"Hello Mr. Squirrel, how are you? I know you've been following me around and while you're in between your gigs. I wanted you to get a copy of my book."—Hillary Clinton, at one of her book signings at which
the RNC Harassment Squirrel appeared.
And, in case that wasn't enough, the copy she gave him of her recently published memoir was
personally inscribed:
At the next event, I hope she just hands him a Hillary Clinton nutcracker.
[H/T to Shakesville Contributor Aphra_Behn via email, and Shaker Lysis
in comments.]
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"What?"
When people who have seen pictures of the Furry Residents visit Shakes Manor for the first time, they usually say two things: "Dudley is so tall!" and "Sophie is so tiny!" For perspective, I just measured the empty space on that shelf on which she's sitting, and it's 5.5 inches. LOL.
She was
an impossibly tiny kitten, and now she is a hilariously titchy adult.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
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This blogaround brought to you by teaspoons.
Recommended Reading:
Jim: [Content Note: Rape culture; disablist language] On Rape and Self Defense
Anita: [CN: Misogyny; sexual objectification] Tropes vs Women: Women as Background Decoration [Video + Transcript]
Jess: [CN: Violence against women] How We Tell the Story
Akiba: [CN: Racism; misogyny; violence] Anita Hill Talks Civil Rights
Andy: President Obama Speaks at LGBT DNC Fundraiser in NYC [Video + Transcript]
stavvers: [CN: Gender policing] Some Musings on Love (and Gender)
Nicole: Try This Activity: Use the Teach Back Method to Improve Your Workshop Facilitation Skills
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
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Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War] The latest from Iraq: "Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country’s main oil refinery and claimed to regain partial control of a city near the Syrian border Wednesday, trying to blunt a weeklong offensive by militants who diplomats fear may have abducted some 100 foreign workers. ...U.S. President Barack Obama will brief lawmakers later Wednesday at the White House on what options his wary country could take. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, struck an optimistic tone after soldiers abandoned their posts in the wake of the initial offensive, promising his nation would teach the attackers a 'lesson.' 'We have now started our counteroffensive, regaining the initiative and striking back,' al-Maliki said."
[CN: Violence] In other Iraq-related news: "A US government prosecutor on Tuesday chronicled for a jury the alleged conduct of four Blackwater security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqis and wounding 18 others in downtown Baghdad nearly seven years ago. In opening statements at the trial of the four guards, assistant US attorney T Patrick Martin said some of the victims were 'simply trying to get out' of the way of gunfire from Blackwater guards. 'Fourteen died, 18 injured. For what?' he said. One component of the prosecutors' case is that the Blackwater guards harbored deep hostility toward Iraqis and boasted of indiscriminate firing of their weapons." They hate us for our freedom. Ahem.
[CN: Victim-blaming] Meanwhile, Glenn Beck says liberals were right and the US should never have gone into Iraq. But if you're suspecting there's a catch, you're right: Beck was really just making the point to blame Iraqis: "Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn't get involved. We shouldn't nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn't force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn't have." So, basically, Beck is saying that all the failures in Iraq are basically just the fault of Iraqis, and he's suggesting that liberals were pushing back on the "spreading freedom" rhetoric because we believed there was something inherently flawed in the Iraqi people's ability to self-govern, as opposed to urging interventionalists to allow the Iraqi people to self-govern. What a mendacious shit.
[CN: Misogyny] Congratulations to Syeda Ghazala, who made history this week by becoming the first female police chief of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. "Now, Ghazala manages a 100-unit police force, made up of only men, in Clifton, a Karachi suburb with a population of more than 18 million people." That is a brave lady. I wish her safety and success.
[CN: Rape culture] Well, this is progress: "The US Congress is on the verge of approving an additional $41m in grants to process tens of thousands of unprocessed sexual assault DNA kits, adding to the $1.2bn the federal government has spent over 10 years trying to reduce a nationwide backlog. ...Some rape kits sit for years in police storage lockers in local jurisdictions. ...A 12,000-kit backlog was recently discovered in Memphis. Detroit reportedly has an 11,000-kit backlog. Cleveland, Dallas, and Las Vegas reportedly have 4,000-kit backlogs. ...There is no official nationwide accounting of unprocessed kits." Suffice it to say, it's a fuckload.
