BFFs.
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
BFFs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Need to Talk About This
[Content Note: Intersectional misogyny; harassment; threats; slurs; rape culture.]
One of the things that happens when I meet a bunch of new people, as I did last weekend, is that when they begin to ask about my job, the conversation inevitably comes around to the ugly part of my job. The threats, the harassment, the rivers of vitriolic shit I have to navigate on a daily basis as a cost of doing this work.
Every time, the people with whom I share this experience express shock. It is always, always, a surprise that a woman who does public advocacy is subjected to this sort of abuse.
And it shouldn't be. Because every single woman I know who does public advocacy is subjected to it.
That's not a criticism of the people who don't know. They don't know, because we don't talk about it. I don't just mean we, the women who are targets, but we, the people. The readers who consume the content produced by those women. The media who refuse to have a loud and ongoing conversation about it. The law enforcement who ignore it. The lawmakers who have refused to create legal avenues of recourse for us. Our ostensible allies, who stay out of it, lest the sights gets trained on them. The harassers who silence us via more harassment.
Every person who tells us, when we, the women who are targets, try to talk about it, that we shouldn't. That we shouldn't give time and energy and fuel to harassers. That we shouldn't give them our attention. That we are empowering them. That we will cause them to escalate.
Every person who tells us that if we talk about it, it makes us look weak. That we are attention-seeking. That we revel in victimhood. That this is just how the internet is. That this is just how the world is. That if we don't like it, we should be silent.
Every person who tells us some reason that we should just shut up about an incessant stream of unrelenting abuse, because they don't want to hear about it; because it makes them uncomfortable to know the real cost of our work, to us; because they don't want to be made to feel obliged to do something about it.
Every person who has some inkling, but chooses not to really know. Every person who pities us, who feels impotent, who finds some reason to justify their indifference, who masks their indifference behind anger at us for talking about it.
All of us. We are all complicit in the silence that allows people to be surprised by what is done to us.
Not every woman who receives this abuse feels safe enough to talk about it. But I do. Or, if I'm going to be perfectly frank, I don't feel any less safe than I already do. Every day.
And because I can talk about it, I'm going to. We need to talk about this. Those of us who can.
I have started posting #pushback I get on Twitter. Last night, when a couple of conservative men humiliated themselves by asserting that I never cared when Sarah Palin was targeted by misogyny (whooooooooooops), instead of simply apologizing, they doubled down—and it wasn't long before this arrived in my mentions:
Get it? Because I'm so ugly no one wants to rape me. (Too late. P.S. Rape is not a compliment.)
This morning, in response to my tweet about my piece on right-wing violent rhetoric, came this sterling retort:
These are routine examples. They are comparatively nothing—a "joke" about my being raped and a bit of shit about my appearance. Whatever power such garbage might have had to bother me once upon a time, I am long since inured to it.
Because there are things that are so much worse. And there is so much of it. The sheer volume of harassment means I could not function, could not get on with my day and my work and my life, if I stopped to process every piece of muck.
People see, or hear about, examples like the above, and they ask me how I can keep going on under the ceaseless drumbeat of references to rape and commentary on my appearance. And I give them some rehearsed answer, but what I really want to say is: You have no fucking idea how little that shit affects me, because you have no idea how intense it really is.
Death threats. Rape threats. Threats to kill my family, my pets. Detailed emails describing what it would be like to rape me, to murder me. Emails imagining what sex is like between my husband and me, and how he must hate it because I am disgusting. Hopes that someone else will hurt me. Admonishments to kill myself.
Pictures of weapons that people want to use on me. Photoshopped images of me being jizzed on, raped, sliced, diced, murdered. Pictures of dead fetuses.
Pictures of my house. Emails the entire text of which is just my address. Comments the entire text of which is just my address. Comments with threats. Comments with slurs. Comments with insults.
Harassing phone calls. Voicemails with threats of violence. My home address and phone numbers published. A publicly posted campaign offering a reward to anyone for proof of my rape and/or murder.
Private images stolen and published. Photoshopped images of me as various historical tyrants. Hate sites. My image used in fake Twitter accounts, online dating profiles, blogs. My life scrutinized, my privacy invaded, lies told about me, my appearance mocked, my reported experiences audited.
People have pounded on my front door. Dumped garbage on my lawn. Smashed a phone just beneath my office window, as if to say this is how close I can get.
I hope you are raped. I hope you are killed. I hope you die. I hope you kill yourself. The "only tragedy is that a bullet didn't rip through ur brainstem after u were used 4 ur 1 & only purpose in this world," in response to disclosing that I survived rape.
