Suggested by Shaker TyphoidMary: "If you were to be summoned by occult means, what three items would be placed in the summoning circle?"
Shoes, pet hair, and a quill.
Question of the Day
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by gingham.
Recommended Reading:
Imani: [Content Note: Police brutality; racism] Cleveland Isn't Blaming Tamir Rice for His Own Death. Not Really.
Mariame: [CN: Police brutality; racism. Note: This is an older piece, but relevant again, as Officer Wilson was not indicted on federal charges.] Whether Darren Wilson Is Indicted or Not, the Entire System Is Guilty
Amadi: [CN: White supremacy; sexual harassment] They're as Ubiquitous as Daylight
Sydette: Why the Dress Matters
David: [CN: Anti-semitism] What Leonard Nimoy and Spock Meant to Me as a Jewish Conservation Biologist
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred and eliminationism; bariatric surgery; disordered eating] New Horrifying Medical Device for Weight Loss: The Full Sense Device
Anthony: [CN: Homophobia] Nebraska Lesbian Couple's Pride Flag Stolen and Burned by Neighbor
Mitch: Jess T. Dugan's Photo Project, 'To Survive on This Shore,' Offers Moving Portraits of Transgender Elders
Jamilah: New Nina Simone Film Will Be Available on Netflix This Summer
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Domestic violence; misogynoir; guns.]
"Florida has a mandatory minimum 20-year sentence for firing a gun and you can't get time off for good behavior. You have to do every single one of those days. You'd think that kind of sentencing is intended for violent offenders who use guns while committing crimes, not somebody who is protecting herself."—Marissa Alexander, telling her story in her own words, in Essence.
Florida, of course, also has a Stand Your Ground law. But those sorts of laws aren't intended to allow black women to defend themselves. And anyone who thinks otherwise just needs to read Marissa Alexander's story.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Misogyny; violence; rape culture; reproductive coercion; MRA talking points.]
A friend of mine got into it with a bunch of MRA douchebags on social media today, because: 1. He is awesome; 2. He was pushing back on one of the most incredibly stupid articles asking "What about female privilege?"
I'm not going to link to the article, because fuck that, but I thought we'd all enjoy having a go at the list of alleged "female privileges" put forth by its author.
1. As a rescue worker I learned that the women and children get special treatment and men are secondary creature. Women never have to worry because in a natural disaster they get pulled out first during an evacuation.I am very tempted to write a rebuttal to each of these items, but I don't want to hoard all the fun for myself!
2. College campuses have Women Only clubs but Male only clubs tend to be prohibited.
3. If a guy runs away from a fight he is a coward but if a woman does so she is praised for her nonviolent actions.
4. If a guy starts a fight he is likely to go to jail, if a woman does she is considered sexy. Hell the woman can hit a dude in the face and expect not to be hit back.
5. If a man and a woman have a physical altercation, it is assumed the man was the aggressor.
6. If a man cracks a joke about the rape of a woman he is attacked and ostracized but if anyone cracks a joke about raping a man, everyone laughs.
7. If a woman and a man commit a crime, the woman in most cases will get less significantly less time.
8. In most states, if the mother wants to keep a child in a custody battle, she gets the child unless the father can prove she is unfit. Where is the equality in that?
9. In the cases of divorce, men are often forced to pay the living expenses of their former spouse.
10. It is socially acceptable that a woman has a social support network but if a man has one he is considered weak.
11. Lets look at Breast cancer, it is in the news, sports teams flaunt it in our face, and it gets constant national attention but you never hear about prostate cancer and prostate cancer kills more men than breast cancer kills women.
12. Male soldiers are expected go into battle but female soldiers are not. On top of that men have to fear the draft and women are exempt from it.
13. Men are assumed to be Misogynist unless they are very vocal and active in proving otherwise.
14. Men are barred from the debate of gender issues while women control and direct the debate in the direction of their choosing.
15. Men are often victims of domestic violence at about the same ratio as women. The police do nothing to stop it and the man is considered weak and spineless if he does nothing about it.
