Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Guns; death] I just read these two stories back-to-back: "Suspected gunman at Philly college in custody" and "11-year-old 'bully' murdered 8-year-old neighbor with a shotgun after dispute over puppy: police." For fuck's sake. Is there any point at which the right not to be murdered by a shitlord with a gun and a grievance trumps the right to bear arms?
[CN: Disablism; regionalism] The rest of the world thinks USians are ignorant lunatics for not changing our gun laws and instead allowing these mass shootings to happen at a rate unseen elsewhere. Which, you know, isn't really helping. Especially the shit about how the fault lies with "middle America." (Doesn't it always?) The US is certainly not a monolith when it comes to how we feel about guns, and it would be better if people outside the country allied themselves with those of us who are trying to put pressure on legislators to enact gun reform. It would be helpful if you identified yourselves as supporters of gun reformers, rather than suggesting the entire country is full of gun-crazed bumpkins.
Here are some ways that you can help South Carolinians affected by devastating floods. (I wouldn't recommended all of them, so please always do your own vetting re: charitable giving.) Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave suggestions for other ways to help in comments.
[CN: Image of insects] This is how fire ants are surviving the flooding, which is a pretty interesting nature story in the middle of a terrible disaster, but also kind of a moving metaphor for how humans survive such disasters. At least to me.
[CN: War; bombing; death] Amy Davidson has "Five Questions About the Bombing of a Hospital in Kunduz." Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman notes that "the US account of the Saturday morning airstrike [has shifted] for the fourth time in as many days." One constant is that is was just a big mistake: "Campbell instead said the hospital was 'mistakenly struck' by US forces." That is woefully insufficient.
[CN: Homophobia; racism] I don't even know: "Alabama judges are using a Jim Crow-era law to avoid issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That law, passed in 1961, makes the issuance of marriage licenses optional rather than mandatory." What I do know is that Imani Gandy is a champion for wading through this stuff.
[CN: Racism] In case you weren't aware, Donald Trump not only says heinous racist things about immigrants and refugees, but also says heinous racist things about Native Americans.
[CN: Privacy violations] Welp: "The personal data of Europeans held in America by online tech corporations is not safe from US government snooping, the European court of justice has ruled, in a landmark verdict that hits Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others. The Luxembourg-based court declared the EU-US 'safe harbour' rules regulating firms' retention of Europeans' data in the US to be invalid, throwing a spoke into trade relations that will also impact on current negotiations on a far-reaching transatlantic trade pact between Washington and Brussels. The ECJ, whose findings are binding on all EU member states, ruled on Tuesday that: 'The United States … scheme enables interference, by United States public authorities, with the fundamental rights of persons…'"
Are you a huge fan of McDonald's breakfast? Then you will probably be excited to hear that McDonald's [moving gif at link] is now serving breakfast all day. Or maybe not! If part of the reason you liked it was its pre-10:30am exclusivity!
Mad Max director says there will be at least two more installments. Yay! But will they be as good as the first one? I bet not! But I hope I'm wrong! Will one of them be a Furiosa film? I wish! And I say that as a human being who is physically incapable of wanting to see more Tom Hardy than I already do! But MORE FURIOSA PLZ!
And finally! A chihuahua mama who was mourning her stillborn pup adopts (with the help of her guardians and a pet rescue) some newborn kittens without a mama. Blub. ♥
by Bina Shah, a writer and columnist living in Karachi, Pakistan. She blogs at Bina Shah and can be found on Twitter @binashah.
[Content Note: This post contains discussion of violence against women and girls. Below the fold, there is an image of a woman with injuries from domestic violence. She publicly posted those images to raise awareness and challenge the stigma of surviving abuse.]
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity; violent misogyny; disablism.]
Today, I read this AP headline [video may autoplay at link]: "In Writings, Ore. Gunman Ranted about Having No Girlfriend." And I thought: I'm glad at least one mainstream media outlet is finally going to dig into the toxic masculinity underwriting this shooting. But of course that did not happen.
