Suggested by Shaker boutet: "If you could tell your younger self just one thing what would it be? And maybe what time period of younger self would you tell, and why that time would be the most beneficial time to say it?"
Here Comes the Sun
Shaker Abra passed along this video of a flashmob who performed "Here Comes the Sun" at an unemployment office in Madrid, Spain. It's been online for awhile, but it's the first time I'd seen it, so I thought I would share it for anyone who also hasn't seen it and/or in case anyone needs a little sunniness today.
Video Description: Image of buildings in a cityscape. Image of an employment office sign. Image of sign directing people toward prestaciones (benefits). People milling about quietly in a grey, bureaucratic space. People waiting in chairs. A woman filling out forms. People waiting in chairs. A sign reading se ruega silencio (silence, please).
A woman stands up and begins to play the first bars of "Here Comes the Sun" on an oboe. She is joined by a man on another oboe, and a woman playing a bassoon. Then a man on a violin joins in. People look at them curiously. A woman on a flute, and another man on a violin stand and join them. A young woman begins to sing in a beautiful voice. She is joined by a chorus.
All around the room, among the people waiting in chairs and standing, people are playing instruments and singing. People come from back offices to see what's happening. Some people ignore them; some film them; some stand in rapt attention. It is lovely.
When they are finished, they get applause and thanks and hugs. Cut back to the employment office sign. The end.
[Related Reading: Ode to Joy.]
I Get Letters
[Content Note: Fat hatred; misogyny.]
Today, I received an email from someone who had found my Halloween post from last year, in which I explain why "fat lady" is a contemptible Halloween costume. And my correspondent did not like it AT ALL!
They informed me that they were going as a Fat Lady for Halloween this year, and it was OKAY because it's a fat lady from a CARNIVAL, which HONORS fat ladies, and I am terrible for not appreciating the nuance in fat lady costumes etc.
#NotAllPeopleWhoWearFatLadyCostumes!
All the mirthless laughter in the multiverse at the idea that a Freakshow Fat Lady Carnival costume honors fat women, when the entire context of traveling sideshow fat women is mockery and exploitation.
Now, I don't know how this person just happened to stumble across a year-old post. Maybe it was because someone they knew just posted it on social media. (Possibly even in indirect response to their announcement of their costume—and it was easier to yell at me than confront their friend.) Or maybe they were googling fat lady costumes and found my post. (And needed to yell at me for making them feel guilty.) But somehow, they came upon it, and their response was not to listen to a fat woman explaining why fat lady costumes are indecent, but to yell at a fat woman that she's wrong.
Welp, I'm certainly convinced!
I repeat: My body is not your costume. My identity is not your costume. My life is not yours to treat as a joke.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Class warfare; worker exploitation.]
"If I made $20 an hour, I could actually live, instead of dreaming about living."—Anthony Moore, a shift manager at a Burger King near Tampa, Florida, quoted in an article about the disparity between the wages earned by US fast food workers and those earned by Danish fast food workers, though they're both working for the same company.
There are plenty of quotes provided from people who try to explain the differences between the two countries that allegedly justify the difference, but it boils down to this single sentence: "But as Denmark illustrates, companies have managed to adapt in countries that demand a living wage."
Huh. Imagine that.
[Related Reading: Quote of the Day; Real Jobs.]
On Jian Ghomeshi and "Sex Scandals"
[Content note: Sexual harassment, physical abuse, sexual abuse, BDSM, misogynistic tropes.]
If you have been following the news over the weekend and you give a damn about CBC Radio, you may have learned that Jian Ghomeshi, host of the very popular programme "Q," is no longer with the CBC. From the Guardian's coverage:
On Friday the CBC announced that Ghomeshi would be taking a leave of absence for “personal” reasons, and then on Sunday followed up with a statement that he would no longer be working for the corporation, saying he had been fired because of “information” it received that “precluded” it from employing him.This is a depressingly familiar story to readers of this space: powerful man is accused of sexual violence, responds with a flurry of PR that uses every familiar misogynist stereotype (Jilted, jealous ex! A conspiracy of evil women out to destroy him!) to defend himself.
