What? You don't sleep this way? You're so weird.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
What? You don't sleep this way? You're so weird.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Important David Beckham News
[Video Description: Highlights from the UNICEF charity football match.]
Over the weekend, David Beckham hosted and played in a UNICEF charity football match to raise funds for underprivileged children. Two teams—Great Britain/Ireland vs. Rest of the World—played in front of a delighted sell-out crowd of 75,381.
Ex-England captain Beckham led the home team, managed by his former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.Beckham's side won, 3-1.
Former Chelsea, Real Madrid, and AC Milan boss Carlo Ancelotti managed the world team.
Beckham was replaced by his 16-year-old son towards the end of the match, but came back on because of an injury to Sol Campbell.
"I wasn't meant to join him but Sol came off," he said. "Having Brooklyn out there was special. One of my lasting memories is winning the title and walking around with Brooklyn when he was 18 months."
Money raised from ticket sales for the match will be donated to children's charity Unicef.
"It was incredible," said Beckham. "I'm very proud of what we achieved. It's been a special day."
Beckham also made a video for UNICEF, speaking as a father to other fathers about ending violence against children:
All I want as a dad is to protect and care for my children, my most precious things. I'll do anything to shelter them from harm. Everywhere we go, and wherever we have lived, their home—our home—has always been a safe place. Tragically, for many children, having a safe home is not a reality. Every day, thousands of children experience violence in their homes. It's heartbreaking. All children deserve love and protection. Join the rest of the world's parents, all the fathers everywhere, to stamp out violence against children. Let's protect the most precious things we have—our children, our future.I'm sure there was something else...some other news...what was it again? Oh yes: David Beckham was also named People's Sexiest Man Alive.
"He's a romantic husband, a devoted dad—and he vacuums!" LOL!
Beckham said he's "very pleased to accept" the honor, but "I never feel that I'm an attractive, sexy person." If it were literally almost anyone else on the planet who looked like David Beckham saying that, I would probably guffaw, but Becks genuinely means it, the scoundrel.
"I thought I was past my sell by date but thanks to @PeopleMag for the accolade and the compliment! I always feel a little shy when receiving these Awards, though it will make my Mum happy. This one the kids will laugh at, as they see what Daddy looks like in the morning!"
Oh Becks.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; death; self-harm; description of violence] "The French police stormed an apartment in the medieval heart of the northern Paris suburb of St.-Denis before dawn on Wednesday in an attempt to find the Belgian man suspected of orchestrating the Paris terrorist attacks. Two people died in the raid, including a young woman who detonated an explosive vest, and seven people were arrested. It was not clear if the suspect was there. The raid began around 4:15 a.m. Paris time, when special police forces, backed by truckloads of soldiers, cordoned off an area near the Place Jean Jaurès, a main square in St.-Denis not far from the Stade de France, where three attackers blew themselves up on Friday. Inside the apartment, on the third floor of a building on the Rue du Corbillon, at least five suspects were holed up. One of them, the woman, opened fire and then killed herself; a man—'another terrorist,' the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said—died from a combination of gunfire and the detonation of a grenade." Fuck.
[CN: War on agency] "[A first-of-its-kind study of the prevalence of self-induced abortion from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project] found that between 100,000 and 240,000 Texas women of reproductive age have attempted to end a pregnancy on their own without medical assistance. Based on a comparison with earlier data, the findings of this study suggest that the incidence of self-induced abortion may be proportionally higher in Texas than among women in the rest of the country. There are two factors behind this finding. One, a large share of Latina women live along the U.S.-Mexico border and have relatively easy access to the abortion inducing drug misoprostol, which is available over the counter in Mexico and has long been widely used by women in that country and throughout Central and South America to self-induce abortion. Two, rapidly declining access to clinic-based abortion care and other forms of reproductive health care in Texas have so increased the burden of getting timely access to care that women are giving up and turning to self-induction."
[CN: Homophobia; transphobia] Goddammit: "Indiana Republicans Introduce the Most Anti-LGBT LGBT Rights Bill Ever: The bill, which will be known as Senate Bill 100, does add 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity' to the state's nondiscrimination laws as it claims to. However, it expends far more words to limit the extent of those protections, making them all but worthless to most plaintiffs. ...All religious or religious-affiliated organizations are exempt from the bill's provisions related to sexual orientation and gender identity only. ...The bill also copies from the problematic 'First Amendment Defense Act' introduced in Congress, offering broad protections for religious organizations from any consequences. It would prohibit any state government agency from taking any 'discriminatory action' against a religious organization for acting 'in accordance with a religious belief or matters of conscience regarding marriage.' ...In other words, the legislation requires the state to subsidize discrimination, funding organizations with taxpayer money even if they refuse to serve same-sex couples equally."
