[Content Note: Rape culture; hostility to consent.]
Over on Twitter, I'm going all in on the principle of asking survivors' for their consent before republishing content about their sexual assaults, because I don't believe anything and everything public is "fair game." You can follow the conversation on Twitter, on in the scrollbar in the righthand sidebar here.
And feel free to dive in below in comments, of course.
Meanwhile, on Twitter...
Your Progressive Pope
[Content Note: Transphobia; Christian Supremacy; disablism and gender policing and rape culture at links.]
Via Eastsidekate comes the latest evidence that Pope Francis is not exactly the neato progressive that the media is keen to tell us he is:
As Christians celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family in Poland after Christmas, their parish priests read them a letter signed by all of the Catholic Bishops of the Nation entitled The Dangers Stemming From Gender Ideology. It is strong, clear and directive...From that translated article:
In a separate letter, Bishop Kazimierz Ryczan of Kielce,addressing the Catholics of Slovakia, was even more direct in his language and analysis. He referred to gender ideology as a "contemporary Herod" which seeks to destroy the family. In an article published just this week on Kath.net entitled Pope Francis: The gender ideology is demonic (which I only have a google translation of) Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg expressed similarly strong opposition. He noted that Pope Francis had called the gender identity movement demonic.
The gender ideology is present today, most especially in the so-called developed world, which is not obviously includes their reason."Gender ideology" is essentially shorthand for the existence of trans* people. Trans* people, by virtue of identifying themselves as trans*, are "demonic."
The core thesis of this reason ill-product is the end result of radical feminism, the meanwhile the homolobby has appropriated. It is claimed: There is not just husband and wife, but also other "gender".
And even more: Every person can choose to be sex itself. If someone says this 30 years ago, the environment would have laughed and thought, the idea came from a surrealist cabaret program.
...Pope Francis has said to my question: "The gender ideology is demonic!" Over the top? No... [G]ender is the destruction of the people, therefore it has Pope Francis rightly called demonic.
Insert all the mirthless jokes here about the Catholic leadership's fine understanding of radical feminism and transgender issues, that they imagine trans* acceptance is an extension of radical feminism. Whoooooops.
This, right here, is why I am pissed off with the garbage media narratives about how progressive and radical and super duper awesome Pope Francis is. He is the figurehead of one of the most powerful global institutions, which inexplicably retains its position as a moral authority, and he calls trans* people "demonic." That is not progressive. That is cruel and harmful and dangerous and indecent. It is explicitly dehumanizing. It is, per the Church's own position on demons, eliminationist.
Any chance the Advocate wants to walk back its Person of the Year award? No? Pretty cool with a dude who calls trans* people demonic? Sounds about right.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley looks out the window around the time Iain is expected home from work.
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
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
The theme from Jem and the Holograms
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Death; injury; destruction; images of disaster at link] The gas explosion which caused the collapse of two apartment buildings in Harlem yesterday killed at least seven people and injured more than 60. Search crews are still making their way through smoldering rubble, in the hopes of finding survivors or recovering bodies. It's a dangerous scene for the crews, as "debris continued to flare up at times as rescuers clawed through the rubble," and dangerous for local residents, because of the lingering dust and smoke polluting the air. I feel so desperately sad for everyone with ties to the neighborhood. My condolences to those who lost family, friends, or colleagues. I hope the survivors get the help and support they need.
[CN: Drunk driving; death; injury; images of scene at link] Two people were killed and 23 others injured by a drunk driver who careened into a crowd at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin. "Senior police officer Jermaine Kilgore told The Washington Post that the suspect drove through temporary barricades set up for the festival at 9th and Red River streets after a police officer attempted to make a traffic stop on the vehicle. The suspect then fled, going the wrong way on 9th Street, a one-way street, and drove into the crowd, striking several pedestrians and colliding with a moped and a taxi. After the suspect came to a stop, he attempted to flee on foot. He was eventually tased and taken into custody, Kilgore said." The driver will be charged with capital murder.
