Shakesville

The Monday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by vinegar chips.

Recommended Reading:

Rachel: [Content Note: Misogyny; racism; disablism; moving GIFs at link; some images may be NSFW] Selfie: The Revolutionary Potential of Your Own Face, in Seven Chapters

July: [CN: Food insecurity; poverty; appropriation] The Troubling Trendiness of Poverty Appropriation

Jenn: [CN: Misogyny; racism] LifeHack.org Publishes Racist and Sexist Article about Dating Chinese Women

Carolyn: [CN: Misogyny; violent entitlement; hostility to consent] Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Shares Terrible Thoughts on Consent: "Take Away My Access to Hugging, I Will Probably Start Killing"

Lydia: [CN: Misogyny; visibility] Bringing Balance to the Force: The Women of Star Wars Episode VII

Charles: [CN: Transphobia] From the Looks of It, Zoolander 2 Might Be Transphobic as Hell

Chris: Watch Ultra HD Video of a Colorful Water Blob in Space

Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!

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Stoppppppppppppp

[Content Note: Islamophobia; terrorism.]

The Republican presidential candidates are just a bunch of shameless liars:

Rand Paul said on Friday that the Boston bombers came to America as refugees and were "coddled" and given "free stuff," before they "decided to attack us."

"The Boston bombers came here and as refugees, we coddled them, we gave them free stuff, we gave them free housing, and yet, they decided to attack us, so there's a great risk," Paul told radio host Jeff Kuhner.

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the brothers responsible for the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, did not enter the country through the refugee screening process. The Tsarnaev family entered on tourist visas and, through a process different from the refugee program, eventually were granted political asylum.

They just lie and lie and lie.

And their supporters gobble it right up, because they care far less about the truth than they do about having their bigotry validated.

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[Content Note: Islamophobia.]

"There seems to be no bottom to the cesspool of Islamophobic rhetoric coming from Republican candidates. The tone of anti-Muslim musings post-Paris attack has become so poisonous that it cannot portend anything positive. ...[T]his is the problem with reckless, racist rhetoric: Each utterance tosses one more log onto the bonfire that can burn out a space for the unimaginable. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned in his 1967 'The Other America' speech: 'Racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.' As King put it: 'If one says that I am not good enough to live next door to him; if one says that I am not good enough to eat at a lunch counter, or to have a good, decent job, or to go to school with him merely because of my race, he is saying consciously or unconsciously that I do not deserve to exist.' Whereas these candidates may not be conscious of this 'ultimate logic' or in any way approve of it, it doesn't make their language any less dangerous when it lands on the ears of the minorities on the margins, or those looking for a reason to gussy up their wrongheadedness with righteousness."—Charles M. Blow in his latest for the New York Times, "Anti-Muslim Is Anti-American."

[Related Reading: This Must Stop.]

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

[Content Note: There is a strobe effect in this video.]

Whitesnake: "Here I Go Again"

This week will feature all of Deeky's favorite hair metal bands, in honor of his birthday.

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The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]

screen cap from The Walking Dead of Tara and Michonne standing on a platform; Tara is flipping off Grimes, who is offscreen

In which Tara speaks for us all.
Me, ~~one million years~~ four weeks ago: "Glenn isn't dead. We're definitely supposed to think that Glenn is dead! But unless Glenn has anatomy unlike every other human being on earth, and his intestines are actually in his throat, it wasn't Glenn's innards that were being eaten; it was the innards of Douchebag Beta, whose corpse was lying on top of him, after their fall from the top of the dumpster."

I AM A GENIUS!

Ha ha just kidding! It definitely did not take a genius to figure out that the writers of The Walking Dead are the woooooorst and were totally pulling the most terrible stunt in the history of terrible stunt television!

So, after ~~eleventy thousand~~ three episodes of bullshit filler, finally we find out that Glenn was, in fact, not dead (TO THE FAINTING COUCHES!) and it was indeed the corpse of Douchebag Beta that was being torn to pieces by hungry zombies. Naturally, Glenn escapes by scooting under the dumpster, into which this entire show should be thrown. He hangs out there until the zombies disperse, then scoots back out, and he's SO THIRSTY. (Almost as thirsty as the writers of this show.) Luckily, someone throws him a bottle of water.

