[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Alfonso Ribeiro: "Not Too Young (To Fall In Love)"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by singles by '80s pin-up boys.
As you might have noticed, there was QUITE THE TREND of '80s pin-up boys who released singles that were NiceGuyTM anthems at best, and, at worst, straight-up rape culture tropes set to music.
It always disturbs the hell out of me when I listen to the music of my youth and think about how these gross lyrics were put into/coming out of the mouths of the boys over whom (lots of) girls were swooning. And, of course, nothing has changed.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by laundry.
Recommended Reading:
Samhita: [Content Note: Microaggressions] Stop Complaining about 'Victimhood Culture'
Aishah: [CN: Reproductive coercion; rape culture; racism] #ShoutYourAbortion: The Ethics of Reproduction
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred] Jeopardy Category: What Is Fat Shaming?
Andy: EastEnders Casts Trans Actor to Play Trans Character in First for British Soaps
Kenrya: Ava DuVernay on Race and Why Hollywood Won't Let Directors of Color be Great
Jessica: Uhh: Massachusetts Police Department Spreads Breast Cancer Awareness with Pink Handcuffs
CAP: New HHS Rules Require Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Collection in Electronic Health Records Program
(Although the headline of that last piece sounds ominous, this is actually a good thing, since many electronic health records currently don't allow healthcare providers to identify patients as trans, which can have negative health consequences for trans people.)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Domestic violence; descriptions of violence at link.]
"The minute you put pressure on someone's neck, you are really announcing that you are a killer."—Gael Strack, "a former domestic violence prosecutor in California who is now one of the nation's leading strangulation experts," and who, in 2001, led a groundbreaking study on strangulation cases, finding not only that "the criminal justice system didn't really have a way to appropriately prosecute strangulations," but also that strangulation "is one of the best predictors of a future homicide in domestic violence cases."
Strack has since "been crisscrossing the country teaching police and prosecutors how to investigate and prosecute strangulation in the absence of visible injuries, and lobbying states to pass felony strangulation laws."
The family of Monica Weber-Jeter, whose case is detailed at the link, have launched an important petition advocating making non-fatal strangulation a felony in her home state of Ohio. You can sign that petition here.
That strangulation is such a common precursor of homicide in domestic violence cases is such a crucial thing for law enforcement to understand, and for all the rest of us to understand, too.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley was just sitting on the couch beside me with his tongue hanging out, staring into space, and I said, "Hey, Dudley!" and then snapped this picture when he looked at me, lol. Such a doofus.
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...
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is to be awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011." Okay! I don't know enough about that to have any insightful commentary about it! Except that it's definitely been a mixed bag for women. (Isn't it always?)
[Content Note: War] Welp: "The US is to end its efforts to train new Syrian rebel forces and says it will shift to providing equipment and weapons to existing forces. Its $500m programme was heavily criticised after it emerged that US-trained rebels had handed vehicles and ammunition over to extremists. It emerged last month that only four or five of the fighters were in Syria. The Pentagon says help will now be provided to 'a select group of vetted leaders and their units.'" Um, why wasn't help being provided to a select group of vetted leaders in the first place?
OMFG: "This Document Reveals Why the House of Representatives Is in Complete Chaos." Spoiler Alert: It's because they are indecent assholes who want to wage class warfare instead of actually doing anything to help vulnerable people in this country!
Here's another terrific headline, care of the WaPo, on the same subject: "The GOP sinks deeper into chaos. Can it still function as a party?" Terrific party you've got there!
[CN: War on agency] Meanwhile: "The U.S. House voted Wednesday to create a select committee to investigate abortion practices and fetal tissue donation, a move that Democrats say is a politically motivated attack on Planned Parenthood." Priorities! The GOP has definitely got them!
[CN: Holocaust reference; guns] Good grief, this fucking guy: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has waded deeper into a row over gun control by claiming that Jewish people in Nazi Germany might have been able to prevent the Holocaust if they had been armed. ...'I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed … I'm telling you that there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first.'" I don't even know where to begin with this mess.
