Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: White supremacy; racist threats] Police have arrested the person who made a terroristic racist threat against the black students, faculty, and staff at Mizzou: "After University of Missouri (Mizzou) students and faculty successfully lobbied to push President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin out, the victory has been marred by anonymous threats against students of color. 'I'm going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot every black person I see,' one anonymous YikYak user wrote Tuesday. Another warned people not to come to class. Campus police arrested someone who they say was posting threats with multiple accounts to YikYak Wednesday. ...MUPD released the name of the suspect Wednesday morning. They have arrested 19-year-old Hunter Parks, who is not a student at the university, for allegedly making terroristic threats on social media. He is being held on $4,500 bond at Boone County Jail." I repeat: The biggest terrorist threat in the US is white supremacy. Period.
[CN: Rape culture; anti-immmigrationism] In New Zealand, Prime Minister John Key went on a tirade in which he said that among the New Zealanders being detained by the Australian government are "rapists, some of them are child molesters, and some of them are murderers." He accused MPs who expressed concern about the detainees of "backing the rapists," and several female MPs took objection. "On Wednesday, Green party co-leader Metiria Turei told the Speaker that as a survivor of sexual violence she was deeply offended by Key's remarks: 'As the victim of a sexual assault, I take personal offence at the prime minister's comments, and ask that you require him to withdraw and apologise.' Her comments were echoed by Green MP Catherine Delahunty, who was told by the Speaker to stop and sit back down. When other female MPS, including Labour's Nanaia Mahuta, Clare Curran, and Megan Woods, along with Green MP Marama Davidson, repeated the call for Key to apologise with reference to their own assaults, Carter ordered them to stop... Despite the warning, MPs continued to stand to urge the Speaker to take action. Green MP Marama Davidson was then thrown out of the House, followed by Poto Williams." Got that? Female MPs stood up and publicly disclosed being sexually assaulted and were thrown out for it. Fucking hell.
[CN: Transphobia] This kid is terrific, even though I am so sad and angry he is obliged to say anything at all: "Twelve-year-old Evan Singleton has a message for anyone who questions his transgender status... 'I'd say, 'Well, you’re not the person to tell me who I am.' ...[T]hey have no right to come into my life and tell me what I need to do. That's what my parents are for, and my parents are doing a great job raising me. I do my chores, I clean my room, and I help out. Not to gloat, but I'm a great kid, I'm getting A's and B's in school, and they have no right to come telling us, our family, what to do.'" Kids today. Get ON my lawn!
[CN: Rape culture; child sex abuse; description of assault at link] I have a lot of complicated feelings about sex offender registries—especially around requiring registry of people convicted of statutory rape when the perpetrator is just over the age of consent and the victim is just under the age of consent and asserts it was consensual, and around the fact that registries tend to entrench the idea that children are more likely to be victimized by strangers—but I don't think that the current proposals to basically just abolish the registries do much good in addressing many of the valid concerns about the registries, especially when there isn't much else in place to handle offenders with a high rate of recidivism.
[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent and privacy] Carly Fiorina continues to be terrible: "Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina is lending her support to the latest in a string of perennially unsuccessful California ballot measures to mandate parental notification for minors seeking abortion care in the Golden State. The California Supreme Court struck down a forced parental notification law nearly 20 years ago and similar ballot measures have repeatedly failed to win sufficient signatures or votes. But this go-around, the former Hewlett-Packard chief is backing a new ballot measure in robocalls to Californians." Fuck's sake.
[CN: Guns; domestic violence] Meanwhile: "Republican presidential candidate Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey conditionally vetoed a bill on Nov. 9 which would have banned those convicted of domestic violence and individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from owning a gun. In his rejection message, Christie suggested harsher penalties for perpetrators of domestic violence and making it easier for victims to buy guns." Unfuckingbelievable.
Oh, Jeb! You know you're the candidate of the future when you get the coveted Bob Dole endorsement. Woof.
Neat! "Astronomers have identified the most distant object yet in the Solar System. Observations with Japan's Subaru telescope reveal the likely icy body to be some 15.5 billion km from the Sun—about three times further away than even far-flung Pluto. Scientists say their initial studies suggest that the object—catalogued as V774104—is some 500-1,000km across. It will need to be tracked over time to learn the shape and extent of its orbit through the Solar System."
