[Content Note: Racism; projection.]
"This is a part of the war on whites that's being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that's not true."—Republican Congressman from Alabama Mo Brooks, on conservative Laura Ingraham's radio show, earlier today.
Ha ha okay player.
I don't even know what to say. Just insert gales of mirthless, contemptuous laughter here, peppered throughout with snarling profanity.
Quote of the Day
This Is Not Being Part of the Solution
[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
Last week, Chris Pratt appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote his latest film, Guardians of the Galaxy. During the segment, the link to which was forwarded to me by Shaker J, Pratt told an anecdote about getting in trouble with the network after he flashed Amy Poehler (and others) on the set of their TV show, Parks and Recreation:
Chris Pratt, a thin white 35-year old man wearing a brown suit with a blue button-down shirt sits in the guest chair beside host Seth Meyers, a thin white 40-year-old man wearing a grey suit, white button-down shirt, and blue tie.Phew. Okay.
Meyers: Ah, I'm so happy for you guys and I'm also a little heartbroken that you're going into the last—you're filming the last season of Parks right now. You're about to start.
Pratt: Yeah. Yes.
Meyers: Um, you got—I did not realize this until today—you got in a little trouble from NBC; they filled me in that you got in a little bit of trouble—
Pratt: [chuckling] Yes.
Meyers: —for, uh, well, why don't you fill us in on what you did— [Pratt laughs] You actually got admonished by the brass.
Pratt: Yes. I'm pretty sure I know what admonished means... [audience laughter] Just in case, does that mean they yelled at me?
Meyers: [laughing] Yeah, they did, they yelled at you.
Pratt: Yeah, they did. [audience laughter; Meyers laughs] Yeah, they did. I, um— You know, it's kind of funny now, because they're not gonna fire me, I don't think—
Meyers: Yeah.
Pratt: —because we're done, we're gonna be done this year.
Meyers: Sure.
Pratt: Wait, they could fire— They gave me, they sent me a letter saying I'm not supposed to make a joke about this, so, just so you know, this is really serious. [grins; audience laughs]
Meyers: Okay, yeah. [points at audience, grinning] So no matter how funny this is, don't laugh. [audience laughs]
Pratt: Yeah, 'cuz it's gonna seem really funny, like I think it's hilarious—
Meyers: Right.
Pratt: —but it was actually, at the time, but the whole time I've been like... [cringes]
Meyers: It's very serious. And when they talked to you about it, you felt, you realized, you were wrong.
Pratt: Yeah, well, like, when I framed the letter next to the frame of me naked [Meyers laughs] I was like, "This is as a reminder." [looks mockingly serious]
Meyers: Yeah. So, tell us what you did.
Pratt: Basically, um, there's this scene early on—I think it's the second season—when Andy [his character] was still dating Ann [Rashida Jones]—or, had been dating Ann and then was still in love with Ann, and she wanted him to come to the house and he got the signals crossed somehow and thought that she wanted him to come to the house naked and hook up.
Meyers: Right.
Pratt: And so I show up naked at the house. And, um, and Leslie [Amy Poehler] is there, Amy Poehler is there, to receive a naked Andy. And so, they give me like these underwear that are nude colored, like this skin-colored—that's what they do in the movies, if they're gonna pixelate out the junk area—
Meyers: Right.
Pratt: —they don't make ya show your junk; they just like make it a skin-colored brief—
Meyers: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Pratt: —that I was wearing. So I show up in these skin-colored briefs, and it's at the end of the day, and I'm not quite eliciting the response that I was hoping to from Amy—
Meyers: Right, 'cuz Amy's supposed to open the door and be surprised.
Pratt: She's supposed to say, "Oh my god your penis!" and then I go, "Oh no!" [audience laughter] Well, so, I—I was like three or four takes in, and Mitch, our boom operator—I was like, "Mitch, I'm gonna go snake out on this one." [Meyers laughs; audience laughter] "I'm gonna go naked!"
Meyers: Yeah!
Pratt: And he's like, he's like, "Oh gosh, I dunno." I's like, "TOO LATE!" [audience laughter and groans]
Meyers: And, by the way, if you work on a set, if the boom operator is cool with it, that clears it.
