Here is some stuff in the news today...
RIP Alan Rickman. Damn. What a career, to play all sorts of roles, from Sense and Sensibility's Colonel Brandon to Galaxy Quest's Alexander Dane, and to be remembered as both Hans Gruber and Severus Snape. And what an iconic voice. My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and fans.
The colossal $1.6 billion jackpot has been won, by "holders of three tickets sold in Tennessee, California, and Florida. Each of the three winning tickets is worth $528.8 million, the California Lottery said." Good luck to the winners! I hope it doesn't ruin your lives! That is not sour grapes, btw. That is a legitimate wish based on the knowledge that winning the lottery has ruined lots of winners' lives. I truly hope that does not happen!
[Content Note: ICE raids] Fucking hell: "Obama's Immigration Raids Are Turning Latino Communities into Ghost Towns: Across the country, other Latino-heavy communities have grown wary of raids—which the White House has said will continue despite the recent outcry. 'The community is very, very scared,' Raul Pinto, a staff attorney with the North Carolina Justice Center, told ThinkProgress." Everything about this is indecent. I'm so angry.
[CN: Cancer] "It was one of the more dramatic moments of Barack Obama's final State of the Union address: the president turned to Joe Biden to appoint the vice-president to lead an effort to cure cancer 'once and for all.' The exchange made for one of the most buzzed about highlights of the speech, the promise of a 'moonshot' goal so lofty it almost appeared quixotic. But leading US cancer researchers and doctors say they have very real hopes for the pledge. They describe the state of research around one of the world's leading causes of death as a golden age, and expect that more funding could lead to many additional breakthroughs. 'This is truly a historic moment in the history of cancer,' said Dr Ronald DePinho, the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas." Please please please let it be so.
Oh no! "Carson campaign in turmoil as finance chair quits." Gee, I hope Ben Carson's candidacy is okay! (Ha ha no I don't.)
In other presidential news, the editors of The Nation have endorsed Bernie Sanders: "He has summoned the people to a 'political revolution,' arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires. We believe such a revolution is not only possible but necessary—and that's why we're endorsing Bernie Sanders for president."
Whoa! "There may be a secret landscape complete with a vast canyon hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet—and the canyon might just be the largest in the world. An international team of researchers has discovered evidence in satellite data that this mysterious canyon might exist beneath Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica, publishing their findings in the current issue of the journal Geology. Now, an airborne survey to take radar measurements of the subglacial landscape is underway to confirm the colossal canyon, which could be wider than the Grand Canyon in some places and may span more than 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) in length, Dr. Stewart Jamieson, a geography lecturer at Durham University in England and lead author of the research, told The Huffington Post. The new data is expected to be released later this year."
I don't normally watch James Corden's Late Show (or wevthefuck it's called), but I do love his Carpool Karaoke segments, which I watch online, and his Carpool Karaoke with Adele is exceptionally great! (If you want to watch another especially terrific one, check out [CN: video autoplays] Carpool Karaoke with Stevie Wonder.)
Peter Jackson will be remaking The NeverEnding Story. Are you excited? Y/N? [Note: Several commenters noted this is satire. Whooooooops! Well: Would you be into it if it were true?!]
And finally! "Animals Who Sleep Wherever They Please." LOL!
In the News
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
* * *
I still don't have anything new to show off, so here's a recent picture of me wearing (again!) one of my favorite stripey jumpers:
I will have something new soon, though, because ModCloth is currently having a 70% off sale!
Since I know there are a lot of ModCloth fans here, as well as a lot of fans of sales, I figured there would be a number of people who'd appreciate a heads-up about it.
Some of my t-shirts are getting pretty threadbare, so I was glad to have an opportunity to pick up a couple of new ones at a deeply discounted price. Yay!
If you know of any other plus size retailers who are holding post-holiday sales, which are often way more amazing, discount-wise, than the holiday sales themselves, please feel welcome and encouraged to drop links into comments.
Anyway! As always, all subjects related to fat fashion are on topic, but if you want a topic for discussion: Do you ever buy anything full price, or do you always wait for a sale? Can you afford to wait for sales, or do you find that your size is mostly gone already if you wait?
