This blogaround brought to you by lavender.
Recommended Reading:
Mikki: [Content Note: Misogynoir] Jessica Williams Doesn't Need Your Permission: How White Feminists Hurt Everyone by Trying to Lead Women of Color
Parker: [CN: Transmisogyny] No, Transgender Rights Are Not Destroying Women's Colleges
Prison Culture: [CN: Racism; state violence] 'We Must Love Each Other:' Lessons in Struggle and Justice from Chicago
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred] Show Up and Refuse to Leave
Kameron: [CN: Discussion of triggers and harm] On Trigger Warnings and Neil Gaiman
Charles: Indie Film Out Here Explores the Lives of Queer Farmers
Adrienne: [CN: Racism; appropriation] SNL 40th Anniversary: Mike Myers and Native Imagery
Aura: [CN: Racism] PETA Ad Equates Dog Club With the KKK
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
The Wednesday Blogaround
Shaker Thumbs
We haven't had a Shaker Thumbs in more than a year (!), so we're long overdue. Shaker Thumbs is your opportunity to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a product or service you have used and that you'd recommend to other Shakers or warn them away from.
Today, I am giving a big thumbs up to ColourPop Cosmetics. I recently read about ColourPop (I wish I could remember where, so I could give credit), a company whose leaders believe "that whole barrier between fancy and affordable is absolute nonsense. That's why all of our products have luxury formulas at prices that won't break the bank." And they aren't kidding: Every lipstick, lip liner, and eye shadow sells for $5.
At $5 apiece, I decided to try a couple of different colors. I bought the "Bossy" lip liner and lipstick, and the "Feminist" lip liner and lipstick. Now, it just so happens I wanted to try a red and a purple lipstick anyway, but those names were certainly extra encouragement!
Last night, I tweeted a picture of me in "Bossy," which I love so much!
Today, I tried "Feminist," and omg loooooooooove.
It was hard to find the right light to show off the exact color of "Feminist," but it's a deep, rich, very dark purple, which works well with a variety of skin tones. Naturally any lipstick bearing the name "Feminist" should be both audacious and versatile!
Of course, particularly if you've got virtually translucent skin like I do, you've got to be willing to rock a look that verges on goth. Which, obvs, I totally am!
But! If you want something a little less bold, ColourPop has a nice selection of colors from which to choose, so you should be able to find something that works for you, if you are so inclined.
For many years, I never wore make-up at all, or very infrequently. I had no talent for applying it, and I didn't know what looked good on me, and it was too expensive (for me) to buy stuff just to try it and then never use it again. So I really like when I find affordable options for trying something new, which helps me experiment and also just learn the basic art of make-up application.
Part of the reason I got to the place where I had no talent or interest in make-up is because I always resented the idea of make-up as a cover-up of one's flaws. I didn't want to feel obliged to cover parts of myself that others perceived as flaws.
But, in the last few years, partly because of the freedom afforded by no longer working in an environment in which I have to conform to a limited definition of "professional appearance," I've started to enjoy playing with make-up. I resent utterly "make-up so I look like you want me to look," but love "make-up so I look like I want me to look."
I will never like make-up as obliged cover-up (which is distinct from someone who personally wants to use make-up as cover-up—a choice I do not judge), but it turns out I like it a whole lot as self-expression.
Anyway! Give us your thumbs-up or thumbs-down in comments!
Just to be abundantly clear, I am not affiliated in any way with Colour Pop, nor am I receiving any form of payment for recommending them. It's just a thing I've personally found super useful and am happy to recommend.
Daily Dose of Cute
Livsy: Large and in charge.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Nope
[Content Note: Sexual violence; guns.]
Via Andrea Grimes, here's a New York Times article headlined: "In a Bid to Allow Guns on Campus, Weapons Are Linked to Fighting Sexual Assault."
There is so much wrong with this shit, I hardly know where to begin. But many of the objections to this sort of proposal I laid out here: "Five Reasons Why 'Teach Women Self-Defense' Isn't a Comprehensive Solution to Rape." Particularly sections 4 and 5: Women who deter rape with violence, especially women of color, are often punished for doing so, and not every woman is prepared to use violence against her attacker, especially since many victims of sexual assault know the person assaulting them.
