Hosted by a pademelon and her joey. [Image via.]
Question of the Day
What is something you never noticed about yourself until someone else pointed it out to you?
Many years ago, a friend observed that when I drop something, or spot something on the street in need of picking up (like a $5 bill, which was the thing that prompted this observation), I point at it before I reach over and pick it up.
Twenty-five years later, I still catch myself doing it!
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe light effect in this video.]
Chumbawamba: "Tubthumping"
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!
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by slippers.
Recommended Reading:
Andrea: [Content Note: Sexual violence; transphobia] HERO Opponents Serious About Bigotry, Not Preventing Rape
Mia: How to Tell the Difference Between Real Solidarity and 'Ally Theater'
Diana: [CN: Medical malfeasance] Essure Contraceptive Controversy: Who Do You Believe?
TLC: [CN: Transphobia] California Civil Rights Coalition Prepared for Battle Following Houston LGBT Vote
Shena: [CN: Racism; misogyny] Indigenous Youth Assert Their Human Rights in Mexico
Sameer: [CN: Racial slurs] Study: More Than 1,000 Places in the US Still Have Racist Names
D'Arcy: How Serena Williams Ran Down a Man Who Dared to Swipe Her Phone
Germain: Amazing New Star Wars Posters Give Us Heroes, Villains, and Our Best Look at Leia
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Queer- and transphobia; Christian Supremacy; violence.]
"Voters in Houston showed values still matter, and they were clear in their opposition to Proposition 1. I applaud the community leaders and pastors in Houston for organizing a strong effort to defeat this measure."—Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, on the defeat of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance.
Fuck you, Abbott. You don't have the market cornered on values, despite the Christian Supremacist rhetoric that permeates the US public square suggesting otherwise.
I have values, too. For example: I value the safety of queer and/or trans people.
Every damn election, we are obliged to listen to conservatives caterwauling about how they are Values Voters, using thinly coded language that implies that only their particular set of beliefs constitute "values."
Well, as it happens, I'm a values voter: I deeply value autonomy and consent. I deeply value bodily autonomy and consent. I deeply value equality and justice for marginalized people. I deeply value marriage equality. I deeply value stem cell research. I deeply value the separation of church and state. I deeply value science being taught in schools. I deeply value universal healthcare. I deeply value a robust social safety net.
I value lots of other things, too, all of which make me a person without values, as far as religious conservatives like Abbott are concerned.
Despite their reflexive and compulsive intoning of the word "values," as if it's a magical incantation that can be uttered only by those who understand its complex truth, it doesn't really mean anything, in and of itself. It's an ethically neutral word. Everyone has values. What matters is not that you have values, but what values you have. Joseph Stalin valued killing people. Jeffrey Dahmer valued eating people. George Bush valued torturing people. I value not killing people, not eating them, and not torturing them. See? Everyone has values.
And, you know, I have faith, too. Not religious faith, but that isn't the only kind. I have faith in my fellow humans—and I'm not so sure that particular brand of faith should be so easily disregarded, because, quite frankly, it's a hell of a lot harder than having faith in a god, at least in my experience. The god to whom I was introduced as a child was never deliberately evil or unkind; that god may have been mysterious, but he had a plan—and you knew that everything made sense according to his plan, even if it was inexplicable to you. And there was a reward for having faith in that god. Faith in him was your ticket to eternity in heaven. Faith in him, as far as the reasons he offered, was simple.
Humans, on the other hand, the troublesome shits, conspire not only to test but to betray your faith at every opportunity. Too often evil and unkind, they mostly can't even be bothered to provide a decent reason for their ill behavior. They're unpredictable, nonsensical, irrational, and unreasonable, and there's no promise of a reward for having faith in them. Sometimes, in fact, you get nothing but spit in your eye in exchange for your trust. For your faith.