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
The Oscar Nominations
[Content Note: Racism; trans-appropriation.]
The 2016 Oscar nominations have been announced. You can view the complete list here.
As per usual, the nominations are very white! How the fuck does Sylvester Stallone get nominated for Creed but Michael B. Jordan doesn't?! HE WAS SO GREAT AND THAT MOVIE WAS SO GREAT AND I LOVED HIM! And what about the director and co-writer, Ryan Coolger?! Who wrote and directed a film so terrific that the audience with whom I saw it applauded multiple times throughout the movie?! They make a black Rocky and the only person who gets nominated is the white Rocky?! ARGHHHHHH!!!
The Oscars are the worst.
I barely saw any of the nominated films this year. The only two Best Picture nominees I saw were Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian, the latter of which I saw only because Iain had read the book and really wanted to see the film, so I went with him, and I thought it was the most interminably boring garbage.
So basically the only thing I care about is that Tom Hardy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Revenant. YAY TOM HARDY! Who is also in two of the Best Picture nominees! IT'S THE YEAR OF TOM HARDY!
It's also the year of hating Eddie Redmayne! Who was OF COURSE nominated for playing a trans woman. Of course he was.
There are many other complaints to be made, and please feel welcome to make ALL OF THEM in comments! I will just leave this picture of Tom Hardy here, because why wouldn't I.
[Picture from: "Tom Hardy's Dogs Are His Inspiration."]
The Old Switcheroo
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
Two MSNBC reporters—Benjy Sarlin, who has been covering the Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail, and Alex Seitz-Wald, who has been covering the Democrats—traded places for a week, to see what they'd discover about the politics and politicians they're covering, given a fresh perspective. And the resulting conversation about the experience is very interesting.
The whole thing is definitely worth a read, but this was the part that most stood out to me, as they discussed talking to voters from the other side than is usual for them:
Benjy: I was caught off guard by how specific and personal Democratic voters' issues tended to be. One woman told me she had lost a job because she had to take care of a sick relative and wanted paid family leave. Another woman told me her insurance stopped covering a certain medication that had grown too expensive and she liked how Clinton and Sanders talked about lowering drug prices. One man told me his wages were stagnant at his hotel job and he was looking for policies to increase them.This is, in some ways, keeping with liberal and conservative ideas about the role of the federal government. Liberals' view is that the federal government should be empowered to address a whole raft of domestic issues, while conservatives' view is the the federal government's role should be much more limited, with a particular focus on national defense.
"We're talking about bread-and-butter issues," Phyllis Thede, an Iowa state representative backing Clinton, told me when I asked about her constituents' top concerns.
By contrast, Republican voters tend to be excited by more abstract issues: One of the most common answers I get from Cruz voters when I ask about their leading concern is "the Constitution." There are fewer "I have a specific problem in my own life, and I'd like the government to do x about it" responses.
The other shock was just how far apart the party's interests are this election. In 2012, the election was dominated on both sides by the economy. This year, there's much less overlap between what Republicans and Democrats think the most important issues are. It's not so much that voters disagree on something like climate change as Democrats care about it while Republicans rarely give it much thought.
Alex: You're right, the two parties are operating in different parallel universes.
But obviously there's more at work here, given what Alex says next: "In my experience, the one place where the blue and red universes come closest together, surprisingly or not (older people disproportionately vote and attend political events): Social Security and Medicare."
I don't believe there's a single unifying explanation. One might argue that Republican primary voters tend to be wealthier and thus don't have as many personal economic concerns, but there are a lot of GOP voters who aren't wealthy (and a lot of Democratic voters who are). One might also point to studies showing left-leaning voters tend to be more empathetic generally than right-leaning voters, but that again is a generalization and not a rule. It's a combination of things.
Which frankly means it's harder to address the fact that "the two parties are operating in different parallel universes," and that's a concern.
As has become increasingly evident, it's difficult to get shit done when a population is living in different universes but the same country.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker invisibilia: "What is the most useless thing you ever learned in school?"
How to work a ditto machine, probably. LOL.
