Wee Sophs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
Wee Sophs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Ladies' Man
[Content Note: Misogyny. This post has been published with Iain's informed consent.]
My husband likes women. I don't mean that he is a flirt, or a skirt-chaser, or some other euphemism for straight men who primarily center their attraction in interactions with women. Although I wouldn't blame you if you thought that's what I meant, since men who are attracted to women aren't meant to relate to us in any other way.
It's so pervasive, this notion that straight men's relationships with women are exclusively and inherently sexual in nature, that it's tough to describe what I mean without invoking it.
To say that he sees women is likely to be heard as "he objectifies us." To say that he pays attention to us is likely to be interpreted as "he notices our bodies." To say that he hears us is just as likely to be (mis)construed as "he's good at figuring out how to get laid via marginal listening."
There is, after all, an entire pick-up culture that has turned "listening to women to get in their pants" into a cottage industry. Where "listening" itself is totally divorced from meaningful conversation, and is simply a tool to curry favor and access—a quantifiable action designed to oblige reward.
Straight men who do listen to women, simply because they find women interesting to listen to, are so unusual that listening has become an exploitable resource, a tool of sexual manipulators.
It's difficult to describe what I mean when I say my husband likes women, because it's so rare that we don't even have words for it. And because any words I might use are corrupted by the urgent defense of patriarchal standards, which reject any dynamic that isn't framed to center women as the objects of men.
Even to say "he treats us like human beings" is fraught, because men are designated as the default humans in a patriarchal culture—and it is not true that he treats us the same way he treats men. Because we are not men, and our lives and experiences necessitate sensitivities to that difference.
It's also not accurate to say that he is a male ally, because it would be a lie to suggest that his interactions with women are primarily guided by conscious feminist thought. And he doesn't succumb to any of the alienating approaches of many self-identified male allies: He does not put women on a pedestal, nor does he fancy himself an expert on womanhood, nor is he cookie-seeking, nor are his interactions with women distorted by caution or apology or deference or the cringeworthy hyper-consciousness of credit-seeking allies whose insistent focus on one's womanhood can be just as unsettling as the leering objectification of a street harasser.
I cannot for a moment escape my womanhood (nor do I want to), but I also don't want it to define my every interaction with a man. Not because he wants to fuck me, and not because his ostensible respect for women morphs into an aggressive fear of offense and/or elaborate display of expertise which requires constant acknowledgement of my womanhood.
It's a reductive sensitivity that makes me feel diminished, not liked.
My husband likes me, in a way for which I don't have words. He likes women in a way that I cannot easily define. But when I say he likes women, what I mean is that he can tell you all about how much he loves Rihanna and Adele, without ever talking about what they look like; or tell you all about how he was so wrong about Anne Hathaway playing Catwoman, how he didn't expect her to be great but she was so great, and how she totally won him over, without ever reflexively making a shitty joke about how hot she looked in that catsuit; or tell you about this or that female colleague, who he thinks is so terrific; or sit on the porch with you and have a long and winding conversation about a book you've both read, and he will be enthusiastic about your insights that he hadn't considered, and excited to share his own, and he will laugh at your jokes, and his eyes will glimmer with the precise exhilaration that only a tumbling discussion with a friend can engender.
I don't have that experience with many straight men. And I rarely love Iain more than in moments when I am watching him interact with other women. With my friends. Women of all shapes and colors and sexuality and genderedness and age and ability. My friends tend to really like Iain right back.
(That is an understatement.)
Since I couldn't find the words for this rare thing that is so precious to me, I asked Iain how he would describe the way he regards women. He pondered that for a moment, and then he replied, "I would like to say that I enjoy the company of women, but that has sexual connotations, too. Everything describing men's interactions with women is sexualized."
Everything. When I tell people that I adore Iain for how much he likes women, the very compliment is received with suspicion. Don't I worry that he works so closely with women? Don't I worry that he likes talking to other women? Inherently suspect. Straight men aren't supposed to like women, unless they want to fuck them.
And for so many straight men, this is not just the expectation of them, but their truth. They don't like women, have no use for us, unless they intend to bed us.
Which is why I have no words for how my husband, and other straight men like him, regard women. It is too rare to have a name. Indescribable. At least without caveats.
He likes women. Not in that way. I mean, he does like women in that way, but doesn't only like women in that way…
I cannot name it. It's vanishingly rare words so thoroughly escape me. Whether that is testament to my own failing as a writer, or testament to the rarity of straight men who genuinely eschew the imperatives of a patriarchy that devalues women's complex humanity, or both, I don't know.
What I know is that I deeply appreciate and respect Iain, and the other straight men like him, for making me feel liked, and making me feel safe.
And now that I understand what that feels like, I will never again tolerate anything less.
Looking For Bernie, Part 2: Mr. Sanders Goes To Burlington
[CN: Classism, sexism, racism, and heterocentrism. This is the second in a four-part series examining the political history of Bernie Sanders, analyzing his record through the lens of intersectional feminism and considering what role privilege has played within it. You can read Part One here.]
