[Content Note: Disablism; white supremacy; privilege.]
Republican presidential candidate and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has written a deeply disablist essay for CNN entitled "Trump is a madman who must be stopped." His theory is that Donald Trump is "a shallow, unserious, substance-free, narcissistic egomaniac," a "madman," whose rise has been enabled by the "liberalism and incompetence of the Obama administration" which "have pushed us to the edge of a socialist abyss."
Argues Jindal: "[Trump] not liberal, moderate, or conservative. He's not Republican or Democrat. Donald Trump is for Donald Trump. He believes only in himself. ...Sane conservatives need to stop enabling him. They need to stop praising him, stop being afraid of him, and stop treating him rationally. ...Conservatives need to say what we are thinking: Donald Trump is a madman who must be stopped."
Ah, No True Scotsman. How lovely exhausting to see you again!
Jindal insists that Trump is neither conservative nor Republican, despite the fact that he's running as a Republican, his policy ideas are firmly centered within mainstream conservative policy, and he's leading the polls among conservative voters.
And after setting Trump outside of the Republican party and conservative ideology, Jindal then argues that "conservatives" need to denounce Trump and stop him.
Which means he's setting all of Trump's supporters outside of the Republican party and conservative ideology, too.
So Trump isn't a Republican and isn't conservative, and nor are any of his supporters, even though Trump is the most favored candidate among self-identified Republican and/or conservative voters. Okay.
Bobby Jindal is one of the many Republicans who like to pretend they don't know what happened to their party, as if the rank racism, misogyny, and plethoric other bigotries being bluntly espoused by Trump aren't inherent to their platform.
"Small government, big tent" isn't a real principle. It's a mask to enact policy that enshrines privilege.
Trump simply shows up onstage without the mask.
Jindal and his compatriots accuse Trump of being naught but a ridiculous spectacle. Writes Jindal: "Like a kid in a superhero costume, Trump compares himself to Ronald Reagan, wearing the Gipper's slogan on his forehead as if he just thought of it. But whereas Reagan was a terrible entertainer and a great statesman, Trump is a great entertainer who would be a terrible statesman."
And, sure, Trump is a showman. (And, yes, he would be a terrible statesperson.) But Jindal and all his compatriots pretending to have a case of the vapors over Trump are putting on an even more detestable show.
They know who their base is. They have carefully cultivated that base over decades with fearmongering, scapegoating, and dogwhistling.
They aren't mad that Trump is betraying conservatism. They're mad because he's shameless about reaping the benefits of generationally sewn divisions, exploiting with unfiltered bigotry the seething underbelly of authoritarian conservatism built by the cobbled-together unholy alliance between Big Money and Big Religion, a GOP-led Congress, and a never-ending stream of media mouthpieces willing to demonize anyone who dared to dissent.
Donald Trump has staked out the prime real estate in the grotesque mosaic of avarice, antipathy, incompetence, and corruption that movement conservatism built.
Jindal isn't fearful that Trump is a "madman." That's just a convenient cover for the bitter resentment that Trump has claimed the penthouse in his party's shimmering skyscraper of shit, and slapped a giant gilded TRUMP on the front of it.
Trump, Jindal, and Conservative Real Estate
Everything About This Is Terrible
[Content Note: Islamophobia; police misconduct; carcerality.]
A ninth-grader in Irving, Texas, with an interest and terrific skills in tech and robotics, built a clock to take to school, and was subsequently arrested for building a bomb:
Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday.Let's pause here for a moment to consider that a teacher, only the first of many, thought a clock looked like a bomb. And instead of doing something to protect his student against the possible consequences for carrying something around that a bunch of dipshits would mistake for a bomb, he just told him to put it back in his school bag.
Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed's circuit-stuffed pencil case.
So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it's a clock.
...He loved robotics club in middle school and was searching for a similar niche in his first few weeks of high school.
So he decided to do what he's always done: He built something.
Ahmed's clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.
He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning and didn't get quite the reaction he'd hoped for.
"He was like, 'That's really nice,'" Ahmed said. "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"
So Ahmed put the clock back in his bag, but later his English teacher "complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson. Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward." She told him it looked like a bomb, to which he quite reasonably replied, "It doesn't look like a bomb to me." The teacher kept the clock, and, later that day, Ahmed was pulled out of class by the principal, accompanied by a police officer.