[CN: Refugee crisis] "Cuba has blamed US policy for a surge in migration from the Communist-run island to the United States. The Cuban foreign ministry said US laws dating back to the Cold War encouraged illegal emigration. ...Under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cuban nationals can become residents in the US much more easily than applicants from other countries. ...The statement was published as almost 2,000 Cuban migrants remained stranded on the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The Cuban migrants say they want to reach the US, but Nicaragua has so far denied them passage north. ...Nicaragua said it turned back hundreds of Cuban migrants on Sunday who had crossed the Penas Blancas border post by force. The move has caused tension between neighbours Costa Rica and Nicaragua, with Costa Rica demanding a 'humanitarian corridor' be created to allow the migrants to continue their journey. The Cuban foreign ministry said that those who had left the island legally were welcome to return to Cuba if they so wished. But one of the migrants stuck at the border told the Associated Press news agency that he had no desire to return. 'We're a group of human beings trying to achieve their dream—to go to the United States,' he said."
[CN: Sexual assault; rape culture] Think, too, of this story the next time you hear someone arguing that rape survivors should be required to participate in the US criminal justice system: "A Cross County judge is accused of soliciting sex from offenders in his court in exchange for sentence reductions, the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission said."
[CN: Sexual assault; rape culture] "Four women sued Michigan State University on Wednesday for mishandling their sexual assault reports, according to a lawsuit first obtained by BuzzFeed News, saying the school's investigations dragged on for so long that they violated the federal gender equality law known as Title IX." They are really brave, and I dread the shit they're going to have to navigate to do this very important thing.
Welp: "Ben Carson's remarks on foreign policy have repeatedly raised questions about his grasp of the subject, but never more seriously than in the past week, when he wrongly asserted that China had intervened militarily in Syria and then failed, on national television, to name the countries he would call on to form a coalition to fight the Islamic State. Faced with increasing scrutiny about whether Mr. Carson, who leads in some Republican presidential polls, was capable of leading American foreign policy, two of his top advisers said in interviews that he had struggled to master the intricacies of the Middle East and national security and that intense tutoring was having little effect."
[CN: Islamophobia] This fucking guy: "The United States will have 'absolutely no choice' but to close down some mosques where 'some bad things are happening,' Donald Trump said in a recent interview, explaining his rationale for doing so. 'Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We're going to have no choice,' the Republican presidential said in an interview from Trump Tower on Fox News' Hannity on Tuesday night."
Meanwhile: "Republican regulars, veterans of conventional politics, are pondering the unthinkable: What if neither Donald Trump nor Ben Carson fades? Which would be a stronger candidate? Would either govern if he won? ...Ralph Reed, the leading political strategist of the religious right, said there's one other candidate who is "well-suited" to inherit both of those constituencies: Texas Senator Ted Cruz. That's scant solace for establishment Republicans."
Here are some famous men giving responses to being asked if they are feminists. Spoiler Alert: Some of them are better than others!
Tiny Caterpillar Resting in a Cozy Flower Bed!
[CN: Moving gifs at link] And finally! "The 31 Most Cat Things to Ever Happen." Haha!
Quote of the Day
President Obama: These are the same folks often times who've suggested that they're so tough that, uh, just talkin' to Putin or staring down ISIL or using some additional rhetoric somehow's gonna solve the problems out there. But apparently they're scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion. First they were worried about the press being too tough on 'em during debates; now they're worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn't sound very tough to me.Obama preceded these comments by saying: "We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic. We don't make good decisions if it's based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks. When individuals say we should have a religious test, and that only Christians, proven Christians, should be admitted, that's offensive. I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that's been coming out of here in the course of this debate. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there's war between Islam and the West, and when you start seeing individuals in positions of responsibility suggesting Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims who are in a war-torn land, that feeds the ISIL narrative. It's counterproductive. And it needs to stop."
[edit] They've been playing on fear in order to try to score political points. Or to advance their [inaudible due to audio glitch]. And it's irresponsible. And it's contrary to who we are. And it needs to stop, because the world is watching.
Fuck yeah. Thank you, Mr. President.
And Then There Were 14
Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has dropped out of the presidential race, presumably to spend more time with his bigotry.
Globspeed, sir! You were unremarkably terrible in a field of horrible candidates, and I can't wait to keep not caring about your presidential ambitions. Adieu.
On the Boko Haram Attack in Nigeria
[Content Note: Terrorism; death.]
Yesterday, another explosive device placed in a market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Yola detonated, killing at least 32 people and wounding at least 80 others.
The Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has not yet claimed responsibility, but they will. Detonating bombs in markets is one of Boko Haram's signature strategies, which they use in order to maximize harm, death, and devastation.