[CN: Airline diastser] There is still no definitive information about what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and every day brings new conflicting information, most of which is just discredited by the end of the day. The Wall Street Journal reports the plane flew on for hours after disappearing from radar, but Malaysian acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein disputes that report. Meanwhile, Chinese satellite photos show debris that could indicate a crash site, but some experts say that square floating debris would be unlikely. Basically, we're still no closer to answers about what happened.
[CN: Death; political unrest] Protests continue in Venezuela, where three more people have died in the violent clashes with security forces. The tension over restrictive policies of the current government has absolutely boiled over, and the leadership isn't listening. I have a family friend in Caracas, an older man, and he is essentially confined to his house because of the violence on the streets, which continues to escalate because of the not listening. (That sounds reductive, but it is also the essential problem.)
The FDA has recommended a that a test which detects the DNA of human papillomavirus, or HPV, be approved as a primary screening tool for detecting cervical cancer. "The Pap test, which is well entrenched and has been highly successful, will not go away quickly, if at all, however. Assuming the FDA itself agrees with its advisory committee and approves the new use of Roche's test, it would become just another option, not a replacement for the older testing regimens. And many doctors will not adopt the new test unless professional societies recommend it in guidelines, which could take years."
[CN: Transphobia] The Affordable Care Act has increased insurance access for transgender USians, but there are still vagueries and loopholes that leave room for discrimination and insufficient coverage.
[CN: Racism] Former Republican Vice Presidential nominee and current Republican Congressman Paul Ryan is now defending his thinly veiled racism against black men ("We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with"), and this shit is just incredible: "This has nothing to do whatsoever with race. It never even occurred to me. This has nothing to do with race whatsoever." First of all: Bullshit. Second of all: Even if it were true that "it never even occurred to" Ryan that his words were racially loaded, the ignorance of that evident context is itself racist. This fucking guy!
FUCK!
The Truth about Buffer Zones and the Harassers Who Hate Them
by Shaker SuzanneF, who blogs at Culturally Disoriented.
[Content Note: War on agency; harassment; intimidation; hostility to consent; reproductive coercion; violent imagery; racism; heterosexist and cissexist language; ableism.]
Sometime this summer, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of buffer zones around abortion clinics. Buffer zones keep protesters out of the immediate vicinity of the clinic, and allow patients and staff to safely access clinics. Many of them are fairly small—15 to 30 feet wide.
Opponents of buffer zones claim that they infringe on free speech: If people want to talk to the clients of abortion clinics, if they want to protest the operations of the clinic, it is their constitutional right to do so. The figurehead of this opposition is Ellen McCullen, a charming grandmother of four who claims she just wants to "walk and talk gently, lovingly," with clinic clients.
The New York Times, the Associated Press and NPR have all allowed this narrative to stand unexamined. In refusing to report objectively on the conditions outside abortion clinics, the media reinforces the idea that anti-abortion protesters are eminently reasonable, while pro-choicers are overly sensitive bullies who want to stop loving grandmothers from having polite conversations with clinic patients.
But this image—of protesters respectfully engaging with clients—is nothing like the reality I see every week in front of my local abortion clinic.
I am Ellen McCullen's counterpart: A clinic escort.
Every Saturday, I wake up at five in the morning, bundle up in warm clothes, and take a forty-minute subway ride to a NYC reproductive health clinic.
Once I arrive inside the clinic, I put a white lab coat over my coat, pin a "clinic escort" button on my scarf, and go back outside to join my fellow escorts. We spread out to cover the sidewalk. Most protesters know me by now; as I walk by them, they demand to know how I can kill babies with a smile on my face.
The protesters only come on Saturdays. Most are from the same Brooklyn-based church, led by an aggressive pastor with a penchant for sarcasm. Usually, we see about 15-20 of them, but we've dealt with as many as fifty. The past few weeks, we've had between 30 and 45. The protesters always come in two waves: One around 7am, and one around 9am.