The difference between faith in a god and faith in humankind is like the difference between dropping money in the canister of a Recognizable Charity bell-ringer and placing money directly in the hand of someone in need. Your Recognizable Charity donation goes to someone you don't know, whom you'll never see, and, although you're not sure how it all works, you trust that your money will help in a productive way. It's an easy trust—the Recognizable Charity's been there a long time, and they've got a good reputation, and they promise you something for your effort.
On the other hand, giving the money directly to someone in need requires having faith in the person to whom you're giving it, respecting hir ability to make the best decisions for hirself, letting go of any expectation for how that money will be spent. You may hope that zie won't, say, put it on a horse, despite being hungry, because the temptation of gambling is stronger than hir will to nourish hir body. You may hope that zie buys hirself a sandwich, or mittens, or a pint, but you must respect that your hope is a projection, and have faith in hir self-determination. It's a harder trust—and it's not tax deductible, either.
The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course. There are plenty of people who have faith in a god(s) and faith in humankind. But there are a lot of people who only have faith in a god, because their religion tells them humans aren't worth having faith in.
Those tend to be the people who want to legislate morality, because they don't trust people to make good decisions, because they don't even trust themselves. And those are the people who are most often called the "values voters" and to whose religious beliefs the word "faith" has come to refer.
It's a terrible thing that the people who have the least faith in their fellow humans have commandeered the term, because, on this earth, humans are the only ones who can feed the hungry, clothe the poor, provide healthcare to the sick, guarantee equality and freedom.
Those of us who have faith in each other value decidedly earthy humanness, with all its flaws and foibles. That doesn't sound particularly inspiring; there are no hymns, no psalms, no Hallelujah chorus for having faith in other people.
But maybe there should be.
Because there are the times when they surprise you, when your faith pays off, makes you grin until you are certain your face will crack, or your eyes well with tears, at the wonder of how much overwhelming goodness can be found in we hairless apes. It provides a reward the beautiful magnitude of which is only bestowed because of the risk that things could have—maybe should have—gone so horribly wrong.
It's not typical that your faith in people is remunerated by your expectations being exceeded, when they amaze you with the depth of their decency, and its rarity makes such optimism, such faith, difficult. And makes it a faith worth courting, too, even if our values seem a bit grotty and earthbound.
Anyway.
Abbott and his pals really need to can it with the faith-based values rhetoric, as if there is singular agreement on values among people of religious faith; as if there is a singular type of faith one can have.
Especially because what he's talking about may be values in the literal sense of what people prize and prioritize, but not in the colloquial parlance in which "values" is (mis)construed to mean a superior decency. Resistance to providing safety to vulnerable people is wholly indecent, especially under the upside-down auspices of protecting privileged people from the marginalized people seeking protections they actually need.
What Abbott is talking about isn't values; it's bigotry cloaked in a veil of "values."
And I value calling that right the fuck out. I see you, Abbott. You contemptible nightmare.
Daily Dose of Cute
Does anyone happen to know any good dogs who deserve a treat?
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: Guns] "Hillary Clinton is attempting to make gun control and reducing gun violence a key part of her presidential campaign, as a once politically sensitive campaign issue moves front and center in the wake of the Charleston church massacre in June. 'Thirty-three thousand people a year die from [gun violence],' the Democratic frontrunner said at a campaign event at Grinnell College in Iowa on Tuesday night. 'Shame on us if we don't respond.' ...During an earlier campaign event in Coralville, Iowa, Clinton vowed to challenge the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and pledged to make gun control a 'voting issue' that motivates Democrats in the same way gun rights motivates Republicans to vote. 'We're going to make this a voting issue—just like the other side does,' Clinton said on Tuesday afternoon." GOOD.
In good election news: "Jackie Biskupski became Salt Lake City and the state of Utah’s first openly gay mayor last night, defeating Mayor Ralph Becker by 52.19 percent to 47.81 percent. ...Said Utah Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, also openly gay: 'Generations of LGBT people could've only dreamed of this. Jackie is now an iconic gay leader. This is a great moment for Salt Lake City—we're not the stereotype people across the country think we are.'"
