What the F#@k Is This?

[Content Note: Racism.]

This is an actual article written by an actual person for actual publication in the actual year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fifteen: "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings–About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"

And this is how it actually starts:

There was a noticeable shift toward minority castings last season, with more parts opening up to ethnic actors, a casting term used for non-Caucasian thesps. It was a concerted effort, with more than one instance where a family member role was rewritten as adopted to make them ethnic. Then, following the success of freshman series How to Get Away with Murder, Black-ish, Fresh off the Boat, Jane the Virgin and especially Empire, which launched to huge ratings at the kickoff of pilot casting season, ethnic castings exploded this season.

The change is welcomed by talent agents who no longer have to call casting directors and ask them if they would possibly consider an ethnic actor for a part, knowing they would most likely be rejected. "I feel that the tide has turned," one agent said. "I can pitch any actor for any role, and I think that's good."

But, as is the case with any sea change, the pendulum might have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction. Instead of opening the field for actors of any race to compete for any role in a color-blind manner, there has been a significant number of parts designated as ethnic this year, making them off-limits for Caucasian actors, some agents signal.

Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

A lot of what is happening right now is long overdue. The TV and film superhero ranks have been overly white for too long, workplace shows should be diverse to reflect workplace in real America, and ethnic actors should get a chance to play more than the proverbial best friend or boss.

But replacing one set of rigid rules with another by imposing a quota of ethnic talent on each show might not be the answer.

REVERSE RACISM!!!!11!!eleventy!!1!!!

The author, Nellie Andreeva, provides one example of a white actor who was not given a job because the network wanted diversity in the cast: "In one instance, after a number of actors of different ethnicities tested for two roles in a pilot this year, two Caucasian actors ended up being the top choices for the two remaining regular parts. However, because of a mandate from the studio and network, one of the roles had to diverse, so the pilot could only cast one of the top choices and pass on the other to fulfill the ethnic quota. 'They need to say the best man or woman wins,' one rep suggested."

So, basically, this is the solution being proposed: Pretend like racism is over, and just hire the "best man or woman" for every job, as if a rank legacy of white supremacy in mainstream casting doesn't exist and no longer has any influence. Sounds perfect!

Everything, everything, about this is terrible, but perhaps the worst of it is the idea, threaded through the piece but never explicitly stated, that people of color have got a few shows now where they see people who look like themselves in the primary cast, and they should be grateful for that and stop being so greedy.

Because, hey, one white actor supposedly lost a job because the network wanted someone "ethnic." OH THE HUMANITY! SLIPPERY SLOPE! We'd better nip this in the bud before white people lose their undeserved chokehold on jobs that are ostensibly designed to tell stories about the breadth and complexity of the human experience.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

And Again

[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; death. Video may autoplay at link.]

Nicholas Thomas, a 23-year-old black man, was shot and killed by police who are claiming self-defense:

Police said he violated a felony conviction on a crime they would not discuss with 11Alive News. But police said that when they showed up at the Goodyear Service Center on Cumberland Parkway [in Smyrna, Georgia], where he worked, Thomas jumped into a customer's Maserati and started to drive off and would not surrender.

"The cop yelled, and he said, 'get out the car, get out the car now,' and he just drove off. Then, he put it in reverse, there was nothing the cop could do from there," said witness Ryan Rose. So, I guess he— the cop shot at the car."

"The suspect drove his car toward officers, putting officers in fear for their lives, at which time the officers fired into the vehicle, shooting the suspect," said Smyrna Police Sgt. Ed Cason.

Cason said there were at least three Smyrna officers there trying to arrest Thomas, plus at least three Cobb County Police officers. Cason did not say how many officers shot at the car, but Cobb Police say none of their officers fired any rounds. Cason also would not say if they found a gun with Thomas.

..."They could have shot the tires out; could have shot the radiator. Where's he gonna go?" asked Huey Thomas, Nicholas' father. "I mean, he's gonna get out and run. I just think it was totally unnecessary."

Smyrna Police are continuing their investigation of the incident.

I'll bet they are.

Here, it's not clear if Thomas was reversing his car "at" officers, or driving it forward toward them. In other stories, it sounds more like he was driving it directly toward them. But, either way, the bullet holes are in the side of the car.

And one might think, well, maybe it was just other officers protecting the officers at whom he was driving, except the police version (at this point) is that it was the officers who "feared for their lives" because Thomas was driving at them who "fired into the vehicle."

