Queen & David Bowie: "Under Pressure (Classic Queen Mix)"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by David Bowie,
possibly the coolest human being on the planet.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Queen & David Bowie: "Under Pressure (Classic Queen Mix)"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by David Bowie,
possibly the coolest human being on the planet.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
A judge has struck down as unconstitutional Arkansas' voter ID law. Good.
[Content Note: Racism] Not good: A federal judge in Atlanta has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Teresa Ann Culpepper against Atlanta police and Fulton County officials after she was wrongfully arrested and held in jail for 53 days, "because she had the same first name as another woman wanted by authorities in an aggravated assault case." Even though, at the time of her arrest, Culpepper, a black woman, "provided officers with her driver's license that showed she did not have the same name and was not the same age as the real suspect" and showed that she "did not have a gold tooth that police were told the real suspect had," Culpepper was taken in custody, charged, and was only "cleared of the felony charges weeks later when the victim in the case saw Culpepper in court and said she was not the person who committed the crime—yet Culpepper was returned to jail and remained there for several more days before being released." Just a big misunderstanding, apparently, as a result of which none of the authorities must face consequences. Bullshit.
[CN: Guns; violence; police brutality; racism] Explicitly being called a "misunderstanding" by police is the shooting of Philippe Holland, a 20-year-old black man who was delivering pizzas when he was stopped by plainclothes police. Deputy Police Commissioner Richard Ross says: "As I understand it, they asked the male to stop. The male, in quick fashion, got in his car and he drove at a high rate of speed towards the officers. The officers then discharged out of fear for their lives. ...We are getting information that he is a pizza deliveryman, so it is a possibility he may have thought he was being robbed. We do know the police officers announced themselves as police officers; he may not have heard that. Again, what I stress is this is all preliminary at this point. It may just be an unfortunate set of circumstances all the way around." Holland is in critical condition. You may note that the police version of events sounds a lot like other stories we've discussed in this space, the contentions that Holland "drove at a high rate of speed toward the officers" and that the officers "feared for their lives." What's missing from this account, also familiarly, is any justification for why police were approaching Holland in the first place.
[CN: Police harassment; sex work shaming] In Louisiana, the House is considering legislation that would ban panhandling and solicitation, and the Democratic legislator who introduced it is unapologetic about his intent to empower police to harass sex workers: "New Orleans lawmaker Rep. Austin Badon said his legislation could cut down on the number residents begging motorists for money, but he proposed the bill for another reason. Badon said House Bill 1158, which prohibits solicitation, was answer to a call by law enforcement groups to help them crack down on prostitution. 'They needed something to be able to stop (prostitutes), question them and find out what they're doing,' said Badon... The legislation would allow for prostitutes to be 'hassled by the cops,' he said, likely prompting them to move on to another place or another state." Jesus Jones.
[CN: War on agency] This is what happens when you restrict access to abortion. Spoiler Alert: It doesn't stop abortions.
[CN: Rape culture] Fucking hell: "Penn State removed an iconic statue of late coach Joe Paterno from outside Beaver Stadium in 2012. Now State College residents are planning a new statue to honor the former Nittany Lions coach." Of course they are.
Baby zonkey. I repeat: Baby zonkey.
234 Girls
[Content Note: Terrorism; abduction; violence.]
On April 14, there was a major terrorist attack on a Nigerian bus station, killing 75 people and injuring many more. The jihadist organization Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bombing, and, later that same day, Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, abducted 234 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.
The girls are still missing.
And as the search for them continues, Boko Haram are threatening "to kill the abducted students, should the search to recover them continue."
At the Guardian, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani describes the mood in Nigeria:
More than a week since they disappeared, the girls' whereabouts are still unknown. About 44 escaped by jumping from the back of trucks used to ferry them away or by sneaking out of the kidnappers' camp deep inside the Sambisa forest. This latest tragedy has dominated national conversation and consumed columns in our newspapers. At Christian and Muslim gatherings prayers have been offered for the girls' safety.The international media has not given the attention to this story that it deserves and needs, the kind of attention that creates pressure to make things happen and get questions answered.
In the days since they went missing, almost every friend or colleague I have spoken to on the phone has devoted the first minutes of our chat to expressing their horror at the abduction. Despite what one would imagine is the bottomless capacity of Nigerians to absorb catastrophe – what with the series of carnages that have steadily erupted in the country over the past year, at least – people here seem particularly affected.
