This blogaround brought to you by typos.
Recommended Reading:
Arturo: [Content Note: Anti-immigrant sentiment; racism] Activist Jose Antonio Vargas Enters the 'Unaccompanied Minors' Fray
Aoife: [CN: Discussion of trigger warnings; rape culture; transphobia] Trig Reciprocal Functions: I'm a Trans Woman Adjunct Prof and I Use Trigger Warnings
stavvers: [CN: Stalking; transphobia; TERFs; threats] Is Stalking Feminist Praxis These Days?
Fannie: [CN: Violence; threats; rape culture] Atlantic Writer: Women's Prison Show Should Be More About Men
Jamilah: New Video Series Honors Today's 'Queer Black Visionaries'
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism] Canadian Sitcom Producer (Non-) Apologizes for Offensive Tweets
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
The Wednesday Blogaround
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Class warfare] A new study from the Economic Policy Institute has found "that the wage gap between tipped and non-tipped workers is the widest it's ever been in American history. ...According to the study, the poverty rate among non-tipped workers is 6.5 percent—but among tipped workers, it rests at at 12.8 percent. More than half of the people represented by this overwhelmingly female demographic are more likely to rely on public assistance as a permanent wage subsidy. The authors of the EPI study note that public assistance was never meant to become 'part of the business strategy for low-wage employers.' They also found that the tipped laborer workforce is currently the largest it has ever been."
[CN: Death] Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes: G.M. communication "obtained by The New York Times from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration casts doubt on how forthright the automaker was with regulators over a defective ignition switch that G.M. has linked to at least 13 deaths over the last decade." Welp, since corporations are people now, charge them with negligent homicide. Oh, you mean corporations are people without any people-type consequences? Neat.
[CN: War; death] In Israel and Gaza: "Israeli missiles struck the houses of several senior Hamas figures overnight, as at least seven Palestinians were reportedly killed in the latest escalation of violence.The renewed strikes came a day after the failure of a brief and one-sided ceasefire on Tuesday observed by Israel, but not by Hamas. ...The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has said he had 'no choice' but to escalate Israel's bombing campaign. 'When there is no ceasefire, our answer is fire,' he said. ...Rocket fire killed an Israeli man on Tuesday, the first Israeli fatality in eight days of fighting. In Gaza, more than 202 people have been killed and almost 1,500 wounded, Palestinian officials said, making it the deadliest Israel-Hamas confrontation in just over five years. Since 8 July, militants have fired nearly 1,000 rockets and mortars into Israel, and Israel has carried out about 1,500 strikes against targets inside the Gaza Strip, according to the army."
[CN: Coercion; misogyny] Take Your Boobs to the White House, Hillary Clinton! Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on The Daily Show last night and Jon Stewart harangued her about running for president. (Shocking, I know.) Take Your Boobs and Go Home, Hillary Clinton, and Take YOUR Boobs to the White House, Elizabeth Warren! "An enthusiastic band of activists has launched a campaign to slow the momentum of Hillary Clinton and convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that she should run for president in 2016. 'I think there's an opportunity for us to convince her if we're really able to make the case as to why we think she's the right person,' said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager."
I realize there is a long history of campaigning to try to convince someone to run for president, but those people have usually been men, and it matters that women generally are subjected to a culture of coercion (in many things) that men are not, and it matters that the presidency has always been filled by a man. (It also matters that Elizabeth Warren has said she doesn't want to run for president in 2016, and this campaign is essentially ignoring that she's said no.) There's a difference in pressuring someone to run for an office that has never been filled by anyone like them, to take up a campaign that is more than just a political campaign. Stop pressuring and cajoling women to run. Let them decide on their own. And then respect their decisions. Fuck.
Neat: Scientists have discovered a feathered, four-winged dinosaur that lived in China 125 million years ago. "The meat-eating creature, called Changyuraptor yangi, had exceptionally long tail feathers—at one foot in length, they were the longest feathers of any dinosaur. It had feather-covered forelimbs akin to wings as well as legs covered in feathers in a way that gave the appearance of a second set of wings, and which may have allowed the creature to glide."