This Is My Lottery Hot Take
I may be in the minority here, but winning this ridiculous, record-breaking, colossal lottery seems like it would be my worst nightmare. I can certainly imagine lots of amazing things I could do with all that money, but the total upending of one's life after something like that, accompanied by unfathomable notoriety, would make me want to crawl into bed and never come out.
I hope whoever wins it, because someone will win it eventually, is ready for what's coming and can genuinely enjoy their incomprehensible wealth.
Strap Yourselves in for 2016
Because it's gonna be a wild ride, if President Obama has anything to say about it. And he does!
President Obama will roll out a bold set of executive actions during his final year in office, his top adviser said Wednesday.I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Republican obstructionism has reached absurd proportions; they're not providing checks and balances to the President's agenda, but creating impenetrable gridlock.
"We'll do audacious executive action throughout the course of the rest of the year, I am confident of that," White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.
The comments are a clear sign the president will continue his go-it-alone approach, which has angered Republicans in Congress.
...[T]he White House is signaling the president won't be afraid to take risks to check off pieces of unfinished business with just 12 months left in office.
Obama recently told his staff he's going to demand that everything they do in 2016 be "infused with the sense of possibility that has both undergirded this administration, but also this country," the chief of staff said.
The president also said, "I am going to be asking myself, 'why not?'" according to McDonough.
The opposition party isn't meant to hold the country hostage if the sitting administration is proposing reasonable legislation with wide support with which they just happen to disagree.
So I don't know what else the President is supposed to do, when they flatly refuse to work with him.
On the other hand, I don't like the idea of a president circumventing the legislature through executive action, even when that president is pursuing an agenda with which I agree, because it sets a pretty frightening precedent for the next time there's a president with whose agenda I don't agree, and who may be thwarted by Congress for damn good reasons.
It's a bad situation, and it's the fault of the Republicans—who, I've no doubt, will at the earliest possible opportunity take advantage of the precedent they're forcing this president to set.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cold weather.
Recommended Reading:
Jes: [Content Note: Sexual violence] human/alien/human: On David Bowie
Jorge: This Word Just Made Its First Ever Appearance in a State of the Union Address
Jennifer: [CN: Gender policing; misgendering; threat of violence] Welcoming the All-Gender Restroom "Revolution"
Harry: Hillary Clinton Was Liberal. Hillary Clinton Is Liberal.
Jenn with Paola: A Podcast for Women of Colour and Anyone Else Who "Gives an F"
Travis: The Walking Dead Actress, Danai Gurira, to Star in Tupac Biopic
Carolyn: Adam Driver Is a Huge Goober in Saturday Night Live Promos with Kate McKinnon
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie makes her attack on the unsuspecting Tils
from her perch on the bathroom hamper this morning.
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...
"Republicans react to State of the Union by accusing Obama of stoking division." *flips table*
"The US has thanked Iran for the swift release of 10 US sailors held for entering its territorial waters. Secretary of State John Kerry said the resolution of the matter was 'testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe.' Republican presidential hopefuls had criticised the administration over its handling of the incident. A deal on Iran's nuclear activities—which they also disparage—is said to be days away from implementation. The sailors were detained on Tuesday when one of their two vessels broke down while training in the Gulf. The incursion was 'unintentional,' a statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards quoted by state media said." The GOP really needs to STFU.
[Content Note: Sedition; child abuse] "Although the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge facility may seem to have done little more than camp out with guns and demand snacks, their continuing occupation is costing taxpayers dearly. ...Harney County Judge Steve Grasty told outraged community members that he'd send the Bundys a bill for what they'd cost the county—which he estimates to be '$60,000 to $70,000 a day' for the closed schools and government offices and the drastic ramp-up in security." Fucking hell. Meanwhile, the opening paragraph of this New York Times article, pointed out to be by Shaker aforalpha, is horrifying: "Deep inside the federal wildlife compound where armed citizens have been garrisoned for more than a week, 9-year-old Zoey Justus was preparing a snack platter for the occupiers—fruit, cheese, Ritz crackers—and her parents were explaining why they had brought her to an armed insurrection." This is child abuse, plain and simple.