We must pay attention to details like this, because the asserted facts in the police account immediately after any shooting is often where police cover-ups begin.

Especially when another witness significanly contradicts that account, in a way that makes more sense given the placement of the bullet holes:

"They were standing behind the car, opening fire. He wasn't driving towards them," Goodyear customer Brittany Eustache said.

Eustache told Channel 2's Rachel Stockman what happened. She said she watched from inside the store, just feet away.

"The car was not moving when they began to shoot at him. The car had been stopped. He hit a curb. He couldn't go any further," she said.

"So at no point was he making any aggressive moves?" Stockman asked her.

"None, none at all. They immediately opened fire on them," Eustache said.

Let us further note that, in early reports, the police were referencing Thomas' "felony conviction" without further detail, but, apparently, this entire event started because they were serving him an arrest warrant for a probation violation on a traffic violation.

Which: This and this.

How municipal violations are abused by police to exploit communities, especially poor communities, is generally something that we all need to understand. But it could be fairly central to this case, to detail how Nicholas Thomas went from a guy who had a traffic violation, which he was trying to sort out with an attorney, to a guy who is dead and accused of trying to run over police.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Open Thread

Hosted by cat's claw.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Question of the Day

What is your most beloved book from childhood, the one you just read over and over and over because you loved it sooooo much?

Longtime readers will surely be unsurprised at my answer: Beautiful Joe.

Beautiful Joe is based on a true story of an abused and rescued dog, and was written by Marshall Saunders—actually Margaret Marshall Saunders, who entered (and won) a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane and Educational Society under her middle name because female authors weren't getting published. It was first published in 1893; my tattered copy, which I read and reread and reread as a child, is a 1955 edition.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Indiana Continues to Make Awesome Decisions

[Content Note: Class warfare.]

More terrific news from the Conservative Legislation Lab:

Indiana's public school districts are not required to provide bus services to students, according to a ruling Tuesday morning from the Indiana Supreme Court.

The 5-0 decision says districts are under no constitutional mandate to provide transportation for students to and from school.

The ruling overturns an appeals court decision last year that said charging bus fees was unconstitutional, and that districts were required to provide free bus service to all students to and from school.

...The justices ruled Tuesday that while the Indiana Constitution refers to a free public education, "the framers did not intend for every aspect of public education to be free."

"This court does not dispute that being present at school is necessary to avail oneself of the benefits of the education offered there. However, that does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the school corporation alone must provide transportation under the Education Clause," Justice Steven David wrote.

Several school districts around the state have suggested the possibility of ending bus service, as a way to close large budget deficits.

"Even if we presume that the argument is based upon schools being equally open to all, the decision to cease transportation services does not deny open access to public education. It will inevitably require some families to make alternative accommodations, but it will not close the schoolhouse doors," David wrote in the opinion.

Naturally, this ruling will disproportionately affect families in poverty, who can't afford a car or payment for alternative transportation in districts that can now legally discontinue free bus service.

And, of course, both students and parents will be penalized if students don't attend school. To wit: Moina Lucious, who was arrested, charged with a felony count of neglect, and faced six month to three years in prison after her son accumulated 19 unexcused absences and was tardy 30 times during a school year.

So, schools are under no obligation to make sure students can get to school, but can work with the state to incarcerate parents who cannot get their students to school.

Indiana currently has a state budget surplus exceeding $2 billion, but school districts are petitioning to end bus service for school children in order to offset local deficits.

And the actual, real reason that surplus is not being accessed is because Republican Governor Mike Pence bragging about his state's surplus gets him more cred among conservatives than spending money to make sure children have access to education ever would.

Your modern Republican Party, in a nutshell.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Daily Dose of Cute

Dudley, looking uncharacteristically distinguished
in a rare moment of regality.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Hero Things

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Last week, I wrote a piece about not using fat as shorthand to indicate that a character is bad, which ended thus: "It's not just important to avoid writing fat villains whose fat is used to lazily communicate their inherent badness. It's also important to write fat heroes."

In response, I received an email from a rather defensive professional storyteller who wanted to assure me that the ubiquity of fat villains is just a coincidence, but conceded that I had a point about the lack of fat heroes. Only to then ask: "What would a fat hero do, though?"

I read it. I read it again. I blinked at the screen.