The nature of that information soon became clear. On Sunday evening, Ghomeshi published a long, emotional post to his Facebook page. In it, he said he was fired from the CBC because of a campaign of false allegations, that he said were pursued by a jilted ex-girlfriend, intended to paint his enthusiasm for consensual sadomasochistic sex as a pattern of abuse.
... there were clear signs in post that it was an attempt to get on the front foot of a deeply damaging story: it warned of “salacious” revelations in the days to follow, claiming they would be nothing but “lies”, and said that one newspaper had already investigated the story and not deemed it worthy of printing.
That paper was the Toronto Star. On Sunday night it posted the results of its previously unpublished investigation, portraying the story in a very different light. It revealed claims by three different women, all of whom claimed that instead of engaging in consensual, Fifty Shades of Grey-style imaginative sex, Ghomeshi was in fact a serial, violent abuse.
And once again, it works. Because guess what happens when you search for"Jian Ghomeshi" and "sex scandal" in Google News? This happens. Media outlets across Canada and around the world have accepted the basic framing that this is about sex, not about sexual abuse. And that is not a neutral framing.
Accepting this framing means accepting Ghomeshi's assertion that he's been fired because his employers at CBC are uptight prudes. Thats this is all about his interest in BDSM, something he describes as "a mild version of 50 Shades of Grey." For a breakdown of why that is problematic, I recommend Sex Geek's piece. Essentially, the acts he's accused of committing aren't "mild," at all, nor are they sort of acts that one enters into without both sides spelling out things very, very clearly and making sure that consent is clearly ongoing and re-asserted. He's not accused of being kinky. He's accused of violence and abuse.
So why is this a "sex scandal" or a "sex case" or a "sex allegations" matter? The women who spoke to the Toronto Star discussed very serious abuse and violations of consent. They're not all former sexual partners, either. One of them described Ghomeshi harasseing her at work, in a completely non-romantic and professional situation. Is being non-consensually groped at worked and having a powerful man whisper (during a meeting!) that he wants to "hate fuck" you really a "sex scandal"? Silly me. I thought that was sexual harassment.
To be clear, the CBC has not released information about the specifics of Ghomeshi's firing, probably for good legal reasons. Ghomeshi is suing the CBC and also going through union arbitration. In the absence of such a statement, why are so many media outlets happy to simply accept Ghomeshi's framing?
This isn't an idle question. One of the reasons cited by the women for remaining anonymous is the fear of online retaliation, as happened to Carla Ciccone when she published a piece at XO Jane detailing a very creepy experience with an unnamed radio personality. What could be more encouraging to stalkers and harassers than to know that yes, indeed, this is a "sex scandal"? That Ghomeshi's claims are treated as truth, while women's are deeply suspect?
In the year 2014, it should not be acceptable to use label "sex scandal" for allegations of intimate partner abuse and workplace sexual harassment. It should not be acceptable to automatically accept the framing laid out by man accused of abuse, to repeat it, to emphasize it by repetition. Should not be, but sadly is.
Daily Dose of Cute
Oh hello.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Creative Endeavors Thread
by Shaker Socchan
Hello, Shakers! I had such a blast in the last Creative Endeavors thread (and I hope you all did, too) that I asked Liss if we could make this a recurring thing, and she said yes! I'm working on a list of topics to discuss (suggestions welcome), and hopefully we can have a discussion every couple of weeks, if not more often.
With that out of the way, what sort of creative things have you been working on since the last thread? Have you started or finished any projects? Is there anything you're really enjoying working on, looking forward to starting, or are really proud of having finished? Pictures of finished items and samples of art and/or writing (or whatever else you're working on—I wouldn't be surprised if we've got game developers or animators around here, for example, and I know we have at least one songwriter) are all very welcome.
For discussion: Halloween is on the horizon. Are any of you crafters making your own costume, or a costume for a loved one? Are you making something to hand out? Writers, artists, and other creative people: Has the holiday inspired you to work on something spooky?
Or do you not care to do anything special for this particular holiday? Is there a different holiday you celebrate at this time of year? At the end of October/beginning of November is what's called a "cross-quarter day," falling half-way between a solstice and an equinox (which divide the year into quarters), so it's both astrologically and seasonally significant and a lot of cultures have a holiday of some sort around then. Not celebrating anything at all is, of course, perfectly fine; non-themed creative reports are entirely welcome.