16. Men are portrayed as lazy and stupid in the media while women are portrayed as sexy and smart.
17. Men are twice as likely to be the victim of an assault but the media reports far more often if the victim was a woman.
18. Men are viewed as a potential rapist simply because they have a penis. If they look at a woman appraisingly, they are considered lewd and violent. If a woman stares at a man appraisingly or even suggests sexual acts to him, she is applauded for being a free spirit.
19. Men constantly have to live with the fear of being accused of being a sexual predator if the show any interest in interacting with children not their own. Women can freely talk to and play with other people’s kids.
20. Men get labeled a sex offender for peeing in an alley. Women get a warning from the cop.
21. Men get to watch women on talk shows laugh about a man getting his penis chopped off. If a man laughed about a woman getting her breast chopped off, his media career would be over.
22. Men in America get their penis cut and mutilated at birth and no one speaks out about it. Yet if women got their genitals mutilated at birth we would hear a loud and vocal outcry of injustice.
23. Men pay more for car insurance than women do.
24. Men who make a sexual joke at work are likely to be fired for sexual discrimination but women who say the exact same joke are not.
25. Woman decide if they will carry a child to term once pregnant. The father has no so whatsoever. And if the man doesn't want the child, the woman can take him to court and force him to pay her for 18 years so that she can care for the child.
26. Women have several organizations that provide free housing in times of need and a single woman finds it easier to get social services from the government than a man.
27. Women live longer than men. While this is not a social construct it is an awesome privilege.
28. Women never have to worry about getting their life ruined with a false accusation of rape following an evening of consensual sex. I am glad that I am married because I am afraid to have sex without proof that it was consensual.
29. Women often go on dates for free as the man pays for everything.
30. My final point, Misandry is ignored by our society and if it is called out, no one hears or pays attention. Women are allowed to show hatred of men while men cannot even ask a question that might imply a woman is hateful. When a man tries to debate the whole women rights issue, he is accused of being a Misogynist.
So instead, I'll leave it for all of us to discuss in comments, and just note that many of these are patently false; many of them elide that the reasons for these "privileges" are because women are objectified and dehumanized and viewed as "the weaker sex," which sure as fuck doesn't feel like a privilege; it is possible to believe that many of these alleged "privileges" exist only by disappearing all but the most privileged women; and all of the items that have even a shred of truth to them (e.g. routine circumcision) are issues regularly addressed by feminists.
And I'll leave it there with this final observation: MRAs are the most likely and insistent yielders of the accusation that feminists and womanists view ourselves as "victims." But there are no bigger imaginary victims on the planet than these fucking bozos.
Daily Dose of Cute
Little Lady Snugglesworth.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
* * *
This past Christmas, Paul the Spud got me a gift certificate to Goorin Bros. Hat Shop, of which I finally made use, and this little beauty just arrived:
Sophie couldn't care less.
The hat is Billy Batts. (Thank you, Spudsy! ♥) The sweater is an old one from Avenue, about which I've blogged previously.
I've mentioned once or twice or a million times that I am a big fan of hats. Not only are they fun to wear, but they're especially useful on days when I can't be arsed to do my hair haha. Just stick a hat on it!
I know fedoras are so overdone these days, but I couldn't help myself. I really love this one!
Anyway! As always, all subjects related to fat fashion are on topic, but if you want a topic for discussion: What's your favorite style of hat? Or are you hat-averse?
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
Depeche Mode: "Master and Servant"
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
The AP reports that Hillary Clinton private email account used to conduct government business while she was Secretary of State was run on her own private email server registered to her family's home in New York. "The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives. ...In theory but not in practice, Clinton's official emails would be accessible to anyone who requested copies under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Under the law, citizens and foreigners can compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Since Clinton effectively retained control over emails in her private account even after she resigned in 2013, the government would have to negotiate with Clinton to turn over messages it can't already retrieve from the inboxes of federal employees she emailed." See, this is my problem with this entire thing: Irrespective of how much Clinton's team says she "complied with the letter and spirit of the" Federal Records Act, we just have to trust that. There's no oversight and no transparency. That is not good, and I honestly don't care who it is, because everyone in government needs meaningful accountability. And there can be no meaningful accountability without real transparency.