Cunt. Dyke. Whore. Bitch. Slut. "Wretched cum dumpster." Slit. Feminazi. Trash. Twat. Skank.
Crazy. Hysteric. Lunatic. Maniac. Narcissist. Self-important. Delusional. Irrational. Nuts.
Fat. Fat fat fat fat. So fucking fat. Fat fuck. Fat cunt. Fat whore. Fat dyke.
Woman.
This is my experience. Women of color are subjected to racism and misogyny and racist misogyny. Trans women are subjected to transphobia and misogyny and transmisogyny. Whatever your identity is, it becomes a target. Your very self, weaponized and used against you.
Women who are mothers gets threats against their children. Women who are abortion doctors get the addresses of their practices, of their homes, published and disseminated. Women are threatened according to their every individual vulnerability, and their vulnerabilities exposed to existent hate groups who might have an interest in hurting them. In any way they can.
Threats of violence. Threats of ruining one's business. Threats of exposure. Threats to get one fired. Threats to ruin one's life, in any conceivable manner.
And then we are told not to talk about it. We are told that we empower the people who do this to us. No. NO. Victims do not empower abusers. People who refuse to acknowledge that abuse do. People who tell victims to be silent do.
I am not going to be silent. I am tired of people being surprised. I am tired of hearing "I'm sorry this happens to you." I don't want shock and I don't want pity.
I want your fucking awareness and I want your fucking anger.
I want us to talk about the real costs of being a woman who does public advocacy. I want us to acknowledge how the costs of providing a safe space is that we stand on the line and absorb massive amounts of abuse. I want us to make noise about the people who create an atmosphere in which women are discouraged from participation.
And I want people to stop telling me to be quiet about it.
I want this to change. And it is never, ever, going to change if the only place of which it is spoken is between the women to whom it happens.
We talk about it a lot. I talk to the moderators of this space, my friends, about the hatred directed at me, and at them. I talk to my colleagues about the shit I get, about the shit they get, about the shit we see other women getting.
We corral each other when one of us is under attack. We come to each other's aid, as best we can. We send private messages, asking, "Are you okay?" and offering a sympathetic ear, if they need to talk.
We talk about it amongst ourselves all the time.
And yet this thing, this shared experience of intimidation and abuse, this life we all live, remains a secret. This campaign of harassment is largely unknown, and it is dismissed out of hand as a "small but vocal group" of disconnected individuals by people who know, but can't be bothered to care.
It's treated as immutable, something that just exists in the world and can never be fixed. So let's not even waste our breath talking about it. Let's just throw up our hands in defeat.
Fuck. That.
Humor me, defeatists. Let's give talking about it a try. Let's push back with all our of might, those of us who are able. Let's just try it. And then let's see what happens.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; violence] So, this is what spreading freedom looks like: In Iraq, the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria have seized control of Mosul, the capital of northern Iraq, and now have control of the airport, government headquarters, and prisons. In Pakistan, where we are fighting a not-war as an outgrowth of the war-war in Afghanistan, the Taliban led a coordinated assault on the Kirachi airport, killing at least 36 people. And speaking of Afghanistan: "Five American Special Operations service members and at least one Afghan soldier were killed when a coalition aircraft accidentally unleashed an airstrike on their position in southern Afghanistan, one of the deadliest instances of friendly fire in more than a decade of war." Basically, everything's going great with US foreign policy.
[CN: War; sexual violence] In other war-related news, Angelina Jolie has joined forces with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague to raise awareness about the use of rape as a weapon of war. Y'all, I think she's a good egg. (I don't mean I think she's perfect, or above criticism. I mean I think she's a good egg.)
[CN: Carcerality; abuse] The ACLU has released a report titled "Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private-Prison System," and its findings are grim: "With attention focused on other aspects of immigration reform, the federal government has quietly gone on a massive immigrant prison building spree. Since 1999, the Bureau of Prisons has contracted for the operation of 13 for-profit private prisons located mostly in isolated towns far from the prying eyes of activists, prisoner's families or attorneys. Five are located in Texas. Run by three private companies, these 13 'criminal alien requirement' prisons, as the BOP calls them, house one of America's fastest-growing prison populations: immigrants in federal custody, many convicted for the crime of illegally crossing the border. ...These private prisons exist in legal shadows, unanswerable to many BOP policies and protected by laws that exempt them from open-records requirements. In a multi-year ACLU investigation, the organization found that the BOP shields contractors from disclosing information, claiming 'trade secrets' in response to public information requests." ACLU investigators also found that prisoners are "subjected to shocking abuse and mistreatment."