They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: "Yup. That's who I thought it was."So this is the basis on which this kid was terrified and intimidated: Some asshole's perception of what bombs look like based on what he's seen in the movies. Fucking hell.
...The principal threatened to expel him if he didn't make a written statement, he said.
"They were like, 'So you tried to make a bomb?'" Ahmed said.
"I told them no, I was trying to make a clock."
"He said, 'It looks like a movie bomb to me.'"
And, of course, a perception clearly influenced by the fact that this clock resembling "a movie bomb" was built by a Muslim child.
Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, said police spokesman James McLellan. And police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still didn't believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story.They decided that, yes, they do take him into custody—and Ahmed was marched out of school in handcuffs in front of other students.
"We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb," McLellan said. "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation."
Asked what broader explanation the boy could have given, the spokesman explained:
"It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?"
Police led Ahmed out of MacArthur about 3 p.m., his hands cuffed behind him and an officer on each arm. A few students gaped in the halls. He remembers the shocked expression of his student counselor — the one "who knows I'm a good boy."Rage. Seethe. Boil. As a number of people have already observed: It's a real mystery why there aren't more people of color in the STEM fields. Instead of being rewarded for his initiative, creativity, and skill, and delivered on shoulders straight to the nearest science camp, Ahmed was delivered in handcuffs to the yawning maw of the school to prison pipeline.
..."He just wants to invent good things for [human]kind," said Ahmed's father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed.
...Ahmed [was released to his parents and] is sitting home in his bedroom, tinkering with old gears and electrical converters, pronouncing words like "ethnicity" for what sounds like the first time.
He's vowed never to take an invention to school again.
I am so angry and sad that Ahmed was treated this way. I hope he continues his "tinkering," and someday invents a device capable of measuring the profundity of my contempt for the adults who saw danger where there was invention, because of their own despicable prism of prejudice.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Bearpaw01: "What is a problematic thing (or person) you like (and why is it problematic)?"
[Content Note: Misogynist slur] Eddie Izzard. Despite the fact that during one of the many live shows of his I've attended, he did an extended piece about Margaret Thatcher that was essentially just calling her a "cunt" for five minutes. It's one of the very few pieces of his material that I've found problematic, and it certainly never made it into any of his recorded shows. Funny that.
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!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: War; violence; death; images of violence at link.]
"Every morning, at the dawn call to prayer, women and children move silently from the Damascus suburb of Douma to the surrounding farm fields, seeking safety from the day's bombardments by the Syrian government. ...More than 550 people, mostly civilians, have died in the past month in Douma and nearby suburbs, 123 of them children, Red Crescent medics say. August was one of the bloodiest months in the district, with at least 150 trauma injuries being treated each day from Aug. 12 to 31—a number that includes only patients from 13 makeshift clinics that work with Doctors Without Borders."—From a piece by Maher Samaan and Anne Barnard for the New York Times, starkly titled "For Those Who Remain in Syria, Daily Life Is a Nightmare."
This is why the crisis in Europe is not a "migrant crisis," not an "immigrant crisis," not an "illegals crisis," but a refugee crisis.
Primarily Speaking
Presidents have to know how to make the tough decisions.
[Content Note: Incest] GOP front runner and gold toilet aficionado Donald Trump continues to be the grossest candidate in a field of gross candidates. His policies are garbage, his opinions masquerading as truth-telling are filthy bigoted dreck, and everything he says about himself suggests that he is a reprehensible specimen of humanity. To wit: His latest commentary about how he'd totally fuck his daughter, if only she weren't his daughter:
"Yeah, she's really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren't happily married and, ya know, her father..." he said.Note to TPM: A father saying he wants to "date" his daughter is not a compliment.
It's hardly the first time Trump, the Republican Party's 2016 frontrunner, has gone a shade too far complimenting his daughter.
"If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her," Trump cracked in a now-infamous 2006 interview with "The View."
Three years earlier, the billionaire real estate mogul described Ivanka as "6 feet tall" with "the best body" during an appearance on Howard Stern's shock jock radio show.