Danae Mines will be the first female firefighter ever to appear in the FDNY Calendar of Heroes: "'I wanted my picture in the calendar so that young girls and young women can see me and know that they can do this job,' said the 11-year department veteran, who, like the guys, was shot by celebrity photographer Patrick McMullan. 'I love the picture they took, and I love the month,' she added. 'It's Women's History Month.'" LOVE HER.
It's cool how Elle's excerpt of their cover feature on the amazing Kristen Wiig definitely includes the information she'll be naked in an upcoming movie. For sure the most important thing I need—and want!—to know about arguably one of the most talented comedians and actresses working today.
This is so great! SO GREAT: John Polimeno has "developed an app for your smartphone that will hopefully reconnect you with your lost pup. John calls his new app Finding Rover. He and a startup team of developers have been testing it over the past year, and now it's on its way to smartphone app markets everywhere. There will be no charge to download the app, nor a charge to use it. The app works on facial recognition and matching software. Basically, you take a picture of your missing dog, and upload it to the Findingrover.com database [which] then uses facial recognition to see if it can match up your picture, to any of the pictures of any dogs that people have uploaded as 'found.' If there's a match, you and your missing pet can be happily reunited." Amazing. This could be great for animal control units and shelters in helping place lost pets back at home. Yay!
America
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
[This inscription is on display in the Statue of Liberty Museum, located inside the iconic statue's base.]
[Content Note: Racism; xenophobia; abuse. Video may begin playing automatically at link.]
CNN: "Not in my backyard: Communities protest surge of immigrant kids."
In places such as Murrieta, California, and Oracle, Arizona, the message is clear: Thousands of immigrant children fleeing Central America are unwelcome in Small Town U.S.A.
The children, many of them arriving unaccompanied from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, have traveled up to 3,000 miles across deserts and rivers, clinging to the tops of trains.
They sometimes face rape and beatings at the hands of "coyotes," smugglers who are paid thousands of dollars to sneak them across the southern border with Mexico.
Earlier this month in Murrieta, busloads of babies in their mothers' laps, teens, 'tweens and toddlers were turned back from a detainee facility.
They were met by screaming protesters waving and wearing American flags and bearing signs that read such things as "Return to Sender."
We often hear the turn of phrase, "We are a nation of immigrants," which is not really true. We are a nation of indigenous people, colonialists, slaves, and immigrants. "We are a nation of immigrants" is a whitewashed version of that history, and now even that phrase has become anathema to the people who declare themselves the "Real Americans."
The "Real American" is defined in contradistinction to the undocumented immigrant (among others), even a desperate child.
The "Real Americans" bray endlessly about the United States of America being the greatest country in the world, and then pretend that isn't an invitation. They behave like a spoiled child with a (stolen) toy they hold out to playmates, not to share, but to brag it's theirs and you can't have it.
But it's all a ruse. It isn't pride that makes them stand and shout at a bus full of children "from the local YMCA, which they had mistaken as the immigrant children." It's insecurity. It's an increasingly perilous grip on the "American Dream" they were promised in exchange for "hard work," and their fears, fomented by an opportunistic party of scoundrels, that there isn't enough to go around.
Help has been replaced with defense. In every way. We steal from the social safety net to give to defense on the federal level. We see the erosion of social services and rise of militarism within communities. We call police, instead of offering assistance. And we tell your huddled masses yearning to breathe free to GTFO.
No help here. Not anymore.
We are a nation of closed doors.
But we don't have to be. We don't have to be conservative. We can be abundant. Abundantly compassionate, innovative, generous. We can welcome and live with abundance.
We have the resources. We merely need the will.
Nurse Conscientiously Objects to Force-Feeding Detainees at Guantánamo Bay
[Content Note: Torture.]
Background: For more than a year, a number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay have been on a hunger strike, and the US military has been force-feeding them. In May, US District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered Gitmo officials to hand over dozens of secret videos as part of a lawsuit regarding the force-feeding of hunger striker Abu Wa'el Dhiab, and, last month, twenty-eight videos were handed over, three of which were entered into evidence. It was also reported that officials had stopped recording the force-feeding sessions, although they continued.
