[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
FYI
[Previous FYI: Rick Astley; Eddie Murphy; The Eurythmics; Eddie Rabbit; Sinéad O'Connor; Was (Not Was); Bon Jovi; Kenny Rogers; Bobby McFerrin; Starship; Dead or Alive; Right Said Fred; Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians; Salt n Pepa; Nelson; The Cure; The Soup Dragons; Europe/BushCo; Elton John; Eddie Money; Human League; Glenn Frey; Van Halen; Alanis Morissette; Depeche Mode; The Beatles; The Proclaimers; Bruce Springsteen; Meat Loaf; Cyndi Lauper; Cole Porter; Tina Turner; The Jets; Starland Vocal Band; Kenny Loggins; Gloria Estefan; Martha Reeves & The Vandellas; Rebecca Black. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by chili.
Recommended Reading:
Jamilah: [Content Note: Illness; racism] The Underlying Racism of Ebola Coverage
stavvers: [CN: Abuse; self-blame] Easy Targets
Darnell: [CN: Racism; police brutality; hetero/cis/male centrism] Black Freedom Fighters in Ferguson: Some of Us Are Queer
Angry Asian Man: Vanita Gupta to Lead Justice Department's Civil Rights Division
Latoya: [CN: Racism] Blackface by Another Name? "Painting Down" on Gotham
Fannie: [CN: Misogynist terrorism; anti-feminism] Now Will Sommers Listen
Veronica: Space Camp: Post-landing Thoughts about Day One
Mia: [CN: Homophobia; racism] LGBTQ Hyphen: The Visibility Project Tour
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophs is very intent on me sitting right here while she kneads me.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Michael Dunn Sentenced to Life without Parole
[Content Note: Murder; racism.]
Michael Dunn, the white man who killed unarmed black teenager Jordan Davis, has been sentenced to life without parole.
Michael Dunn, 47, was convicted of killing Jordan Davis, 17, in November 2012 after he shot into a SUV of four teenagers 10 times when an argument broke out over loud music coming from the teens' vehicle. Dunn was sentenced to an additional 90 years in prison for three attempted murder convictions and another 15 years for firing into an occupied vehicle. "Our justice system works. This case demonstrates that our justice system does work," said Judge Russell Healey at the sentencing.The justice system worked, as much as it ever works.
But I want to quote Mychal Denzel Smith on what real justice looks like:
Justice for Renisha would have looked like Michael Brown being able to attend college. Justice for Trayvon would have looked like Renisha McBride getting the help she needed the night of her accident. Justice for Oscar Grant would have looked like Trayvon Martin making it home to finish watching the NBA All-Star game, Skittles and iced tea in tow. And so on, and so on. Justice should be the affirmation of our existence.Black lives matter. That is not a statement which can exist in a void. Justice for Jordan Davis has to mean that no more young black men are killed because white people with guns rob them of their lives for no fucking reason but rank dehumanization.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
"Suddenly, we privatized politics."—Trevor Potter, an election lawyer who helped draft the McCain-Feingold law, quoted in Jim Rutenberg's "How Billionaire Oligarchs Are Becoming Their Own Political Parties."
With the advent of Citizens United, any players with the wherewithal, and there are surprisingly many of them, can start what are in essence their own political parties, built around pet causes or industries and backing politicians uniquely answerable to them. No longer do they have to buy into the system. Instead, they buy their own pieces of it outright, to use as they see fit.When the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations, unions, and nonprofits the latitude to donate freely to political campaigns and thus effectively bankroll federal elections, I grimly mused: "It is not hyperbole to say this decision is paving the way for America to become a fully-fledged corporatocracy, which, depending on your perspective, is a sibling to fascism or a version of it. ...This decision further diminishes any voice that isn't backed with a fuckload of money. Someday, we may look back on this day and realize it was the day our democracy died."
Welp.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Illness] Not good: "A Texas health-care worker who 'may have' handled lab specimens from Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan has been isolated on board a Carnival cruise ship in the Caribbean. The worker has shown no symptoms of the disease, according to Carnival, which said it is in close contact with the Centers for Disease Control. A Carnival spokeswoman said the guest, who was not named, will remain on board in voluntary isolation until the ship returns to its home port of Galveston on Sunday." The reason I say that's not good is not because I am particularly concerned about a possible transmission of the virus, but because I am concerned about fanning the flames of alarmism. Maybe the folks on Duncan's healthcare team could not travel, just for awhile.
