This blogaround brought to you by frost.
Recommended Reading:
Prison Culture: [Content Note: Carcerality; violence; racism; misogynoir] 13 Things That We Re-Learned About the Prison Industrial Complex in 2014
Jim: [CN: Homophobia] Taiwan May Become the First Country in East Asia to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
Keith: [CN: Racism] Aaron Sorkin Thinks There Are No Asian American Movie Stars (And Keith has a follow-up here.)
TLC: [CN: Transphobia; detention] 115+ LGBTQ, Immigration Organizations Ask President to Release Detained LGBTQ Immigrants
Anjali: [CN: Racism] "Are You Going to Give Him a White Name?"
Devon: Meet Chloe Kim: Snowboarding Prodigy
George: [CN: Prominent gif at link] This Was the Incredible View From Orion's Crew Module During Re-entry
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
The Monday Blogaround
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism] And again: "The Wisconsin National Guard began calling up members over the weekend to respond, if needed, to protests in Milwaukee related to the fatal shooting of Dontre Hamilton by a Milwaukee police officer. Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. made the request, which was approved by Gov. Scott Walker, Maj. Paul Rickert, the Guard's director of communications, said Sunday. ...Hamilton's death has prompted a series of protests in downtown Milwaukee. Demonstrators have called for Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to issue charges against former officer Christopher Manney in the fatal shooting of Hamilton on April 30 in Red Arrow Park. During a confrontation at the park, Hamilton gained control of Manney's baton and struck the officer at least once before Manney fired, shooting Hamilton 14 times. A charging decisions seems to be drawing near, and Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said Saturday that he believed a decision would be made 'sometime in the next few days.'"
[CN: Misogyny] Damon Young, editor-in-chief of Very Smart Brothas, has written a very good piece about realizing he didn't trust his wife, or women generally, with feelings: "This conversation is how, after five months of marriage, eight months of being engaged, and another year of whatever the hell we were doing before we got engaged, I realized I don't trust my wife. When the concept of trust is brought up, it's usually framed in the context of actions; of what we think a person is capable of doing. If you trust someone, it means you trust them not to cheat. Or steal. Or lie. Or smother you in your sleep. By this measure, I definitely trust my wife. I trust the shit out of her. I also trust her opinions about important things. I trusted that she'd make a great wife, and a trust that she'll be a great mother. And I trust that her manicotti won't kill me. But you know what I don't really trust? What I've never actually trusted with any women I've been with? Her feelings." Emphasis original. And of course I note the bitter irony that many men will read this and be moved by it, despite the fact they haven't been moved by women saying it forever, because they don't trust us with our feelings.
[CN: Rape culture] Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston "was cleared by the university this weekend of any student code of conduct violations related to" allegations that he sexually assaulted a female classmate two years ago. Of course he was.
[CN: Transphobia, thoughts of self-harm] Flight Lieutenant Ayla Holdom, the RAF's only out transgender pilot, has spoken about her transition while serving in the British military, including the support she got from her fellow service member, Prince William: "Deciding to undergo transition meant explaining the decision to her RAF colleagues, including Prince William. The two served together on search and rescue when the Prince was a member of the small, tight-knit team of 20 at RAF Valley. She says that William showed support and understanding, and subsequently invited Holdom and Wren to his own wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011. It was one of Holdom's first public outings after undergoing surgery."
This is a pretty big story that will not get the coverage it deserves: "In a 37-day trial that ended in late November, [Starr International, a large stockholder in the American International Group] contended that the government's actions in the bailout [of AIG], including its refusal to put some terms of the rescue to a shareholder vote, were an improper taking of private property under the Fifth Amendment. ...Those backing the government are indignant over the case. A.I.G. shareholders did well in the bailout and should be grateful for it, they say. And all's well that ends well, right? A.I.G. repaid its $182 billion rescue loan in 2012; the government generated a profit of $22.7 billion on the deal. To me, however, the case's significance lies in the information it unearthed about what the government did in the bailout—details it worked hard to keep secret."
And finally! Here is a terrific story about a senior dog being rescued and finding a home with 96-year-old Kay Brown: "I put my hand out to pick him up and he came up to kiss me and that settled that. ...I love Nigel and he loves me." Blub.
Discussion Thread: Holiday Dread
[Content Note for Christian Supremacy, privilege, and various dysfunctional family dynamics and abuse, covering the entirety of the thread.]
Does your family look like this? Mine, neither.
