The Tonight Show is someone in my cohort. You and I were born four months apart, in places and into families that don't seem totally dissimilar. I imagine we watched a lot of the same shows, went to see a lot of the same movies, listened to a lot of the same music, growing up in our respective homes. Like you, I used to ask to stay up to watch Johnny Carson's monologue, and I started sneaking downstairs to watch Saturday Night Live on the big TV in the basement when I was a little kid who was supposed to be in bed, getting plenty of sleep so I wouldn't be tired at Sunday School the next morning.
That the new host of The Tonight Show, truly a pop culture institution, has the same frame of pop culture references that I do, shares so many of the same sensibilities I do, is weirdly thrilling, in the same sort of way I felt weirdly thrilled when my high school friends became teachers at our high school.
It's a peculiar and wonderful sort of milestone of growing up, when someone your age, who gets the same jokes, who remembers pricing parachute pants at the mall, breaks into an institution as a peer. I imagine I'll have the same sort of feeling when someone about my age becomes president.
I also want to tell you that I've liked you for a very long time. When you were a cast member on Saturday Night Live, my favorite thing was when you'd break during a sketch. I had friends who complained about it—Keeping it together is part of the job! they'd moan—but I always loved it. When you'd break, so would I.
I enjoyed Late Night a lot. Sometimes, I'll be frank, I didn't like some of your jokes, which punched down instead of up. But you punched up more than down, way more than most late night hosts.
And you are so much more respectful to your female guests than other late night networks hosts. I love when you call women "pal." I love when you compliment women on a sexy magazine spread: "Ooh-la-la," you say, in a way that a younger brother who worships his older sister might. I love the way you gush over women's work, and the way you never, ever, suggest that women aren't as talented and as funny as men.
You've always struck me as a pretty nice guy. Everyone who works with you says you're a nice guy. I've watched the first two episodes of The Tonight Show, since you took over as host, and a big theme has been what a nice guy you are—how much you deserve it, because you're so nice.
Now let me tell you something about myself. I am a survivor of sexual violence. And I am an advocate for survivors, which means that I spend a lot of my time talking to other survivors, researching sexual violence, and writing about the rape culture.
It also means, because I do this publicly, that I get a lot of blowback from rape apologists. I get rape and death threats. I get nasty emails and tweets and comments. I am approached, often in hostile ways, by people who want to debate with me about sexual violence. Who want to blame victims. Who want to defend sex predators. Who want to tell me that rape is victims' fault, that my being raped was my fault.
Sometimes, at the end of my day, I am so emotionally spent, so drained, so sad. I have no energy for anything else besides plopping down on the couch and watching some TV, and I always look for something that's going to make me laugh.
The past two nights, I have tuned into The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, hoping to laugh.
On your premiere episode, you included Mike Tyson, a convicted rapist and confessed domestic abuser, in one of the comedy bits.
On your second episode, you featured a skit in which you and three other men did a barbershop quartet to an R. Kelly song. Do you know everything of which he's been accused? Or do you simply not care?
That bit followed a monologue in which you referred to Charlie Sheen as "my man." Your man's history of abuse against women extends back decades.
I wasn't laughing, Jimmy.
In the opening of your first show, you talked about your baby daughter, and how she is the best thing that ever happened to you. The woman raped by Mike Tyson was someone's daughter, too. So were the women he's beaten, the women and girls exploited and assaulted by R. Kelly, the women harmed by Charlie Sheen. They are someone's daughters. I am someone's daughter.
Lots of daughters, who are maybe the best things that ever happened to their fathers, have been hurt by the men whom you invited or honored on your show. Three of them, in the first two episodes.
You also talked about how it's your job to entertain people, to make them laugh. I will never understand why someone wants to be the guy who invokes rape in jokes, or overlooks a history of violence against women, in the guise of humor or entertainment.
Why do you want to be a guy who obliges a survivor, who tunes into your show for a laugh after a hard day, to ignore the specter of violent men who have repeatedly hurt women? Why do you want to be a guy who gives those men no professional consequences, who thus communicates to them that what they did doesn't matter?