Pratt: That's pretty much—yeah. [they both laugh] General rule of thumb. And, uh, so I went trou down, and the reaction was awesome!
Meyers: And it's the one they used!
Pratt: It's the one they used! [audience laughter]
Meyers: So, we actually have a clip.
Pratt: Do you have a clip? Oh!
Meyers: Here's the episode of Parks and Rec—and this is just method acting at its best. Let's see this reaction shot from Amy.
[clip of moment when Andy arrives at Ann's front door, which Leslie opens and then looks properly horrified; the audience laughs; cut back to Pratt and Meyers, who are laughing; Meyers claps his hands; then the two of them get faux-serious and waggle their fingers at the audience]
Meyers: Very serious. [Pratt slaps himself on the wrist] Very serious. And you learned your lesson!
Pratt: Yeah. I did.
Meyers: You learned your lesson.
Pratt: And they said in— In the letter, they did say, like, you know, hey listen, you can't do this and also [chuckling] probably don't go joke around about it; it's not a joking matter. [Meyers laughs] And it's not, like, you really, you can't do that, because there are like, because— [shrugs] I dunno. [Meyers and Pratt belly laugh; the audience laughs] 'Cuz you're not supposed to.
Meyers: Chris Pratt, everybody!
So, the first thing I want to say about this is that I don't want to presume what Amy Poehler's reaction to this incident was. She is not only Chris Pratt's boss and coworker, but they are also friends, and friends often have different boundaries with one another than they have with other people.
(That said, I will also note that Amy Poehler was not the only person unexpectedly exposed to Chris Pratt's penis.)
But, irrespective of Poehler's personal reaction, even if she didn't think it was a big deal, there are two men—Chris Pratt, who is her colleague and employee and friend, and Seth Meyers, who is her former colleague (on SNL) and one of her best friends—talking about this for a vast audience, none of whom have any idea what Poehler's reaction was, many of whom know nothing about their relationships with her, and most of whom probably haven't given much consideration to the fact that exposing oneself to another person without their consent isn't okay irrespective of that person's reaction after the fact.
Also: Despite Meyers saying the network (NBC, for whom they all work) told him about the incident, the entire thing is played as if Pratt is being an impudent rogue, telling the story as a hilarious anecdote and mocking the idea of concern for sexual assault in the workplace.
Which doesn't say a whole lot for how concerned NBC really is about harassment and assault in the workplace, since they evidently gave their approval for this incident to be discussed on one of their shows.
I'm guessing, given years of experience of seeing this sort of scenario play out over and over and over, that this entire thing would be defended and justified, in part, by the participants by using some variation on: "Amy was cool with it." (And maybe she is. But also? Maybe she's just playing at being "cool with it" because there is enormous pressure on women to treat sexual harassment and sexual assault by their male friends as "jokes," to judge harassment and assault by the intentions of the person doing it, rather than by our own real reactions to it.) But even granting the possibility that she's "cool with it," the point is that this isn't a story being told in a vacuum.
This is a story, being told as a funny anecdote, sending up "hypersensitivity" about sexual assault, within a rape culture, where women who are sexually harassed and assaulted at work are often accused of being "oversensitive," and where normalizing sexual harassment and assault against women communicates to predators that it's okay; everyone does it.
This would be a horror show no matter who was involved in it, but Seth Meyers has been featured in an anti-rape campaign produced by the White House:
Actor Benecio del Toro: We have a big problem, and we need your help.Emphasis mine.
Actor Dulé Hill: It's happening on college campuses, at bars, at parties, even in high schools.
Actor Steve Carell: It's happening to our sisters, and our daughters—
Actor Daniel Craig: —our wives, and our friends.
Actor Seth Meyers: It's called sexual assault, and it has to stop.
Hill: We have to stop it. So listen up.
del Toro: If she doesn't consent, or if she can't consent, it's rape; it's assault—
Carell: It's a crime. It's wrong.
Vice President Joe Biden: If I saw it happening, I was taught you have to do something about it.
del Toro: If I saw it happening, I'd speak up.
Craig: If I saw it happening, I'd never blame her. I'd help her.
Hill: Because I don't want to be part of the problem.