[CN: Institutional abuse; class warfare] Last month, I wrote about the city of Flint, Michigan, declaring a state of emergency because its water supply, serving 100,000 residents and commuters, is contaminated with lead. The government knowingly poisoned their citizens. And now the city, in a breathtaking display of cruelty, is sending out water shutoff notices for overdue accounts. Unfathomable.
[CN: War on agency] Chipping away at Roe, with alarming speed: "During the 2015 state legislative session, lawmakers considered 514 provisions related to abortion; the vast majority of these measures—396 in 46 states—sought to restrict access to abortion services. This year will be remembered not only because 17 states enacted a total of 57 new abortion restrictions, but also because the politics of abortion ensnared family planning programs and providers as well as critical, life-saving fetal tissue research. ...Including the 57 abortion restrictions enacted in 2015, states have adopted 288 abortion restrictions just since the 2010 midterm elections swept abortion opponents into power in state capitals across the country. To put that number in context, states adopted nearly as many abortion restrictions during the last five years (288 enacted 2011–2015) as during the entire previous 15 years (292 enacted 1995–2010)."
[CN: Police brutality; guns; death] Goddammit: "A police constable in Pennsylvania killed a 12-year-old girl when he fired a shot at the girl's father that passed through the man's arm and hit her, officials said on Tuesday. Ciara Meyer was pronounced dead at her home on Monday morning after Constable Clarke Steele attempted to 'enforce an eviction order' on her family in Duncannon, north of Harrisburg, according to officials. ...Ciara is the 21st person and the first child to be killed by law enforcement in 2016, according to an ongoing Guardian investigation." To enforce an eviction order. Seethe.
[CN: Guns; death] Meanwhile, in Ohio: "A Cincinnati father is mourning after he mistakenly shot and killed his 14-year-old son believing he was an intruder. According to the WCPO, Georta Mack's father dropped him off at school early Tuesday morning when the teen apparently snuck back into the basement of his home, planning to skip school. Cincinnati Police Sgt. Joe Briede told the news station that Georta was most likely going to hide in the basement and wait for his dad to leave for work. 'I just shot my son by accident,' Georta's father told a 911 operator around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, WCPO reported. 'He scared me. I thought he was in school. I heard noise and then I went downstairs looking. He jumped out at me. I shot him.'" I just don't even know what to say anymore.
[CN: Transphobia; rape jokes] Ricky Gervais went on an epic Twitter rant to tell critics of his gross Golden Globes performance that he doesn't care what we think. Sounds like it!
Neat! "Physicists have for months been buzzing about the possible detection of gravitational waves—a finding that would confirm one of the key predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. On January 11, that speculation exploded in a frenzy of media headlines, after excited physicists spilled some of the gossip online. The rumours suggest that the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a US laboratory with detectors in Washington and Louisiana, has spotted a signal of gravitational waves. These are ripples in the fabric of space-time that, according to Einstein's theory, are produced by cataclysmic events such as the merging of two black holes or two neutron stars. ...If this is true, it would be 'as close to directly observing a black hole as possible,' says Frans Pretorius, a specialist in general-relativity simulations at Princeton University in New Jersey."
And finally! "The 'Three Little Kings' of Zoo Basel Are Growing Up." Awww.
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
Primarily Speaking
[Content Note: Birtherism] Joe McCarthy impersonator Ted Cruz was born in Canada, so he's ineligible to be president. So says gold toilet aficionado Donald Trump. And now there are eleventy-seven million stories about whether Cruz is eligible or not, by virtue of his birth. How about the fact that he's ineligible for the presidency because he's a fucking dipshit?
In other Cruz Nooz, he and Trump are locked in a dead heat for least worst in Iowa: "Less than three weeks before Iowa caucus-goers cast the first votes of the 2016 presidential election, the Republican contest in the crucial first heat has boiled down to two neck-and-neck races, one between U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Donald Trump and another between U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows Cruz and Trump, the two fiercest anti-establishment candidates, locked in a tight race for first place, well ahead of the rest of the pack. Following at a distance are Rubio and Carson, battling for third place. None of the other contenders can muster more than 5 percent support from likely Republican caucus-goers."