Perhaps it is the audacity with which the crime was perpetrated, the innocence of the victims, or horror at what the children might be going through wherever they might be – Boko Haram has abducted women and girls in the past to serve as sex slaves and chars.
The Nigerian military interrupted the national mood of grief when its spokesperson announced two days after the incident that the missing girls had been rescued. But national jubilation quickly deflated when the school's principal and the students' parents revealed the story to be false. Now our collective horror at the abductions is almost equaled by our revulsion at the military's brazen deceit. What on earth could they have been thinking?
Additional claims by some of the parents have led to more criticism of the military. Fathers and mothers, who in desperation marched into the Sambisa forest to search for their missing daughters, say they saw no trace of military presence in the area; no sign of any search and rescue operation. Some of these parents have now hired motorcycles to help their search.
Beyond grief, many Nigerians are also bewildered by the abductions. How many trucks were required to transfer well in excess of 200 girls? Was the convoy not spotted by anyone as it left the school? Were there no security agents along the route?
Right now, it's crucial to amplify this story, to actively care about the missing girls. It is the best thing we can do in the hope that they will be found and make their way home. Share this story; talk about what's happening; if you're on Twitter, follow and participate in the hashtags #helpthegirls and #bringbackourdaughters.
UPDATE: Here is a petition to "bring this situation to the notice of the UN, UNWomen, UNIFEM, and other international organization that can put significant pressure on the Nigerian Government. These 234 girls need to be found and returned to the safety of their families and homes."
Parks & Rec: WHUT.
[Content Note: Bullying. Spoilers for last night's season finale of Parks & Rec.]
Even though I'm not regularly recapping Parks & Rec anymore, I thought that we might want a thread to discuss last night's really weird season finale. Which felt like a series finale, but was not. Because there's at least one more season.
So here's a thread to talk about it. And here is an interview [CN: disablist language] with the show's executive producer Michael Schur, which answers a lot of questions about the episode and the show's future.
The only thing I will note here (though I'll join the discussion in comments) is that my eyes nearly rolled right out of my fucking head when I heard Gary (aka Jerry) (aka Larry) being called Terry in the future. Jesus Jones.
Have at it!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker jenjay: "What word have you picked up recently, intentionally or unintentionally, that you find yourself using a lot?"
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Blah blah republicans blah blah women blah blah misogyny blah blah fart:
"Men, by and large, make more because of some of the things they do," [New Hampshire] state Rep. Will Infantine (R) said during a speech on a paycheck fairness bill. "Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don't mind working nights and weekends. They don't mind working overtime or outdoors."Provided Infantine's stats are actually accurate, and I've no idea whether they are, it's specious to suggest that women (all of us! the whole monolith!) object to working nights and weekends, as opposed to not being able to, either because we're not given the opportunities or because we are primary child- or eldercare providers or a number of other reasons.
Infantine's colleagues protested almost immediately, to which he responded that he pulled all of his information from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
"This is not me," he said before continuing to explain why women make less.
"Men work on average more than six hours a week longer than women do," he said, adding that even among business owners, women earn less. "Women make half of what men do because of flexibility of work, men are more motivated by money than women are."
At the end of his speech, Infantine defended himself one last time.
"Guys, I'm not making this stuff up," he said. "My apologies if I have some people upset."
Many men are able to work more hours than women because they have wives or mothers or girlfriends who are providing the childcare and housekeeping and food preparation (for many more than six hours a week), whereas a majority of working women don't have a partner or family member who does as much or more family and home maintenance as they do.
The same is true whether women are employees, self-employed, or business owners.
That ain't about being "motivated by money." It's about necessity.
Which is not to erase the number of women who are, for whatever reason, not keen to work as much as they could possibly work and have other priorities. Those women certainly exist. But their choices to opt-out of MAXIMUM WORKITUDE do not account for the pay gap.
This Is So Weird
Mount Baldy is the largest "living" dune at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, at about 125 feet tall. It has, for decades, been a major attraction of the national park, but, in recent years, it's started moving inland at an increased pace and has developed inexplicable holes.
Officials at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore announced Thursday that scientists still do not know what caused holes to appear in Mount Baldy last summer, and the popular attraction will remain closed for further study.What's causing the holes?!
