This is a problem.

[Content Note: Domestic violence.]

Remember that CEO who decided to give all his employees a raise to $70k? Well, Bloomberg Businessweek has a story, authored by Karen Weise, about how maybe it wasn't just the altruistic move it appeared to be.

The article, which is posted under the Vox-esque trash headline "The CEO Paying Everyone $70,000 Salaries Has Something to Hide," is mostly about how the timing of the highly publicized raise is somewhat suspicious, given a lawsuit filed by his brother, who owns about 30% of the company.

And then, at the fourth paragraph from the end of the long piece, we come to this:

Price's life may get more complicated the week of Dec. 7, when TEDx plans to post online a public talk by his former wife, who changed her last name to Colón. She spoke on Oct. 28 at the University of Kentucky about the power of writing to overcome trauma. Colón stood on stage wearing cerulean blue and, without naming Price, read from a journal entry she says she wrote in May 2006 about her then-husband. "He got mad at me for ignoring him and grabbed me and shook me again," she read. "He also threw me to the ground and got on top of me. He started punching me in the stomach and slapped me across the face. I was shaking so bad." Later in the talk, Colón recalled once locking herself in a car, "afraid he was going to body-slam me into the ground again or waterboard me in our upstairs bathroom like he had done before."

I read those quotes to Price. "I'm just going to take a second because this is very surprising to me," he said. He paused. "I appreciate and respect my former wife, and she played a very positive role in my life," he said. "Out of respect for her, I wouldn't feel comfortable responding to a supposed allegation she may have said coming from a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter when I have absolutely zero evidence of an allegation being made." I told him that I wanted to be clear: I was giving him the chance to deny the claims. "My comment is very responsive," he said. "I would be more than happy to provide a comment if and when I actually get the benefit of seeing what you are referencing."

About three hours later, Price called back. "There's one more thing that I would like to add to my previous statement," he said. "The events that you described never happened."

I have a problem with this.

I have a problem with allegations of domestic violence being tossed in as an afterthought, and treated like just another possible "complication" in the life of someone whose credibility is being questioned, even as he is being lauded far and wide as a progressive hero.

And when the entire premise of the piece is "could he have done this seemingly magnanimous thing in order to preempt a lawsuit," I have a problem with the author evidently treating as truth that he'd never heard about the impending talk alleging domestic violence and not suggesting the possibility that he decided to stage his PR hero stunt in order to preemptively discredit imminent domestic violence allegations.

I don't imagine that media-savvy Dan Price is unaware that becoming a liberal hero tends to shield men from accusations of misogynist violence.

Engendering good will, and thus the reflexive defense of legions of strangers who will aggressively push back on any woman who dares to suggest a Good Guy might be abusive, is a strategy demonstrably employed by lots of abusive men.

And yet the reporter merely comments that she was giving him a chance to deny the claims.

Because while it's easy to believe a man may have cynically given raises to derail a potential lawsuit, it's somehow impossible to believe he may have cynically given raises to position himself as a Good Guy, right before his former spouse publicly alleges he isn't one.

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Mass Shooting in San Bernardino, California

[Content Note: Guns; violence; death.]

There has been another mass shooting, this time in San Bernardino, California. At the time of this posting, the situation is still active, and details are limited. The LA Times reports:

Up to 20 people were shot Wednesday at a social services office in San Bernardino, and officials said they were looking for one or more "active shooters."

The San Bernardino Fire Department said the shooting took place in the 1300 block of Waterman Avenue, near Orange Show Road.

Sgt. Vicki Cervantes, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino Police Department, told reporters at the scene up to three shooters were reported inside the Inland Regional Center. Officers have not secured the building and are going door to door.

The suspects, she said, are heavily armed and were possibly wearing body armor.

"It's a very active scene," Cervantes said. "It's very fluid."

Some reports are estimating that as many as 20 people have been shot, with 12 fatalities. I want to stress that this is very preliminary information at this point and has not been confirmed by authorities.

It has also been reported that there is a Planned Parenthood facility several blocks away, but there is no suggestion at this point that the clinic was the intended target.

The actual site of the shooting, the Inland Regional Center, "provides services to disabled people and others in need."

The organization's website states: "Inland Regional Center was built on the foundation of three core values — independence, inclusion, and empowerment. In following these core values, we hope to help provide each individual with a service system that helps identify and eliminate barriers for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families so they can closely live a typical lifestyle."

A SWAT team is actively searching for the gunmen, and a bomb squad has been deployed to the scene.

I am so sad and so angry for the victims and survivors of this shooting.

I will update this post as additional information becomes available. As always, please respect our usual request to keep these threads image-free.

UPDATE 1: Photographer Micah Escamilla tweeted that the sheriff was overheard saying, "All we can tell you is it's pretty bad."

Hillary Clinton appears to be the first presidential candidate to respond to the shooting, tweeting: "I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now."

UPDATE 2: Federal law enforcement sources say that police "used a robot to detonate a suspicious device found on the premises." There are also reports from eyewitnesses that some or all of the gunmen fled the scene in a black SUV.