Meanwhile, pugilist Chris Christie swears he definitely never donated to Planned Parenthood and HOW DARE YOU accuse him of such decency?!
Something something Rand Paul liberty isolationism Jesus.
[CN: Appearance mockery] Shyamalanian surprise less smart brother Jeb Bush is really serving up the absolute dregs of desperation campaigning, making ha ha jokes about Marco Rubio's heeled boots with token MSNBC conservative Joe Scarborough: "'Jeb, do you own any platform boots that make you taller?' Scarborough asked, to which Bush responded, 'I got my cowboy boots on, big Joe.' (Bush is 6'3" to Rubio's 5'10"). 'Do they make you three inches taller or are they just normal cowboy boots?' Scarborough followed up. 'I don't have a height issue,' Bush added." Oof.
[CN: Homophobia] Corporate power-failure Carly Fiorina shows off her excellent decision-making skills: "Campaigning in Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she supports Indiana's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was passed last year amid fears that it would allow businesses to discriminate against gay people. ...'This is about religious liberty, not about discrimination,' she said." Good grief.
[CN: Homophobia] Sweater vest supermodel Rick Santorum, who thinks Supreme Court decisions are suggestions, says that "when you say the states have the right to define marriage, it's like saying, well, the states have the right to redefine the chemical equation for water, it can be H3O instead of H2O. Well, the states can't do that. ...The states don't have the right to violate what nature has dictated." Wow. WOW.
"Moderate" John Kasich continues to work very hard to not fill the charisma void left by George Pataki.
Professor of Bible bigotry Mike Huckabee says you can't make college free, because then students would cut class. No, seriously: "I can speak to the common-sense language of the people and explain to them, as I did to a young lady today who asked me, she said, 'What can you do to maybe see that I can have free college?' ...And I went on to explain to her that if we gave it to you for free, you wouldn't appreciate it; you'd probably cut class." LOLOLOLOL OMG.
Jim Gilmore is still a real person who is running for president.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle...
Hillary Clinton got an endorsement from former Attorney General Eric Holder, who says she is "the candidate that we need in the White House [to continue] the progress of President Obama."
Bernie Sanders is catching up in the polls, and now trails Clinton by only 7 points nationally.
Martin O'Malley "failed to qualify as a write-in candidate for Ohio's presidential primary after he previously fell short of the signatures needed for his name to appear on the key swing state's ballot." Whoooooops!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
State of the Union 2016
So, last night, President Obama gave his final State of the Union address before both houses of Congress, with Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan sitting behind him:
The Washington Post has a full transcript of the address.
I live-tweeted it, with my typical mix of sarcasm and seriousness. I have Storified those tweets, if you want to see them.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley delivered the Republican rebuttal, and it was just as terrible as you'd expect, although her delivery was much better than the usual doofus they trot out for it. If this was indeed an audition for the veep slot on the GOP ticket, she nailed it.
Obama's final SOTU was, for me, almost a perfect encapsulation of what I have liked and not liked about his presidency. Too much emphasis on "fighting terrorism" and the military; too little emphasis on poverty and women and race.
But, despite my disagreements with President Obama, I have come to like and admire him very much, and I'm going to miss him when he's out of office. I trust him, at least as much as I can trust any US president and more than most. Certainly more than any other president in my lifetime.
I found parts of his speech deeply moving, and this part particularly affected me:
Democracy grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise or when even basic facts are contested or when we listen only to those who agree with us. Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get all the attention. And most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn't matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some special interest.It hurts my heart that President Obama, who pursued and vaunted bipartisanship to a fault early in his presidency, say that he blames himself, that he somehow failed, because partisan vitriol increased during his tenure. That is not his fault, and it is not his failure.
Too many Americans feel that way right now. It's one of the few regrets of my presidency -- that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I'll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.