[CN: Carcerality] Attorney General Eric Holder is "supporting a proposal set for a vote next month" on the "measure that would make potentially thousands of non-violent drug offenders now serving time in federal prison eligible for reduced sentences." Background on that measure is here.
[CN: Class warfare] Wealth redistribution upwards: "The world's richest 1% had a banner year in 2013, propelled by robust equities performance in developed economies and healthy GDP growth in emerging markets. Global private wealth jumped 14.6%, reaching a total of $152 trillion, and disproportionately enriched the wealthiest investors, according to a report released June 9 by the Boston Consulting Group titled Global Wealth 2014: Riding a Wave of Growth. This surge in affluence led to a 20% increase in the number of millionaires worldwide, reaching 16.3 million in 2013 from 13.7 million in 2012." How neat for those rich people! I can't wait for all that wealth to trickle down on us! Which will be weird, since that wealth was stolen from the rest of us in the first place, and I don't see why the thieves would give it back, but they promise it's gonna happen and I'm sure they wouldn't lie, so!
This Friday will be a very rare Friday the 13th with a full moon. That won't happen again until sometime after 2035. Cool!
And finally! Here are just some super adorable pictures of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen and their three dogs, including their newest rescue, a three-legged French bulldog named Penny. Yay!
This Is How Culture Works
[Content Note: Violent rhetoric; guns; racism; misogyny; homophobia; antisemitism; eliminationism.]
This morning, at the Plum Line, Paul Waldman asks, in the wake of the shooting in Las Vegas: "How much does right-wing rhetoric contribute to right-wing terrorism?"
Yesterday, a man and a woman shot two police officers in a Las Vegas restaurant after saying, "this is a revolution." Then they draped their bodies in a Gadsden flag. According to reports now coming in, the couple (who later killed themselves) appear to have been white supremacists and told neighbors they had gone to join the protests in support of anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy. It was one more incident of right-wing terrorism that, while not exactly an epidemic, has become enough of a trend to raise some troubling questions.Waldman goes on to do a very gentle examination of how right-wing rhetoric creates and facilitates a culture of violence.
What I'm about to say will raise some hackles, but we need to talk about it. It's long past time for prominent conservatives and Republicans to do some introspection and ask whether they're contributing to outbreaks of right-wing violence.
I am not inclined to be so gentle.
In the wake of the assassination attempt against then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, many cultural and political observers quite rightly pointed out that former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin had included Rep. Giffords on her infamous "target map," not to lay exclusive blame at Palin's feet, but to urge a conversation about responsible—and irresponsible—rhetoric.
It was met by conservatives with the usual deflective refrain of "both sides are just as bad!" As evidence, they offered comments from leftist websites, in which anonymous commenters had exhorted violence against Republican candidates and/or conservatives.
At that time, I wrote a piece taking this bullshit equivalency head-on, not because I want to "win" some ideological battle, but because I want the culture of violence to be dismantled. And that begins with all of us taking account of how we uphold it.
That piece, with relevant updates about conservatives appearances in media, is reprinted below...
Both sides are, in fact, not "just as bad," when it comes to institutionally sanctioned violent and eliminationist rhetoric.
An anonymous commenter at Daily Kos and the last Republican vice presidential nominee are not equivalent, no matter how many ridiculously irresponsible members of the media would have us believe otherwise.
There is, demonstrably, no leftist equivalent to Sarah Palin, former veep candidate and presumed future presidential candidate, who uses gun imagery (rifle sights) and language ("Don't Retreat, RELOAD") to exhort her followers to action.
There is no leftist equivalent to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group which was created from the mailing list of the old white supremacist White Citizens Councils and has been noted as becoming increasingly "radical and racist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which classifies the CCC as a hate group—and is nonetheless considered an acceptable association by prominent members of the Republican Party, including a a former senator and the last Republican presidential nominee.
There is no leftist equivalent to Glenn Beck, host of a long-running nationally syndicated radio show, former host of both a CNN "news" show and a Fox "news" show, current host of an internet series, best-selling author, DC rally organizer, and longtime user of eliminationist rhetoric, including equating universal healthcare to rape, joking about victims of forest fires being America-hating liberals, comparing Al Gore to Hitler, condoning the murder of Michael Moore, accusing Holocaust survivor George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator, joking about poisoning Nancy Pelosi, equating immigration reform with burning US citizens alive, publicly endorsing violent revolution, and winkingly telling his viewers not to get violent, all of which amounts to a speck on the tip of a very big iceberg.