As you've no doubt heard, Trump, employing his usual strategy against women, went after his fellow Republican candidate Carly Fiorina by attacking her appearance, saying: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!"
To which Fiorina responded this week with this new ad:
Video Description: Text onscreen reads "A Message From Carly." Fiorina's voice, audio from a speech, can be heard saying over images of various women's faces, intercut with footage of her speaking: "Ladies, look at this face. And look at all of your faces. The face of leadership. The face of leadership in our party, the party of women's suffrage. The face of leadership in your communities. In your businesses. In your places of work and worship. Ladies, note to Democrat [sic] Party: We are not a special interest group; we are the majority of the nation. This is the face of a 61-year-old woman—I am proud of every year and every wrinkle!" [cheers and applause]Obviously LOL forever at the incoherence of the injected jab at Democrats in a message clearly directed at Trump, and Fiorina and the Republican Party are still terrible jokes, but I love her reclaiming the "look at this face" in the best way.
In other news, Dr. Ben Carson is still firmly in second place and I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING. Neither does Jeb Bush. I bet he thought his biggest challenge was going to be Marco Rubio and not the total upending of his party into even a bigger nightmare than it was before!
On the other side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton is up to her usual NEFARIOUS MACHIAVELLIAN SHENANIGANS by "flooding the Internet" with old pictures of herself in a bid to make herself more "relatable." SCARE QUOTES ON RELATABLE ORIGINAL!!! She really IS the devil!
Senator Bernie Sanders yelled at a Fox News interviewer who ambushed him in the halls of Congress. Good for him. Every Democrat should treat Fox News interviewers with nothing but contempt.
That said, Sanders is getting (deserved, in my opinion) kudos for this exchange, but I hope he recognizes (haha he doesn't!) that it's enormous privilege that allows him to behave like that and be praised for it, in the same week that his opponent Hillary Clinton is obliged to promise to be nicer to the media.
Vice President Joe Biden is still trying to decide whether to run, and part of that calculation is whether he'll get funding, because AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, so he's meeting with bundlers. "Secretly." Haha.
Presumably, Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb are still running for president.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
TV Corner: So You Think You Can Dance
[Content Note: Spoiler for the finale of So You Think You Can Dance.]
Last night was the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and it was a two-hour extravaganza of mostly performances we'd seen before, many of which were worth seeing again and some of which I had already totally forgotten!
Since I missed a couple of weeks, I'm going to instead post this tap routine that was performed last week by the eventual winner, Team Stage's resident tapper Gaby (yay, Gaby!), because this number was AMAAAAAZING.
Video Description: Gaby, a young Latina female tap dancer, and all-star Zack, a young white male tap dancer, perform a tap routine choreographed by Anthony Morigerato and set to "Dibidy Bop (Swing Mix)" by Club Des Belugas featuring Brenda Boykin. What is remarkable about this routine is that a portion of it is performed atop six boxes equally spaced apart onstage.
I also really loved the opening routine of last night's finale, featuring the Top 18 plus the all-stars:
Video Description: The Top 18 and the 10 all-stars, a diverse group of young women and men, perform a jazz routine choreographed by Nick Florez and RJ Durell and set to "Archangel" by Two Steps from Hell.
Check out Jasmine in the sequence from 1:00-1:15. Fucking hell, she is just a stunning dancer. (Tell me I'm not the only person who will actually watch those damn deodorant commercials just because she's in them!)
Anyway. I thought overall it was a pretty great season, even though more than usual of the choreography was a little lackluster, and I still don't really understand the point of the whole Stage vs. Street set-up.
I'm pretty much thrilled with any season in which it comes down a final four where I'd be happy no matter who won, and, although Gaby was my fave, I would have been happy had Jaja, Virgil, or Hailee won, too.
What did you think?
Daily Dose of Cute
"Hey! What's going on down there?"