Now, a nurse at the facility has said he ethically cannot continue to force-feed detainees:
In the first known rebellion against Guantánamo's force-feeding policy, a Navy medical officer recently refused to continue managing tube-feedings of prison hunger strikers and was reassigned to "alternative duties."Let's hope that's true. Of course, the increasing lack of transparency at Guantánamo Bay means that it will be very difficult to know whether he suffers any adverse consequences as a result of his decency and compassion.
A prison camp spokesman, Navy Capt. Tom Gresback, would not provide precise details but said Monday night that the episode had "no impact to medical support operations at the base."
"There was a recent instance of a medical provider not willing to carry out the enteral feeding of a detainee," he said in an email. "The matter is in the hands of the individual's leadership."
Word of the refusal reached the outside world last week in a call from prisoner Abu Wael Dhiab to attorney Cori Crider of the London-based legal defense group Reprieve. Dhiab, a hunger striker, described how a nurse in the Navy medical corps abruptly refused to "force-feed us" sometime before the Fourth of July — and disappeared from detention center duty.
Crider called the male nurse the first known U.S. military conscience objector of the 18-month-long hunger strike in the prison camps, and said his dissent took "real courage ... none of us should underestimate how hard that has been."
...Crider said Dhiab quoted the nurse as announcing, "I have come to the decision that I refuse to participate in this criminal act."
...Medical staff are allowed to refuse by invoking medical ethics, [Retired Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist who visits the prison frequently and considers Guantánamo force-feeding policy to be unethical] said, and should not be treated as insubordinate. Instead, the nurse should be allowed to continue providing health care to detainees, just not enteral feeds.
"They have said to us directly that if a provider objects for ethical reasons or other reasons they would not be ordered to participate — and they would not suffer any adverse consequences," said Xenakis.
We've been holding some of these men, without charge or trial, for more than twelve years. Convicted of no crime, they would rather starve themselves to death than continue to rot away in a prison thousands of miles from home, and we won't even give them the freedom to make that choice. Instead, we torture them by strapping them down and force-feeding them.
A nurse tasked with this horror has refused to do so, and the prison camp spokesperson wants to make sure we know that his protest has had "no impact to medical support operations at the base."
Well, it should. It should impact every person tasked with the "medical support operation" of torturing human beings held without charge.
Question of the Day
What is something nobody knows about you? Not necessarily because it's a secret (although it could be that!), but maybe just because no one has noticed this particular trait or habit, or because it's something you wouldn't keep a secret but don't have anyone you feel inclined to tell.
More News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
Indiana state has a $2 billion budget surplus in cash reserves, and our Republican Governor Mike Pence is really proud of it. Except: "Pence ordered budget cuts in December, including a loss of $34 million to state colleges and universities. Other agencies also returned millions, including $27 million from the Family and Social Services Administration and $12 million from the Indiana Department of Correction."
If you think that's because our public schools, family and social services, mental healthcare facilities, and prisons are doing great, it ain't.
Daily Dose of Cute
"Oh, you want your book? Too bad!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
An Observation
[Content Note: Racism; xenophobia.]
It's always fun when people come at me with anti-immigration bullshit (i.e. dogwhistled racism) to remind them that I'm married to an immigrant, and then watch them stammer and try to explain to me that they didn't mean that kind of immigrant.
The more clever among them will try to assert they are making a distinction between documented and undocumented immigrants.
But we all know what the real difference is.
"I don't think the piece of paper my husband has to document his immigration says much about him as a person," I say, and challenge them to explain to me why it says something to them.
[Related Reading: The Language of Immigration; Quote of the Day.]
Breaking Tom Hardy News
Here is a very important and newsworthy photo of Tom Hardy kissing his dog Woodstock's head while taking a break from shooting a film in London:
In case you are anything like me and definitely need to see Tom Hardy kissing Woodstock's head from another angle, just to confirm is it for sure one of the cutest things ever on the history of the planet, here is another very important and newsworthy photo:
More? We probably need more. I mean, it's good to be comprehensive when reviewing important news.
"I love you, Tom."
"I kiss you back, Tom."
In case you're curious, Tom Hardy rescued Woodstock with Jessica Chastain while they were shooting Lawless in the US.