PART 2: MR. SANDERS GOES TO BURLINGTON
After 1972, then what?
Sanders '72 might not have won any elections, but Sanders continued pursuing elected office in the mid-70s, as he and other members of Liberty Union also began to act as consumer advocates and organizers. They gained particular attention in hearings about a proposed rate hike by New England telephone Company. Party chair Martha Abbot and Sanders were both quoted in a March 10, 1973 story by Charles Butler, Jr. in the Bennington Banner, arguing that Vermonters could not afford the 38 percent increase in residential rates and 15 percent increase in long distance charges for in-state calls. The public hearings drew "hundreds of telephone users," according to the article, and the ire of Vermont's Public Service Board (PSB) officials.
Chairman Gilbert of the board declared that they had heard "Bernie once too often," while Commissioner Daniel Ruggles III attempted to amend the rules for public hearings to prohibit Sanders from any further testimony. But Sanders was tenacious. In a September 6, 1973 story in the Bennington Banner, Sanders appears again in connection with utilities. Attorney Stella Hackel of the New England Telephone Board asked for a public hearing on service disconnection policies be called off; her employer demanded that the Vermont Public Service Board first prove that private utilities companies had discriminatory disconnection policies before calling the hearing. An attorney for the Vermont Gas System, not surprisingly, joined her. The PSB seemed largely to favor the view of these private companies. The PSB's chief of consumer affairs, the supposed government guardian of consumer interests, argued in favor of a utility disconnection policy that made no allowances for cutoffs in Vermont's cold winter months. Sanders appears in the story attacking this idea, arguing that power should stay connected, no matter the circumstances. He stood alongside several individual witnesses and the Vermont Welfare Rights Organization in this showdown over consumer rights.
Now that sounds like Bernie Sanders! It was an issue that many Vermonters cared about and were affected by. One didn't have to agree with vague calls for revolution despise the unresponsiveness of both the companies and Vermont's supposed government watchdog, the PSB. And it was an issue that could be addressed without reference to race or gender—the "demographic stuff" that Sanders still dislikes, saying it's not his "cup of tea." And Sanders was learning. His class appeals were no longer vague, but full of wonkish detail. In a Friday, July 19, 1974 Bennington Banner story, his stance on aid to low-income elderly came complete with numbers:
In June 1973, the average retired worker received "about $163 a month," he said, adding the figure was lower for Vermont since it ranks lower than most states in regard to average Social Security benefits... The [social security] tax, he said, remains at 5.85 per cent, regardless of income. "In fact, there is a cutoff point at $13,200, which means that an individual earning that amount contributes the exact same amount to the Social Security fund as an individual earning $50,000. This is absurd."
Sanders' reported plans for solving the problems were still a bit vague (no more loopholes for big business, no more support for military dictatorships, and no more paying the defense industry for cost overruns), but Sanders and the LU were growing into a practical force in Vermont politics. Although the party won no seats in 1974, a November story in the Bennington Banner suggested LU was on the verge of becoming an important third party, and, in the words of its leaders, was a year round political force. The paper cited LU's involvement in utility rate hearings, supporting striking construction workers in Chittenden[corrected] County, and opposing four year terms for governor as among its causes. (Sanders was specifically credited for forcing the major parties to keep their focus on Vermont's "tooth fairy" bill, providing dental care clinics for children.) LU had been re-made into a party with concrete issues: re-focusing Vermont's economy away from the tourist trade and towards small-scale agriculture, state loans for people to buy homes, and worker-run businesses.
It's also notable for what dropped out as priorities: legalization of drug use, hitchhiking, racial disparities in prison, and other issues from 1972. One old issue was specifically rejected in the article: environmental preservation laws, which just "preserve gorgeous views for the rich while pushing poorer people into trailer parks."
As for addressing gendered issues, well, Sanders '74 is kind of an asshole.
On the Planned Parenthood Video
[Content Note: War on agency.]
As you may have heard, yesterday, an anti-choice group released an undercover video of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola discussing "how to abort a fetus to preserve its organs for medical research—as well as the costs associated with sharing that tissue with scientists."
Naturally, this is supposed to be THE BIGGEST SCANDAL EVER, but nothing on that video is illegal, nor is what's being discussed outside normal medical practices:
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communications for PPFA, maintained that Planned Parenthood's practices surrounding human fetal tissue are legal:There is no scandal. There is just the usual hyperbolic and hateful outrage-generation by anti-choicers who prey on ignorance, operating within a culture of Christian Supremacy and increasing contempt for science.
"In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does—with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field."
...The donation of aborted human fetal tissue may come as a shock to a public unfamiliar with the practice but it is, in fact, a longstanding one. According to the American Society for Cell Biology, scientists have been researching human fetal tissue since the 1930s, with aborted tissue playing a part in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's development of the rubella and varicella vaccines in the 1960s (PDF). Ronald Reagan put a hold on using fetal tissue for transplants in 1988 while other forms of fetal tissue research continued and Bill Clinton subsequently lifted Reagan's moratorium in 1993.