If you really want to be a nice guy, Jimmy Fallon, then there can be no place for abusers on your show.
I urge you to be nice to survivors. Be our pal.
I want to be able to tune into your show and laugh, to see the nice guy you're supposed to be.
With high expectations,
Liss
One of Sophie's favorite pastimes is lying on her back, just beneath the railing in the loft, and slide back and forth and back and forth, interspersed with frisky bouts of dashing up and down the stairs. I've never been able to catch her in the act before, but I managed to get a little bit on video yesterday:
This blogaround brought to you by matzo balls.
Recommended Reading:
Prison Culture: [Content Note: Violence; racism; misogyny] "We Cannot Live Without Our Lives:" Musings on Marissa, Audre, and Protest
Pam: [CN: Violence; racism; disablism] On a Disturbingly Regular Basis...
Fat Discrimination: [CN: Fat hatred; harassment] Tell Me Again How It's "For My Own Good"
Danielle: [CN: Misogynoir; slut-shaming] The Good Black Girl Complex
Pam: [CN: Disablism] "But You Don't Look Sick"
Anna: [CN: Gender policing] FYI on the Facebook Pronouns
Flavia: [CN: Transphobia; eliminationism] Anti-Trans Feminism by a Prominent Feminist
Veronica: #365FeministSelfie—Day 50 & a Mini-Challenge!
Andy: American Idol's First Openly Gay Contestant MK Nobilette Stuns with Opening Performance
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Here is some stuff in the news today!
The CBO finds that raising the minimum wage would have "two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family's income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers who became jobless would fall substantially, and the share of low-wage workers who were employed would probably fall slightly."
Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute finds that "low-wage earners—wage-earners at the 20th percentile—have experienced wage erosion in nearly every state. Between 2009 and 2013, low-wage earners' wages declined in every state except three (West Virginia, Mississippi and North Dakota)." Underlining the need for increasing the federal minimum wage.
[Content Note: War on agency] Tara Culp-Ressler details "10 Dangerous Anti-Abortion Bills That Are Already Gaining Traction This Year."
[CN: Homophobia] Republican lawmakers are responding to the progress on legalized same-sex marriage across the country by introducing legislation that "would effectively allow for lawful discrimination against same-sex couples by businesses or government employees on religious grounds." In other words, they're claiming that homophobia is an expression of religious freedom.
America 2.0: "The Department of Homeland Security wants a private company to provide a national license-plate tracking system that would give the agency access to vast amounts of information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers, according to a government proposal that does not specify what privacy safeguards would be put in place. The national license-plate recognition database, which would draw data from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, would help catch fugitive illegal immigrants, according to a DHS solicitation. But the database could easily contain more than 1 billion records and could be shared with other law enforcement agencies, raising concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens who are under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized." Um.
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was arrested yesterday on charges of fomenting unrest. Lopez, who surrendered himself to military officers, hopes that his arrest "will galvanize street demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro, though there is no immediate sign the protests will topple the socialist leader."
Liberals like cats more than conservatives do. Well, that makes sense. It's a well-known fact that cats in boots refuse to pull themselves up the bootstraps.
[CN: Misogyny] Pharrell defends the "Blurred Lines" video: "Is it sexist when you walk around in a museum and a lot of the statues have their boobs out?" Case closed, your honor!
[Content Note: Revolution; violence; oppression. The below video contains images of violence.]
Since November 2013, ongoing protests known as the Euromaidan have been taking place in Ukraine, with protestors demanding an end to the Ukrainian dictatorship and closer integration with the European Union. This month, clashes between protestors and the government have steeply intensified, and yesterday at least 26 people were killed.
Right now, the international community (including the US) is not proposing intervention, but sanctions coupled with possible negotiations to broker some sort of compromise. I'm not sure what compromise can be found between oppression and freedom.
The pictures from Kiev are absolutely stunning. The uprising is intense.
