[Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing; shaming; health concern trolling; disordered eating.]
I read a lot of rank fat hatred every day, whether it's in my inbox or a published article in the media. And so it's really saying something when I note that this is one of the most vicious pieces of vile fat hatred that I have ever read.
The piece is titled: "Why are today's young women so unashamed about being fat? Horrified by the rolls of flesh she's witnessed on show this summer, LINDA KELSEY takes no prisoners."
The author, Linda Kelsey, is a thin white woman who proclaims: "I am unapologetically fattist." And although she does an extraordinary amount of remote diagnosis, asserting that all fat people are unhealthy, she is honest enough to also admit she's straight-up hostile toward fat people because "it's unattractive."
She spends an enormous (see what I did there?) amount of time detailing all the young women who have offended her delicate aesthetic sensibilities by forcing her to view their fat flesh with revealing clothing, and, even worse, with their disgusting attitudes that seem to suggest they think they have some kind of right to be fat in public. OH THE HORROR.
I could spend the next twelve hours of my life deconstructing every single thing wrong with this contemptible heap of bigtory, but: 1. Fuck giving this haughty shitlord that much of my energy; and 2. I've already spent a lot of time writing refutations to the onslaught of mendacious, judgmental, indecent garbage that Kelsey peddles here as if they're new ideas and she's the fucking Magellan of edgy, radical fat-hatred.
I will, however, note with no small amount of irony the final line of her piece, which she clearly believes is a devastating blow: "One way to start [tackling fat for the problem that it is] might be by calling a fat girl a fat girl. No apology required."
I've got news for you, Kelsey: I am a fat girl who calls myself a fat girl. No apology required. And, let's be honest, you and I: That's exactly the source of your ire—that you're losing the capacity to use "fat" as an insult anymore, against these uppity fat girls who refuse to be ashamed of our bodies.
Who think we aren't less than you, just because you're thin.
Whoooooooops. Looks like with that thin privilege eroding, you might have to resort to being a decent person. Good luck.
[H/T to Shaker IndyM.]
These Are Considered Acceptable Things to Say About Fat People
This Pres Is on Fire
Yesterday, while Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner was screaming about Democratic President Barack Obama at a press conference and announcing he plans to sue the President for his unilateral delay of the Obamacare employer mandate, President Obama had a few words for Boehner at a speech in Austin:
So when folks say they're frustrated with Congress, let's be clear about what the problem is. I'm just telling the truth now. I don't have to run for office again, so I can just let her rip.Right fucking on! Lots of laughter and applause through this whole section of the speech.
And I want to assure you, I'm really not that partisan of a guy. My favorite President is the first Republican President, a guy named Abraham Lincoln. You look at our history, and we had great Republican Presidents who — like Teddy Roosevelt started the National Park System, and Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System, and Richard Nixon started the EPA.
The statement I'm making is not a partisan statement; it is a statement of fact. So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked or voted down every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.
...The best thing you can say about this Congress — the Republicans in Congress, and particularly the House of Representatives — the best you can say for them this year is that so far they have not shut down the government or threatened to have America welch on our obligations and ruin our credit rating. That's the best you can say. But of course, it's only July, so who knows what they may cook up in the next few months.
...Now, here's where it gets interesting. There are a number of Republicans, including a number in the Texas delegation, who are mad at me for taking these actions. They actually plan to sue me. Now, I don't know which things they find most offensive — me helping to create jobs, or me raising wages, or me easing the student loan burdens, or me making sure women can find out whether they're getting paid the same as men for doing the same job. I don't know which of these actions really bug them.
The truth is, even with all the actions I've taken this year, I'm issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years. So it's not clear how it is that Republicans didn't seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did.
Maybe it's just me they don't like. I don't know. Maybe there's some principle out there that I haven't discerned, that I haven't figure out.
You hear some of them — "sue him," "impeach him." Really? Really? For what? You're going to sue me for doing my job? Okay.
I mean, think about that. You're going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job while you don't do your job?
Ball's in your court, Boehner.
Good Morning! Or Whatever!
Here is a sweet video of a sweet puppy doing a sweet thing, to start your day (or end it, or be right in the middle of it):
Video Description: An older Golden Retriever lies on the wood floor of a home, sleeping. A wee Golden Retriever puppy lies beside hir, with hir head on the older dog's belly. The older dog begins to move and whine in hir sleep, like zie's having a bad dream. The puppy wakes up and looks around, then sits and observes the older dog. The puppy sniffs hir face, then looks at hir guardian behind the camera, sitting and waiting for instruction. When none is offered, the puppy turns and curls up right in the hollow of the older dog's neck, lying hir wee head on hir neck.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker AmeliaEve: "How did you discover your hobby?" Or hobbies.
