Friends Electric: "Someone Like You"
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
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Since summer is returning, and I rarely feel like making or eating hot meals in hot weather, I'm back to making salads for dinner. And I just made a fresh raspberry vinaigrette that was SO YUMMY and really easy:
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar (I used Splenda)
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
(I added a lot of pepper, because Iain and I are both major pepper heads!)
Crush the raspberries in a bowl with a fork, add all the other ingredients, whisk them all together, and chill before serving.
We ate it on a salad of greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cubed baked turkey breast, and it was scrumptious!
Primarily Speaking
[Content Note: Racism; misogyny; transphobia; rape culture.]
Good job, Bernie Sanders! Even though most of the people who engage in flag-based voting will probably assume that you are about to burn it!
One thing on which Sanders is not doing a good job is speaking about the intersections of race and gender with class. He's definitely a "rising tide lifts all boats" kinda guy, which would be fine if we all had equally awesome boats, but some of us have luxury yachts and some of us have leaky dinghies.
Which is why talking about race and gender (among other marginalizations) is so important, even (and especially) when you're delivering a populist economic message!
But Sanders is not doing that, and Emily Crockett explains why that matters in the must-read piece of the day. Go read it!
In other news on the Democratic side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton "will officially launch her campaign for president on June 13 with a rally on New York City's Roosevelt Island, ending the gradual ramp-up phase of her bid for president." The midday event will be open to the public, and Clinton will give a speech laying out "her vision for the campaign and her view of the country."
If you're thinking: Wait—wasn't she already running for president? Yes! She was! Because, unlike some other people I could mention (*cough*Jeb Bush*cough*), she's not testing the legal limits of the definition of presidential candidate like a goddamn asshole.
She was upfront about the fact that she's running, is fundraising legally, and is getting hammered for not answering questions, despite her clearly articulated plan to not fully campaign until summer, all because she believes the rule of law isn't a fucking suggestion.
In other news, New York Democrats who hate Clinton (because who doesn't! WOMEN, AMIRITE?) have approached former New York City Mayor (and former Republican) Michael Bloomberg about a possible presidential run. Friends, this piece in the Post is what we call a trial balloon, and you'll have to excuse me while I fashion this balloon into the shape of a turd.
And, as promised, Lincoln Chaffee, another former Republican, is about to hop into the race, too. Yawn.
Something something Martin O'Malley is the real enemy of Wall Street. I wish that were true! But guess what? There is literally no one who can get elected president of the United States of America being a real enemy to Wall Street, and O'Malley basically shares the same milquetoast reform policies as Clinton.
On the other side of the aisle, so many terrible politicians are up to so many terrible things! It's like binders of
I will just mention the top terriblest thing of all the terribleness, to save us all some time and tears! And the winner of today's WORST CLOWN IN THE CLOWN CAR AWARD goes to Professor of Bible Bigotry Mike Huckabee, who argued against transgender rights and inclusion by saying: "Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, 'Coach, I think I'd rather shower with the girls today.' You're laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn't it?"
NO I'M RAGE-BARFING BECAUSE YOU SOUND LIKE A FULL-TILT HATE MACHINE WHO MOCKS TRANS* PEOPLE'S VERY EXISTENCE AND MAKES HA-HA JOKES ABOUT SEXUALLY ASSAULTING CHILDREN.
Artist's rendering of my actual face.
Lastly, some conservative dude wrote an article headlined "Why a 20-candidate field would actually be great for the GOP in 2016" and here are some actual unironic phrases from it: "unprecedented level of talent" and "plethora of credible candidates" and "open market of fresh and viable players." LOL okay!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia's got her eye on you.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Death] "Dozens of family members walked in protest on Wednesday to the rescue site of a sunken cruise ship in the Yangtze River, asking for news of their relatives who are missing after the worst shipping disaster in modern Chinese history. Rescuers searched for more than 400 missing people, many of them elderly, but hopes of finding more survivors were fading. Only 14 people, including the ship's captain, have been found alive since the ship capsized in a freak tornado on Monday night with 456 people on board. Just 26 bodies have been recovered. Frustrated by the level of information coming from local authorities, about 80 family members took matters into their own hands and hired a bus to take them from Nanjing to Jianli county in Hubei. They were seen walking towards the rescue site late on Wednesday evening. 'This isn't going to be much use, we're just doing this for the government to see,' said Wang Feng, who organized the eight-hour bus trip."