If someone in the West has heard of Boko Haram at all, it is probably in association with their mass kidnapping of girls. But they routinely terrorize northern Nigeria and bordering areas with bombings, mass shootings, kidnappings, and associated war crimes. Though they are a distinct group from IS, they have pledged their fealty to the better-known group: "The suspected perpetrators, Boko Haram, have pledged allegiance to Islamic State and killed thousands of people in the northeastern part of the country during the last six years. The militant group is fighting for a state that would strictly adhere to Sharia law."
Their terrorist attacks were also, over the course of last year, more deadly than IS' terrorist attacks, although IS killed many more people in combat:
Fatalities from terrorism are at a record high now with just two groups, Boko Haram and Islamic State responsible for half of them, a new report showed. The Nigerian militants kill more people than their Iraqi-Syrian allies.Over the past year and a half, I have covered 30 separate attacks and multiple kidnappings by Boko Haram. I have noted the disparity in the coverage between the coverage of terrorist attacks in the West and the terrorism being perpetrated by Boko Haram, at one point observing that a bombing in which at least 17 people were killed warranted only two sentences from Reuters, and that was still more that most major news outlets gave it.
Two terrorist groups were responsible for over a half of the killings in 2014 – Nigeria-based Boko Haram and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which aims to expand its influence from the powerbase in Iraq and Syria globally. Together they were responsible for 51 percent of all global fatalities in 2014 claimed by any group, and almost 40 percent of all fatalities, according to the Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute for Economic and Peace (IEP).
The Nigerian jihadists, who pledged allegiance to IS in March 2015, killed more people than their fellow Islamists, claiming 6,644 lives compared to 6,073. Nigeria accordingly experienced a staggering 300 percent rise in terrorism deaths in 2014, although other militant groups take partial blame for the increase. In particular the Fulani militants killed 1,229 in Nigeria.
IS killed more people in combat than in acts of terrorism in 2014. It was responsible for at least 20,000 battlefield deaths over the year in clashes with various state and non-state combatants.
Like IS, Boko Haram's primarily targets and victims are other Muslims. They have killed thousands of people, injured thousands of people, kidnapped thousands of people, and displaced thousands of people.
And their latest attack, in which dozens died and scores were injured, has received virtually no news coverage in the mainstream Western media.
Because they are of no imminent risk to "us."
Because they explicitly target the women and children of a population mostly comprised of other black Muslims.
I feel very angry and very helpless to do anything meaningful in support of the Nigerian and neighboring people being terrorized on a daily basis by this despicable lot. I don't know what the US government, or any other government, should do to help; how to intervene or whether to intervene at all.
All I know is that not paying attention, not caring, abets Boko Haram. They flourish in a vacuum of concern.
Nigerians under siege have asked us to raise awareness. To talk about the grievous harm being done to them.
It is not enough, but it is what I can do: I am witnessing what is happening. I see what Boko Haram is doing. I am writing and talking about it. I take up space in solidarity with the people they terrorize, because their lives matter.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Kathy_A: "Is there something that your family members/friends still tease you about years later? Do you wish they would just drop it, or not?"
Yes
[Content Note: War on agency. NB: Not only women need access to oral contraceptives.]
The Guttmacher Institute's Sneha Barot examines "Moving Oral Contraceptives to Over-the-Counter Status." I'm not even going to excerpt it. Just go read the whole thing.
I will say once again: The Guttmacher Institute is a national treasure.
"His heroism transcended his own life to save others."
[Content Note: Terrorism; death; Islamophobia; description of violence.]
While literally every Republican candidate is spewing vile hogwash trying to convince us that there might be terrorists hidden among the refugees, let us consider that among the refugees will definitely be people like Adel Termos, who sacrified his own life to save many others from a terrorist:
The day before the horrific massacre in central Paris left the world reeling, two attacks during rush hour in Lebanon's capital city killed 45 and wounded more than 200 others.When I hear people fearmongering about refugees by disgorging cynical rhetoricals about who might become my neighbor, I think of Adel Termos. I expect we'd all be lucky to have a neighbor like him.
If not for the heroic actions of one man, the death toll would have been much higher. And now, days later, his heroism is being recognized.
Adel Termos was walking in an open-air market with his daughter, according to reports, when the first suicide bomber detonated his explosives. Amid the instant chaos, Termos spotted the second bomber preparing to blow himself up, and made the quick decision to tackle him to the ground. The bomb went off, killing Termos, but saving countless others, including his daughter.
"There are many, many families, hundreds probably, who owe their completeness to his sacrifice," Elie Fares, a blogger and physician in Beirut, told Public Radio International in an interview last week.