Meyers: I want to be a part of the solution.
Biden: We need all of you to be part of the solution. This is about respect; it's about responsibility.
President Barack Obama: It's up to all of us to put an end to sexual assault. And that starts with you.
Craig: Because one is too many.
Seth Meyers, this is not being part of the solution. This is being part of the problem. This is the problem.
Meyers told me to expect more, and here I am expecting more. I don't expect someone who lends their celebrity to an anti-rape campaign, saying that sexual assault "has to stop" and that he wants "to be part of the solution," to use his network TV show to make a fucking joke out of a sexual assault.
I expect him to have a zero tolerance policy on humor that diminishes the gravity of and normalizes sexual assault.
This is about as far from walking the walk as it gets.
And, as an aside, Seth Meyers: As a survivor of sexual violence, I want to tell you that my male friends do not use my experience as a justification for upholding the rape culture by joking about it with other men in public view. My male friends, if they use my experience at all, use it as a justification for challenging and dismantling the rape culture.
Maybe you should consider exactly what kind of friend you really want to be. The kind who expects us to understand that Amy must be cool with it, or the kind who isn't cool with it himself.
Daily Dose of Cute
I mean.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; death. Covers next three paragraphs.] In Israel and Gaza: "Israel declared a seven-hour 'humanitarian window' in Gaza on Monday amid international outrage at the third deadly attack on a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinians and mounting pressure for the bloodshed to end. ...It slowed violence but shortly after it started two Israeli missiles hit a house in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing one, the Red Crescent and a Gaza health official said. Later in Jerusalem one person was killed when a man rammed a construction excavator into a bus in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood close to the unofficial line between the Jewish and Arab areas of the city. Shortly after the excavator attack, Israeli media reported that a gunman on a motorcycle shot and seriously wounded an Israeli soldier."
The US Department of State released a statement to the press condemning the school shelling: "The United States is appalled by today's disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which at least ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed. The coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli Defense Forces. We once again stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties. UN facilities, especially those sheltering civilians, must be protected, and must not be used as bases from which to launch attacks. The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians."
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told (and does not deny telling) US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro that the United States is "not to ever second guess me again" on how to deal with Hamas. Which highlights the US' complicated relationship to Israel, as the US is providing billions of dollars of aid every year, most of which is funneled to Israel's defense, making us a primary underwriter of their defense even as their Prime Minister reminds us we don't have a vote on how it's used and, frankly, our opinion isn't especially welcome.
[CN: Disaster; death] A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in southern China's Yunnan province has killed at least 398 people, injured more than 1,800, and destroyed about 12,000 homes. Many people remain missing, and nearly 30,000 have been displaced. Fuck.
[CN: Police brutality; sexual assault] Having apparently learned absolutely nothing after killing Eric Garner, whose death has been ruled a homicide, New York City police officers put another asthmatic person, 48-year-old Denise Stewart, in a choke hold until she passed out: "A Brooklyn woman answered the door in a towel, only to be dragged into the hallway by a dozen male police officers... The video shows [Stewart] struggling to get away from the cops, yelling, 'I can't breathe' as they hold her against the wall. Stewart, who has severe asthma, passed out and dropped to the floor wearing nothing but underwear. Officers stood around, not bothering to cover her up, for about two minutes. Officers say they received a call to the apartment building without a specific apartment number and heard noise coming from Stewart's apartment. Stewart's lawyer told the New York Daily News the 911 call came from an apartment on a different floor." In addition to everything else that's wrong with this, if anyone else dragged a woman out of her apartment and choked her until she passed out and then left her in public view wearing only her underwear, I'm pretty certain that would be considered a sexual assault.
[CN: Disaster; death] In California, a state desperately in need of rain, thunderstorms over the weekend caused flash floods and mudslides, killing at least one person and leaving many others stranded. Damn.
[CN: Death penalty; torture] In yet another state execution that went horribly awry, a man being put to death by the state of Arizona took two hours to die, spending an hour "gasping and snorting" until he finally succumbed. End the death penalty now.