[CN: Carcerality; deportation] Hillary Clinton was met by a protest yesterday while she was "presenting an award to chef Jose Andres at the annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala in Washington... Holding up a sign that read 'Hillary for immigrants in prisons,' Juan Carlos Ramos of the advocacy organization United We Dream Action stood near the stage, yelling at Clinton as she spoke over him. Ramos was protesting Clinton accepting donations from corporations that run private prisons. ...'It is time to drop the prison money and stand with our community—you can't have it both ways.'" Good point!
We keep asking the entertainment industry for original material about women, so this is welcome news, although the premise doesn't sound great: "Wendy Davis made national headlines in 2013 for filibustering anti-abortion legislation in the Texas Senate. Now the former Democratic state senator is poised for more national attention as the inspiration for a dramedy series in development at NBC. Written by Jennifer Cecil, the untitled project centers on a female Democratic senator who, after losing the Texas governor's race, gets her world turned upside down. In the vein of The Good Wife, while she pieces her pride back together, she goes to work in the law firm of her best friend—a black male Republican—and discovers that with no political future to protect, she can unshackle her inner badass."
[CN: Racism] John Boyega, who stars in the upcoming Star Wars film, continues to deliver awesome pushback to racist trolls: "I'm in the movie, what are you going to do about it?" I really wish he didn't have to navigate this shit at all, but his responses have been so great.
[CN: Video autoplays at link] And finally! Here is just a mesmerizing video of a boxer and emu running in circles around a tree together. The cutest friends!
Here We Go Again
[Content Note: Anti-feminist tropes.]
Following her comments that she is not a feminist, but "a humanist," Meryl Streep was asked again during a BBC interview if she considers herself a feminist, and this was her response:
I'm a mother, you know? And I am the mother of a son and I'm married to a man. I love men. And it's not what feminism has meant historically, it's what it has come to mean to young women that makes them feel it alienates them from the people that they love in their lives. That disturbs me. I'm – of course, of course – but the actions of my life prove who I am, what I am, what I do, where you put your money, where you put your mouth, so I live by these principles.This, during an interview where she was talking about pay disparity between female and male actors. UGHHHHHH.
Listen, if Meryl Streep doesn't want to identify as feminist, that's her choice, and I have no inclination to police it. There are a lot of women who support gender equality but don't call themselves feminists for thoughtful, valid reasons. But I do take issue when someone says they don't identify as feminist because they love men.
Which invokes the ancient, tiresome, discrediting narrative of feminists as "man-haters."
Not easily trusting men, or being routinely disappointed by men, is not the same thing as "hating" men. No many how many anti-feminists insist otherwise.
I don't want to speak for any other feminists, whose individual relationships with men might look very different from mine, but I don't not love men. I love men who deserve my love by treating me (and other women) with respect and making themselves trustworthy. That I have standards for men, regarding how they treat women, doesn't mean I hate men.
To the contrary, I give men the gift of high expectations and extend the kindness that is recognizing men are a product of their socialization in a patriarchal system, too.
I've shared this story before (with Iain's permission), and it is relevant yet again: Once upon a time, I suggested to Iain that something he was doing (which was pissing me off) stemmed from a latent sexist notion that it was his prerogative as The Man to do this specific thing, which is not an accusation I wield carelessly or often; I have little reason to, since Iain is rationally egalitarian—and viscerally egalitarian for the most part, too. Anyway, we talked it out, and Iain was generously honest, saying that, yeah, that was the reason he was doing it and, wow, he hadn't realized it, but, shit, that feeling was totally there, ick. No hard feelings; it's not like I've never been called out for deeply internalized bullshit. We move forward with a new understanding.
It took a long time to get there, though, and at one point, Iain had said, "You know, if you weren't a feminist, this probably wouldn't even bother you."
I replied, "No, if I weren't a feminist, it would still bother me, but instead of acknowledging that you're an indoctrinated member of a patriarchy just like I am, I'd just think you were being a lousy shithead."
He chewed on that for a moment, and then said, "Fuck."