[CN: Disenfranchisement] This is good news: "Democrats allied with Hillary Rodham Clinton are mounting a nationwide legal battle 17 months before the 2016 presidential election, seeking to roll back Republican-enacted restrictions on voter access that Democrats say could, if unchallenged, prove decisive in a close campaign. ...They include voter identification requirements that Democrats consider onerous, time restrictions imposed on early voting that they say could make it difficult to cast ballots the weekend before Election Day, and rules that could nullify ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The effort, which is being spearheaded by a lawyer whose clients include Mrs. Clinton's campaign, reflects an urgent practical need, Democrats say: to get litigation underway early enough so that federal judges can be persuaded to intervene in states where Republicans control legislatures and governor's offices." Voter ID requirements are not just "considered onerous" by Democrats. They're considered discriminatory and a violation of voting rights by anyone who actually gives a shit about voting rights, including the people who can't vote because of them, not all of whom are necessarily Democrats.
[CN: Police killing; disablism; racism] Another man of color has been killed by NYPD officers, after his mother called for help when he was having a manic episode. "An ambulance did come, eventually. But officers from the New York police department came first. An hour later, Reyes was pronounced dead at nearby St Barnabas hospital. Sierra may never know exactly what transpired during the nearly 20 minutes that, by her count, eight officers spent in the living room with her son. ...While police now maintain Reyes died from a cardiac arrest inside the ambulance on his way to hospital, Reyes's mother said she kissed her son's forehead before he left. He was, she argued, already dead." To protect and serve, they tell us.
[CN: War on agency] Oh fuuuuuuuuck: "A bill that would increase North Carolina's mandated waiting period for abortion from 24 hours to 72 hours received final approval Tuesday in the state's GOP-led senate, setting the stage for lawmakers in the house to force the governor's hand on a campaign promise not to create more abortion restrictions." I've nothing but cavernous contempt for the idea underwriting legislation like this that abortion-seeking people need time to "really think about" their choice, as if pregnant people haven't already thought about it by the time they show up at an abortion clinic.
[CN: War; terrorism] Dr. Louise Richardson, soon-to-be vice-chancellor of Oxford University, says "America's response the 9/11 terror attacks was an 'overreaction.'" Ya think?
[CN: Homophobia; prisoner rights] What the shit: Oklahoma's Department of Corrections "has halted all prison weddings—apparently to avoid having inmates enter same-sex marriages." Fuck off.
[CN: Misogyny] Welp: "In a recent press event, [Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, the two stars of Netflix's new show Grace and Frankie] revealed that while they are both the headliners and main characters of the new show, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, the supporting actors who play their gay ex-husbands, are making the same amount as them. 'That doesn't make us happy,' Fonda said. And Tomlin explained, 'No. The show is not 'Sol and Robert' [Sheen and Waterston’s characters]—it's 'Grace and Frankie.'"
Yayayayayayayay! "Janet Jackson to release first new album in seven years this fall." YES PLEASE!
Gleep glorp! "NASA has big plans to land the first humans on Mars by 2035, but getting there is going to take spacecraft of giant proportions—and larger than anything the agency has ever sent to the red planet before. Enter NASA's low-density supersonic decelerator (LDSD) project, which includes a genuine, bonafide flying saucer that could be what astronauts ride down to the surface of Mars for the first time in the not-too-distant future."
And finally! A video compilation of dogs' first days in their forever homes. Blub.
The Rent Is Too Damn High—and the Wages Are Too Damn Low
[Content Note: Class warfare; housing insecurity.]
Although this is a story about Chicago, it's emblematic of a problem across much of the country:
More than half of renters in Chicago are paying 30 percent or more of their income in rent, an amount that a federal guideline has defined as unaffordable.Last year, "more than a quarter of Chicago households signed up for a spot on the Chicago Housing Authority's wait list," in the hopes of getting into subsidized housing. Without getting into its whole complicated history, suffice it to say that underfunding, overcrowding, and institutional neglect have historically made CHA housing a "choice" one makes only when every other option has run out.
The percentage of renters in the city paying more than they can afford jumped to 53.7 percent in 2013 from 37.9 percent in 2000, according to Census data.