There is no leftist equivalent to Ann Coulter, best-selling author and syndicated columnist, who has been a panelist on Fox's Hannity 77 times and was on Hannity & Colmes an additional 18 times, who has appeared on Fox's Red Eye 32 times, who has been a guest multiple times on The O'Reilly Factor, Piers Morgan Tonight, Fox and Friends, Geraldo at Large, Larry King Live, Huckabee, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Hardball, and other cable news shows, has made appearances on The Tonight Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Daily Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and has co-hosted The View, and has also said that a baseball bat is "the most effective way" to talk to liberals, as well as: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too." And: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." And: "In [Clinton's] recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about whether he 'did it,' even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate."
There is no leftist equivalent to Bill O'Reilly, Fox News television show host, nationally syndicated radio show host, and best-selling author, who has appeared on The Tonight Show 17 times, The Late Show with David Letterman 13 times, The Daily Show 11 times, The View seven times, Live with Kelly and Michael five times, Good Morning America five times, the Today show five times, and Real Time with Bill Maher twice, among other national shows, and has lied about and stalked his critics, said that progressive bloggers should be dealt with "with a hand grenade," said Air America hosts were traitors and should be "put in chains," as well as: "And if Al Qaeda comes [to San Francisco] and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."
There is no leftist equivalent to Rush "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for" Limbaugh, nationally syndicated radio show host and invitee to the Bush White House.
There is no leftist equivalent to Pat "Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path" Buchanan, a regular MSNBC contributor and syndicated columnist.
There is no leftist equivalent to Michelle "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror" Malkin, a regular Fox panelist, best-selling author, and prominent conservative blogger.
There is no leftist equivalent to Pat "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians" Robertson, host of The 700 Club, who was a guest on Fox's Hannity & Colmes five times.
There is no leftist equivalent to Michael "Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war" Reagan, or Michael "Smallpox in a blanket, which the U.S. Army gave to the Cherokee Indians on their long march to the West, was nothing compared to what I'd like to see done to these people" Savage, both nationally syndicated radio show hosts.
There is no leftist equivalent to the Minutemen and other radical and eliminationist-spewing anti-immigration groups, some of whom have been subcontracted to work the border by the US government.
There is no leftist equivalent to radical and eliminationist-spewing anti-choice groups, who openly target doctors and call for their assassinations—and claimed a success in 2009 with the murder of Dr. George Tiller—and whose leaders get featured in whitewashing profiles in the Washington Post.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
This is not an argument there is no hatred, no inappropriate and even violent rhetoric, among US leftists. There is.
This is evidence that, although violent rhetoric exists among US leftists, it is not remotely on the same scale, and, more importantly, not an institutionally endorsed tactic, as it is among US rightwingers.
This is a fact. It is not debatable.
And there is observably precious little integrity among conservatives in addressing this fact, in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Palin takes the absolute cake for audaciously asserting that her rifle sight imagery was really "a surveyor's symbol," and not even having the decency to sheepishly acquiesce that, even if that were true (and not evident bullshit), it's understandable how a reasonable person could look at her "surveyor's symbol" alongside the word "target" and get the wrong, ahem, idea. No, it's all just a wall of total denial in the Palin camp, when she's not whining about being a victim herself of people who have the temerity to actually hold her accountable for her carelessly casual violent rhetoric. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And then it's deny and play the martyr.
But it's not like Palin's ideological allies are covering themselves in glory, either. There's no call for accountability, no call for reflection, not among conservatives. Just the usual game of deflection and projection, as they desperately try to find a way to make this liberals' fault.
Bill Kristol took to the airwaves this morning to call criticism of Palin "a disgrace" and accuse liberals of "McCarthyism." Commentators on Fox News, meanwhile, blame President Obama for not changing the tone in Washington, like he promised. Which would be hilarious, were that redirection of blame not a key part of conservatives' strategy to dodge responsibility for the eliminationist rhetoric that certainly contributed to the tragic events of this weekend.
When, a few months ago, there was a spate of widely-publicized suicides of bullied teens, we had, briefly, a national conversation about the dangers of bullying. But in the wake of an ideologically-motivated assassination attempt of a sitting member of Congress, we aren't having a national conversation about the dangers of violent rhetoric—because the conversation about bullying children was started by adults, and there are seemingly no responsible grown-ups to be found among conservatives anymore.
Faced with the overwhelming evidence of the violent rhetoric absolutely permeating the discourse emanating from their side of the aisle, conservatives adopt the approach of a petulant child—deny, obfuscate, and lash out defensively.