At first, I didn't even understand the question. Then slowly it dawned on me, with a sickening twist in my gut, as these things always do, that the question was indicative of how thoroughly dehumanized fat people are, our lives so invisibilized and our bodies so pathologized that we are a mystery to our fellow travelers on this bit of dirt.

What would a fat hero do, though?

Save the world. Rescue people. Leap over tall buildings in a single bound. Fly. Run so fast they are but a blur to mere mortal eyes. Lift mountains. Traverse oceans. Fight for justice. Rescue a kitten stuck up a tree. Stop an oncoming train with a single hand. Drive an amphibious car. Throw a weaponized bowtie with alarming accuracy. Wear a cool costume. Pilot an invisible jet. Walk through walls. Get the bad guys. Travel with a sidekick. Reverse time. Catch a nuclear bomb in their bare hands. Fight off an alien invasion. Lead an alien invasion. Negotiate with an alien overlord. Punch an alien overlord. Pow! Drag themselves up from the rubble to make one last stand when all hope seems lost. Morph into a bird, a leopard, a shark. Fall in love. Ride a glorious stallion into battle. Pull a sword from a stone. Breathe life back into a fellow hero. Breathe life back into a nemesis. Have a secret identity. Search for the truth about one's mysterious origins. Go on a quest. Fall from grace. Redeem themselves. Fail. Triumph. Win the day.

A fat hero would do hero things.

This should be as obvious as understanding that an XL t-shirt does the same thing as an XS t-shirt. T-shirts, whatever their size, do the thing that t-shirts are supposed to do.

But fat humans are not regarded as doing the things that humans do. We are presumed to lead different lives, limited lives, less than lives. And if there is evidence that our lives look very much like our thin counterparts, then our experiences are questioned and demeaned. Your happiness isn't genuine happiness. Your marathoning is inferior marathoning. Your day at the beach is a sad day at the beach. Your love isn't real love.

Which is the way we rationalize how it's possible that a fat person, who is not meant to deserve any of these things—joy, motion, social participation, affection—somehow manages to have them all the same.

We can't even imagine that a fat mortal lives a human life. No wonder we can't imagine what it is that a fat hero would do.

This is the reality of a fat person's lived experience: It is easier for someone telling the stories of heroes to conjure a man from another planet who can fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes, blow icy cold wind from his lips, lift the earth itself, and successfully conceal himself behind a pair of glasses than it is to imagine a single thing of which a fat hero might be capable.

Imaginary heroes are more real to us than ordinary fat people.

I say again: It is important to write fat heroes. And fat heroes do hero things.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Fat hatred; medical malfeasance; eliminationism.]

"In 1952, Norman Jolliffe, the director of New York's Bureau of Nutrition, warned doctors at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association that 'a new plague, although an old disease, has arisen to smite us.' He estimated that 25 to 30 percent of the American population at the time was overweight or obese, a number he essentially made up. 'No one loves a fat girl except possibly a fat boy, and together they waddle through life with a roly-poly family,' wrote Paul Craig, a physician from Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1955. Craig was enthusing over a 1907 study that claimed 'gratifying results...on the problem of obesity' by putting people on 800-calories-a-day diets and dosing them liberally with amphetamines, phenobarbital, and methylcellulose. ...[M]edical experts believed that 'any level of thinness was healthier than being fat,' writes Nita Mary McKinley, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, Tacoma. This attitude inspired a number of new treatments for obesity, including stereotactic surgery, also known as psychosurgery, which involved burning lesions into the hypothalamuses of people with 'gross obesity.' Jaw wiring was another invasive procedure that gained traction in the 1970s and 1980s."—From Harriet Brown's "How Obesity Became a Disease."

This is what is done to fat people under the auspices of "concern for our health." We are shamed, pathologized, mutilated, drugged, starved. By medical professionals.

[H/Ts to Scott Madin and Erica C. Barnett.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Fatboy Slim: "Weapon of Choice"

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Airline crash; death] Terrible news: "An Airbus operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline crashed in a remote snowy area of the French Alps on Tuesday and all 150 on board were feared dead. French President Francois Hollande said he believed none of those on board the A320 had survived, while the head of Lufthansa spoke of a dark day for the German airline. Germanwings confirmed its flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf crashed in the French Alps with 144 passengers and six crew members on board. Hollande said: 'The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors.' Officials said the plane issued a distress call at 0947 GMT (0547 ET), about 52 minutes after take-off. [Safety experts] said black boxes holding the probable answers to the crash were expected to be retrieved quickly." I hope there will be survivors, but it seems like there is little reason for that hope, unfortunately. My condolences to those who lost family, friends, or colleagues in the crash. I hope they will indeed get answers quickly.