See also: Robin Marty.
Question of the Day
What's your go-to cooking technique, the one you use more reliably than any other? Grilling, steaming, boiling, frying, sauteing, baking, microwaving, slow-cooking...?
On Trump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made a centerpiece of his campaign saying some truly outrageous shit. And it is outrageous—but it's also mainstream conservative policy. It's just not concealed beneath eleventy metric fucktons of carefully crafted rhetoric devised by highly paid strategists to make it more palatable to the average voter.
The institutional Republican Party leadership only pretends to be reviled by the things that Trump says. They don't hate Trump. They secretly love him because he makes assholes like Scott Walker look reasonable by comparison.
The truth is, when Trump asserts he's only saying out loud what other people believe, he's talking about the other candidates. Those are the things that they believe. It's frankly the most honest thing he says.
The biggest difference between Trump and the other GOP candidates isn't policy. It's how they talk about that policy. Trump doesn't dogwhistle. He marches through town decorated with bells banging pots and pans. But the policies are mostly indistinguishable.
Trump isn't a punchline. He's the Cliffs Notes.
For that reason, the GOP would love it if we continue to treat Trump like a sideshow, instead of the uncensored id of their disgusting party that he really is.
Instead of dismissing Trump as a joke, we should point out over and over that he's just plainly articulating mainstream GOP policies. Every chance we get.
Confederacy of Mendacious Defenders
by Shaker Anonymous
[Please note: I'm a longtime Shaker who has requested anonymity for this post because it discusses people close to me and I'd like to preserve the privacy of all involved.]
[Content Note: White supremacy, slavery, racist apologia, racial violence, dehumanization.]
The well-known "Confederate flag." This past week, the South Carolina legislature voted to remove this flag from SC capitol grounds. Make no mistake, that's progress of a sort as well as the right thing to do.
But in renewed discussion of white supremacy and its symbols in the wake of the racist massacre of nine people in a SC church last June 17, all the lies of the United States' white supremacist history were trotted out again—tropes, and tales, and rank racist horseshit usually kept in the background, used as dog whistles.
If you are on Facebook, or spend a good deal of time online, you may have seen many of the same terrible posts and images I have seen these past weeks, all meant to excuse or obfuscate the racism the Confederate flag represents and justify its continued display. What follows is a review of several of these posts, meant to expose a few of the more egregious examples of white supremacist thinking masquerading as simple history, or as satire, or as any one of a number of "correctives" to the idea that the Confederate flag is inherently racist.
I can't run through everything I've seen recently, such as a graphic chiding President Obama for asking that we not judge all Muslims for the acts of extremists while claiming he blames "all Southern Americans" for Dylann Roof's rampage. (First comment on that post? "That's because [Obama]'s not American." Oy.) A few examples will illustrate why I am so fucking angry that I needed to address this.
One Facebook contact of mine (who is white) said online that she could not understand how the Confederate flag "became" a symbol of racist hate when she didn't remember it that way from growing up in the South. This is the very definition of white privilege: The ability to remember an entirely different history and to elide contradictory information and events. (My response to her was that the flag did not "become" racist—it's always been.)
We see above a typical example of a meme around this issue, posted approvingly on Facebook and much "liked," clearly meant to be funny, or provocative, but just as clearly missing the point entirely. (And I've seen variations on this meme.) False equivalencies are, in fact, the most common form of justification for this racist flag, based on what I've run across in recent weeks. What follows is an example so awful it would be good for a laugh, were not the stakes so high for African-Americans, and for this country.
Someone really must tell me about the time a state legislature ordered the Black Panther's banner raised on state government grounds and protected its display by law. I'm having trouble remembering the details.
The two other excuses I wish to highlight are (1) the well-known "Confederate flag" is not the flag of the Confederate States of America, and (2) that the Confederate flag "means different things to different people."
As for point one, I was under this misapprehension. Now that that's been corrected (the popular flag is the Confederate battle flag, though later incorporated into the flag of the CSA) my response is: So what? Troops waging war on the USA to preserve slavery based on white supremacy carried this flag into battle. The flag's meaning remains clear.
Two, the idea that the flag's meaning is diverse, that it is fluid, is revisionist nonsense. It's no accident that the Confederate flag was hoisted above SC state grounds 54 years ago. As the racist institutions of the US (primarily in the South) began to lose court cases and at least some public support, this flag was revived as a symbol of white resistance. It's easy enough to find, as but one example, photos and film of 1960's governor of Alabama George Wallace crying "segregation forever" while the Confederate flag is nearby.
A relative on Facebook (a white male, like the overwhelming number of people I've seen engaging in this ahistorical hooey) tried desperately to make this point, that the Confederate flag "means different things," and tried to turn it into some sort of philosophical misunderstanding. But semiotics this ain't. I simply replied, "Black people don't have the luxury of your distance."