In related news: Shaker Brunosaurus passed along this piece Duncan's nephew wrote following his uncle's death, and I think it's very important reading, to keep centered the thought that Duncan was a person, a loved person, and that care for one another as people is deeply important during times of alarmism around communicable disease.
And finally: President Obama has appointed Ron Klain, former chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, as "Ebola Czar," tasked with coordinating the US' response.
[CN: War; terrorism; death] This is so awful: "Islamic State militants have targeted the Iraqi capital Baghdad with a wave of devastating car bombs and mortar attacks, killing at least 150 people since Sunday, in an escalating campaign of violence and mayhem. ...These latest attacks follow a series of dramatic advances in Iraq by IS fighters, who have succeeded in capturing most of the sprawling Anbar province to the west of Baghdad." Fuck.
[CN: Misogyny] Another one for the Can't Fucking Win List: "An attorney on maternal leave was denied her request to postpone an immigration hearing in Atlanta, and had to litigate with her baby strapped to her chest. Then, she was berated by the judge, who refused to delay the hearing, for bringing her child to court."
Woot! "Federal Judge Strikes Down Arizona's Same-Sex Marriage Ban; Couples Can Marry Today."
Hey, fellow Twin Peaks heads! Check this out: "Twin Peaks is making its triumphant return 25 years after the series debuted with a new season on Showtime and a just-announced book by Mark Frost, co-creator and executive producer of the popular TV series with David Lynch. Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan, will publish The Secret Lives of Twin Peaks, an inside look into what has happened to the iconic characters of the fictional town since audiences last saw them more than two decades ago." I can't wait to settle in to read that with a slice of pie and some damn fine coffee.
I don't know what the big deal is: It's just a giant green buttplug in the middle of town. Big whoop. Insert a joke about the Very Jolly Green Giant here.
Would you go on the "world's first 4D free fly coaster," set to open next year in Six Flags Fiesta San Antonio? I would ride the fuck outta that thing! It looks amaaaaaaazing.
And finally! Many humans love their pets like children. So says science. SCIENCE!
Grisham: Part Two
[Content Note: Rape culture; child sex abuse; exploitation. Part One is here.]
As many of us suspected, author John Grisham's characterization of his friend's arrest for ch1ld p0rn0graphy was profoundly misleading:
The friend in question is presumed to be Michael B. Holleman, a Mississippi lawyer who was first identified by the Salon website, and was sentenced to 18 months in 1998 for "sending and receiving" ch1ld p0rn0graphy.Holleman pleaded guilty after being caught, and served 15 months of an 18 month sentence. He is now back to practicing law.
However unseen newspaper reports of Mr Holleman's trial in 1997 obtained by the Telegraph from the local Sun Herald newspaper paint a far more serious picture of the case than Mr Grisham.
"An undercover agent who asked for some of Holleman's pictures over the Internet earlier this year received 13 images, all of children under 18, some under 12. They depicted children during sexually explicit conduct, including [rape]," said the report from November 1997, quoting a US justice department lawyer, Kathy McLure.
His law licence was reinstated at a hearing of the Supreme Court of Mississippi in June 2002 after the court decided that notwithstanding "the seriousness of Holleman's crime" he had "rehabilitated himself and possesses the requisite moral character to entitle him to conditional reinstatement".So, either Grisham did not bother to actually learn the details of Holleman's crimes before writing a letter of recommendation on his behalf, or he did learn them but didn't care and went on to publicly mischaracterize them in defense of "sixty-year-old white men in prison who've never harmed anybody," who are unfairly persecuted, and prosecuted.
According to a record of the hearing Mr Holleman's petition for reinstatement was supported by some 60 letters of recommendation, including testimonials from Mr Grisham and two other members of the Class of 1981 from Mississippi School of Law.
And let us all take a moment to appreciate the irony that Grisham imagines that these men's lives are being ruined by malicious over-prosecution and harsh sentencing, when his pal is back to practicing law.
Grisham was essentially arguing that a hiccup in one's career is too steep a price for a white man to pay, for participating in the sexual exploitation of children.
