Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Religious extremism; violence] The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack on "a Prophet Muhammad drawing contest" in Garland, Texas, over the weekend. "This is the first time IS has claimed responsibility for an attack in the U.S., according to AP, but U.S. officials have not confirmed whether or not the extremist group was behind Sunday's shooting."
[CN: Police brutality; racism; class warfare] The mother of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old black boy who was shot and killed by Cleveland police outside a city rec center while playing with a toy gun, has been forced to move into a homeless shelter, and "the Rice family said they have yet to bury Tamir because it is unclear if there will be need for any additional medical examination." Tamir was killed last November, and the City of Cleveland claims to still be investigating the shooting. No charges have been filed. This family has been failed by their country in so many ways. Absolutely shameful.
[CN: Police brutality; racism] Sounds legit: "Baltimore police denied a media report on Monday they had shot a black man while trying to take him into custody, saying the man's firearm went off accidentally while officers were arresting him and that no one was injured."
I don't even know: "Defense officials Monday dismissed as 'wild speculation' an Internet-fueled claim that a massive summertime exercise called Jade Helm 15 for special operations commandos is a covert operation by President Barack Obama to take over Texas. That claim was given legitimacy by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott's order last week for the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises. 'Operation Jade Helm poses no threat to any American's civil liberties,' Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday." But Chuck Norris says you can't trust the government and "that he thinks concerns about a possible military takeover of Texas might well be justified," so.
[CN: Ovarian cancer] This is good news: "A new screening test that tracks changing levels of a protein in the blood can detect twice as many ovarian cancers as conventional methods, research has shown. ...In the world's largest ovarian cancer screening trial, the new method correctly diagnosed 86% of women with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer. The standard test would have been expected to identify fewer than half of these women, according to results from previous studies and clinical practice."
[CN: Drought; food safety] This is not good news: "As California farmers face a fourth year of the state's historic drought, they're finding water in unexpected places—like Chevron’s Kern River oil field, which has been selling recycled wastewater from oil production to farmers in California's Kern County. Each day, Chevron recycles and sells 21 million gallons of wastewater to farmers, which is then applied on about 10 percent of Kern County's farmland. And while some praise the program as a model for dealing with water shortages, environmental groups are raising concerns about the water's safety." Ya think?!
[CN: STD] Here is what substituting abstinence-centered sex ed for fact-based comprehensive sex ed has wrought, at one school: "A small Texas high school has notified parents that it was dealing with a chlamydia outbreak. Officials from the Crane Independent School District confirmed to KWES that the state health department was sending a letter to Crane High School parents informing that at least 20 cases had been reported. The school has an enrollment of about 300 students." I hope those students have access to the healthcare they need, and that all of them are safe following disclosure of sexual activity to their parents.
[CN: Homophobia; transphobia; eliminationism; homophobic slur] The online gaming site Steam has pulled a game following complaints about its reprehensible content: "'Kill The Faggot' [in which players earn points for killing gay and transgender characters and lose points for killing straight and cis characters] was created and uploaded by Skaldic Games to Steam's Steam Greenlight section which allows game developers to showcase their games and let the Steam user community decide which ones they want to be made commercially available through Steam. Steam does not actively vet games for offensive content but developers must pay $100 to get their game onto Steam Greenlight as a quality control barrier. ...Skaldic Games are claiming that the game was not intended to encourage hatred or violence towards LGBTI people but to protest political correctness in the gaming industry." Fuck off.
[CN: Misogyny] Joss Whedon has flounced off Twitter because of criticisms that maybe he's not actually the powerfeminist he fancies himself to be, or something. Listen, Twitter can be brutal and no one is obliged to inhabit that space. Do what's best for you, Whedon. But now of course the narrative is that all the meany unappreciative feminists have driven him off of Twitter. Because of course it is.
And finally! A kitten with markings that give him the appearance of permanently worried eyebrows is fixing to give Grumpy Cat a run for her money! Aww lol.
In the News
Fun with Hashtags
[Content Note: Anti-feminism.]
Currently trending on Twitter: #HowToSpotAFeminist. I'm sure you can imagine all the SUPER FUN entries from anti-feminists, but feminists are, of course, nothing if not experts at reclaiming narratives from misogynist shitlords, so let's have some fun in comments, my humorless friends!
My entry:
Any Immigration Reform Needs to Address This
[Content Note: Anti-immigrationism; sexual assault; transphobia.]
I just coincidentally read these two stories back-to-back:
1. "Hillary Rodham Clinton to call for path to citizenship for immigrants."