[CN: Bullying] Misha G. has written a really terrific post about how apologia makes one a strategic asset for bullies: "In a more general way, online communities where the prevailing 'wisdom' is that Internet harassment should just be ignored are a fantastic opportunity for bullies. If online harassment actually is an effective bullying tactic (which, again, the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests that it is), then a community where online harassment is hand waved away as 'something you should just ignore' is the perfect place to bully."
If this is true, it would be incredible: Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, may reboot Ghostbusters with an all-female cast. YES PLZ.
And finally! Here is just the best video of a guy who works on an electric crew comforting a fawn by rubbing his tummy until he was reunited with his mother. Awwwwwwwwww.
Shaker Garden Thread: August Edition
Hey Shakers! It's been a while since we had a garden thread. My own garden's been a bit neglected since I have been out of the country for a bit; the less said about the current invasion of leaf-footed bugs, the better. So I thought I'd share some flower pictures from my travels, like the gorgeous petunias, above, that I spotted in Dumfries, Scotland.
And these are from Falmouth in Cornwall, on a lovely day of perfect beach weather! (Or, castle-visiting weather, if you're like me.)
And these are roses from Hampton Court Palace, in Greater London - truly a flower-lover's paradise!
How about you? Whether it's a pot in a window, a rooftop garden, or a sprawling country garden bed, feel free to share your own garden pictures and stories here. (As ever, please be respectful that other people's gardening goals and needs may differ from your own.) How does your garden grow?
On Looking
[Content Note: Discussion of photos of tragedy and suffering. References to human atrocities. Please note there is an image of a starving child at the link.]
Last Thursday, Maaza Mengiste wrote a thought-provoking piece for the Guardian about news photos, particularly regarding crises in Africa, and balancing "our capacity to bear witness and our need to protect our capacity for compassion."
"Photographs of violence ask us to bear witness to atrocity," writes Mengiste. "Bearing witness begs us to respond. When there is nothing left to do, it is easy to fall prey to numbing helplessness and confusion. …It is easier to back away from those photographs until some event, too catastrophic to ignore, tells us how we should react. In the meantime, we try to forget."
I have so many thoughts about this piece. Or, more accurately, thoughts inspired by this piece.
Which is intended wholly as a compliment to Mengiste, who wrote something that challenged me to think about my own reactions to news photos of atrocities.
I have very mixed feelings about such pictures—though I agree with Mengiste who observes that these photos exhort us to recognize and empathize with the individual humans who are being harmed, or struggling for their very survival.
There's an old Eddie Izzard bit that cleverly and insightfully indicts our ability to process large-scale suffering. It may seems strange to insert a comedy piece here, but, as anyone knows who is an Eddie Izzard fan, his comedy is not just about making his audience laugh.
[And Hitler was a mass-murdering fuckhead, as many important] …historians have said. But there are other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions; died in his bed—well done there. Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians; died under house arrest, age 72—well done indeed!What he is saying here is a true thing—and it's true not just for people who do harm on a massive scale, but about people who are suffering on a massive scale. One person, and many of us will reach out to help, will feel like there's something we can do to help this one person in need. One community, and many of us will reach out to help, will feel like there's something we can do to help this community of people in need. But as the numbers rise, when it's tens of thousands of people, when it's millions, suddenly many of us begin to feel overwhelmed. And helpless.
And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people. And we're sort of fine with that. "Ah, help yourself!" You know? "We've been trying to kill you for ages!"
So, kill your own people, right on there. Seems to be…! Hitler killed people next door. "Oh… Stupid man." After a couple of years, we won't stand for that, will we?
Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people. We can't even deal with that! I think, you know, we think if somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. If you kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick; that's what they do. Twenty people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever.
And over that, we can't deal with it, you know? Somebody's killed 100,000 people—we're almost going, "Well done! Well done! You killed 100,000 people?! You must get up very early in the morning. I can't even get down the gym! Your diary must look odd: Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, lunch, death, death, death, afternoon tea, death, death, death, quick shower…"
You know. So I suppose we're glad that Pol Pot's under house arrest…
Mengiste argues that pictures documenting individual need can be calls to action, can help us transcend those feelings of being overwhelmed.
And I think that's right.
But I still have mixed feelings about pictures that highlight suffering, even knowing how powerful they can be.