That was the first time Iain really understood how my feminism was benefiting him—that feminism doesn't make me see problems that aren't there, but provides the tools which allow me to analyze and prescribe solutions based on a context larger than my immediate experience. And existent outside the narrowly-drawn borders of constrictive stereotyping that cast men as simultaneously brutish and infantile.
Implicit in my feminism is not only the belief, but the expectation, that men are not biologically determined to whatever cruelty they may show, by action or indifference, but instead our equals just as much as we are theirs, capable not only of understanding feminism (and feminists), but of actively and rigorously engaging challenges to their socialization, too.
Feminists, of course, have the terrible reputation, but it isn't we who consider all men babies, dopes, dogs, and potential rapists. The holders of those views are the women and men who root for the patriarchy—which itself, after all, takes a rather unpleasantly dim view of most people.
Streep is concerned that feminism alienates young women "from the people that they love in their lives," and insomuch as feminism has empowered me to draw boundaries with people who refuse to respect my autonomy, agency, consent, and equal womanhood, that may seem true. Except those people always have the choice to respect those boundaries and make themselves trustworthy and safe. It isn't feminism that isolates me from people I love; it is their disinterest in feminist tenets.
On the other hand, agreement around basic intersectional feminist tenets has drawn me closer to many of the people I love in my life. Especially women. My female friendships built around a feminist framework are some of the most important, rewarding relationships I have or ever will have.
And my relationships with feminist men are hell and gone better than any relationship I've ever had with a man who wasn't feminist, no matter how much I might have loved him, or love him still.
(Which is not to say that feminism as practiced does not also have the capacity to be divisive. Of course it does. Just ask any trans feminist who has been targeted by TERFs, or any woman of color who has been urged to "unity" with white feminists. But that, naturally, is not the concern of anyone accusing feminism of causing disharmony with men.)
Finally: I will just observe, for those deeply concerned about the nefarious effects of feminism on beloved men, that there are lots of men in this world who are marginalized via bigotries that have their roots in misogyny. Gay men, bi men, trans men, intersex men, and other men who are devalued by the toxic masculinity on the basis of transgressive sexuality and/or gender—all of them benefit from feminist challenges to the reductive definitions of masculinity imposed on men by a patriarchy that devalues men who don't conform to its limited spectrum of acceptable manhood.
My feminism, a feminism that challenges the patriarchal hierarchy that diminishes those men as well as women, is an act of love for those men.
To call me a man-hater is to invisibilize them.
Naturally, I would expect nothing less from the patriarchy and its reflexive defenders.
I'm quite certain there are feminists who would describe themselves as man-haters, and I wouldn't presume to tell them they were wrong. But man-hating is not a prerequisite of feminism, and I refuse to pretend that it is.
It's not because I give the tiniest, infinitesimal fuck about being called a misandrist monster by patriarchal trolls. Those gnats aren't worth mustering a defensiveness I don't even feel. It's because I want men to know that I haven't written them off, but instead have expectations that they will treat me with respect and dignity.
And if any man fails to meet those basic human expectations, and finds himself at the blunt end of my ire, then he needs to know it isn't because I hate "men." It's because I hate him.
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Conservative politics.]
Dear Donald Trump: Why are you even running for president? That's rhetorical, of course. I know that merely being a multibillionaire and star of your own reality TV show has lost its capacity to satiate your voraciously needy ego, but you do realize that if you are elected president, you'd actually have to work, right? You couldn't rely on your father's coattails or ghost writers or underpaid production assistants to get shit done. The fact that you don't have a single discernible concrete policy proposal suggests to me you are not keen on the sort of work the US presidency demands. Maybe you should just wrap it up, take your unfathomably high poll numbers home with you, declare some sort of pyrrhic victory over the other dipshits in the clown car, and go take a nap. Regards, Liss.
Dear Dr. Ben Carson: Why are you even running for president? You don't have a single iota of legislative experience, executive experience, domestic police experience, foreign policy experience, or even any observable political acumen. I'm sure somewhere in these great United States of ours, there is a person who could be a successful president under the grim circumstance of a cavernous void of qualifications, but you, sir, are not that person. Time to wrap it up. Regards, Liss.