[CN: Rape culture] Wagatwe Wanjuki is the amazing woman behind the #SurvivorPrivilege hashtag on Twitter, in response to George Will's fuckery, and she is also a vocal activists who speaks plainly about being expelled from Tufts University after being raped.
[CN: Racism; slur] Wow and yay: "The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name of the Washington R*dskins, ruling that the name is 'disparaging to Native Americans' and thus cannot be trademarked under federal law that prohibits the protection of offensive or disparaging language." Definitely a case of better late than never, I guess. Still. Dan Snyder can fuck off.
[CN: Death penalty] This headline pretty much says it all: "US executions continue despite concerns over secretive drugs." We are really determined to kill people.
[CN: Racism] HA HA HA oh now everyone's all concerned about nepotism, once the black president helped his black daughter get a one-day job. Give me a fucking break. Call me when the Obamas get their daughter a governorship.
And finally! All the blubs forever at this story of Bolt the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, who finally found his forever home after 550 days in a shelter. "He slept for almost two days straight when we first got him home and it was lovely to see him so relaxed," said one of his new guardians, Nikki Shaw. "It was as if all the stress of being homeless had finally been lifted from him." Love.
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[Content Note: Misogyny.]
The picture was taken at the 2014 Global Summit of Women, of a panel titled: "Redefining the Marketplace: The Business Case for Gender Equality."
Sigh.
[H/T to my pal
Kath.]
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[Content Note: Reclaimative use of slur.]
Yesterday, Shaker mdevile asked me if she could draw a mini-portrait of my misandry helmet pic "a la D&D character sheet," to which I of course replied, "Sure!" because that sounded fun!
And last night, she sent this "feminist boss card" to me, which I am sharing here with her permission:
AMAZING.
I mean, not only is it just cool and clever as fuck, but pouring over the character cards to pick a character before launching into an RPG is one of my favorite things. So basically this just delights me to no end!
Thank you so much, mdevile! That totally, totally made my day. A+
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[Content Note: Disablism; misogyny.]
Wow. The Republicans are really plumbing the depths with this one:
The Republican National Committee has a new weapon in its ongoing effort to derail Hillary Clinton's road to the White House: a giant squirrel.
The "HRC Squirrel" mascot, which the RNC unveiled late last week, is "determined to let Americans know that another Clinton in the White House would be nuts."
According to the RNC press release, the squirrel "recognizes the dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency and will continue to dig up her record, no matter how hard the liberal media tries to bury it."
It even has a Twitter account, @HRCSquirrel, that has gathered more than 1,000 followers.
"Find me where the nuts are," the squirrel's Twitter bio reads. "Right now that's the fiction aisle with anyone who believes @HillaryClinton's spin!"
Get it? It's a squirrel chasing nuts. So don't go trying to say that the RNC is using that as a double entendre to call Hillary Clinton and/or her supporters "crazy," because the RNC would never do that!
Even though they are
totally using "nuts" as a synonym for crazy right in the tagline of
their pathetic video: "Stop Hillary: Another Clinton in the White House is NUTS."
And even though Hillary Clinton supporters, especially her female supporters, were routinely called "crazy" during the 2008 primary.
And even though any woman who defends Hillary Clinton against thinly (or not so thinly) veiled sexism is gaslighted and called "crazy" now and then and forever.
Nope. It's just a fun little bit of wordplay that doesn't mean anything. The nuts are just metaphors! Metaphors for all the things that Hillary Clinton is hiding! Which, when you think about it, is some real metaphor fail! Because squirrels are the ones who hide nuts! They aren't hidden nut investigators!
It's really just more unintentional honesty on the part of the RNC. YOU'RE THE NUT-HIDER IN THIS PAINFULLY STUPID METAPHOR!
Anyway.
If only there were some way that we could use conservatives'
previous misogyny against Hillary Clinton to take care of this current bullshit!
OH WAIT I KNOW.