This video, via Slade, made by the Maidaners, features a young female protestor explaining for what they're fighting:
I am a Ukrainian, the native of Kiev. And now I am on Maidan, on the central part of my city. I want you to know why thousands of people all over my country are on the streets. There is only one reason: We want to be free from a dictatorship.Text Onscreen: "Please contact your representatives and demand they support the Ukrainian people in their fight for freedom and democracy. Before it's too late. This video was made in early February 2014. Hopefully, thanks to you and the strong people of Ukraine, things will get better."
We want to be free from the politicians who work only for themselves, who are ready to shoot, to beat, to injure people, just for saving their money, just for saving their houses, just to saving their power.
I want these people who are here, who have dignity, who are brave, I want them to lead a normal life. We are civilized people, but our government are barbarians. That's not a soviet union. We want our courts not to be corrupted. We want to be free.
I know that maybe tomorrow we'll have no phone, no internet connection, and we will be alone here. And maybe police men will murder us, one after another, when it will be dark here.
That's why I ask you now to help us. We have this freedom inside our hearts. We have this freedom in our minds. And now I ask you to build this freedom in our country.
You can help us only by telling this story to your friends, only by sharing this video. Please share, share it. Speak to your friends, speak to your family, speak to your government, and show that you support us.
[Content Note: Misogyny; eating policing; fat bias.]
I saw this commercial last night. It's for repeat offender Taco Bell's "Loaded Grillers," and it is such a piece of shit:
A young thin white man and a young thinAh, the old "women won't eat—except for MY FOOD!" chestnut, staple of lazy misogynist stand-up comics everywhere.white* woman sit at a bar. The man is eating chicken wings, and the woman is eating a salad, eying the man's chicken wings. Guitar music.
The woman reaches for the plate of wings and grabs one and eats it hungrily, while the man gives her A Look. A male voiceover says: "To all the girlfriends out there who just wanted to try a chicken wing."
Cut to the same couple at a concert, where the woman grabs a nacho off a plate of nachos the man is holding. The man looks frustrated. "Who just wanted to try one of our nachos."
Cut to the same couple at a food truck, where the man is buying an order of fries. The woman grabs a handful of fries and shoves them in her mouth. The man looks sad. "And who said things like 'I'm fine!' when we're ordering chili cheese fries."
Cut to the couple sitting on a couch at a house party, watching a game on the TV. The man takes a bite of a Taco Bell Loaded Griller, which is basically a grilled burrito. The woman looks thwarted. "Sorry! But you're gonna have to get your own."
Cut to images of burritos. "Chili cheese fries and chipotle ranch chicken, grilled inside a tortilla so you don't have to share. Taco Bell's newest Loaded Grillers. Appetizers for just a buck."
[Content Note: War on agency; reproductive rights; anti-choice harassment.]
Not only are women who get abortions and help their daughters get abortions being arrested, but an abortion provider in Texas is the first casualty of the state's omnibus anti-abortion law.
Last week, the Texas Medical Board (TMB) temporarily suspended the license of a Houston abortion provider who failed to comply with a provision of the state's new omnibus anti-abortion bill that requires doctors who provide abortions to obtain admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles.This, too, is what it looks like when a nation allows a federal right to be chipped away in state legislatures, leaving women et. al. with the ostensible right to abortion but no meaningful access and legal vulnerability via a patchwork of arbitrary laws.
Dr. Theodore Herring has been practicing legal abortion in the state since 1974, but on November 1, 2013, the safe abortions Herring has provided for 40 years became illegal—in the TMB's terms, Herring's practice became a "threat to public welfare"—when the state began enforcing the admitting privileges provision of HB 2 following a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that put the law into place and shuttered one-third of Texas abortion providers.
According to a statement released by TMB, Herring "unlawfully performed 268 abortion procedures" between November 6, 2013, and February 7, 2014, without holding admitting privileges at a hospital that provides OB-GYN health-care services. Herring has a hospital "admitting arrangement" with two other physicians, but no admitting privileges himself.
When was the last time you made a new friend?
You are welcome to interpret that however you like, whether "friend" means what you imagine will turn into a lifelong bosom friendship, or a friendly stranger with whom you passed a half hour while waiting for a bus and will probably never see again.