I think I know why he feels that way, though. He came to office with a certain amount of overconfidence that he was going to be able to fix Washington, and a certain naïvete born of his formative experience in Chicago, where the Republicans are frankly a different breed than they are in DC. And it's very easy when one has been arrogant about a situation to then feel like one failed, if that situation is not resolved, or gets even worse. Even, and maybe especially, when one ultimately couldn't control the outcome.
The mistake that he made was not seeing it sooner. But I don't know that if he had, it could have made an enormous difference. The Republicans were determined to be obstructionist, and the conservative base was determined to hate him. It would have made a difference to his supporters, which might have keep people engaged, and maybe that was a missed opportunity, but he had other opportunities to get and keep people on his side, and he made the most of them.
But I get why he feels responsible, even if I wish he didn't. I relate to it. I imagine any person who has been full of piss and vinegar about their own abilities, only to be humbled and realize they can't accomplish on their own what they thought they might, can relate to this president's regrets. It's one of the universal experiences of maturing, of learning, of personal growth.
And this president, President Barack Obama, has become a better person while in office. It's visible, and it's extraordinary. While most presidents leave the office far more cynical than they arrived, his heart has seemed to grow and grow. He is filled with even more empathy and optimism than when he arrived.
His speech ended thus, with his voice catching in his throat:
We need every American to stay active in our public life and not just during election time so that our public life reflects the goodness and the decency that I see in the American people every single day.I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people.
It is not easy. Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that, a little over a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I will be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness, that have helped America travel so far.
Voices that help us see ourselves not first and foremost as black or white or Asian or Latino; not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born; not Democrat or Republican; but as Americans first, bound by a common creed.
Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word -- voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love. And they're out there, those voices. They don't get a lot of attention. They don't seek a lot of fanfare, but they're busy doing the work this country needs doing.
I see them everywhere I travel in this incredible country of ours. I see you, the American people. And in your daily acts of citizenship, I see our future unfolding.
...That's the America I know. That's the country we love. Clear- eyed, big-hearted, undaunted by challenge, optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. That's what makes me so hopeful about our future.
I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people. And that's why I stand here, as confident as I have ever been, that the state of our Union is strong.
The terrible truth is that it is frighteningly easy to change the country, for the worse. Fly a plane into a building, pick up a gun and start shooting, set off a bomb. The country will change, almost in an instant. It's much harder to change the country for the better, because it necessitates inspiring change within people who are profoundly resistant to it.
This president promised to change the country, and he feels in some way like he failed to deliver. But he changed.
There aren't many men with an enormous amount of power and influence who become wiser and more compassionate, who retain their optimism and expand their decency, who speak with sincerity about unconditional love. Who can be funny and fierce and vulnerable, in front of an entire nation, in front of the world. Who let us see all of it, let us see that they have changed, and show us that to be changed, and to change ourselves, is a strength.
President Obama has challenged me to change, and I have.
I hope his words and his example, as he embarks on his final year in office, urges us to a place where we seek change by looking inside ourselves.
Because we are the hope and change we've been looking for. We always have been.
Hey, Why Was My Comment Deleted?
This is one of the most common questions I get regarding the Commenting Policy, and although sometimes it's from a butthole who knows damn well why their comment was deleted and just wants to be a further pain in the keester, more often it's from a commenter who is genuinely inquiring in good faith why their comment was deleted so they can make sure they don't make the same mistake again.
And I don't mind answering those emails, but I don't always have time to answer them as promptly as I'd like, so, for quick reference, here are some reasons why your comment may have been deleted:
1. You left it as a reply. If Disqus allowed me to turn off that function, I would. But they don't. So we ask commenters to please refrain from using it, and instead use the @[username] method, so we can maintain flat threads to: 1. Accommodate people with visual processing disorders for whom nested threads are difficult to navigate; 2. Facilitate moderation; 3. Encourage a single, on-topic conversation in each thread.
Side Note: Why is an on-topic conversation important? Because the contributors here are human beings, each with our own set of sensitivities and triggers. We write what we are prepared, on that day, given what emotional resources we have (or don't have), to discuss and moderate. If someone introduces something off-topic that we're not prepared to navigate, it can take a toll on us personally.