Tell us what you've been working on!
* * *
PS: A quick reminder/notice to anyone interested in signing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which starts November 1st: The official site gets a looooot of traffic towards the end of October, and sometimes will even go down. If you plan to officially sign up (which is completely optional) and haven't done so already, I recommend doing so ASAP.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Illness] Amber Vinson, the other Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, has also recovered and will be released today. Yay!
[CN: War on agency] Chipping away at Roe in Oklahoma: "Reproductive rights advocates filed an emergency motion Monday with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, asking the state's highest court to put on hold new anti-choice regulations set to take effect November 1. The filing comes after Oklahoma County District Court Judge Bill Graves ruled last week that SB 1848, which mandates that all reproductive health-care clinics have a physician with admitting privileges at a local hospital, could take effect. Attorneys from the Center for Reproductive Rights filed the emergency motion on behalf of Dr. Larry Burns, a Norman-based abortion provider who provides about 44 percent of the abortions in the state. Burns, according to court filings, has been unable to obtain the required hospital admitting privileges and will likely be forced to stop providing abortions should the law be enforced." The anti-choice people are fully the worst. Every time I hear them claim to care about women, I want to break things.
[CN: Guns; death; MPHS shooting] This is so fucking terrible: "Before opening fire on five students and then killing himself, a popular high school football player in Washington state had texted his victims and asked them to join him at lunch, officials said Monday." They were there because he asked them to be there. I don't even have words.
[CN: Misogyny; racism] According to analysis by the National Women's Law Center, the US wage gap for "for African American and Latina women is worse in some areas where the overall gender wage gap is small. The gender wage gap in Washington, DC is overall the smallest in the country [but] it turns out the wage gap for African American women in the District is the second worst in the entire country. ...In an attempt to lessen the gender wage gap, activists have pushed for the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) which would require employers to provide the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pay data by sex, race and national origin of employees. The PFA would also prohibit employers from retaliating against their employees for discussing wages with coworkers and strengthen remedies for pay discrimination. However, the Act was blocked twice this year by Senate Republicans and four times since 2012 by legislators who voted along party lines."
RNC Chair Reince Priebus says Hillary Clinton is bad at politics ahhhhhaahhahahahaaaahahaaha okay player.
Do you hate watching ads before YouTube videos, and you would definitely pay a subscription fee to avoid them? Well, you may be in luck!
The suspected science behind people who feel weather in their bones. Neat!
I am kind of obsessed with the Oculus Rift and its technological potential, so I found this super interesting: "First Oculus Rift documentary wipes out everything filmmakers know."
I definitely need a t-rex shower head, like, yesterday.
And finally! Ducks determined not to be rescued are finally rescued. LOL oh ducks!
New Federal Guidelines Issued on Ebola
[Content Note: Illness.]
Following the absurdery and indecency going on in New York and New Jersey, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued new guidelines regarding healthcare workers returning to the United States after assisting with the crisis in West Africa:
Medics flying into the US after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone should be more closely monitored by local authorities for 21 days, according to new national guidelines published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).I am very glad the CDC director continues to emphasize that people in the US are unlikely to contract Ebola, and I wish the media would be way more diligent in prominently reporting that. Although, if your entire objective is alarmism, well.
However only those deemed "high risk" – those who did not wearing proper protective clothing, or were exposed to the virus via a needle or other injury – should automatically require quarantines in their homes, Tom Frieden, the CDC director, told a conference call.
...Under the CDC's latest "active monitoring" guideline, all returning healthcare workers are deemed to be at "some risk" of Ebola, and should register with regional authorities. They would then have daily temperature checks observed by an official, Frieden said, adding that this would help swifter action in the event of any symptoms developing.
These medics should also notify regional authorities at their destinations before travelling away from home, according to the CDC, so that there would be no break in the daily monitoring of their condition.
By contrast, "for the high-risk individuals, we are recommending voluntary at-home isolation, including not going on public transportation and flying," Frieden said.
...The CDC director again stressed that Americans were highly unlikely to contract Ebola. "I understand that people are afraid. People are unfamiliar," said Frieden. "It is a severe disease, but it is not highly contagious."