The 30 percent threshold is based on a federal guideline established in 1981 that families in public housing could pay no more than 30 percent of their household income for rent. The assumption is that spending more than this amount diminishes a family’s ability to spend on other necessary items, such as food, clothing and transportation...
The problem of affordable housing is particularly acute for low-income renters. According to a recent report from Chicago Rehab Network, an affordable housing advocacy group, more than 90 percent of renters in Cook County who earn less than $20,000 per year were overburdened by housing costs in 2010.
I know I'm a goddamn boring broken record, but this is an absolute scandal. The United States is (nominally) the wealthiest country in the world, and we have a defense budget that could fund mansions built from recycled drones for every person on the planet, and yet we're somehow content to let half the population struggle to afford housing and leave half of all public school students unable to afford food.
And the most progressive politicians we've got speak about strengthening the middle class and proposing a minimum wage that still isn't anything close to a livable wage.
We refuse to have a meaningful public conversation about poverty. An honest conversation about what it means to be a person in poverty, that centers the voices of those people instead of bootstraps bullshitters who tell fairy tales about welfare queens.
Nothing that is being proposed is enough. Not even close.
We need universal healthcare, equal public education, and an unconditional basic income.
And, yeah, we need to tax the wealthy more fairly to pay for that stuff, but we could pay for a hell of a lot of it simply by defunding the policing and prosecution of poor communities and redirecting the massive amounts of funding earmarked for the criminalization of need to the people who are in need.
Our elected legislators offer all kinds of intricate and elaborate and ineffective policy proposals to "deal with" poverty, for programs that require eleventy layers of bureaucratic administration, because of garbage narratives about how people in poverty don't know what's best for themselves and can't be trusted to make good decisions.
We waste billions upon billions of dollars because we stubbornly refuse to just give people money and let them use it in the way they see fit.
Like paying the rent.
[H/T to my friend KG.]
Duggar Update
[Content Note: Sexual abuse.]
In Touch has a new report—which, be aware should you click through, contains descriptions of abuse and also confirms some of the identities of Duggar's victims (without naming them)—that sheds more light on why Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar refused to take action on their son's confessed predation for so long:
The new report is from the Washington County Sheriff's Office and was obtained by In Touch using the Freedom of Information Act...Emphasis mine.
With fewer redactions than the first report, the Washington County Sheriff's document makes it clear that despite Josh's chilling confessions the Duggars waited at least 16 months before contacting authorities about the molestations, even though the behavior was continuing and growing worse. During that period they did not get professional counseling for Josh or his victims. Legal experts tell In Touch that Jim Bob and Michelle could have faced six years in prison for their inaction, if the statute of limitations had not expired.
According to the report, Josh confessed "on THREE separate occasions to multiple acts of sexual molestation," but his parents seemingly took no steps to protect his existing victims or prevent additional girls from being victimized.
They protected their son from consequences. They protected themselves from consequences. At the expense of his victims, their daughters.
Lots of people will be shocked and horrified by this disclosure. (Which is to say nothing of the people who continue to defend this despicable lot.) But no one who knows the first thing about the family's reality show has the right to be surprised.
It was a show that documented religiously-justified misogynist abuse. The central tenet of the show was that women's lot is to serve men, to breed their babies and keep their homes. When we see men treating women as chattel, we should expect that those women's safety and security will be sacrificed to protect men.
That's the way patriarchy works. That's the way it has always worked.
Someone who is surprised is someone who diligently ignored the abusive core of the show and the family at its center, because to acknowledge the expansive abuse being heaped upon the Duggar daughters would have inconvenienced hir desire to be entertained.
Priorities
[Content Note: Food insecurity; child neglect.]
Another terrific example of how every fetus is precious and life is sacred, until those hypothetical fetuses become actual, living children:
Della Curry is out of work, and unashamed, after being fired by the Cherry Creek School District."Yes, I gave her lunch." The confession of her heinous crime. Giving a hungry child something to eat.
A married mother of two, Curry is the former kitchen manager at Dakota Valley Elementary School in Aurora [Colorado]. She lost her job on Friday after giving school lunches to students who didn't have any money.
"I had a first grader in front of me, crying, because she doesn't have enough money for lunch. Yes, I gave her lunch," Curry said.
There is a free and reduced lunch program in the district: "To qualify for the free lunch program, a family of four would have to have a household income of around $31,000. To qualify for a reduced lunch, the threshold is below $45,000." Those are very low numbers. Lots of families of four making, say, $46,000, just enough to price themselves out of assisted lunches, might have trouble providing lunches every day for every child. So they go to school hungry.