[H/T to Shakesville Contributor Aphra_Behn.]
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What is your favorite sporting event you've ever attended? (As an audience member, not as a participant.) It doesn't have to have been a professional sporting event; if it's your kid's championship mini-league game, of course that counts! And, as always, "none" is a perfectly cromulent answer, especially if you're Deeky.
I have very fond memories indeed of seeing Brazil play USA in a 2007 football match.
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Because I will literally use any excuse to (re)post this video, in honor of the World Cup, here once again is one of my favorite footballers of all time, David Beckham, surprising fans in a photo booth.
Text Onscreen: adidas presents
Image of a photobooth labeled "Great Britain #takethestage".
Text Onscreen: We invited a bunch of people to take the stage and support Team GB."
Cut to a group of three football fans, two black women and a black man, doing a footie chant while taking pictures in the booth. Suddenly their expressions turn to surprise.
Text Onscreen: We also invited someone else...
Cut to two black young men in the photo booth; David Beckham peeks his head into the booth and they react with shock and delight. Becks laughs.
Cut to a montage of Becks taking pictures and grinning with lots of different groups of people, who are all surprised and grinning. He genuinely looks like he's having fun, throwing his arms around their shoulders and posing for pictures with them in the booth. He hugs people and lets women and men kiss his cheeks. He shakes their hands and says, "Nice to meet ya." With a group of two white men holding props, he is offered a prop microphone. "I've got the rubber duck!" he says, holding up a Union Jacked rubber ducky. He surprised a young white woman and asks, "Can I get in?" She squeals, "Yes!" and waves him into the booth. He hugs a little white boy who is weeping with being overwhelmed. "Should we do some pictures?" Becks asks him.
Cut to people who've had their pictures taken with Becks leaving in an elevator. They are all excited. "Best thing ever!" enthuses a black woman. "That was wonderful!" says a white woman. "Wow," whispers a black man. The little boy wipes his tears.
Text Onscreen: #takethestage / adidas / official sportswear partner of the 2012 London Olympics
Literally every. single. time. I watch this, I cry. I love everything about it, not least of which is David Beckham asking people if he can join them. Becks forever.
[
Note: I am not saying that David Beckham is perfect! I am sure he has all kinds of human flaws, like unexamined privilege or forgetting to put his stinky socks in the hamper! I am just saying he's PRETTY GREAT!]
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[Content Note for links: Intersectional misogyny; harassment; threats; slurs; rape culture.]
Last week, I wrote a piece about the costs of being a woman doing public advocacy called "We Need to Talk About This."
Chloe Angyal has written a piece in response doing just that—talking about it: "When a Rape Threat Is 'Not a Big Deal'."
"It's just one rape threat," I told my mother. "It's not a big deal."
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. No mother wants to hear that her child is being threatened, especially not when that child lives on the other side of the world. More than the fact that I had spoken the words aloud to my mom, though, I regretted — I was appalled by — the casual tone in which I had said them. It's not a big deal? I thought to myself. A stranger is emailing you and threatening to rape you and you're calling it not a big deal?
How the hell did you get here? How did this become your normal?
I'll tell you how. I became a feminist blogger, and I started writing about gender, body image, and sexual violence. And now, rape threats, and other forms of abuse, are my normal. They're just part of my job.
Go read
the whole thing.
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Dudley, sound asleep with his tongue hanging out. Because greyhounds.
And, lest you imagine that I just managed to snap a photo of him at the perfect moment, he was not only asleep like that for a good hour or more; he actually
changed position during his nap and his tongue was hanging out the whole time, lol.
Proof! Solid, incontrovertible proof of doof.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
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[Content Note: Misogyny.]
I just read something in which a male writer explained that the US women's soccer team is better than the men's only because women's football is "relatively young." (Not, for example, because women are shut out of professional football and baseball in the US, so there is a higher concentration of better female athletes in one of the professional sports open to women.) Women's soccer is "relatively young," so the US women's team just seems better by comparison.
Okay.
Not only is that demeaning to the women who play professional soccer, but it also erases the fact that female people have been playing soccer for a very long time, even if they weren't allowed to play it professionally.