[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] And again: "On Thursday last week, [Brandon Jones, a week shy of his 19th birthday] broke into the nearby Parkway Grocery and stole cigarettes and money, according to the store's owner. Officers responded to a call of a break-in at approximately 2.15am and struggled with Jones after he left the store carrying a bag. One officer fired, striking Jones, who died at the hospital hours later. 'Everybody knows he shouldn't have been there,' [his mother, Tonya Brown] said. 'Everybody knows what he did was wrong–we're past that. My baby should not be dead.' ...Brown has many questions for the police department, which she said she has barely talked to since the day they told her that her son was dead. She said the only other interaction she has had with them is when a detective came by on Sunday, but he had been off for the days preceding the visit and knew less about the situation than the family did. Her understanding of the moments leading up to her son's death is primarily sourced from the media. And with the police keeping quiet, she is still desperate for answers from the police." Brown is exactly right: It doesn't matter that Brown had shoplifted. The response to that is an arrest and trial. It is not a death sentence on the sidewalk.

[CN: Christian Supremacy; homophobia] The heinous "religious freedom" bill making its way through the Indiana state legislature is likely to become law: "Indiana's Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 101 Monday on a 63-31 vote, largely along party lines. The state Senate, also Republican-controlled, passed a slightly different version last month, and is expected to give final approval to the House-passed measure as early as Tuesday morning. Indiana's Republican Gov. Mike Pence has already signaled his intention to sign the bill into law." I am so fucking pissed.

[CN: Fat hatred] The LA Times published an article about a study that found "the extent of negative bias toward overweight individuals may be greater than previously assumed" (no shit), and accompanied that article with a photo of headless fatties, one of whom is a black woman using a cane, thus also reinforcing marginalizing narratives about fat and lack of healthfulness. You're really not helping, LA Times. Not at all.

[CN: War; descriptions of violence; eliminationism; dehumanization] This essay by a US Iraq veteran is devastating: "You look around and you see all he contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you're going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering. Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she's talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don't respect you or your buddies. They don't give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you're nothing to them but a prop. Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire."

Heads-up: There are a few recalls for food products containing organic spinach. "Three recent recalls from Amy's, Wegmans, and Costco show that it may be wise for people who are young, old, sick, or pregnant to stay away from organic spinach." At least for awhile.

[CN: Cancer; surgery] Two years ago, Angelina Jolie wrote about making the decision to have a double mastectomy to reduce her high risk for breast cancer. Now she has written another piece, following her decision to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, for the same reason. Her tenacity is amazing. It's difficult enough to make these personal decisions, without inviting the world to judge you for your choices. But she is making a big difference to lots of women, by talking about this stuff so publicly.

Damn, Jupiter! "According to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, our solar system may once have been populated by a whole different set of planets than the ones we know now. And then Jupiter obliterated them. ...Led by Konstantin Batygin (a Caltech planetary scientist) and Gregory Laughlin of the University of California, the new study suggests that certain weird quirks seen in our solar system could be explained by Jupiter coming in like a wrecking ball and smashing its original planetary companions to smithereens."

Headline of the Day: "Nicolas Cage will be buried in a giant pyramid—but why?" Um, because he's Nicolas Cage.

This video of mini horses saving a sightseeing couple from a wild boar is incredible!

And finally: This story about an avowed "dog person" becoming a cat lover, too, after adopting a kitten, got me all choked up. Team cats and dogs! ♥

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Jackie Update

[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual violence.]

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Charlottesville, Virginia, police department were planning to publicly disclose the results of their investigation into the reported gang rape of a University of Virginia student known as Jackie, which was centrally featured in a Rolling Stone article last year.

The results of their investigation were these:

Charlottesville Police announced Monday that its investigation into an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity did not find enough evidence to support the account described in a Rolling Stone magazine article published last year.

Charlottesville Chief of Police Tim Longo said during a press conference the case would not be closed, however, because he cannot say conclusively that no assault took place. The alleged victim, a female undergraduate identified only as Jackie, did not provide a statement or any testimony to Charlottesville police during its investigation, Longo said.