UPDATE 3: Police have confirmed there were fatalities, but have not said how many. I don't even have words, only despair.

UPDATE 4: A local hospital spokesperson confirms that there are at least seven people being treated for injuries. Four currently being treated, with three more on the way.

UPDATE 5: While again cautioning this information is still very preliminary, a local reporter tweeted: "Witness tells us that an event honoring County personnel was going on in the conference center at IRC. Shooters entered there." If accurate, that may give some insight into the motive for attacking this facility and who the intended targets were.

UPDATE 6: President Obama, on today's shooting: "We have pattern now of mass shootings that has no parallel anywhere else in world." And this is where I am with the elected officials (I'm looking at you, Republicans) who have nothing to offer but prayers: "Dear Elected Officials: You are elected to take meaningful action, not to offer prayers. Fucking do something meaningful. No Love, Liss." At this point, if you've nothing to offer but prayers, you have nothing to offer period. To be an elected official who offers naught but prayers is to offer cruel indifference.

UPDATE 7: At a press conference, San Bernardino County Chief Jarrod Burguan just said: "What we have so far is information to the effect that up to 3 people had entered the building and opened fire on the people in the building. We have preliminary numbers of upwards of 14 people that are dead and up to 14 people that are injured." My god.

UPDATE 8: Also from the press conference: An FBI spokesperson said, "We do not know if this was a terrorist incident." Burguan, also quoted above, however, said: "We do not have any identification of who these suspects were [but] at minimum we have a domestic terrorist type situation that occurred."

UPDATE 9: MSNBC's Chris Hayes tweeted: "Officer says no indication it's 'terrorism in the traditional sense people might be thinking of' which is a hell of a euphemism." It sure is. Translation: We don't believe the shooters are Muslim. Meanwhile: The "Crazy Lone Gunman" brigade must be scrambling to figure out how they're going to minimize three gunmen working in concert with an obvious plan.

UPDATE 10: "Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, one of the most outspoken advocates for gun control in Congress, has released a statement on the shooting, which is the worst mass shooting since a gunman killed 26 people at a school in his state in 2012: 'My heart aches for the people of San Bernardino. I cannot express the profound sadness I feel each time a new community grieves and endures the same pain that brought Newtown to its knees three years ago this month. As we await the facts from the chaos on the ground, I can only pray that America's leaders will do something—anything—that prevents more communities from knowing this sorrow. Congress' number one responsibility is to keep our constituents safe, and not a single senator or member of Congress can go back to their state this weekend and claim that they are doing their job.'"

UPDATE 11: Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus tweets: "Our thoughts and prayers are with #SanBernardino." Terrific. The government doesn't exist to issue thoughts and prayers, jackass.

UPDATE 12: [CN: Description of shooting] From the Guardian: "Police have disabled a black SUV and have surrounded it with armored cars and cruisers—they do not know whether the suspect car is related to the shooting but shots have been fired. Separately they have stopped one man in a parking lot after he tried to flee on foot. There appears to be at least one person lying prone at the disabled SUV, which footage shows to be shot through with bullet holes. Dozens of officers in small teams have gathered at a distance around the car, whose windshields were smashed out with gunshots. The SUV's driver-side and passenger door are hanging open."

UPDATE 13: San Bernardino Police Sgt. Vicki Cervantes has confirmed that 14 people were killed and 17 people were injured. One suspect is "confirmed down."

UPDATE 14: Reports are that one suspect in the SUV is now in custody and two have been shot. But there is still no official confirmation at this point that this incident is connected to the earlier shooting.

UPDATE 15: Reports are that one suspect is dead, one is injured, and one is in custody. One officer was hurt during the shoot-out with the suspects, but his injuries are reportedly not life-threatening.

UPDATE 16: "According to a federal law enforcement official, authorities believe that one man angrily left the event that county employees were holding Wednesday morning at the Inland Regional Center. The man, they believe, returned with 'one or two' others and opened fire." I have seen this reported only by the LA Times, but, if accurate, it's a very important piece of information.

UPDATE 17: Via the Guardian: "After updating reporters on the condition of five shooting victims in this hospital, a spokeswoman for the Loma Linda University Medical Center said: 'We're all shaken by this. We're all bothered by this. I think we should all go home to our loved ones and understand this could happen anytime and we have to be prepared for it." The new normal.

UPDATE 18: The police confirm that two suspects were killed during the shoot-out with police, one man and one woman. The third suspect, a man, has been detained and is in police custody.

UPDATE 19: WOW.

An early look at tomorrow’s front page… GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS: https://t.co/eKUg5f03ec pic.twitter.com/j4gEFg9YtJ

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 3, 2015

In case you can't view the image in the embedded tweet, it is a preview of tomorrow's New York Daily News front page, reading in giant letters: "GOD ISN'T FIXING THIS." Below that, text reads: "As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes." And surrounding the text are images of tweets from Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan, with the word "prayers" highlighted.