"In a way, Adel Termos broke human nature of self-preservation. His heroism transcended his own life to save others," Fares told The Washington Post in an e-mail Monday. "To make that kind of decision in a split second, to decide that you'd rather save hundreds than to go back home to your family, to decide that the collective lives of those around you are more important than your own is something that I think no one will ever understand."
I'm not suggesting, of course, that every refugee who comes to the States would—or should—make such a tremendous sacrifice on behalf of others. Nor that one needs to earn a place as my neighbor with heroism.
My point is only this: To continually imply that refugees may be terrorists, with zero credible evidence, at the expense of acknowledging that refugees are a diverse population of all sorts of people, many of whom may be extraordinary people, is shit. Utter shit.
There are more decent people on this planet than there are terrorists. Why anyone would ever want to pretend otherwise is beyond me.
I get that there's a political value to such a reprehensible pretense. I just don't understand, on a visceral level, why people choose to engage in politicking that diminishes their own humanity by requiring them to deny the humanity in others.
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 Walking Thread
[Content Note: Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
^ The look on my face throughout this entire episode.
Did you think we were going to find out what happened to Glenn this week? HAHAHAHAHA OF COURSE NOT! There was no way we were going to find out what happened to Glenn last week, or the week before that, or this week! And we're probably not going to find out next week, either, because THIS FUCKING SHOW.
There has been a lot of discussion about WHO IS THE VOICE on the other end of radio at the end of the episode, weakly saying, "Help." Lots of people think it's Glenn, but the show says it's not Glenn! Some people are upset that it isn't Glenn, and some people are upset that it might be Glenn, because they are going to be SO MAD if Glenn isn't really dead and they've been jerked around this whole time. Whoooooops!
Basically everything you need to know about how shitty this show is can be summed up by the fact that its fans are going to be angry if one of the favorite characters hasn't died, just because they're so desperate for something interesting to happen and for the writers not to betray their loyalty and investment yet again.
Anyway! Long story short: We still don't know what happened to Glenn, three episodes after he was supposedly devoured by zombies.
This was another filler episode, which was obviously designed just to drag out that lousy cliffhanger even longer, because there was literally no other point. IT WAS SO FUCKING BORING AND NOTHING HAPPENED.
Sure, some stuff happened, but it was nothing that anyone could possibly really care about, because it's all stuff we've seen fully eleventy biebillion times before, because this show is repetitive as hell!
Sgt. Redbull and Sasha in a car, and Daryl on a motorbike, still leading the zombie march per Grimes' Hot Shit Zombie Relocation Plan, get shot at and separated.
Daryl runs into some extras from The O.C. and they clunk him over the head and take him hostage because they don't trust him, but then he ends up saving them, and they can't even believe good people like him still exist, but then they steal his crossbow and abandon him anyway.
Sgt. Redbull and Sasha end up in an office complex, and there is so much amazing and totally trenchant and definitely not retreaded from literally every previous episode exploration about whether they want to succumb to the zombiepocalypse or survive.
The only thing even worth mentioning from the whole damn episode is this exchange between Sgt. Redbull and Sasha:
Sgt. Redbull: I like the way you call bullshit, Sasha. I believe I'd like to get to know you a whole lot better.A man can tell what a woman wants. Better than she can, even! If you don't believe me, check page 87 in Rick Grimes' Big Leatherbound Book of Things Men Know.
Sasha: That one of your plays? What makes you think I want that?
Sgt. Redbull: A man can tell.
Next week: More of this garbage.
Daily Dose of Cute
These Dorito ears aren't going to persuade me to get a treat.
Oh who am I kidding. Of course they are!
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: Terrorism; war] Well fuck: "President Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt and intensified air strikes against militants in Syria, after the Kremlin concluded a bomb had destroyed the plane last month, killing 224 people. Putin ordered the Russian navy in the eastern Mediterranean to coordinate its actions on the sea and in the air with the French navy, after the Kremlin used long-range bombers and cruise missiles in Syria and announced it would expand its strike force by 37 planes. 'We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,' Putin said of the plane bombers at a somber Kremlin meeting broadcast on Tuesday. The FSB security service swiftly announced a $50 million bounty in a global manhunt for the bombers." It's impossible to overstate how miserable terrorists are making life for Syrian civilians.
[CN: Police brutality; racism] Jamar Clark was taken off life support last night and died. My condolences to his family, friends, and community. Also last night: "More than 50 people were arrested during a Black Lives Matter protest that shut down I-94W in Minneapolis for over two hours. ...At one point a driver nearly hit some of the protesters. Other drivers got into arguments with protesters as the crowd marched down an I-94 ramp. Eventually, police gave the crowd a 15-minute warning calling the assembly unlawful. They then began arresting those who refused to leave."