Further, making weapons more available in more places empowers people who are going to use them to commit violence at least as much (and, realistically, more so) than people who are going to use them to deter violence. If someone is seriously concerned about rape prevention, then limiting rapists' access to guns is a good place to start.
Even a rapist who might not rape at gunpoint may later use a gun to enforce his victim's silence.
And what of a rapist who is attempting rape at gunpoint? Is a woman supposed to pull out her own gun and have a shoot-out on campus in order to defend herself?
At what cost to the safety of other students does such a scenario come? It doesn't matter to the advocates of gun-slinging as rape deterrence.
Because they don't actually give a single, infinitesimal shit about rape or victims of rape. All they care about is guns everywhere all the time.
And if that comes at the cost of the people they invoke in fantasy narratives about rape prevention, they just hope no one will notice.
Well. I see you.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
Ricky Martin: "Livin' La Vida Loca"
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; war] The fight against Boko Haram intensifies: "Nigerian forces have killed more than 300 Boko Haram fighters during an operation to recapture 11 towns and villages since the start of the week, the military said on Wednesday, as its war increasingly sucked in neighbors Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. The latest fighting comes as the tide has appeared to turn against Boko Haram, with neighboring countries plagued by cross-border attacks weighing in against the insurgents. Amid growing global concern, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Benin are preparing a 8,700-strong force to fight the Islamists." It continues to be incredible to me how little attention this multi-nation war is getting in Western media.
[CN: Terrorism; war] In President Obama's much-discussed op-ed on "Our Fight Against Violent Extremism," Boko Haram gets just a single sentence. The whole thing is worth a read, all the same. It's important for the US President to say things like: "In the face of this challenge, we must stand united internationally and here at home. We know that military force alone cannot solve this problem."
[CN: Police brutality; racism] Outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder says the Justice Department's investigation into Officer Darren Wilson's fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, is nearly complete: "My hope is, as I said, is that we will do this before I leave office, and I'm confident that we will do that... The reviews are under way. I was briefed on both of them, just last week, and I'm satisfied with the progress we have made and also comfortable in saying that I am going to be able to make those calls before I leave office." I fear that we're not going to like the outcome, and I hope I am wrong about that. But, again, the burden of proof for federal charges requires the establishment of intent, and I don't think they're going to find that here.
Good news in the fight against HIV/AIDS: "Scientists said Wednesday a new drug tested on monkeys provided an astonishingly effective shield against an animal version of the AIDS virus, a major gain in the quest for an HIV vaccine. ...The prototype drug, called eCD4-Ig, comprises two imitations of the receptors, or docking points, where HIV latches on to CD4 cells—the key defences of the immune cells. The mimics latch on to the virus, tricking it into prematurely launching the docking procedure. The virus can only execute the procedure once, rendering it unable to attach to CD4 cells thereafter."
[CN: Sexual harassment] Vice President Joe Biden has, once again, "gotten handsy" with a woman in public, this time the wife of recently confirmed Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, during his swearing in ceremony. We're always meant to understand "that's just how he is," but that is unacceptable no matter who the fuck is doing it. And it's truly embarrassing to me as a US woman that neither our presidents nor our vice-presidents seem to understand that.
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, son of former president George H.W. Bush and brother of former president George W. Bush, wants us to know that "I love my father and my brother. I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions they had to make. But I am my own man—and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences." You know, I respect that. Now I hope that Jeb Bush will afford the same respect to women who want to make choices which are shaped by our own thinking and own experiences. Ha ha he won't!
[CN: Christian supremacy] I don't even know: "An Oklahoma bill banning Advanced Placement U.S. History would also require schools to instruct students in a long list of 'foundational documents,' including the Ten Commandments, two sermons, and three speeches by Ronald Reagan." For fuck's sake.