This doesn't mean we have seven protesters from 7 to 9 and seven from 9 to 11, by the way. It means they have two waves of 15. Escorts stay the whole time—we simply don't have the manpower to organize different shifts. Usually, there are about eight of us. On good days, we'll double that. On bad days, there might only be five of us.
My job for the next four hours is to get patients into the clinic with as little harassment as possible. If anti-choicers like Ellen McCullen are to be believed, this should be an easy task.
Sounds Legit
[Content Note: War on agency; violence.]
Former Arkansas governor, failed presidential candidate, and all-around garbage-making machine Mike Huckabee attended a gala last night sponsored by the anti-choice group Susan B. Anthony List, and he made a compelling case for why abortion should be illegal:
[Huckabee] said women typically cite hardship or inconvenience as their reason for getting an abortion — the same reasons that he said could be used to justify ending the lives of the elderly.I guess I shouldn't find it too surprising that the man who evidently believes men and women are different species can't tell the difference between a fetus and a living, breathing, fully formed human person, either.
"If we teach the generation coming after us that it's okay to terminate a human life because it represents a financial hardship or social disruption, what are we telling them?" Huckabee asked.
"We've already given them the full capability to take us out," he said, prompting laughter from his audience as he continued, "Now, I'm not going to make it that easy for my children to get rid of me."
Question of the Day
What erroneous assumption do people most frequently make about you?
An assumption that has dogged me for as long as I can remember in real life is the supposition that I'm aloof or arrogant, because I can be extremely shy.
If I were a dude, I'd be mysterious. But because I'm a woman, I'm a bitch.
[Originally run May 12, 2010.]
They Will Literally Rescue You Right Back
Who's such a good boy? YOU ARE!
All the blubs foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr:
A puppy named Hunter, who was adopted from the Michigan Humane Society at Petco in Sterling Heights, is credited with saving the lives of his new family members.♥ ♥ ♥
How did he do it? The 3-month-old Husky mix alerted them to a gas leak in the middle of the night, [nearly six hours after a burner was inadvertently left on after dinner]. ...Hunter, who was adopted just two weeks earlier, woke his adoptive mom, Jill McLarty, around midnight on Wednesday, March 5, by whining nonstop, MHS staffers said.
"Thinking that Hunter needed to go outside, Jill let him out," MHS said in a press release, adding, "She was surprised that Hunter simply sat outside and continued to whine."
McLarty let him back in and brought the pup back into the bedroom, where she and her husband were sleeping. Hunter wouldn't stop whining and eventually began running in circles in the hallway before leading his "mom" into the kitchen.
"When she turned the light on, she saw Hunter sitting next to the stove, and noticed that one of the gas stove burners was on low, without a flame, causing gas to leak into the house," MHS staffers said in the release.
..."He is the first dog we ever adopted (from MHS) and I would recommend it to anybody," said Tim McLarty, Jill's husband. "And as cliché as it sounds, the life you save may save yours."
[Via Shelter Pet Project.]
Glenn Ford Is Free
[Content Note: Wrongful conviction; racism.]
Glenn Ford, who has spent 30 of his 64 years on death row in Angola Prison for a crime he did not commit, is now free:
Ford was released on the order of a judge in Shreveport after Louisiana state prosecutors indicated they could no longer stand by his conviction. In late 2013 the state notified Ford's lawyers that a confidential informant had come forward with new information implicating another man who had been among four co-defendants originally charged in the case.I just don't even know what to say besides this: The death penalty should be abolished. Period.
He was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder the previous November of Isadore Rozeman, an older white man who ran a Shreveport jewellery and watch repair shop. The defendant had worked as an odd jobs man for Rozeman. In interviews with police Ford said that he had been asked to pawn a .38 revolver and some jewellery similar to that taken from Rozeman's shop at the time of the murder by another man who was among the initial suspects.
Asked as he walked away from the prison gates about his release, Ford told WAFB-TV, "It feels good; my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good."