[CN: Police brutality; sexual violence; misogynoir] Kanya D'Almeida on the Holtzclaw trial: "When local activists learned last August that a 27-year-old Oklahoma City police officer had been arrested on 16 charges of sexual assault against multiple Black women, they expected the case to garner national headlines. ...But as Daniel Holtzclaw's trial entered its third week Monday, with over two dozen out of an estimated 175 witnesses for the prosecution having testified so far, residents like [Grace Franklin, co-founder of OKC Artists for Justice] are still waiting for the story to grab nationwide attention. Advocates who've been closely following the case say the lack of media coverage reveals a pattern erasing the specific experiences of Black women from conversations around race and police brutality, which the Black Lives Matter movement propelled into national prominence last year." Again I will note that Holtzclaw carefully and deliberately chose victims he believed no one would care about or believe. And the yawning indifference to his trial rewards his cynical exploitation of the particularly vulnerable black women he assaulted.
Welp: "The costs of food, gasoline, shelter, and medical care rose last month, yet inflation continues to run at low levels ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting in December to consider raising short-term interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. ...Much of the inflation within the economy stems from higher rents and home values. ...Fed officials have been carefully monitoring the economy for an upturn in inflation as part of its plan to eventually raise short-term interest rates from historic lows."
No surprises here: PRRI's annual "American Values Survey" results are out, and "Strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans name health care (71% and 61%, respectively) and jobs and unemployment (66% and 59%, respectively) as critical issues. However, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to name the cost of education (62% vs. 33% respectively) and the growing gap between the rich and the poor (62% vs. 29%, respectively) as critical issues. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to name terrorism (79% vs. 53%, respectively) and immigration (59% vs. 43%, respectively) as critical issues." Of course.
[CN: Climate change] This is pretty terrifying: "Runoff from snowmelt is regarded as a vital water source for people and ecosystems throughout the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Numerous studies point to the threat global warming poses to the timing and magnitude of snow accumulation and melt. ...Using a multi-model ensemble of climate change projections, we find that these basins—which together have a present population of ~2 billion people—are exposed to a 67% risk of decreased snow supply this coming century."
Whut: Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is the laugh-crying emoji. Okay.
Do you want to hear Adele's second single "When We Were Young" in its entirety? Well, here you go!
And finally! All the blubs forever: "Marine Corps Veteran Frank Giarmida has a new best friend. He was surprised with the gift of a therapy dog, while on the field at MetLife Stadium during a Giants game. All of this was in an effort to thank Giarmida for his service in the Iraq War. 'I see the dog come out and I'm looking at the screen, and I see a dog and I'm looking around and I didn't even hear what the commentator said anymore,' Giarmida said. 'The last 10 years have been a struggle. Six months ago, I recently lost my fiance to a brain aneurysm. So this service dog is going to do a lot for me. ...This is going to be my best friend. I need a friend." ♥
Same-Sex Marriages Begin in Ireland
Ireland celebrates first gay marriages six months after landmark vote. Yay!!!
Ireland celebrated its first [same-sex] marriages on Tuesday, six months after [more than 62% of] voters overwhelmingly chose to legalize the practice in the traditionally conservative Catholic nation.Ireland is the 23rd country to legalize same-sex marriage, but the first nation to legalize it via popular vote. Woot!
Dozens of couples nationwide converted their existing civil partnerships into full marriages in brief ceremonies in often less-than-romantic settings, such as antiseptic hospital offices where births and deaths also are recorded.
[Same-sex] marriage became officially legal Monday but the legislation required a minimum 24-hour notice to upgrade civil partnerships, while those seeking a legal union for the first time must wait a further three months to schedule their services.
Ireland's first couple to sign on the dotted line was lawyer Cormac Gollogly and bank official Richard Dowling, both 35.
..."It was great to get it done so early ... to be the first in Ireland," said Gollogly, who has been with Dowling for 12 years.
"There's something very surreal about it, because obviously we've done the civil partnership already," Dowling said. "But it really is so nice to have the full marriage, and I'm every bit as emotional."
Charlie Sheen Discloses He Is HIV+
[Content Note: HIV stigma; extortion; sex worker stigma; domestic violence. Video may autoplay at first link.]
It has been long rumored that Charlie Sheen is HIV+. Yesterday, Sheen started trending on Twitter, as stories were published on celebrity news sites that he would be appearing on the Today show this morning to confirm the rumors.
And so he has.
In an interview with Matt Lauer, Sheen disclosed that he was diagnosed with HIV four years ago, and he has been trying to keep it a secret, owing to the continuing cultural stigma, ever since. He decided to publicly disclose his status to put a stop to what he described as "shakedowns" from the people in his life who knew and threatened to go public if he didn't pay them. According to Sheen, he has paid out millions to people to secure their silence.