Nathan Woessner, 6, of Sterling, Ill., was swallowed up by a hole on July 12, 2013, and rescued by firefighters.
Two additional holes have appeared since last July, park officials said on Thursday.
Ground penetrating radar studies performed by the Environmental Protection Agency have identified a large number of anomalies below the dune's surface, but scientists from the National Park Service, Indiana University and the Indiana Geological Survey still do not know how these holes were formed.
...The two additional holes and a number of depressions have been found since July. Officials said report that the holes are short-lived, remaining open for less than 24 hours before collapsing and filling in naturally with surrounding sand.
Officials at the National Lakeshore on Thursday announced more testing will be conducting this summer, which will include mapping of openings and depressions, and studies that will allow scientists to develop a better understanding of the overall internal architecture of the dune.
There is a theory that it's a lack of sufficient dune grass and erosion caused by people who veer off the designated path, but I'm guessing that's not the whole story. I'm eager, and a little fearful, to see what they find.
Not that I think it's, you know, a dune monster or something. I rather suspect it's something altogether more mundane and more terrifying, like an unexpected effect of climate change.
Numbers of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
67%: The percentage of male US respondents ages 8-18 in the Junior Achievement USA®'s annual Teens & Personal Finance Survey who said they get an allowance from their parents.
59% The percentage of female US respondents ages 8-18 in the Junior Achievement USA®'s annual Teens & Personal Finance Survey who said they get an allowance from their parents.
You might be thinking that's because boys are given more chores, but you would be wrong:
One study found that girls do two more hours of housework a week than boys, while boys spend twice as much time playing. The same study confirmed that boys are still more likely to get paid for what they do: they are 15 percent more likely to get an allowance for doing chores than girls. A 2009 survey of children ages 5 to 12 found that far more girls are assigned chores than boys. A study in Europe also found fewer boys contribute to work around the house.Welp.
And it's not just that boys are more likely to be paid by their parents, but they also get more money. One study found that boys spent just 2.1 hours a week on chores and made $48 on average, while girls put in 2.7 hours to make $45. A British study found that boys get paid 15 percent more than girls for the same chores.
Maya has some thoughts on "Why the Gender Gap in Children's Allowances Matters."
Here Is Just a Great Video of President Obama Getting Creeped Out by a Soccer-Playing Robot
President Obama is on an official state visit to Japan, where he visited the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Toyko. There, he was treated to a demonstration of ASIMO, Honda's humanoid robot, who said hello and kicked a soccer ball. Afterward, the President said: "I have to say that the robots were a little scary; they were too lifelike. They were amazing." I can't say I blame him. Traveling through the Uncanny Valley to the Singularity was probably not on his travel itinerary.
President Obama walks into the museum, and shakes hands with and says hello to a Japanese man and a Japanese woman who are waiting to greet him.
Cut to video of the small white robot running quickly across the demonstration floor. Offscreen, President Obama can be heard exclaiming, "Oh! Wow! He's movin'!"
Cut to video of the President smiling while the robot tells him, "I can kick a soccer ball, too."
"Okay, come on," says the President. The robot aligns itself with a grey soccer ball in the middle of the demonstration floor. "Watch carefully, please," says one of the President's male Japanese chaperones, offscreen.
"Yeah, I'm watching," says the President.
"Real, real fast," says the chaperone.
"It's gonna be pretty hard, huh?" says the President, as the robot backs up and prepares to kick the ball. "If it hits me, it'll be terrible!" says the President, to laughter. "Okay, come on, I'm ready."
"Here I go," says the robot, then runs toward the ball and kicks it toward the President, who quickly blocks it.
"Hey, good job!" says the President. "Excellent!"
Cut to footage of the robot jumping up and down, then hopping on one foot. President Obama watches and gives a little laugh. The robot says, "I'm in training every day, so that someday in the future I can help people..." The video ends.
I Get Letters
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
I just received a missive addressed to "Mrs. McEuwan" (close) which contained the following observation and helpful inquiry:
I have noticed that you write a lot about the negative consequences you experience as a result of being overweight. Have you ever considered that many of these negative experiences would be alleviated if you just lost weight?LOL FOR FUCKING EVER AND EVER.
My absolute favorite thing about this is that Amy McCarthy and I fat-troll each other on Twitter and Facebook all the time, just to amuse each other, and this email is literally indistinguishable from the fake fat-trolling that Amy and I do to mock anti-fat trollery.