I love this question! I'm trying to come up with the exact point of my "discovery" of video gaming, and I'm honestly not sure what it was. My dad owned Pong, when the game was an entire console unto itself, with which I was totally fascinated, but I think it's fair to say that my click moment was the first time I played Pac-Man on an Atari console at a friend's house. I was hooked.
And I still own a working Atari 2600 (Darth Vader edition) and a whole bunch of game cartridges, including Pac-Man, which remains my favorite.
Well, tied with Q-Bert.
Photo of the Day
The Cassini spacecraft has captured three magnificent Saturn sightings all at the same time: Saturn's north polar vortex and hexagon along with its expansive rings.Cool.
The hexagon, which is wider than two Earths, owes its appearance to the jet stream that forms its perimeter. The jet stream forms a six-lobed, stationary wave which wraps around the north polar regions at a latitude of roughly 77 degrees North. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 37 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 2, 2014 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 43 degrees. Image scale is 81 miles (131 kilometers) per pixel.
[EPA/Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Photo via.]
Y/N?
[Content Note: Thrill ride; disablism.]
This is the new Verrückt water slide at Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, which is the world's tallest water slide and is now open for business:
Before park visitors go down the slide, they'll have to go up: 264 stairs to a platform higher than the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls.So, my question to you, Shakers, is: Would you go on this water slide?
...In order to prepare for the opening, the slide needed some adjustments. The rafts, which were originally intended to hold four people, now hold three. The slope of the hill was changed to a "more gentle" 22 degrees, but was heightened by 11 feet. The structure is 168 feet tall.
...Before even being allowed to climb the stairs, visitors must step onto a scale to ensure the combined weight of the two or three people who will be on a single raft does not exceed 550 pounds. After passing that, a park worker reads a two-page list that is part warning and part disclaimer.
One of the warnings listed is the possibility of death.
In case you need more information before making up your mind, here is a video of people going on it and screaming and pretty much looking like they're going to shit their pants:
[Video Description: Precisely as introduced.]
I would do it. My butt would be puckered like a collapsing star and my face would be contorted into an expression of terror so severe it might never recover, but I would totally do it.
Our political system is fully dysfunctional, and this is why.
The Republicans have been screaming about how President Obama needs to "do something" about the recent surge of unaccompanied minor undocumented immigrants.
(This issue is also a concern for progressives, for other reasons.)
So President Obama requested $3.7 billion from Congress, in order to fund an initiative to address the issue.
And during a press conference today, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner responded to questions about the President's requisition by losing his fucking shit:
House Speaker John Boehner had some harsh words for President Obama on the border crisis, raising his voice and slamming the podium during a press conference Thursday.There is no governance anymore. There is only politics. There is no stewardship anymore. There is only ruthless competition. In order to win a game the only objective of which has become more winning.
When asked if Congress needed to approve a $3.7 billion request from the president to help ease a recent surge of unaccompanied minors, Boehner repeatedly said that the House would not grant Obama a "blank check." The speaker added that the children should be taken care of and then sent back.
Pressed on the issue, Boehner appeared to get heated. "This is problem of the president's own making. He's been president for five years! When is he going to take responsibility for something?" he shouted.
We are truly doomed.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny; objectification; violence; heterocentrism.]
Shaker Sarah emails, which I am sharing with her permission:
I just saw this advert outside Farringdon Tube Station in London. It's for a gym called Gymbox. It made me furious: the idea that women only work out to be desirable to men; that sexual harassment is secretly flattering or something women desire; that women send mixed messages, both wanting attention from random strangers and being unreasonably aggressive in fending it off. Hideous.
I also find it interesting, ahem, that clearly "builders" are exclusively men in this construction, which reinforces the narrative that women are never, ever, meant to work out to bulk up, but only to slim down.
Men are meant to work out to get bigger; women are meant to work out to get smaller.
And of course we know what happens to women who use violence in self-defense. Is everyone laughing until their sides ache at the idea that it would be cool for a woman to "beat up" a man who wolf-whistles at her?
If anyone is inclined to send some polite correspondence to Gymbox to ask them to stop using this advert, you can visit their contact page. Or their Facebook page. Or their Twitter.
Solutions
I am really tired of hearing, on any one of a number of consternating social issues in the US, that there are no perfect political solutions, as a justification for inaction. Or, worse, actively unhelpful or exacerbating action.
We don't need "perfect" solutions. We need humane ones.
And this incessant debate, such as it is, about balancing cost with decency is the reddest of all red herrings. There is nothing we can't afford to do in this country, when we really want to do it.
If we can find money to build tanks we don't even need, we can find money for people.