It's Enid! Who ran away from Aarontown despite the commands of her teenage paramour and patriarch-in-training Tig Nocarl. Glenn thanks Enid for her assistance by being a Grimesian nightmare, shouting at her that she's not allowed to try to survive on her own. "YOU ARE A TEENAGE GIRL! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE ANY AGENCY? I AM A MAN, AND I SAY YOU'RE COMING WITH ME, SO THAT'S THE END OF IT, LITTLE LADY!" shouts Glenn.

I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. He screams the same thing at her approximately three more times, in addition to auditing her emotions in a supercool way: "I'm not afraid," she tells him, to which he replies, "OH YES YOU ARE. I KNOW YOU BETTER THAN YOU KNOW YOURSELF, EVEN THOUGH, AS YOU CORRECTLY POINTED OUT, WE BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER! WE DON'T HAVE TO KNOW EACH OTHER! I AM A MAN AND YOU ARE A NOT-MAN, AND THEREFORE I AM AN EXPERT ON YOUR EMOTIONS AND THE INDISPUTABLE AUTHORITY ON YOUR LIFE! SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BLOW UP SOME GODDAMN BALLOONS SO WE CAN SIGNAL MY WIFE! SHE PROBABLY HASN'T EVEN EATEN OR WIPED HER ASS OR BREATHED IN THE TIME I'VE BEEN GONE WITHOUT ME THERE TELLING HER WHAT TO DO! MOVE IT!"

Approximately. I'm transcribing from memory.

Did I mention I'm really glad that Glenn survived? What a relief.

Meanwhile, back at Aarontown, Grimes starts building reinforcements to the wall, and a rando Aarontownian joins him, just so we can have another terrific scene of someone telling Grimes that he was right all along. Grimes also lectures Maggie about survival, like she hasn't been through it; barks at Morgan that they need to talk, like Morgan's a naughty child; tears down Gabriel's posters for a prayer circle; and teaches Ron Blinney how to use a gun, with the condescending help of Tig Nocarl, who's whipped out his cool hat for the occasion.

Ron Blinney wants to practice shooting, but Grimes is all HELL NAW KID, and Tig Nocarl is being such a sanctimonious brat. I hope Ron Blinney isn't fixing to steal some ammo and do something stupid!

Grimes has a great chat with Morgan, who is still hiding an injured W-Head in a cell. He asks Morgan if he really thinks he can survive without getting blood on his hands. "MURDER IS THE ONLY WAY!" Grimes screams. At least, that's how it is in my memory. Lest you imagine that this show doesn't believe in gender equality (lol), Rosita Espinoza also screams at Dr. Mulletworth that MURDER IS THE ONLY WAY, and Carol tells a small child that MURDER IS THE ONLY WAY. The Grimes Doctrine ain't just for the menfolk, LADIES.

Morgan decides to get in a little patriarchal posturing of his own, when he pays a visit to Doctor Zoey and shames her for her lack of confidence. Cool negging strategy to get her to participate in his secret plan to heal the W-Head he's got in captivity.

Elsewhere, another man has a bright idea! Deanna's surviving son Spencer decides he's going to save the town from the impending zombie horde by shimmying over the wall along a rope he's attached to the watchtower with a grappling hook. He's making his way across, with Grimes screaming bloody murder at him, when the rope starts to give way. OH NOES! Spencer dangles from the rope, and his feet are just out of reach of the zombies. Grimes pulls him up to safety while Tara shoots at zombies getting too close.

There might actually have been some dramatic tension in this scene, since Spencer is as expendable as it gets for a character whose name we know, except it was obvious from the get-go that the whole point was just to give Grimes another chance to scream at someone.

And, sure enough, Grimes screams at Spencer about how stupid he is and that if he has any more ideas, he needs to run them by OPTIMUS GRIMES. (To which Spencer pitifully mutters: "Would you have listened?" Ha ha good point!) Grimes then screams at Tara for putting herself in peril to save Spencer, which prompts Tara to flip him off.

See photo above. I like to think that Michonne is fondly remembering that time she punched Grimes in the face. Good times.

All kinds of mini-arcs start to careen toward confrontation—Carol discovers Morgan is hiding someone; Ron Blinney has raided the arsenal and has pulled a gun on Tig Nocarl; Glenn and Enid arrive at the outskirts only to discover the mass of zombies outside the wall—when suddenly the watchtower, to which Spencer had affixed his rope for his ill-fated plan, topples over, crashing into the wall.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL OF COURSE IT DOES. THIS FUCKING SHOW.