[Content Note: Descriptions of injuries; worker exploitation] A joint project of ProPublica and NPR documents "The Demolition of Workers' Comp" in the US. "Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America's workers' comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year... The changes, often passed under the banner of 'reform,' have been pushed by big businesses and insurance companies on the false premise that costs are out of control. In fact, employers are paying the lowest rates for workers' comp insurance since the 1970s. And in 2013, insurers had their most profitable year in over a decade, bringing in a hefty 18 percent return."
[CN: Domestic violence; racism; misogyny] This is horrendous: "A unanimous jury found Korean immigrant detainee and domestic violence survivor Nan-Hui Jo guilty Tuesday of child abduction charges filed by her child's father and alleged abuser, Jesse Charlton. Now, Nan-Hui is also facing deportation and permanent separation from her child immediately after the hearing. ...The case highlights how instead of being granted protection and given support, survivors of domestic violence (who are disproportionately women and children) are often criminalized or ignored while their abusers enjoy immunity."
This video, a PSA challenging implicit bias by the Ad Council, featuring people dancing behind a screen so only their skeletons can be seen, before they reveal who they are, is really terrific. The campaign, Love Has No Labels, challenges viewers to examine their expectations rooted in internalized bias: "A lot of us make snap judgments based on what we see—whether it's race, age, gender, religion, sexuality, or disability. Yet most of us aren't even conscious of our prejudice. That's why it's called implicit bias." I just wish the campaign included sizism. A big miss there.
[CN: Animal endangerment] So awful (and so concerning): "The monarch butterfly population has plummeted in less than 20 years, leading one environmental group to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take action. The Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit in a New York City federal court seeking an order to force the EPA to review an emergency petition that it filed last year. The NRDC claims the EPA never responded to the request. The group also wants the agency to review within six months its rules governing glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, a commonly used herbicide that has wiped out the milkweed plant in many parts of the country. Monarch butterflies rely on the milkweed for their survival. The monarch population has dwindled from 1 billion in 1997 to 56.5 million this winter—a drop of 90%, according to the complaint."
[CN: Images of shark at link] Everything you ever wanted to know about the very cool and very creepy goblin shark!
Sony has announced its Project Morpheus virtual reality headset will go on sale next year. (Time for Oculus to make its announcement BECAUSE I WANT ONE OF THOSE STAT!)
And finally! This is the sweetest story about a scared kitten who was rescued by someone special who knew just how to give her the perfect home. "Now she's the queen of the castle." Blub.
Thanks But No Thanks
[Content Note: War on agency, violence, and a description of a perineum tear. NB: Not only women need access to abortion.]
Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker, who totally wants to be president so bad he's considering legally changing his middle name to IHeartIowa, has decided to go all in on the war on agency, in order to make sure conservative primary voters know he's serious terrible enough to be their dude:
Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday embraced a move to ban abortion after 20 weeks after repeatedly declining to spell out where he stood on the issue in last year's re-election campaign.Walker will always fight to protect the sanctity of life. By which he means, of course, only the potential life of fetuses. Which is valued more highly than the actual lives of the people who carry them.
Wisconsin Right to Life has touted as its top priority legislation that has yet to be introduced that would prevent women from seeking abortions in most cases after 20 weeks.
Walker said in last year's campaign he opposed abortion, but refused to say whether he supported banning the procedure after 20 weeks. At one stage, he ran an ad saying earlier restrictions he approved were aimed at patient safety and that he understood the decision to terminate a pregnancy was an "agonizing one."
"I'm pro-life, so that part shouldn't shock anybody," he told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors and reporters in October. "It doesn't shock anybody, the legislation I've signed in the past."
In a Tuesday letter, he addressed specific legislation head on.
"As the Wisconsin legislature moves forward in the coming session, further protections for mother and child are likely to come to my desk in the form of a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks," his letter said. "I will sign that bill when it gets to my desk and support similar legislation on the federal level. I was raised to believe in the sanctity of life and I will always fight to protect it."