Yessssssssss: "David Bowie Releases Extended 'Blackstar' Snippet: 'Last Panthers' preview offers 90-second glimpse at singer's throbbing, darkly orchestral new album title track."
And finally! Happy Bunny is happy! Aww lol.
[Content Note: Terrorism; white supremacy; racism; anti-semitism; Islamophobia.]
The word "terrorism" is nowhere in this AP article about five white supremacists who have been "charged in Virginia with trying to illegally buy weapons and explosives to use in attacks on synagogues and black churches."
Robert C. Doyle and Ronald Beasley Chaney III tried to buy an automatic weapon, explosives and a pistol with a silencer from three undercover agents posing as illegal firearms dealers, FBI agent James R. Rudisill wrote in an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond.White supremacists are walking into black churches, Sikh temples, and Jewish centers and opening fire, black churches are being torched by white arsonists, black students are being threatened on their campuses, violent incidents of anti-semitism and Islamophobia are on the rise, and our media and politicians still pretend that the biggest terrorist threat in the US is Islamic extremists and that #BlackLivesMatter activists are dangerous.
Doyle, 34, and Chaney, 33, are charged with conspiracy to possess firearms after being convicted of felonies, according to the affidavit.
An associate, 30-year-old Charles D. Halderman, is accused of plotting to rob a jeweler and use the money to help Doyle buy land and stockpile weapons for "an impending race war," the affidavit says. He is charged with a robbery conspiracy.
...Meanwhile, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Chaney's father, 58-year-old Ronald Beasley Chaney Jr., and 52-year-old Terry Gunn Chaney were charged with drug and firearms offenses after Henrico County police executed a search warrant at a home in Highland Springs on Sunday. The newspaper said Terry Gunn Chaney is "believed to be'" the wife of Ronald Beasley Chaney Jr.
...According to Rudisill's affidavit, Doyle and the younger Chaney "ascribe to a white supremacy extremist version of the Asatru faith," a pagan sect that emphasizes Norse gods and traditions. The affidavit says the FBI learned that Doyle planned to host a meeting at his home in late September to discuss "shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues, conducting acts of violence against persons of Jewish faith, and doing harm to a gun store owner in the state of Oklahoma."
[Content Note: Racism; xenophobia.]
Last night was the fourth Republican debate (only seven more to go!) and I did end up watching it and live-tweeting it, which naturally I deeply regretted, because these bozos are the wooooooooorst!
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "What are some of your favorite words, in any language?"
Tintinnabulation!
Tonight is the fourth Republican presidential primary debate, which will be hosted by Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal. That already sounds amazing!
Are you so excited for another presidential debate?! If you are so excited about another presidential debate that you can barely contain your enthusiasm, please check this box: □
Tonight's debate will feature a mere eight candidates on the main stage: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump.
Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee aren't polling high enough to make the cut, so they'll be relegated to the also-rans pre-debate, alongside Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum.
I have no idea if Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki are participating, and I don't care, because I am definitely not making even a modicum of effort to pay any attention to that sideshow to the shitshow.
Am I going to watch the debate? Maybe! Am I going to live-tweet it? Maybe!
Irrespective of my debate decision-making, here is a space for discussion about the debate, before and during. Spoiler Alert: Donald Trump is going to say a lot of garbage words!
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!
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy; homophobia.]
"Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country."—Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz. Who, just to be clear, is talking about praying. Ahem.
Cruz made this cool statement at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa last week, "an event organized by extremist right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson, who earlier in the program proclaimed that, according to the Bible, 'the sin of homosexuality...is worthy of death.'"
So, according to Cruz, atheists aren't fit to be commander-in-chief. (Presumably, Cruz believes that only Christians, and a very particular subset of Christians at that, are fit to be commander-in-chief, and just doesn't give a rat's ass that there are other religious traditions in which people quite literally start every day on their knees in prayer.) That's a pretty unsurprising assertion coming from Cruz, who is an unapologetic Christian Supremacist.
Still. Here we are, in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fifteen, and it remains utterly uncontroversial among millions of USians for a presidential candidate to say that atheists (and other non-Christians) are unfit for the presidency.
Awesome.
[Content Note: Emotional auditing; projection.]
Over the past month or so, I've read so many retreads of familiar handwringing about "thought police" and "political correctness" and how what amounts to asking people to be kinder is having a "chilling" effect on freedom of expression.