"It's a disservice to Jackie and to the university to close this" case without leaving open the possibility that additional information will come to light, Longo said.

..."Unfortunately, we're not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident that is described in [the article] occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi or any other fraternity, for that matter," Longo said. However, he noted, "that doesn't mean something terrible did not happen to Jackie on Sept. 28, 2012. We're just not able to gather sufficient facts to determine what that is."

So, basically, the investigation neither proved nor disproved Jackie's story. The investigation could not substantiate the charges, which is not unusual in a rape case, especially one that is three years old.

So how is this being reported? I bet you can guess! Here's a pretty typical example, care of a prominent placement on NBC News' website yesterday afternoon:


That is, of course, technically a true headline. But if all one read was the headline, it doesn't convey even a little that the police also could not disprove Jackie's account, and that the police chief very carefully and deliberately said the case remains open.

It might as well just say, "Police Say Jackie's a Fucking Liar." Except it can't say that, because police didn't say that.

This is rape culture.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

George Zimmerman: Murderer for God

[Content Note: Racism; guns; eliminationist violence; religious supremacy. Video may autoplay at link.]

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

Although [George Zimmerman] turned down many requests for interviews after he was acquitted for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, he spoke to his divorce lawyer about the case in an interview recorded earlier this month.

...The former neighborhood watchman insisted that he had a "clean conscience" after he was found to be not guilty.

"I believe God has his plans, and for me to second-guess them would be hypocritical, almost blasphemous," he said when asked if he wished the encounter that ended Martin's life would have turned out differently.

..."It's up to God and I put it all in his hands and I do have faith that whatever he has planned out for me is what's best for me. So whatever he's determined whatever he has planned out for me I am along for the ride and I just hope to be strong enough to see his will be done."

You know, occasionally, in response to my expressing ache over some act of violence or disaster, a god-believer will tell me, as if this would ever serve as comfort to an atheist, that it was the will of some god or other. That god works in mysterious ways. That god has a plan, and mere humans can't presume to understand it.

Every time this happens, I think—and will sometimes say, depending on whether the sheer audacious inappropriateness of this rhetoric in the particular moment warrants it—that if this heinous event was an act of god, then, even if some god exists, I reject that god on principle.

If I believed for a moment that some god exists, and George Zimmerman were an agent of his grand plan, I would have nothing for that god and his schemes but undiluted contempt.

As it happens, I know only that George Zimmerman and his murderous fuckery exist, and I direct my contempt in his loathsome direction.

Zimmerman doesn't merely fancy himself a religious warrior carrying out god's plan at the trigger end of a deadly weapon; he is also, naturally, a victim of earthly injustice:

"I feel that now is the perfect time to speak my mind without fear of retaliation by the president, the attorney general, the federal government etc.," Zimmerman explained. "Initially I was extremely alleviated. Quickly that turned into realization that the Department of Justice finding that there was no basis to pursue [federal] charges was just the beginning of a journey — my personal journey — to correct the wrongs that the federal government did. To ensure that it never happens to any innocent American ever again."

He's not worried about making sure that being killed by a racist shitlord armed with a fearful vigilantism and a loaded gun "never happens to any innocent American ever again," but that being investigated and exonerated never happens to any innocent American ever again. Zimmerman imagines that he shouldn't even have been criticized or questioned for murdering another human being in cold blood. He's the real victim.

And according to Zimmerman, "Barack Hussein Obama" was the government official who was the most unfair to him "by far."

"President Obama held his Rose Garden speech stating if I had a son he would look like Trayvon," he explained. "To me, that was clearly a dereliction of duty pitting Americans against each other solely based on race."

"He took what should have been a clear-cut self-defense matter, and still to this day on the anniversary of the incident he held a ceremony at the White House inviting the Martin-Fulton family and stating that they should take the day to reflect upon the fact that all children's lives matter," Zimmerman continued. "Unfortunately for the president, I'm also my parents' child and my life matters as well. And for him to make incendiary comments as he did and direct the Department of Justice to pursue a baseless prosecution he by far overstretched, overreached, even broke the law in certain aspects to where you have an innocent American being prosecuted by the federal government, which should never happen."