It's the most wonderful time of the year. Except for when it's not. And if you aren't happily preparing to celebrate the most perfect Christmas with your perfect family, it can feel pretty lonely—mostly because there aren't a whole lot of places where it's acceptable to talk about your holiday anxiety, or sadness, or contempt, without disguising it as some kind of joke. There aren't a whole lot of places where it's okay to have a grown-up conversation about how genuinely hard the holidays can be.
So, here's a thread to do that. Whether you're facing time with a dysfunctional family of origin, facing time alone you'd prefer to be sharing with someone else, exhausted even contemplating the travel ahead, sad because you can't afford a gift you'd really like to get your kid, pissed off because you don't celebrate Christmas and OMFG enough with the Christmas shit, dreading the comments about your body, your ideology, your choice of partner, dreading your dad's sexist jokes or your mom's racist jokes, dreading seeing that uncle who should be in jail, dreading having your parenting skills audited, dreading coming out which you are totally doing this year, or just generally fed up with the holidays, go for it.
(If you are having urgent thoughts of self-harm, do not leave a comment; please contact emergency services immediately.)
And if you are undilutedly joyful about the holiday season, can't wait to see your family, and are walking on a cloud of sparking white snowflakes, enjoy the absolute fuck out of it. That's not snark; I mean it. That is a rare and precious gift, worth lingering moments of conscious appreciation.
As always, please don't offer advice, unless it is explicitly solicited. Sometimes people just need to grouse, and need solidarity rather than the offer of solutions they may well have already tried.
[Image via.]
Man Shoots Girlfriend, Then Kills Two NYPD Cops
[Content Note: Guns; violence; murder; self-harm; racism; misogyny.]
Saturday afternoon, a man named Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot his ex-girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson, in Baltimore, before driving to New York City, where he shot and killed two police officers sitting in their cruiser, Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. Brinsley then killed himself. Thompson, who Brinsley shot in the abdomen, is in serious condition but is expected to survive.
My sincerest condolences to the friends, family, and colleagues of Officers Lui and Ramos. I will be keeping Shaneka Thompson in my thoughts; I hope she has access to the resources she needs to recover from both the physical and psychological trauma of being shot.
Brinsley made statements on social media that he was intending to kill police officers, in retaliation for the murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
As a result, there has been an outpouring of anger directed at protestors and anyone who has shown support for them.
The Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore released a statement that laid blame far and wide:
Once again, we need to be reminded that the men and women of law enforcement are absolutely the only entity standing between a civilized society and one of anarchy and chaos. In that position, we should be supported in our efforts, with continuous diligence, by a strong political leadership. Unfortunately, recently, that has not been the case. Politicians and community leaders from President Obama, to Attorney General Holder, New York Mayor de Blasio, and Al Sharpton have, as the result of their lack of proper guidance, created the atmosphere of unnecessary hostility and peril that police officers now find added to the ordinary danger of their profession. Sadly, the bloodshed will most likely continue until those in positions of power realize that the unequivocal support of law enforcement is required to preserve our nation.Patrolman's Benevolent Association chief Pat Lynch held a press conference at which he said: "There's blood on many hands tonight. That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor," and blamed "those that incited violence on the streets under the guise of protest that tried to tear down what NYPD officers did every day. We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated."
A memo purported to have been circulated by the PBA read: "The mayor's hands are literally dripping with our blood because of his words actions and policies and we have, for the first time in a number of years, become a 'wartime' police department. We will act accordingly."
To mischaracterize protests calling for accountability for police as inciting violence against police is deeply dishonest. And using Brinsley's actions as evidence of incitement is also dishonest, especially coming from people who, for months, have argued that the cops who killed Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, John Crawford, Jonathan Ferrell, Darrien Hunt, Tamir Rice, and others, each acted in a vacuum, just a few bad apples and not representative of cops as a whole, but Ismaaiyl Brinsley is wholly a product of protests that are three months old.
Further, to set the murders of these cops and #BlackLivesMatter in opposition to one another, one must disappear the attempted murder of Shaneka Thompson. This violent spree started with the attempted murder of Shaneka Thompson.
It is wholly indecent to write her out of the narrative of what happened because the attempt to kill her is inconvenient to the narrative that Ismaaiyl Brinsley is a black man representative of the entire black community who just wanted to kill cops.
The truth is, Brinsley looks a lot more like a number of other killers, who start their murderous sprees with domestic violence, murdering their exes, their girlfriends, their wives, and/or their mothers, before going on to create as much mayhem as possible.
See, for example, Adam Lanza.
As Jessica Luther noted: "Gendered violence often enough serves as precursor to other violence and then that woman (or women) is erased from the narrative."