This garbage is cyclical. It's grim predictions about how trigger warnings will ruin the world for three months, and then it's grim predictions about how affirmative action will ruin the world for three months, and then it's the thought police, and then it's something else, and then it's back to trigger warnings again, as though the same debate, such as it was, didn't just happen the year previous.
So we're in a "thought police" moment. Or, if you prefer, a "political correctness gone wild" moment.
And so, as a person who expects more, and thus is accused of being the thought police, let me just say once again: I am not the thought police.
Setting a higher standard and encouraging someone to reach for it, urging them not to settle into the well-tread grooves of their socialization but instead interrogate the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which they've been indoctrinated, isn't thought policing.
Asking someone to consider that maybe, just maybe, it isn't marginalized people who are too sensitive, but privileged people who are simply not sensitive enough, isn't thought policing.
Challenging someone to think about things in a way in which they may have never thought about them before isn't thought policing.
The entire rest of the world, with its privileging of men and straight people and cisgender people and thin (but not too thin!) and tall (but not too tall!) and able and healthy white bodies and religious people and people who have sex and people who can and want to be parents and the wealthy and the educated, and all the ways in which the rest of the world facilitates and upholds that privilege, and all the ways in which the rest of the world marginalizes and demeans and treats as less than all the people who deviate from those privileged "norms," and all the ways the rest of the world indoctrinates you into that system of privilege, and socializes you to believe it's the natural and right and immutable state of the world, and all the shills for the kyriarchy who fill the ether with self-reinforcing rubbish on a constant loop so you swim in a sea so thick with the detritus of Othering that you don't even notice it on a conscious level anymore, and all the bullies who manifest to kick you back in line if you do, if you have the temerity to question the message, and all the other bits and bobs of the brainwashing to which we are all subjected since the day we're born as part of scheme, nearly incomprehensible in scope, to ensure that challengers to these traditions are never made, and, if they're born, are squashed with the weight of mountainous tidal waves of blowback in the other direction…? The purveyors of that shit are the goddamn thought police.
And you know what one of the biggest lies they tell you is?
That it's the other way around.
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Class warfare] "Fast-food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage walked out in dozens of cities at 6 a.m. Tuesday, kicking off a year-long campaign to muster the political power of 64 million low-wage workers in next year's presidential election. The protests, which will take place in 270 cities, mark the workers' largest show of force in the three years since they launched a series of rallies to call for higher pay and the right to unionize, according to Fight for $15, which represents the workers and is backed by the Service Employees International Union. Tens of thousands of workers and supporters were expected to take part in Tuesday's demonstrations, which began around dawn at McDonald's outlets in downtown Brooklyn, Boston, and Philadelphia, among other locations. Protests in as many as 700 additional cities were planned by low-paid home care, child care, farm, FedEx, nursing home, and other workers throughout the day." I take up space in solidarity with these workers, who deserve a living wage for their labor.
[CN: Rape culture; description of sexual violence] I really fucking detest the compulsive structuring of every story regarding rape culture with a detailed description of a rape upfront, and, unfortunately, you must navigate that potentially triggering structure for this piece on destroyed rape kits, which is otherwise very good.
[CN: War on agency] Goddammit: "A reproductive health clinic in South Bend, Indiana, was forced to cease abortion care on Friday after allegedly violating anti-choice measures passed by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2014. The Women's Pavilion is the last of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer's clinics; his others in Gary and Fort Wayne have both been shuttered over the past two years. Klopfer, who was unavailable for comment, was scheduled to attend hearings on his appeal last Wednesday in Indianapolis, but agreed to drop his appeal after reaching a settlement with the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH). There are now six abortion providers practicing in Indiana and none in the northern part of the state, according to ISDH."
[CN: Anti-immigrationism] Hoo boy. Judge Richard Posner may have been solid on same-sex marriage, but this anti-immigration bullshit about "pregnancy tourists" is heinous garbage.
Out magazine has revealed its Out100 cover star for 2015, and it is...President Obama. "Ally. Hero. Icon." Okay.
[CN: Christian Supremacy; video may autoplay at link] Gold toilet aficionado Donald Trump has decided he's the new spokesperson for the entirely imaginary War on Christmas: "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in on the day's controversy on Monday, floating the prospect of boycotting Starbucks after the coffee giant announced it would abandon its Christmas-themed cups. 'I have one of the most successful Starbucks, in Trump Tower. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks? I don't know. Seriously, I don't care. That's the end of that lease, but who cares?' Trump told a crowd in Springfield, Illinois, on Monday. 'If I become president, we're all going to be saying Merry Christmas again, that I can tell you. That I can tell you.'" OH GOOD BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HEARD ANYONE SAYING MERRY CHRISTMAS IN LIKE A WHOLE YEAR.