And engage in the most breathtaking disingenuous hypocrisy: Conservatives, who vociferously argue against the language and legislation of social justice, on the basis that it all "normalizes" marginalized people and their lives and cultures (it does!), are suddenly nothing but blinking, wide-eyed naïveté when it comes to their own violent rhetoric.
They have a great grasp of cultural anthropology when they want to complain about progressive ideas, inclusion, diversity, and equality. But when it comes to being accountable for their own ideas, their anthropological prowess magically disappears.
Only progressives "infect" the culture, but conservative hate speech exists in a void.
That's what we're meant to believe, anyway. But we know it is not true. This culture, this habit, of eliminationist rhetoric is not happening in a vacuum. It's happening in a culture of widely-available guns (thanks to conservative policies), of underfunded and unavailable medical care, especially mental health care (thanks to conservative policies), of a widespread belief that government is the enemy of the people (thanks to conservative rhetoric), and of millions of increasingly desperate people (thanks to an economy totally fucked by conservative governance).
The shooting in Tucson was not an anomaly. It was an inevitability.
And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.
Let's get this straight: This shit doesn't happen in a void. It happens in a culture rife with violent political rhetoric, and it's time for conservatives to pull up their goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection.
This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can't fix for them—unless, perhaps, it's holding a mirror.
Good Morning! Or Whatever!
Via Shaker Westsidebecca, here is just a terrific video of a porcupine squeaking happily while eating a pumpkin to start your day!
Video Description: A porcupine named Teddy Bear sits on a wood-slat table next to a black plastic Halloween cauldron full of small pumpkins. His female guardian, from behind the camera, says, "Ah, I think Teddy Bear found some pumpkins for Halloween!" Teddy begins to munch on one of the pumpkins, while it's still in the cauldron. "What'd you find, Ted?" Teddy munches, then begins to squeak excitedly. He looks at his guardian and squeaks at her, then directs his attention back to the pumpkin. "Pick it up," she suggests. He squeaks. "Can you get it? Pick it up." Teddy reaches out his tiny paws and grabs the pumpkin and pulls it out of the cauldron. "Good boy!" He holds it in his wee hands and continues to munch, squeaking contentedly.
"Aww," says his guardian. "What is it, Teddy? Pumpkin?" He looks at her and makes sounds that almost sound like words. "Can you say pumpkin?" He "talks" some more, then goes back to munching. "Looks good!" He holds the pumpkin and munches away on it, squeaking joyfully. Occasionally he looks up and "says" something. Nom nom nom. I swear at 1:25 it sounds just like he says, "This is good!"
"Yum yum?" says his guardian. There is more munching and squeaking and "talking," and it is basically THE CUTEST THING EVER. Eventually, his guardian says, "Ha ha, I think you've finished that one," and holds out another pumpkin. "Here's another one." Teddy squeals in protest and clings to the shell of the first pumpkin. "I'll put it right here," she says, setting it beside him. "Okay." He "talks" at her. "You're welcome," she replies. Nom nom nom.
"Whaddaya think, Teddy? Is that as good as pumpkin pie?" He "talks" in response. "Pretty good stuff?" He pauses for a moment, then dives excitedly back into the pumpkin. Nom nom nom. "Good boy, Teddy." SQUEAK!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker trinity91: "What is your favorite restaurant?"
Or restaurants, if you have different favorites for different occasions.
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Part wev in our ongoing series about Republicans' misogyny and part one wevillion in our ongoing "Hillary Sexism Watch."
See, here's the thing, Republicans: A lot of female voters are aware of how feminism works. That is, if you use misogyny in order to demean a female candidate just because you disagree with them, that doesn't magically render it unharmful to all other women. Misogyny, and misogynistic slurs, only have their power because they impugn womanhood, not individual women.
So when you're a female Republican candidate who involves your husband in your campaign, you might want to mention to him that it's neither decent nor smart politics to refer to the former First Lady of the United States and the nation's former Secretary of State as a "hag."
The husband of state Sen. Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa, called Hillary Clinton a "hag" on Facebook a year ago.Obviously, I love every single thing about this, because it is awesome, but I think my favorite part is how the thrust of the insult seems to be that Clinton has aged in the last 14 years.
"Truly more of a hag now than when she was 1st Lady," Gail Ernst, Joni Ernst's husband, wrote on Facebook.
Truly a loathsome she-devil!