Extorting someone by threatening to reveal zie is HIV+ is a despicable act. Revealing anything about anyone's health without their consent, even when there is not a marginalizing stigma attached to it, is loathsome. I am genuinely sorry that Charlie Sheen was subjected to such profound betrayals.
That said, this is Sheen's version of events, and he has a vested interest in controlling the narrative so that he is not portrayed as a person who knew he was HIV+ and was careless about protecting his sex partners.
And one of the ways to do that is to focus on sexual partners, especially sex workers, who betrayed his trust, to redirect any concern about whether, perhaps, he had betrayed theirs by failing to disclose his status or practice safer sex.
There has been some suggestion that at least some of the people whom Sheen accuses of blackmail had filed or were planning to file lawsuits because of exposure to the virus. Lauer explicitly asks Sheen about that, and Sheen denies it, though not entirely.
Lauer reads from a letter Sheen sent to him, in which he wrote that he "hired the companionship of unsavory and insipid types" and "regardless of their saltless reputations, I always led with condoms and honesty when it came to my condition," then asks Sheen: "Were these people that you had had sexual contact with and were claiming that you had transmitted the virus to them, or were these people who simply found out about your status and were threatening to tell the world?" Sheen replies: "Um, more the latter."
More, but not exclusively. Lauer asks again if "we're talking about lawsuits or shakedowns," and Sheen responds "shakedowns." He relates a story about a sex worker whom he'd hired taking a photo of his antiviral meds, and says she did so after he told her they weren't going to be seeing each other anymore, implying that she threatened to expose him out of a retribution—a woman scorned.
There runs throughout the interview a negative commentary on sex workers, who also implicitly get the blame for infecting Sheen, who says he doesn't know exactly how he was infected but that it wasn't intravenous drug use.
He was, he confesses, heavily abusing drugs and alcohol before and after his diagnosis. He explains why he continued to allow people who were extorting him to have access to his life by saying he was high and depressed and making bad decisions. But one bad decision he never made, he says, was exposing sex partners to HIV without their knowledge.
Lauer gives him plenty of opportunity to reiterate that he practiced rigorous safety and honesty:
Lauer: Have you knowingly, or even perhaps unknowingly, transmitted the HIV virus to someone else since your diagnosis?Maybe this is true. Maybe Charlie Sheen, who has a long history of violently abusing women, really did get a wake-up call and decide that women's lives and safety are not his to play with as he wishes, and maybe he really did disclose his status to every sex partner he's had since his diagnosis.
Sheen: Impossible. Impossible.
Lauer: We're gonna talk to you with your doctor in a second about that.
Sheen: I look forward to it—good.
Lauer: Have you had unprotected sex on any occasion since your diagnosis?
Sheen: Yes, but the two people that I did that with, um, were under the care of my doctor, and they were completely warned ahead of time.
Lauer: Have you, since the time of your diagnosis, told every one of your sexual partners, before you had a sexual encounter, that you were HIV+?
Sheen: Yes I have.
Lauer: No exception?
Sheen: No exception.
Or maybe the Today show just provided a man with a history of harming women a very visible platform in which to preemptively call any woman, any "unsavory and insipid" sex worker, a liar, should she be fixing to allege that she was infected by Charlie Sheen.
A man who was not regularly getting HIV tests despite being sexually active with multiple partners and who evidently believes it's okay to have unprotected sex as long as your partner is "under the care of [your] doctor," as though there is no potential to muddy meaningful consent under the care of a single doctor, especially one who serves at the pleasure of a famous, wealthy, and influential man.
I have a very bad feeling about how this is going to publicly play out. I hope I am wrong. I desperately hope that Sheen is being honest now about being honest then, and that all his partners are safe.
* * *
UPDATE: And here we go: "Charlie Sheen's Ex Bree Olson Claims He Never Revealed HIV-Positive Status to Her: 'I Couldn't Be More Angry'."
Party of Moral Values
[Content Note: Islamophobia; xenophobia; racism; terrorism.]
The Republican presidential candidates are going all in on Islamophobic bigotry. Their contemptible hostility toward refugees in search of safety is, of course, unsurprising—but it is appallingly ragemaking all the same.
Jeb Bush: "There are a lot of Christians in Syria that have no place now. They'll be either executed or imprisoned, either by Assad or by ISIS. And I think we should have—we should focus our efforts as it relates to the Christians that are being slaughtered. ...This also calls to mind the need to protect our borders, our southern border particularly. This is a threat against Western civilization, and we need to lead. The United States has pulled back and when we pull back, voids are filled. And they're filled now by Islamic terrorism that threatens our country."
