[Content Note: Isolation.]
Last week, I posted a thread inviting people to share the ways in which their lives aren't perfect, and I noticed that some people mentioned being lonely. This can be a difficult time of year for people who are and/or feel lonely, so I am reposting this piece which originally ran last summer, for anyone who may need it now.
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There have been a lot of stories about loneliness in the news lately. Stories about people who live in big communities, but can't find meaningful friendships. Stories about people who feel alone at work. Stories about how social media can create feelings of isolation, as much as it can create community. Stories about how loneliness can have physical effects on the people who suffer from it.
Loneliness is different from being lonesome. Plenty of people are lonesome, but not lonely. Plenty of people who are lonely aren't lonesome; they may be surrounded by people, but nonetheless feel isolated, longing for meaningful connections that elude them.
I'm a lonesome person. I like lots of time to myself, and I have even more time to myself than would be my preference, by virtue of this job. Many days, Iain is the only other person to whom I speak, face-to-face. But my days are filled with interactions with terrific people. The contributors and moderators, who give me air in my lungs every day. Distant friends, who offer laughter and support. Local friends, with whom I meet for coffee and boozy brunches. We often have visitors, who seek a getaway filled with friendship and furry snuggles. And no one can feel truly lonely when they regularly receive packages of Garbage Treasures in the mail from Deeky.
So I'm not lonely, most of the time, despite being lonesome.
But sometimes I get lonely, in a way I didn't when I worked in an office and thus had lots more face-to-face interactions with other people every day. Even though many of those interactions were undesirable ones, heh.
Loneliness hurts, for me, in a way that it hard to describe. It reverberates intensely, and it puts me completely out of balance—and out of sorts.
I feel deeply for people who are lonely in a sustained way, and don't want to be.
There is community in this space, like many spaces, but it isn't always easy to get what you need to alleviate loneliness, even in a non-virtual room filled with people. Because sometimes it isn't company we need; it's to be seen. To matter.
I don't know what it would look like to subtly create the space to be "seen" within this one. So here is a not-subtle thread, for anyone who needs to ask for something that can be provided here to ask for it. Maybe you just want to say hi, and see some likes on your comment. (I promise you will get at least one!) Maybe you want to ask that people see you, and get replies that you are seen. Maybe you just want to express that you're lonely, and have a safe space to talk about it with other people who feel the same, in the hope of feeling a little less alone.
And maybe you can't bring yourself to comment, but I hope just having the option lets you know that you are not alone and that you matter to me.
For the Lonely
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda is so over it.
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; religious extremism] "An examination of digital equipment recovered from the home of the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last week has led FBI investigators to believe the shooters were planning an even larger assault, according to federal government sources. Investigators on Thursday continued to search for digital footprints left by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, scouring a downtown San Bernardino lake for electronic items, including a hard drive that the couple was hoping to destroy, sources told The Times. ...Farook and Malik were in the final planning stages of an assault on a location or building that housed a lot more people than the Inland Regional Center, possibly a nearby school or college, according to federal sources familiar with the widening investigation." Fuck.
[CN: Islamophobia] Welp: "Americans are more fearful about the likelihood of another terrorist attack than at any other time since the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, a gnawing sense of dread that has helped lift Donald J. Trump to a new high among Republican primary voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll." So Trump will fearmonger even more, making people even more scared—and thus dangerous—as a political strategy. Cool.
[CN: Police brutality; racism] As the trial of the first office to be tried in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore continues and heads toward its close, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis "urged residents to react 'respectfully' when a verdict is announced." Goddamn.
[CN: White privilege; entitlement] Here is Imani Gandy on Fisher v. University of Texas, a case she aptly describes as "practically an allegory for white entitlement." At the center of the case is Abigail Fisher. Writes Gandy: Fisher is "the latest in a line of white women who have filed lawsuits seeking to destroy affirmative action policies because they felt entitled to attend the school of their choosing, oblivious to the fact that destroying these policies will put everyone but white men at a disadvantage. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that Fisher's lawsuit is a product of her entitlement. She's noted that all of her friends and family went to the University of Texas at Austin, and so she felt like she was entitled to go too, never mind the fact that she didn't have the grades to get in. And if getting her way means destroying a policy that has been proven to benefit white women the most, then that's what Fisher evidently intends to do."