Every country has its nationalist strain, its cherished myths, its desire not to be seen as terrible, or full of terrible people. Of course, this is also true here in the US. It is human nature that some people want to disassociate themselves from a symbol that is racist. But claiming that the symbol's meaning is somehow lost to time, or clouded, or just so very complicated when there's plenty of proof otherwise (including the Civil War, Jim Crow, and much too much more) is patent bullshit. Symbols have meanings that do not change just because some white dudes (and, really, that's the most vocal group—a group of which I am myself a member) say the meaning has changed.
With the reaction in some quarters to the very idea that the Confederate flag is blatantly racist, I see how far we are from an honest conversation about our racist past, let alone our troubled present. And we won't have the latter without the former.
Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food
[Content Note: Food insecurity; dehumanization.]
Via Tara Culp-Ressler, here is the latest reprehensible entry in our neverending Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food series, care of the Oklahoma Republican Party:
The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.The "Don't Feed the Animals" comparison is an old canard that's been going around conservative circles for years. Anyone among us who's got a conservative relative that compulsively forwards Republican email favorites, or posts the meme-ified versions on social media, will have seen this one at least once.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."
Thus ends today's lesson in irony #OKGOP
(Honestly, I'm not even sure if that Department of the Interior rationale for not feeding animals is even accurate, or if it's just apocryphal, invented by whatever asshole conceived this meme in the first place. I also seem to recall hearing, once upon a time, that some safety signs about feeding animals centered animals' self-sufficiency because people feeding animals like bears at the risk of their own deaths wouldn't stop to protect themselves but would if they thought it would protect the animals. But I digress.)
The post has since been taken down, and the Oklahoma Republican Party has non-apologized thus: "Last night, there was a post on our OKGOP Facebook page, and it was misinterpreted by many. I offer my apologies for those who were offended–that was not my intention. This post was supposed to be an analogy that compared two situations illustrating the cycle of government dependency in America, not humans as animals. However I do think that it's important to have conversations about government welfare programs since our dependency on government is at its highest level ever. Quoting President Reagan, 'We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.'"
There's more, but you get the gist.
The number of people who use the social safety net that is meant to be available to all USians when we need it is not a measure of welfare's success. It's a measure of the success of economic and social policies, and whether they are functioning in a way that stands to create access to secure jobs with livable wages for as many USians as possible.
One of many, many things about which President Ronald Reagan was profoundly wrong.
In any case, I'm eminently willing to "have conversations about government welfare programs" with Republicans, in which people in need aren't dehumanized as animals. Let's start with this: Republican governance increases dependency on welfare programs. Go!
You Peasants Don't Even Know How to Yawn!
I was so busy last week galavanting around exotic locales and consciously uncoupling from my (formerly!) favorite fishmonger because he refuses to deliver to my yacht that I almost missed an exciting dispatch from our favorite aspirational lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow! But thanks to Kaiser, I was alerted to some sage advice from The Great Gwynsby's latest GOOP newsletter.
Actual Title: "Why Yawning Is Important—And How to Optimize the Reflex." I bet you garbage-brained peasants didn't even know you should be optimizing your yawning reflex, did you?!
Actual Opening Paragraph:
The other night at a dinner with Michael Lear, a wonderful yogi and important quarterback for mindfulness and meditation in this country, he caught, out of the corner of his very alert eye, the suppression of a yawn. (It was late.) "Please yawn," he explained. "Really give into it, as it's the body's primary way to release and stretch the jaw and neck muscles after a long day of work and conversation." And then, since yawning is contagious, there was a good 30-60 second stretch of yawning back and forth. "There's a perception that it's rude or that it means that you're bored, but the reality is that it's a very important mechanism for releasing stress. It feels good for a reason: Trust that your body knows how to calibrate itself."My life is such a wreck. I don't have dinner with yogi quarterbacks with eyes so alert that they can actually detect suppressed yawns like some kind of superhumans! Honestly, y'all, I didn't even realize that mindfulness was a sport that had quarterbacks. I am NOT living the dream.
Anyway! The important thing is that now I, and—by my gracious willingness to share all the best life tips I learn from rich thin white ladies—now you will, know how to yawn correctly.
YAWN #1Listen, I don't mean to brag, but I was definitely already doing all of these steps, except for the Ujjayi breathing. And I definitely know what Ujjayi breathing is. Don't you? It's like the cashmere of breathing, for fuck's sake.
1. Gently tilt your head back to a comfortable position and allow your mouth to hang open widely while you gently extend into it.
2. Contract the back of the throat as if to perform Ujjayi breathing—a whispery breath—which is typically done through your nose with your mouth closed. Breathe deeply through your mouth so you feel the air hit the back of your throat.
3. Inhale and exhale completely while allowing your shoulders to relax as you exhale.
4. When the yawn comes, reach and extend into it, riding the yawn to stretch the jaw muscles.
5. Repeat 8-10 times until tearing starts. As your jaw muscles stretch and relax, and the yawn expands, the lacrimal glands around the eye are squeezed and tearing is induced.