[CN: Misogyny; harassment; assault] Keira Knightley talks a bit about what it was like to navigate the aggressive paparazzi in the early days of her career: "Having 20 to 30 men who you don't know on a 24-hour surveillance outside your house calling you a 'whore' every time you leave the door to try to get a reaction from you is quite a difficult thing to deal with... You'd walk down he street and you'd have men trying to get under your skirt to take pictures up your skirt and all the time calling you a 'whore' or all the time spitting at you or all the time trying to get a reaction from the guy you were with because it would make the price of that photograph quadruple." This should not be legal the end.
Neat! "Engineers in the UK have found that limpets' teeth consist of the strongest biological material ever tested. Limpets use a tongue bristling with tiny teeth to scrape food off rocks and into their mouths, often swallowing particles of rock in the process. The teeth are made of a mineral-protein composite, which the researchers tested in tiny fragments in the laboratory. They found it was stronger than spider silk, as well as all but the very strongest of man-made materials." Wow.
Do you want to nominate a dog for the American Humane Association's 2015 Hero Dog Awards? Then get busy, because the nominations are officially open!
This Is Appalling
[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia; class warfare.]
Last year in Columbus, Ohio, 54-year-old Paul Hubert raped a 47-year-old woman, who is homeless. (I will call her Jane Doe.) Jane was sleeping under a bridge when Hubert found her, struck her in the head repeatedly, and sexually assaulted her. When questioned by police, he said that Jane Doe was a sex worker whom he'd paid for a consensual encounter, but her injuries suggested otherwise. Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to the rape to avoid a trial, and, in exchange for his plea, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Columbus police detective James Ashenhurst says that Hubert "was counting on her not showing up. If it wasn't for her cooperation, he would have walked."
So it seems like police and prosecutors would have done everything they could to help Jane Doe pursue justice in her case. But, yeah, not so much:
A homeless woman who was raped while sleeping under a bridge last year sometimes begged for bus money or walked up to 8 miles over the past year so she could face her attacker in court.Jane Doe is a fucking hero. But she shouldn't have had to be. If prosecutors were able to get her bus passes sometimes, why not every time? Why on earth was Jane Doe—who "has been homeless for two years and now hopes to find a place to live even though she has remained on the streets since she was raped"—not given temporary housing, or assistance in finding shelter? Why did she care more about showing up and giving consequences to a rapist than police and prosecutors?
Her determination to be in court helped win a conviction against the man, said a police officer who investigated the case.
...The 47-year-old woman said she made it to about a half-dozen court hearings by getting bus passes from prosecutors or panhandling for bus fare. At least twice, she walked to courthouse — a journey that took about three hours, she said.
"I didn't want to see him do it to anyone else," she told The Columbus Dispatch. "If he would do that to me, imagine what he might do to his next victim."
...Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Michael Hughes told the judge who sentenced Hubert about the woman's efforts to help prosecute Hubert.
"Not in every case do we have people who show this kind of resolve," Hughes said. "She always got here, no matter what her circumstances."
If the case rested entirely on her cooperation, then why wasn't law and order doing everything they could to make sure she was able to cooperate? She wasn't a reluctant witness; she was an eager witness.
Her tenacity is inspiring and profoundly moving, but it shouldn't have been necessary. Not in a decent world.
On top of this aggressively cruel expectation for a survivor who is homeless to find her own way to half a dozen court hearings, Jane Doe also had to navigate the usual victim-blaming and rape apologist horseshit from the man who raped her and his defense team.
Once police failed to buy Hubert's tall tale about Jane Doe being a sex worker who invented a rape claim (rapists are liars), then his defense team set to work with this garbage:
His attorney, Brian Rigg, said Hubert has a problem with drugs and alcohol that causes him to be "a completely different person."Listen, I know everyone needs and deserves a robust defense, and that's better than the straight-up victim-blaming we often see in rape defenses, but this is still gross. "The drugs and alcohol made him do it!"
I guess that's the problem with rape: It's utterly indefensible.
My thoughts are with Jane Doe. I desperately hope she will get access to the resources she needs to heal, to survive, and to thrive.
[H/T to Shaker Aaron.]
Um.