Ford said he did harbour some resentment at being wrongly jailed: "Yeah, cause I've been locked up almot 30 years for something I didn't do. I can't go back and do anything I should have been doing when I was 35, 38, 40 stuff like that."
...Ford's conviction bears all the hallmarks of the glaring inconsistencies and inadequacies of the US justice system that are repeatedly found in cases of exoneration. ...An African American, Ford was sentenced to death by a jury that had been carefully selected by prosecutors to be exclusively white.
His legal representation at trial was woefully inexperienced. The lead defence counsel was a specialist in the law relating to oil and gas exploration and had never tried a case in front of a jury; the second attorney was two years out of law school and working at the time of the trial on small automobile accident insurance cases.
At the trial the state was unable to call any eyewitnesses to the crime, nor was it able to produce a murder weapon. Instead Ford was convicted largely on the testimony of a witness who was not a detached observer – she was the girlfriend of another man initially suspected of the murder.
Under cross-examination the witness, Marvella Brown, admitted in front of the jury that she had given false testimony. "I did lie to the court… I lied about it all," she said.
In another classic element frequently found in exoneration cases, cod science provided by "expert" witnesses also helped to put Ford on death row. One such expert testified that the evidence pointed to the defendant because he was left-handed; another expert told the jury that particles of gunshot residue had been found on his hand; and a third talked about fingerprint evidence implicating him.
The testimony from all three expert witnesses was later shown to have been at best inconclusive, at worst wrong.
...Ford becomes the 144th death row inmate to be exonerated over the past four decades, underlining the perils of innocent people being sent to their deaths in America's capital punishment system.
Mr. Ford, I'm glad you are free.
Quote of the Day
"All I can tell is you is Abe Lincoln would not have done it."—Professional Genius Bill O'Reilly, on President Barack Obama's much talked-about appearance on the Funny or Die web series "Between Two Ferns."
No shit he wouldn't have. Because President Abraham Lincoln lived and died about eleventy million years before the internet was even invented by Al Gore.
I know, I know—O'Reilly meant that President Lincoln was too dignified to have used an extremely popular medium in order to promote a national initiative.
But President Lincoln grew a beard because a little girl told him he'd look better with one, so maybe we shouldn't jump to any conclusions about whether ol' Abe might have considered jerking around with Zach Galifianakis for some easy PR.
[Via Mediaite.]
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by snow SO MUCH SNOW OMG THE SNOOOOOOOOOOOW.
Recommended Reading:
Ana: [Content Note: Rape culture; classism] Feminism: Trigger Warnings of the 1860s
David: On the Billionaire Lawsuit to Destroy Teachers Unions
Chio: [CN: White supremacy; worker exploitation; anxiety] Stop the Glorification of Busy
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Death; exploitation] Horror Movie Script Based on Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam
Jeremy: [CN: Homophobia; gender essentialism] What the Hell Is Going on in ADF's Confusing New Attempt at a Meme?
Betsy: [CN: Sexual assault] Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Totally Fails on the Concept of Sexual Consent
CeCe: My Plus Size Nautical Look Book: One Sweater, Three Ways
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
And that is all Matilda has to say about THAT.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Today In GOP WTF: Huckabee Edition
[Content Note: misogyny, racism, anti-agency.]
Via Think Progress comes this amazing quote from an interview with New Republic. Read on for special gender insights from former Arkansas governor, failed presidential candidate, and all-around garbage-making machine Mike Huckabee:
“I’ve twice run against women opponents, and it’s a very different kind of approach,” he tells me. Different how? “For those of us who have some chivalry left, there’s a level of respect. ... You treat some things as a special treasure; you treat other things as common.” A male opponent is “common,” a woman requires “a sense of pedestal.”“I’ll put it this way,” Huckabee says. “I treat my wife very differently than I treat my chums and my pals. I wouldn’t worry about calling them on Valentine’s Day, opening the door for them, or making sure they were OK.”
LOLOMGWTF.