YAWN #2
1. Continue with steps 1-4 above, and when the yawn comes, bring together only the lips. Keep the teeth slightly separated. Creating this shape with your mouth as you yawn will take out more slack in the throat muscles to bring the lengthening and relaxation around the base of the tongue, and further stretch and relax the neck, jaw, and occipital regions.
2. Repeat 8-10 times until you begin to tear.
Actual Final Line: "Note: Tearing is not necessary for this exercise to be beneficial." But if your eyes don't tear while you practice OPTIMIZED YAWNING, it's probably because you're low on natural fish oils. Better call your favorite fishmonger STAT.
Daily Dose of Cute
As I have said many times, despite her regal looks, Matilda is one of the goofiest cats to have ever lived. Here is further evidence, as Tils—looking (as usual) like a total weirdo with chunks cut out of her fur because I have to chop out mats due to her lackadaisical grooming—wrestles with an invisible friend on the sofa:
Video Description: Cinematic music. Matilda the Fluffy Sealpoint Cat is tucked into one side of the loveseat against the arm, sniffing at something. She lifts her head and looks around. Her tail flicks. Her ears go back and she dramatically flips onto one side, her face disappearing behind the arm of the loveseat. She paws frantically at literally nothing. Paw paw paw. She stops and looks up at the camera, wide-eyed, the tip of her tongue sticking out. The tip of her tail flicks and then she rolls over. Paw. Freeze. Licks her side. Stares at nothing. Leaps up onto the arm, then spins around and leaps back down onto the seat. Pause. Spin. Twitch. Looks up at the camera with her tongue hanging out. Licks her nose. Looks cute.
This went on for about half an hour, lol.
* * *
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...
After nearly two years of negotiations, a deal has been struck with Iran: "Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States said they had reached a historic accord on Tuesday to significantly limit Tehran's nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions. The agreement culminates 20 months of negotiations on a nuclear deal with Iran that President Obama had long sought as the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency. Whether it portends a new relationship between the United States and Iran—after decades of coups, hostage-taking, terrorism, and sanctions—remains a bigger question. President Obama, in an early morning appearance at the White House that was broadcast live in Iran, began what promised to be an arduous effort to sell the deal to Congress and the American public, saying the agreement was 'not built on trust, it is built on verification.' But Mr. Obama made it abundantly clear that he would fight to preserve the deal in its entirety, saying, 'I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.'" Wow.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has released a statement announcing that the Department of Defense will "create a working group to study over the next six months the policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly. Led by (Acting) Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Brad Carson, and composed of military and civilian personnel representing all the military services and the Joint Staff, this working group will report to Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work. At my direction, the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified." Emphasis mine. Right on!
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave her first major economic speech in this election yesterday, and she "dedicated more than 1,000 words to burdens disproportionately carried by women—a rarity in the context of policy addresses from front-running presidential candidates. She called fair pay, flexible scheduling, paid family leave, and earned sick days 'essential to our competitiveness and growth.' ...And she mentioned the disparity that makes all this even tougher for female workers nationwide: American women, on average, make 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Women of color, Clinton added, make even less. The number, compared to white men's earnings, dwindles to 64 cents for black women, the National Women's Law Center reports, and 56 cents for Hispanic women. 'Another key ingredient of strong growth that often goes overlooked and undervalued: Breaking down barriers so more Americans can participate more fully in the workforce, especially women,' she said. 'We are in a global competition and we can't afford to leave talent on the sidelines.'" Boom.
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism] "New York City has agreed to pay $5.9m to the family of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old man who died on Staten Island last July after being placed in an illegal chokehold by a police officer. ...The city's medical examiner ruled the death a homicide but Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who placed Garner in a chokehold during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes, was not indicted." I guess that's something. But no amount of money will ever bring Garner back.
[CN: Sexual assault] Last week, court documents from 2005 were released containing testimony from Bill Cosby in which he admitted obtaining quaaludes with the intent of using them to rape women. "Cosby, 77, made the admission during testimony in a civil case brought by a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, who alleged that Cosby tricked her into taking drugs before he sexually assaulted her. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2006 but the documents in the case were unsealed on Monday after the Associated Press went to court." And yet there are still people defending him. I would say that's unbelievable, but I have been covering the rape culture for too long to regard that as anything but frustratingly, rage-makingly believable.
[CN: Misogynoir] Congratulations to Serena Williams, who won Wimbledon once again: "Williams at 33 became the oldest slam champion of the modern era by beating her excellent opponent, 12 years her junior, 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 23 minutes, thrilling Centre Court with a coronation final that briefly looked like turning into an insurrection. Instead, Williams came through as the holder of all four majors for the first time since she had that honour in 2003, putting her within sight of Steffi Graf's 22 majors, as well as Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24. If she retains the US Open she will have become only the fourth woman to claim a calendar-year grand slam." The coverage of Williams' victory has been appalling, rife with coded and blunt racism and misogyny, and body policing that exists at the intersection of the two. I won't link to any of it, because fuck that. What I will say is that Williams is one of the greatest athletes, if not the greatest athlete, of our time, and anyone who cannot bask with awe at her incredible talent because their gaze is clouded with bigotry is a sad and pathetic person.