There are like a million more pictures here. My thanks to Shaker Celticfeminist for the heads-up.
Quote of the Day
"This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is Thor. This is the Thor of the Marvel Universe."—Jason Aaron, series writer of the re-launch of Marvel's Thor.
[T]he character will be separate from the man who had been Thor—a title which, in the Marvel Universe, is designated by whomever proves worthy to hold Thor's hammer, Mjölnir.I like it. I like it a lot.
...Marvel Comics editor Wil Moss also emphasized that the new Thor "is not a temporary female substitute—she is now the one and only Thor."
...This will be only Marvel's eighth female lead character, a group which also includes such notable characters as Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Elektra, and She-Hulk.
[H/T to Shaker Erin M.]
Details
[Content Note: Criminalization of need; rape culture; racism; classism.]
So, I'm reading this article about Debra Harrell, a mom in North Augusta, South Carolina, who was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct toward a child, because she allowed her nine-year-old daughter to go play at a park while she was working at McDonald's.
Here are the facts: Debra Harrell works at McDonald's in North Augusta, South Carolina. For most of the summer, her daughter had stayed there with her, playing on a laptop that Harrell had scrounged up the money to purchase. (McDonald's has free WiFi.) Sadly, the Harrell home was robbed and the laptop stolen, so the girl asked her mother if she could be dropped off at the park to play instead.The author of the piece, Lenore Skenazy, who advocates for "free-range kids," makes excellent points about how we are criminalizing parenting choices regarding supervision based on faulty narratives about rape culture, and about how we're criminalizing need.
Harrell said yes. She gave her daughter a cell phone. The girl went to the park—a place so popular that at any given time there are about 40 kids frolicking—two days in a row. There were swings, a "splash pad," and shade. On her third day at the park, an adult asked the girl where her mother was. At work, the daughter replied.
The shocked adult called the cops. Authorities declared the girl "abandoned" and proceeded to arrest the mother.
There's one little detail left out of Skenazy's piece, though: Debra Harrell is black. That seems relevant.
It seems relevant because Shanesha Taylor is black. It seems relevant because Moina Lucious is black. It seems relevant because this is partially a class issue, and black women are disproportionately likely to live in poverty. It seems relevant because we know that black mothers' choices made out of need are criminalized in a way that white mothers' choices are not.
This isn't just about our increasing insistence on holding parents (especially mothers) accountable for failing to protect their children if they aren't hovering over them 24 hours a day. (Or if they are.) It's also about classism and racism and the criminalization of black lives and choices.
So, yes, it's one thing to observe that, 31 years ago, I was allowed to spend long days, sans mobile phone, at parks anywhere within range of my bicycle, with other kids, often with none of our parents around at all. And that was okay. And, while recognizing many parents don't feel they can make that choice because of the culture of judgment and blame around parenting, it should be okay today.
But it's not much of an observation without including that I was a white kid with white parents in a mostly white and mostly working-middle class exurban town, and I'm not exactly sure, if I'd been a nine-year-old black girl instead of a nine-year-old white girl, that no one would have called the cops "for me" even back then.
We can't just advocate for less judgment of parents, because that alone probably won't protect women like Debra Harrel. We have to also advocate against the reflexive response, to parenting choices we don't like, of criminalization and forcible separation of poor and/or black mothers and their children.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
This is a cool story about archaeologists having discovered remains of an ancient ancestor of the present-day elephant. Gomphotheres "were smaller than mammoths, similar to the size of the modern elephants" and "dominated the regions in North America." There's this little part of me that thinks, "Wow, it would be so cool to just see a gomphothere walking down the street," but there's a bigger part of me that's all, "I got enough drama with deer."
(Okay, I hope you all enjoyed that story and my little deer joke, because the tenor of the news is going to plummet precipitously from here.)
[Content Note: Rape culture; description of sexual assault] This is a really important piece about how a student named Anna at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges in central New York was repeatedly raped by football players and how the college took "just 12 days to investigate the rape report, hold a hearing and clear the football players. The football team went on to finish undefeated in its conference, while the woman was left, she said, to face the consequences—threats and harassment for accusing members of the most popular sports team on campus." This, right here, is why we don't shame victims who decide not to report their rapes. And this, right here, is why we need to defend people who advocate for taking rape seriously, and listen to people who question whether traditional models of "justice" are working for victims. This, right here, is why we support survivors.