During a campaign visit to Nevada today, Hillary Rodham Clinton will call for a "full and equal path to citizenship" for immigrants living in the country illegally, drawing a clear distinction from Republican candidates on the issue, a campaign official said.2. "'Disturbing' sex abuse within agency that patrols U.S. border, says former top official."
Many students at the school where Clinton is scheduled to speak today would be eligible for citizenship under the Dream Act, a congressional proposal that has been blocked by Republican lawmakers. The candidate will pledge to carry on the fight. She will characterize GOP alternatives as inadequate proposals that would give "second-class" status to immigrants who have been contributing to the economy for years.
A push for a comprehensive fix to the country's immigration system will be a cornerstone of the Clinton campaign, the official said. Clinton's announcement Tuesday is expected to be followed later in the campaign with a detailed policy proposal that lays out the path to citizenship, as well as plans for shoring up security at the border.
A CBS News investigation has found sexual misconduct in the ranks of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is "significantly" higher than other federal law enforcement agencies, according to the agency's former head of internal affairs.Transgender women are particularly targeted for abuse at the southern border: They are often housed with men, placing them at increased risk for sexual assault. Cis women and all children are also targeted, by border guards and staff at detention centers. Further, undocumented migrants who are assaulted are routinely denied access to abortion and emergency contraception.
...For eight years James Tomsheck handled sexual misconduct investigations as the Chief of Internal Affairs at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. What he saw, he says, disturbed him.
Between 2012 and 2014, he found there was a "spike" of more than 35 sexual misconduct cases against agents, a rate he says was significantly higher than other law enforcement agencies.
"A problem that I believed was a significant and serious problem was perhaps even worse than I thought it was," said Tomsheck.
Last April Tomsheck emailed his boss, the head of the agency, Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, about the "disturbing" and "disproportionate" number of cases "in the agency's workforce."
Tomsheck says he didn't receive a response.
A CBS News investigation found in the last six years, at least 21 customs or border patrol agents have been indicted or pleaded guilty to sexual offenses -- both on and off duty -- ranging from sexual assault, to possession of child pornography and child molestation. Five agents were arrested in the past year.
Tomsheck says some of the people involved in the cases he found had the potential of being serial offenders.
"I believe they were persons who had likely offended before but their acts have gone undetected," said Tomsheck.
Immigration reform, including a path to citizenship (which, ideally, would simply be amnesty), is important and necessary, but it must include a plan to meaningfully address the sexual abuse and reproductive coercion of migrants by border agents, detention staff, and private entities with government contacts to work with undocumented immigrants.
It is deeply irresponsible to propose "shoring up security at the border" without any safeguards to ensure that more security doesn't simply translate into more abuse. So I sure hope that Clinton's team is centering this issue as they develop her immigration policy.
Morning Reading
[Content Note: Racism; police brutality.]
Jay Caspian Kang for the New York Times: "'Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us'—How a group of black social-media activists built the nation's first 21st-century civil rights movement."
I'm not even going to excerpt it. Just go read the whole thing.
If you're on Twitter, and would like to follow Johnetta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson (which I highly recommend), their respective accounts are: @Nettaaaaaaaa and @deray.
Question of the Day
It's that time again: What would you like to see asked as a future Question of the Day? Either something that's never been asked, or something that I haven't asked for awhile and you really enjoyed the first time around.
An Observation
[Content Note: Choice policing; misogyny.]
Every time I see someone sneering about how young women who take selfies are narcissists reflective of a sick culture blah blah fart, this is the Google search that loads itself into my brain.
(If you can't view the link, it goes to a collection of images of Van Gogh self-portraits.)
It will never cease to amaze and infuriate me how many things turn men into legends and women into garbage.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Termination of a wanted pregnancy; description of abortion.]
"In that moment, I had to shift my thinking. I was hoping for special ed, and had been focusing on questions like: How much should you save to know your special-needs daughter will be okay after you die? I was thinking about long-term care and mild to moderate disability. Instead, I had to think about a baby who was probably not going to live very long, and the longer she lived, the more pain she would be in. That realization—that I was more scared of her living than of her dying—is what made the choice for me. ...The risks that I was willing to take to let this baby go in peace, in the way I believed she deserved—it's terrifying."—Kate, a 29-year-old woman outside Boston, who terminated a wanted pregnancy in its eighth month, telling her story in order to answer that shitty, judgmental rhetorical: "What Kind of Mother Is 8 Months Pregnant and Wants an Abortion?"
[H/T to Mary D.]
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by robins.