[CN: Self-harm; video may autoplay at link] Susan Williams, the widow of actor Robin Williams, has disclosed that an autopsy revealed her husband was suffering from Lewy body dementia: "Though not nearly as well known (or talked about) as Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for more than half of dementia diagnoses in the United States, Lewy body dementia, or LBD, is the second most common type of progressive dementia. ...LBD is caused when normal proteins in the brain begin to aggregate, forming clumps called Lewy bodies that, as they spread, 'muck up the ability for the brain to transmit signals,' said Dr. James Leverenz of the Cleveland Clinic. Like Alzheimer's disease, symptoms of LBD include cognitive problems like confusion, reduced attention span, and memory loss, [Angela Taylor, director of programming for the Lewy Body Dementia Association] said. But LBD also affects a patient's movements, as well as their mood, making it a 'triple threat,' Taylor said. 'It's not just memory, it's not just movement, and it's not just behavior. It's a combination of all three, which makes it difficult to diagnose and difficult to treat,' Leverenz said." I really admire that she is speaking publicly about this, which must be so difficult, in order to raise awareness about the disease.
[CN: Transphobia] Goddammit: "Two Wisconsin Republican lawmakers proposed a bill this month that would keep transgender students from using the restrooms designated for the gender with which they identify. ...The bill, which has yet to be introduced, would require school boards to designate bathrooms and locker rooms as being exclusively for one gender. It defines gender as being 'the physical condition of being male or female, as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy.' Under the bill, schools will be required to make special accommodations for transgender students if they request them, meaning a gender neutral bathroom will have to be provided." Fucking reprehensible, othering, unjustifiable horseshit.
Holy moly: "Volkswagen on Tuesday said it had understated the fuel consumption of 800,000 cars sold in Europe, while majority stakeholder Porsche Automobil Holding SE warned that VW's latest findings could further weigh on its results. The latest revelation about fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions, which Germany's largest automaker said represented a roughly 2 billion euro ($2.19 billion) economic risk, deepened the crisis at VW. ...'VW is leaving us all speechless,' said Arndt Ellinghorst of banking advisory firm Evercore ISI. 'It seems to us that this is another issue triggered by VW's internal investigation and potentially related to Europe.' The carmaker said it would immediately start talking to 'responsible authorities' about what to do about the latest findings."
Here's a cool headline: "GOP campaigns fail to unite around debate demands." Hahaha! Who could have predicted the bickeringest bickersons that ever bickered would have trouble uniting?!
Neat: "NASA is showing off high-res images of the 400-meter-wide (1,300 feet) asteroid that zipped past Earth on Halloween, revealing its eerie skull-like face. Nicknamed 'Spooky' for its skull-resembling shape, the asteroid—otherwise known by its NASA classification as 2015 TB145—was flying 480,000 kilometers from Earth when it passed on October 31. It was impossible to see that far away, but now NASA pictures allow us to take a closer peek."
Well HELLO indeed! "Adele's 'Hello' Debuts at No. 1 with a Record-Shattering 1 Million Downloads." Damn!
And finally! "Taronga Western Plains Zoo is thrilled to announce the birth of Australia's first Greater One-horned Rhino calf! The male calf was born early on the morning of October 25th, to first-time mother Amala. Zoo Keepers are closely monitoring both mother and calf, and although it is still early days, report that both are doing well." If you're wondering whether there are ridiculously adorbz pictures of the baby rhino at the link, the answer is YESSSSSSS.
Manclaiming, Part Wev
[Content Note: Male-centrism.]
What's the perfect accessory to go with your man bun? Why, it's the man cape, of course!
Every once in a while, an invention is thrust upon the earth SO great that the entire course of history is changed unalterably forever.
Gentlemen... behold, the man cape.
I bet it's fun to manscape while wearing your man cape!