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Dear President Obama, Let Me Fix That For You

[Content Note: anti-choice rhetoric; description of birthing injury. Please note that not only women need access to abortion.]

Answering queries about the attack on Planned Parenthood, President Obama had this to say:

“I think it’s fair to have a legitimate, honest debate about abortion,” the president said. “How we talk about it — making sure that we’re taking about it factually, accurately, and not demonizing organizations like Planned Parenthood is important.”

Um, Mr. President, I did NOT just hear you say that my basic right to bodily autonomy is up for debate as long as it's polite and factual. The problem is not just the tone. It is the content. Anti-choice is an inherently violent position. There is no legitimate debate to be had about whether someone else can force me, against my will, to endure (in Liss's words) "nine months of potential discomfort and pain, followed by an act that might include the skin and muscle between my vagina and anus being torn open," not to mention the risk of death, lifelong disability, or other complications.

I did NOT just hear you say that, right?

Perhaps what you mean to say was something more like this:

The days when old men get to decide what a woman does with her body are long gone. Times have changed for the better.

...or words to that effect. Because small l or large L, that's how I expect a liberal party leader to talk, and even more so one who has the luxury of not running in the next election.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Grooming time for Livsy.
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: Police brutality; racism] This is such a terrific piece by Mariame Kaba on the organizing against police violence happening in Chicago: "It's difficult to describe the weight of this year in Chicago to outsiders. For those of us who organize against criminalization—including police violence—it feels like there was no respite from the trauma inflicted by the police on our communities between 2014 and 2015. ...Over the past several months, Chicago organizers have won reparations for police torture survivors, protested the existence of a so-called 'black site' at Homan Square, successfully mobilized to have officer Servin fired, pressed for data transparency around stop and frisk practices, marched by the thousands for community control of the police, shut down the opening day of the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference and more. All of this took place before the brutal and stomach turning videotape of Laquan McDonald's execution was released to the public. ...There was dancing in front of 35th and Michigan on Tuesday evening [at the news that Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy had been fired]. But by Wednesday morning, everyone was back to organizing against police violence in Chicago, because it was never directed by one man alone, and cannot be eliminated by whatever man replaces him."

[CN: Police misconduct; white supremacy; anti-black racism and anti-semitism; racist image at link] Fucking hell: "The Alabama Justice Project has obtained documents that reveal a Dothan Police Department's Internal Affairs investigation was covered up by the district attorney. A group of up to a dozen police officers on a specialized narcotics team were found to have planted drugs and weapons on young black men for years. They were supervised at the time by Lt. Steve Parrish, current Dothan Police Chief, and Sgt. Andy Hughes, current Asst. Director of Homeland Security for the State of Alabama. All of the officers reportedly were members of a Neoconfederate organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels 'racial extremists.' The group has advocated for blacks to return to Africa, published that the civil rights movement is really a Jewish conspiracy, and that blacks have lower IQs . Both Parrish and Hughes held leadership positions in the group and are pictured above holding a confederate battle flag at one of the club's secret meetings. The documents shared reveal that the internal affairs investigation was covered up to protect the aforementioned officers' law enforcement careers and keep them from being criminally prosecuted."

[CN: Anti-immigrationism] "The Supreme Court Just Handed the Obama Administration a Big Victory on Immigration: "The Obama administration, and the immigrants who are depending upon them, in other words, are not out of the woods. But they've cleared a major hurdle that could have halted the new policies for at least one additional year. If the justices ultimately decide to take the case, the administration has good reason to be optimistic. In the Court's last major immigration case, two Republican members of the Court—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy—broke with their three fellow conservatives to side with the Obama administration."

[CN: War; terrorism; video may autoplay at link] Donald Trump is absolutely vile: "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump asserted on Wednesday that the only way to defeat ISIS was to kill their families. 'I like to do one thing at a time,' Trump told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. 'I would knock the hell out of ISIS.' 'What about civilian casualties?' Kilmeade wondered. 'One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we're so ineffective, they're using them as shields,' Trump explained. According to the GOP hopeful, President Barack Obama was waging 'a very politically correct war.' 'With the terrorists, you have to take out their families,' Trump said. 'When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.'"

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck is certain that Trump is a Democratic plant, because of course he is: "What are the odds that he is a spoiler? What are the odds that he got into this because he's friends with the Clintons and he'll get a massive payback? Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton gets in because he ran third party; do you know the favor they're going to owe him?. ...It makes no sense otherwise. It's more logical to believe that than he's all of the sudden changed and he had no pivot point in his life to change like this."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Here's a fun headline: "Ted Cruz Vows to Put Hard-Core Conservatives on Supreme Court." I'm sure he does. One of eleventy biebillion reasons he should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

[CN: Fat hatred; weight loss talk; misogyny] Carrie Fisher says that she was pressured to lose more than 35lbs to play Leia once again in the new Star Wars movie: "They don't want to hire all of me—only about three-quarters! Nothing changes, it's an appearance-driven thing. I'm in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say get younger, because that's how easy it is." I guess that's a cool message too for mothers and daughters, J.J. Abrams. Fuck.