[CN: War; violence] In Israel and Gaza: "The Israeli security cabinet had agreed to a 'de-escalation' of the conflict, to begin at 9am today, but Hamas rejected the proposal, saying it had not been consulted and its demands were not being met." Hamas continued to fire rockets, and so Israel resumed its bombing. In an official statement, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said: "Hamas's rejection of the ceasefire gives Israel full legitimacy to expand the operation to protect our people. No country would sit idly by while its civilian population is subjected to terrorist rocket fire. Israel is no exception."
[CN: War; violence] In Afghanistan: "Afghan defense ministry officials say a suicide car bomb has killed at least 89 people in eastern Afghanistan. Tuesday's attack took place in a region [the Waziristan territory] that borders Pakistan. Authorities in the Afghan province of Paktika say almost all the victims are civilians, and they fear the death toll may rise." The massive blast destroyed "around 50 shops on both sides of the road," and rescuers are still searching for survivors and dead. The Afghan Taliban has denied responsibility for the attack, and the Pakistan Taliban has not yet claimed or denied responsibility.
[CN: War; violence; terrorism; misogyny] In Iraq: "Gunmen slaughtered 25 [sex workers] in two Baghdad brothels, Iraqi police said. A nearby shop owner told NBC News that the attackers were wearing Iraqi security service uniforms. ...Baghdad police confirmed that 25 sex workers had been killed in Saturday's shootings, adding that the attackers left notes claiming the killings were punishment."
[CN: Accident; death; injury] At least nineteen people have been killed and as many as 120 injured in a serious train derailment in Moscow during morning rush hour. "Russia's investigative committee said it was looking into the causes of the accident. It said, however, there was no suspicion of a militant attack, the cause for scores of deaths in Moscow's underground in years past."
[CN: Extreme weather; food insecurity; death; photo of dying child at link] In South Sudan, where war and famine have created a major humanitarian crisis, the onset of the rainy season has further exacerbated the already dire situation: "The UN warns that up to four million people are at risk of food insecurity, with young children facing the highest risk of malnutrition. ...Child mortality in Bentiu's UN Protection of Civilians site [which houses approximately 45,000 internally displaced persons] has reached alarming levels, with approximately four children below the age of five dying per day. Aid workers fight an uphill battle against the deplorable water and sanitation conditions in the camp, which provide fertile ground for diseases."
[CN: Extreme weather] The Philippines is still recovering from Super Typhoon Haiyan and now they're facing another major storm: "Thousands of people fled their homes and ships sheltered from heavy seas in the Philippines on Tuesday as the first major storm of the rainy season strengthened into a typhoon. Typhoon Rammasun was set to strike the Bicol region in the east of the country at 6:00pm (1000 GMT), with Manila and other heavily populated areas also expected to be hit early Wednesday, the state weather service said. 'We are preparing for the worst it is critical now that we finish the evacuations,' said Rafaelito Alejandro, civil defence chief of Bicol, an impoverished farming and fishing region of 5.4 million people. About 6,000 residents had already moved to evacuation centres, with authorities aiming to have another 39,000 take shelter before the typhoon hits, he said."
[CN: Extreme weather] In California: "On Tuesday the State Water Resources Control Board in California is expected to institute statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time. All of California is in some type of drought and reservoirs are precariously low in many places."
[CN: Extreme weather] Over Lake Michigan: "Waterspouts have been reported along with showers and thunderstorms over the southern portions of Lake Michigan, officials said. ...Scattered showers and thunderstorms are set to develop throughout the day Tuesday as unseasonably cold air spreads over the warm lake waters and across the Chicago area. The setup will keep the potential for additional waterspouts to develop throughout the day, mainly in the southeastern portions of Lake Michigan, according to a Marine Weather Statement issued by the National Weather Service Tuesday morning. The alert included portions of northwest Indiana." Harbor your boats!
War, war, war. Extreme weather, extreme weather, extreme weather. And right in the middle, a colossal humanitarian crisis that is the result of war and extreme weather acting in concert to devastate a population.