The thing is: People are actually serious about this. They seriously suggest losing weight, and all the various ways that we fatties could totally definitely for sure lose weight if only we tried them—"Have you tried kale and yogurt smoothies?"—as the most logical alternative to fat harassment.
The possibility that maybe people could just stop harassing fat people never even enters their minds as a viable option.
It seems more reasonable to suggest that I try to make my body do something it's never going to do without killing me than to suggest that maybe the people who hate and police my body could simply shut the fuck up.
This is what I mean when I say there is an eliminationist campaign against fat people in this culture. People think it's more reasonable for us to die than to expect fat haters to keep their thoughts to themselves.
And, naturally, no one should have to be thin, even if they can be, in order to not be harassed and shamed. We don't owe anyone thinness, in exchange for basic human decency.
[Twitter exchange posted with the permission of Amy E. McCarthy, Supreme Troll Queen.]
Daily Dose of Cute
"What? I'm people!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Throwback Thursdays
Me, at 18 months old, on New Year's Day 1976, with my grandmother and grandfather at their home in Queens, NYC.
[Please share your own throwback pix in comments. Just make sure the pix are just of you and/or you have consent to post from other living people in the pic. And please note that they don't have to be pictures from childhood, especially since childhood pix might be difficult for people who come from abusive backgrounds or have transitioned or lots of other reasons. It can be a picture from last week, if that's what works for you. And of course no one should feel obliged to share a picture at all! Only if it's fun!]
Meanwhile on Twitter...
[Content Note: Misogyny; safety.]
While Aphra_Behn was visiting, she and I had an interesting conversation about the men who purport to be feminist allies, but Other women so thoroughly in the process of trying to be our "allies" that they don't actually engage with women in a safe or supportive way.
Last night, Suey Park tweeted an observation of a similar nature that prompted me to talk about this a little more on Twitter. So, here's what I said, for those who aren't on Twitter or who missed it:
The men who talk a lot of talk about being a feminist, but don't actually treat women very well. Because they're too busy trying to save us. (link)
The men in my life who make me feel safest almost never *talk* about being feminists; they just *are*. (link)
Chivalry isn't feminism. (link)
The men I trust are sensitive to the fact that I'm a woman, but don't reduce me to my womanhood. (link)
The men with whom I feel safe treat me like Liss: A Person. One significant part of which is my womanhood. (link)
And they understand that my experience of womanhood is just mine. Not the universal experience of all women. (link)
Sometimes, of course, the Guys Who Talk a Lot of Talk are just guys who think they "get it," but really really don't, and sometimes it's a much more aggressive and insidious predation under the auspices of allyship, e.g. Hugɸ $chwyz3r.
I'm guessing we all have a lot of experience with this dynamic (which is not unique to the male/not-male binary of privilege and marginalization, although that is the particular subject of this thread), so have at it in comments!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
The US Federal Communications Commission is giving the finger to net neutrality: "The principle that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows through cables and pipes to consumers looks all but dead. The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that allow companies like Disney, Google or Netflix to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for special, faster lanes to send video and other content to their customers. The proposed changes would affect what is known as net neutrality—the idea that no providers of legal Internet content should face discrimination in providing offerings to consumers, and that users should have equal access to see any legal content they choose." Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
[Content Note: Guns] Republican Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed legislation yesterday that allows "registered gun owners to carry their weapons into churches, schools, libraries and bars." At a press conference, Deal basically said straightforwardly that the law is designed to allow people to harm those by whom they feel threatened: "Today I will sign a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. While we still guard against tyranny, America today cherishes this right, so that people who follow the rules can protect themselves and their families from those who don't follow the rules." Absolutely fucking terrifying.
[CN: Police brutality] Ruth Hunter, a 75-year-old black woman who lives in Virginia, had her hands tied and restrained by police when they raided her house as part of a drug investigation of a man who lives two doors down from her. What the absolute fuck.
Once again, I will note, with no intent to absolve police of their mistreatment of Hunter or anyone else, that the gun laws like the one Deal just signed into law are objectively making everyone, including police, less safe and more likely to be shot, which means that police will be more inclined to restrain everyone they encounter, and some individual officers' fear about gun proliferation will inform an urge to use deadly force in situations where none is needed. These garbage gun laws are virtually ensuring that more people are harmed during police encounters.