[CN: Rape] I literally don't even have words: "Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox has been forced to deny internet reports that Leonardo DiCaprio's character is raped by a bear in the Oscar-tipped Alejandro González Iñárritu western The Revenant. News aggregator The Drudge Report posted an article claiming that the film features 'a shocking scene of a wild bear raping Leo DiCaprio,' and said the [scene] had caused controversy at early screenings. 'The bear flips Leo over and thrusts and thrusts during the explicit mauling,' continues the article. 'He is raped – twice!' But Fox has now moved to confirm that DiCaprio is merely brutally assaulted by the bear in question, a verdict ratified by Guardian Film journalists who have seen Iñárritu's movie. 'As anyone who has seen the movie can attest, the bear in the film is a female who attacks Hugh Glass because she feels he might be threatening her cubs,' a Fox spokesperson said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. 'There is clearly no rape scene with a bear.'" (Despite this faux outrage at "liberal Hollywood," disgraced Bush administration dirtbag Scooter Libby actually did write a novel in which trafficked children were raped by a bear. Yeah.) (This is the garbage that's stuck in my head after doing this for 11 years.) (Sob.)

In other film news: "Action adventure Mad Max: Fury Road was named the best film of 2015 on Tuesday by the National Board of Review, a surprise choice by the New York-based body whose list traditionally kicks off the annual Hollywood awards season." Cue the impotent rage of misogynist fanboys!

Neat! "Hundreds of tracks discovered along Scotland's coast show that huge, long-necked dinosaurs once trod there. The footprints form the largest dinosaur site ever found in Scotland. They also show that sauropods, which included the largest dinosaurs of all time, were at home along the shore. ...'We had gone out to a lonely stretch of coast on the far northeastern tip of the island,' says University of Edinburgh paleontologist Stephen Brusatte, who scouted the Isle of Skye site after a geologist spotted bones there. After spending the day finding mostly shark teeth and other small fossils, Brusatte says, he and fossil fish expert Tom Challands spotted what looked like a pothole. It was a dinosaur's footprint. That initial find turned into a string of tracks over an area measuring about 49 feet (15 meters) by 82 feet (25 meters)."

And finally! ALL THE SQUEES IN SQUEEDOM! "Woman Quit Her Job to Knit Sweaters for Cold Abandoned Greyhounds: 'There are so many dogs that won't be rehomed this Christmas so for many of them it's the only gift they will get.'" Blub.

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Here We Go Again

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Here's a cool headline at The Hill today, followed by what I'm sure you can imagine is an equally cool article:

The "likability" factor, often framed as "the candidate with whom you'd most like to have a beer," resulted in some terrific stories the last time Clinton was running, my favorite (ahem) being when Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza suggested that Clinton should drink "Mad Bitch" beer.

Anyone who follows these things even a smidgen as closely as I have will notice that any discussion of Clinton's "likability" is always tinged with misogyny. Because women's likability is a whole different ballgame, with a list of conflicting rules that mean no woman can ever really be likable.

Aside from the inherent misogyny of the discussions of Clinton's likability, there's also the broader issue of treating "likability" as a relevant qualification for the US presidency. I don't need to like my president. I need to trust my president. I need to respect my president. I need to believe my president has the best interests of the people in mind.

Likability is of no pertinence to me, except for maybe this: Hillary Clinton is perhaps the first person with a legitimate shot at the presidency who might like me.

For reasons that are inextricably intertwined with my identity and what I need and expect from my government.

And that seems rather more important than whether I want to drink a beer with her.

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Jeb! Is Desperate

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

I have seen some cynical pandering to women on the presidential campaign trail in my day, but goddamn is this some cynical shit:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hinted on Tuesday that he is considering a female running mate in 2016.

"Should I be elected president, I would have my vice president — I think she will be a great partner," the Republican White House hopeful said in Waterloo, Iowa.

Bush quickly walked back the remark.

"I mean, did I say that out loud?" Bush asked. "We always talk about this with one gender in mind. I think we've reached the point in our country where maybe we should be a little less gender-specific about this.

"Frankly, the one important element of selecting a vice presidential candidate is whether he or she is qualified to be president. Everything else is secondary," he added.

Wow. WOW.

Jeb's candidacy is swirling around the bottom of the bowl, and his party is constantly (deservedly) criticized for being hostile to women, so he implies he's considering a female vice-presidential candidate if he gets his party's nomination, in a desperate bid to appeal to women, in order to get that nomination.

There is zero chance that Jeb Bush has in mind a specific individual woman whom he'd choose as his running mate. It's a cynical pretense, in which he is exploiting the appeal of a female vice-presidential candidate without any meaningful commitment to choosing a specific qualified woman.

That is some deeply objectionable shit.

If Bush wants to demonstrate that he gives a fuck about women, then perhaps he could support policy that is good for women, instead of conjuring an imaginary female running mate in a pathetic ploy to pander to women.