Recommended Reading:
TLC: [Content Note: Police brutality; racism; transphobia] Transgender Law Center Solidarity with Baltimore
Digby: [CN: Misogyny] A Special Form of Sexism
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred; misogyny] I'm Too Sexy for This Prom?
wordssetmefreee: [CN: Relationship policing; misogyny; reproductive coercion; assault] Being Single in India
Kevin: World's Largest LEGO Millennium Falcon Built for Star Wars Day
Laura: Mother Cat Who Lost Three Babies Adopts Three Orphaned Kittens
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
This big goofy face! It needs all the kisses!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
TV Corner: Brooklyn Nine-Nine
[Content Note: Discussion of rape culture trope; spoilers for Brooklyn Nine-Nine; disablist language.]
When Brooklyn Nine-Nine first premiered two years ago, I gave it a tentatively positive review. And, well, two years later, I'm still watching it!
The show isn't perfect: There have been a number of fat jokes, some pranks on and/or bullying of various characters, and some "ironic" humor around race, sexuality, and gender that doesn't always land, as examples—and, if you're thinking that sounds a lot like Parks & Rec, well, you are correct, because the show's made by some of the same team.
But there is a lot I enjoy about the show (which inevitably gives me a couple of belly laughs every episode): It passes the Bechdel Test all over the place; it has a genuinely racially diverse cast, where the actors of color are not just supporting players and also not one-dimensional racial stereotypes, and there are multiple recurring characters who are also played by people of color; and it constantly challenges the toxicity of patriarchally-defined masculinity.
I mean, listen: Terry Crews plays a feminist police sergeant with adorable twin daughters named Cagney and Lacey.
Anyway!
In last night's episode, something remarkable happened.
Jake (Andy Samberg) and Amy (Melissa Fumero) have been sorta-crushing on each other on and off throughout the duration of the show, but not getting the timing right and blah blah standard sitcom convention. Enter some super cop on whom Jake and Amy both have a professional crush, and they are assigned to work a case with him. Wouldn't you know it but Super Cop is interested in Amy, and asks Jake if she's single and would it be weird if he asked her out. Again, standard sitcom convention.
At this point in most sitcoms, here's what happens: Jake goes ballistic and tries to figure out how to stop this from happening through a series of increasingly inappropriate actions, because he likes Amy and thus believes she belongs to him.
But here's what happened in Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Jake confesses to Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) that he's upset Super Cop wants to ask out Amy. Rosa asks why he didn't just tell him to back off. And Jake replies: "I can't go around telling guys not to ask Amy out because I like her and I'm too dumb to do anything about it. I can't make a woman's choice for her. I stand with Wendy!"
Literally, he calls out the exact rape culture trope that would usually get activated in that exact moment. Brilliant.
And that would have been terrific enough on its own, but then Rosa advises him: "Look, if you want to give her a real choice, you gotta let her know that you are an option."
It was at this moment that I realized how radical it was that Jake was even going to a female colleague, instead of a male colleague, for dating advice in the first place. He wasn't going to some dudebro buddy who will tell him how to manipulate Amy into liking him. He was going to a woman who told him how to communicate with Amy to respect her autonomy.
And, the thing is, there's no dudebro buddy on the show for him to go to, anyway. Jake is as dudebro buddy as it gets, and he's the one saying he can't make a woman's choice for her.
Anyway. Jake goes to tell Amy how he feels, but she's on a date with Super Cop. So he doesn't pull a Graduate at the Church and bust into her life to force her to make an on-the-spot choice. He backs off, because that's the decent thing to do.
Good job, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It's pretty pathetic that this scene was as radical as it was, but congrats all the same for being willing to step over the lowest of low bars! No one else is.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
Leo Sayer: "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing"
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Something something Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. And that is all I will ever say about that, because good fucking god the intense interest and judgment and scrutiny that child will face and I don't want to contribute even a single iota more of it.
[Content Note: Religious extremism; violence] Fucking hell: "Two gunmen were killed and a security guard wounded in an attack Sunday outside a controversial Dallas-area event where organizers were holding a contest for cartoons featuring the Muslim prophet Muhammad, police said. The Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, led by prominent conservatives who are critical of Islam, was ending when two men drove up in a car and began shooting at a Garland school security officer, Bruce Joiner, who was apparently helping protect the building, city officials said." Joiner was shot in the leg and will be fine.
Insert a bunch of mendacious arguments here about free speech and censorship and freedom of religion, none of which will include the following thought: Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. And it certainly doesn't mean you have to, as many arguments go. Some provocation serves no purpose other than to provoke people to anger and then say, "See?! They're angry!" When people do this online, we call it clickbait. When people do this in real life, we're supposed to call them fucking heroes.
I don't think anyone should be attacked over cartoons. I also don't think anyone should be unnecessarily provoked with them. This would probably be a good time to recall the words of Mohamed Binakdan.