Love in the Age of Social Media
WaPo has a piece on how social media are "the new matchmakers," which is an interesting enough piece on how people are meeting these days, but also gives me a chuckle, since there's really nothing new about it.
Iain and I met on a now-defunct proto social media site, back before "social media" was a phrase that had been coined. That was in 2001.
It started with a single private message on March 15, 2001—one that I sent him, inquiring about a quote on his profile. It was an Oscar Wilde quote, and, both of us being voracious readers, we started talking about books. Which books we loved. Which books we didn't love. Which books we would recommend to the other to read.
Our private messages started getting longer, and we exchanged email addresses. Iain first offered me his, saying I was welcome to email him, giving me the option and no pressure. I emailed him, because it was an invitation and not an expectation. And thus we began what was, for some time, a daily exchange of epic emails, first about books, and then films, and then everything.
There was a six hour time difference between us, he in Edinburgh and I in Chicago, and I would use my lunch hour, or my commute home from work, to compose lengthy responses to his detailed, funny, and fascinating emails, and then look forward to his response.
Later, he would tell me that he used to walk around Edinburgh, listening to music, and compose his emails to me in his head before writing them.
I am a reflexive and instinctual writer; my thoughts come quickly, already composed in complete sentences. Iain is almost precisely the opposite. He deliberates over every word, picking every turn of phrase so carefully. He is exact in his writing, even the most basic work email. I know that about him now, but I didn't then. His long emails mean even more to me, knowing what he put into their composition.
The wait between each daily exchange was delectable, and then excruciating. We agreed to meet on instant messenger, for a real-time conversation. And then we met again. And again.
I liked talking to him. I liked listening to him, and I liked telling him things.
One morning, I was into work early—the only one in the office. We were chatting on IM, and I gave him my work number, saying if he ever wanted to chat on the phone... My extension started ringing nearly before I'd finished the sentence.
And there was his voice. His quiet voice with its lovely brogue.
Later, he told me he'd called me right away, because he was afraid if he didn't do it, he might lose his nerve and never ring at all.
I don't remember much of that first conversation. I do remember the first long phone conversation we had, at the weekend. We spoke for hours, about religion and politics. I remember lying on the couch in my flat, and I remember telling him, "I would like to have this exact same conversation with you fifty more times."
We were friends. And we fell for each other. Before we'd ever even seen each other's faces.
International calling was expensive then; prohibitively expensive from mobile phones. There was no texting; our mobiles didn't have cameras to send each other pictures. I bought a crappy little webcam that sat atop my monitor, and he went to an internet cafe, as they were called in those days, so we could send photos of ourselves to one another.
There was a shitty webcam broadcasting from the construction site of the Scottish Parliament Building, which was being built at the time. Iain would give me a time to watch, and I would tune into the live stream, to see him running and waving, a tiny little figure in the distance, appearing in a series of still images.
We read books at the same time so we could talk about them, and mailed each other packages. One day, in one of our daily emails, a habit we retained for a very long time, I sent him an Omar Khayyám quatrain. He told me to keep my eyes on my mailbox. The next day, a package arrived from Britain that he had sent nearly a week before, containing The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, with one dog-earned page. On that page was the exact same quatrain I had emailed.
In August, five months after we'd stumbled into each other online, I flew to London. A couple of hours after my plane landed, his train arrived at Kings Cross station, where I was waiting for him. I watched him walk toward me down the long platform, and tried not to let my legs buckle beneath me. He walked up to me and we embraced, then pulled apart and looked at each other.
"Hi," I said.
"Hiya," he replied.
We began to walk out to the street, and he began to turn the wrong way. I reached out and grabbed his hand. We looked at each other and we smiled and we kept walking, our fingers entwined.
Social media, they say—"they," those people who are forever saying those things—discourages human interaction. Well, maybe it does, for some people.
On March 15, 2001, I sent a person I didn't know a five-word private message.
On Thursday, in our little home with our three cats and our two dogs, Iain and I will celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. I am grateful for the life we have built every day.
I am so glad I sent that message, and so glad he replied.
[Please feel welcome to share your experiences building relationships, romantic or otherwise, in comments.]
F#@k Off, George Will
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
So, professional purveyor of toxic garbage George Will has delved into The Great Trigger Warning Debate of 2014, couching it in an argument that "colleges have become the victims of progressivism," and engaging in rank rape apologia while asserting that survivors have a "coveted status" as victims.
There is nothing I can say about this contemptible dreck and the asshole who wrote it that I didn't already say on Twitter, the sum total of which was: "George Will is a reprehensible shitbird."