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Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shooting: Wednesday Update

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; abuse; sexual assault. Linked material may not be safe.]

For background, please see previous posts from Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Yesterday, the New York Times published a long and widely shared article about Robert Dear's background: "For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack." There is no acknowledgment of their previous reporting in which they drew a picture of a "gentle loner" who only "occasionally unleashed violent acts toward neighbors and women he knew."

Now, they report: "But in court documents and interviews with people who knew Mr. Dear well, a picture emerges of an angry and occasionally violent man who seemed deeply disturbed and deeply contradictory: He was a man of religious conviction who sinned openly, a man who craved both extreme solitude and near-constant female company, a man who successfully wooed women but, some of them say, also abused them."

That Dear both "craved extreme solitude" and "near-constant female company" (an interesting, ahem, way to describe a man who was arrested for rape and voyeurism) is not a contradiction. Men who abuse female partners often want to isolate themselves and the women they abuse from outsiders, who might object to their abuse and intervene to stop it.

That's a basic and well-documented dynamic of domestic violence, and it should not be reported as a "contradiction." Unless, of course, one's intent is simply to draw a portrait of a man whose behavior is incomprehensible, thus underwriting narratives that he is "crazy."

There could hardly be a better way to avoid addressing conformity with cultural misogyny and substitute in its place the suggestion of inexplicable instability than reporting a history of violence toward women, alongside details about anti-government paranoia and internet ranting about pot, without ever connecting the dots between domestic misogynist violence and anti-choice terrorism.

The common denominators of which are a seething hostility toward women's agency, autonomy, consent, and safety.

That's not evidence of mental illness or contradictions. That's evidence of consistent fealty to patriarchal narratives about male ownership of women's lives and bodies.

In the article, we further find out that this was not even Dear's first act against Planned Parenthood:

A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent. [Barbara Micheau], 60, said in a brief interview Tuesday that late in her marriage to Mr. Dear, he told her that he had put glue in the locks of a Planned Parenthood location in Charleston.

"He was very proud of himself that he'd gone over and jammed up their locks with glue so that they couldn't get in," she said.

So Dear has a history of anti-choice interference, was arrested for both rape and being a "peeping Tom" (a situation which likely would have escalated to rape had he not been caught), has multiple ex-wives who report vicious domestic violence, and somehow the word "misogyny" never appears in the entire article, and the headline announces "Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack."

Sure. Religion and rage. It's technically accurate. But it seems rather more important that he was a violent misogynist, whose religion was a convenient justification for his violent misogyny, and whose rage was directed at primarily at women.

This is not a matter of semantics. To fail to call violent misogyny by its name is to abet it.

Just two months ago, in a piece entitled "The Media Is Failing Women," I wrote:

Just a series of unconnected events, each of which happens in a vacuum! So we're meant to believe.

That similar failure is no coincidence. It's all violence done against (primarily) women, targeting women who are exercising sexual and reproductive agency, who want control over our own bodies, who insist on deciding for ourselves who we fuck and whether we birth (their) babies.

Violent, entitled men who subscribe to narratives of a profoundly toxic masculinity are waging a terrorist campaign against women's autonomy, agency, and consent. They are killing us (and other men in the process) in order to terrorize us into yielding our independence.

And the media is complicit in their terrorism, because it flatly refuses to call these acts what they are. The media is failing women by refusing to connect the dots.

Lots of people are rightly angry that the media refuses to call Dear's actions anti-choice terrorism. We should all be equally angry that the media refuses to connect that to the larger issue of violent misogyny.

The only people for whom that concealment is a favor are violent misogynists.

As ever, please keep comments safe with appropriate content notes, and please refrain from posting images in the thread.

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Open Thread

Hosted by cerulean.

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker Grey: "If you could have any experience again for the first time, for whatever reason, what would it be?"

Seeing Iain in person for the first time. Because it was one of the best moments of my life.

I should probably choose something I don't remember as well, because I remember so clearly every detail of that moment as though it just happened. But I can't think of anything I'd more prefer to experience again than the sheer magic of seeing him striding down that train platform toward me.

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Depeche Mode: "Just Can't Get Enough"

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; victim-blaming.]

"These facts and overall mission of the abortion industry would easily send anyone over the hill who wasn't rational. ...Violence is never the answer, but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves. Violence begets violence. So Planned Parenthood: YOU STOP THE VIOLENCE INSIDE YOUR WALLS."—Adams County Colorado Republican state representative JoAnn Windholz, just fucking going there and full-tilt blaming Planned Parenthood staff and patients for the deadly act of anti-choice terrorism carried out by Robert Dear.

I don't even have words, besides these: FUCK OFF.

And these: "Let's Get This Straight." True then; true now.

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60 Years

[Content Note: Misogynoir.]

Today also marks 60 years since Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus. At the Washington Post, Jeanne Theoharis explores "How history got the Rosa Parks story wrong."