And those are exactly the students whom Curry was helping—the kids who fall through the cracks because lunch programs are based on arbitrary fixed income cut-offs and not on whether an individual child has food to eat that day.
In the district, students who fail to qualify for the free lunch or reduced lunch program receive one slice of cheese on a hamburger bun, and a small milk.No one should have to lose her job in order to effect change that makes sure every hungry child is fed. For fuck's sake.
Curry says that meal is not sufficient. Many times she paid for lunches out of her own pocket. "I'll own that I broke the law. The law needs to change," she said.
...Curry says the students she helped did not qualify for either program. "Kids whose parents make too much money to qualify, but a lot of times they don't have enough money to eat," she said.
...Curry said she understands the school district was just following policy when it fired her. Now she's hoping her story will lead to some changes.
"If me getting fired for it is one way that we can try to change this, I'll take it in a heartbeat," she said.
The school district released a statement on Curry's firing, which starts thus: "The law does not require the school district to provide the meal to children who have forgotten their lunch money, that is a district decision."
You know, when one of your employees is willing to risk her job and her own livelihood to make sure that children are being fed, because there are children standing in front of her crying from hunger, maybe you need to be a little less concerned about defending yourself on the basis that you're meeting the bare minimum of what the law requires you to do.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Diverkat: "What song can you listen to, over and over and over, without getting sick of it?"
Today in America 2.0
[Content Note: Surveillance.]
An AP investigation has determined that the FBI is responsible for a "mysterious fleet of aircraft conducting surveillance over US cities."
Scores of low-flying planes circling American cities are part of a civilian air force operated by the FBI and obscured behind fictitious companies, The Associated Press has learned.Emphasis mine. There is much, much more at the link.
The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights in 11 states over a 30-day period since late April, orbiting both major cities and rural areas. At least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, were mentioned in a federal budget document from 2009.
For decades, the planes have provided support to FBI surveillance operations on the ground. But now the aircraft are equipped with high-tech cameras, and in rare circumstances, technology capable of tracking thousands of cellphones, raising questions about how these surveillance flights affect Americans' privacy.
...The FBI says the planes are not equipped or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance. The surveillance equipment is used for ongoing investigations, the FBI says, generally without a judge's approval.
So here we are again, back to federal surveillance with no judicial review, no Congressional oversight, and thus no meaningful accountability.
This sort of fuckery was supposed to leave the building with George W. Bush and his merry band of miscreants, but, as I have said before on many, many occasions, once federal law enforcement has been granted any power to encroach upon the civil rights of the people, they are very reluctant to let it go.
And neither of the two major parties are keen to force them to let it go, because neither of them are particularly interested in a truly free citizenry.
[H/T to Shaker KatherineSpins.]
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.
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Ready for a night out last weekend: Promo Sapiens Tee from ModCloth; Ankle Zip Stiletto Jean from Torrid; and Converse Chuck Taylor® All Star® Vintage Washed Twill from 6pm.com.
This is my Comfort Outfit: T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. I do like getting dressed up, but, left to my own devices with no habilimentary requirements, I will be in t-shirt, jeans, and comfy shoes every damn time!
Anyway! As always, all subjects related to fat fashion are on topic, but if you want a topic for discussion: What are your go-to comfort clothes?
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.
Why I Dig Melissa McCarthy
by Shaker Lysis
[Content Note: Fat bias; misogyny.]
Since appearing in Bridesmaids, for which she received an Oscar nomination, Melissa McCarthy has become one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. She has done so in the face of rampant misogyny and fat shaming. This week, she will release Spy, her third collaboration with director Paul Feig. As Melissa McEwan noted earlier this year, "part of the premise of the film is a fat woman's cultural invisibility becoming her biggest asset."
McCarthy doesn't have the luxury of cultural invisibility anymore, and her very existence as a happy and successful fat woman has made her a target. As she promotes Spy, she is speaking up more about the challenges she faces, and confronting the misogyny and fat shaming head on.
The backlash against McCarthy became most prominent upon the release of Tammy, her first leading role that was marketed solely on her appeal. The film was a big financial success, making more than four times its limited budget, and it did it all on McCarthy's name. As McEwan noted, "It's like suddenly time to criticize her when she's saying LOOK RIGHT AT ME. That's no coincidence."