[CN: Rape culture; child abuse] Russell Taylor, who served as the head of convicted former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle's charity and accomplice in Fogle's child exploitation, has been sentenced to 27 years in prison after pleading "guilty to 13 federal crimes during his sentencing hearing—12 counts of child exploitation and one count of distributing child pornography." I will never believe Subway did not, as they ludicrously claim, have any idea this was going on. Fuck them.
[CN: Privacy violations] "Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is using psychological data based on research spanning tens of millions of Facebook users, harvested largely without their permission, to boost his surging White House run and gain an edge over Donald Trump and other Republican rivals, the Guardian can reveal. A little-known data company, now embedded within Cruz's campaign and indirectly financed by his primary billionaire benefactor [leading Republican donor Robert Mercer], paid researchers at Cambridge University to gather detailed psychological profiles about the US electorate using a massive pool of mainly unwitting US Facebook users built with an online survey." This is pretty much the exact scenario that conservatives say they fear from Big Government Liberals. Will Cruz's supporters care when it's their guy doing it? Probably not!
[CN: Class warfare] Um: "US chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont have announced a plan to merge, in a deal valuing them at $130bn (£86bn). The all-share deal will eventually lead to the merged company, initially to be called DowDuPont, being split in three. ...If the merger is cleared by regulators, the new company will be owned equally by current Dow and DuPont shareholders. ...At the same time, DuPont announced a cost-saving plan that will involve cutting about 10% of staff." A cost-saving plan, huh? Not for those workers! But who cares, as long as the shareholders who just sit back doing fuck-all and making money off the back of other people's labor make some money.
[CN: Moving gif at link] Wow: "Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a tiny star with a giant, cloudy storm, using data from NASA's Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes. The dark storm is akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot: a persistent, raging storm larger than Earth. 'The star is the size of Jupiter, and its storm is the size of Jupiter's Great Red Spot,' said John Gizis of the University of Delaware, Newark. 'We know this newfound storm has lasted at least two years, and probably longer.' Gizis is the lead author of a new study appearing in The Astrophysical Journal. While planets have been known to have cloudy storms, this is the best evidence yet for a star that has one."
Melissa McCarthy has unveiled her holiday collection, which "incorporates a mix of party-ready favorites (in the form of a jumpsuit and sparkly skirts) with travel-friendly pieces as well (just check out the comfy-meets-cute track pant and jeweled sweatshirt!)." I'm not super into her collection, even though I wish I were, but maybe you will love it!
Ben Affleck got a massive back tattoo of a phoenix. Okay!
And finally! "18 Hybrid Animals That Are Hard to Believe Actually Exist." I'm not sure why it's hard to believe these creatures exist, but it's sure neat to see them!
Today in Gun Control Proposals
[Content Note: Guns.]
President Obama is reportedly tired of waiting for Congress to do something about gun violence, so he "has ordered officials to draw up an urgent new plan to strengthen background checks on gun buyers without the approval of Congress."
The president has asked his advisers to complete a proposal and submit it for his review, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said.Fine. Sounds good. Although I'll say once again that the problem with restrictions designed to keep guns out of the "wrong" hands is that most of the people who decide to use a gun to harm someone else are, per these definitions, the "right" hands until they're not anymore.
"The president has directed his team in short order to finalise a set of recommendations on what more the administration can do on its own to save lives from gun violence, and those recommendations will include making sure we do everything we can to keep guns out of the wrong hands, including those expanded background checks," Jarrett told a national gun violence vigil in Washington.
...On Thursday, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the review that Jarrett referred to had been under way for "the past couple of months" but claimed there was now increased appetite for fresh reform attempts among the US public in the recent weeks.
"These are essentially recommendations that the president has asked for from his staff based on their review of available executive authority," Earnest told reporters on Thursday.
"The working assumption of this ongoing review is that Congress hasn't acted and that's been the source of immense frustration on the part of the president," he added. "So given the congressional inaction, the question that'’s been raised is what more can the Obama administration do, and that's the substance of this review.”"
White House officials have said they are exploring closing the so-called gun show loophole that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.
The only meaningful thing that is going to curb gun violence is fewer guns.