[H/T to Aphra_Behn.]
Bill Maher Continues to Be the Worst
[Content Note: Islamophobia; anti-Muslim sentiment; misogyny.]
In a new interview at the Daily Beast, Bill Maher is asked about the segment in which Ben Affleck challenged Maher and Sam Harris on their anti-Muslim sentiment, and his responses are predictably dreadful:
The Ben Affleck episode on Real Time was just great television. On no other show would you see an A-list actor from a newly released blockbuster like Gone Girl getting fired up over Islam. What did you make of that heated exchange? He seemed pretty fired up the moment Sam Harris sat down.Welp.
Well, I'm done talking about it. My view is I've said what I had to say about it the week before, when I did a formal monologue at the end of the show that I wrote very carefully, and they were responding to that. I will say that we legitimately started a national debate on something that needs to be talked about, and it's very gratifying to finally see that a heck of a lot of liberals understand that the real liberals in this debate are people like me and Sam.
But when you do make generalizations about Islam…
…It's not a generalization! First of all, this is nonsense—this idea that you can't make generalizations. All of knowledge is based on generalizations. No one can interview all 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. It's a dumb argument. Read any history book and it'll use the word "Christendom," but they didn't interview every Christian in the 1600s. We're talking facts. We're talking polls that have been done over decades, time and time again telling us what people are thinking about the world. So this idea that we are making generalizations? It's just stupid. We understand that 1.5 billion people don't all think alike and that there are differences from country-to-country, but you can't advance any sort of knowledge without making generalizations and it doesn't mean they're inaccurate. To say that it's a widespread belief in the Muslim world that death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion is just a statement of fact. We should stop arguing about that and move on from it and figure out what we can do about it. To dismiss that is just like saying, "Global warming doesn't exist."
If all Muslims are generally bad, then where does five of the last twelve Nobel Peace Prize winners, all of whom are Muslim—people like Malala Yousafzai—fit in?
Man, I'm done talking about this. I just don't want to keep talking about this. I've said my piece, now the rest of you talk about it.
There's so much bad thinking here. One of the things I want to reiterate is that Harris and Maher and their supporters are treating the "facts" derived from polling as evidence of potential behavior rather than simply evidence of belief, and those are not the same things.
Neither of them appears to be aware (or maybe they just don't care) that lots of religious people say they believe lots of things when asked in polls about their beliefs that they only support in the abstract and wouldn't support in practice.
Which is a thing that's true of all people, but conservative religious people especially because they tend to lean toward holy text literalism regarding doctrine that tells them to not believe these things is sinful.
So there are a whole lot of people who might say they support X, which would be very extreme in practice, who wouldn't actually support it in practice because it's so extreme.
That skews polls about religious beliefs. Which is why they are spectacularly unreliable in assessing precisely how many religious people would support the actual implementation of extreme beliefs.
There is some number of people who do. But it is likely to be less, sometimes far less, than a poll just asking for abstract support suggests.
That reality, that crucial piece of human nature, makes generalizing about religious beliefs a very stupid thing to do, frankly.
But, I'm not a real liberal like Bill Maher, so.
* * *
Earlier this week, I wrote about Michael Luciano's contention that movement atheism doesn't owe social justice advocates "a damn thing." I noted that movement atheists often invoke the oppression of women and other marginalized people in order to criticize religion, yet then claim they don't have anything to do with social justice.
Maher has routinely invoked misogyny in religion, on his show and in his act and in his film about religion, and yet, in this interview, he accuses former President Bill Clinton of not having fought hard enough for healthcare reform, saying it was "typical pussy Democratic politics."
Further, he talks about having been a fan of Republican Rand Paul, until Paul downplayed global climate change. The fact that Paul is aggressively anti-choice was evidently not an issue for Maher.
It is a bad habit of many movement atheists to pretend as though misogyny (and homophobia and racism) were inventions of religion.
Yesterday, in an email exchange with Aphra_Behn about an article written by a movement atheism taking this very position, I wrote: "You know, I find it really amazing how these Very Smart Guys can totally understand that religious dietary laws were essentially ad hoc rules designed to quickly convince large populations of people not to eat food that was very likely to make them sick at the time the rules were instituted, but consistently fail to understand that the misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc. within religion are, in the same way, post hoc justifications for misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc. that already existed. For fuck's sake. Religion didn't invent misogyny. Religion justified it, and then became a really useful way to transmit it."