You may recall that Huckabee was recently in the news attacking advocates of low-cost birth control for allegedly making women think "they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government.”
But hey, he calls on Valentine's Day and puts all the gal-type politicans on pedestals! What more do those ungrateful special-treasures WANT?!!!
Or, as Melissa put it to me: IT CONTINUES TO BE A MYSTERY WHY REPUBLICANS AREN'T CONNECTING WITH THE LADIES!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Explosion; injury; death. Video may begin to play automatically at link.] A massive explosion has caused a building collapse in East Harlem, as well as a major fire which hundreds of firefighters are working to extinguish. There are conflicting reports at the moment regarding injuries, but it looks like at least a dozen people have been injured, and an anonymous NYPD detective has said one person died. That is still preliminary information, and it may change as the accident site comes under control. (Which is to say nothing of the extensive damage to surrounding businesses that will affect people's livelihoods.) The cause of the explosion is thought to be a gas leak.
[CN: Airline disaster] The search continues for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: "More than 27,000 square nautical miles of sea are being searched in an 'unprecedented' 12-nation effort, officials said Wednesday as the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet entered its fifth day. ...Forty-two ships and 39 aircraft are searching two areas of water—one in the South China Sea, the other in the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters. The search zone is about 35,000 square miles—or almost the size of Indiana. 'We will never give up hope' of finding the missing Boeing 777, he said."
[CN: Sexual assault] A few days after blocking Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act, the US Senate has instead approved a competing bipartisan bill authored by Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Deb Fischer (R-NE), which "will eliminate the 'good soldier defense' in trials, meaning accused soldiers cannot use evidence of good military character and performance to question an accusation unless it is directly relevant to the crime. The bill will give accusers more power to choose whether their cases go through the military or the civilian system, allow victims to challenge their discharge from the military, increase the accountability of commanders, and extend the changes to service academies. In a case where a prosecutor wants to move forward with a case but a commander does not, the civilian service secretary would have the final say." That all sounds good, but there were key differences between the two bills, and Gillibrand's proposal was a much more meaningful proposal to change the culture of sexual violence in the US military. So no wonder it was blocked. Ahem.
President Obama is seeking "to force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated. ...The proposed new regulations would increase the number of people who qualify for overtime and continue Mr. Obama's fight against what he says is a crisis of economic inequality in the country. Changes to the regulations will be subject to public comment before final approval by the Labor Department, and it is possible that strong opposition could cause Mr. Obama to scale back his proposal." As Atrios notes: "The 'strong opposition' will come from the people who brought you decades of stagnant wages." So maybe IGNORE THEM? Just an idea!
This is the third snowiest Chicago winter on record. And there's still more of it to come!
[CN: Racism] Former Republican Vice Presidential nominee and current Republican Congressman Paul Ryan is a fucking racist. Very specifically, he has an ongoing problem with black people, about whom he speaks with contempt in thinly veiled language. He's gross, his party is gross, and fuck him.
[CN: Misogyny; domestic violence] They seem nice: A Republican state lawmaker on Monday made a sexually explicit comment about victims of domestic violence while defending another Republican state lawmaker who claimed some people 'like being in abusive relationships.' In February of last year, New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Warden commented during a hearing on a measure that would have impacted the state’s domestic violence laws that, 'Some people could make the argument that a lot of people like being in abusive relationships.' Warden's comment was denounced by the New Hampshire GOP, which prompted fellow Republican state Rep. Kyle Tasker to jump to his defense on Facebook. In order to 'defend' Warden, Tasker posted an image of two figures meant to be engaging in oral sex with the caption, '50,000 battered women and I still eat mine plain.' Taster added the note, 'This one's for you Mark Warden.'" They're gross, their party is gross, and fuck them.
The Nets will reportedly sign Jason Collins for the remainder of the season, following two 10-day contracts. Yay! (Dear ESPN: The WNBA exists and has out female players. Love, Liss.)