Some dude remembers Ben Carson's Yale Psychology Prank Test, so who's the jerk NOW for thinking the otherwise super honest and credible Carson might have lied about something?!
[CN: Appropriation; emotional policing] "The New Intolerance of Student Activism." I really do not understand this reaction to the students' protests at all. 1. It just seems like people are mad at these students for caring about each other and for demanding greater sensitivity. That's...odd. 2. What is the deal with defending Halloween costumes as some sacred goddamn ritual? This is no different than a student policy that prohibits other type of oppressive speech/behavior. But as soon as it comes to Halloween costumes...OMFG WE CAN'T REGULATE HALLOWEEN! WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY?
SeaWorld will "phase out controversial public displays by killer whales" by 2017. Good.
Awwwww: "Danny Boyle 'in grief' after David Bowie says no to musical." Oh well! As much as I love David Bowie, AND I LOVE DAVID BOWIE A LOT, I want him to have complete control over any project affiliated with his work, and I respect his decision.
And finally! "20+ Dogs That Don't Care About Your Personal Space." LOL. Facts.
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
So, a lot of conversations about the pay disparity in the film industry end up with someone, usually a dude who needs to 'splain at the ladies How the World Works, saying that the pay disparity is justified because male stars are bigger box office draws, thus justifying their larger salaries. Sure, films are art, but they are also commerce, LADIES.
Paul Feig, trollbuster and director of the all-female Ghostbusters reboot (among other female-centered comedies, like Bridesmaids and The Heat), took this argument head-on in a new interview, and it was terrific:
What are your thoughts on equal pay for women in Hollywood? If you felt your actress weren't being treated fairly, would you take a stand on their behalf?Emphases mine.
I'm glad we're having this debate, but there are two levels of it. There's the business side of it where, leaving gender out of it, your paycheck is based on what you made previously. Nobody's going to get an enormous raise unless they prove that they're a box office draw. That's across the board, for men and women. Now if a woman is an equal box office draw and she's being paid less than a man, then that's criminal and I wouldn't allow that to happen.
But it's also a chicken-or-egg thing, because there aren't enough quality female roles to launch actresses to become box office draws, so it self-perpetuates. You're not giving women the roles to become big stars who command big paychecks. It's a bigger problem than a glass ceiling on paydays — we've gotta fix the scripts.
The conversation should be had, but an actress has to be given an opportunity to shine. Jennifer Lawrence should be paid every cent as much as her male counterparts, and probably more because she has proven to be a bigger draw. But Hollywood is not going to be altruistic about anything unless it means they're going to profit from it.
We need more leading roles for women, and they don't have to be "strong female characters," because I hate that term. People don't mean it in a derogatory way — they just mean "good" — but people have weaknesses and vulnerability and insecurity. They don't have to be superhuman, but if they're not completely human and relatable, then that's not a good role either.
[Content Note: Nazi reference; infanticide; anti-choicery.]
Recently, NYT Magazine asked their readers if they had the opportunity to travel back in time to kill Adolf Hitler as an infant, would they do it? The question sparked much debate blah blah fart, so the Huffington Post asked Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush if he would kill Baby Hitler.
When the Huffington Post asked the question, in an on-camera interview filmed on the Bush campaign bus in New Hampshire, the former Florida governor had a clear and quick response.He later tweeted: "Gotta do it."
"Hell yeah, I would!" he said. "You gotta step up, man."
..."It could have a dangerous effect on everything else. But I'd do it. I mean – Hitler," he said, shrugging.
Is there anything you prefer not to do alone?
As always, "Everything" and "nothing" are perfectly cromulent answers.
There isn't much I mind doing on my own, and many things I prefer to do on my own, but one of the things I prefer not to do alone is eat. Obviously, since I work at home, I eat on my own at least once virtually every day of my life, so it's not something I'm incapable of doing. But I like eating with someone better, just because I love good conversation while sharing a meal.
That said, if the choice is between eating alone and company who makes me feel like shit about my food choices, I will take eating alone every single time.
[Content Note: There are flickery lights in this video.]