The strangest thing to me about this particular iteration of manclaiming is that, if you asked a million people to name someone who wears a cape, I'd wager that a significant majority of them would name either a male superhero (Superman, Batman, Thor) or a male dark character (Count Dracula, Darth Vader) or a male fantasy hero (Aragorn, any number of knight characters), rather than a caped woman.
But it's typically women who wear "fashion" capes on the street, so BETTER MANCLAIM IT.
Lying, Racist Cops
[Content Note: Self-harm; guns; racism; sexual violence.]
Because these sorts of posts inevitably result in accusations that I hate all police, I want to preface this post by reiterating that I am the granddaughter of an NYPD detective, whom I loved and admired more than I can say. And he was one of the key people in my life who taught me to expect more of myself and of others, so, if you're inclined to accuse me of hating police officers, how about you instead just keep that shit to yourself and chew on the irony that it was a cop who taught me to expect more.
* * *
In September, Illinois police officer Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was shot and killed, and quickly became the martyred saint of the "Blue Lives Matter" crusade, which is rooted in the fallacy that police are under greater threat of being killed than ever, even though, according to FBI data, assaults on police officers "are down sharply" and "at their lowest point since 1996 and have been dropping consistently since 2008."
But investigators have concluded that Gliniewicz, who reported "that he was pursuing two white males and a black male on foot" before he was found dying from a gunshot wound, killed himself.
On Wednesday morning, however, officials are expected to shatter that image of Gliniewicz as a heroic officer cut down in the line of duty. Instead, they will announce that the veteran cop killed himself in an elaborately staged suicide...As well it should. Because that argument is a lie.
At the news conference, authorities will announce that Gliniewicz actually took his own life, multiple law enforcement individuals told the newspapers.
The revelation could alter public perception of not only Gliniewicz but also the argument that cops are increasingly under attack in America.
In a similar case, Arkansas police officer David Houser has been charged with filing a false police report, after claiming "that he was shot in his bulletproof vest during an Oct. 24 traffic stop."
"Houser told local and state law enforcement officers that while on patrol that he had exchanged gunfire with a suspect who fled from him driving a sport utility vehicle south of England along state Highway 15," Arkansas State Police said in a press release obtained by the local TV station. "Houser also reported he had been shot by the suspect."In each case, a white police officer, inventing a story of being shot, and, in each case, an invented suspect who is a man of color. Gliniewicz blamed an imaginary black man (and two imaginary white men), and Houser blamed an imaginary Latino man.
As in Fox Lake, Houser's claim sparked a massive manhunt as officials searched the state for a Hispanic man in a silver SUV.
"We went after it as if we were going after someone who had just tried to kill a police officer," England Police Chief Nathan Cook told KTHV-TV. "The more we investigated, the more it became clear that the details of his story were inconsistent."
That is not a coincidence.
Because what underwrites the "Blue Lives Matter" crusade is a narrative that paints police (especially white, male police) as targets and victims of dangerous, criminal people of color.
Yet Houser's chief is mystified as to why Houser would invent such a tale:
Cook, who said he fired Houser on Monday, was at a loss why his officer had invented the incident.What would he gain from that? Well, Gliniewicz was nationally hailed as a hero, in no small part because the (invented) details of his death perfectly fit the narrative that police are in more danger than ever, and conveniently gave cover to every cop who shoots a person of color, because, you know, we're at war with them, and handed to people inclined to reflexively defend cops a perfect story about a fallen hero cop, one of us who was killed by one of them. Maybe that has something to do with it.
"He was a good officer," the police chief said. "I'm not a doctor, so I can't speculate why this happened. I know he's had some personal losses lately. We just hope he gets the help he needs."
"Why would you ever make that up?" added Lonoke Sheriff John Staley. "What would he gain from that? It's just amazing to me."
Maybe it's tempting to be a lying, racist cop when lying, racist cops are made into heroes.
* * *
In other lying, racist cop news: Daniel Holtzclaw, the Oklahoma City police officer who was arrested following allegations he sexually assaulted 13 black women while on duty, is now on trial. He faces an all-white jury.