I understand why it is that you would want to discuss some difficult topical item at Shakesville, because you value being able to discuss things with the protection of our vigilant moderation, but please remember that that vigilant moderation is provided by people—people who live lives outside of this space, including me. I don't report everything that happens in my day-to-day life here, and, like everyone else, there are days where things in my private life are emotionally draining. I write about what I have the ability to deal with that day. So do the other contributors. That's why we want to keep things on-topic.
(There's also the possibility I haven't heard about it yet. In which case, the best thing to do with potentially triggering information is to email me or DM me on Twitter, which gives me the opportunity to process it and introduce it in my space when I'm best prepared, as opposed to dropping it directly into comments, which obliges an immediate response.)
And there's always the Open Thread for general discussion, if there's not a dedicated thread for something you'd like to discuss with other members of the community.
2. Its content violated the Commenting Policy in some way.
3. You included potentially triggering material, but failed to include a content note. Often, one of the moderators will simply add a content note, but if we don't have time, or, frankly, if you're a repeat offender, we may simply delete it instead.
4. It included a GIF or a video. (See yesterday's update to the Commenting Policy.)
5. It's off-topic and/or derailing.
6. It's marginally on-topic, but contains material that we know, via long experience, will invite a conversation that derails the thread. This is exceedingly rare, and usually when I have to delete a comment for this reason, I will take the time to email the commenter and explain why their comment was deleted.
7. You left a comment that contradicted in-thread moderation, i.e. mods having drawn a line under a discussion that's turning into a flamewar or starting to derail the thread.
8. You offered unsolicited advice to another commenter. This also includes telling other commenters how to vote.
9. You are sockpuppeting or in some way doing an end run around the moderation.
10. You're talking trash about another blog/blogger. (Distinct, of course, from legitimate criticism of someone else's work.) I don't like it when I see conversations like that about me/Shakesville in other spaces, so I don't want to host that sort of thing here.
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Question of the Day
What is the one thing you would like to hear President Obama say during his final State of the Union? This is, of course, fantasy speechifying, so you are under no obligation to offer an answer that could exist within the realm of possibility in modern US politics.
State of the Union Address
Tonight is President Obama's final State of the Union address (sob!), which will be aired on all the major networks and cable news channels in the US. There are also a bunch of places you'll be able to watch it online, including WhiteHouse.gov, C-SPAN, and NPR, who will also be broadcasting it on the radio.
As it's the last SOTU he will give (sob!), and thus won't be detailing a future policy agenda, he'll spend some time reflecting on what his administration has accomplished, as well as what he hopes for the nation's future.
Am I going to watch it live? Maybe! Am I going to live-tweet it? Maybe!
Irrespective of my SOTU decision-making, here is a space for discussion about the address, before and during. Spoiler Alert: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will scowl a lot behind the president, and Vice President Joe Biden will point and wink at people.
NOPE
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
This is such bad news:
The Walton Family Foundation announced that it plans to spend $1 billion over the next five years to increase the number of privately managed charter schools. If experience is any guide, almost all of these will be non-union...This is an aggressive, blatant attempt not only to bust teachers' unions, but to privatize the school system.
The Bentonville, Arkansas,-based foundation is run by the family of Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton and is a frequent target of teachers unions for its promotion of school choice efforts, including research. Since 1997, it has poured more than $385 million in 2,110 new public charter schools – or about a quarter of all charters nationally, the foundation said.
Or, more accurately, create a two-tiered school system: Private schools for the privileged, and poorly funded, understaffed, overcrowded public schools with suboptimal materials and technology for all the kids whose families can't afford to send them to private charter schools. Or who don't qualify for a scholarship of some description.
Public education is supposed to be the equalizer in our ostensibly meritocratic democracy. That's already not the case, for a whole lot of reasons, including segregation and pegging school funding and/or teaching salaries variably to property taxes, test scores, and performance metrics that don't account for schools that start the measurement period at a disadvantage from any one of a number of criteria. Hardly a comprehensive list.
There are a lot of problems with the US public school system, and not a single one of them will be fixed by billionaires creating a private school system.
[H/T to Ashon.]