It's instead all about how Christopher Harper-Mercer was "crazy." The sum total of commentary regarding the entitled toxic masculinity that underwrote his violent rage consists of: "The gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college said in writings he left behind that everyone else was 'crazy' and ranted about not having a girlfriend" and "Harper-Mercer complained in writings about not having a girlfriend, and he seemed to feel like he was very rational while others around him were not."
That's it. There is not even the most cursory connection drawn between Harper-Mercer's actions and the culture of male entitlement that has underwritten other recent mass shootings. There's not even a mention of Elliot Rodger. Or Ben Moynihan. Or Marc Lépine. Or Seung-Hui Cho. Or George Sodini. Or Anders Behring Breivik. Or Jaylen Fryburg. Or Mark Dorch. Which is not even the complete list of misogynist mass killers.
The media refuses to connect these dots. And the women who do are called man-hating hysterics, despite the fact that many of these men, like Christopher Harper-Mercer, participate in a public culture of violent misogyny in which entitled men blame women's failure to fuck them for their woes and for their dysfunction and for their abusive behavior.
Even when a media outlet obliquely, or overly, references the "beta uprising"—the nomenclature for which is rooted in this bullshit about how (desirable) women will only fuck "alpha males," and thus "beta males," who often identify as "unwilling virgins," are denied sex service to which they believe men are entitled—they fail to connect that dot to all the other dots.
This, from [video may autoplay at link] a USA Today article, for example: "Investigators say the gunman appeared to be involved in a loosely-affiliated online community known as the 'beta boys' that glorifies mass shootings, similar to the Oregon attack, the official said."
Yes, it's true that the "beta boys" community "glorifies mass shootings," but the reason they glorify them, which is right in their fucking name, is because so many men who commit mass violence share their vision of male entitlement and their vengeful frustration that women don't fuck them on demand.
Connect. The goddamn. Dots.
And this, from the New York Times:
The gunman who killed nine people on a college campus set out on his rampage armed with six guns, a flak jacket and enough ammunition to do far more damage — an angry, isolated young man whose rage was fueled by animus toward religion and resentment at how his life was unfolding, law enforcement officials said Friday.It's interesting, ahem, how routinely "he didn't have a girlfriend" is treated as synonymous with "no women were fucking him, and he felt entitled to women fucking him, and so that enraged him."
..."He didn't have a girlfriend, and he was upset about that," said a senior law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "He comes across thinking of himself as a loser. He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him."
[Content Note: Military aggression.]
Hey, remember when Russia launched airstrikes in Syria last week? Well, over the weekend, Russia's fighter jets violated Turkish airspace during its air campaign, and Turkey is not happy about it.
Russia's violation of Turkish airspace over the weekend "does not look like an accident", Nato has said.The incursions into Turkish airspace, combined with the fact that Russia's airstrikes are clearly targeting the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including rebel groups backed by the US, is creating a very dangerous situation.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had not provided "any real explanation" of the violation, which "lasted for a long time."
Russia says Saturday's incursion was brief and due to bad weather. It is examining claims of another violation.
Turkey's army also says an unidentified fighter jet locked its radar onto eight of its jets on Monday.
...Turkey's government has been enraged by these Russian incursions - and by Moscow's military intervention in Syria as a whole.
First, any violation of Turkish airspace could lead to the object being shot down, which would dramatically escalate events. Second, there could be a mid-air collision close to Turkey's borders, as this is the first time since World War Two that Russian and American combat planes have been in the skies over Syria. But third, Russia's air strikes are the final nail in the coffin for Turkey's "buffer zone" idea in northern Syria.
...Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that "an attack on Turkey means an attack on Nato".
"Our positive relationship with Russia is known. But if Russia loses a friend like Turkey, with whom it has been co-operating on many issues, it will lose a lot, and it should know that," he said.
Mr Stoltenberg called the Russian violation "unacceptable", saying Nato was taking it "very seriously" and warning that "incidents, accidents, may create dangerous situations".