Dear Jeb Bush: Why are you even running for president? I understand it's a family tradition, but your family is terrible and its tradition of obtaining the presidency to start wars in Iraq is the worst. You also don't seem very competent or trustworthy or decent. Which I realize aren't prerequisites for Republican candidates, but you also don't seem very good at politics. Please drop out to spend more time with your awful family. Regards, Liss.
Dear Chris Christie: Why are you even running for president? You are a bully, and the global community does not need more bullies. It needs more diplomats, and you're about as diplomatic as a cranky two-year-old being denied a toy at the grocery check-out. Every aspect of the presidency requires personality traits you comprehensively lack. You're constitutionally unqualified to be president, and you don't even seem to care, which is just another reason you should never be elected and should never have run in the first place. Reexamine your life. Regards, Liss.
Dear Rand Paul: Why are you even running for president? Are you even running for president? Nobody cares. Including, seemingly, you. Give it a rest. Give us all a rest. Regards, Liss.
Dear Carly Fiorina: Why are you even running for president? Your only asserted qualification is having been a corporate CEO, and you were a colossal failure at that. Why should anyone vote for you? Because you're not Hillary Clinton, as you incessantly remind us? Well, neither am I. That doesn't make me qualified to be president. It doesn't make you qualified to be president, either. Regards, Liss.
Dear Ted Cruz: Why are you even running for president? You appear to be significantly more interested in being a grandstanding obstructionist nightmare in Congress and being the master of ceremonies for the cyclopean shitshow that is the Republican caucus. And you're really good at it. So why don't you just stay there and be a big fish in a mephitic cesspool instead of even pretending you have the skills and fortitude to run a country? Regards, Liss.
Dear George Pataki: Why are you even running for president? Nobody even knows you're running! And anybody who does know you're running doesn't care! Hardly anyone even knows who the fuck you are! At best, your name will ping some dusty memory of a guy who was maybe a governor once? Or a game show host? Or a stand-up comic in the 1950s? Why would you even think that you would be competitive, no less that you could win?! What are you even doing?! Regards, Liss.
Dear Mike Huckabee: Why are you even running for president? This isn't a theocracy. You are not running to be head pastor of the mega-est megachurch. Literally nothing about your ideology or vision is appropriate for a multicultural nation. I'm no professor of career advising, but it seems like you're better suited to sit at home reading your Bible during commercial breaks on Fox News and shouting disgruntled complaints about how the world refuses to conform itself to your will while your wife rolls her eyes in the kitchen. Look into that. Regards, Liss.
Dear Marco Rubio: Why are you even running for president? You have failed utterly to distinguish yourself as a leader in any way at all. The most remarkable thing about you is that you once drank a bottle of water on air in an awkward way. That isn't really a presidential qualification. It's honestly not even a qualification for being a bottled water spokesman. I'm sure there's a nice lobbying job that would be perfect for you. Update your résumé and go find your dream sinecure! Regards, Liss.
Dear Bobby Jindal: Why are you even running for president? The only reason that you aren't remembered for giving the worst State of the Union rebuttal ever given is because Marco Rubio awkwardly drank a bottle of water during his. You were upstaged by someone awkwardly drinking water! That's how incapable of leaving a significant impression you are. You will never win. Regards, Liss.
Dear Lindsay Graham: Why are you even running for president? You are so terrible, and yet you and I both know that you are too moderate (!!!) for the Republican base because you've actually conceded the possibility that undocumented immigrants might be human beings. In case you haven't noticed, Donald Trump is leading polls of your prospective voters by running on the exact opposite position. Your base, it turns out, is way more terrible than you are. Game over. Regards, Liss.
Dear John Kasich: Why are you even running for president? You have the decency of rabid weasel and all the charisma of a dead slug. And your politics are virtually indistinguishable from all these other assholes. You're not even original in your abject garbage politics. You're a jerk and a bore. Half this country might vote for jerks, but they won't vote for jerks who are also bores. Tough luck, loser. Regards, Liss.