Daily Dose of Cute
She looks so adorable and peaceful while she's sleeping. And then she wakes up and starts following me from room to room, screaming at me for TREATS TREATS TREATS TREATS HEY HOW ABOUT SOME TREATS WANNA GO TO THE KITCHEN FOR SOME TREATS?!
Olivia enjoys treats.
The thing is, she only ever gets treats once a day at the same time: When I'm giving the dogs their breakfast, so she leaves them alone and doesn't try to steal their food, too. She never, ever, gets treats on demand. But it doesn't stop her from trying!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Men Without Hats: "Safety Dance"
This is the story of what happens when everyone at a Renaissance festival simultaneously drops acid.
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
Truly Groovy Top by ModCloth. I told you I love them!
The top I'm wearing in the picture is currently on sale for 50% off. Yay!
When mine arrived yesterday, I was delighted to find that the appliqué around the collar smelled like a beach ball. If that's something you imagine you wouldn't find delightful, haha, don't worry—it doesn't linger!
The purse is a vintage piece I picked up for a few bucks somewhere maybe two years ago. I absolutely love the colors, and the handle is one of those on a hinge, so you can swing it out to carry it like a handbag, or hide it inside to carry it like a clutch.
On the bottom, I was wearing skinny-cut (such a stupid description; they aren't skinny jeans when they're on my fat ass!) jeans and my purple Docs. With my misandry helmet tamed, it made for a cute vintage-homage look.
Anyway! As always, this is a general thread for fat fashion, but, if you need a topic: Do you love experimenting with mixing and matching clothes and accessories from different eras? Or are you a purist, or simply not that adventurous?
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; violence; death] In Israel and Gaza: "The death toll in Gaza continued to rise on Thursday as Israel's strikes against Hamas intensified, while residents in Tel Aviv awoke to explosions as rockets were shot down over the city by the Iron Dome defence system. Reports claimed that eight members of the same family—including five children—were killed in an air strike on two homes in Khan Younis, south of Gaza. A spokesman for the Gazan health ministry told Palestinian media that no warning was given and that most of the dead were children. Ashraf al-Qidra said the total number of Palestinians killed over the past three days now stands at 77, with over 500 people injured in the tiny coastal strip. There have been no Israeli casualties from the hundreds of rockets that have been fired by militants in Gaza."
I want to underline, again, that Israel's government and Hamas military leadership are not the same thing as Israeli people and Palestinian people, and neither group is in monolithic agreement. Many, many, many people do not want or support this violence. And by virtue of wildly unbalanced military and defense capabilities, it is Palestinian people who are paying the most costly price.
Being really fucking sad about that does not constitute reflexive, undiluted support for Hamas' military leadership. There are lots of Israelis who are really fucking sad about that, at the same time they're the ones under threat. Let's keep that in perspective.
[CN: Gun violence; murder] Are we going to talk about this in the frame of a culture of violent male entitlement? Probably not: "A man involved in a domestic dispute shot dead six family members and critically wounded a seventh in a suburb of Houston Wednesday, before surrendering to police following a tense standoff, authorities said. Law-enforcement officials said the suspect—identified as 33-year-old Ron Lee Haskell—had a domestic argument involving a divorce before he drove to the home in Spring, Texas, and shot seven family members, including five children." All the blubs forever that a surviving but wounded 15-year-old girl was able to tell police where he was headed, to hurt more people, so they were able to intercept him.
[CN: Sexual assault] A 16-year-old girl, who is so brave, is speaking out about having been sexually assaulted and then having video and pictures of the assault go viral among classmates. (At the link: "In a way, it's as though Jada's been assaulted twice, both inside the house and online." Yes, in a way. That way being actually and really and without question.) She's survived, and is surviving, a horrible trauma, and I wish for her both justice and peace. However she may define them.
[CN: Rape culture] Rage-making, but unsurprising: "More than 40 percent of colleges and universities in the United States didn't conduct a single sexual assault investigation on their campuses within the past five years, even though federal law requires them to do so if they have reason to believe a crime occurred, according to a survey administered by the office of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. ...Even worse, 21 percent of the largest private schools surveyed investigated fewer sexual assault cases than the number they reported to the Department of Education each year, investigations that are legally required by the federal Clery Act. Sometimes the number of assaults reported to the Department of Education was seven times the number of cases a school had investigated, the report said." This is rape culture.
[CN: Prisoner mistreatment] This is appalling: "Food and serving equipment contaminated with live maggots have been found at two Ohio prisons. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction confirmed that on June 30 a 'hot box was found to have maggots' in the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville. Prison spokeswoman Jo Ellen Smith said contaminated food was not served to inmates. Aramark Correctional Services, a private company, feeds state inmates under a $110 million state contract signed last fall. ...Maggots were also found recently in potatoes served to inmates in Michigan prisons, which also have a food service contract with Aramark. The Detroit Free Press reported that more than two dozen prisoners became ill with symptoms like food-poisoning after maggots and fly larvae were found on serving trays." Fuck you, Aramark. Jesus.