Holtzclaw specifically targeted vulnerable black women for sexual assault, and his defense is now trying to discredit those victims—using the very same reasons for which Holtzclaw targeted them—in order to secure his freedom from the all-white jury tasked with assessing his guilt.
[Defense attorney Scott Adams] foreshadowed an argument Holtzclaw's defenders have been making since the allegations became public: that these women are not to be trusted. The attorney told the jury that Holtzclaw's alleged victims have "street smarts" — "street smarts like you can't imagine." He said the woman who first reported Holtzclaw's alleged abuse smoked a joint on the night she was pulled over by the officer. (The woman later confirmed this when she briefly took the stand following opening statements.)Adams' strategy is two-fold: Demonize the black women who Holtzclaw victimized, and lionize the good officer himself: In his opening statement, Adams "sought to rehabilitate Holtzclaw's reputation...and characterized Holtzclaw as an 'all American good guy.'"
In a statement to BuzzFeed News last year following Holtzclaw's bond hearing, his family said the "witness and officer testimony presented by the prosecution … is based on solicited testimony by the police department of felons, prostitutes and others who would have personal motives beyond the basic truth to fabricate their stories."
Of course he is. Aren't they all?
Fallen HERO
[Content Note: Transphobia.]
Yesterday was Election Day in many parts of the US, and one of the biggest losses was the failure of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which would have established nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people.
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was rejected after a nearly 18-month battle that spawned rallies, legal fights and accusations of both religious intolerance and demonization of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.Opponents of the ordinance ran a deeply cynical "bathroom panic" campaign, which Houston Mayor Annise Parker rightly blamed for HERO's defeat:
With nearly 95 percent of precincts reporting, Houston residents had rejected the ordinance by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.
Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is gay, blamed the rejection by voters on opponents' "bathroom ordinance" campaign, which she called "fear mongering" and part of an effort to demonize the LGBT community.And, naturally, there are legions of Blue Enclave Progressives who are keen to pour salt in the wound by hectoring LGBT and/or progressive Texans with the usual trash: Telling them that they deserve it, or had no right to expect more, because they live in Texas; telling them to move.
"This was a calculated campaign by a small, very determined group of right-wing ideologues and the religious right, and they only know how to destroy and not how to build up," Parker told a crowd of more than 100 people at an election night watch party in downtown Houston.
This, without a trace of irony that even New York state still has not passed GENDA, and without a trace of decency, as if telling someone in the wake of a crushing electoral defeat that they should leave their homes isn't cruelly insensitive, and without a trace of fucking awareness that they're saying "MOVE!" to people who might not be safer anywhere else in the country, either.
Helpful as always, Blue Enclave Progressives!
As I have said, once or twice or a million times, it is some demoralizing shit when progressives in blue(r) states tell progressive activists in red(der) states that they should just move. Fuck that. And fuck off anyone whose instinct in the wake of devastating codified bigotry is victim-blaming, rather than compassion.
To my friends in Houston: I am sorry. And I will take up space in solidarity with you as you continue this fight.
Question of the Day
What classic movie that "everyone" has seen have you never seen?
I've never seen Gone with the Wind, and I've really no desire to see it, so I don't imagine that'll change anytime soon.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Displacement; food insecurity; xenophobia; dehumanization; neglect.]
"We are humans, not animals."—Karzan, 35, an Iraqi nurse who is living with his wife Sharmin, their one-and-a-half-year-old son Hemn, and his brother-in-law "in a wooden structure, half the size of a small garden shed," in a refugee camp at the edge of Calais, France, which "is now home to more than 6,000 people, many of them vulnerable and unwell," and which "has doubled in the space of a month, and quadrupled from around 1,500 in early summer."
There is no UN or Red Cross presence; no one is charge. The French state accommodates about 200 women and children in a converted holiday centre on the edge of the camp but there are too many now to fit in the centre, so families live where they can. "It is the largest slum in Europe and probably the worst," [François Guennoc, a coordinator with the main local charity, L'auberge des Migrants] says.Every day, I see news articles and op-eds in which Serious People ask what is going to happen if Europe and the US help all of these refugees. And all I can think in response is: But what is going to happen if we don't?