Americans are convinced they know this civil rights hero. In textbooks and documentaries, she is the meek seamstress gazing quietly out of a bus window — a symbol of progress and how far we've come. When she died in 2005, the word "quiet" was used in most of her obituaries and eulogies. We have grown comfortable with the Parks who is often seen but rarely heard.

That image of Parks has stripped her of political substance. Her "life history of being rebellious," as she put it, comes through decisively in the recently opened Rosa Parks Collection at the Library of Congress. It features previously unseen personal writings, letters, speech notes, financial and medical records, political documents, and decades of photographs.

There, we see a lifelong activist who had been challenging white supremacy for decades before she became the famous catalyst for the Montgomery bus boycott. We see a woman who, from her youth, didn't hesitate to indict the system of oppression around her. As she once wrote, "I talked and talked of everything I know about the white man's inhuman treatment of the negro."

Parks was a seasoned freedom fighter who had grown up in a family that supported Marcus Garvey and who married an activist for the Scottsboro boys. She joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943, becoming branch secretary. She spent the next decade pushing for voter registration, seeking justice for black victims of white brutality and sexual violence, supporting wrongfully accused black men, and pressing for desegregation of schools and public spaces. Committed to both the power of organized nonviolent direct action and the moral right of self defense, she called Malcolm X her personal hero.

The Rosa Parks Collection, which opened in February, reveals how broadly Parks has been distorted and misunderstood.

...Though Parks later wrote an autobiography, her notes from decades earlier give a more personal sense of her thoughts. In numerous accounts, she highlighted the difficulty of negotiating one self in a segregated society and the immense pressure put on black people not to dissent. She wrote that it took a "major mental acrobatic feat" to survive as a black person in the United States. Highlighting that it was "not easy to remain rational and normal mentally in such a setting," she refused to normalize the ability to function under American racism.

There is much, much more at the link.

I am reminded of what the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, said following Bree Newsome's arrest after she scaled the 30-foot flagpole at the South Carolina state capitol to remove the Confederate flag: Newsome, he said, is a "committed, trained, non-violent messenger of the truth [with a] deep commitment [to] justice, love, and true inter-racial community. ...[Newsome] stands in a long tradition ...Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and more recently hundreds of protesters in Moral Monday...were all considered, at first, criminals for their acts of conscience."

It's only tempting to exploit time to de-radicalize Rosa Parks' (and other black women's) lives and actions if one seeks to conceal the oppression that necessitates their radicalism.

Rosa Parks was a radical. I honor that.

[Related: Quote of the Day; Photo of the Day.]

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World AIDS Day

[Content Note: Racism; homophobia; class warfare.]

Today is World AIDS Day, and following are two pieces of recommended reading on this day. They are both difficult but important stories.

One, on the global inequity of how people with HIV are treated: "There's a Major Problem with How HIV Is Treated—And Here's How It Can Be Fixed."

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy — a regimen of drugs that lowers the rate at which HIV multiplies itself within the human body — those with HIV can expect a much longer lifespan than in years past. If people infected with the virus receive immediate antiretrovirals, they can live otherwise healthy lives and lower their risk of transmitting the virus to others. The WHO's website recommends antiretrovirals "for all people with HIV as soon as possible after diagnosis without any restrictions of CD4 counts" — also known as T-cells, the white blood cells that fight infections.

The United Nations is hopeful that antiretrovirals can help end the crisis. By 2020, it's aiming for 90% of people living with HIV to know their status, be receiving antiretroviral treatment and to have achieved viral suppression, or a very low level of HIV within the body. By 2030, it hopes to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic entirely.

But there's a major problem: Of the tens of millions of people living with the virus, only around 9% live in countries where antiretrovirals are provided to all people with HIV directly after diagnosis, according to a new report by a coalition of HIV/AIDS activists. "The 13 countries that offer immediate treatment to all people with HIV represent just 4.4% of the estimated global burden of 1.2 million AIDS-related deaths in 2014," it states.

"It's worse than a double standard," Asia Russell, executive director of Health Global Access Project, which is part of the coalition, told Mic. "It's a complete injustice."

The other, on the way that homophobia and racism still play a profound part in criminalizing HIV transmission in the US: "A Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive 'Tiger Mandingo'."

Many prosecutors defend HIV laws as offering just punishment for behavior that can help transmit the virus. But critics say the laws unjustly place all responsibility on the person with the virus: While Johnson faced up to life in prison, his partners bore no legal liability, even though they all willingly engaged in unprotected sex acts during casual hookups with "Tiger."

More fundamentally, AIDS advocates say, the laws are outdated and harsh. If decades-long sentences ever were appropriate, they say, they aren't anymore, given the tremendous medical advances in HIV care. Indeed, many epidemiologists and AIDS advocates say the laws — which single out HIV — can actually fuel the epidemic by making people afraid to get tested and treated, and by fostering the dangerous belief that only the HIV-positive person is responsible for preventing transmission of the virus.

But what propelled Johnson's case into headlines as far away as Australia was the volatile combination of race and sex epitomized by his own screen name, Tiger Mandingo.