Kristian Nairn, the actor who plays Hodor on Game of Thrones, publicly discloses that he is gay in the greatest way: "Well, in all honesty, when you talk about 'the gay community,' you are talking about MY community, haha. ...I've never hidden my sexuality from anyone, my whole life in fact, and I've been waiting for someone to ask about it in an interview, cos it's not something you just blurt out. I've tried to lead the questions a few times, to no avail!" Awesome. Totally awesome.
Predators Prey
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Washington have confirmed what anti-rape advocates have been observing for a very long time: Sexual harassment, assault, and violence are not a matter of a "misunderstanding" or "miscommunication." Predators prey:
Young women are often the targets of aggression when they're out in bars, but the problem isn't that guys are too drunk to know better.That, certainly—but also, as I've observed before, no one is more intimately familiar with the rape culture, and how to exploit it to his advantage, than a rapist. Anyone who imagines that predators aren't well aware of victim-blaming narratives that undercut survivors' credibility with shit like, "She was drunk; she was asking for it; she consented but can't remember and now regrets it," etc., is fooling themselves.
Instead, men are preying on women who have had too much to drink.
...The researchers hired and trained 140 young adults to go into bars in the Toronto area and note every incident of aggression they saw. They found that 25 percent of all incidents involved sexual aggression. And 90 percent of the victims of sexual aggression were women being harassed by men.
Almost all of the aggression was physical, with about two-thirds of the aggressors physically touching women without consent. About 17 percent threatened contact. And 9 percent verbally harassed their targets.
Men may perceive intoxicated women either as more amenable to advances or as easier targets who are less able to rebuff them because they don't have their wits about them, the researchers say.
Just yesterday, I read this piece at CNN by David Perry in which he documents a number of cases in which judges reduced rapists' sentences, or ordered new trials, based on how the victim behaved during and/or after the assault. Victim-blaming around intoxicated victims is pervasive, and the difficulty of prosecuting cases in which victims were intoxicated is notoriously difficult as a result—and even securing a conviction is no guarantee of meaningful consequences when there are judges who will side against intoxicated victims.
Predators know who makes good victims, both in terms of victimizing them in the first place and subsequently getting away with it.
The researchers also wanted to look into whether unwanted sexual advances were intentional or just a matter of misperception. This study points to the former, Graham says.No. No they are not.
"If you walk through a bar and grab a woman's breasts and then disappear into the crowd, that's probably not a misunderstanding," she says. "You don't actually think that she wants you to do that."
...[T]he takeaway, [Kate Graham, the study's lead researcher and a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto] says, is that "people should stop believing that [Robin Thicke] song. The lines really aren't that blurred."
[Via Amanda Levitt.]
Yup
So, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is deeply unthrilled that the CIA was allegedly snooping on the US Senate. Feinstein says she has "grave concerns that the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the US Constitution."
And while I share her "grave concerns" about surveillance overreach, I am laughing all kinds of mirthless laughter over here, because, as I said earlier this month: "Oh, so now that it's them being surveilled, they give a shit."
Which is pretty much the exact same thing whistleblower Edward Snowden said yesterday:
"It's clear the CIA was trying to play 'keep away' with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that's a serious constitutional concern," Snowden said in a statement to NBC News. "But it's equally if not more concerning that we're seeing another 'Merkel Effect,' where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it's a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them."BOOM.
Suddenly it's a scandal when the same thing happens to them. That pretty much sums it up.
It would be terrific if this "grave concern" about unconstitutional searching in the Senate would make Feinstein & Co. more concerned about the privacy violations being made against the general public, but that is not going to happen. The people who were elected to represent our interests aren't concerned with advocating for us; they're concerned with protecting themselves against us.
Which is only one of many reasons why the US government is profoundly broken.
AHHHHHHHHH
Last night, when I went to bed, nearly all of the several feet of snow which had accumulated over the past months had finally melted. This morning, I woke up to this:
That is just demoralizing. This winter is the wooooooooorst.