Zimmerman whines pitiably like a long-suffering martyr about how his life matters as well, as if being investigated, and then not even held to account, is the same as being fucking dead.

This guy is utterly reprehensible. He murdered a child, and now he whines about being free.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

This Is Terrorism

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; war on agency; misogyny; Holocaust appropriation.]

The Pink House, the last standing abortion clinic in the entirety of Mississippi, was attacked two nights ago:

This morning our staff showed up to the clinic and found that our clinic had been vandalized. The security monitor we look at first thing in the mornings was blank. One can't really imagine the fear that goes through your body when you see that something you always rely on to assure you that you are safe, isn't working. It's a sinking feeling. So we went in groups of two to check the outside of the building and found our security cameras destroyed. Someone had come by in the early hours of the morning and knocked them off our building. In the back of the clinic we found our State Mandated generator dismantled and seriously damaged.

A review of our DVR showed that in the early hours of the morning, a masked intruder came onto our property and proceeded to methodically destroy our cameras. Other damage found indicates they were trying to destroy the power lines coming into the building, no doubt hoping to stop all patient care for the near future.

We've called the police and the FBI like we always do. We are still answering the phones like we always have and always will, no matter what attacks we may face.

Coincidentally, we are currently enduring an extended period of targeted protest by the California based group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Operation Save America has also come to Mississippi to harass our staff and our patients. Unfortunately by now we are all "used" to the yelling and shaming these groups frequently bring with them. And even though we are now stripped of part of what makes us feel secure, we will find ways to adapt. Maybe it will be adding barbed wire to the roof...slowly morphing into a fortress, both intimidating yet reassuring. Of course the goal of the anti-abortion terrorists is to transform a legal, safe, and common medical procedure into a fearful, and traumatic experience for everyone involved.

But we will always do whatever it takes to make sure our doors open every single Monday morning.

If you are able and want to donate to the Pink House, you can do so here.

This will be called "vandalism," and it is, but it is also terrorism. That is the word we should be using; that law enforcement should be using; that politicians should be using.

This flagrant, shameless, decades-long campaign of intimidation, harassment, and threats and acts of violence against healthcare providers who offer abortion services to pregnant people (or are even presumed to offer abortion services), and the spaces in which they offer them, in defense of an inherently violent ideology, is a comprehensive terrorist movement which, from just 1977 to 2011, included multiple assassinations, multiple attempted assassinations, and over 200 arsons and bombings.

This is terrorism.

It is, in fact, the most brazen, unapologetic terrorist campaign in the US, its coordination and orchestration done right out in the open, where no one in the media or politics will call it what it is.

This garbage is less likely to be called terrorism than it is to be called "defense of life," without a trace of irony.

I refuse to call it anything but what it is: This is terrorism.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Open Thread

Hosted by cucumber salad.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Question of the Day

What makes you unique?

Could be anything: Something you've accomplished, a personality trait, something about the way you look, the fact that you just jumped on your sofa and spun in a circle while humming the Wonder Woman theme song which is a thing no other human has ever done exactly that way in exactly that space before, the tried and true "because I am me and no one else has ever been me before," or anything else. Go for it!

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama made some waves and warned the robots at the White House Science Fair on Monday, but it was the elementary-school Supergirls who captured his science-loving heart. Wearing red capes over their Girl Scout uniforms, the 6-year-olds from Tulsa, Oklahoma, showed off a page-turning robot, made from Lego blocks and designed for use by [people with disabilities]. Later, Obama confessed he was tickled by the kids' command of techno-lingo. "This is a quote. They said, 'It's just a prototype,'" he recalled. [BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP-GETTY IMAGES | Photo and text via NBC News.]

LOVE.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Racism; death penalty. Video may autoplay at link.]

"In 1984, I was 33 years old. I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning. ...After the death verdict in the Ford trial, I went out with others and celebrated with a few rounds of drinks. That's sick. I had been entrusted with the duty to seek the death of a fellow human being, a very solemn task that certainly did not warrant any 'celebration.' ...I now realize, all too painfully, that as a young 33-year-old prosecutor, I was not capable of making a decision that could have led to the killing of another human being. No one should be given the ability to impose a sentence of death in any criminal proceeding. We are simply incapable of devising a system that can fairly and impartially impose a sentence of death because we are all fallible human beings. The clear reality is that the death penalty is an anathema to any society that purports to call itself civilized. It is an abomination that continues to scar the fibers of this society and it will continue to do so until this [heinous] penalty is outlawed. Until then, we will live in a land that condones state assisted revenge and that is not justice in any form or fashion. I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford. But, I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it."—Shreveport attorney A.M. "Marty" Stroud III, "lead prosecutor in the December 1984 first-degree murder trial of Glenn Ford, who was sentenced to death for the Nov. 5, 1983 death of Shreveport jeweler Isadore Rozeman. Ford was released from prison March 11, 2014, after the state admitted new evidence proving Ford was not the killer."