[CN: Earthquake; death; video may autoplay at second link] The death toll following the devastating recent earthquake in Nepal has reached 7,250, and runway damage has "forced Nepalese authorities to close the main airport Sunday to large aircraft delivering aid to millions of people following the massive earthquake." But there are still bright spots among a lot of bleak news: 101-year-old Phanchu Tamang has been rescued and is now in stable condition. Wow.
[CN: Carcerality] This fucking guy: "Days after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laid out proposals for criminal justice reform at Columbia University, former Republican candidate Mitt Romney took time to criticize the presidential hopeful's comments about Baltimore and mass incarceration. ...'I was concerned that her comments smacked of politicization of the terrible tragedies that are going on there. When she said we're not going to have mass incarcerations in the future, what is she referring to? We don't have mass incarcerations in America. Individuals are brought before tribunals, and they have counsel. They're given certain rights. Are we not going to lock people up who commit crimes?'" Shut up shut up shut up.
[CN: Rape culture] In unsurprising and yet still terrible news: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says that the US military is not "being honest about the problem" of sexual abuse. For example, the numbers of sexual assaults seem to be purposefully deflated by not including in statistics about military sexual assault the "spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities," despite the fact that they "are especially vulnerable to being sexually assaulted."
This is good news: "The Supreme Court has turned down the hideously anti-gay Liberty Counsel's challenge to New Jersey's ban on 'ex-gay' therapy for minors."
Neat: "The distinctive song of a secretive and elusive bird in central China has helped researchers to identify it and deem it to be a new species to science. Scientists first heard the harsh call of the Sichuan bush warbler in 1987, but they only recently gathered enough data to formally describe it. The new species, Locustella chengi, has been named after Prof Cheng Tso-hsin, a distinguished Chinese ornithologist."
And finally! A pet shop in Brazil filled its cages and crates with shelter animals and guess what happened? "The store found owners for all shelter animals displayed in the store and what's best, if the store hadn't told customers the animals were shelter pets, customers would have not known the difference." ♥
Discussion Thread: Personal Style Changes
How would you describe your personal style? When was the last time you changed it up, either partially (a haircut, a couple of new blouses in a style you hadn't worn before, etc.) or totally (a complete makeover or wardrobe overhaul)? Is there some aesthetic style change you'd like to make but haven't for some reason or another yet? Do you want to change up your personal style, but don't even know where to begin? Are you perfectly content with your personal style? Discuss!
Baltimore Updates
[Content Note: Racism; police brutality.]
Following the indictment of six police officers in the killing of Freddie Gray, Baltimore Mayor Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has lifted the city-wide curfew and the National Guard has begun pulling its troops from the city.
"The mayor and I both talked and agreed that we think it's time to get the community back to normal again," said [Maryland Governor Larry Hogan], who expected the military's pullout to be complete by sometime on Wednesday. "It's been a very hard week, but we've kept everybody safe."So much wrong with so few words. I suspect that not everyone would agree that "everybody" has been kept safe—like, for example, the man who was pepper-sprayed for wearing a "Fuck the Police" t-shirt, but ostensibly because he was out past curfew. And I'm not sure on what planet getting things "back to normal" is a welcome objective, given that what's become normal is the very thing being protested.
The media coverage continues to be a complete clusterfucktastrophe, and here are just two things from CNN to illustrate the point: Yesterday, former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien appeared on the news network to say, quite rightly, that journalists have a greater responsibility to consider their language.
"For journalists to have a debate back and forth about thugs or thuggery is naive and misplaced," O'Brien said. "Journalists should strive to use words to describe accurately what's happening."And on the same day, CNN was running this shit, via Shaker Westsidebecca, on the front page of their website:
..."I think there's violent protesters, there's drunk protesters, angry protesters," she said. "When you look specifically about how the word riot is used, how the word thug is used, it's always used around people of color, specifically in an inner city context… Journalists should think about a word that actually doesn't have a lot of nuance and isn't specific, but somehow seems to be used a lot when talking about African-Americans."
"What? At least we didn't use the word thugs!"—CNN, apparently.
Lastly, I want to recommend this piece by Prison Culture, who wisely notes that the arrest of these police officers, even if they are convicted and even if they are sentenced, will not truly be justice. Meaningful justice will only be achieved by dismantling the (in)justice system which is catastrophically contaminated by white supremacy.
Which is a daunting task to contemplate, but the enormity of the task before us shouldn't let us treat as justice what will be, at best, limited individual accountability in a comprehensively corrupt system.
Primarily Speaking
Big Clown Car News this week! [CN: Video may autoplay at link] Yesterday, Dr. Ben Carson, who is the worst, said he is definitely running for president, and, as you can see, he is very proficient at standing in front of flags.