I'm an atheist, and I'm no fan of the ways in which religions transmit and legitimize, by virtue of religious privilege, oppression against marginalized people. But I'm also a person who understands that challenging religion is not as useful for eradicating misogyny as challenging misogyny.
And, you know, not engaging in it oneself.
In the end: Just like institutional religion serves, for many people, as a post hoc justification for existing bigotry, movement atheism is clearly serving, for many people, as a post hoc justification for existing bigotry.
Is the hostility toward Muslims we're seeing here, as but one example, really just about religious beliefs documented in polls? I suspect not.
Not when one must ignore the "facts" of how people work in order to use the "facts" about religious polling to justify quoting them in support of harmful generalizations.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Socchan: "How do you motivate yourself?"
I've seen so many people talking about motivation lately, and seeking new ways to find motivation or inspiration. It seems to be in the ether lately.
I honestly think I use procrastination to motivate myself. Giving myself artificial deadlines doesn't work, but real deadlines do. So if I put off something long enough, until I have to do it, or risk disappointing someone or letting myself down or just failing in some way, then I'm totally motivated to do it, lol.
Whooooooooops!
Scrolling through the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day, I noticed what I'm pretty sure is the wrong caption on a photo. But don't hold me to it. I'm no professor of soccerology.
"Serbia fans taunt riot police during the Euro 2016 Group I qualifying soccer match between Serbia and Albania at the FK Partizan stadium in Belgrade. The match turned into a riot, and was called off." I'm assuming the riot police is the tiny child in the adorable Where's Waldo?-style shirt.
India Becomes Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Nation
[Content Note: Animal cruelty.]
India has officially banned the import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals:
India will ban the import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals anywhere in the world after November 13th. Coming just months after India heeded [the Humane Society's] call to ban domestic animal testing for cosmetics, this latest move assures that cosmetics sold in the country will no longer be associated with animal suffering. With the European Union enacting a similar ban, two giant economic markets have adopted sweeping policies to usher in a new era in cosmetics testing.One of the arguments that inevitably arises in discussions of cruelty-free cosmetics is that we need animal testing in order to know that our cosmetics are safe. This is not true.
Humane Society International's Be Cruelty-Free campaigners played a decisive role in securing this victory. They worked closely with government agencies and, in June, met with India’s minister of health and family welfare to present a petition of more than 70,000 signatures from citizens supporting an import ban. Our campaigners also helped secure the support of more than 30 legislators for the ban with the help of Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, a longtime animal advocate, government minister, and founder of India's largest animal protection organization, People for Animals.
...HSI's Be Cruelty-Free campaign also helped convince Chinese authorities to drop animal testing requirements for some products sold there. Now our campaign is working with partner groups in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan to secure bans on the sale of all cosmetics tested on animals. You can join our campaign and sign the global pledge to be cruelty free here.
It's long past time for the United States to get with the program. Cruel tests for cosmetics are sadly still happening in America, even though cruelty-free alternatives exist. The HSUS and the Humane Society Legislative Fund are leading the fight for the passage of the Humane Cosmetics Act in Congress, which would bring an end to animal testing for all cosmetics made or sold in America. Let your legislator know that you support it.
For one thing, a product known to be safe for rabbits (for example) is not, in fact, certain to be safe for humans. Further, testing on animals to prove safety is not necessary: "Companies can ensure the safety of their products by choosing to create them using the thousands of ingredients that have a long history of safe use. There are already many products on the market that are made using such ingredients. Companies also have the option of using existing non-animal tests or investing in and developing alternative non-animal tests for new ingredients. There are a growing number of non-animal tests that can be used to assess the short-term safety of previously untested ingredients (see 'What are the alternatives to animal testing?'). Non-animal tests for longer term safety are under development."
The market is providing alternatives, and the global market is slowly but surely starting to reject the old and unnecessary reliance on animal testing.
This is the future, and I hope the US will join it soon.
Finish This Sentence
Back in my day, we...
...couldn't buy our jeans carefully pre-distressed. We had to distress them by wearing them, and hope we got a cool hole in the knee before we got a hole in the crotch!
...had to sit through this nightmare sound just to access the internet.