The entire article whence comes this quote is absolutely worth your time to read in full.

End the death penalty now. END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW.

[H/T to Dan Solomon.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Daily Dose of Cute

This weekend, our friend N came to visit with his miniature dachshund, Lottie, who has visited Shakes Manor a bunch of times before. She fits right in with all the Furry Residents, who all get along with her splendidly—although Dudley may be feeling a wee bit threatened by Lottie's impressive Goofy Tongue Game.

Lottie ♥
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Descriptions of violence; domestic violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]

Stunt men; stunt glass; stunt wigs: A+
Welp, this was definitely my favorite episode of the whole season, because I LOVED WITH SO MANY HEARTS the last three seconds of the episode. Which is three more seconds than I usually enjoy in every other episode!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves! When last we left our totally trepid band of zombie slayers, Grimes Gang was REAL MAD about the Aarontownians' WEAK-ASS WEAKNESS and how it was getting people killed. RIP Noah. Also, Grimes and Carol had decided that Pete, Blaura Blinney's husband, needs to be killed, because he is abusing his wife and children.

This week's episode opens with Douchebag's family mourning his death by listening to his "Run Mix" of Nine Inch Nailsian garbage music, and it is probably not supposed to funny, but it's pretty funny. Carol drops off a casserole with a note saying that Grimes Gang is sorry that Douchebag died, and Deanna leaves the casserole on the porch and burns the note. Uh-oh.

Glenn recounts what happened to Grimes, while Douchebag Beta recounts to Deanna, on video because TRANSPARENCY, his version of events, which turns him into the hero and Glenn into the monster. Grimes wants to fuck up some shit—heaving sigh—but Glenn tells him they have to "make this work" because Noah believed in Aarontown.

It's pretty cool how everyone's always wanting to make decisions based on what dead people would have wanted, while endeavoring to never listen to what living people want. If you want Grimes Gang to make a good decision, be sure to detail your desire to them and then die promptly!

Carol and Grimes confab again how Pete needs to die, like, yesterday. Carol says that if zombies hadn't killed her abusive husband, she wouldn't be standing there talking to Grimes. "Yeah, you would," Grimes tells her. He does not add, "I'm actually pretty pissed that those zombies murdered the fuck out of your shitty husband and usurped my patriarchal right to destroy him!" but I can tell that he's thinking it.

Grimes goes for a moody walk and grips his gun. Pete strolls by and asks him what's up, and Grimes tells him to "keep walking." He does not add, "I am really desperate to kill you right now, man!" but I can tell that he wants to.

The next day, there is all kinds of action in the woods surrounding Aarontown. Daryl and Aaron, still out on their recruiting mission, find a dismembered zombie and a female corpse lashed to a tree whose guts have been eaten, and zombies with "W"s scratched into their foreheads. I begin to suspect that George W. Bush has been brush-clearing out this way.

Michonne and Rosita Espinoza track Sasha through the woods, because she's stalking zombies just to kill them. Conversations about Aarontown making them too soft blah blah yawn. They catch up to her, and have to rescue her from a zombie, OF COURSE, and Sasha gets all mad and says she doesn't need their help, then gets sad recalling how she told Noah he wouldn't survive the zombiepocalypse. RIP Noah.

Elsewhere in the woods, Carl the Hat: Apprentice Patriarch follows Enid, and lectures her about how she shouldn't be out there by herself. She tells him to leave her alone, then runs away whimsically so he'll chase her, because you know how girls are, amirite? "Leave me alone! No chase me! Hide in a tree from zombies with me!" They hide in a tree from zombies, in very close proximity, the kind of close proximity that makes for a one-way ticket to Bonertown, and Carl the Hat GULPS! while Enid plays it cool.