...[The prosecutor] dismissed any suggestion of racial bias. His office had reviewed HIV prosecutions in St. Charles County and found that only two of the six defendants, or 33%, were African-Americans — clear evidence, he said, that there was no racial bias. But in Missouri, blacks make up less than 12% of the population — and in St. Charles, less than 5%.

I strongly recommend reading both stories in their entirety.

Please feel welcome and encouraged to share in comments other things you're reading and/or ways to mark World AIDS Day.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Last night, Iain put a bottle cap on Matilda's head and asked her, "Whaddaya think of your new hat, Rags?" And I laughed for one million years.

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: War; terrorism] "The US is to deploy a specialised force to Iraq to build pressure on Islamic State militants, US defence secretary Ashton Carter has said. 'In full co-ordination with the government of Iraq, we're deploying a specialised expeditionary targeting force to assist Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces,' Mr Carter said. He made the remarks to a congressional committee in Washington. The force would also be able to conduct 'unilateral operations' in Syria." Welp.

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Working at Planned Parenthood means that death threats are a daily occurrence: "'Abortion providers have to take security measures that, you ask someone at any other healthcare location, and they would laugh,' said David Cohen, a Drexel University law professor and co-author of Living in the Crosshairs, a recent dive into the dangers many abortion providers say they face. 'Some just live with it. For others, it's highly consuming of their mental energy. They're traumatized by it. They have a constant state of fear.' Cohen said actions such as carrying a gun or wearing a protective vest are not extraordinary."

[CN: War on agency] Meanwhile: "Senate Republicans are prepared to forge ahead this week with a legislative tactic to fast track a bill to dismantle Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. ...Senate Republicans concluded a conference meeting on Monday evening feeling 'enthused' about their plan to push the legislation toward President Obama's desk as early as Thursday. Although the president is expected to veto the bill, it could set the stage for a bigger fight as Congress negotiates a funding bill to avert a government shutdown later this month."

[CN: Police brutality; racism] Andrea Plaid on the facts we know about the Jamar Clark shooting in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests, and on why the #Justice4Jamar protests are a reproductive justice issue. "Where reproductive justice is manifesting itself, however, is in the coalitions—which are deeper and broader than BLM-Minn and the local NAACP—that have come to support the #Justice4Jamar protests, with individuals across the racial and religious spectrums within and around North Minneapolis attending the protests and representatives from Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI), and Muslim and Arab communities, among others, coming down to show support."

[CN: War on agency] Good grief Ted Cruz is a nightmare: "Cruz, calling Republican opposition to contraception a 'made up, nonsense example,' then [said] 'When the 'war on women' came up, the Republicans would curl up in a ball and say 'don't hurt me.' Jiminy cricket! This is a made up, nonsense example. Last I checked, we don't have a rubber shortage in America. Look, when I was in college, we had a machine in the bathroom. You put 50 cents in and voila!'" Shut up.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] In other GOP candidate news, Donald Trump "proposed demanding $5 million from CNN in order for him to participate in the next Republican presidential debate during a rally in Macon, Ga. on Monday. Trump felt the payment—which he promised to donate to 'Wounded Warriors or the vets'—was in order because CNN 'doesn't treat me properly' and because he felt he was responsible for the high ratings CNN got during the GOP debate it hosted in September." This fucking guy.

[CN: Transphobic violence] US Marines Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton has been found guilty of killing Jennifer Laude, "a Filipino transgender woman last year in a Philippines motel room—a case that has ignited an uproar in the region and reintroduced a debate over U.S. military presence there." Good.

Um, whut. "Emma Watson 'was encouraged not to use the word feminism' in her UN speech." I am not surprised, but I am nonetheless annoyed!

[CN: Murder] Perfect headline is perfect: "Just a Hunch, But Robert Durst Probably Regrets Participating in The Jinx."

Here's just a story about John Legend and his extraordinary duet with the vibration of a star. Amazing.

And finally! "My 26-Pound Main Coon Owns My Heart." LOVE. ♥

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Discussion Thread: How is your life not perfect?

[Note: This piece originally ran in October 2012, and I am rerunning it now, for anyone who needs a good vent or a reminder of the messiness of everyone's lives or some solidarity at the moment, because there is a whole lotta "perfect" pressure around the holidays.]

In an Open Thread, Shaker musicalnomad once observed: "I read somewhere recently (could even have been here!) that social media is letting us see the highlight reel of everyone else's life while we have to sludge through our own behind the scenes documentary... so true."

That is something I've tried to counter in this space—writing about fighting with Iain, as well as all the good bits; writing about having PTSD or being a trichotillomaniac or having chronic laundry disorganization or melting down while clothes shopping or uncovering another piece of unexamined privilege or household drama or being broke or being sick or being socially awkward or ruining dinner or having no fashion sense or the fur tumbleweeds in my office. I do not want to give the impression that I am, or my life is, perfect or special or uniquely amazing, because I'm not and it's not.