Big surprise to no one but dipshits with a conservative martyr agenda: "New Records: IRS Targeted Progressive Groups More Extensively Than Tea Party."
A judge granted the petition for Chelsea Manning to legally change her name to Chelsea. Said Manning: "Hopefully today's name change, while so meaningful to me personally, can also raise awareness of the fact that [transgender people] exist everywhere in America today, and that we must jump through hurdles every day just for being who we are."
[CN: Guns] Dr. Garen Wintemute, "a professor of emergency medicine who runs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis" and "by his own count, one of only a dozen researchers across the country who have continued to focus full-time on firearms violence," has donated about $1.1 million of his own money in order to keep his research going, since the CDC ended his funding. Here is an interview with him.
Amazon and HBO have struck a deal to stream some of HBO's older shows.
[CN: Misogyny] I know you're all shocked, but Aaron Sorkin has lots of misogynistic things to say about why there aren't more female protagonists.
I need this cat table immediately.
A Colossus of Nope
[Content Note: Racism; language policing.]
George Will, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, has repeatedly gone after President Obama using coded (or not so coded) racist language. In his latest, headlined "Barack Obama, the adolescent president," Will complains bitterly that Obama's rhetorical skills prove that he's "an adolescent."
Will is just savvy enough to realize it would be too obvious to call our first black president "a boy."
His column opens thus:
Recently, Barack Obama — a Demosthenes determined to elevate our politics from coarseness to elegance; a Pericles sent to ameliorate our rhetorical impoverishment — spoke at the University of Michigan. He came to that very friendly venue — in 2012, he received 67 percent of the vote in Ann Arbor's county — after visiting a local sandwich shop, where a muse must have whispered in the presidential ear. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had recently released his budget, so Obama expressed his disapproval by calling it, for the benefit of his academic audience, a "meanwich" and a "stinkburger."Those grown-ups. Unlike our current president, who is a boy.
Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan talking like that. It is unimaginable that those grown-ups would resort to japes that fourth-graders would not consider sufficiently clever for use on a playground.
Frankly, I can absolutely imagine any of those former presidents making a similar sort of joke at a similar sort of venue. Media coverage of those presidents, however, is different than media coverage of presidents and candidates today, so I'm not sure an offhand joke would have been recorded or remembered or considered evidence of anything other than the fact that most national politicians are pretty awkward with the relate-to-the-people humor.
What I can't imagine is a serious national columnist proposing that one of those presidents making an offhanded wordplay joke rises to the importance of a column in the Washington Post about how said joke reveals something meaningful about the character of the man who made it.
And, listen, I'm genuinely not one to play the "What about Bush?" game, because I generally see it being used to deflect legitimate criticism of Obama. But this is categorically not legitimate criticism of Obama, so WHAT ABOUT BUSH.
Former President George W. Bush, during a debate with then-Democratic nominee John Kerry: I own a timber company? That's news to me! Heh heh heh. Need some wood?That was not merely a stupid joke, but a deflection of the fact that Bush was, in fact, part owner of a "limited-liability company organized 'for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales,'" i.e. a timber company. Bush routinely used his "bad jokes" to lie, not merely to try to make the partisan audience in front of him chuckle politely.
Which is but one example of the many behaviors exhibited by Bush during his presidency, which might reasonably be called a wee bit immature. On balance, maybe referring to Ryan's budget on one occasion as a "stinkburger" isn't any worse than Bush nicknaming and routinely referring to his own closest adviser, Karl Rove, as "Turd Blossom."
Will wasn't publicly handwringing about Bush's immaturity while in office, because he wasn't trying to discredit Bush. And now Will can apparently find no viable critique of Obama, so he resorts to racist dog whistles about his being "an adolescent" rather than a man. Which is itself a further extension of the "manhood problem" meme.
The Washington Post should be ashamed to publish this despicable nonsense. But, clearly, they're pretty okay with continuing to pay a fine salary to a man who uses their space to make belittling racist attacks on the President of the United States.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker trinity91: "How did you realize you were a feminist/womanist? (I REALLY love hearing other people's stories about this!)"
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 23 April 2014: Agust Bjarnason took this stunning shot of Seljalandsfoss waterfall at sunset in Iceland. [Agust Bjarnason/HotSpot Media]Lovely.