So, here is the headline of an item in the New York Times' "First Draft" political news space: "Hillary Clinton, Privately, Seeks the Favor of Elizabeth Warren."
Now here is the third paragraph from that item—which, by the way, is about a meeting that happened last December: "Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it 'cordial and productive.' Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy."
What, then, does "seeking the favor" mean, exactly? Is it meant to mean that she was seeking advice? Because, although I strongly suspect that Hillary Clinton, who has shown herself to be a politician capable of embracing new policy ideas, welcomes advice from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is an expert on economic issues, that is not the suggestion here:
The get-together highlighted an early challenge for Mrs. Clinton, who as the Democrats' leading contender for 2016 has all but cleared the field for her party's primary. She is intent on developing an economic platform that can speak to her party's populist wing and excite working class voters without alienating allies in the business community.So, Hillary Clinton met with Elizabeth Warren in order to make sure she wasn't going to run for president and to make sure she wouldn't shit-talk her in the press. And also because Hillary Clinton made mistakes, in case you'd forgotten how she'd run the worst campaign in the history of campaigns, even though it nearly got her the presidential nomination.
That Mrs. Clinton reached out to Ms. Warren suggested that she was aware of how much the debate over economic issues had shifted even during the relatively short time she was away from domestic politics while serving as secretary of state.
...The one-on-one meeting also represented a step toward relationship building for two women who do not know each other well. And for Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren's counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles. It may also indicate that Mrs. Clinton, who was criticized for running an extremely guarded campaign in 2008, has learned from her mistakes and will reach out more regularly.
(I'm not saying Clinton's '08 campaign was perfect, because HA HA IT WAS NOT. But this constant refrain about how terrible it was is also very tiring, and not a narrative we see about candidates like Mitt Romney, for instance. Certainly we don't see condescending and infantilizing flourishes about "learning from his mistakes.")
Anyway. In case that wasn't enough, the piece then recounts an entirely typical gossipy anecdote that would only be told about two women:
The meeting in December fell two months after a more awkward encounter: Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Warren crossed paths at a Massachusetts rally for Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee for governor there last year. At that event, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly described Ms. Warren as a champion against special interests and big banks; Ms. Warren, in turn, barely acknowledged Mrs. Clinton, who was the featured guest.OH DAMN! I also heard Jennifer Aniston nearly missed bumping into Angelina Jolie over a delicious-looking shrimp cocktail! Did anyone get a picture of Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt smoking a doobie in the men's room?!
Good grief.
And then the New York Times will publish some shit about why there aren't more women in politics, without a trace of fucking irony.
Texas Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Ruled Unconstitutional
[Content Note: Videos may autoplay at links.]
Late yesterday, Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman ruled Texas' ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, "as part of an estate fight in which Austin resident Sonemaly Phrasavath sought to have her eight-year relationship to Stella Powell deemed to have been a common-law marriage. Powell died last summer of colon cancer."
This is big news, not only for Phrasavath, who has won the right to have her relationship recognized as a marriage, but also potentially for all same-sex couples in Texas, especially because it was not issued with the familiar stay to give the state time to appeal—but marriage licenses are not yet being issued.
Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir, who praised Herman for his ruling, said she will confer with county lawyers to determine her options.So, now we await further updates, once DeBeauvoir has a better understanding of what her options are, since this case was atypical in the sense that it was about estate law rather than a more direct challenge to the constitutionality of the ban. Fingers crossed!
"I am scrambling, trying to find out if there is anything I can do. Right now, I think it's no, but we are checking," said DeBeauvoir, who in the past has said that she was ready to begin distributing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as soon as allowed by the courts.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "What is the strongest element in your character?"
The willingness and eagerness to learn.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Misogynoir.]
Williams was responding to, among other things, this colossal piece of garbage written by Ester Bloom, a white woman whose entire premise is auditing Jessica Williams' assessments of her own readiness to take over as host of The Daily Show.
In a subsequent addendum, Bloom graciously grants that the choice is Williams' own, and: "The decision is entirely hers."
How magnanimous to recognize Williams' humanity and agency as a post-script.