But here is a place to talk about it, if you are so inclined.
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, soon after we arrived home yesterday from our trip: "Please don't ever go away again."
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
More on "Evidence"
[Content Note: Auditing; silencing.]
Last week, Jessica Luther published a Storify about the ubiquitous habit of privileged people demanding that marginalized people provide objective "evidence" of their claims of oppression, alienation, and/or harm, and I followed that up with this piece.
This morning, we were talking about the subject some more, and I noted that demands for "evidence" is not merely silencing, but a way of justifying one's own indifference. Jess said, "Tweet that!" and so I did, and here are the tweets for those who aren't on Twitter and/or missed them.
The next time I am met with a demand for "evidence" when I report incidents of harm as a result of oppression, this is going to be my script: "I am giving you evidence in the form of my lived experience. In so doing, I am asking you to care. About me and about the other people to whom these things are also done. If you care, you will listen. If you don't, I am politely requesting you be honest enough to simply say that you do not care, instead of obliging me to engage with you in a mendacious argument designed to publicly justify why you won't."
I am tired of wasting my time in "debates" that have no purpose but to task me with the responsibility for the luxury of indifference conferred by privilege. And I am calling that shit out, every time I see it, starting now.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sunshine.
Recommended Reading:
Sarah: [Content Note: Rape threats] On Being a Thing
Prison Culture: [CN: Police brutality; violence; racism] Standing on a Soapbox, Calling Out the Cops…
Harris: [CN: Misogyny; objectification; harassment; rape culture] Nerds and Male Privilege
CBPP: Nine Things You Might Not Know About Minimum-Wage Workers
Amanda: Laverne Cox to Produce Important MTV Documentary
Kyler: Michael Sam on His Teammates: "They Respect Me as a Human Being and as a Football Player"
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Militarization] I've mentioned this previously, and here is another story about police departments across the US receiving military combat gear: "As the nation's wars abroad wind down, many of the military's surplus tools of combat have ended up in the hands of state and local law enforcement." Including but not limited to: 432 MRAPs (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles), 435 other armored vehicles, 533 planes and helicopters, and 93,763 machine guns. Swell.
[CN: War; violence; death] Speaking of our foreign exploits: "A double bombing at the offices of two Kurdish political parties north of Baghdad killed at least 15 people Monday, officials said, in what was the second deadly attack on a Kurdish party office in two days. And other attacks around the country killed at least eight people the same day, as Iraq grapples with daily bombings and devastating bloodshed. ...Iraq is currently struggling with its worst surge in violence since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007. In 2013, the country's death toll rose to 8,868 people, according to United Nations figures, in what was Iraq's deadliest year since violence began to ease from a peak eight years ago. The U.N. said that May was the deadliest month so far this year, with 799 Iraqis killed in violence, including 603 civilians. With none of the problems that contribute to the heightened unrest headed for quick resolutions, the bloodshed is likely to continue unabated." This is what "spreading freedom" looks like. We were the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent] The Louisiana state legislature has passed a bill "that will require physicians to keep mentally incapacitated pregnant women on life support against their wishes. HB 1274 requires physicians to to keep brain-dead women who are at least 20 weeks pregnant on mechanical support if there is a chance the fetus is viable. The law would override requests from family members for removal, and even the wishes of the pregnant woman, but will not apply if a woman has specified in her will that she was not to be resuscitated while pregnant." Further evidence that fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them.
[CN: Homophobia] One of the conservative commentators over at the intellectual [sic] cesspool known as Townhall argues that LGBTQI people and their allies are the real terrorists. Sure. Up is down, black is white, etc.
Welcome to Uncanny Valley: For the first time ever, "a computer programme has successfully passed the 'Turing Test.' To do this, the computer engaged in a conversation with judges and convinced at least some of them, that they were in fact talking to a human. This success has come on the 60th anniversary of Alan Turing's death."
At the video clip found at this link, there is an absolutely AMAZING exchange between Diane Sawyer and Hillary Clinton about age. Shaker KC provided this splendid transcript via email:
Diane Sawyer: "AGE." (Said with the somberness of a thousand dying suns.)Awesome. Totally awesome.
Hillary Clinton: (Laughs.) "Age! Yes! Isn't it great to be our age?"
Diane Sawyer: (Furrows brow.) "Mitch McConnell said at one point that 2016 will be the return of the Golden Girls."
Hillary Clinton: (Smiles and leans in to reply.) "That was a very popular, long running TV series!" (LAUGHS.)