...didn't know who was calling before we picked up the phone. Which was attached to a wall.
Et cetera.
Have fun! Keep it lighthearted. *wink!*
An Observation
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Here is a dynamic that happens over and over and over:
1. Men communicate with women in harmful ways, or fail to be sufficiently inclusive of women, or in some other way harm women.
2. Self-proclaimed "good guys" who are definitely totally for sure not part of the "small but vocal minority" say that they want to help, but don't know how.
3. I write a piece offering some advice to that end.
4. I get pushback.
Over. And over. And over. I've been through this exact cycle countless times in ten years. Gamers. Atheists. Fanboys. Readers of this comic. Watchers of that TV show.
Gee.
It's almost like they want to discourage me from actually offering advice.
It's almost like the solicitations for advice aren't really genuine at all, but just a way of looking like you give a fuck to get some cookies.
It's almost like it's a huge inconvenience for them when a woman actually takes in good faith their pleas for help and education, because offering advice robs them of the excuse that they don't know how to do better.
Huh.
Daily Dose of Cute
Her little back foot! Ahhhh! She's so cute I don't even know what to do!
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: Misogynist terrorism] Mo Ryan: "The Threats Against Anita Sarkeesian Expose the Darkest Aspects of Online Misogyny."
[CN: Illness] There are lots of stories today—like this one, headlined "Ebola Is a Midterm Issue, and It's Not Helping Democrats"—about how Ebola and Ebola preparedness may cost Democrats seats in the midterm elections. (Never mind that individual state preparedness largely comes down to state legislatures, many of which have Republican majorities.) And all I can say is: Well, if you think the Democrats aren't doing a good job, voting for the party who doesn't care about access to healthcare or funding federal disease research and prevention is probably not a wise move.
[CN: War on agency; criminalizing addiction] Andrea Grimes examines the increasing incidents in Texas of women being charged with child endangerment for taking drugs while pregnant, even though it's not against the law.
Heads-up: If you own a Chrysler, Dodge, or Jeep vehicle, you may want to see if it's part of this massive recall "for alternators that can fail and heated power mirror wiring that can short and cause minor fires. ...The problem also can cause the electrical system to fail, as well as knock out power-assisted steering, antilock brakes and electronic stability control."
RIP Elizabeth Peña. So sad. She was terrific. The first thing in which I ever saw her was the abysmal I Married Dora, which debuted when I was 13 and I watched it because it starred Daniel Hugh Kelly from Hardcastle & McCormick, on whom I had a huge crush. But I ended up caring way more about Elizabeth Peña, who I just thought was the coolest.
Congratulations to Pittsburgh's Sahil Doshi, the 14-year-old inventor of "an eco-friendly battery that harnesses carbon dioxide to generate electricity," who "has been named 'Top Young Scientist' in this year's Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge." Kids these days! Get ON my lawn!
Aviva Shen says this is "the absolute weirdest thing ever to happen at a political debate," and I think that's correct: "The Florida gubernatorial debate got off to a rocky start Wednesday night when Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) refused to come out because his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Charlie Crist, asked for and received a fan under his podium."
MST3K alums + Paul Feig = I'M IN. It's just basic math, friends.
Sleepy whale waking up from a nap! SLEEPY WHALE WAKING UP FROM A NAP!
Welp, this is definitely my favorite headline of the day: "Huge prehistoric kangaroo was more the sauntering type, say scientists."
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Whoooooooooooooooops!
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) appeared completely unfamiliar with a major bill aimed at eliminating the wage gap between men and women when he was asked about the measure this week.Good grief.
The potential 2016 presidential candidate was asked about the Paycheck Fairness Act at a campaign event for Terri Lynn Land, the Republican running for Senate in Michigan. Asked if Land should support the bill, Bush gave the impression that he had never heard of it.
"What's the Paycheck Fairness Act?" Bush asked, in an exchange captured by the liberal opposition research outfit American Bridge.
Once the man he was speaking with defined it as a bill that would help women receive "equal pay for equal work," Bush took issue with his phrasing.
"Equal pay for the same work, not for equal work — I think that's the problem with it. I think there's a definition issue," he said, before declining to say whether or not he thought Land should support the legislation.
Gee, I hope he runs for president! He is terrific.