...The head of Nato also said Russia's deployment in Syria was of "great concern", and he called on Moscow to avoid further escalating tensions with Nato.
Suggested by Shaker Drazil: "If you had a virtually unlimited budget for a public education campaign, what would you want to educate the public about?"
This blogaround brought to you by horseshoes.
Recommended Reading:
Soraya: [Content Note: Discussion of mass shootings; toxic masculinity; violent misogyny] Mass Killings in the US: Masculinity, Masculinity, Masculinity
Mannion: They Make the Rules
Ashleigh: [CN: Sexual violence; abortion stigma] #ShoutYourAbortion: I've Had Two Abortions and I Don't Regret Either of Them
Bianca: [CN: Carcerality; prison abuses] Working Toward Abolition…
Cat: [CN: Fat hatred] On Promoting Obesity
Jenn: A True American Revolutionary: Rest in Power, Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
[Content Note: Discussion of guns and gun violence.]
President Obama grimly recounted the routine following every mass shooting that happens, with increasing frequency, in the US: "The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this. ...And what's become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: We need more guns, they'll argue. Fewer gun safety laws. ...And, of course, what's also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue."
This is another part of that routine: In days following the shooting, there is routine paranoia that President Obama, or "Democrats," or "liberals," or "the government," is going to "take away our guns," and then there is the routine uptick in the purchase of guns and ammo—and the routine accompanying surge in stock prices for gun makers.
Renewed calls for tougher gun control laws sent gun stocks surging on Monday as investors expected an increase in gun sales. By Monday afternoon, the value of Smith & Wesson's shares went up by 7.5% and Sturm, Ruger & Co increased by 3%.People who make guns are making a handsome profit from the fear generated by even the mere suggestion of tighter gun regulation, which only happens in the wake of yet another man using a gun to kill people. Gun makers have become murder profiteers.
...Monday's rally in gun stocks came hours after Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and the Democratic candidate for the president, unveiled a plan calling for tougher background checks at gun shows and online than those currently in place.
...In the years since Obama took office, gun makers have had some of their most profitable years. Last year, Smith & Wesson sales hit a record high of $626m, up 6.7% from $587.5m in 2013. Sturm, Ruger sales reached their record high in 2013.
And as I have mentioned before, my oldest brother is a gun collector. He is a regular at the gun shows, buying and selling, but even he talks about a sense of unease at those shows as people engage in what can only be described as panic buying and ammunition hoarding.Panicked gun-buying is the action of very privileged people who have never been obliged to sit with fear.
These people are afraid. They are afraid of a time conservative media and the gun industry has convinced them is coming when sales of weapons, particularly some types of weapons, will be restricted or forbidden. They are afraid of growing populations of people they don't trust. Some are even afraid that a time will come when they will have to defend themselves against the government itself.
Unfortunately this fear is winning, as many Americans think crime is up, even though it's down. This fear is winning as massacres, and the gun violence discussions that follow, don't lead to fewer gun sales, but more.
[Content Note: Disablism.]
"It seems like hardly a week passes without some pearl-clutching thinkpiece bemoaning how social media is destroying meaningful human interaction. People are looking at their screens instead of making eye contact. We aren't using our mouths to talk to each other. Instead of telling each other how we feel in detail, we click the 'like' button to express approval. We sit next to each other in cafes and don't look up. This phenomenon has been described as the end of intimacy. However, it's the exact opposite. As an Autistic person, I've never felt more understood or free."—Sara Luterman, in a great piece: "Screen Backlash Is a Disability Issue."
I don't doubt that, for some people, technology undermines intimacy. But those people aren't everyone. For other people, technology enhances intimacy. And for lots of us, it totally depends on the situation. Technology can inhibit intimacy in one context, and facilitate it in another.
"The thing is," writes Luterman, "when [people who oppose the use of screens] look at a café and see people using their phones, there is no way to distinguish between the people who use phones as disability aids and people who just happen to find speaking through social media a perfectly adequate or even preferable mode of communication."