Bush ignores that Muslims have been the primary targets and victims of IS, that many Muslims have been slaughtered. He sets this up as a battle of civilizations (nope), and then implicitly accuses President Obama for "pulling back" and creating the void in which IS has flourished, even though Obama pulled out of Iraq on a timetable set by Bush's own brother, whose disastrous foreign policy adventures are actually responsible for creating that void. Bush has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Ben Carson: [video may autoplay at link] "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is calling on Congress to withdraw funding to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States, arguing in the wake of the Paris attacks that there is no credible way to tell the difference between an Islamic State militant and an innocent citizen fleeing war. In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Carson urged congressional Republicans to 'extinguish' Syrian resettlement programs, saying the United States 'cannot, should not and must not accept any Syrian refugees.'"
Carson conflates Muslim terrorists with the entire Muslim population, despite the fact that the majority of people fleeing and seeking refuge are Muslims. He uses inflammatory, eliminationist language—"extinguish"—to draw a unilateral line against extending a safe haven to the people who have most suffered under IS' terroristic campaigns. Carson has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Chris Christie: "I do not trust this administration to effectively vet the people who are supposed to be coming in in order to protect the safety and security of the American people, so I would not permit them in. ...The fact is that we need for appropriate vetting, and I don't think that orphans under 5 should be admitted to the United States at this point."
Christie asserts that there are definitely terrorists among the refugees, despite the fact that 750,000 refugees have come to the US since 9/11, and not a single one has been arrested on charges of domestic terrorism. He is so serious about the scourge of terrorism that he would deny refuge to a tiny child who has been orphaned by terrorism. Christie has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Ted Cruz: "What Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing is that we bring to this country tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. I have to say particularly in light of what happened in Paris, that's nothing short of lunacy." Cruz says "he plans to introduce legislation that would ban Muslim Syrian refugees from entering the U.S."
Cruz, whose father was a Cuban refugee who fled his home's repressive Communist regime, thinks it is "lunacy" to extend refuge to Muslims, providing to them the same safety that was provided to his father by the country he wants to lead. Cruz has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Carly Fiorina: [video may autoplay at link] Fiorina accused President Obama "of accepting refugees 'unilaterally' and not pledging to verify that they have no ties to terrorism."
Fiorina evidently believes that terrorists are deceitful enough to disguise themselves as refugees to obtain entry into the US, but won't lie if asked the pledge they have no ties to terrorism. And implies that President Obama is a fool. Fiorina has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Jim Gilmore: "I think that the Paris attacks are basically the 9/11 for France. It should be bringing to the forefront of the American people that we are at war, that we're still in danger, that if anything things have deteriorated under this administration." He also warned: "Paris, ladies and gentlemen, is only the beginning."
Paris is "only the beginning" if one ignores that refugees from Syria and elsewhere have been suffering under a sustained nightmare of these sorts of attacks for years. Which is why there is a refugee crisis in the first place. Gilmore has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Lindsey Graham: "The one thing I've learned from Paris is that we need to have a timeout on bringing refugees into this country until we have a system that we think will work. So I'm calling for a timeout on Syrian refugees." Our system is working. 750,000 refugees since 9/11. Zero arrests for domestic terrorism. That sounds like a system which is working. Graham has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Mike Huckabee: Always the worst clown in the clown car, Huckabee has engaged in rank racist rhetoric—"It's time to wake up and smell the falafel. We are importing terrorism."—and has spoken about refugees like they are, perhaps, confused elderly lapdogs—"And if you think about it, we would be bringing people in who lived in the desert their entire lives, and they would be completely disrupted, not only in terms of their culture, their language, their religion, my gosh even in terms of their climate. Can you imagine bringing in a bunch of Syrian refugees who've lived in the desert their whole lives that are suddenly thrown into an English speaking community? Where it's maybe in Minnesota where it is 20 degrees below zero? I mean just I don't understand what we possibly can be thinking."—and has called on newly elected Republican Speaker Paul Ryan to step down if he "will not lead and reject the importation of those fleeing the Middle East without assurances that we can separate refugees from terrorists."
Huckabee has also criticized President Obama, saying: "It's embarrassing when a left-wing socialist French President shows strength and determination to eradicate animals who are slaughtering innocent civilians while our President lectures us on the moral necessity to open our borders to tens of thousands of un-vetted people from the Middle East." Only the French people are "innocent civilians" in Huckabee's calculation. The refugees are innocent civilians, but Huckabee classifies them as "un-vetted people from the Middle East." Huckabee has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Bobby Jindal: Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, has "issued an executive order Monday (Nov. 16) to prevent Syrian refugees from being resettled in Louisiana. He cited Friday's terrorist attacks that killed 129 people in Paris and injured hundreds more." This is not legal.