This is a theme I have seen over and over in my life. Like: Women are cooks; men are chefs.
Or, growing up in a religious tradition in which only men can be ordained as ministers, I was repeatedly told (by men) that was because only men can interpret and teach the word of god. Except for the (unpaid) Sunday School teachers, who were all women. And the (unpaid) Prayer Chain members, who were all women. And all the women who did (unpaid) home ministry. It's not that women couldn't and weren't interpreting and teaching the word of god. They just weren't getting paid for it.
Or like all of the many, many, many conversations I have had about history, in which a dearth of documentation of women doing something, from being blacksmiths to warriors, is held out as "evidence" that women simply never did those things.
(This, as an aside, is a narrative that is not exclusive to women. It happens to all people of color, queer people, and other marginalized people, too. We are erased from history, erased from doing things, erased from existence. For instance, if you listened exclusively to OBESITY EPIDEMIC! rhetoric, you might come away believing a fat person never existed before 1970.)
Women have always been doing things. Whatever things there were to do, women were doing them.
That we were denied the right to do them doesn't mean some of us weren't. That we haven't been paid to do them doesn't mean we weren't. That we have not been recognized and rewarded and celebrated for doing them doesn't mean we weren't doing them all along.
Women and girls were playing soccer long before some of us were allowed to do so on a visible, international level.
Women's football isn't "relatively young." Female people did not just start spontaneously playing soccer the moment that women's organized professional football came into existence.
And, yes, of course it matters that women were long (and in many places, still are) denied the opportunity to play organized professional football, because consistently playing with a team at a high level affects competency and ability.
But let's stop talking about women's football, or anything that women do in any established pursuit, as a new development.
Women have always been doing things. Let's not mistake men not paying attention to women doing things for women not doing them.
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Lambda Legal:
Today, the U.S. Senate made judicial history by confirming Darrin Gayles to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and Staci Yandle to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, marking the first time that two openly gay judicial nominees have been confirmed to the federal bench on the same day.
Lambda Legal released the following statement from Fair Courts Project Manager Eric Lesh:
"President Obama has already nominated more African-American judges and openly gay and lesbian judges than any of his predecessors. With this historic confirmation, Darrin Gayles will become the nation's first openly gay African-American man to serve on the federal bench, while Staci Yandle becomes the second openly lesbian African-American woman to be confirmed in the 20 years since President Clinton nominated Deborah Batts to the Southern District of New York.
"Today, it is more important than ever that our courts reflect the growing diversity of our country, but we have a long way to go. There are nearly 900 federal judges in the U.S., and most are white men. Federal courts are charged with providing everyone with equal access to justice, and yet justice has not always been a reality for some. A diverse judiciary serves not only to improve the quality of justice, but to boost public confidence in the courts."
Congratulations to new District Court Judges Gayles and Yandle!
Michelle Schwartz of Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning association of more than 100 organizations focused on the federal judiciary, makes
the salient point about diversity on the bench: "When individuals come before the federal courts because they have faced discrimination at work or their civil rights have been violated, it's important for them to know there are judges on the bench who understand their lives. We need a federal bench that looks like America, and that means we need judges who bring personal and professional diversity."
That is not to suggest that a black judge, for example, is axiomatically going to be great for black people who come to hir court. (See: Clarence Thomas.) Or a female judge, etc. But we know that diversity in positions of power, and the judiciary is certainly a place of immense power, matters. Especially in pursuit of access and parity for people from marginalized populations.
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"I don't know why people are so reluctant to say they're feminists. Maybe some women just don't care. But how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word?"—Actress Ellen Page.
This quote is about a year old, but it's going around in social media again, and it's a damn good one.
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[Content Note: There is flashing text in this video.]
Men Without Hats: "Pop Goes the World"
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Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War] As President Obama considers a more comprehensive response in Iraq, he is ordering the deployment of "275 US troops to Iraq to protect the American embassy and staff in Baghdad. ...Troops are being sent as Obama considers airstrikes against Islamic militants in Iraq... Unlike the strikes that preceded the Iraq and Afghanistan ground wars, any air offensive this time would come with the encouragement and support of the Iraqi government, giving the US virtually complete control of the skies to curb the Sunni militants' offensive." And like every other strike ever, the government will almost certainly be claiming "precision" while the population ostensibly being protected cries in vain about civilian casualties.