Which is never challenged by the media. The crucial follow-up question—"How is it protecting women to deny them their agency?"—never gets asked.
The absurd claim that one is "fighting to protect the sanctity of life" is never held up for public scrutiny, never examined to reveal that the lives of pregnant people are not sacred, that their free will is not sacred, that their right to be free of violence done to their bodies is sacred.
As I've said before (and will almost certainly have occasion to say many times again), the anti-choice position is inherently violent, no matter how politely it is stated. If anyone else suggested that I should be forced to submit my body against my will to nine months of potential discomfort and pain, followed by an act that might include the skin and muscle between my vagina and anus being torn open, I don't think we'd mince words about whether they were using violent rhetoric. But because we can couch it in the bullshit terminology of "a pro-life position," that's supposed to be evidence of civility.
That's supposed to evidence of "protecting me" and an unyielding belief in the sanctity of human life.
Fuck. That.
I am a human. That does not in any way feel like a respect for the sanctity of my life, or the quality of my life, or the agency over my life to which I am meant to have a public (and, according to Walker's own religion, divine) right.
No one can argue, with any honesty or credibility, that they give a fuck about the sanctity of life if they would force a person to carry to term an unwanted or unviable pregnancy against her will. That is the opposite of a respect for life, if the definition of "life" is to have any meaning at all.
And I really wish the media would start pointing that out.
This isn't about the sanctity of life, and it sure as shit isn't about protecting "mother and child," to quote Walker. If Scott Walker really wanted to protect women (and other pregnant people), then he would be unapologetically pro-choice, make sure abortion was accessible and affordable, and trust women to make the best decisions for themselves, instead of limiting our choices and pretending that's helping us.
This isn't protection. It's oppression.
Alabama Supreme Court Stops Same-Sex Marriage, Because Of Course It Did
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
This is as utterly pathetic as it is cruel:
The Alabama supreme court has ordered the state's probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, saying a previous federal ruling that gay marriage bans violate the US constitution did not preclude them from following state law, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.It won't stand. It's only a matter of how long it won't stand. This is the last gasp of bigots who know they have lost, just fucking with people's lives a little bit more to try to delay the inevitable, and parading out the same baseless arguments about "protecting the family."
The all-Republican court in Montgomery on Tuesday sided with the argument offered by a pair of conservative organisations, appealing against a decision by US district judge Callie Granade of Mobile, who ruled in January that both Alabama's constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.
It was not immediately clear what impact the latest ruling would have, or whether it would stand.
Joe Godfrey, executive director of the Alabama Citizens Action Program, said he was excited about the decision. "We are concerned about the family and the danger that same-sex marriage will have."There is literally no validity to what Godfrey is saying. Zero. Zip. Nil. It's a complete falsehood, and the only families that are struggling in any way related to same-sex marriage are the families headed by same-sex couples who are being denied important protections to keep their families safe.
"It will be a devastating blow to the family, which is already struggling," Godfrey added.
This is all about straight bigots who feel like their rights are being eroded because they can't distinguish between "rights" and "privileges." Their right to get married is wholly intact; their privilege of being conferred that right while it is denied to others based on sexual orientation is vanishing.
What feels like a loss of "rights" is actually just a desperate insecurity about their super-special relationships losing the shimmering, golden glow that only denying marriage equality to same-sex couples conveys upon their gloriously gilded unions.
All of this breathtaking indecency, because there are people who are mad that their relationships won't be special anymore.
Well, tough shit. Marriage isn't an exclusive country club. It's a legal contract that confers rights and legal privileges, and as long as we're going to use marriage as the threshold for accessing those rights and legal privileges (which is a whole different discussion altogether), then everyone needs to have access to it the end.
If your different-sex marriage isn't special or "sacred" or whatthefuckever just because more people are allowed to do it, then that's not a problem with the law; that's a problem with your marriage.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker iwillbedamned: "What's more important to you—experiences or memories? Why?"
For me, it's a tie. At least at this point in my life, I need and value both equally.