$9.61 an Hour
[Content Note: Worker exploitation; class warfare.]
$9.61 an hour: That's the average wage of the United States' nearly 2 million home healthcare aides—people doing some of the most difficult and necessary work for an aging population.
While average wages are on paper above the federal floor of $7.25 an hour, "there are all sorts of reasons why in practice it actually falls below minimum wage," Abby Marquand, the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute's director of policy research, said. Like [Atlanta home care worker Kimberly Weems], many are not paid for overtime or travel time. "You're paid barely above minimum wage just for the hours you're actually there with a client." Unpredictable and part-time hours reduce average pay even more, so that median annual earnings for a home health aide are just $13,000 a year.This is an absolute scandal—or should be, but isn't, because our particular capitalist system is built on the damnable lie that everyone earns what they deserve. And the backbreaking, exhausting, emotionally draining work of being a home healthcare aide isn't considered "hard work"—all the mirthless laughter in the universe—deserving of commensurate compensation to the difficult labor it actually is, because it's primarily done by women of color, many of whom made the terrible decision to be born outside of the country to whose privileged citizens they provide crucial care.
...That leaves many of them living in poverty. A quarter of home care workers and their families live below the federal poverty line, or $24,250 a year for a family of four. More than half earn below 200 percent of the poverty line. Home care workers' wages aren't enough to support a family of two in most states.
...The people doing this work are also an especially vulnerable group. Nearly 90 percent are women and more than half are people of color, while one in four is an immigrant. The issue of low pay is "a civil rights issue, this is an economic justice issue," Marquand said.
Our priorities are shit.
The Walking Thread
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
Oh goddddddddd this show! Every time I think it has reached its nadir, it manages to scrape the bottom of the zombie stew well to dredge up a little more sludge.
When last we left our totally trepid band of zombie slayers, Tyreese had succumbed to the zombie fever (RIP Tyreese) and they'd decided, because Grimes said it after Michonne said it, that they'd make for D.C.
This episode opens with Maggie crying alone in the woods, and then having to kill a zombie, because a gal can't even have herself a good cry in the zombiepocalypse without some goddamn zombie interrupting her.
From there, the entire rest of the episode is just an unfathomably boring pastiche of scenes featuring various characters going through some shit. In case you didn't realize that surviving the zombiepocalypse was a difficult proposition. I would call this episode filler, but that would be an insult to filler.
Daryl digs up an earthworm and eats it. Sasha searches a riverbed for water, but finds only dead, dried-up frogs. Maggie, Daryl, and Sasha return to the road, where the rest of Grimes Gang sits dejectedly beside their van, which has run out of gas. Everyone is hungry and thirsty. They start walking.
Daryl and Carol veer off into the woods to search for food. (Have the writers of this show ever been in the woods before? Do you even know how many deer and rabbits there would be? Deer and rabbits breed like deer and rabbits!) Daryl and Carol have a Meaningful Conversation about how Daryl needs to feel his feelings. Carol gives him Beth's knife. (RIP Beth.)
Sasha is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. She wants to kill all the zombies in sight, but Michonne tells her to save her energy. Sasha won't listen, and starts killing zombies, and Michonne yells at her.
Carl the Hat gives Maggie a dirty music box he found. Thanks, kid. It's broken, just like their spirits. SYMBOLISM.
Sgt. Redbull finds some booze and drinks it. Someone says it's only gonna make his thirst worse, and he ignores them, and Doctor Mulletsworth says, "He's a grown man." True that! Also true: No one is a grown enough woman to not have another member of Grimes Gang tell her what to do at all times.
Some other super dull crap happens. This isn't even character development. It's the equivalent of listening to a friend who refuses to take advice or make different decisions complain about the same thing zie's been complaining about for three years. LOOK I AM SORRY BUT MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE FOLLOWED GRIMES IN THE ASS-OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF THE GREAT LAKES REGION, OKAY?!
Some feral dogs run out of the woods and snarl at them. Sasha shoots them. Oh the humanity. Now they have something to eat.
Meaningful Conversations about the need to Keep Going.