There's no way to tell what someone is using hir phone to do, or why.
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Flooding; death] So awful: "A 'once-in-a-millennium' downpour has flooded large parts of South Carolina, causing at least seven deaths. The storm had dumped more than 18 inches (45 cm) of rain in parts of central South Carolina by early Sunday. The state climatologist forecast another 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm) through Monday as the rainfall began to slacken. The state's governor, Nikki Haley, said parts of the state were hit with rainfall that would be expected to occur once in 1,000 years, with the Congaree river running at its highest level since 1936. 'This is the worst flooding in the low country [the region around the South Carolina coast] for a thousand years, that's how big this is,' Haley told a news conference." My condolences to those who have lost loved ones, including pets, and to those who are facing rebuilding after such massive flooding.
[CN: War; death] In Afghanistan, a US airstrike "inadvertently" hit a Doctors Without Borders medical facility in Kunduz. The airstrike "killed 22 people, including 12 staff members, and destroyed the intensive care unit." Doctors Without Borders "was one of the last providers of medical services there," and now they are leaving Kunduz. US Army General John Campbell is promising to "acknowledge" errors, "if" they were committed, but also says that air support was called in by Afghan forces. So, yeah. Doctors Without Borders has called this "mistake" a war crime, and I sure can't say I disagree. This is too vast a fuckup to blame the fog of war. I am so angry and upset about this.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal: "I am disappointed but not surprised by the decision to move forward on the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that will hurt consumers and cost American jobs. Wall Street and other big corporations have won again. It is time for the rest of us to stop letting multinational corporations rig the system to pad their profits at our expense. ...In the Senate, I will do all that I can to defeat this agreement. We need trade policies that benefit American workers and consumers, not just CEOs of large multi-national corporations." GOOD. And thank you!
Vice President Joe Biden will reportedly make a decision about jumping into the presidential race this weekend or shortly thereafter. If he does jump in, people who are looking to him to be a great alternative to Hillary Clinton's corporatism and hawkishness are going to be sorely disappointed, I'm afraid. Unless, of course, that's just a bullshit cover for their misogyny. But hahahaha surely no one would do that in a post-feminist America! *thisface*
[CN: Guns; disablism] Here are more details on Hillary Clinton's gun reform proposals. I like all of it (aside from the requisite bullshit about people with mental illness), but this is the part I really like a whole lot: "Clinton, a longtime and staunch advocate for stricter gun laws, also embraced proposals to prevent domestic abusers...from acquiring firearms." YES.
[CN: Guns] Donald Trump, meanwhile, says there isn't much we can do to prevent mass shootings because "no matter what you do you will have problems and that's the way the world goes," and mass shootings are inevitable because the people who do them are "geniuses in a certain way. They are going to be able to break the system." This fucking guy.
[CN: Misogyny] In other Trump news, he defends his incessant insulting of women with this word salad: "I find that women fully get it. They understand me and they understand life and they're very sophisticated; they're very strong and they're great." Whut. Take it away, Kaiser: "What is there to 'get'? Does he really think that women watch him bully, insult and mock other women (for their appearances!) and those women think, 'Oh, I know what he's trying to say, I understand him'? We do understand him. We understand that he's an unrepentant misogynist." BOOM.
[CN: Transmisogyny; body policing; harassment] Courtney Demone is a privileged trans woman at the beginning of her physical transition, and is leveraging what privilege she has (including what she identifies as her fading cis male privilege) to do an incredibly brave thing: "So at what point in my breast development do I need to start covering my nipples? I already feel shameful about them being visible, but at what point does society say it's unacceptable for them to be out? To give me some idea, I have my good friends Facebook and Instagram to help answer that question. ...In the coming months, I'll be posting topless photos of myself on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms using the hashtag #DoIHaveBoobsNow until those networks decide that my breasts have developed enough to be sexualized and worthy of censorship. (If they change their policies in the meantime, even better!)" Wow. There's so much more at the link, and I encourage you to read the whole thing.