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: Refugee crisis] Fucking hell: "Hundreds of [refugees] are stranded at the Serbia-Hungary border after the Hungarian government closed the frontier with a new razor-wire fence. The move aims to stop [refugees] who are trying to enter the EU. After new Hungarian laws came into effect overnight, police sealed a railway crossing point that had been used by tens of thousands of [refugees]. Some have been searching for a way through the fence, while others threw down food and water in protest. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has suggested his country is planning to build a fence to keep [refugees] out along part of its border with Romania—a fellow EU member—to prevent the bypassing of the current frontier. The EU is facing a huge influx of [refugees], many fleeing conflict and poverty in countries including Syria, where a civil war has been raging since 2011." Which is why they are refugees, not "migrants."
[CN: Wildfires; death] Damn: "The deadly and destructive wildfire that sped through three Northern California counties has grown to 104 square miles Tuesday, and fire officials say the toll of property loss has climbed to at least 585 homes and other structures destroyed. At least four firefighters have been injured. One woman died in her home, and several other people remain unaccounted for on Tuesday morning. For a third morning, people are waking up at evacuation centers, some still wondering if their homes are standing or leveled by the massive fire burning in parts of rural Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties, about 100 miles north of San Francisco."
[CN: Guns; death; self-harm; domestic violence] These sorts of shootings are becoming so commonplace that they barely make a blip in the national US news anymore: "A manhunt for a university professor accused of killing a colleague in Mississippi has ended after the suspect killed himself as police closed in. Geography professor Shannon Lamb is suspected of shooting Ethan Schmidt, a history teacher at Delta State University, in the town of Cleveland. Lamb had told police on Monday that he was 'not going to jail.' Police also linked Lamb, 45, to the fatal shooting of a woman 300 miles away earlier that day. Amy Prentiss, 41, was found shot dead at the home she shared with Mr Lamb in Gautier, Mississippi, in the early hours. Police said they had not determined a motive for the killings." I'd like to think something like this would disabuse gun advocates of the notion that arming professors is a good or effective idea, but of course it won't.
[CN: Transmisogynist violence; death; descriptions of violence] Rage seethe boil: "A man responsible for the 2012 beating of a Dallas transgender woman who died from her injuries is set to receive probation and no jail sentence. A spokesperson for the Dallas County District Attorney's Office has confirmed to the Observer that Jonathan Stuart Kenney, 29, is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to first-degree felony aggravated assault. Under a plea bargain, Kenney will be sentenced to 10 years probation for the death of his then-partner, Janette Tovar." Tovar's family is trying to get answers from the DA, who is stonewalling attempts to hold them accountable for this mess.
[CN: Hazing; death; descriptions of violence] Good lord: "Five fraternity members from Manhattan's Baruch College will be charged with murder and 32 others face criminal charges for their involvement in the December 2013 hazing death of 19-year-old Chun 'Michael' Deng in the Poconos. Deng, who was one of four new pledges accompanying members of Pi Delta Psi at a rented house for an annual weekend retreat, sustained severe brain trauma during an outdoor hazing ritual known as the 'glass ceiling.' ...Pi Delta Psi fraternity members did not call 911 after Deng passed out, and allegedly waited hours before bringing him to a hospital some 30 miles away. They did, however, find time to Google Deng's symptoms and contact national fraternity brothers to seek advice."
[CN: Privilege] Oh boy: "Liberty is a deeply conservative Christian school with a long history of championing right-wing religious leaders and Republican candidates. Sanders is a Jewish man and self-proclaimed democratic socialist who has repeatedly distanced himself from organized religion, describing himself as 'not particularly religious.' Yet when the 74-year-old senator took to the podium to address several thousand Liberty students, he launched into a speech that focused not on these clear differences, but on shared values. ...Sanders voiced a surprisingly deep appreciation for the larger moral goals of faith—even the school's famously conservative brand of Christianity. 'You are a school which…tries to understand the meaning of morality,' Sanders said. 'You are a school which tries to teach its students how to behave with decency and with honesty and how you can best relate to your fellow human beings. And I applaud you for trying to achieve those goals.'" Wow.
Neat! "Scientists have taken a step forward when it comes to creating hydrogen as fuel. They've created a highly efficient catalyst that could ease the way to a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is usually produced by separating water with electrical power. While the water supply is essentially limitless, though, a major roadblock to a future 'hydrogen economy' is the need for platinum or other expensive noble metals in the water-splitting devices. Noble metals resist oxidation and include many of the precious metals, such as gold. Now, though, researchers have developed a hydrogen-making catalyst containing phosphorus and sulfur, which are both common elements. It also contains cobalt, which is a metal that's 1,000 times cheaper than platinum. ...[T]he new catalyst is almost as efficient as platinum and likely shows the highest catalytic performance among the non-noble metal catalysts reported so far."