This is partly because I'm concerned about consent: Although I think that responsible news photographers are getting better and better about seeking consent from their human subjects, the ubiquity of cameras, now available to and present with virtually anyone who carries a mobile phone, combined with the media's increasing reliance on witness photos, means that consent is deprioritized in favor of fast and immersive photos.
(In fact, it often appears as though media's ability to reproduce amateur photography is a way of justifying invasiveness and lack of consent that may violate many professional photographers' ethics.)
This is not such a concern in a place like South Sudan, so I'm moving a bit far afield from Mengiste's focus, but it's one of the reasons that we now have related conversations about "disaster porn," and it's one of the reasons I often host image-free threads in the immediate wake of tragedies.
But a drought, a famine, an ongoing war is not a sudden tragedy, but an incremental and sustained one. Is there a compelling difference; do I feel differently about images to compel action there, as opposed to images documenting the aftermath of an unexpected, devastating event?
I think the answer to that is yes. I find a distinction there. And I feel differently about them as a result.
But that's just me. Which brings me to my final thought: People don't all respond the same way to images documenting atrocities.
I don't just mean that some people are compelled to action and some are indifferent—although that, too—but that even people disposed to be compelled to action respond to different types of images.
Any charitable organization that does fundraising and/or awareness-raising on behalf of people (or animals) tends to use images for that objective. And there are some groups that go for the tragic imagery documenting suffering, and some that go for imagery that highlights successes—"this is the difference your help can make."
(Think: Sad Sarah McLachlan suffering animal adverts vs. Billy's Rescue Story, for example.)
The former makes me shut down and feel overwhelmed (there's a reason I use the teaspoon concept), whereas the latter is very appealing to me.
But that's just me (and people who share that response). There are some for whom the other sort of images are more motivating calls to action.
Charitable fundraising does not have the same objective as the media, but the thought about how some people respond better to images of successful intervention in charitable fundraising makes me wonder whether there's a correlative approach in news photography, e.g. highlighting the way people are surviving, indicting the necessity of the way they are having to survive but providing a glimpse of hope that there is still a way to make a difference for survivors.
Maybe there isn't another approach. Maybe there isn't now, but should be.
In any case, I will give the final word to Mengiste: "To deny our own human reactions makes it easier to deny the humanity of those who are photographed. Though we cannot change what has happened, we can alter the symbolism attached to the images. Photographs can be more than a reminder of cruelty and the inevitable aftermath of war. There are narratives unfolding right now in South Sudan, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo that can be rewritten. We have the ability to strip away what we're supposed to see—just another African victim—and gaze upon what we should: a human being. But first, we have to look."
Discuss.
[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]
The US Justice System
[Content Note: Death penalty; death; fire; guns.]
Here are two things I've read this morning:
1. Maurice Possley of The Marshall Project for the Washington Post: "Fresh doubts over a Texas execution." This story recounts the extraordinary, illegal, unethical lengths to which a Texas prosecutor went in order to secure the conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by the state in 2004. Willingham was convicted of setting a house fire that killed his three daughters, but forensics experts have long disputed that arson was the cause of the fire. He was convicted primarily based on the testimony of an unreliable jailhouse informant, who was manipulated and aided by the prosecutor. This doesn't look like justice.
2. Nicole Flatow for Think Progress: "Prosecutors Won't Charge Florida Man for Fatal Gunfire Outside Wal-Mart, Citing Stand Your Ground." This story recounts a recent case in Florida, in which a man shot another man ten times in the back, claiming the former friend was walking to his car to retrieve a weapon.
"The Stand Your Ground statute makes no exception from the immunity because Brown may have been walking away from Thriemer at the time the deadly force was used," the memo from the State Attorney's office states. "The Stand Your Ground law does not require Thriemer to wait until Brown in fact retrieved a gun before he fired. Under the current state of the law and the facts of this case, Thriemer was legally allowed to use deadly force based on a reasonable belief that his life was in danger and that he was about to become the victim of an armed robbery."Before, the shooter would have had to, say, make some attempt to get into his vehicle, beside which he was standing, and try driving away before shooting another man repeatedly in the back. But now, he doesn't.