Next week: More of this garbage.

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Daily Dose of Cute

image of Dudley the Greyhound sitting in front of me with a huge grin and his ears folded back

"Dudley, where are your ears?!"

image of Dudley the Greyhound sitting in front of me with his ears sticking out

"Oh there they are!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; war] "France has launched its first missions against Islamic State (IS) militants from its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, military sources said. The newly-deployed carrier has 26 fighters, tripling French capacity. ...France stepped up its bombings of IS following the attacks on Paris, in which 130 people were killed. On Monday, Mr Hollande met British Prime Minister David Cameron for talks as part of a fresh diplomatic push. He will also meet the leaders of the US, Germany, and Russia this week. Mr Hollande said: 'We will intensify our strikes, choosing targets that will do the most damage possible to this army of terrorists.'"

[CN: Refugee crisis; hunger strike; images at link may be upsetting] "Moroccans, Iranians, and Pakistanis on Greece's northern border with Macedonia blocked rail traffic and demanded passage to western Europe on Monday, stranded by a policy of filtering migrants in the Balkans that has raised human rights concerns. One Iranian man, declaring a hunger strike, stripped to the waist, sewed his lips together with nylon and sat down in front of lines of Macedonian riot police. Asked by Reuters where he wanted to go, the man, a 34-year-old electrical engineer named Hamid, said: 'To any free country in the world. I cannot go back. I will be hanged.'" Blub.

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Meanwhile, as Republicans continue to fearmonger about imaginary refugee terrorism: "Kentucky's last remaining full-time abortion clinic has been vandalized twice in less than one month. On the night of October 26, EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville suffered a broken window when an unidentified man bolted past protestors across the street and threw his body into the clinic's window. The clinic's executive director, Anne, who withheld her name for security reasons, said following the incident, the man walked away calmly, leaving the window in pieces. Just three weeks later on November 11, surveillance cameras captured a male perpetrator kneeling and praying in front of the clinic. According to Anne, forty-five minutes later, the man returned, this time with 'a blanket over his head' and in a matter of minutes, hurled a rock through the office's window before walking away. ...Last month, an intruder wielding a hatchet destroyed telephones and other office equipment in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Claremont, New Hampshire. In September, two clinic were set ablaze by arsonists in Washington state and California respectively. This summer, two clinics in Louisiana suffered property damage in separate incidents of vandalism and in March, trespassers destroyed security cameras and a power generator at Mississippi's Jackson Women's Health Center."

[CN: Refugee crisis; Islamophobia] President Obama met with some refugee children, most of whom "are Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar to escape persecution by the country's Buddhist majority, with many ending up in Malaysia, where Obama was attending a regional economic summit." There are pictures at the link, and they are exactly what you expect when you prepare to look at pictures of President Obama with kids.

[CN: Guns; injury. Video may autoplay at link.] "A shooting in a New Orleans park left 16 people injured, police said. Several hundred people had gathered at Bunny Friend Playground for an impromptu music video filming late Sunday when two groups began firing on each other, the New Orleans Police Department said in a statement." Thank Maude no one was killed. I hope the people who were injured have access to the resources they need to heal.

[CN: Transphobic violence; police misconduct] "Just weeks after Houston voters rejected an equal rights ordinance, a transgender resident says he was assaulted by neighbors with a gun and a knife. Lucas Young, a trans man, also says police responding to the attack mocked him due to his gender identity and failed to arrest the perpetrators, prompting him to file an internal affairs complaint. ...Police aren't commenting on the incident due to the ongoing internal affairs investigation." Of course they aren't.

[CN: Racism; carcerality] Martin O'Malley, what are you even doing? "Republican candidates have largely embraced the myth of the 'Ferguson effect,' which theorizes that police are more hesitant to do their jobs after high-profile police protests in Ferguson and other cities, driving up crime rates. But Democratic candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley also seemed to entertain the idea at a criminal justice forum on Saturday. O'Malley spoke at length about his record of criminal justice reform at the forum, arguing that his policies as mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland drove down crime and decreased incarceration rates." Uhhhhh.

Only 8 points?! "Hillary Clinton has an 8-point lead over Donald Trump in response to question, 'Who would you trust more to handle the threat of terrorism,' according to ABC News/Washington Post poll."