[CN: Privilege; splaining] Matt Damon, what are you even doing? "When [producer Effie Brown, a black woman] tried to advocate for the directorial team of her choice, a woman and a recent emigrant from Vietnam, Damon interrupted her and shot her down with a problematic argument—that casting could make up for a lack of minorities behind the scenes." Damon is the father of four little girls of color. That he feels it's okay to interrupt, speak over, and splain at a woman of color is really upsetting.
[CN: Video autoplays at link] This is a really amazing video of a rangoli artist making a peacock design, with just powder and her hands and some simple tools. Extraordinary.
[CN: Animal injury] And finally! A biker on a cross-country road trip rescued a burned kitten and nursed him back to health along the trip, where "Party Cat" traveled tucked inside his rescuer's vest. "Pat and Party Cat finished their journey when they arrived back at Pat's home in New Jersey. Metro reports that Party Cat has a forever home with Pat and has been given a clean bill of health by the vet." Aww. (The pictures at the link are terrific!)
Um
[Content Note: Privilege; oppression.]
This is not surprising, but is certainly very infuriating:
People concerned about liberal political correctness on college campuses have a powerful ally: President Obama.There's nothing I can say about the idea that trigger warnings, or the exclusion of certain triggering material, is "coddling" students, readers, or whomever that I haven't already said a dozen times before.
...[The President gave] his opinion about what's been called the "new political correctness" on college campuses:
It's not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren't listening to the other side, and that's a problem too. I've heard some college campuses where they don't want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don't want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don't agree with that either. I don't agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with 'em. But you shouldn't silence them by saying, "You can't come because I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say." That's not the way we learn either.The word Obama chose is telling. The idea that college students are demanding to be "coddled" comes up frequently in debates about how much colleges should accommodate requests from students for trigger warnings on syllabuses, for example, or how they should respond to criticisms of graduation speakers or even comedy shows. A recent Atlantic article on the phenomenon was headlined "The Coddling of the American Mind."
Relatedly, I loathe this idea that refusing to engage with people who hold a viewpoint that essentially or explicitly subverts one's humanity is asking to be "coddled." Asking to be safe in a learning or working environment is not the same thing as asking to be "coddled," and drawing a boundary around ideas and/or people with whom one engages is not being "too sensitive."
There is literally no "opinion" on my humanity, my autonomy, my agency, my body that I haven't heard a million times, and I don't feel obliged to listen to every jackass who wants to tell me that I am less than in order to demonstrate my own tolerance.
I couldn't be "protected from different points of view" about my humanity, my autonomy, my agency, my body no matter how hard I tried, because there is pervasive messaging in every aspect of the culture in which I live that conveys to me that people do not think I am fully human because I am a woman, because I want control of my reproduction, because I am fat, because I am a person with a disability. And any person from any marginalized population is in the same damn boat. We can't escape these "different points of view" even if we want.
None of us are required to engage with every oppressor in order to sufficiently prove that we aren't "too sensitive."
Refusing to engage is a response. Drawing a boundary is a response. And a legitimate one.
And it is hardly the stuff of meekness and weakness. It isn't what I write about in this space for which I receive the most vicious, aggressive, tenacious pushback. It's the stuff that I refuse to tolerate in my space. Nothing, but nothing, results in more harassment than drawing boundaries.
I know what's going to happen when I say "no." And I do it anyway.
That isn't evidence of being too sensitive and brittle and coddled to engage. That's evidence of the fact that I have engaged enough, and I'm not interested in that sort of engagement anymore.
Drawing a line is an act of strength, not weakness.
I Write Letters: DC Comics Edition, Part Wev
[CN: descriptions of public sexual harassment, rape culture, workplace sexism]
To: The Dudes In Charge at DC Comics
From: Aphra Behn Associate Professor of Historical Ladybusiness
Re: Are you fucking kidding me
Hey dudes. I just had a chance to read comic book writer Alex de Campi's post about Wonder Woman, her work on Sensation Comics, and the way things are at DC these days.