...Thriemer would have had a duty to first attempt retreat in a public place "rather than using deadly force" before the law changed "substantially" in 2005 with Stand Your Ground.
Even before the obvious commentary about prosecutorial inconsistencies with regard to how Stand Your Ground is applied (see: Marissa Alexander), this doesn't look like justice.
It's not that these kinds of stories are new. I'm certainly not naive enough to be making the point that these sorts of injustices are only happening now.
No, my point is that these sorts of stories are old and repetitive. And we're still not doing anything about it.
Open Thread
Hosted by Orion.
This week's (and last week's) Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter O.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
The Spice Girls: "Wannabe"
I know this is often held up as one of the worst bubble-gum pop songs of all time, and also quite frequently as an example of packaged "girl power," but I have to admit, I have always loved the idea that a condition of a relationship is that your potential partner gets along with your friends.
That's not to suggest, of course, that totally understandable personality clashes between people who both love you doesn't happen, or that sometimes a partner's dislike of a friend is the first indication that maybe that friend isn't so terrific after all. But, you know, generally, if you have good friends with whom you have healthy and equitable relationships, and a potential/new partner somehow doesn't like any of them? RED FLAG.
Quote of the Day
"I definitely took a big gamble. But I chose the project I thought I could write best. There were things that you would say the name, and people would say, 'Oh, yeah.' And I thought abut choosing those that, in a mercenary mindset, would be the wisest ones to choose, but I identified more with this property, and I thought it had the most fun. There's just so many things you can do in terms of world-building, and tonally—I thought you could have a lot more fun with it. But it was a pretty big risk."—Nicole Perlman, co-writer (with James Gunn) of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy movie, on why she chose to work on this property "out of a list of a half dozen potential ideas they were thinking of developing."
The film had an $11.2 million opening last night on its advanced showings, which is the biggest Thursday debut of the year.
I've been looking forward to this film for a long time, and I hope to have the chance to see it sometime this weekend. Are you planning on checking it out? Already seen it? Couldn't care less? Discuss!
Daily Dose of Cute
How am I supposed to get anything done?
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note covering following two paragraphs: War; death] In Israel and Gaza: "A 72-hour Gaza cease-fire crumbled only hours after it began Friday, with at least 50 Palestinians killed by Israeli shelling, Israel saying one of its soldiers may have been abducted amid a gunfight in a Gaza tunnel, and both sides trading accusations of violating the truce." There are reports that two Israeli soldiers were also killed.
Although both sides may be "trading accusations of violating the truce," the US is firmly taking one side: In a statement, US Secretary of State John Kerry says that the US "condemns in the strongest possible terms today's attack, which led to the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the apparent abduction of another. ...Hamas, which has security control over the Gaza strip, must immediately and unconditionally release the missing Israeli soldier... The international community must now redouble its efforts to end the tunnel and rocket attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel and the suffering and loss of civilian life." There is no mention in the statement, apart from the vague reference to "the suffering and loss of civilian life," which is not made to appear specific to Gaza, of the deaths in Gaza, which are approaching 1,500.
[CN: Homophobia; transphobia] In (tentative) good news, Uganda's Constitutional Court has ruled that the nation's "Anti-Homosexuality Act" is "null and void" because "not enough representatives were in the room for the vote when it was passed by Parliament in December 2013." Which unfortunately gives the Parliament plenty of room to try to pass it again. But Ugandan LGBTQI activists are hopeful, and so is Amnesty International: "Even though Uganda's abominable Anti-Homosexuality Act was scrapped on the basis of a technicality, it is a significant victory for Ugandan activists who have campaigned against this law. Since it was first being floated in 2009, these activists have often put their safety on the line to ensure that Ugandan law upholds human rights principles."
(You can watch John Oliver's terrific interview with Ugandan activist Pepe Julian Onziema here.)
[CN: Transphobia; violence] There are some of the usual problems with this piece (talking about trans women being "born male," as opposed to "assigned male at birth," for instance, and reporting irrelevant birth names), but it's nonetheless a strong piece about the murders of two black trans women in Baltimore this month, in eerily similar crimes, and how it has affected their community, via interviews with women who are part of that community.