Across the board. With no distinctions between the type of gun or who is supposedly using them for what. Because, as I've previously observed, the proverbial rural hunting guns commonly cited as a necessary exception to gun accessability are also used to kill and threaten, especially by domestic abusers, and the dichotomy often drawn between guns used by rural hunters and guns used by urban criminals and/or (brown) terrorists is a false (and implicitly racist) one.
In related news: "House Democrats are adding a controversial new demand to the government funding talks: ending a 19-year old ban on gun violence research by the federal government. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday that Democrats will insist that the research ban be removed from law as part of the $1.1 trillion omnibus that Congress needs to pass by next week to fund the government. ...Democrats have tried unsuccessfully for nearly a decade to reverse the ban on using federal money to research gun violence."
And they will likely be unsuccessful again, because the Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NRA.
Trump Supporters Are Terrifying
[Content Note: Islamophobia; racism; descriptions of violence against President Obama.]
This piece by Dave Weigel for the Washington Post is just incredible: "Attacks on Trump just make these voters like him more." I honestly don't even know what to say. There's no way to change the minds of people who don't want to know the truth, who pick the "facts" they like and refuse to hear anything that contradicts them, whose views become more intractable the more they are challenged with evidence to the contrary.
Almost nothing terrifies me more than a combination of resistance to truth and a lack of empathy. People who exist in a space where they create their own realities to justify bigotry and scapegoating are very, very dangerous. Give them a charismatic political leader around whom to rally, and that becomes a movement that should frighten anyone who knows anything about history at all.
Holtzclaw: Guilty
[Content Note: Sexual violence; misogynoir; police brutality.]
After more than 45 hours of deliberation by an all-white jury, Daniel Holtzclaw, the former Oklahoma City police officer who was standing trial on charges that he sexually assaulted 13 black women, was found guilty on 18 of 36 charges: Four counts of first-degree rape, one count of second-degree rape, six counts of sexual battery, four counts of forcible sodomy, and three counts of procuring lewd acts.
The jury recommended "a total of 263 years in prison. Formal sentencing will take place on Jan. 21."
Holtzclaw "sobbed as the verdict was read aloud." It was his birthday.
I hope this verdict brings some measure of peace to the women he victimized.
I want to note, however, that, of the 13 women who testified, Holtzclaw was found not guilty on all charges associated with five of them. I don't know how that feels, to be one of the victims whom the jury did not, for whatever reason, find as credible as other victims. So I just want to say to those women: I believe you.
And to all the women who did not come forward, or who tried and were disbelieved, or who could not, because they're sitting in a prison cell where Holtzclaw put them: I believe you, too.
I take up space in solidarity with all of the women victimized by Daniel Holtzclaw.
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This should go without saying in this space, but I'm going to say it anyway: Wishing that Holtzclaw will be raped in prison is not welcome in this space. As a survivor and an anti-rape advocate, I can tell you that the solution to sexual violence is not more sexual violence. That isn't justice; it's just more harm of the same kind those of us trying to dismantle the rape culture are seeking to prevent.
Blog Note + Links
Welp, due to colossal corporate incompetence and an aggressive disregard for even the most rudimentary customer service, I will be offline again today. I'm so sorry for the interruption. Let me assure you that I would rather, by a factor of eleventy trazillion, be writing content for y'all today than dealing with the bullshit that's keeping me away.
In the meantime, here are some links of interest for discussion:
[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism] Robert Dear, who perpetrated the act of anti-choice terrorism on the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility on Nov. 27, appeared in court yesterday and dramatically announced that he is guilty: "'I am guilty there will be no trial. I am a warrior for the babies,' he said in an outburst in El Paso County Court overheard by CBS4 reporter Rick Sallinger. Soon afterwards he stated 'You'll never know the amount of blood I saw in that place.'" Without a trace of fucking irony. Also: Bullshit. He's a liar as well as a murderer.
[CN: Terrorism; death; video may autoplay at link] "The man at the center of last week's massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., began discussing jihad and martyrdom with his [then] soon-to-be wife even before she came to America last year. He also may have plotted an attack as far back as 2012 with a neighbor who had purchased the two assault rifles used in the shooting, according to senior American officials. The neighbor, Enrique Marquez, has spoken at length with federal authorities in recent days about his relationship with the gunman, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and their planning. Mr. Marquez has checked himself into a mental health facility and federal authorities are still trying to assess his credibility and corroborate his account. It is not clear why the 2012 plot did not go forward."