RIP Rik Mayall. "The Essex-born actor, who starred in alternative comedy shows such as The Young Ones and Blackadder, died on Monday morning, a spokesman for Brunskill Management said. The cause of death is currently unknown. Mayall was best known for his comedy partnership with Adrian Edmonson, whom he first met at university. The pair went on to become one of the biggest comedy duos of the 1980s, co-writing The Young Ones."
And finally! This is just a really great picture of Nicolas Cage wearing a Nicolas Cage t-shirt at a Guns N' Roses concert. Because obviously.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War on agency.]
"Antiabortion activists...have enacted an unprecedented wave of coercive state laws that will likely force growing numbers of women to give birth rather than end an unwanted pregnancy. By contrast, reproductive health advocates back policies like the Affordable Care Act that expand access to contraceptive services to help women prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place, along with the abortions that often follow. ...Abortion opponents may try to cloak their policies in pro-woman rhetoric, but the simple fact remains that these laws are intended to push reproductive decision making in one direction: toward pregnancy and childbearing. Viewed this way, the question is not whether coercive approaches 'work' in reducing abortion incidence. The question is how to ensure that U.S. reproductive health policy is grounded in voluntarism and informed consent."—Joerg Dreweke, author of a new policy analysis for the Guttmacher Institute, on the "mutually exclusive...rival policy approaches of the antiabortion and prochoice movements."
I have mentioned once or twice or three million times that I love the Guttmacher Institute SO MUCH, and I am very pleased to see them explicitly tying antiabortion politics to reproductive coercion and hostility to consent.
[Related Reading: You Really Got Me.]
Shooting in Las Vegas
[Content Note: Guns; violence; death; self-harm; white supremacy.]
Two shooters, a man and a woman who are thought to have been a married couple in their 20s, killed two police officers in a pizza parlor and a woman in a Wal-Mart before killing themselves, in Las Vegas last night.
Details are sketchy, but Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that "this is the start of a revolution" before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists.It's tough to use "crazy lone gunmen" theories for a spree-killing team, so the emergent story to divorce this act of violence from its evident roots in white supremacist, anti-state ideology is that the couple were meth users.
Sunday night, Metro homicide investigators and FBI agents cordoned off and were searching a small apartment complex at 110 S. Bruce St., about four miles from the shooting scene. A resident of the complex said he had spoken with a man who lived in the apartment being searched. He said the man appeared "militant," and often talked about conspiracy theories.
An explosion was heard at the apartment complex at about 9:30 p.m., but no information was immediately available Sunday night.
Sheriff Doug Gillespie said officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, were shot while they ate lunch at CiCi's Pizza, 309 N. Nellis Blvd., at about 11:20 a.m. Sunday. In a late afternoon news conference he said no motive for the attack has been determined.
...[After killing them, the shooters] then stripped the officers of their weapons and ammunition and badges, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. They then covered the officers with something that featured the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner with a coiled snake above the words, "Don't tread on Me."
...The shooters were a married couple thought to be in their late 20s who were new to the Las Vegas Valley, according to a law enforcement official close to the investigation. Police are looking into their links to the white supremacy movement and found swastika symbols during their initial investigation.
...[Neighbors] described them as "militant." They talked about planning to kill police officers, "going underground" and not coming out until the time was right to kill.
My condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the three people who were killed, and I hope the survivors have the support and resources they need to recover from this trauma.
Love & Marriage
As many of you know, Shaker GoldFishy is one of the longest-term Shakers and we have now been friends for almost ten years. We've spent both our 40th birthdays together, celebrated personal and professional successes with one another, commiserated when things have been hard. He is a good friend, whose magical ability to send me an encouraging note on days when I most need it is more important to the sustenance of this community than y'all know.
The past few days, Iain and I have been in Minnesota, where we were attending Shaker GoldFishy's beautiful wedding to his now-husband (!!!) The Captain. (Which I am sharing with their permission.) It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony, and days of celebration, they both looked so handsome and happy and full of love for each other.
And their marriage will be recognized by their state. After a protracted, harrowing, often disappointing, and ultimately joyous fight in Minnesota, about which Shaker GoldFishy has written for this space, same-sex marriage was finally made legal in Minnesota last year.
So many times, GoldFishy and I have talked about how, ten years ago, we weren't sure we'd ever see marriage equality in our lifetimes. It is a fight we've talked about often, because it is political and because it is so very personal. And that fight is still not over, for much of the country.
But the dominoes are falling. And my friends GoldFishy and The Captain are married. Blub.
A toast, to one of my favorite couples on the planet.
♥ ♥ ♥