Today, corporate power-failure Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy by telling us all the things she understands: "Yes, I am running for president. I think I'm the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works. I understand the world, who's in it, how the world works. I understand bureaucracies, and that's what our federal government has become—a giant, bloated, unaccountable, corrupt bureaucracy. I understand technology, which is a tool both to re-imagine government to re-engage citizens in the process of government, and I understand executive decision-making, which is making a tough call in a tough time with high stakes for which you're prepared to be accountable."
I understand that Carly Fiorina is not a serious candidate. This is Melissa McEwan, and I approve this message.
And tomorrow, former Arkansas governor and aggressively unpleasant hate-nightmare Mike Huckabee will announce that he is running for president. He already leaked a two-minute launch video, and in what is maybe the garbagiest trash piece ever written by someone pretending to be a serious journalist, Chris Cillizza (this fucking guy) glowingly dissected why the video "works," and here is but one of his examples of its success:
1. Huckabee as Clinton kryptonite. Within the first 12 seconds of the video, there are two images of the Clintons shown on screen. In one, Bill and Hillary are holding hands across a plane aisle. In the other, Bill is watching, unhappily, as Huckabee speaks. "You had all of the apparatus of the Democratic Party aligned against Mike Huckabee.... All of a sudden this Republican comes out of nowhere and wins," recounts Rex Nelson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The message is clear: I beat the Clintons once, and I can do it again. It's worth noting here that Huckabee didn't actually ever beat the Clintons; he was lieutenant governor in 1996 when Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a Clinton confidant, resigned. Huckabee assumed the governor's office. Still, for a party that sees the formidable figure of Hillary Clinton waiting in the general election, Huckabee's message that he knows how to beat these people has the potential to be potent."It's worth noting here that Huckabee didn't actually ever beat the Clintons." It's more than worth noting. It should be the entire fucking point of discussion. This is what happens because journalists treat politics like nothing more than a game: The fact that Huckabee is a naked liar is irrelevant except insomuch as whether the lie is effective.
Here is just one terrible, terrible example of what happens when the national media act like a bunch of fucking jokers and are derelict in their duty to do serious reporting about presidential candidates.
Anyway.
So, now officially running for president on the Republican side of aisle: Senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz; Dr. Ben Carson, Understandologist Carly Fiorina, and Rev. Mike Huckabee.
Still thinking about it (many of whom are basically running without declaring, which is not legal, but the Republicans don't give a shit about your stupid campaign laws!): Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, John Kasish, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Mike Pence, and Donald Trump. That's more or less in order of their likelihood of mounting a serious campaign.
On the Democratic side of aisle: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders are officially in. Former Republican Lincoln Chafee and former Republican Jim Webb are thinking about it. Former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley is still thinking about it, too, and says Baltimore would definitely be the setting for the announcement of his presidential bid, should he make one. Which means he's pretty confident no one will bring up the heinous policing policies he supported while mayor of Baltimore. And, unfortunately, that's probably a safe bet, since our media will be more interested in discussing whether he's handsome enough to destroy Hillary, or something.
Finally, here's your presidential politics ha ha chuckle of the day: "The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney). The candidates hoping to be the party's nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations." And how will they do that? By trying to woo the middle class!
So, everyone in the middle class: Please pay no attention to the fact that every one of these dipshits is being personally financed by a different billionaire. And everyone in poverty: We will continue to not pay attention to you.
Terrific message, GOP. You continue to be amazing.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
True Fact
If there were a Bug Queen who bestowed bug treasure upon all humans who delicately carried bugs out of their homes to relocate them to more suitable living environments, instead of squashing them on sight, I would be a bugillionaire.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by oranges.
Recommended Reading:
Dominique: [Content Note: Racism; poverty; violence] What I Witnessed in Baltimore
Tressie: [CN: Racism; eliminationist violence] It Is Hard to Write While I'm Crying
Hannah: [CN: Racism; class warfare; carcerality; violence] We Need Racial Justice and Economic Justice: We Can't Breathe If We Can't Eat
Sujata: [CN: Class warfare] Illinois Governor's Proposed Cuts Put Children and Families at Risk
Libby Anne: [CN: Misogyny; rape culture] Gamergate Comes Home
Kris: [CN: Transphobia; anti-immigrationism; racism; misogyny; violence] Being Trans* Is Not Criminal, But the US Immigration System Thinks It Is
George: An Undersea Volcano May Be Erupting off the US Northwest Coast
Joanna: [CN: Disablist language] Learning to Speak the Language of Cats: How They're Actually Telling Humans What to Do
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