Nothing—and I mean nothing—justifies or mitigates the killing of Officers Lui and Ramos. They were killed in cold blood by a violent asshole, and I grieve for their lives.
That grief isn't predicated on demonizing protestors and everyone who stands in solidarity with them.
Particularly since, when I look at the actions of Ismaaiyl Brinsley, what I see is a familiar story about a man who hurt a woman and then wanted to make the news, in the most spectacular way in which he could conceive.
A terrible, familiar story.
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!
(And don't forget to tip your bartender!)
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Police bruality; racism.]
"Clearly some were not telling the truth."—St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, admitting that some of the witnesses who appeared before the grand jury tasked with deciding whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown, lied during their testimony. McCulloch also noted that he would not be pursuing charges against any of the witnesses who lied under oath.
This would be bad enough, except that McCulloch says it doesn't matter, and he would have let them testify anyway:
In his first extensive interview since the grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, McCulloch said he had no regrets about letting grand jury members hear from non-credible witnesses.Which is basically his saying that he would have been criticized by people who don't actually care about the truth if all he did was put on the stand witnesses who failed utterly to support Wilson's bullshit version of events, because they aren't liars.
"Early on I decided that anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything would be presented to the grand jury," McCulloch said. He added that he would've been criticized no matter his decision.
So, you know, extend a little compassion for the poor man who might have had to hear criticisms from white supremacists if he'd actually done his fucking job.
[H/T to Adam Serwer.]
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by foil.
Recommended Reading:
Elena, Neha, and Jean: [Content Note: Misogyny; harassment] MIT Computer Scientists' Reddit AMA Proves the Point about Gender in STEM
Scott: [CN: Rape culture; harassment; intimidation] Amazon Publishes Thinly Veiled Rape Fantasy of GamerGate Target Zoe Quinn
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred; disablism] Is "Obesity" a Disability?
Anne: [CN: White supremacy] Leigh Anne Tuohy Update: One of the Teens Responds
Sikivu: [CN: Racism; classism; scapegoating] White Wealth & the Cult of White Victimhood
Matthew: A Dress for the Queen of Neuroscience
Jim: [CN: Homophobia] Indiana Methodist Church to Close after Firing Gay Choral Director
Mustang Bobby: He Will Find a Way
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
So, the President Had a Press Conference
Earlier today, President Obama had his end-of-the-year press conference, and here is something interesting that happened:
LOL. Awesome.
I suppose a cynical person might suggest the President did this as a stunt so people would talk about his calling on only female reporters instead of on the content of his responses to those reporters. But I am not that cynical person. Not today.
Speaking of the content of the presser, all of which is on-topic for this thread, I'll update with a link to the transcript of the presser, once a complete transcript becomes available. If you happen across one in the meantime, drop it into comments!
UPDATE: Still no complete transcript, but here is a good summary of the presser. (Video may autoplay at link.)
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia, asleep with her paw on her head, little pink nose just sticking out.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Finish This Sentence
The Christmas song that I hate with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns is...
...Do They Know It's Christmas? Every time this fucking track comes on the radio, I feel obliged to shout "DO YOU KNOW THIS SONG IS RACIST AS FUCK?" Why are they still playing it on the radio?! (Why I am I still listening to the radio?!) (Because my iPod was stolen, that's why!) (And it was a gift from Deeky with all my favorite music on it, and I'm STILL SO MAD EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT IT!) (But not as mad as Do They Know It's Christmas? makes me!) And then Geldof went and made another one!!! I can't even with this song. I CAN'T!
Also I really hate Baby It's Cold Outside because gross. And Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime, because it is one of my worst earworms. Once that shit gets stuck in there, I can't get it out! Dammit, McCartney. Such a shitty song, too!
ANYWAY! This is obviously not a thread just for people who celebrate Christmas. In fact, I imagine that people who do not celebrate Christmas, but nonetheless cannot escape shitty Christmas music will have a lot to say in this thread, lol!
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Counting Crows: "Mr. Jones"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by bands with alliterative names.
Remember what I said about "Two Princes"? Double it for this track. Ugh. Ugggggghhhhhhh. Ugh.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism] A new video shows NYPD officers beating a black teenage boy against a car: "After three cops hold the boy against the car, a non-uniformed officer is seen running up and punching the child repeatedly." There is some dispute about how old the kid is, who is identified as 12 years old. "Officers allege the victims were actually 16 and 17-years-old, and that they were participating in a gang initiation." This is their defense for holding and beating a child: He's older than you think, and was doing something bad (that no one else says he was doing), therefore we are justified in physically assaulting him. I mean.