[CN: Homophobia] "Following the Kim Davis debacle, another Kentucky county clerk has announced that she will only issue marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Along with Casey County Clerk Casey Davis, Whitley County Clerk Kay Schwartz stopped issuing marriage licenses because of her religious opposition to same-sex marriage." Do. Your. Jobs. Or. Fuck. Off.
[CN: Video autoplays at link] This video has been around awhile, but I only saw it for the first time this weekend, and IT IS PERFECTION. "90 Year Old Woman Does Double Backflip."
And finally! Pumpkin the Rescued Raccoon Makes Herself at Home. Too fucking cute! (But seriously: Taking wild babies to wildlife rescue is the best idea, y'all!)
[Content Note: Send-up of misogynist tropes.]
Hillary Clinton appeared on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, as part of a long tradition of presidential candidates stopping by the show to strut their comedy stuff (or not, as the case may be). Clinton held her own, by politician standards, and was better than most.
Before anyone gets bent out of shape, let me just say plainly that if Bernie Sanders appears on SNL, I will cover that, too! Clinton just happened to be first. And if Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, or Jim Webb appears on SNL, I will probably not cover that because who cares! Sorry, Martin O'Malley! Not sorry, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb!
Anyway! Here's the sketch:
I remain deeply dubious about what this will mean for US workers, but the Trans Pacific Partnership deal has been reached:
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday agreed to the largest regional trade accord in history, a potentially precedent-setting model for global commerce and worker standards that would tie together 40 percent of the world's economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia.I fear the worst, and hope for the best. Because I don't know what else to do, frankly.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership still faces months of debate in Congress and will inject a new flash point into both parties' presidential contests.
But the accord — a product of nearly eight years of negotiations, including five days of round-the-clock sessions here — is a potentially legacy-making achievement for President Obama, and the capstone for his foreign policy "pivot" toward closer relations with fast-growing eastern Asia, after years of American preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa.
...The Pacific accord would phase out thousands of import tariffs as well as other barriers to international trade. It also would establish uniform rules on corporations' intellectual property, open the Internet even in communist Vietnam, and crack down on wildlife trafficking and environmental abuses.
...Its full 30-chapter text will not be available for perhaps a month, but labor unions, environmentalists, and liberal activists are poised to argue that the agreement favors big business over workers and environmental protection.
[Content Note: Guns; death.]
The nine people who were killed by the shooter last week at Umpqua Community College in Oregon have been publicly identified: Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; Lucas Eibel, 18; Jason Dale Johnson, 34; Professor Lawrence Levine, 67; and Sarena Dawn Moore, 44.
At the link, you will also find their pictures and brief bios.
My sincerest condolences to their family, friends, coworkers and/or classmates, and community.
* * *
Now, of course, is not the time to politicize this tragedy, says anyone who wants to silence criticism of gun access in the United States, which is a politicization of its own. Whether one argues for tighter gun laws, or argues against even having that debate, it's a political position. Because guns are political objects in this country.
Our President argued passionately that this is, in fact, the time to get political:
Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this.Emphasis mine.
...And what's become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: We need more guns, they'll argue. Fewer gun safety laws.
...And, of course, what's also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. I would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward -- have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who've been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who've been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports. This won't be information coming from me; it will be coming from you. We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities. We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn't make sense.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday began detailing new proposals aimed at closing gun sale loopholes and holding accountable those who sell guns for violence committed with those weapons.Clinton's plan will reportedly include support for:
...Clinton appeared viscerally frustrated as she spoke after Thursday's shooting at Umpqua Community College, in which authorities say a student killed nine people before turning one of several guns he had with him on himself. "What is wrong with us, that we cannot stand up to the NRA and the gun lobby, and the gun manufacturers they represent?" Clinton said Friday at Broward College in Davie, Florida. "We don't just need to pray for these people. We need to act."