...In the past month the camp has become denser; previously, tents were huddled together according to the geographical origin of the people living there – Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia, Eritrea. Now the sections have melded into one huge mass. In the absence of help from the state, people are helping themselves. The noise of hammering is everywhere, as refugees knock up basic wooden frames that become, in the space of a day, restaurants and shops, hairdressers and phone-charging booths, arranged along an informal high street. Volunteers from across Europe have built a school, a day-care centre for children, a library, a couple of mosques, a church, a refugee advice centre, an art therapy tent and medical centres.
But none of this does much to detract from the squalor and misery of the camp. There is rubbish everywhere, discarded sleeping bags, rotting food, broken shoes half buried in the sand. Small cooking fires are burning all over the place, stoked with torn-up plastic sheeting, creating acrid smoke. On Saturday night, a gas canister exploded, and several huts were burned to the ground.
..."What if David Cameron's baby was living like this? There is no difference between this baby and an English baby," Sharmin says.
The Make-Up Thread
Here is your semi-regular make-up thread, to discuss all things make-up.
Do you have a make-up product you'd recommend? Are you looking for the perfect foundation which has remained frustratingly elusive? Need or want to offer make-up tips? Searching for hypoallergenic products? Want to grouse about how you hate make-up? Want to gush about how you love it?
Whatever you like—have at it!
* * *
(I have no idea what's going on with my hair. Am I growing it out? Am I going to get a haircut? I DON'T KNOW!)
Today's quick look: No foundation; Too Faced's Perfect Flush Blush in Something About Berry; L'Oréal's Perpetual Purple eye shadow fading into ColourPop's (regrettably named) Slave2Pink eye shadow; Almay's Black Steel mascara; Ardell's clear Brow Sculpting Gel; and Too Faced's clear Extreme Lip Plumping Gloss.
I love that lip plumping gloss SO MUCH. It's not for everyone, since it does sting like a mofo when you put it on, but I actually enjoy that sensation, because I'm weird.
Anyway! What's up with you?
* * *
Please note, as always, that advice should be not be offered to an individual person unless they solicit it. Further: This thread is open to everyone—women, men, genderqueer folks. People who are make-up experts, and people who are make-up newbies. Also, because there is a lot of racist language used in discussions of make-up, and in make-up names, please be aware to avoid turns of phrase that are alienating to women of color, like "nude" or "flesh tone" when referring to a peachy or beige color. I realize some recommended products may have names that use these words, so please be considerate about content noting for white supremacist (and/or Orientalist) product naming.
The Walking Thread
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence; disablism; racism. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
My favorite ever Walking Dead character: Tabitha the Goat.
After last week's MAJOR CLIFFHANGER, the always-terrific producers of The Walking Dead decided to give us one of their stellar garbage episodes, so we could wait a little longer to find out if Glenn is really dead.
We interrupt this season already in progress to give you an interminably long episode of backstory on Morgan.
And this was a particularly garbagey garbage episode, in that it was not only boring filler, but it was a clusterfucktastrophe of racist crapola! In other words: Classic Walking Dead!
The episode starts "NOW" in Aarontown, with Morgan talking to the W-Head he apparently only took prisoner but didn't actually kill. The episode then moves backwards to "THEN," spending the rest of the time filling us in on what Morgan was up to between the time he encountered Grimes and the time he showed up at Aarontown.
Just after meeting Grimes, Morgan is cracking up. He scrawls random phrases on the walls of the apartment in which he's holed up, paces, mutters, and tips over a lantern, starting a fire. He makes for the woods, hunting zombies and scrawling random phrases on rocks. So, everything's going pretty great for old Morgan!
One day, he encounters two white dudes, maybe a father and a son, who chase him through the woods. He stabs the older dude in the throat and then strangles the younger dude. Still going great!