[CN: Guns; video may autoplay at link] This sounds like a terrific idea: "Gun rights groups say they will conduct a mock mass shooting this weekend at the University of Texas campus as they try to end gun-free zones. The Open Carry Walk and Crisis Performance Event will involve actors 'shot' by perpetrators armed with cardboard weapons, said Matthew Short, a spokesman for the gun rights groups Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com. 'It's a fake mass shooting, and we'll use fake blood,' he said. He said gun noises will be blared from bullhorns. Other people will then play the role of rescuers, also armed with cardboard weapons."
[CN: Racism] Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continues to be flagrantly racist: "Near the end of oral argument in a high-profile affirmative-action case Wednesday, conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that black students benefit from a 'slower track' at less prestigious schools and are thus harmed by affirmative action." This fucking guy.
"Scientific Evidence Doesn't Support Global Warming, Sen. Ted Cruz Says." Sounds about right.
And finally! "The Fluffiest Cats in the World." A+
Blog Note
I'm going to be without internet for the rest of the day. I should be online again by tomorrow, but, if there are any unexpected delays, I will let you know.
In the meantime, if you'd like a topic for discussion, here's a fun one I stole from my pal Dan: Who do you think Trump's Secretary of State would be? My suggestion: Maybe just the smell of sulfur.
Of Course
[Content Note: Islamophobia. Video may autoplay at link.]
Donald Trump is more popular than ever after proposing "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." And a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll has found that the "overwhelming majority of his supporters also say they would vote for him if he bolted the GOP and ran as an independent."
[I]n a chilling sign for Republicans, 68% of Trump's supporters say they would vote for the blustery billionaire businessman if he ran as an independent rather than a Republican; just 18% say they wouldn't. The rest were undecided.Sounds about right.
I wonder just how terrifyingly heinous Trump has to get before the media will can the cutesy descriptors like "blustery billionaire businessman."
Question of the Day
When was the last time you surprised and delighted yourself by doing something out of character, to a happy result?
Your Best Photograph
If you're a photographer, even if a very amateur one (like myself), and you've got a photo or photos you'd like to share, here's your thread for that!
It doesn't really have to be your best photograph—just one you like!
Please be sure if your photo contains people other than yourself, that you have the explicit consent of the people in the photos before posting them.
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Here's one I quite like which I took recently of a tiny fruit tart I was about to eat:
It was as delicious as it looks!
Helpful Dude Is Helpful
[Content Note: Tone policing; mansplaining.]
One: A dude who called Australian feminist Clementine Ford a "slut" on his Facebook page was fired from his job after Ford published some of his posts (including a bunch of racist swill).
Two: A self-identified male feminist named Jack Kilbride published a lengthy piece of exhausting tone policing under the headline "Why Courageous Clementine Ford Is Not the Answer." She's too strident, you see, and she'll never change hearts and minds because her "vitriolic writing style means that people will always get offended. Unfortunately, those getting offended are usually the ones who need to read it the most." Don't feminists know that we have to be nicer to misogynists so that they'll listen to us?!
Gee, where have I heard this shit a million times before?
Three: Leena penned an excellent response, "Why Courageous Jack Kilbride Is Not the Answer," noting that telling women to pipe down is just more of the same patriarchal trash that Kilbride tasks women with solving through measured tones.
As I have written countless times before, and will certainly be obliged to write countless times in the future, by Feminist Allies Who Have Just Arrived to the Party, it doesn't matter how delicately I phrase something, how gently I make my arguments, how deferential and patient and indulgent I am with insistent misogynist men. No amount of careful moderation can penetrate a wall of resistance to the content of my words.
What matters is a man's willingness to listen to what I'm saying, irrespective of the tone in which it's delivered.
Here's me on Twitter, two years ago:
True then. True now. True forever.
[Related Reading: Crank It Up to 11; Feminism 101: Not Listening to Women Is a Misogynist Act.]
Feminism 101: More Helpful Hints for Dudes
[Content Note: Misogyny; emotional policing.]