Dear Rick Santorum: Why are you even running for president? You had a short tenure as a US Senator a million years ago, and, other than that, you're pretty much just famous for being a dirtbag. That isn't a qualification for the presidency, pal. You don't have what it takes. Do you really not know that? You should know that. Regards, Liss.
Dear Jim Gilmore: Who? Regards, Liss.
Campus Shooting in Arizona
[Content Note: Guns; shooting; death.]
A gunman opened fire on the Flagstaff campus of Northern Arizona University last night, killing one person and injuring three more. The shooter is reportedly in custody. No additional information is known at this time. A press conference is expected this morning, and I'll update this post as more details are made available.
It is the 47th school shooting this year in the US.
My condolences the families, friends, colleagues and/or classmates of the victims. I hope those who were injured have access to the resources they need to heal. My thoughts to members of the school community. Fucking hell. I'm so sorry.
UPDATE 1: Police have identified the shooter as an 18-year-old man named Steven Jones. During a press conference, NAU police chief Greg Fowler said the shooting started after "several of our students, two separate student groups got into a confrontation." There is no information yet on what led to the altercation.
Question of the Day
If you had to eat the same thing for lunch every day for the rest of your life (and maybe you already do!), what would you pick?
Throwback Thursdays
We haven't done a Throwback Thursday for more than a year (!) but I was going through old pix and found this terrific photo of when I was a 62-year-old fifth grader:
Me, in 1985. Lordy begordy. LOL.
[Please share your own throwback pix in comments. Just make sure the pix are just of you and/or you have consent to post from other living people in the pic. And please note that they don't have to be pictures from childhood, especially since childhood pix might be difficult for people who come from abusive backgrounds or have transitioned or lots of other reasons. It can be a picture from last week, if that's what works for you. And of course no one should feel obliged to share a picture at all! Only if it's fun!]
Recommended Reading
[Content Note: Gentrification; class warfare; white supremacy.]
Here are two things I just happened to read back-to-back:
Max Holleran: "How Gentrifiers Gentrify."
The process of forming a neighborhood elite in Boston's South End happened, according to Tissot, not always through the often-colorful world of the city's democratic politics but through voluntary associations that, despite being private, wielded considerable power—interior design or park conservation is not just a hobby.Ester Bloom: "When Neighborhoods Gentrify, Why Aren't Their Public Schools Improving?"
...Through such benign-sounding activities as philanthropy, historic preservation, and serving on committees for parks and liquor licenses, gentrifiers solidified their position in the community and began to erase the cultural presence of those who preceded them.
...Newcomers—armed with more time, education, connections, and "cultural authority"—professionalized the community groups they joined in ways that discouraged broad participation while extolling the virtues of involvement. Under the banner of community improvement and civic-mindedness, gentrifiers were able to concentrate on issues they found important, often over the objections of long-term residents. These issues included: opposing "high density" housing (understood here as a euphemism for public housing, but also for apartment buildings in areas where single-family homes are the norm), more space for dogs, quality-of-life crackdowns on noise and public drinking, and more support for the carefully supervised renovation of Victorian homes.
Because newcomers tend to send their kids outside of the local system, often to private or charter schools, gentrification tends to have a neutral or even negative effect on neighborhood schools, at least in the short term.Gentrification is, despite the best of intentions, ahem, basically just colonialism on a neighborhood scale.
...[M]any if not most urban institutions are "left to flounder," remaining segregated, low-quality "Apartheid schools," even while gentrification changes other aspects of the neighborhoods around them.
We Have to Talk About This. Now.
[Content Note: Guns; terrorism; toxic masculinity; rape culture; threats of violence and self-harm.]
Marc Lépine. Seung-Hui Cho. George Sodini. Anders Behring Breivik. Jaylen Fryburg. This guy. All these guys. Mark Dorch. Elliot Rodger. Ben Moynihan. Dean Sutcliffe. Christopher Harper-Mercer.