[CN: Disaster; death] Intense weather wreaked havoc and harm in Nebraska yesterday: "A swarm of tornadoes, some appearing two at a time, struck several farming communities in northeastern Nebraska on Monday, killing at least one person and injuring 16 others in one tiny town obliterated by a direct hit, officials said. ...The village of Pilger, a community several blocks wide and home to roughly 350 residents, appeared to bear the brunt of the storms and the heaviest concentration of casualties after one twister struck in late afternoon, local authorities said. 'Pilger is gone,' said Sanford Goshorn, director of emergency management for Stanton County." Some people are still trapped, and emergency crews are working to get to them. The rebuilding process after a disaster of this magnitude is always difficult, but how difficult depends on municipal will. I hope the people of Pilger get all the support that they need.
In good news: "President Obama on Tuesday will announce his intent to make a broad swath of the central Pacific Ocean off-limits to fishing, energy exploration and other activities, according to senior White House officials. The proposal, slated to go into effect later this year after a comment period, could create the world's largest marine sanctuary and double the area of ocean globally that is fully protected." An open-comment period may result in exemptions for commercial fishing.
[CN: War on agency] This is absolutely rage-making: "Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill into law on Friday that redefines the state's current third trimester abortion ban, creating further restrictions for women seeking later abortions. Current state law does not allow abortions after 24 weeks except if the pregnant person's life or health is threatened. HB 1047 will limit the existing exceptions by removing mental health conditions as a reason to allow a late abortion." Tell me how this is about "protecting women." What heinous, harmful, hostile dogshit this is.
In March, I mentioned a Republican Alaska lawmaker's proposal to put pregnancy tests in bars. The proposal has passed, so now "the state will put the free tests in 20 bars and restaurants" at the price of $40,000. As I said before, I love that a (small-government!) senator is willing to spend taxpayer dollars on forced pregnancy tests, but is not willing to spend taxpayer dollars on free contraceptives or reproductive healthcare. And of course this will be the first step in criminalizing "fetal harm."
[CN: Guns] Heh: "Missouri Town Discovers People Don't Like Vacationing Around Angry People Openly Carrying Firearms." Go figure!
[CN: Guns] Cripes: "Tense encounter between open-carry advocate and Kalamazoo police detailed in recordings, reports."
Heads-up: GM has "recalled another 3.36 million vehicles worldwide Monday for a problem the company has linked to eight crashes and six injuries. That brings the total number of cars recalled by the company this year to more than 20 million." If you have a 2000-2014 Chevrolet Impala, Cadillac Deville or DTS, or Buick Lacrosse, Lucerne, or Regal, your vehicle may be part of this recall.
And finally! Here, via my friend N, is just a terrific video of a man singing to his cuddly pitbull. Love with so many hearts!
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Here is an Open Thread for all things World Cup. My only request is that we keep game discussion to games through yesterday, so if anyone is recording games today, they don't get spoiled in the thread.
Everything World Cup related is on-topic, including the protests and the fuckery that is being protested and how
FIFA is terrible. Please just keep criticisms tightly directed at power-makers, without shaming fans. Let us remember that many of the people who are displaced by the World Cup are also among its biggest fans.
For whom are you rooting, if anyone? Are there any individual players you love so much? Anyone you're missing? (BECKS!) Any games in particular to which you're looking forward?
Macca is the worst announcer of all the announcers who ever announced: Y/N?
Predictions? Will Wayne Rooney show up this year?
DISCUSS.
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Bill Kristol, famously
wrong about every single thing ever,
especially Iraq, has absolutely no shame.
Bill Kristol is so chronically, colossally
wrong about everything, that if Bill Kristol tells you that the sky is blue, then you are fully guaranteed to look upwards and see a pink sky.
And if Bill Kristol tells you what to do in Iraq, laugh mirthlessly and the run the fuck in the other direction.
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