So, here is a thing that I've seen happen countless times: A feminist or womanist woman, either in a fit of pique or resignation, or as a considered statement, will say that she hates men.
And a man who identifies as a feminist ally will jump in to "correct" her, by saying she doesn't really hate men, that instead what she really means is that she hates male privilege; or to lecture her about how unhelpful she's being and how it's counterproductive to feminism to say that one hates men.
Now, some women who say they hate men really don't mean that they hate them, and are using a shorthand—often with what they expect is a closed and sympathetic audience who will understand their shorthand to mean that they have been repeatedly harmed by men or don't easily trust men or are routinely disappointed by men. Or understand that they're really saying something about male privilege, not men.
But some women really do mean that they hate men.
And I understand why that feels bad, to be hated based on your identity. After all, it's that very experience that underwrites my feminism.
However, it doesn't have the same power, to be hated by a marginalized person on the basis of one's identity, when one is a member of a privileged group that has, as a whole, done enormous harm to the marginalized group to which the person expressing detestation belongs.
To draw an equivalence, such as the one implicit in protestations that man-hating women are doing the same thing misogynist men do to women, pretends the inherent power imbalance between genders doesn't exist.
The existence of that power imbalance is Feminism 101. No one can be an effective feminist ally if they refuse to acknowledge this basic truth, this most essential reality that necessitates feminism in the first place.
Sometimes, a member of a marginalized group decides they hate the privileged group, because of a lifetime of mistreatment. And frankly, it's a valid choice. Unless they're trying to do something about it, like encouraging violence against that group (and even then there are exceptions for revolution), then there's no point in telling them they're not allowed to feel that way—except, of course, to nullify their underlying reasons.
To make them the problem, instead of the vast harm that has led them to this state of contempt.
I have a mixed-power identity, meaning I am privileged in some ways and marginalized in others. And it's not like I have never seen a member of a marginalized group to which I don't belong say that they hate all members of a privileged group to which I do belong.
But I understand why it might be that someone hates me, as part of the entire privileged group of which I'm a member, because of the vile cruelty done to them over and over by people with whom I share that privileged piece of my identity. And by me, in regrettable failures.
And I am not inclined to tell them they should feel otherwise.
For a lot of reasons. Including the fact that nothing happens to me if someone decides to hate all members of a privileged group of which I'm a part, besides losing a potential relationship with that person, which they don't owe me.
To expect to be liked, or even received neutrally, by someone subjected every moment of their lives to a systemic oppression from which you benefit, even if you don't want to, is a revolting entitlement.
Not everyone is equipped with the same emotional resources, and not everyone has the same lived experiences. Some people just aren't left with enough reserves to muster the strength that affording good faith to a person likely to harm them demands.
Here is what you need to understand: I live my life absolutely reviled by men. Men who are all too eager to tell me how much they hate me, what they want to do to harm me, what misfortune and violence they wish would befall me, how I am a lesser person than they are. I have been hurt, physically and psychologically, over and over and over by men my entire life. And many, many women will report the same experience. Many women have had even worse experiences with men than I have.
It is work for me to build relationships with men. Even the men I love, and who love and respect me, require me to educate them on how not to replicate the patriarchal horseshit with which they were indoctrinated. I have yet to meet a single man who didn't harm me in some way, even if unintentionally, with misogyny.
If some women end up hating men, because they don't have the energy left not to, I understand that. If some women end up hating men, because they, too, have not known a single man in their life who didn't harm them in some way, even if unintentionally, with misogyny, I understand that.
I understand it, and I grieve it.
And if you are a man who really gives a fuck about women, and you really want to be a feminist ally, then instead of condescendingly lecturing women on how we should feel about men, and how we should do feminism, and what feminism is and is not, then when you hear a woman express that she hates men, if you simply must say something at all, you will ask her to tell you why that is, if she is so inclined, and you will try to understand, too.
You will be a man that gives her a fucking reason not to hate men.
Because I am telling you straight-up that sanctimoniously instructing women how we should feel about men is not a compelling argument for not hating them. It's just giving us one more example of a man who'd rather be a mansplaining jackass than try to understand our pain.
[Note: The theme of this post originated as a comment; my thanks to Shaker gidgetcommando for suggesting it should be turned into its own post.]