Another day, he stumbles across a secluded log cabin, where there's a cute goat tied in a pen. A man's voice tells him to put his gun down, as Morgan stalks closer and closer to the cabin, and the man's voice continues to urge him to put down the gun and they can totes be BFFs. Morgan ignores the invitation/warning, and so he gets clocked on the head with a bō staff. Another great day!
Morgan wakes up in a jail cell inside the cabin and begs his captor, a middle-aged white man named Eastman, to kill him. Eastman won't kill him, because he values all life. Instead, he gives Morgan a book titled The Art of Peace.
Over the next few days, here are a few things that happen: Eastman practices aikido outside a window, where Morgan watches him. They have cool conversations about how Eastman won't kill Morgan, but Morgan will definitely kill Eastman, given half a chance. Eastman tries to make goat cheese and fails. Eastman tells Morgan he used to be a forensic psychologist, and only met one truly evil person in all his years of assessing criminals. He head-shrinks Morgan and tells him he has PTSD and he has to choose to get better. Eastman tells Morgan that the door to the jail cell has been open all along, and tells Morgan he can stay on the couch or leave, but he won't let Morgan kill him. Morgan tries to kill him and fails. Morgan chooses to stay in the jail cell.
Can you guess what happens next? If you guessed that a white man would use a Japanese martial art and philosophy to teach a black man how not to be a savage, then give yourself one million points!
We got a break from Grimes' patriarchal authoritarianism just to be introduced to Eastman's gross colonialism!
WHAT A NEAT SHOW THIS IS!
There's a bunch of junk about how aikido saved Eastman's soul or whatever, but we also learn that it really didn't, because it was only after he tortured and killed an escaped patient who killed his wife and kids that he came to the conclusion that all life is precious. And then of course he sacrifices himself to save Morgan, when the young dude Morgan strangled comes after him in zombie form (BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES), and Morgan is real mad that Eastman did that, but he's also so grateful that Eastman the Murderer has taught him to be peaceful and has saved him from himself.
Basically, the usual thematic gibberish that's supposed to pass as deep thoughts. With a twist of appalling racism.
Cut back to "NOW," and Morgan wraps up his story, telling the fuck-toothed W-Head that he can be saved, too. The W-Head is unmoved, telling Morgan he's going to kill him and every other person in Aarontown.
Morgan leaves the W-Head in what's essentially a cell behind a locked door. On his way out, he hears Grimes hollering to open the gates to Aarontown. Fin.
Next week: More of this garbage.
Daily Dose of Cute
Nobody puts Sophie in a corner!
(Except for when Sophs puts herself there. Because perfect napping place, obvs.)
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Death penalty; disablism; descriptions of violence at link] "Ernest Lee Johnson is scheduled to die on Tuesday for the 1994 killing of three convenience store workers in Missouri. He would be the 26th person executed in the US this year and the seventh in Missouri. Only Texas, with 12, has performed more executions. ...Johnson grew up in a troubled home and his attorney, Jeremy Weis, said his IQ was measured at 63 while still in elementary school." Additionally, Johnson has had significant brain surgery that puts him at risk for "a violent and painful seizure upon injection." End the death penalty now.
USians are becoming less religious, but many of the people who are still religious are becoming even more so: "An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years. ...The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007.1 The share of Americans who say they are 'absolutely certain' God exists has dropped more sharply, from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014. And the percentages who say they pray every day, attend religious services regularly, and consider religion to be very important in their lives also have ticked down by small but statistically significant margins. ...Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. Indeed, by some conventional measures, religiously affiliated Americans are, on average, even more devout than they were a few years ago."