1. So ya canceled Sensation Comics. It's not like it was an innovative book that won critical praise or anything! It was obviously a terrible idea to give creators the freedom to tell stories about the Amazing Amazon in any of her incarnations. And what were you thinking giving Wondy fans a great alternative to your frankly anti-feminist New 52 incarnation of the character (you know--the one where the Amazons are murderous rapists and Diana just another by-blow of Zeus?)
2. Annnd you're also shutting down the special projects office because some dude has his knickers in a knot?
Sensation is edited in a special projects/digital office, an office which is sadly under-utilized in the internal turf wars of DC and faces shutdown/restructuring as a senior male staff member finds it unnecessary… despite the plaudits its books (including Sensation) have achieved.
I'm sure this is a brilliant move, somewhere on the infinite earths. Just not this one!
3. Annnnd also you've put Wonder Woman under the Superman office, an office which employs NO WOMEN. Yes, this bodes super(!) well for the future of the original feminist comic book character.
4. Annnnnnnnnd ALSO also the reason that office has no women in it is because you're coddling multiple SEXUAL HARASSERS?
The reason, I’ve been told by several people who work or used to work at DC, is because one of the most senior editors is a sexual harasser with multiple incidents on his HR file. I don’t use “alleged” here because at least one incident (grabbing a woman’s breasts) happened publicly at a corporate social gathering with multiple witnesses. There was also something about sticking his tongue down an artist’s girlfriend’s throat when the artist was in the bathroom. Again, public gathering.So let's review: you're shutting down the office that's provided the only glimmers of a feminist-friendly Wonder Woman comic, because some dudes don't see the point, and you're putting the main title under the supervision of a goddamn sexual harasser who has chased all the women out of his office?It is not known to me whether the no-chicks-in-Supes-office diktat is the preference of the harasser, or whether it’s the HR department crossing its fingers and hoping to Jesus they don’t get hit with a liability lawsuit so big it’s visible from space. This guy was kept in the move to Burbank despite his record – allegedly because he has blackmail on one of DC’s most senior staff members.
And so I repeat the subject line: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Di Campi is brave as hell to write this piece, considering she's pretty much guaranteed to be blackballed by DC (and possibly Marvel, which she calls out as well) for her honesty. Shakers, I encourage you to read the whole thing. Because this, so this:
Diversity isn’t a fad senior management can get away with giving lip-service to. You can’t celebrate black culture and not employ black people. You can’t hold up female heroes while coddling male harassers. WE SEE YOU.
We see you, indeed.
P.S. Also, DC guys? If you're really having such a problem hiring women in senior management, my offer is still open.
Hahahahahahaha
[Content Note: Privilege.]
This is a real Vanity Fair headline in the world: "Why Late-Night Television Is Better than Ever."
And this is the picture that accompanies the article, of the current crop of late night television hosts that are making late night television better than ever:
From left to right: White man Stephen Colbert, white man Conan O'Brien, black man Trevor Noah, white man James Corden, white man Jimmy Kimmel, white man John Oliver, white man Seth Meyers, black man Larry Wilmore, white man Jimmy Fallon, and white man Bill Maher.
BETTER THAN EVER!
Aside from Trevor Noah's new Daily Show, I have watched multiple episodes of each of these shows, and, with the exception of John Oliver, who is better that the rest but by no means is putting on a safe show, they are rife with the same old tired bullshit as always: Fat jokes, rape jokes, oppressive humor of every stripe (often under the guise of "irony").
Less "better than ever" than "same as it ever was."
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker catvoncat: "Describe and/or post [a] picture[s] of your workspace. '"Workspace' can be defined however you like. It could be your space at a paid or volunteer job, or a home office, your kitchen, garage, garden, craft room, local library, coffee shop, your own sofa, whatever says 'workspace' to you."
This is my workspace:
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by tissues, so many tissues.