Jindal has argued: "Simply allowing more people into our country doesn't solve [the problem of IS]." No, it does not. But it does save those people's lives. Jindal has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
John Kasich: Kasich, the governor of Ohio, has also sought to seek barring refugees from settlement in his state. "The governor doesn't believe the U.S. should accept additional Syrian refugees because security and safety issues cannot be adequately addressed," Kasich spokesman Jim Lynch said in a statement. "The governor is writing to the President to ask him to stop, and to ask him to stop resettling them in Ohio. We are also looking at what additional steps Ohio can take to stop resettlement of these refugees."
Kasich did not stop there. He also believes "we better be careful about looking at Americans that have traveled—Americans themselves who have traveled back and forth." Kasich has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
George Pataki: "There's zero ability to vet those refugees [and] we know some of them are terrorists. We take 10,000 refugees into this country, if one in 1,000 is a terrorist, that means 10 of them are coming here to engage in terrorist activity and kill Americans. What are we going to do? Call up the Syrian government and say, 'hey, by the way, is this guy a terrorist?' We have got to stop taking refugees until there is in fact a vetting process that lets us know that they're coming here not to harm us."
Pataki is full of shit. We have a successful refugee program now that does not suggest in any way that "one in 1,000" refugees "is a terrorist." Further, I understand that there is a possibility a terrorist may infiltrate the refugee population, and I understand that slightly increases my risk for death at the hands of a terrorist. (But does not meaningfully increase my risk for harm from a number of other sources, including an angry man with a grievance and a gun, on any given day.) I am willing to accept that minimal increase of risk in order to substantially decrease the risk for the vast majority of refugees. As should we all. Pataki has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Rand Paul: [video may autoplay at link] Paul has said he will propose legislation "to halt visas from all countries with 'significant jihadist movements' in light of Friday night's terror attacks in Paris for which Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility. 'The best way to defend the country from attackers that don't really have an army, but come here as individuals, is to prevent their access into this country,' Paul told reporters on Monday. 'It is about time, and I think Paris should wake us up to the fact that we can't just let anyone come to this country,' he added. ...'In order to be safe, in order to be secure, we cant just say, 'Hey we've got an open door and we're going to take people form the Middle East,'' he said."
Paul ignores the fact that it is people from countries with "significant jihadist movements" who are most in need of refuge. Paul has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Marco Rubio: "After saying earlier that he would be open to the idea of allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S., Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Sunday that 'we won't be able to take more refugees' in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. 'It's not that we don't want to,' Rubio said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 'It's that we can't.'"
Rubio is full of shit. We can and we should. Rubio has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Rick Santorum: [video may autoplay at link] Santorum "insisted there is no way to determine who the refugees are and what their intentions will be when they arrive. 'We have our own Homeland Security Department telling us that we cannot properly vet people from this region. We don't know who they are. In many cases, they don't have documents. Again, look at the reality that 70 percent of the people leaving Syria are military age men. This is not your typical refugee flow. This is something very different going on. Are there real refugees? Of course there are. Are there people that are not going to harm the United States? Of course there are. But we don't know who they are."
Santorum is peddling complete codswallop: "Our emphasis is on admitting the most vulnerable Syrians—particularly survivors of violence and torture, those with severe medical conditions, and women and children—in a manner that is consistent with U.S. national security," a State Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "Military-aged males unattached to families comprise only approximately two percent of Syrian refugee admissions to date." Santorum has zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
Donald Trump: "Mr. Trump also once again used an epithet to describe how swiftly and forcefully he would bomb the Islamic State strongholds, a line he first uttered in Iowa last week. It was met with slightly less gusto there. Mr. Trump on Monday denounced the 'animals' who perpetrated the attacks in France. He questioned why so many of the refugees fleeing into Europe are men, who aren't 'back fighting for their country.' 'Is this a Trojan horse?' he said. 'We all know the story of the Trojan horse.'"
Trump is a human nightmare with zero compassion, decency, or integrity.
This, then, is your "party of moral values," your party of "Real Americans," your party of big ideas and big tents, your party of "compassionate conservatives." Not a single damn one of them is willing to open the door to refugees who are fleeing for their lives from terrorists, because they are convinced those refugees are themselves terrorists. They use alarmism and lies to generate resistance to helping refugees, which will put those refugees at higher risk when they do arrive—which they will, because we have a President who isn't a heartless piece of shit.
Within weeks, these candidates will gather around a table with their families, celebrating a whitewashed fairy tale about the Native Americans who opened their hearts to white settlers and welcomed them with food and drink and camaraderie. Weeks after that, they will gather with their families to celebrate a holiday marking the birth of their savior, whose Middle Eastern parents were turned away and his mother forced to birth him in a manger surrounded by animals.
And none of them will pause for a moment to appreciate the irony on either day.
There's no room for introspection when you're busy celebrating what Good All-American Christians you are.
Question of the Day
What is a kind thing someone did for you lately, for which you were very appreciative?