In related news, Shaker Wordaddict passed along this official White House photo by Pete Souza of President Obama hugging Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who has now recovered from Ebola:
There are times when I really just love President Obama with my whole heart, and this is one of them. The importance of this picture, of the President hugging someone who has had the virus, in the middle of an alarmist panic, cannot be overstated. This is the sort of presidenting that rarely gets any credit, but credit is well-deserved. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank You So Much for Teaching Me About Feminism, Sir
[Content Note: Feminist policing; mansplaining.]
Hello, LADIES. Antony Loewenstein has written a terrific piece telling us how to do feminism, and we should all definitely read it.
Actual Headline: 'Feminism lite' is letting down the women who need it the most.
Actual Subhead: "I've hesitated to write about gender, worried that I'll be slammed for daring to speak out. But we all benefit from gender equality, and therefore must give feminism some tough love."
Oh dear. We haven't even reached the text of the article yet, and already he's employing the old "I'm scared to speak, because feminists are scary and mean" chestnut. Which is a profoundly misogynist trope, used against feminist women all the time. So I'm super convinced this guy is definitely going to be a terrific ally.
Actual Opening Sentence: "Men are afraid to talk about feminism."
Here is it again. Right in the first line. Men are afraid. With the embedded humblebrag that he's brave, because here he is, a man, talking about feminism.
Actual Rest of the Opening Paragraph: "If that sounds melodramatic, I'd ask you to count the number of articles written by male writers tackling the big and small issues around gender and women's equality. You'll be hard pressed to find a strong selection."
Yes, and that's definitely because feminist women are so powerful and scary and mean that men are scared, and not because the vast majority of men are totally fucking indifferent to caring about, no less writing about, gender equality. Good grief.
The rest of the piece is positively littered with variations on the whole "feminists are mean and silencing men through fear" rhetoric:
We are boyfriends, husbands, fathers or friends, and yet too many of us shy away from these sensitive matters, fearing opprobrium. Too often, men worry they'll be attacked by women for questioning a consensus position on feminist issues.Not daring to add his white, male voice to "the debate." Which he seems to believe is about how feminists are not nearly as good at doing feminism as he is.
...In hindsight, there's no solid reason why I couldn't have written this article years ago, but I've hesitated to do so. I've worried that I would be slammed for my white, male position and dismissed as ignorant of the real problems faced by women today. It's an odd concern, because I don't worry about extreme Zionists challenging me when I call them out on their racism (and I do receive plenty of vicious attacks whenever I write about it).
The bottom line is that writing about feminism when male is like gatecrashing a party – and I'm concerned I'll be slammed for daring to arrive without an invitation.
...I realise I've been been too cautious for too long, not daring to add my voice to the debate.
All of this is couched in rhetoric of men needing to get involved in feminism, because it's not fair to leave the fight singularly to women. But he uses that only insomuch as to suggest there's a place for him to criticize feminists, despite the fact that feminists who discuss men's role in feminism (myself included) are advocating that men get engaged to talk to other men, not "get engaged" to lecture feminists on how they're doing feminism wrong.
He's borrowing the language of feminists—who he repeatedly marginalizes as unyielding, strident, mean, and terrifying—in order to criticize us. And has already set us up as hysterical scolds, so that if any of us disagree that his approach is "helpful," we're just proving his point.
But I desperately want men to get engaged in feminist advocacy. The thing is that what Antony Loewenstein is doing here isn't feminist advocacy. It's feminist policing.
It's basic concern trolling masquerading as feminist allyship. And I have absolutely zero use for that.
I also have zero use for men who define their need to get engaged with feminist advocacy as anything other than "because it's the right thing to do." I don't, and never will, trust a man who says men need to get engaged because "we are boyfriends, husbands, fathers, or friends," embracing the language of ownership of and entitlement to women.
How about you get engaged because women are human beings the end.
[H/T to Jessica Luther.]
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "Who is your favorite band/artist from your hometown (define as you see fit)?"
If you were born in a small town (see what I did there?), and you'd prefer to use your home state, or your country, instead of a "hometown," go for it!
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 23 October 2014: Hucul horses play in the wild meadows and forests near Odrzychowa in southeastern Poland. Huculs, a primitive breed of horse, escaped total extinction due to the efforts of scientists and Polish farmers. [Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images]Beautiful. On the one occasion I had the opportunity to see wild horses thundering across a plain in the distance, they were absolutely breathtaking. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. What a neat thing that so much thoughtful energy was put into saving this breed.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Disablism; class warfare.]