She was chastised for allowing herself to look physically unappealing, despite that being consistent with the character she was playing. When she was back playing a supporting role in Bill Murray's St. Vincent, (a critically acclaimed film where Murray's character was not costumed and styled to conform to beauty standards, yet nobody criticized that because it was what the character required), one of those critics of Tammy had the audacity to go up to her and praise her work in the new film. This was her response:
"Are you the one who wrote I was only a good actor when I looked more attractive and that my husband should never be allowed to direct me because he allowed me to look so homely?" she asked him.McCarthy went on to lambaste the sexism that plagues her industry:
He admitted he was. "Would you say that to any guy?" she continued. "When John C. Reilly—or any actor—is playing a character that is depressed and dejected, would you say, 'Well, you look terrible!'?" She asked the critic if he had a daughter. He did. "Watch what you say to her," she told him. "Do you tell her she's only worthwhile or valid when she's pretty?"
"It's an intense sickness," she says. "For someone who has two daughters, I'm wildly aware of how deep that rabbit hole goes. But I just don't want to start listening to that stuff. I'm trying to take away the double standard of 'You're an unattractive bitch because your character was not skipping along in high heels.'"One thing that I find very powerful about McCarthy publicly speaking out is that she's refusing to pretend the criticism doesn't hurt. The personal backlash against Tammy has led to her not reading negative press anymore:
"I've stopped because I finally said, 'This is not making me better. This hurts my heart,'" she says.Her unique position as a visible fat woman put enormous pressure on her to be invulnerable to criticism so her confidence can be praised (and used as a weapon against other fat women who would do so much better if they just had confidence). She won't do that. I think that's important, and I think it's connected to her insistence that she be a fully realized human being in real life as much as she is onscreen.
See, there's something different about how McCarthy works. With every film she's in, the knot in my stomach that waits for her to be an object of ridicule because of her appearance is smaller. Because those moments don't come. Not that her appearance is never ridiculed on screen, but we're never meant to laugh at her. The audience's scorn is always directed at those who do the ridiculing.
McCarthy and Feig both commented on why that is in the same article linked above, though it was only included in the print edition:
McCarthy said she fell hard for Spy's Susan Cooper - "I really kind of miss her now" - which she has a habit of doing when she locks into a character's messy complexity. "Family, friends - we're all the sum of our weird quirks," she says. "I don't want to watch the perfect person. But some strange person who is riddled with tics? Those are the people - and I mean this lovingly - that I will follow around the Big Lots store, that I could watch all day."Feig's pro-female stance makes him an outlier as a male director, and McCarthy believes that widespread change can only occur when systemic gender discrimination in Hollywood is addressed. As she told MTV:
Inevitably McCarthy becomes protective of her creations. "I've been lucky enough to play women that I truly love even if their actions aren't always so great," she says. "I don't know if I could play a character I didn't like."
Feig says this is exactly why he and McCarthy are well suited for each other. "I have an inherent hatred of comedy where the performer clearly has a disdain for the character they're playing," he says. "That's what a lot of comedy in past years has felt like to me: somebody who's funny going, 'I'm playing this really stupid character. I know he's stupid and you think he's stupid, so let's have fun laughing at him.' Melissa and I don't like that. We want people to care about them - you laugh with them and laugh at their expense occasionally, but you still want them to succeed."
"I would love to be directed by more women," McCarthy said. "I think there's so many points of view, that you want to make sure your stories are being told from men and women… you get all of the different backgrounds. You don't want every story being told from the same point of view. So just for better storytelling, I'm like, 'yes, please, bring some more ladies on.'"McCarthy's not the only bankable female star making that push. Meryl Streep has been working with female directors more than any other star, yet it went completely without notice that it was a female director—Phyllida Lloyd—that, with two separate films, earned Streep her biggest box office hit hit and then her first Oscar in 29 years.
But McCarthy's success in genres traditionally dominated by men give her an opportunity to be heard that is unparalleled in Hollywood history. Here's hoping filmmakers listen.
Daily Dose of Cute
Silly earsies!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
It's Not Just You
Some people are currently unable to get comments to load for them; instead, the loading screen is just hanging forever. I've tweeted at Disqus to let them know about the problem, and hopefully it will be quickly resolved. My apologies for the inconvenience.