[CN: Carcerality] Sarah Solon for the ACLU: "Want Safer Communities? Throw Fewer People Behind Bars." A great piece on how increasing carcerality is not, in fact, an effective solution to improving the safety of a community.
[CN: Climate change] California's drought continues to worsen, and now 58.4% of the state is in "exceptional drought," which is the most severe category for drought that exists.
Here's a great headline: "Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a rising Republican power in House, as well as a whip." Well, that is very good news for him, and virtually no one else.
Here's another great headline: "Why Mitt Romney is perfectly poised for a comeback in 2016." Matt K. Lewis, you had me at the picture of Mitt Romney standing in front of a giant flag, right at the top of your article!
This is just a really incredible story about the brooding habits of female octopi generally, and about a specific octopus who spent the last four years and five months of her life clinging to the same spot on a rock, to give her embryos time to develop in the cold water.
And finally! This is just the best story of a recently rescued cat who saved her new family's home from a house fire: "Tillie's family had planned to adopt a dog when they visited their local RSPCA adoption centre in Melborne, Australia one day three weeks ago. Instead, they came home with the tabby cat who had been flea ridden and covered in the scratches she got in fights, and had recently given birth to a litter of kittens. ...Matt's wife and children had already left for the day when Tillie stopped him as he tried to leave for work on the morning of the fire. The concerned cat meowed persistently and gazed up at the ceiling, leading Matt to reach up and feel heat coming from above. He gave a gentle tug to a ceiling light and smoke poured into the room, leading him to call firefighters to the scene in time to save the home." WAY TO GO, TILLIE!!!
My Point, Here It Is
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape apologia; racism.]
Yesterday, I wrote a piece about a planned biopic of Mike Tyson and tolerance for some rapists, as long as they're popular blokes, in which I noted: "Woody Allen has stars lining up to be in his pictures."
Allen, whose daughter Dylan Farrow has detailed being sexually assaulted by him, also gets glowing profiles written about him in magazines like the New York Observer that open with revolting paragraphs like this one:
Would it kill you to know that Woody Allen is just like us? He's got two teenage girls who listen to pop music on their iPhones. He's always worried that something bad will happen to them. He exercises every morning but struggles to keep his weight up. (Okay. He's not totally like us.)The two teenage daughters being referenced there, we are informed seven paragraphs later, are "Bechet, who’s 15, and Manzie, 14."
They're adopted. Each is named for a famous jazz musician. When I met them this past spring at the opening of Mr. Allens's Bullets Over Broadway premiere, they were incredibly normal teenage girls. Does he like having two teenage girls in the house? "No! They're a lot of work. When they hit the teenage years they become more difficult. They're great before then, charming. But they hit the teenage years and they become like Bonnie Parker."That's a reference to Bonnie and Clyde. Woody Allen is making the joke that his teenage daughters are like a dangerous criminal. Ha ha, he's just like us, being terrorized in his own home by teenage girls.
To recall: Dylan Farrow says Woody Allen sexually abused her in their own home.
Dylan Farrow's allegations are never mentioned anywhere in the piece, and the author, Roger Friedman, is almost belligerent in his avoidance. Toward the end of the piece, he writes:
Earlier this year, in an effort to derail Ms. Blanchett's Oscar campaign, a couple of anonymous complaints turned up in the tabloids about Mr. Allen not using black actors. He's horrified when I bring up the subject.Note that the complaints were not valid criticisms of an American filmmaker known for making overwhelmingly white movies in one of the country's most ethnically diverse cities, but merely just cynical attempts "to derail [Cate] Blanchett's Oscar campaign."
The piece goes on to allow Allen to make his usual bullshit excuse for not telling stories that include people of color.*
Dylan Farrow's piece was published in the New York Times around the same time. To invoke the criticism about Allen's lily white casting while failing to give even oblique reference to Farrow's account of abuse, especially as Blanchett was named in Farrow's piece as someone who has worked with Allen without regard for what he did to Dylan, reads as a way of saying to those who believe Dylan Farrow: Fuck you. Her account is so incredulous that I wouldn't even credit it with a mention.