Back in Aarontown, Glenn tells Douchebag Beta that he won't be leaving Aarontown anymore, and says he's trying to protect him. Maybe just let this dipshit do what he wants and get his lying, cowardly ass killed, Glenn! But Douchebag Beta doesn't listen, anyway, and joins the party in the woods to dig up a gun he's hidden in a coffee tin. Well, a gun that Grimes hid in a coffee tin, which Douchebag Beta apparently found and relocated to this secret spot.

Grimes also goes to see Deanna and yell at her face about how Pete needs to die, and he's shocked (!) to discover that Deanna knows Pete is an abusive shithead, but hasn't done anything about it because the town needs his mad surgeon skills. What a terrific sheriff he must have been if it is a shock to him that sometimes men who harm their wives are protected by other people for fucked-up reasons! Deanna tells Grimes that they don't just kill people, and Grimes is all, "People die now!" as if people were immortal before the zombiepocalypse. Deanna insists, ominously, that if she needed rid of him, she wouldn't kill him—she'd just send him away. Duh-DUHN.

Grimes then pays a visit to Blaura Blinney, to tactlessly announce that he knows Pete is abusing her and let her know he's fixing to kill him. She tells him she can take care of himself, and that his intervening will only make it worse, and he's all: "I'M THE PATRIARCH I KNOW BEST WHAT DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE?" One thing you need to know about Grimes is that he will never follow this advice. NEVARRRRRRRRRRR!

Blaura Blinney closes the garage door in Grimes' face (lol), and Grimes starts to walk away, but then sees regular Aarontownians doing regular things, living and not dying, and he breathes so hard and then bursts into her living room, where they have a cool conversation about how he doesn't want her to die, and in case you missed the SUBTLE MESSAGING from the production design team, let me point it out to you:


"I don't want you to die. I can help you," Grimes insists, because this lady basically doesn't even KNOW the job of a professional patriarch! Blaura Blinney asks Grimes if he would offer to kill the abusive spouse of anyone, and he confesses that he wouldn't. "Mostly just for women I desperately want to fuck," he doesn't say. But also? He just told Carol he would have killed Ed, so wanting to fuck Blaura Blinney is actually just a happy coincidental bonus to wanting to murder the abusive husbands of any women he considers his property.

Grimes tells Blaura Blinney he just needs her to say yes, and she finally whispers, "Yes," just as Pete arrives home and starts shouting at Grimes to GTFO. Grimes, naturally, refuses to leave, and so Pete punches him and Grimes punches Pete back and then they crash through the front window and onto the road, where a crowd assembles.

Blaura Blinney tries to pull Pete off of Grimes, and Pete shoves her away. Then Carl the Hat tries to pull Grimes off of Pete, and Grimes shoves him away. OH GRIMES YOU HAVE BECOME THE THING THAT YOU HATE. AND ALSO THE THING THAT WE HATE.

Deanna bellows at them to stop, and Grimes is all, "What are you gonna do about it?" and launches into some insufferable diatribe about how their WEAK-ASS WEAKNESS is gonna get everyone killed, but, in the best moment that has ever aired on The Walking Dead, Michonne strides up and clocks Grimes over the head, shutting him the hell up as he passes out face-first onto the pavement. OMG YESSSSSSSSSSSS.


FUCK YEAH.
Next week: More of this crapola. Unless Michonne just kills Grimes and takes over everything. In which case, I will suddenly love this show A LOT, I bet! So it's definitely not going to happen. But I will wear my hope proudly, like a zombie in rural Georgia wears a plaid shirt. FACT.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

The Monday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by MORE SNOW.

Recommended Reading:

Jason: [Content Note: Torture; force-feeding; detention] Pentagon Panel Proposes Sweeping Changes That Could Impact Guantanamo Force-Feeding

Anita: [CN: Misogynist terrorism; video + transcript] 'What I Couldn't Say' Panel at All About Women

Paige: App Alerts You When You're in a Place Where a Woman Made History

David: [CN: Animal abuse] A Request to Environmentalists and Journalists Discussing Shark Fin Ban Legislation

Qimmah: [CN: Misogynoir; misogynist slur] Mo'ne Davis Keeps Her Eyes on the Prize

Digby: Loathing Rahm—and What You Can Do About It

John: [CN: Homophobia] Michael Sam Says He's 'Confident' He'll Be Playing Football Somewhere This Year

Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!

Open Wide...

Shut Up!