[CN: Police misconduct; violence; misogyny] Meanwhile, in Austin: "Joy Diaz, a reporter at Texas NPR affiliate KUT, reported on Thursday that she was recently approached at a police union building by veteran officer Andrew Petrowski. According to audio captured by Diaz, Petrowski offered an unprompted take on the case of NFL running back Ray Rice, who knocked out his then-fianceé in an elevator in February. 'I don't care who you are,' Petrowski said on the recording. 'You think about the women's movement today, [women say] 'Oh, we want to go [into] combat,' and then, 'We want equal pay, and we want this.' You want to go fight in combat and sit in a foxhole? You go right ahead. But a man can't hit you in public here? Bullshit!' the officer continued. 'You act like a whore, you get treated like one!' he added on the tape." Yeah, it's a real mystery why a lot of marginalized people don't trust cops.
[CN: War on agency; anti-choice fuckery; medical procedure] Katie Klabusich: "My Latest Reproductive Health Procedure Makes Anti-Choicers Seem Even More Hypocritical." This is so good. I'm not even going to excerpt it; just go read the whole thing.
[CN: Class warfare; worker exploitation] Your Waitress, Your Professor: "My perhaps naïve hope is that when I tell students I'm not only an academic, but a 'survival' jobholder, I'll make a dent in the artificial, inaccurate division society places between blue-collar work and 'intelligent' work."
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is reportedly "laying the groundwork for what one ally says is an 'imminent' presidential campaign—one that could launch as early as next month." Ed Kilgore suggests that she's actually running for vice-president on the Republican ticket, which I think is right—or would be, in another election cycle. But I can totally see the GOP getting fired up for a corporate lady with no political experience. You can't criticize someone's record who doesn't have one! This kind of wacky nomination also tends to happen when people are bored with their options, and when Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are your most exciting options, welp.
Marvel has given Spider-Woman a new suit, and already the fan-boys are screaming that it's boring and stupid and not sexy enough, which is obviously integral to the character they love so much because she is supercool and it's for sure definitely totally not about BOOBZ.
And finally! Here's just a terrific video of a fox playing with a golf ball! (I'm glad they took it away from hir at the end, because I was worried zie'd swallow it!)
Serial (Again)
[Content Note: Violence; death; racism; issues of consent and ethics.]
When I first posted about Serial earlier this week, I was halfway through the series. Yesterday was the podcast's concluding episode, and I've now listened to the whole thing. And hoo boy, I have thoughts.
My primary thought is this: I don't think there was enough evidence to convict Adnan Syed of murdering Hae Min Lee. But I also don't think that necessarily has anything to do with his actual guilt or innocence.
If Serial had been primarily concerned with the facts of the case and the trial—and it seems like maybe it started out that way, with that intent—I might have very different thoughts about it in the end.
But Serial was about much more than that, and so disproportionately about investigating the veracity of individual people's feelings about Adnan Syed. Does he seem like a guy who could do this thing?
Which is so dangerous.
And, throughout the series, the only person who really pushes back on that idea, the idea that seeming like a good guy and being a murderer are necessarily mutually exclusive things, is the man who was convicted of the murder. Syed tells Sarah Koenig, very straightforwardly, that she doesn't know him just because they talked on the phone. He tells her that he doesn't even want to hear that he seems like a good guy ever again; that he'd rather hear someone say he's an asshole but they think he's innocent because his case was dodgy.
Everyone else seems to think it's a pretty reasonable thing, to explore whether we think someone is capable of murdering someone else based on how nice they seem to us.
Anyway, the series ends with ambiguity. Or so it would seem, in that there are no definitive answers. But Koenig says she doesn't think Syed killed Hae Min Lee. And that's not really ambiguity, not really, because many of the people listening to the show, by its end, just wanted Koenig to tell them something on which to hang their hats, one way or another. And that was it.
But how did Jay know about the location of Hae Min Lee's car? We still don't know.
And how was Syed convicted on such thin evidence? Well, we still don't know that, either—except for how we kind of do.
One of the episodes I had not yet heard when I wrote about Serial previously is the episode in which Koenig addresses whether racism and/or Islamophobia played a part in Syed's conviction. She talks to his mother, who says it did. She plays recordings from Syed's bail hearing, which clearly indicates it did. She reads excerpts from a police consultant on Islamic culture and violence, which makes obvious that it did. She recounts parts of the trial, and talks to jurors, which reveals that it did, yes it did, yes racism and/or Islamophobia played a part in Syed's conviction.