Recommended Reading
[Content Note: Discussion of fat hatred, diet industry, body policing. Photos at links may be NSFW.]
If you're not familiar with the Adipositivity project, you need to check it out, because it is amazing. It's a now 8-year-old photography project by Substantia Jones which "aims to promote the acceptance of benign human size variation and encourage discussion of body politics, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen."
And then you need to read this great interview with Substantia about the project, and its objectives, and the people who participate in it.
I am so grateful for this project, which has meant a lot to me for many years. And I am so indebted to Substantia Jones, who has had such a positive influence on me and countless other people.
Finish This Sentence
The last book I read on a recommendation and really enjoyed was...
...The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks. Iain (my husband, not the author, haha) recommended this book to me for years, and I finally read it, and now I understand why he was so persistent.
Justice Department Investigation Finds Pattern of Police Bias in Ferguson, MO
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism.]
Although a separate investigation by the US Department of Justice is expected to find no civil rights violations against Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last year (much like the investigation into George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin), the simultaneous investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, by whom Wilson was employed, has found a pattern of bias and excessive force:
Police officers in Ferguson, Mo., have routinely violated the constitutional rights of the city's black residents, the Justice Department has concluded in a scathing report that accuses the officers of using excessive force and making unjustified traffic stops for years.Now the question is: Is this official finding, which reflects the reported lived experiences of Ferguson's black community, going to be a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change, for something that looks even a little bit like justice, or will the Ferguson Police Department and the entrenched powers which have underwritten and abetted its patterns of abuse merely take this report and use it to justify greater attempts to conceal the same ugly dynamic?
The Justice Department, which opened its investigation after a white Ferguson police officer shot and killed a black teenager last summer, says the discrimination was fueled in part by racial stereotypes held by city officials. Investigators say the officials made racist jokes about blacks on their city email accounts.
...The report's findings were summarized by a federal law enforcement official. The full report is expected to be released on Wednesday.
...Ferguson officials now face the choice of either negotiating a settlement with the Justice Department or potentially being sued by it on charges of violating the Constitution.
In compiling the report, federal investigators conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed 35,000 pages of police records and analyzed race data compiled for every police stop. They concluded that, over the past two years, African-Americans — who make up about two-thirds of the city's population — accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of citations, 93 percent of arrests and 88 percent of cases in which the police used force.
Black motorists were twice as likely as whites to be searched but were less likely to be found in possession of contraband such as drugs or guns.
The findings reinforce what the city's African-American residents have been saying publicly for the past year: that years of discrimination and mistrust created the volatile environment that erupted after Mr. Brown's shooting.
I fervently hope for the former, and fear the latter. I am honestly not sure that meaningful and lasting change can happen within a system to which this sort of racist abuse is not a bug but a feature.
But I hope I'm wrong. I really do.
Daily Dose of Cute
"Go ahead. Sit down beside me. I promise this isn't a ruse. Mwah ha ahem."
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.]
Grimes de-griming.
When last we left our totally trepid band of zombie slayers, Grimes Gang had arrived at Aarontown, and were fixing to enter and find out what was really behind those walls.
If the past ONE MILLION EPISODES were about how surviving the zombiepocalypse changes you man, this week's episode was about how surviving the zombiepocalypse on the road changes you and also about how surviving the zombiepocalypse inside walls doesn't change you enough. Or something.
So Grimes Gang enters Aarontown, and they are asked to surrender their weapons, which, after talking to Aarontown's leader, Deanna, they do reluctantly and suspiciously. Reluctant and suspicious are the themes of the day.
Grimes is the first to speak with Deanna, who videotapes their conversation because they believe in "transparency," and also because cutting away to the video interviews throughout the episode is a cool structure for this cool show's cool directors.
Deanna tells Grimes she's a former member of Congress, who was traveling back to her district when the Army redirected her to Aarontown, promising to come back, but they never did. Aarontown, she explains, was a planned community of expensive homes built with sustainability in mind. It has its own solar grid, cisterns, and eco-based sewage filtration, so no need to shit in the woods!