Daily Dose of Cute
I have no idea how this can be comfortable. Greyhound mysteries.
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: Pollution] Fucking hell: "On Tuesday morning, as China's smog-choked capital declared its first ever air pollution red alert, the school, normally buzzing with over-energetic 10-year-olds, was almost silent. A pungent mist hung over the outdoor basketball courts and running track. ...Across Beijing, thousands of other schools and nurseries were in a similar state of almost total shutdown after the city's authorities announced a three-day state of emergency because of the pollution. Building sites and factories were forced to close; millions of cars were ordered off the roads; and teams of environmental inspectors fanned out across the surrounding region to ensure that coal-fired power stations and steel mills were not secretly churning out even more filth into the already putrid atmosphere. ...At 7am, when the red alert—the first in Chinese history—officially came into force, a thick gloom hung over Beijing. Pollution levels were already nearly 15 times higher than the World Health Organisation deems safe." The linked story notes that there are loads of people who have to live and work in Beijing because they can't find livable wages in their hometowns. Having grown up in a steel town in a highly polluted area of the US, I feel so desperately for the people who give their health to support themselves, their families, and their national economy.
[CN: Islamophobia] For fuck's sake: "A severed pig's head tossed outside a Philadelphia mosque has upset residents of multiple faiths and prompted federal and city investigations. Pigs are considered unclean in Islamic culture and pork is not eaten by most practicing Muslims. Mayor-elect Jim Kenney quickly condemned the 'bigotry that desecrated' the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society building Sunday night. 'The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection has a long history of coming together in the face of challenge,' Kenney said. 'We cannot allow hate to divide us now, in the face of unprecedented difficulties. I ask all Philadelphians to join me in rejecting this despicable act and supporting our Muslim neighbors.' ...Marwan Kreidie, head of the Arab American Development Corp., told [Philly.com] that the FBI was investigating the pig's head incident. Kreidie said anti-Muslim sentiment is 'worse now' than after the Sept. 11 terror attacks."
Today, the Supreme Court will take up the issue of voting rights, specifically what "one person, one vote" means in the context of drawing voting districts, in Evenwel v. Abbott. At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston has a primer and analysis of the arguments.
[CN: Misogynist violence; racism] Newly elected Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau "has promised an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women in an appeal to First Nations chiefs. The public inquiry will be 'top priority' of the Liberal government, the newly elected leader said. He called for a 'total renewal' of the relationship between Canada and First Nations peoples. Mr Trudeau promised increased funding for programming and a review of laws on indigenous peoples. Calls for an inquiry have grown since a review found 1,181 indigenous women had been murdered or gone missing since 1980. 'We have made this inquiry a priority for our government because those touched by this national tragedy have waited long enough,' he said at an assembly of First Nations chiefs in Gatineau, Quebec. 'The victims deserve justice; their families an opportunity to heal and to be heard.'"
[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Robert Dear, the man who killed three people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility on November 27, "asked at least one person in a nearby shopping center for directions to the facility before opening fire, law enforcement sources confirm to CBS News, offering the clearest suggestion yet that he was targeting the reproductive health organization." The clearest evidence aside from saying "no more baby parts" to police upon his arrest and having targeted a Planned Parenthood facility before, for crying out loud.
Meanwhile: "Planned Parenthood opened a new health facility last week in the Los Angeles area, just days after a shooting rampage at a Colorado clinic killed three people. 'Our doors are open today, in Colorado and across the country, and nothing will deter us from providing high-quality health care to our patients,' Celinda Vazquez, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles vice president of public affairs, said in a statement. The West Hollywood facility will offer a range of services, including gynecological and breast examinations, STD testing, cancer screenings, birth control, and abortion care. The clinic will begin dispensing two powerful anti-HIV drugs aimed at lowering the rate of infections." The bravest people.
[CN: Sexual violence; rape jokes] James Deen says he is "shocked" by rape allegations made by a number of former partners and/or colleagues. He also says none of them are true. And then he adds that the woman are probably motivated by vengeance and greed. And also defends making rape jokes. Riiiiiiight.