And then Koenig says, inexplicably, that she's unconvinced that racism played a role in Syed being convicted of a crime for which there was virtually no verifiable evidence, just the testimony of an accomplice whose attorney was secured by the prosecution and who got no jail time in exchange for testifying.
Here, again, I want to stress that I am not arguing that Syed is not guilty. I am only saying that I don't think he was fairly convicted.
(One of the best things to come out of Serial, for me, was hearing the woman from the Innocence Project, whose name I don't recall, saying that just because prosecutors can prosecute a case against someone and potentially secure a conviction with thin evidence doesn't mean they should.)
Anyway. I had a real problem with Koenig dismissing the possibility (the certainty) of racism out of hand. It was a crucial analysis that was just sort of waved away.
Which is no small thing, to suggest that we can disconcern ourselves with racism during this serious inquiry about justice.
Especially at this moment in our nation.
Koenig, a white women, says, incredibly, that she doesn't see evidence that the police or prosecutors were consciously influenced by or practiced racism, despite the fact that the police paid money to a consultant to develop a theory centered around honor killing and the prosecution used that theory as the backbone of its case: Hae Min Lee jilted Adnan Syed, after he risked his conservative Muslim family's approval to be with her, and he was so enraged by the ding to his honor that he killed her.
That entire case is predicated on Syed's Pakistani heritage and Muslim religion, even though he was born and raised in the United States and wasn't a devout Muslim at the time.
To reject a thorough analysis of all of these dynamics in favor of asking, in various ways, again and again, if murdering someone can be reconciled with the sort of guy Adnan Syed seems to be, is just mind-boggling. And irresponsible.
No one needs to be assured, at this moment, that we can ignore issues of race in the pursuit of justice.
(I also recommend this piece by Priya R. Chandrasekaran, who details additional issues of race with which Serial failed to meaningfully engage.)
So. At the end of it all, I am basically the human embodiment of a scrunchy-face emogi. I would like to say that I hope Serial gets Adnan Syed a new trial, but I don't even know if a new trial would look any more like justice than the first one did, now because of the influence of Serial.
The lingering question I have is: What if he really did do it, and the Serial effect secures his freedom?
Suddenly Republicans Don't Like Mavericks Anymore
Greg Sargent had an interesting piece yesterday about President Obama's recent decision "to be as aggressive and ambitious as possible in unilaterally pursuing his agenda wherever he can," and how his executive actions are "setting in motion a series of arguments that will shape the next race for the presidency."
Republicans like to say all of this unilateral action defies the will of the people as expressed in the last election. If that is so, then Republicans will surely be glad to hear that much of what Obama is setting in motion may be litigated in another electoral contest — the 2016 presidential race.Sargent makes the point that Obama's actions are (likely) building a coalition for the next Democratic nominee: "They are geared to the priorities of many of the voter groups that are increasingly key to Democratic victories in national elections: millennials, nonwhite voters, and college educated whites, especially women. The Cuba shift may appeal to young voters, particularly younger Cubans in the key swing state of Florida. The move on deportations could sharpen the contrast between the parties in ways that enhance the Democratic advantage among Latinos. The moves on climate could appeal to millennials and socially liberal upscale whites."
When you step back and look at the degree to which these actions are beginning to frame that contest, it's striking. Hillary Clinton has now endorsed Obama's move on Cuba. GOP presidential hopefuls are lining up against it. She has vowed to protect Obama's actions on climate "at all costs," a stance that could take on added significance if a global climate treaty is negotiated next year. Potential GOP presidential candidates will likely vow to undo those actions and line up against U.S. participation in such a treaty.
Clinton has come out in support of Obama's action to shield millions from deportation. GOP presidential hopefuls have lined up against it, effectively reaffirming the party's commitment to deporting as many low-level offenders and longtime residents as possible. And so on.
Obama's forcing the GOP into opposition against these policies, thus alienating these same key constituencies. While they also complain about the way the President is taking action, even as one of voters' biggest complaints about Washington is legislators who don't do anything.
Meanwhile, Obama and Clinton seem to have a neat little agreement going: He will go all-in on some big issues, and she will protect that legacy. As Tom Watson noted, "Obama is setting the 2016 platform seemingly in close collaboration with likely nominee. So much for distancing."
So much for distancing indeed. Democrats may have run away from the President during the midterm, but Clinton sure doesn't seem to have any interest in that loser strategy.
Anyway. It's fun to watch this unfold, and fun to watch the Republicans complain bitterly about our President going rogue. Looks like the party of mavericks doesn't like them anymore.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker yes: "What is your favorite piece of retro technology that always makes you nostalgic?"
Does Atari count if I still own one and still play it, lol?