This kid:
An Idaho school was placed on lockdown after a student threatened to "kill all the girls" because none of them would send him nude photos.When I talk about the culture of violent entitlement, that is exactly the kind of shit I mean. This 15-year-old kid felt entitled to nude pictures of his female classmates, and, when none of them would comply, he decided to threaten to kill them. And his threats were explicit: He posted on both Facebook and Twitter that he "intended to bring a gun to school and kill all the girl students, and shared detailed plans for how he would enter the school and eventually kill himself in the weight room."
And it wasn't just any girls:
"Some kid who was having attention problems with specifically the cheerleaders, didn't get nudes," said student Isaac Gomez. "He was asking for some inappropriate things.""Specifically the cheerleaders." I wrote in comments only two days ago:
A whole other aspect of this that no one talks about openly is: It's not just that the Beta Boys want girlfriends—they want kyriarchy-approved girlfriends who conform as closely as possible to the Beauty Standard.This kid didn't just want nude pictures of any old female classmate; he wanted nude pictures of a cheerleader. There is a reason for that. He feels entitled to the most highly-valued female bodies, in order to demonstrate his masculinity. The only other option? Mass murder.
Like, if I offered to be the girlfriend of one of these human nightmares (never in a million years), they'd tell me I was a disgusting fat pig and GTFO.
It's not that they want a girlfriend. They want a female trophy to prove they're valuable men who are winning the Man Race.
So all the implicit and overt suggestions that misogynist mass shooters could have been "tamed" and their violence prevented if only they'd had a girlfriend utterly misses the point. They don't want to be "tamed." They want a female-bodied possession to make themselves feel superior to other men, and to assure themselves that they have value as men.
The revenge plot was reported by a friend/classmate with whom the rageful plotter was texting:
"This," the friend texted, "Over freaking nudes? Dude."Anyone with an internet connection can access nude pictures these days. But just being able to gaze at naked female bodies wasn't enough. He needed a desired girl within his social sphere to give pictures to him, to personally provide them, so that his feelings of ownership over her would be satisfied. And he felt so entitled to this outrageous expectation that his response to not getting what he feels he deserves from the female people from whom he wants it is to kill them all.
"Because no one will give any to me," the teen complained. "Every one hates me. And I hate (one particular girl). And I will kill myself after."
The boy's friend appears to take the threat seriously, particularly after he says he hopes classmates have wills in place.
"We're kids," the friend says. "Nothing valuable. Except our lives so leave us alone."
Is now when we can start having a serious conversation about toxic masculinity and the culture of violent entitlement? How many more girls and women need to die before we treat with the gravity it deserves the epidemic of men with guns and a grievance against women rooted in ancient patriarchal narratives about men's entitlement to women's bodies?
*crickets*
GOOD GRIEF
So, Republican California Representative Kevin McCarthy has been outgoing Speaker John Boehner's presumed successor since he was ousted for not being conservative enough. But today, he abruptly took himself out of the race, citing criticism over comments he made during "an interview on Fox News last week that the House committee investigating Benghazi had the political aim of damaging Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign." Whooooooops!
But that's only part of the reason, and probably not even the main one. McCarthy just isn't conservative enough for lots of House Republicans, either: "A group of about 40 hard-line House conservatives announced Wednesday night that they would support Representative Daniel Webster of Florida, making it unclear whether Mr. McCarthy, who is from California, could assemble the 218 votes on the floor that he would need to be elected later this month."
Webster, as you may recall, is the guy who is affiliated with the Institute in Basic Life Principles.
Now the Republican caucus is scrambling to figure out who is that perfect balance of barely palatable to reasonable human beings and sufficiently nightmarish to satisfy rightwing extremists to unite their party.
Along with Webster, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz is also in the running. He's the jackass who made an embarrassing spectacle of himself grilling Cecile Richards last week.
So they've got some real hot candidates to consider!
Meanwhile: "Mr. McCarthy's decision put the House of Representatives into a state of disarray just days from the first and most serious of a series of fiscal deadlines." Which, if nothing else, will keep them for the foreseeable future too busy actually playing politics to the detriment of the country to mendaciously accuse any Democrats of playing politics for trying to help the country.