The Emmy Nominations have been announced. There are some pretty extraordinary categories, just full of amazing shows or performances. A golden era of TV, for real. But, as always, the nominee list is, in virtually every category, reflective of the usual kyriarchal privileges. And I will never stop being steamed that Fargo's Allison Tolman was not nominated as a lead.
[CN: Misogyny] Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling are expecting a child. Congratulations to them! And all the eyerolling in the world to this extremely common framing:
1. I'm pretty sure she's pregnant with her baby, too. 2. This framing really feeds into the narrative that women "get pregnant" to trap an eligible dude. She's having his baby, as opposed to: They're having a baby together.
This picture, taken at yesterday's meeting in Texas between President Barack Obama and Governor Rick Perry, may be the greatest picture ever taken.
And finally! Here is just a terrific video of a greyhound happily bouncing around a pool on a hot day. Yay!
Welp
[Content Note: War.]
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the insurgent group which has taken over parts of Iraq, now has "low-grade" nuclear material in its possession:
Iraq has notified the United Nations that Sunni militants seized nuclear material from a university in the northern city of Mosul last month as they advanced toward Baghdad, the nuclear regulatory body of the United Nations said on Thursday.That's a very good way of putting it.
Gill Tudor, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna, said in a statement that the organization's experts believed the material — thought to be uranium — was "low-grade and would not present a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk."
Word of the seizure first emerged in a letter to the United Nations dated July 8 and seen by reporters from Reuters, which quoted it as saying that "terrorists" from the insurgent Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS, had taken control of the materials.
...In her statement on Thursday, Ms. Tudor said that the atomic energy agency "is aware of the notification from Iraq and is in contact to seek further details."
She said experts did not believe that the material could be fashioned into a weapon. "Nevertheless," the statement said, "any loss of regulatory control over nuclear and other radioactive materials is a cause for concern."
It's very important to underline that the materials cannot be fashioned into a nuclear weapon or "dirty bomb," and it's also important to underline that the loss of state security over these sorts of materials is a grave concern, as it's indicative of a general and increasing lack of control.
Colorado's Same-Sex Marriage Ban Ruled Unconstitutional; Ruling Immediately Stayed
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
So, the good news is that yet another state ban on same-sex marriage has been ruled unconstitutional yayayayayayayay:
An Adams County District Court judge on Wednesday declared Colorado's ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional... Judge C. Scott Crabtree pulled no punches in his 49-page ruling, saying the state's voter-approved ban "bears no rational relationship to any conceivable government interest."WOOT!
The ruling makes Colorado the latest in a string of 16 states that have seen their bans on same-sex marriages tossed out by state and federal judges.
...Attorneys for 18 plaintiffs — nine couples — from Denver and Adams counties argued that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.
"We are ecstatic. There is much cheering in our house," Sandra Abbott said after Crabtree's ruling. She and her partner, Amy Smart, were one of the nine couples in the lawsuit. "We waited a long time for this ruling."
The bad news is that Crabtree immediately stayed his ruling to give Colorado State Attorney General John Suthers' office time to appeal the ruling to a higher court.
And here's what's happening, at this point: In states like Wisconsin and Indiana, where bans have been ruled unconstitutional but the state governments granted stays to appeal, the states drag their feet on actually filing the appeal, because they are very likely to lose.
Meanwhile, as long as the stay is in place, no legal same-sex marriages can be performed. So deliberately delaying the appeal they're presumably going to lose is states' last gasp at preventing legal same-sex marriage.
Knowing that state governments are playing this game, judges really need to start reconsidering whether they have a compelling reason to grant a stay.
In any case: Congratulations, Colorado! One step closer...
Question of the Day
[I'm helping a friend with a presentation this afternoon, so I've got to wrap up a little early today.]
Suggested by Shaker Alison Rose: "What's the best book you've read so far this year? (Seems a good time for it, being right at the halfway point!)"
I just finished Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games, which Iain has been after me to read for years. I loved it so much, and had ALL THE THOUGHTS about it! The best kind of book.
[If you have a good suggestion for a Question of the Day, leave it here!]
Daily Dose of Cute
"Whuzzat?!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
a-ha: "Take on Me"
This is the story of a human lady who likes comics about motorcycles and coffee, and is invited to have a cool adventure inside a comic book by a handsome drawing. Her love is so powerful it turns him into a real boy.