Everyone is dealing differently with this new adventure in Aarontown. They are all reluctant and suspicious, of course! Ha ha don't you worry about that! But Carol, for instance, pretends she can barely handle a weapon and talks about how much she misses her husband and how she was basically just the den mother of Grimes Gang, and now she's wearing a cardigan and cooking food for old people. She is trying to Fit In. Or at least fool the Aarontownians that she wants to fit in. While Daryl, meanwhile, wants to continue smelling like garbage and looking surly and cutting up possums for dinner while living on a porch.
Different strokes for different folks!
Grimes takes a hot shower and shaves off his beard and gets a haircut from a nice blond lady. She has a son about Carl the Hat's age, and they play videogames together. Carl the Hat also meets a cute teenage girl named Enid who is totes emo, and Carl the Hat stalks her on a private walk into the woods because this show is terrific.
Anyway! Everyone gets a beautiful new home, but, for the first couple of nights, they all stay together at Castle Grimes, because they are reluctant and suspicious. Why do the Aarontownians even want them there?! "I want you to help us survive," Deanna tells Grimes.
She seems legit! But is it only a matter of time before they find out she keeps zombie heads in an aquarium or holds Sunday cannibal barbecues?! GRIMES GANG BEEN DONE WRONG BEFORE!
A further concern is how weak these weak-ass weakheads seem. Carl the Hat tells his dad, "They're weak, and I don't want us to get weak, too." Later, Grimes and Carl the Hat, outside the gates of Aarontown, take down some zombies together. Hey, some dads take their sons fishing, some take their sons zombie-murdering. Don't judge! YOU DON'T KNOW THEIR LIVES. The two Grimes Guys clearly feel safer via the familiarity of killing a bunch of zombies. Surviving has changed them man. And they have proven to themselves that they are still strong.
Meanwhile, Glenn, Tara, and Noah, who've been selected (because everyone gets jobs in Aarontown!) to assist on supply runs discover that the self-described douchebag who's chief of the supply runs (and also Deanna's son) is not very savvy about survival on the outside. They have a super gross interaction with a zombie Douchebag was trying to keep as a trophy, which endangers the Grimes Gang trio, who kill it.
Back at Aarontown, Glenn yells at Douchebag that he's an incompetent dipshit, and Douchebag takes a swing at Glenn, and Glenn punches him. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! As a crowd gathers, Deanna arrives on scene and gives a great speech about how Grimes Gang are now members of Aarontown and need to be treated as equals. She thanks Glenn for punching her stupid son, and then she asks Grimes and Michonne to be the town's constables.
Later that night, Grimes is parading around in a police uniform (just his size! lucky!) and Carol reiterates Carl the Hat's worry that living in Aarontown will make them weak.
Grimes tells her, "We won't get weak. That's not in us anymore. We'll make it work. And if they can't make it? Then we'll just take this place." OMINOUS FACE.
Gosh, you guys, I'm beginning to think that surviving the zombiepocalypse has really changed Rick Grimes.
Next week: More of this crapola.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
To be perfectly blunt, I've barely been paying attention to the controversy surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the US Congress, because I can only care about so many things, and that just didn't make the cut. But this BBC story pretty much sums it up for me: "The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Iran poses a 'threat to the entire world', in a contentious speech to the US Congress. He said the deal being negotiated between Iran and world powers 'paves Iran's path to the [nuclear] bomb'. He acknowledged that his speech was controversial and insisted that he was not meddling in internal US politics." Hahaha well if he insisted, then it must be true!
In other nuke news: "North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong said on Tuesday that his country had the power to deter an 'ever-increasing nuclear threat' by the United States with a pre-emptive strike if necessary. His rare speech at the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament drew a rebuke from U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, who urged Pyongyang to stop making threats and rid itself of nuclear weapons." To which I can only assume Ri replied, "You first!" I mean, not to be glib, but fucking hell. The US ceded the moral high ground here when, if not before, it launched a preemptive war on Iraq and vociferously defended the policy of preemptive strikes against nations who might have WMDs. WHOOOOOOOPS.
Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments tomorrow in King v. Burwell, which is the first major challenge to the the ACA's individual mandate was upheld by the court in 2012, Tara Culp-Ressler has "The Five Numbers That Explain the Case to Destroy Obamacare."
[Content Note: Transphobia] FUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIIIIIIIIIIIIS: "Charlotte [North Carolina] City Council rejected several proposed LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinances, after attempting to approve a compromise that would have exempted restrooms, locker rooms, showers and changing rooms from public accommodations protections. The 6-5 vote is the second time in two decades that Charlotte has rejected LGBT-inclusive protections. [The rejection] came after hearing nearly five hours of public comment and Council debate with speakers passionately supporting and opposing the measures, with a great deal of debate and contention focusing on transgender people's use of restrooms." Of course it did. Republican Councilmember Kenny Smith said: "I don't think tonight's vote is about solving a problem. It's about promoting an agenda. If passed, it sends a clear message to the city, that Council has chosen to impose a radical left agenda." The radical left agenda of letting trans* people use the fucking bathroom.
[CN: Accusations of child neglect; choice policing; rape culture] A Maryland couple have been "found responsible for 'unsubstantiated' child neglect" after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter walk home unsupervised from a park a mile away from their house. I find this really objectionable for so many reasons, not least of which is that the hysteria around constant supervision is largely the result of erroneous rape culture narratives (aided by media reports focusing on high-profile cases) about strangers abusing children, when most children who are sexually abused are abused by someone tasked with watching and protecting them. This hysteria, and the attendant parent-blaming if anything ever happens to a child, actually makes kids less safe, because it focuses on small risks to the exclusion of important conversations about what child safety really looks like.
Something something Rick Perry. I can't believe this guy thinks he's got a snowball's chance at the equator of being elected president.
Could humans not see blue until modern times? Or did humans just not have a name for it?
And finally! This cat really loves hir human baby so much! ♥
And Again
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; guns; victim-blaming.]
On Sunday, Los Angeles police officers shot and killed a homeless man known as Africa on the city's infamous Skid Row:
Five officers grappled on a pavement with a man known as Africa before shooting him five times in front of horrified onlookers.LAPD spokesperson Sergeant Barry Montgomery promised an investigation: "It's going to be a long investigation and we will, you know, get to the bottom of it."
The victim, whose full name has not been made public, was pronounced dead shortly after the encounter, which unfolded just before midday in skid row, a neighbourhood of homeless people and shelters close to the financial district.
...A report of an altercation between two people near East Sixth Street and South San Pedro at 11.36am prompted officers to the scene, said Jack Richter, an LAPD spokesman.
...People at the scene and on social media expressed shock that a scuffle on a busy street in broad daylight ended with lethal force, putting police violence under renewed scrutiny in the wake of protests over fatal encounters in Ferguson, New York and other cities.
...The video, which was posted on Facebook, showed officers grappling with a man beside what appeared to be an improvised tent and other homeless possessions. He resisted with flailing limbs.
A woman passing by scooped up a nightstick dropped by an officer. Two officers handcuffed her while their colleagues continued wrestling with the man.
A man – which appeared to be one of the officers – is heard instructing "Drop the gun, drop the gun," after which five gunshots are fired. The officers stood back, some with guns drawn, and the homeless man lay motionless on the ground.
Onlookers gasped and remonstrated. "They just killed that man. They just shot that motherfuckin' man like that," said one.
And surely we can all have a ton of confidence in that investigation, when LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck is already running defense for the officers and engaging in rank victim-blaming:
"While on the ground and struggling with the officers, the man forcibly grabbed one of the officer's holstered pistols, resulting in an officer-involved shooting," Beck said during an afternoon press conference on Monday. Beck said the slide on the gun had been "partially engaged", which he said is "indicative of a struggle over a weapon".Sure. Also: If the police had figured out a way for all six of them to subdue a single man without pulling their weapons, we wouldn't be having this conversation, either.
"I don't know that I'd have done anything differently," Beck told reporters. He added: "Had the individual not grabbed the officer's pistol, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