And reads as saying the same to Dylan Farrow herself, which is remarkably cruel and sinister, in a piece lionizing her abuser.
Naturally, Allen may have made not mentioning the allegations a requirement of his participation. In which case, agreeing to that while writing glowingly of his relationship with his (other) daughters and reporting how "horrified" he is to be asked to confront criticisms regarding race, as if everything's on the table, is deeply mendacious.
How about his own vulnerability? "I worry not only about me. But that something bad won't happen to three other people. That my wife won't get run over, that my kids won't die in a plane crash. I used to worry about just me and maybe one other person!"By way of reminder, Allen has other children from his previous relationship with Mia Farrow, at least one of whom, his son Moses, continues to publicly defend him. At he doesn't even make the list of people about whom Allen worries.
Neat guy. "American Master."
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* Allen says he will not cast black actors "unless I write a story that requires it. You don't hire people based on race. You hire people based on who is correct for the part. The implication is that I'm deliberately not hiring black actors, which is stupid. I cast only what's right for the part. Race, friendship means nothing to me except who is right for the part." Note the circular logic: He writes stories that don't include parts that are "correct" for black actors, but it's stupid to imply he's deliberately not hiring black actors, even though he only casts "what's right for the part"—parts that he writes.
That is immediately followed by what essentially boils down to the old "I have black friends" chestnut: Chris Rock appeared in a documentary about him, and bought him a wedding present, and went to dinner with him once. "I'm friendly with Spike Lee. We don't socialize, but I don't socialize with anyone. I don't have white friends either."
All the Mirthless Laughter in the Multiverse
[Content Note: Immigration; racism.]
I mean.
Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.Here are the takeaways from that:
In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis "without the need for congressional action," a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach.
1. Congressional Republicans are shameless hypocrites. (And water is wet.)
2. Congressional Republicans are not really concerned about the President's use of executive orders full-stop; they're concerned about the President's use of executive orders to do things with which they disagree. They're essentially arguing for the right to force the President of the United States to do their bidding.
If anyone is overreaching in this scenario. Ahem.
I don't suppose I need to note for the one biebillionth time that it sure is curious how aggressive Congressional Republicans are being about trying to undermine the authority of this particular president, in the specific ways they're doing it.
3. Congressional Republicans want to punt on immigration. They can't "win" on immigration in a way that satisfies their racist base and the increasingly powerful Latin@ voting bloc (which is not in monolithic agreement on undocumented immigration policy, anyway), so they want to not have to take a stand at all, during a major immigration crisis, and leave it to President Obama to unilaterally set policy which they can then criticize no matter what it is.
They are playing a game while people are dying.
The thing about treating politics as a game is that it only seems like a game to the people who are playing it.
The rest of us? Not so much.
I Hope This Is Good News?
[Content Note: Homophobia; war on agency; racism.]
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicts that "the court will not duck the issue of same-sex marriage the next time a case comes to it, and could decide the issue by June 2016, and possibly a year earlier."
This is important, because the next time SCOTUS takes up a same-sex marriage case, it will likely set precedent for the constitutionality of same-sex marriage for the entire nation, and render to the dustbin the current state-by-state patchwork of legality.
Appeals courts in Denver and Richmond, Virginia, have upheld lower court rulings striking down state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. Any of those cases could make their way to the Supreme Court in the coming months.So, it's good news the court will take up the issue. And it's promising that the court has seemed inclined to rule toward constitutionality of same-sex marriage.
Attitudes have changed swiftly in favor of same-sex marriage, which is now legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia, Ginsburg said.
She predicted that the justices would not delay ruling as they did on interracial marriage bans, which were not formally struck down until 1967.
"I think the court will not do what they did in the old days when they continually ducked the issue of miscegenation," Ginsburg said. "If a case is properly before the court, they will take it."
But this court has not been exactly progressive on other social issues. In the same article, Bader Ginsburg defends the court's garbage decision on buffer zones, for example. But that was a "free speech" case, and US free speech protections are routinely prioritized even at the cost of people's safety, whereas civil rights cases tend to go the other way.
So, there's some reason to hope that a Supreme Court case on self-sex marriage would be decided in favor of progress and equality.
I fear the worst, but hope for the best.