Finally, on the brink of whatever, the skies open and rain pours down. They all open their mouths and turn them to the sky like a bunch of turkeys fixing to drown. Grimes shouts at them to use anything they can as a container to collect the rainwater. Because they are geniuses, they have basically nothing to use to collect rainwater, even though they've been talking about the very need for rain for a million miles of dusty, sunbaked road. Whooooooops!
When it rains it pours, so now a storm is rolling in, and they take shelter in a barn that Daryl found when he was off feeling his feelings. It's all great until a zombieclatch reaches the barn door and threatens to cave it in. Luckily, a bunch of trees fall and miss the barn but hit the zombies. WHAT LUCK!
Everyone goes to sleep and Daryl keeps watch. The next morning, he presents Maggie with the music box, and says he's repaired it. Just like their spirits have been repaired. SYMBOLISM.
Maggie wakes up Sasha to go look at the sunrise. She shows her the music box, but it doesn't play after all. SYMBOLISM. To SYMBOLIZE their conversation that they're not entirely sure how long they can keep doing this.
Some dude shows up in clean clothes and with a clean shave, and he asks to speak to their leader. "I have good news," he tells them, and the music box begins to play. SYMBOLISM, MOTHERFUCKERS!
SYMBOLISM!
Today in the Culture of Abuse
[Content Note: Graphic images of injuries at link. Domestic violence; misogyny.]
A woman in Britain who survived a vicious attack by her ex-fiance has been threatened with imprisonment if she defies a judge's order to write letters to him:
Natalie Allman, 29, has reportedly been ordered by a judge to send letters three times a year to former lover Jason Hughes, even though he is currently serving time in prison after he abused her for seven hours in front of their twin sons.Nine years. For what was clearly an attempted murder.
Allman told The Sunday People today that under custody laws she must send updates of the couple's five-year-old sons, along with photos, or face contempt of court.
She told the paper: "I feel betrayed that after everything he did his rights mean more than mine – more than my children's. We are the victims, not him. I thought he was going to kill me that night for no reason and my boys saw that. They were terrified."
Hughes is currently serving nine years in prison after being found guilty of malicious wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after repeatedly punching Ms Allman in the face with weights and then slitting her throat in 2012.
You know what? If you torture and try to kill your children's mother in front of them, you lose the right to have access to their lives, unless and until they are old enough to consent to a relationship with you.
Evidently, the courts disagree with that. In which case, the courts need to find some other way of updating this violent asshole on his kids' lives, because compelling the woman he nearly killed to do it is cruel and indecent. No one should be legally obliged to maintain contact with someone who harmed them.
And, seriously, the MRAs who constantly caterwaul about "fathers' rights" need to shove it up their asses once and for all. There is no shortage of sympathy for fathers having access to their children, no matter what, on either side of the pond.
There is a petition on behalf of Natalie Allman and her children here.
Daily Dose of Cute
This dog.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Artists!
International Feminist Man of Awesomeness Terry Crews stopped by Sesame Street to teach kids about artists, and it is exactly as adorbz as you'd imagine:
Video Transcript: Terry Crews, a tall and muscled middle-aged black man, appears onscreen with The Count, a purple muppet, and Abby, a pink muppet, who is holding a magic wand. "Greetings! I am The Count!" says The Count. "And I'm Abby!" says Abby. "And I'm Terry!" says Terry, continuing, "And we're here to tell you all about the word artist."
"Mm-hmm," says Abby. "Did you know an artist is someone who creates art?"
"It's true!" says Terry. "And there are lots of different kinds of artists."
"Why don't you show everyone different kinds of artists," suggests The Count, "and I will count them!"
"That is a great idea, Count!" exclaims Abby.
"But where are we going to get different kinds of artists?" asks Terry.
"You're gonna be different kinds of artists, Terry!" Abby tells him.
"What?!" says Terry. Abby waves her magic wand at Terry and he transforms into a painter, standing beside an easel with a painting of Abby on it. "Whoa!" Terry exclaims. "I'm a painter!"