Daily Dose of Cute
Good luck to you sorting out this ridiculous leg puzzle!
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: Transphobia] This is just making me all kinds of happy right now: After the students at Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri, elected Landon Patterson, a trans girl, their homecoming queen, the epic fuckheads of the Westboro Baptist Church decided they would protest homecoming. But, instead, they were met with the students protesting them, shouting "Long live the queen!" in support of Patterson. The Westboro folks got back in their cars and scurried away. Kids today! Get ON my lawn!
Hillary Clinton does not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying she is "worried 'about currency manipulation not being part of the agreement' and that 'pharmaceutical companies may have gotten more benefits and patients fewer. ...As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it.'" Welp!
[CN: Guns] The good news: "Senate Democrats will begin a campaign to combat gun violence on Thursday as party leaders prepare to unveil a sweeping package of legislation that builds on their failed 2013 attempt to require universal background checks for gun purchases... In addition to background checks, Democrats are aiming to add new money for the Justice Department's existing background checks system that has recently faltered and include provisions to prevent domestic abusers from buying guns." The bad news: "The proposal is not likely to get a vote under the reign of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but Democrats say the package is intended to show that Democrats are serious about reducing gun deaths but can't make headway in a Republican Senate." Sigh.
[CN: Death] I totally agree with Digby on this Joe Biden ad. In general, I don't feel good about the way Biden is using his son's death to (potentially) launch his campaign, especially when I read stuff like this: "Before that moment and since, Biden has told the Beau story to others. Sometimes details change—the setting, the exact words." And within the context of Biden having a history of dishonesty. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
[CN: War; bombing; death] "President Obama personally apologized on Wednesday to the head of Doctors Without Borders for what he described as the mistaken bombing of its field hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, promising a full investigation into the episode, which took the lives of nearly two dozen doctors and patients. But five days after an American AC-130 gunship devastated the medical facility, Mr. Obama's personal expression of regret in a telephone call from the Oval Office appeared to do little to satisfy the leader of the doctors group, who issued a terse statement saying the president's apology had been 'received.'" What was she supposed to say? An apology is the bare minimum of decency, and it doesn't change what happened.
[CN: Rape culture] The fucking opening paragraphs of this WaPo article on an Indiana fraternity rape hazing ritual: "As a video circulated online Wednesday showing what appeared to be a sexual hazing ritual at an Indiana University fraternity, some who saw it shrugged. Others thought it was funny, tweeting 'LOL' and 'LMAO.' Some, however, thought it was rape.' Two sides to every story! Maybe it was rape, or maybe it was totes hilar! JFC.
[CN: Fat hatred; disablism; self-harm] A new study has found that "patients who have bariatric surgery to aid in weight loss are more likely than they were before the operation to attempt suicide or end up in the hospital after doing harm to themselves. As complications of weight-loss surgery go, the hazard was rare. A Canadian study that tracked 8,815 bariatric surgery patients found that in their three post-surgical years, just 1.3% of those patients landed in the hospital following a self-harm emergency, which included intentional drug overdoses or suicide attempts by other means. But that rate of self-injurious behavior represented a 54% increase over that seen in the same patient population during the three years before these patients had surgery." But trust this: Bariatric surgeries will continue, because the people who do them often believe that people are better off dead than fat.
[CN: Slut-shaming; white supremacy] This is a great piece by Zeba Blay on why "Reclaiming the Word 'Slut' Is an Entirely Different Beast for Black Women."
[CN: Carcerality] And this is a great piece by Cristina Costantini and Kristofer Ríos on the Brownsville Youth Court, a diversion court in Brooklyn that "hears low-level cases for first-time offenders between 10 and 18," and is run entirely by teenagers. "The Brownsville program is one of more than 1,000 youth court diversion programs across the country that aim to keep first-time offenders out of the court system."