UPDATE: The issue seems to have resolved. If you're still having problems, please email me to let me know.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Policing] So now Hillary Clinton is a monster because her southern accent came out during an appearance in a southern state. Never mind that she lived in Arkansas for 18 years and has been married to a man with a southern accent for four decades, and that most human beings experience a "hidden" accent becoming more prominent when they're around people with a similar accent. Clinton's just a pretending bitch, because human standards don't apply to monsters.
I am so exhausted with this shit. When I was learning how to speak, my NYC-born and -raised mother still had a more prominent New York accent, which filtered into my language, and when I visit New York, it comes right back. After Iain visited Scotland for a week, his brogue was much more apparent after he returned home than it had been when he left. This is just human nature. For fuck's sake.
[CN: Death] Oh dear: "Rescuers searched on Tuesday for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists, missing after a cruise boat was hit by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River in what may become China's worst shipping disaster in nearly 70 years. Battling bad weather, divers and other rescue workers pulled five people they found trapped in the upturned hull of the four-deck Eastern Star, a small fraction of the 458 people state media said were on board when the ship capsized on Monday night." I feel so sad for the people who are waiting to hear news about missing loved ones.
[CN: Police killing] "Anti-terror police have shot and killed a man who was under surveillance in a car park in Boston. Police say he attacked officers with a large knife after being approached by a Boston police officer and an FBI agent. ...Officials have not yet released the man's identity or the reason he was under surveillance. 'Our officers tried their best to get him to put down the knife,' Boston Police Commissioner William B Evans told the Boston Globe newspaper. 'Unfortunately, they had to take a life.'" Well. That's one way of putting it.
[CN: Racism] The fucking stupid rules that govern what kids can and cannot wear at graduation. Conformity until the bitter end! "A Clovis High School senior who wants to wear an eagle feather at his graduation ceremony this week plans to file an emergency lawsuit against Clovis Unified School District, which he says is prohibiting him from wearing the cultural, religious and academic symbol that was given to him by his father. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California says it will file a complaint in Fresno County Superior Court on Monday on behalf of Christian Titman, 18, and his family. The legal rights organization plans to file a motion on Tuesday asking for a same-day hearing in advance of Titman’s commencement ceremony on Thursday."
[CN: Racism] New research has confirmed what anyone paying the slightest bit of attention already knew: "Media stories on African-American athletes focus primarily on criminal actions while stories about white athletes are overwhelmingly positive."
[CN: Rape culture] As I noted yesterday, the Duggars have scheduled an appearance on Fox News because of course they have, and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly promises it's not going to be a "tough...cross-examination." Like who expected it would be?!
THE FEMINIZATION OF NATURE! "Scientists have discovered that female sawfish appear to be routinely reproducing without any male input through an alternative form of reproduction known as parthenogenesis. ...In the latest study, DNA fingerprinting showed that about 3% of a sawfish population in Florida appeared to have been created through female-only reproduction, suggesting that parthenogenesis may play an important role in the survival of certain critically endangered species."
[CN: Bullying] Paul Feig on one of the many reasons he likes working with funny women: "I don't like snarky stuff. I like a positive attitude. ...Men's comedy can get very aggressive. I think I was bullied enough when I was a kid that I'm like oh, they're name calling, and that's not funny to me. I feel like I'm back in high school, in the locker room, and people are threatening to beat me up."
And finally! A video of a dog having SO MUCH FUN in a fountain! Aww lol.
This Is Your Irregularly Scheduled Reminder That Laverne Cox Is Awesome
[Content Note: Body/gender policing; cisnormative beauty standards.]
Laverne Cox, with all the thoughts on Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover, one year after her own cover on Time magazine:
Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is "slaying for the Gods." I must echo these comments in the vernacular, "Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!" But this has made me reflect critically on my own desires to 'work a photo shoot', to serve up various forms of glamour, power, sexiness, body affirming, racially empowering images of the various sides of my black, trans womanhood. I love working a photo shoot and creating inspiring images for my fans, for the world and above all for myself. But I also hope that it is my talent, my intelligence, my heart and spirit that most captivate, inspire, move and encourage folks to think more critically about the world around them. Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities.Read the whole thing here. I continue to love Laverne Cox with ONE MILLION HEARTS!
...[I]n certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don't want to embody them and we shouldn't have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves. It is important to note that these standards are also informed by race, class and ability among other intersections. I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representations of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities.