I didn't plan it that way. I only realized after I'd put it all together.
The international community is largely ignoring what's happening in South Sudan. Which is criminally indecent, and also a horrendous metaphor for how we refuse to look at our global future, if we don't get our shit together. If it isn't already too late.
I know I usually end on an up-note, but sometimes the news just calls for serious contemplation and no excuse to look away.
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooops:
A group of conservative women, mostly members of the Republican Study Committee, met Friday to discuss issues facing women today and how the GOP can better explain how its policies could help.No, it's definitely conservative policy, but continue.
"The problem here is not necessarily conservative policy, it's our messaging," Kim Strassel, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal who was moderating the panel said.
[Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee] referred to men and women as females and males, which makes you feel about as connected as someone talking about animal mating habits.Females don't understand pie charts and respond better if you can frame politics in terms of their relationships. And they need more time to get ready in the morning. So make sure you bring shit down to their level.
..."Females will respond better if you can get a connection with a relationship," Black said.
..."Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level," [Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina] said. "Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they've got some pie chart or graph behind them and they're talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that."
...Ellmers then said that women mainly want more time in their lives (don't men as well?) and the first example she gave was that women wanted "more time in the morning to get ready."
As for connecting to women specifically, Ellmers drove it home with a line that, had there been liberals in the audience, would have made the news.
"We need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman's level and what everything that she is balancing in her life — that's the way to go," Ellmers said. (Emphasis added.)
"Taxation is bad because it makes it harder for your boyfriend to buy that 4-wheeler he's been wanting." MAKE ME THE NEXT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT, LADIES.
[H/T to my friend Mark.]
Kacy Catanzaro Makes History
It is by total coincidence that today's Open Thread host is Nagano, the first second Japanese Ninja Warrior to successfully reach the top of Mount Midoriyama, because, last night, Kacy Catanzaro became the first female Ninja Warrior, in either Japan or the US, to complete the finals qualifying course and qualify for the finals and a shot at reaching the top of Mount Midoriyama.
I've mentioned before that we're total Ninja Warrior heads at Shakes Manor; we've been fans since the original Japanese version, Sasuke, started airing in the states, and we know all the Japanese competitors and from which prefecture they travel to compete. And now we're completely enamored with the US version, and IT IS THE BEST DAY when the Japanese Ninja Warriors travel to the States or the American Ninja Warriors travel to Japan, and we get to see all the best warriors compete with each other and cheer each other on and HUG EACH OTHER ALL THE HUGS!
Anyway.
If you aren't familiar with Ninja Warrior, it's an obstacle course competition, in which a huge group of people—including both returning contestants and walk-ons—face a daunting obstacle course. If they finish, they go on to stage two, which is an even more daunting obstacle course that must be completed in under two minutes. (Or whatever time is set for the particular configuration that season.) And if they finish that, they go on to stage three, which is not timed, and is just a brutal test of one's upper body strength—just hanging, hanging, and more hanging as the contestants traverse all manner of obstacles while their feet dangle beneath them.
Anyone who manages to complete the third stage—and, often, no one does—has a shot at Mount Midoriyama, which is just a timed rope climb. And good luck quickly climbing a rope after your arms and back have just been destroyed by stage three.
The other thing about this competition? Is that it happens once a year.
So the competitors train for an entire year, many of them building facsimiles of the courses in their backyards (or training at one of the many gyms popping up featuring iconic Ninja Warrior obstacles), and have one shot to see if they can make it through.
Since near the very beginning of Ninja Warrior, women have competed. (In Japan, there is a separate Women of Ninja Warrior competition, although women still compete in the "men's" version, too.) In recent years, in the US, some women have gotten close to finishing the first round, but none of them had ever managed to defeat the looming Warped Wall, which is always the final obstacle of stage one—a 14-foot vertical half-pipe that competitors must navigate by perfecting a running-leaping strategy.
Earlier this season, Kacy Catanzaro, a former division-one gymnast who is only five feet tall, became the first woman to top the Warped Wall. Several other women followed her. And then, last night, she because the first woman to complete the qualifying course to go to the finals by defeating an extended course. And it was fucking amazing, basically. Iain and I were for real cheering in our living room.