"They wanted to cut my full-time care hours by 76 percent, which all three of my doctors said was totally unrealistic. Essentially, they wanted three out of every four hours to go away. ...I don't want to use hyperbole, but a lot of people die when these policies get implemented."—Finn Bullers, a disability rights advocate in Kansas who has "muscular dystrophy, uses a wheelchair, has type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes, and requires a ventilator in his throat to breathe," on the loss of life-sustaining services for people with disabilities, following Republican Governor Sam Brownback's privatization of Medicaid.
Since Brownback's inauguration, 1,414 Kansans with disabilities have been forced off of the Medicaid physical disability (PD) waiver. In January of 2013, Brownback became the first governor to fully privatize Medicaid services, claiming he would save the state $1 billion in 5 years without having to cut services, eligibility, or provider payments.This is one among many reasons that healthcare should and must be treated as a basic human right, to which every US citizen should have access. Healthcare should not be a privilege.
Now, under Brownback's "KanCare," PD waiver cases are handled by for-profit, out-of-state, Fortune 500, publicly-traded managed care services. Kansas has contracts with three managed care profiteers — United Healthcare, Sunflower State Health Plan (owned by Centene Corporation), and AmeriGroup. Amerigroup and Centene each gave $2,000, Kansas' maximum allowed contribution, to Brownback's re-election campaign.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by stripes.
Recommended Reading:
Imani: [Content Note: Misogyny; violence; appropriation] Men's Rights Activists Intent on Proving They Are the Absolute Worst
Shantell: [CN: Domestic violence; racism; appropriation] Janay Rice on Ray Rice Costume: 'It's sad that my suffering amuses others.'
A Moore: [CN: Violence; racism] 8 Heartbreaking Cases Where Land Was Stolen from Black Americans Through Racism, Violence, and Murder
Lara: [CN: Misogyny; exceptionalism] The Avenging Woman Onscreen: Man's Best Friend?
Morgan: [CN: Misogynoir; policing; erasure; appropriation] On Annie Lennox and Erasure
Jamilah: [CN: Racism; violence] Mindy Kaling Is Not Malala Yousafzai
Kyler: [CN: Homophobia] Dolly Parton Praises Gay Fans, Calls Out Christians for 'Judging' the LGBT Community
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
A Culture of Violent Entitlement
[Content Note: Guns; death; misogynist violence; male entitlement to women.]
For those who aren't on Twitter, and/or would like a discussion space for this idea, I had a few things to say this weekend about the culture of violent entitlement which underwrote the MPHS shooting, in which a young man shot a young woman who wouldn't date him, so here they are:
[Link in tweet goes to this piece.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Matilda is a major WHISKER HEAD!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Walking Thread
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha okay.
This episode was titled "Four Walls and a Roof," but I feel like they missed a real opportunity by not titling this episode "What About Bob?"
Because this is the episode where we find out about Bob—by which I mean that we find out exactly zero of the many conspiracy theories about Bob (that he is immune to the zombie virus; that he holds the secret to the cure; that he knew the Terminus Heads before he hooked up with Grimes Gang) were correct. Nope and nope and nope!
Bob is just a dead man not-walking, although everyone who predicted he'd been bitten at the food pantry was correct. He had been—and he laughs at the Terminus Head chomping disgustingly on his leg that they're eating tainted meat. Which gives us the delightful opportunity to watch them vomit up human flesh, after having watched them just consume it. This fucking show.
Terminus Head #1 tells them to settle down; they don't have any cause to worry, because they cooked the meat. But we will never know whether this theory turned out to be correct, because this show.
Back at the church, they're searching for Bob and also notice that Carol and Daryl have gone missing, so they confront Gabriel, and it turns out he has not been colluding with the Terminus Heads, but just let his congregation die by not letting them into the church for sanctuary from the zombie hordes. Hence the scratches on the side of the church. The best part about this admission is recalling, as we learned last week, that he was able to live so long inside the church because they'd just done a food drive before the zombiepocalypse. So his congregation brought a ton of food to church to help people, then he left their asses literally hanging in the wind when they wanted to take refuge in the church. LOL! What a guy!