...Most trans folks don't have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…
Today in Fat Hatred
[Content Note: Fat hatred; bullying; body shaming; child abuse.]
Some of the external commentary, and the dehumanizing "headless fatty" picture, accompanying this interview with Harvard University anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh, author of Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America's War on Fat, is problematic, but the interview itself is excellent and very important.
Greenhalgh wrote Fat-Talk Nation after doing an "auto-ethnography, a method in which the researcher gathers narrative accounts from individuals who write about their lives. This approach differs—quite purposefully—from a biomedical discourse that relies on statistics and, through which, scientists 'impose their understandings of what matters and why on people's lives,' as Greenhalgh phrases it." In other words: It is a research method that centers people's accounts of their own lived experiences and allows them to be authorities on their own lives.
And what Greenhalgh found is, unsurprisingly, what other fat people have been saying for many years, despite our voices being drowned out by "obesity experts" and the cacophonous shouts of "calories in! calories out!": That fat hatred is harmful.
The core message is that 15 years after the launching of the public health campaign against obesity, we are now in the midst of a gigantic, society-wide war on fat in which virtually all of us — including you and I and your readers — are unwitting agents. All of us are making war on fat through constant fat-talk. Yet because very few people can lose weight and keep it off, the pervasive fat-talk does not have its intended effect; instead, it is causing terrible, yet often, invisible harm.Emphasis mine.
The harm to individuals includes emotional distress and, often, physical injury from trying too hard to lose weight. The war on fat is also damaging critical social relationships, especially the crucial bond between mother and daughter. The stigma and discrimination against fat people are now well known; what isn't known is that the human costs of the war on fat itself are harmful to people of all sizes and to us as a nation.
Fat-shaming is bullying; is is abusive. And Greenhalgh's work is an important document to begin to correctly identify the shaming central to much of the campaigning against "childhood obesity" as what it really is: Child abuse.
And it is abuse with reverberating implications throughout one's life, because there is no incentive to take care of a body you hate.
How good I feel about my fat body is absolutely and inextricably related to how well I take care of it, from the food I put in it to whether I go see a doctor when there's something wrong. That's not a fat issue: That's a human issue. Many of my thin and in-betweenie friends and colleagues have the same experience around their body image and self-care, because we all live in a garbage culture of judgment that conspires to make everyone feel flawed and inadequate in some way.
If we want fat people—or any people—to treat their bodies well, then we must encourage them to love their bodies, no matter what they look like.
No one has ever gotten healthier, in any way, by being constantly treated like garbage. And no one has ever gotten bullied into feeling better about themselves.
Acceptance is only a dangerous idea to those who are hiding aesthetic distaste for fat bodies behind sanctimonious concern trolling about fatties' health. If you want us to be healthy, not fucking bullying us would be a great place to start.
Anyone who purports to be concerned about fat people's health will stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that fat hatred harms, and fat hatred kills.
Welp
[Content Note: Misogyny; coercion.]
I have previously written about my issues with the "Draft Warren" campaigns, in which people organized in order to try to convince Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for president, despite her repeated statements that she wasn't running and didn't want to run.
In today's Politico, the two people behind the "Run Warren Run" campaign, Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, and Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, announce they're suspending the "Run Warren Run" campaign, but explain they're "still declaring victory."
Among their listed achievements is this: "When Warren spoke, we made sure people listened. Even more than usual."
We worked to amplify her voice wherever and whenever possible—not just among Hill reporters covering the minutia of legislative debates, but on the nation's biggest stage. By raising the possibility of a Warren run for the presidency, we elevated the significance of her words and actions.This, without a trace of irony. Because one of the central tenets of their campaign was not listening to Elizabeth Warren. Every time she said she wasn't running, had no plans to run, had no desire to run, was not running, no means no, they ignored her. And they encouraged everyone else to ignore her, too.
They may have "elevated the significance of her words and actions" when it came to policy, but they diminished the significance of her words and actions when it came to her personal agency.
What they "achieved" was communicating in yet one more very visible way that women don't, or shouldn't, have ownership of their own choices. That if women don't behave in the way we want them to on demand, a public campaign to coerce them into conforming to our will, with little regard for their own, is a legitimate strategy.
We don't begrudge Warren for not choosing to climb that ladder.How magnanimous.