[CN: Police brutality; guns; racism; video may autoplay at link] "Hillary Clinton met Monday with a collection of parents whose African-American children have died in shootings at a local Chicago cafe, discussing their loss and outlining her criminal justice reform and gun control plans. The two-hour gathering included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. All African-American women who lost their young children in shootings, the group formed a 'motherhood' in the wake of their losses. ...According to the women, Clinton did not make any explicit promises to them, but did pledge to stay engaged in their causes and work on criminal justice reform. All of them women described the meeting as productive and said Clinton appeared earnest and trustworthy. 'She is a mother and she is a woman and I felt she understood where we were coming from,' said Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice. 'It doesn't matter what color we are, I felt that she really understand where we are coming from.' ...Clinton tweeted about the meeting afterward, saying that she was 'grateful to spend time today with mothers who have lost a child to violence and turned their grief into a national call to action.'" Please, Maude, whoever becomes the next president, do something meaningful for these women; do something so that their 'motherhood' has no new members. Blub.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Ben Carson is now the GOP front runner, according to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: "Ben Carson has surged into the lead of the Republican presidential race, getting support from 29 percent of GOP primary voters... Carson's 29 percent is followed by Donald Trump at 23 percent, Marco Rubio at 11 percent, Ted Cruz at 10 percent, and Jeb Bush at 8 percent."
Meanwhile, Larry Lessig has ended his joke of a presidential campaign. Okay.
Senator Al Franken is getting serious about Democrats taking back the Senate majority. GOOD!
[CN: Transphobia] "Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. ...The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding." They claim to care so much about protecting (cis) girls that they're willing to risk their Title IX funding to defend a transphobic policy. Cool priorities.
(And just because this can't be said enough: If you claim to care about girls, but exclude trans girls, then you don't care about girls. You care about cis privilege.)
[CN: Racism] Planes, trains, and automobiles: "A discussion about an overbooked seat led to six black passengers being kicked off a Spirit Airlines plane at Los Angeles International Airport Monday, and those passengers are claiming discrimination. According to CBS News Los Angeles, a flight attendant asked a couple to change seats because the airline had overbooked. Witnesses say the couple told the attendant that asking them to move was unfair because they'd done nothing wrong. The flight attendant reportedly called the police to have the couple escorted off the plane. When some passengers protested the couple's treatment, the flight attendant asked police to remove them from the plane, too." For fuck's sake.
Twitter has replaced favorite stars with like hearts. Oh.
Neat! "Rare Omura's whale caught on camera for the first time ever."
YES: "Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller says 'we'll definitely see more' of Tom Hardy in the film's sequels. But, no Mel Gibson." That is a perfect calculation thank you.
LOVE: "Man Built Custom Kayak So He Could Take His Dogs on Adventures." Obviously!
Party of Ideas
Perhaps the reason that the Republicans believe that the media is tougher on them than on the Democrats is because none of them have answers to even the most basic questions. Look at what happens when Chuck Todd, not exactly known for being a fierce interviewer, asks new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to give just one idea of something the Republican Congress can get done in the next six months:
Todd: Give me something that you think you can do in the next six months, some—one issue, one piece of—I agree, Speaker Ryan! You do owe us a very specific agenda for how your party would do things differently. SO WHERE IS IT?
Ryan: Well, we can do more than just one thing.
Todd: I understand. But give me one thing that the country will be impressed with, that will— Something— Maybe you work with the president, maybe you confront him. But what is one big piece?
Ryan: The economy— Working families are falling behind. The economy is stale. Poverty— There are about, around 46 million people still living in poverty. Our foreign policy is a disaster. We've got to offer alternatives to these things. Obamacare— I mean, look at the disaster that the rollout of Obamacare is continuing to be. I think we owe the American people a very specific agenda for how we would do things differently on these issues.
I mean, this was the softest of all softball questions. Name one proposal you're going to pursue in the next six months. And instead he gives a rambling answer about how the Democrats' policies are crap. THAT ISN'T A POLICY, SIR.
The Republican candidates crumble under questions they don't like from CNBC and their Speaker crumbles under a softball from Chuck freaking Todd, and they wonder why they can't derail the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who sat for 11 hours answering garbage questions during the Benghazi hearing, and was a model of dignity, composure, and competency.
Good grief.