"That is one kind of artist!" says The Count.
Abby waves her wand again, and Terry transforms into a sculptor. "Whoa! Look at me—I'm a sculptor!" says Terry.
"That is two —two kinds of artists!" says The Count.
"Haha—well, you ain't seen nothing yet!" says Abby, again waving her wand. Terry turns into a violinist.
"I'm a violinist!" Terry says, "playing" the violin.
"That is three different kinds of artists!" says The Count.
Abby hits Terry again with magic, and Terry morphs into a disco dancer, complete with shiny purple shirt. "I'm a dancer!" he says, and begins dancing, and it is PERFECTION.
"Four kinds of artists!" pronounces The Count.
Abby then turns Terry into a mime, and Terry immediately begins doing the "mime in a box" schtick.
"Is a mime an artist?" The Count asks.
"Ohhhhh yeahhhhh," Abby replies.
"Then that is five artists!" says The Count. Terry continues to mime in the background. "Five wonderful kinds of artists!"
"Artists!" they all shout in unison.
"Hey!" Abby exclaims at Terry. "Mimes don't talk!"
"Oh! Right!" says Terry, and resumes miming hilariously.
"Artist," say The Count and Abby.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
Lenny Kravitz: "Fly Away"
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Trans hatred; violence; death] RIP Bri Golec, a 22-year-old trans woman from Ohio, whose father killed her. "Bri Golec is the 6th transgender individual to die a violent death in 2015" in the United States. She "was a drummer and an artist. She loved her cat and had many friends."
[CN: War on agency; misogyny; death] My pal Andrea Grimes on the Republican lawmaker in Texas who wants to "appoint a 'guardian ad litem' for fetuses of brain-dead pregnant people whose families wish to say a proper goodbye to their loved one without forcing the continued gestation of a pregnancy inside a legally and medically deceased body." Because fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them.
[CN: Environmental hazard; video may autoplay at link] Holy shit: "Fires burned for hours after a train carrying more than 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in a snowstorm in West Virginia, sending a fireball into the sky and threatening the water supply of nearby residents, authorities and residents said Tuesday. Officials evacuated hundreds of families and shut down two water treatment plant following the Monday afternoon derailment. The West Virginia National Guard was taking water samples to determine whether the oil had seeped into a tributary of the Kanawha River, state public safety division spokesman Larry Messina said." Perhaps the most frightening part of this is that we cannot trust the state to be honest about the safety of the air and water, because over and over we've seen safety declared prematurely and people getting sick as a result.
[CN: War] Welp, the ceasefire was fragile at best and now it is broken: "Fierce fighting is reported inside the key Ukrainian town of Debaltseve despite a ceasefire agreed last week. Rebels say they have taken most of Debaltseve, a transport hub, but the government says it is still holding its positions. International observers tasked with monitoring the ceasefire have been unable to enter the town. Meanwhile Ukraine accused separatists of breaching the ceasefire and said hopes for peace were being destroyed."
[CN: Islamophobia; violence] Democracy Now! examines who is funding and promulgating anti-Islamic hatred as anti-Muslim attacks increase in the US: "As a federal inquiry begins in the killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina and an Islamic center in Houston, Texas, was intentionally set on fire Friday, we look at a new report that exposes the people who fund and stoke anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. ...The Islamophobia network has real consequences for Muslim Americans."
[CN: Theft] Whoa! "Hackers have stolen approximately $1 billion in what could be one of the largest bank heists ever, according to a new report from the Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab. Kaspersky said Sunday it has uncovered how hackers surreptitiously installed spying software on bank computers, eventually learned how to mimic bank employee workflows and used the knowledge to make transfers into bank accounts they had created for this theft. More than 100 banks were hit, Kaspersky said, and based on the hackers' practice of stealing between $2.5 million and $10 million from each bank, it estimated 'total financial losses could be as a high as $1 billion, making this by far the most successful criminal cyber campaign we have ever seen.'"
[CN: Disease; climate change] Confirming what anyone with a 7th grade science education and no agenda already knew: "Climate change, which is shuffling habitable zones for pathogen-carrying animals, is poised to make future outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola, H1N1 and TB worse, and more frequent."