[I'm not going to transcribe the commentators, Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, because they are annoying. Just pretend they said, "She is five feet tall and weighs 100 pounds!" a million times in a row, which is basically what happened.]I love a lot of things about Ninja Warrior, but right at the top of that list is the fact that women are not only welcome to compete with the men, but the men cheer them the fuck on. They want women to succeed in this male-dominated sport.
Kacy Catanzaro, a petite white woman, stands on the starting platform. Her boyfriend, Brent Steffensen, a white man who is an accomplished Ninja Warrior veteran, stands on the sidelines, applauding her and looking super nervous.
The buzzer goes off, and Kacy begins, first leaping her way across the Quintuple Steps, which are staggered steps hovering over a pool of water. After completing that, she moves on to the Log Grip, which is a vertical log with shallow hand-holds and no foot-holds, which swings with a steep drop over a pool of water. She completes that without falling off, and, in the stands, Brett is leading a chant of "Kacy! Kacy! Kacy!"
Next, she moves on to the Unstable Bridge, which is a spinning foam thingy she traverses with ease. Next, it's onto a trapeze swing that takes her onto a cargo net, which she has to traverse underneath in the smallest space between a pool of water that she can't touch. She makes it through and the crowd cheers. "I love you guys! Thank you!" she calls to them.
Next is the ring toss, which is an obstacle in which she needs to traverse across an inclining then declining then inclining again series of pegs, using two big round rings, moving them from peg to peg. She swings from one to the next, almost falling at one point, and then recovering. She does it! The crowd goes wild!
"Beat that wall!" chants the crowd, as she faces the Warped Wall. She gets it in one try, and the crowd erupts. They chant her name as she faces one of the toughest Ninja Warrior obstacles: The Salmon Ladder, which is just a straight-upward climb using a bar to hop upwards between sets of pointed brackets. She does it!
Next it's onto the Swinging Frames, which are devilish metal frames that tilt backwards as one moves across them, making it ever more difficult to reach the next one. Kacy doesn't have the wingspan to reach, at all, so she LEAPS from one to the next! The crowd loses it! They are just screaming and applauding for her and shouting her name.
And then she's onto the Pole Grasper, which is a field of poles one must navigate without sliding down or falling off. At one point, the poles are farther apart than she is tall, so she has to LEAP!!! and SPIN IN MIDAIR!!! from one pole to the next. She grabs the pole, spinning around, but clings on! And then she's through!
"She's one of the most talented athletes I've ever known," her boyfriend says from the sidelines, gazing at her.
She faces the final obstacle, the Spider Climb, which is a four-foot wide and thirty feet tall shaft that contestants must traverse by pressing their hands and feet against the walls and shimmy straight upwards. Kacy positions herself, then zips up quickly. She pulls herself onto the platform at the top and hits the buzzer. SHE'S DONE IT!!!
The crowd cheers; she yells; Brett climbs up the outside of the platform to celebrate with her. It cuts off there, but, when it aired, they kissed and hugged, and he congratulates her, and she says, "I couldn't have done it without you." (He's her trainer, as well as her boyfriend.) And he replied, "Yes, you could have, but I'm glad to be able to share it with you."
Everyone is there to compete against themselves. They all cheer each other on, because they all know you can only do the best that you can do, and if someone else's best is better, well, that's just spectacular to watch.
And they knew they were witnessing something special watching Kacy's run, and they celebrated it. It's pretty special (although it shouldn't be) to watch a bunch of guys cheer so goddamn hard for a girl.
I can't wait to see Kacy take on the finals. Go, Kacy!!!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Doctor_Tinycat: "What is the earliest memory you have of a cool new technology item your family got? (Such as how exciting it was to get a VCR, etc.) Along with any neat memories along with that."
Photo of the Day
A supermoon rises above Dojran Lake in southeastern Macedonia on Saturday, July 12, 2014. The phenomenon, which scientists call a "perigee moon," occurs when the moon in its elliptical orbit is relatively close to Earth and seen from the Earth near the horizon, appears larger and brighter than other full moons. [AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski/via]