I can still be happy with myself and my life despite (and sometimes because of) my/its many imperfections. And, the fact is, being obliged by others to project nothing but undiluted happiness has been a source of much trouble in my life. My failures and flaws are part of what makes me human, and I need them as much as the many good things about my life.

It's also important for me to convey a balanced picture because this isn't a celebrity PR project, in which my intent in sharing personal info is to invite you to compare your life and inevitably fall short in the measure.

Between the Perfect Lives conveyed by social media and carefully orchestrated photo-ops of the glamorous lives of the rich and famous and politically powerful, it's easy to feel like you're the only one whose life is occasionally, or more than occasionally, a mess.

And in the interest of giving ourselves and each other a break from feeling alone in our respective messes, let us share one way, or the many ways, in which our lives are imperfect, especially in the ways over which we ostensibly have control, but haven't seemed able to take it.

I'll go first: I still can't get my fucking laundry under control.

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Today in Fat Hatred

[Content Note: Fat hatred; possible trigger for disordered eating.]

Yesterday, a collection of jackasses were handing out these cards to fat passengers on the London tube:

Overweight Haters Ltd | It's really not glandular, it's your gluttony... | Our organisation hates and resents fat people. We object to the enormous amount of food resources you consume while half the world starves. We disapprove of your wasting NHS [National Health Service] money to treat your selfish greed. And we do not understand why you fail to grasp that by eating less you will be better off, slimmer, happy and find a partner who is not a perverted chubby-lover, or even find a partner at all. We also object that the beautiful pig is used as an insult. You are not a pig. You are a fat, ugly human.

Although they were ostensibly being handed out to fat passengers generally, every instance I saw yesterday, as well as every instance documented in this BBC article, describes the cards being handed to fat women.

Each and every damnable lie shoved into this tiny rectangle of fat hatred is something I've addressed in the Fatsronauts 101 series, as well as how the "fat people are are drain on resources" meme is straight-up eliminationist garbage.

Once again, I will observe that people who purport to care about fat people's health and happiness use, without a trace of irony, the most vicious and abusive strategies in order to harm us. And they scold us for "failing to grasp" their narratives about our lives, despite the fact that they are disgorging the most ignorant swill as though it's well-informed fact.

This sort of aggressive hostility toward fat people is only going to become more common, if governments continue their "war on obesity" using rhetoric that frames fat people as a threat and a problem that needs to be solved. We are routinely described as parasites, epidemic, the target of a war that needs to be won (by thin people). Inflammatory rhetoric is naturally going to lead to our harm.

That's how it works. Every time.

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Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shooting: Tuesday Update

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; abuse; description of rape. Linked material may not be safe.]

Aphra is otherwise occupied this morning, so I'm taking over her beat, at her request. For background, please see her posts from Friday, from Saturday, from Sunday, and from Monday.

Yesterday, as Aphra noted in her last update, Robert Dear was arraigned and is being held on a first degree homicide charge, with additional charges expected next week.

The coverage of the man, since the earliest moments when his name was released, has been troubling. Despite the fact that he made it clear what his motive was, by muttering about "baby parts," the media has played the most appalling game of Occam's Big Paisley Tie ever, treating his motive like a fucking mystery.

Early reports on who Robert Dear is looked more like dating profiles than they did profiles of a domestic terrorist. The New York Times reported that acquaintances described him as "a gentle itinerant loner who occasionally unleashed violent acts toward neighbors and women he knew."

A white man who kills three people, including a police officer, and injures a dozen more, including three more police officers, gets taken into custody alive. Unlike, say, a 12-year-old black boy with a toy gun. And instead of being described as a "thug" or a "demon," he is described, incredibly, as a gentle loner who only occasionally hurt people.

Soon we learned that Dear had been reported for at least one incident of domestic violence, and that he was known to abuse animals. Less and less "gentle," it seemed.

Dear was also married three times, and his second wife has described him as someone who "erupts into fury in a matter of seconds," saying she "lived in fear and dread of his emotional and physical abuse."

Further, it has now emerged that Dear was "charged with rape in South Carolina more than 20 years ago." After harassing and stalking a married woman who was not interested in his advances, he went to her house and then beat and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.

Not so much a "gentle loner," then.

Over and over, men who commit very public acts of misogynist violence are described, often by male neighbors who had little interaction with them, as "gentle" or "quiet" or some variation thereof. Responsible media would not race to report these descriptions. Instead, they would know by now that the real portrait of a man who commits misogynist violence can only be drawn by the women with whom they had intimate relationships—and/or the women they have previously assaulted.

Of course, that requires the media to acknowledge that acts of misogynist violence are, in fact, acts of misogynist violence in the first place.

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In other news, Paul Markovsky, the widower of Jennifer Markovsky, who was one of Dear's victims, has asked for privacy "as we try to begin the grief and healing process." Something to consider if you see further media reports on Markovsky being shared.

As ever, please keep comments safe with appropriate content notes, and please refrain from posting images in the thread.

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Open Thread

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