[CN: Extreme weather] And the latest fuckwinter news from the East Coast of the US: "An icy winter storm has coated the south and eastern seaboard in sleet, freezing rain and snow, from from South Carolina to New York, cancelling flights, meetings of state legislatures, school and left hundreds of thousands of houses in the dark on Tuesday morning. Forecasters say the regions won't enjoy a thaw any time soon–another Arctic front is expected in the middle of the week." Yeah, when the power goes out in a winter storm, being "in the dark" isn't really the primary problem. Not freezing to death is.
This is pretty neat: Movie posters boiled down to circles.
Photos of dogs in midair at the Westminster agility championship!
And finally! This bird named Bowie (THE BEST NAME!) really loves his tickles. Aww lol.
She Strongly Suspects
[CN: Harassment. Reprinted at the request of Shaker Ellie. Originally published August 16, 2013.]
Her friend tells her that she's scared. And angry. And triggered. And paranoid. Because she is experiencing the thing that happens to women when they challenge the men who terrorize women online.
She and her friend are very much alike, in a lot of ways. But she has been challenging the men who terrorize women online for much longer, since dinosaurs still roamed the earth. She writes something to her friend.
She makes the usual caveat about everyone being different, but says she will say these things anyway because of the important ways in which they are the same. And then she tells her friend that the first couple of times, of the many times, the countless times, she has been under siege, not just in the regular every-day-is-a-battle kind of way, but in a Something Specific Is Happening and Here Comes the Onslaught way, she was as triggered and paranoid as her friend is now.
And then, she says, after a few times, she wasn't anymore.
She tells her friend that she STRONGLY SUSPECTS if her friend gets through this (and she will, because she is who she is), she will come out the other side better prepared for when it happens again, and it will, because this is the nature of being a woman who challenge the men who terrorize women online.
It will happen again. And again. And again and again.
She tells her friend that, eventually, you will be angry and scared and angry and also angry, but you won't be so triggered and won't feel so paranoid. And part of you will think, rightly, that it's suuuuuuper fucked up that you can become inured to being terrorized, and part of you will think, rightly, that it is profound evidence of your humanity, because if there is one thing that is true about humans, it is that we are adaptable, that we survive.
She says: "I bet that doesn't feel possible, or even desirable, right now, but."
She observes, frankly, that the truth is, when what happens to women who challenge the men who terrorize women online happens, what you feel doesn't affect the outcome. Whether you are scared or angry or defiant or indifferent doesn't matter.
She tells her friend that she STRONGLY SUSPECTS she will also, someday, get to a place where, unfathomably, she gives herself permission to not be triggered and it actually happens, because it's such a crucial part of your self-care.
She tells her friend that she realizes none of that matters in this moment, except perhaps the validation that her friend is not overreaction—not that her friend needs to be told for it to be true, but both of them know that validation matters, sometimes. Especially when you are a woman who challenges the men who terrorize women online.
None of it matters in this moment, she says, but she sort of wishes she'd had someone who could have drawn her a picture of a possible future where she wasn't constantly fucking terrified in a physical shaky way when she first experienced what happens to women who challenge the men who terrorize women online, because she legit expected she would get worse and worse until she shook herself into dust.
But she hasn't.
She has gotten better.
Her friend says thank you. Her friend tells her she has spent most of the day wondering if she will ever be herself again. Her friend is comforted by knowing that there's this other possible future, which she couldn't even imagine.
They agree that they will Talk About This, that they will make it an invitation to the women who are watching what happens to women who challenge the men who terrorize women online, and who are making decisions about whether they will speak, or whether they will be silent.
No one is obliged to speak. (And no one is obliged to keep speaking once they start, as if walking the fuck away is not an option. It is an option, and self-care is not defeat.) But, they think, everyone has the right to make the decision about whether to speak, or to keep speaking, knowing what might happen. Not just the things done by the men who terrorize women online. But the things that might happen inside yourself, and inside the safety of friendships with titans.