Recommended Reading:
Ragen: [Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing] The Loving Our Body Lie
Lilian-Ann: [CN: White supremacy] For Black Girls Who Considered Esmeralda Black When Cinderella Wasn't Enuf: The Importance of Race-Bending Fan-Art
Andy: [CN: Homophobia] The 'First Amendment Defense Act' Is the Vilest 'Religious Freedom' Bill of Our Time
Jenn: [CN: Islamophobic violence; images and descriptions of violence at link] Sikh American Man Beaten Days Before Anniversary of 9/11
Kenrya: [CN: Misogynoir; police brutality; images and description of violence at link] Natasha McKenna in Jail Before Police Custody Death, Officers Not Charged
José: [CN: Racism] Trump's Bête Noire: Citizenship of Us-Born Children of the Undocumented
Patrick: [CN: Disablism] What Research Says Happiness Really Is
Chris: [CN: Enlarged image of microscopic bug at link] Why You Should Never Make Your Bed
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophs, snuggling me very professionally.
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: Homophobia] Kentucky county clerk and aggressive bigot Kim Davis is still all over the news. Now she's saying she "will not block the process but her name will not appear on the paperwork." I have nothing new to say about her that I haven't said already: She is a bigot hiding behind religion, and if she doesn't want to do her job, then she can fucking quit. Asshole.
In other news: Alice "Nonie" Dubes and Vivian Boyack, married last year after 72 years together, are celebrating their first wedding anniversary. Aww.
[CN: Refugee crisis] Fuck: "EU governments are expected to back radical new plans for the internment of 'irregular migrants,' the creation of large new refugee camps in Italy and Greece and longer-term aims for the funding and building of refugee camps outside the EU to try to stop people coming to Europe. A crunch meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels, called to grapple with Europe's largest refugee crisis since the second world war, was also expected to water down demands from the European commission, strongly supported by Germany, for the obligatory sharing of refugees across at least 22 countries. ...A four-page draft statement, prepared on Monday morning by EU ambassadors before the ministers met...said 'reception facilities will be organised so as to temporarily accommodate people' in Greece and Italy while they are identified, registered, and finger-printed. Their asylum claims are to be processed quickly and those who fail are to be deported promptly."
[CN: Rape culture; victim-blaming; hostility to sex workers] Mary Mitchell has written a column for the Chicago Sun-Times in which she argues that a case in which a sex worker was raped at gunpoint by a man who hired her is "making a mockery of rape victims" because "it's actually more like theft of services" and "minimizes the act of rape." It's a comprehensively reprehensible argument, and as a survivor of rape, I have to say that I categorically do not feel as though acknowledging that sex workers can be and are raped minimizes rape nor mocks victims, but I sure as hell do feel that Mitchell's column does both.
[CN: Misogyny] Here's just a real headline in the world: "In church address, Hillary Clinton pledges to be nicer to the media." Jesus Jones. Meanwhile, the media pledges to keep being utterly unfair and totally misogynistic toward Hillary Clinton.
[CN: Privilege] Today is the day that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at Liberty University, about which I wrote last month, noting: "Sanders doesn't have to weigh the cost of speaking at a university that is explicitly anti-feminist, or explicitly anti-gay, or has a Civil War 'mourning room' that contains among its decorations a cross made from the hair of dead Confederate soldiers. (No, I'm not joking.) He doesn't have to worry about sacrificing his dignity and checking his humanity at the door the way his fellow candidate Hillary Clinton would, or our current sitting president Barack Obama would." And he continues to elide social justice issues in favor of his "unifying" approach via class inequality: "Sanders says the 'massive injustice' of income and wealth inequality should unite people across the political spectrum. He's making that point to thousands of evangelical college students who usually support Republicans. The Democratic presidential candidate is speaking Monday at Liberty University." Sigh.
[CN: Sexuality policing; video may autoplay at link] Tom Hardy doesn't have any interest in participating in discussions of sexuality that are really unwinnable games that put people in the position of being accused of lying, denying, distancing, or upholding their own privilege. So his answer is "Are you asking about my sexuality? Why? Thank you."
In other critical Tom Hardy news: "Tom Hardy Regrets Nothing About His Sexy MySpace Profile Photos." NOR SHOULD HE!
And finally! "Couple Has 5 Cats and 2 Dogs That All Love to Sleep in Bed So They Made an 11-Foot Mega Bed." Obviously.