[CN: War on agency] Last week, Imani Gandy wrote a terrific piece on the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision: "Anthony Kennedy's Dignity Jurisprudence Is Great for Same-Sex Marriage, But Not for Abortion Rights." Great stuff there.
[CN: Airplane crash] Wow, this is one tough girl: "A US teenager who survived a plane crash in the craggy, thickly forested mountains of north-central Washington state emerged from the wilderness after hiking 'for a couple of days' and was picked up by a motorist who drove her to safety... [T]here was no sign of the aircraft or its occupants until Autumn Veatch, 16, followed a trail to Highway 20, near the east entrance to North Cascades national park. A motorist picked her up on Monday afternoon and drove her 30 miles east to a general store in Mazama, where employees called 911. ...Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said she had been 'walking for a couple of days'. He declined to comment on the status of the other two people who had been on the plane." I'm sorry that it seems as though her step-grandparents perished in the crash.
[CN: Misogyny] Tell 'em, Senator! "Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) spoke out about FIFA's pay inequity on the Senate floor on Monday, putting forth a formal resolution to demand that the international soccer governance board fix the fact that women's World Cup champions earned just $2 million while the men's world cup team winners earned $35 million. The men's USA team was actually eliminated in the second round, and earned $8 million for doing so. He said that the common argument against pay equity in FIFA—disparities in revenue—should be no excuse. 'Revenue should not be and cannot be used for discrimination. …In fact, they ought to ask how many people watched that women's soccer people. Most people would give anything to have that viewership,' he said. Indeed, the women's World Cup final drew a record-breaking 20 million viewers. Leahy continued: 'The 2014 women that took part in the tournament are role models, not just to girls but to men and boys across the world. They should be awarded for their grit, their performance and teamwork rather than devalued for their gender.'" Yes!
Good news for fat fashionistas: "Torrid is now carrying a Size 6, AND is cutting all of their old sizes MUCH larger. ...If you compare the old Size Chart and the new Size Chart side by side every single size measurement has gotten at least one inch bigger! And they're including Size 6 online, which goes up even higher! ...This is GREAT news for those of us that have not been able to buy Torrid's fun clothes in the past. The larger sizing and the new Size 6 are truly extending their size range AND a lot of their clothes seem to come in the new Size 6." Yay!
Wowowowow: "NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface—roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India—making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth." You can view the extraordinary image of Pluto taken by New Horizons here.
Cool: "Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have announced the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark. It was first predicted to exist in the 1960s but, much like the Higgs boson particle before it, the pentaquark eluded science for decades until its detection at the LHC. The discovery, which amounts to a new form of matter, was made by the Hadron Collider's LHCb experiment."
Neat: "A cluster of submerged volcanoes, thought to be about 50 million years old, have been discovered around 250km off the coast of Sydney by a team of Australian scientists who were looking for lobster larvae. ...The four extinct volcanoes in the cluster are calderas, which form after a volcano erupts and the land around them collapses, forming a crater with the largest 1.5km across the rim and it rises 700 metres from the sea floor. ...Australian National University's Richard Arculus, who is a world-leading expert on volcanoes, said these types of volcanoes are windows into the seafloor."
And finally! "Bob the dog is a golden retriever who lives in Brazil and chills with multiple birds and one fat little hamster." Amazing.
Looking For Bernie, Part 1: Sanders '72
[CN:Silencing, gaslighting, rape and abuse, rape culture, white supremacy, racist erasure, white privilege, male privilege. This is the first in a 4 part series.]
At first I thought, "Maybe Bernie Sanders has a woman problem."
It boggled my mind to think it. I'd always heard him spoken of as a liberal lion progressive honey badger, a guy who courageously took on unpopular stances, and simply did not give a fuck about conservative detractors. Go Bernie! Like a lot of people, I knew he was a socialist, and an Independent. From the snippets I'd gotten, he seemed to be a mix of Eugene Debs, and Rosa Luxemburg and Tommy Douglas combined, with a little bit of Alice Paul, Harvey Milk, and A. Phillip Randolph sprinkled in.
I thought I knew him. And what I knew, I liked very much.
["Bernie Sanders-Caricature" by Donkeyhotey is licensed under CC 2.0.]
But then came the release of his 1972 essay from the Vermont Freeman, a strange, free-wheeling reflection on relations between a man and a woman that included references to the man sexually fantasizing about women being abused, a woman sexually fantasizing about being raped, everybody wanting to read articles about the sexual abuse of 14 year olds, and a 13 year old girl with a "sex friend." Whut.
As someone who teaches women's history, I know enough about gender relations in 1972 to take it in context. It wasn't totally atypical of the crap some (but not all) male radicals were writing when it came to sexuality and "the revolution." That didn't make it any less awful, or more feminist. I assumed (from what I—vaguely—knew of Sanders) that he'd acknowledge the hurtful language, explain that he'd changed, and apologize. Problem solved.