This weekend, "Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America" aired on A&E, History, Lifetime, FYI, LMN, and H2. I watched some of it (until I fell asleep, because I am old) and what I saw was good. (Someone give John Legend a medal for his "conversation" with a white dude about "colorblindness.") Anyway, Colorlines has a few highlights, if you missed it.

[CN: Video autoplays at link] And finally! A snuggly hamster lazily eating a carrot! OMGSQUEEEEEE.

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A BOUNTY OF RICHES

As you might have heard, ahem, Adele just dropped her new album. And now Rihanna is dropping a new album, too!

Believe it or not, it's been over three years since Rihanna had dropped her last album Unapologetic -- signifying the longest gap between albums in her career thus far. However, her fans are in luck as they do not have to wait much longer for the release of her upcoming studio album Anti. During the American Music Awards last night, a series of commercials teased the album's release and according to Teen Vogue, it'll arrive exclusively on TIDAL on Black Friday, November 27, and everywhere else on December 4.

Yayayayayay! Rihanna and Adele have my two favorite voices in current music. I can't listen to either one of them without all the chilllllllllls. If there is music playing at Shakes Manor, there is a 92% chance it's either Adele or Rihanna. Or a mix of both.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF!

And this right on the heels of Janet Jackson having released her first album in seven years over the summer, and Missy Elliott earlier this month releasing her first video in seven years, "WTF (Where They From)," featuring Pharrell Williams. WHICH IS SO GREAT.

So many of my favorite ladies are just killing it! All at once! I can't even process it!

*runs in circles*

*collapses*

[Videos autoplay at all links] In related news, Adele surprised some Adele impersonators at an audition, and it was very sweet! She was also the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend, and her performances were extraordinary. There was also this hilarious digital short, in which Adele saves Thanksgiving. "Thanks, Adele!"

Anyway! Is there any new music by female artists about which you're really excited?

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Trump on a Rampage

[Content Note: Racism; misogyny; violence; victim-blaming; Islamophobia; Neo-Nazism.]

So here are just a few things that have happened with Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump:

1. On Friday night, he did an interview with Barbara Walters, located in the gilded inner sanctum of his gold palace, in which he again spoke of the need to build a wall along the southern border of the US, deport migrant workers en masse, claimed that women like him because we know he's going to "protect" us, and denied the existence of privilege by asserting: "Winning is something innate. Maybe you have the winning gene." Says the fucking clown who thinks a million dollar loan from Daddy is NBD.

2. [Video may autoplay at first link; shows images of racist violence] On Saturday, at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, a black activist named Mercutio Southall Jr., shouted "Black lives matter!" and was subsequently overcome, pushed to the ground, punched and kicked by white attendees.

"Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?" Trump said... "Get him out of here. Throw him out!"

At one point, Southall fell to the ground and was surrounded by several white men who appeared to be kicking and punching him, according to video captured by CNN. A Washington Post reporter in the crowd watched as one of the men put his hands on Southall's neck and heard a female onlooker repeatedly shout: "Don't choke him!"

As security officers got Southall on his feet and led him out of the building, he was repeatedly pushed and shoved by people in the crowd. The crowd alternated between booing and cheering. There were chants of "All lives matter!"

Without a trace of fucking irony. On Sunday morning, during an interview with Fox News, Trump shrugged: "Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble."

3. [Videos may autoplay at links] Also on Saturday, Trump made the outrageous claim that "he saw thousands of people in Jersey City, New Jersey cheering when the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001." That was a rumor circulating at the time, but has since been thoroughly discredited and debunked. Nonetheless, Trump doubled-down on Sunday, during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week, claiming he saw it with his own eyes:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you made -- you raised some eyebrows yesterday with comments you made at -- at your latest rally -- and I want to show them, relating to 9/11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, the police say that didn't happen and all those rumors have been on the Internet for some time. So did you meek -- misspeak yesterday?

TRUMP: It did happen. I saw it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw that...

TRUMP: It was on television. I saw it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- with your own eyes.

TRUMP: George, it did happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Police say it didn't happen.

TRUMP: There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down -- as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don't like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: As I said, the police have said it didn't happen. But what I want to move on right now.

Lying fucking liar.