After Gabriel's tale of cowardly woe, Grimes Gang follows the sound of whistle outside (because they are geniuses) to find Bob lying on the grass outside. They drag him inside, and he reveals all: His leg got eaten, he's been bitten, his erstwhile captors are camped out near an elementary school, and the Terminus Heads happened to conveniently mention to him that they saw Daryl and Carol take off in a car.
Sgt. Red Bull immediately starts shouting about how they have to leave for Washington RIGHT FUCKING NOW, and Grimes immediately starts shouting back that they're not leaving without Carol and Daryl, and Glenn has to step in between the two screaming patiarachs to stop them coming to fisticuffs.
Glenn tells Grimes it isn't his decision to make for everyone else whether they stay or go, then immediately makes the decision for Maggie that he and Maggie will leave with Sgt. Red Bull if he'll just stay long enough to fight the Terminus Heads.
So, Sgt. Red Bull agrees to stay, as long as Glenn and Maggie and Tara will leave with him and Doctor Mulletsworth and Rosita Espinoza the minute the Terminus Heads have been dispatched.
At which point, there would be no danger of waiting for Daryl and Carol to return. So this whole agreement honestly makes no goddamned sense. Because this show.
So, the plan is hatched to go get the Terminus Heads. And we see the Grimes Gang Prime contingent marching off into the night through the woods, then see the Terminus Heads come out of the shadows to enter the church. This scene might be tense and exciting if only how it played out were not 100% predictable!
The Terminus Heads stroll in and shout for the Grimes Gang stragglers to come on out. They walk through the church, and try to bribe Gabriel to come out, and he shits his pants a thousand times but at least keeps quiet. Baby
OH NO GRIMES GANG IS FOR SURE ALL GONNA DIE NOOOOOOOOO except for how then Grimes Gang Prime returns and murders the fuck out of the Terminus Heads. They're really brutal and intimate about it—because they don't want to waste bullets, they say, but it's really because we need another grotesque reminder of how Grimes Gang is LOSING THEIR HUMANITY.
Anyway. Michonne gets her katana back. Yay!
The next day, everyone says goodbye to Bob, and Bob saves a special goodbye for Grimes something something don't lose your humanity, and then he dies, and Tyreese puts a knife through his skull so he doesn't turn into a zombie. RIP Bob.
The Doctor Mulletsworth Gang, now including Tara and Maggie and Glenn, take off in the bus for DC. Before they go, Sgt. Red Bull hands Grimes a map, with their marked route, in case Grimes Gang want to catch up. And on the map, Sgt. Red Bull has written: "Sorry, I was an asshole. Come to Washington. The new world's gonna need Rick Grimes." And I laugh for one hundred million years.
Later, Tyreese and Grimes are digging graves for the Terminus Heads, and Grimes casually and not at all awkwardly mentions to Tyreese that he never asked him about his trip to Terminus. "It killed me," Tyreese says. "No it didn't," Rick replies, because HE IS THE POLICER OF EVERYONE OH MY GOD HE IS SO ANNOYING I HATE HIM SO MUCH SHUT UP GRIMES SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
That night, Michonne is keeping watch when Daryl comes walking out of the woods. "Where's Carol?" Michonne asks. "Come on out," Daryl says, to someone behind him, unseen. Cut to black.
Then, of course, immediately cut to previews of next week's episode which will be answering the mystery of where Beth has been.
Meanwhile, if anything happened to Carol, THERE WILL BE RIOTS.
* * *
In other Walking Dead news, last week Robert Kirkman put to rest the popular theory that the entire story is happening inside Grimes' head while he is still in a coma. I am very disappointed, because that obviously would have been the greatest ending to this show ever!!! Sad trombone.
By the way, my favorite thing about fully 100% of The Walking Dead theories is that they are based on having noticed some plot inconsistency or continuity error in the show. Which always turn out to be because the writers of this show are lazy and incompetent. LOL.
And just how lazy and incompetent are they? Well, the show creator just had to assure fans that the entire thing isn't happening inside a coma patient's head, because that's the only way people can explain all the otherwise inexplicable bullshit on the show.
Except for admitting that it's plagued with as much nonsense and fuckery as zombies in plaid shirts.