I was wrong.
Instead his campaign trumpeted every brogressive excuse in the book. "It's a joke!" (But jokes can be harmful, and intent is not magic.) "It's bad 50 Shades of Gray fiction." (But 50 Shades of Gray glorifies abuse.) Then his fans got in on it. "Sanders has good votes!" (True! Which is why I'd expect him to understand the criticism.) "Don't crucify him!" (Criticism from feminists is not a violent attack.)
Silencing, gaslighting, minimizing. Huh?
Then there was his campaign appropriating #BlackLivesMatter to talk about jobs. Then there was Bernie Sanders whitesplaining not only how POC vote, but also how POC should be voting: "You should not be basing your politics based on your color." Here was Bernie Sanders' former chief of staff and close advisor talking about how Democrats really need to be courting white people. And here were his internet fanboys, on Facebook and twitter and in the comments of articles which ask why Sanders doesn't talk about race and gender, telling us to STFU because Bernie is THE MOST PROGRESSIVE. (Since when is that a productive way to evaluate a candidate?)
I changed my question. Does Sanders have a privilege problem? To find out, I went looking for Bernie.
(If you're not familiar with privilege, and its effects, you'll need to educate yourself before reading the rest. If the term only means economic privilege to you, and you've never heard of [among others] white privilege or Christian privilege or thin privilege, or the places where privilege and oppression intersect, then this essay will be incomprehensible to you.)
I went looking in the history, because that's how I understand things. I started at the beginning and went forward. I didn't want to rely on other bloggers' accounts. So as much as possible, I dug into old newspapers. There aren't any archive-only documents here; everything is online, in one place or another. But as much as possible, I've used news stories and items from the time of the events involved, or close thereafter.
I went looking for the activist and politician. So you're not going to find any irrelevant and intrusive nonsense about his personal life, his partners or other family, who deserve their damn privacy. This isn't a hit piece. But maybe it's a corrective, an attempt to bring some reality to the overinflated claims about his psychic ability to always be right about everything progressives care about in 2015. I wanted to look at his story through the lens of intersectional feminism. From that perspective, it matters, a lot, how candidates talk about marginalized groups; it's not enough to have some good votes in Congress if you're also legitimizing oppression in other ways. I've got some particular questions, especially (but not solely) around race and gender; not everyone is equally interested in those questions, but they are central to the purpose of this space.
I went looking for Bernie. And here is what I found.
The Clown Car Gets Even Clownier!
I can't believe that only one clown hopped in the clown car last week! YOU HAD A REAL OFF-WEEK, YA BOZOS! Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker, who is the worst, announced that he, too, is running for president, bringing the total number of GOP candidates to fifteen.
Are they just pranking us at this point? Is this secretly a goof election?
Anyway. Walker's campaign is already doing GREAT. First his Twitter feed announced his candidacy three days before his official announcement. Whoooooooops!
Then his actual Twitter announcement yesterday was widely met with derision and mockery, because it read: "I'm in. I'm running for president because Americans deserve a leader who will fight and win for them." Posted without a trace of irony, despite the fact that Walker is not known so much for "fighting for" people as much as "fighting against teachers, firefighters, abortion providers, unions, working people, poor people, queer people, hungry children, puppies, butterflies, et. al."
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's entire statement on Walker's announcement was a mere six words: "Scott Walker is a national disgrace."
Yep!
Walker also unveiled his supercool campaign logo, which looks like it straight-up stole its centerpiece from the America's Best logo:
Double whoooooooooooooops!
Meanwhile, his campaign failed to secure all the obvious domain names, so ReadyforWalker.com currently redirects to Planned Parenthood. Hahahahahahaha! Triple whoops and THAT IS AWESOME.
But, seriously, Scott Walker is terrible, a terrible governor with a terrible record full of terrible policies that cause terrible harm to vulnerable people, who believes that he has been chosen by god to run for president as a terrible bigot.
* * *
In other news, Republican former governor of Virginia Jim Gilmore ("Who?" Exactly.) has also announced he will be announcing a presidential run. "Pre-game your pre-announcement announcements with Zima!" And of course Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich has also announced an announcement will be announced.
So, by this time next month, there will be at least seventeen Republican candidates, and I will be relocating my office to a sensory deprivation chamber at the bottom of the sea.
Talk about these dipshits! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Aaaaaaaaand We're Back!
Welcome back, everyone! I had a lovely week away, and, while I get caught up on email and get my bearings again (by which I mean, naturally, review how many millions of Republicans joined the clown car in the last ten days), here are some pictures of my holiday to peruse, if you're curious about what I was getting up to! Back to regularly scheduled programming shortly!
Chilled at the Indiana Dunes!
The Virtual Pub Is Open + Programming Note
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Tomorrow begins a holiday weekend here in the States, and several of the mods, myself included, will be traveling and/or having visitors tomorrow and through next week, so we are taking next week off, starting tonight. Additionally, I've got a personal thing on Monday the 13th, so we'll be back on Tuesday the 14th. See you then!