[CN: Christian Supremacy] Ted Cruz continues to be a lying liar: "During a town hall event in South Carolina on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz made the bold claim that he will defend religious liberty because 'what kind of country are we living in where…we're threatening teenage girls with going to jail if they say the name of Jesus?' Cruz made the remark after telling the story of Angela Hildenbrand, a high school valedictorian who he claims was 'threatened with jail if she exercised her right to pray during her graduation speech.' At the South Carolina event and at other campaign events in the past, Cruz has discussed her story as an example of the government's war on Christianity. ...But Hildenbrand was not actually threatened with jail for praying. In fact, every part of Cruz's statement in South Carolina is incorrect, Greg Lipper, an attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church & State, who worked on the case, told ThinkProgress."
[CN: Islamophobia] Donald Trump's gross anti-Muslim plan is too extreme even for dark lord Dick Cheney: "I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in. I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from." And then he said a bunch of shit about how the refugee crisis has been created by a "US vacuum" in the Middle East that made me want to punch walls.
One woman in politics said something complimentary about another woman in politics, but that first woman didn't show up at another event for the second woman, and OMG WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Let me consult my LADYRULEZ DECODER RING!
All right then! "A new study suggests dinosaurs might have evolved more rapidly than we'd thought, emerging less than 5 million years after so-called 'pre-dinosaurs' hit the scene. That shaves about 10 million years off the previous evolutionary timeline." Something something evolution is just a theory fart.
And finally! Deer + fake reindeer = win. It's basic math.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Police brutality; sexual violence; descriptions of assaults and video which may autoplay at link.]
"They have this outlaw mentality: 'We can do whatever we want to do; we're the police.' And they don't feel accountable."—Penny Harrington, co-founder of the National Center for Women and Policing (NCWP) and the former chief of the Portland, Oregon, police bureau, quoted in the Guardian in an important piece about law enforcement officers in Kern County, California, "which has the highest per capita rate of officer-involved deaths anywhere in the US so far this year" and "a string of sexual misconduct cases involving officers, and a pattern of secretive attempts to pay off victims with small sums of cash."
At least eight vulnerable victims were offered – and in some cases accepted – cash payoffs by the sheriff's office shortly after the alleged abuse occurred. These payments, in some cases as low as $200, absolved the department of civil liability and were made without the presence of lawyers, according to a review of depositions, internal sheriff's office memos and victims' accounts. [Lerdo jail warden Anthony Lavis] was one of two Kern County deputies convicted in the past five years for assaulting multiple women.Police and prison staff operating with impunity are sexually assaulting and/or harassing female colleagues, child and adult female prisoners, and women who turn to them for help. And then they pay them off, for as little as $200.
Meanwhile the police department in Bakersfield, Kern County's biggest city, is facing allegations from a former female trainee officer that she was fired and placed on a national blacklist barring her from becoming a police officer elsewhere after complaining about sexual harassment from male officers.
Among other claims, the former officer accuses colleagues of calling her a whore, telling her that she was expected to have sex with them, and bullying her about her physical appearance. The department employs 27 women out of a total of 355 sworn officers, well below the national average for large departments.
Just yesterday, in closing arguments of the Daniel Holtzclaw trial, prosecutors said that the former cop, who was charged with 36 counts of sexual assault, including six first-degree rape counts for attacks on 13 black women, was able to victimize so many women and so brazenly because he "targeted his victims by going after women he came across while on patrol. He ran background checks and went after those who had outstanding warrants, previous arrests or carried drugs or drug paraphernalia."
They said he did this because he did not think authorities would take the victims' word over his if he had to defend himself against sexual assault allegations.We are hearing about what happened in Kern County and what Holtzclaw did because someone, somewhere, did care eventually. But when so many police departments have what Harrington describes as an "outlaw mentality," and no fear of accountability, how many women are harmed and failed by police, whose stories we never hear?
"He didn't choose CEOs or soccer moms. He chose women he could count on not telling what he was doing," prosecutor Lori McConnell said. "He counted on the fact no one would believe them and no one would care."
Again, remember this story the next time you hear some asshole arguing that survivors of sexual violence should be required to report and compelled to cooperate with police, and the next time you hear some asshole say or do anything that suggests a woman reporting an assault shouldn't be believed.
When people lose faith in the justice system, they wonder what else they are supposed to do to support survivors. And I tell them this, always: Believe us. Believe us.