4. [Video may autoplay at link] During the same interview, Trump also said he would "absolutely" bring back waterboarding, because "I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us." Apart from the fact that waterboarding has been definitively proved ineffective in yielding reliable intel, because it turns out human beings will say just about anything to get people to stop torturing them (go figure), and would be aggressively indecent even if it were effective, "our torture isn't as bad as their torture" isn't exactly the sort of thoughtful ethics I'd like and expect to see from a president.

5. Also yesterday, Trump tweeted some profoundly racist "crime statistics," which aren't even a little bit accurate: "These statistics are made up out of thin air, and the source—the 'Crime Statistics Bureau' in San Francisco—simply does not exist. ...Where did this graphic come from? My first thought was that it must have originated at a white supremacist website like Stormfront, because it really is that bad. But neither Google Image search nor tineye.com found it posted at any websites. Google Images did, however, find the earliest tweet in which this horrible racist image appeared." The account belongs to a Neo Nazi, whose bio says he's an admirer of Hitler and whose profile pic "is the symbol of the neo-Nazi German Faith Movement."

This is the front runner of the Republican primary. And he continues to lead in the polls by significant margins.

I see headline after headline about how "establishment Republicans" are freaking out. Welp. This is the inevitable result that decades of your cynical and contemptible politicking has wrought. The only people you have to blame for this grotesquery is yourselves. Assholes.

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November 23rd!

November 23rd is one of THE BEST days, because it is the birthday of two of my favorite people on the planet!

image of Deeky and me standing in front of a statue of children in a park in Baltimore

Deeky W. Gashlycrumb!

image of Elle, PhD and me standing in my living room

Elle, PhD!
I adore these two lovely people more than I can say. I would do anything for them. And I am so lucky to know them.

Anyone who tells you that real friendships cannot be formed over the internet doesn't know what the hell they are talking about.

To my braintwin and my windmill twin: Happy Birthday. My life is better because you are in it. I love you both. ♥

[Photos shared with permission.]

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Open Thread

image of the character Boba Fett froe the Star Wars universe

Hosted by Boba Fett.

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The Virtual Pub Is Open

image of a pub Photoshopped to be named 'The Beloved Community Pub'

[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]

Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.

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Quote of the Day

image of actor Tom Hardy, looking very scruffy and smoking a cigar

Hello.
"I'm just Tommy who does his thing. I guarantee you within a couple of years' time this will all blow over and I'll be back to being about as interesting as I am, which is not very interesting at all. I'm just doing a bit of acting now and then. It's like I came to deliver a pizza and I got really lucky."—Tom Hardy. This guy.

In the same interview, he reveals that he once auditioned for Mr. Darcy in an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and was told by a studio executive: "Every woman has an idea of who Mr. Darcy is, and I'm afraid you're just not it."

Whooooooooooooops!

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Liss and Ana Talk About Stuff

[Content Note: Privilege. This is a conversation Ana Mardoll and I had on Twitter last night, which I am reproducing here with her permission.]

Ana: Welp: "The Hobbit movies were awful, and now we know why: I was pretty surprised when Peter Jackson took over from Guillermo del Toro to make the Hobbit trilogy, and [they were a mess]. In what can only be described as the most honest promotional video of all time, we find out why: the movies were made completely on the fly, without a script or nearly any advanced planning. …[T]hings got so bad that when they started shooting the titular Battle of Five Armies itself they were essentially just shooting B-roll: footage of people in costumes waving around swords, without any cohesive plan for how the sequence would actually play out. (A choice Jackson quote: 'I didn't know what the hell I was doing.')"

Liss: You know how people who aren't straight white cis men are just given hundreds of millions of dollars to dick around with.

Ana: Right? But we can't let NOT white cis dudes direct films because they haven't proved themselves!!

Liss: And then everyone thinks it's charming when they're all haha I didn't even know what I was doing! "Here, have one of the most coveted properties in all of filmdom. Just have fun! If you fuck it up, we'll promote the DVD w/ it!"

Ana: It'll be hilarious! We'll all look back and laugh from atop the pile of money we made!

Liss: #SmauginItUp #blessed

Ana: I'm dying laughing.

Liss: LOL

Ana: You're a lady and you just don't understand his vision!

Liss: I have been failing to understand straight white dudes' lack of vision for 41 years and counting.

Ana: Maybe you should smile more and make them cookies just a thought ;)

Liss:

Ana: THAT COOKIE BELONGED TO PETER JACKSON, MADAM

Liss: NOM NOM NOM

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