Primarily Speaking
Welp, Democratic former Senator Jim Webb, who is unapologetically misogynistic and racist, and was most recently heard from defending the Confederate flag, has announced that he is running for president. Presumably as a Democrat, although as CNN [CN: video autoplays at link] notes, "he did not say specifically that he was seeking the Democratic nomination" in his announcement statement.
Which, by the way, is super terrific and you should definitely read it.
It's pretty cool how he's advising bipartisan solutions, just as President Obama's approval rating is rising with his progressive successes. You've really got your finger on the pulse, Webb!
I really dislike this guy and hope he fails miserably!
In other news, Senator Bernie Sanders is making news for raising $15 million in donations and also for [CN: video autoplays at link] drawing a huge crowd in Madison, Wisconsin. Yay for enthusiasm about progressive ideas! But also? As my friend Mary observed on Twitter, he's drawing huge crowds in very white areas. As far as I have been able to discern, with Aphra_Behn's assistance, his campaign staff is very white and male, and he still isn't including a lot of meaningful intersectional analysis in his class-centered rhetoric.
Apart from the fact that it increasingly looks like Sanders' position is essentially a trickle-down social justice narrative—give poor white men what they need and everyone will follow, or be simultaneously helped by coincidence—which is a decency problem, it's also an electability problem. Sanders won't always be running for a Democratic primary. At some point, he needs to show us what his general election campaign would look like. Then again, maybe he already is. Which is why we need to interrogate these issues now.
In other other news, Politico did a profile of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's longtime key aide Huma Abedin, and it is predictably terrible! Here is something that would simply never be written about two male colleagues: "Just a few feet away from Clinton dressed in a classic tweed navy shift, Huma Abedin, 39, moved through the crowd tracking her boss. Abedin, Clinton's longest-serving aide, chatted breezily with acquaintances. But like a mother monitoring her child on the playground, she never let Clinton drift out of her line of sight, ever vigilant and poised to act."
It's simply terrific how "like a mother monitoring her child on the playground" manages to demean both women at once.
On the other side of the aisle, Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker will reportedly announce his entry into the clown car on July 13. Can't wait!
Basically, this means Jeb Bush now has some real competition. Maybe Walker and Bush ("Walker and Bush" sounds like an off-brand whiskey) will split the white racist conservative vote (redundant) and Senator Marco Rubio will sneak through with the win. That'd be fun!
Anyway. I'm sure all the other eleventy-seven candidates are up to all kinds of good things today, too. Congratulations to all of them for continuing to be unmitigatingly horrendo.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
Dear Fellow Fat Person:
You and I both know that fat people can be cruel to each other, sometimes even in ways that thin people aren't cruel to us.
We've spent a lifetime internalizing fat hatred, and some of us get so overwhelmed with directing it at ourselves, that we start directing it at each other, as a futile attempt at self-protection.
You know the things we can do to one another: Playing the Good Fatty, saying things like "at least my fat is proportional," drawing lines between acceptable and unacceptable fatness (thresholds usually drawn just to make sure that we're on the side of "acceptable"), telling each other that "all you need is some confidence," using each other as an excuse to eat something we wouldn't otherwise, cajoing and coercing each other to eat things, not so secretly suspecting that other fat people really eat too much and exercise too little, being not so secretly embarrassed when we see another fat person who fits some fat stereotype, pretending that we are Superior Fatties if we manage to have the financial and emotional wherewithal to locate and purchase the "right" clothes.
And on and on and on.
I just want you know I'm never going to do that to you.
I am never going to look at you and judge you for being fat, or think I know the reason, believing that being fat myself gives me some special insight into other fatties' lives.
I am never going to think my fatness is better than (or worse than) yours.
I am never going to think you should be wearing anything other than what you want to be wearing. And if you are not wearing what you would ideally like to be wearing, I would be happy to go shopping with you! And if shopping is hard, and you need to cry, you can cry with me.
In fact, you can cry with me about anything. I will cry with you and laugh with you and listen to you and share my own stories with you. And I will never, ever, think that you are weak. I know how much strength it takes to be fat in a world that hates us.
I will never hesitate to go anywhere with you, because we're both fat. I will belly right up to a buffet with you, and I will go swimming with you, and I will squeeze into a tight seat on public transportation beside you. I will never be ashamed of your fat, or mine, or ours together in the same place.
I will take up space with you.
I will be your ally, because I want you to live. I don't ever want to make you, or anyone else, feel like they have to make themselves smaller, make their voices quieter, make their lives less than, because they are fat. I want you to live a big fat joyful life, and I want to live one, too.
Not at your expense. Alongside you. There is plenty of room for all of us.
And there is enough fat hatred in this world already without my contributing even more of it.
You, my fellow fat traveler, will never be my target.
And I hope I will never be yours.
With abundance in both body and spirit,
Liss
[Related Reading: Big Fat Love; A Letter About Food and Judgment.]