This kid is amazing: Quvenzhané Wallis has "signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster that'll have her publish four books in just over a year. She's set to release a three-part Judy Moody–inspired series that follows third-grader Shai Williams, another young 'star in the making who has a flair for the dramatic...both onstage and off.' The first book will be published January 2017, with the next two installments coming fall 2017 and summer 2018. In addition to that series, she'll also release a picture book that's loosely based on Wallis's life in the spotlight about a 'spunky young heroine who is very much looking forward to a night out with her mom at an awards show.'" Adorbz!
Wow: "Student and YouTube star Jamie Raines, 21, was about to turn 18 when he first started taking testosterone [to begin physically transitioning]... He decided to document his transition by taking a selfie every day." Think of Jamie Raines the next time you hear some sanctimonious asshat pontificating about how selfies are narcissistic.
And finally! "Dog blames his dog housemate for creating a mess in the most hilarious way possible." OMG LOLOLOL!
Rage. Seethe. Boil.
[Content Note: Domestic violence; revictimization; disablism.]
It continues to be a real fucking mystery why women are reluctant to report assault and abuse:
[Seminole County, Florida, Judge Jerri Collins] sent [a female domestic violence survivor] to jail for refusing a court order to appear during the trial of her abuser. According to WFTV, she also had the option of fining the woman or ordering her to perform community service for failing to respond to the subpoena.As I have said before, I genuinely understand why people want to compel victims to testify, but tasking them with the responsibility for preventing men who abused them from harming anyone else is victim-blaming garbage. The responsibility is on abusers to stop abusing, and if they can't be held accountable for previous abuse by law enforcement and/or the courts without the participation of a survivor who does not want to participate, then that's just tough shit.
The unidentified man, who is the father of the victim's 1-year-old son, was accused of choking her and grabbing a kitchen knife. The woman says in courtroom footage that she refused to attend the trial because she was dealing with depression.
"Why didn't you show up to court?" Collins asks.
"I'm just, my anxiety, and I'm just –" the woman replies.
"You think you're going to have anxiety now?" Collins says. "You haven't even seen anxiety. We had a jury — six people there — ready to try [the abuser], who has a prior criminal history of domestic violence."
Collins later asks the woman whether her statements to police following the man's arrest in April were true. The woman says that they were, then explains, "I'm trying to move on with my life," saying she was living with her parents and had sold all of her possessions because she was not able to receive child support. Her abuser, she said, lost his job after being sentenced to 16 days in jail on charges of simple battery.
"I'm just not in a good place right now," the woman says while audibly holding back tears.
"And violating your court order did not do anything for you," the judge responds. "I find you in contempt of court. I hereby sentence you to three days in the county jail."
The victim can be heard crying as bailiffs approach. Collins then orders her to turn around in order to be handcuffed.
Inevitably, when I offer this opinion, I get pushback along the lines of: But don't you want violence against women to stop? Yes, yes I do. But forcing survivors to participate in prosecutions against their wills is revictimization and potentially a profound secondary trauma. That doesn't break the cycle of abuse so much as add a state-sanctioned form of abuse to it.
Further, if we're really concerned about preventing future assaults, then we have to foremostly make it safe for multiple survivors to report—and publicly revictimizing one survivor in this way stands to discourage multiple victims from reporting. That is bigger than even this one abuser.
I will never stop finding it utterly contemptible that, across the nation, police departments and prosecutors systematically refuse to cooperate with victims, but will arrest victims for refusing to cooperate with them. Fuck. That.
Wowwwwwwwwwwww
The other night, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed the Courante from Bach's "Cello Suite No. 2," and Misty Copeland, who earlier this year became the first African-American ballerina to be named principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, danced a piece choreographed by Marcelo Gomes. And it was extraordinary.
I wish I knew the ballet terminology in order to transcribe the dance, but I don't. Imagine if the most beautiful butterfly and the most beautiful horse merged into the most beautiful pegasus, and then a human woman did an impersonation of that pegasus dancing to the most gloriously played cello. That's pretty much what it looks like.
[H/T to Shaker aforalpha, you saw it at Angry Asian Man.]
