Here is your semi-regular make-up thread, to discuss all things make-up and make-up adjacent.
Do you have a make-up product you'd recommend? Are you looking for the perfect foundation which has remained frustratingly elusive? Need or want to offer make-up tips? Searching for hypoallergenic products? Want to grouse about how you hate make-up? Want to gush about how you love it?
Whatever you like—have at it!
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I also apologize for not having done a Make-Up Thread in forever! I can't remember the last time I even wore make-up, so I haven't had anything to post.
But! While I was on holiday, my friend insisted that I join him for my first pedicure ever, and so I did. And it was really nice! I was definitely positive on getting a hot stone massage on my tootsies!
The relevant part of this experience, however, is that I picked out a nail polish that I really love.
It's holding up really well a week later, so I'm highly recommended it. It's OPI's "Love Is in My Cards."
Anyway! What's up with you?
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Please note, as always, that advice should be not be offered to an individual person unless they solicit it. Further: This thread is open to everyone—women, men, genderqueer folks. People who are make-up experts, and people who are make-up newbies. Also, because there is a lot of racist language used in discussions of make-up, and in make-up names, please be aware to avoid turns of phrase that are alienating to women of color, like "nude" or "flesh tone" when referring to a peachy or beige color. I realize some recommended products may have names that use these words, so please be considerate about content noting for white supremacist (and/or Orientalist) product naming.
[Content Note: Bullying; low self-esteem; worries about appearance and weight] Terrible: "Girls in Britain are becoming more miserable, suggests the Children's Society's annual report. Among 10 to 15-year-old girls, the charity's report says 14% are unhappy with their lives as a whole, and 34% with their appearance. Researchers were told of girls feeling ugly or worthless. The figures for England, Wales and Scotland for 2013-14 represent a sharp rise in unhappiness on five years before. By contrast the study found that boys' sense of happiness remained stable."
[CN: Homophobia] Brilliant: "There are many options available for dealing with mouthy anti-LGBT street preacher trolls: ignore them, laugh at them, shout them down, drown them out… Last week, a student at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Miami, went for the latter option by following a hate preacher around campus with her bagpipes."
This story is a couple of weeks old, but I only read about it yesterday, thanks to my friend Elle. And what an incredible story it is: Malyk Bonnet, a 17-year-old from Montreal, was waiting for a bus when he saw a woman who looked like she was in trouble, with a man who was making that trouble.
"The guy was screaming at her, the girl. He wasn't really gentle with her, and I started watching, because I thought he would hit her, so I approached them a little bit," Bonnet said.
He said the couple asked him for money to take the bus to Laval, and he agreed to get some change at a convenience store and give them some money. Bonnet had a moment alone with the woman, who seemed terrified, he said.
Bonnet decided he had to help, and he was already formulating a plan. Even though he lived in Montreal, he told the couple he lived in Laval and would accompany them on the bus.
"My plan was to keep them in a public place, where there's a lot of people. I decided to make myself friendly with the man, so he would trust me. So I played my game," Bonnet said.
...Bonnet kept his cool, continuing to talk to the man as they took the bus and then the metro to Laval, waiting for an opportune moment when he could call police.
Once in Laval, he offered to take the couple to a Tim Hortons, and he even gave the man $50 to buy food, he said.
Bonnet's cellphone battery had died, so he pretended to go to the washroom and borrowed a phone from someone in the restaurant and called police, who arrived within minutes.
What Bonnet did not know throughout this entire ordeal is that police were already looking for the woman, who had been kidnapped by the man. He was an ex-boyfriend who "had already been found guilty of assault and death threats against his ex-girlfriend last year, and he was under a court order to stay away from her."
Bonnet's quick thinking, decency, and courage means he very likely saved this woman's life.
When police arrived, said Bonnet, "She was almost crying. She was so happy, so happy not to be with him."
Bonnet, who spent around $120 keeping the couple company until he could summon police, says he "didn't think I would see this money again in my life," but: "I mean yo, money ain't nothing. Food ain't nothing. For a life? A life is really more important than my money."
Still, the police "took up a collection to reimburse the money he had spent for bus fare and food that night. They came up with $255." They also "intend to nominate Bonnet for a provincial award for bravery."
"What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick's choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos's raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities. Failure to fix this problem is what's really un-American here."—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a terrific essay for the Washington Post about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's choice to not stand during the national anthem, because "There are a lot of things that are going on that are unjust [that] people aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for—freedom, liberty, justice for all. And it's not happening for all right now."
Shaker Charlotte tweeted yesterday, which I am sharing here with her permission, a perfect comment on the policing of Colin Kaepernick's protest:
White people: "Black people should protest peacefully!" *Black person sits quietly during national anthem* White people: "No not like that."
1. Hillary Clinton works very hard! She is a very good candidate! But have you heard she has emailed things? And received emails from other people? Also, her family has a foundation that saves lives, but sometimes people who may or may not have wanted access to her donated to that foundation in hopes of getting access that they were denied. STILL IT LOOKS BAD, DON'T YOU THINK? Even worse, occasionally Hillary Clinton sits on stools. And pillows. Only monsters sit on pillows.
2. Donald Trump is going to give a speech about immigration today. I'm sure it will be terrific! So full of bigotry! I can't wait to hear all about the walls he wants to build, or doesn't want to build, or wants Mexico to build, or at least pay for, or maybe not. We'll see! Lord Trump still has not released his tax returns, nor a serious medical report, and also he is a scam artist who has made his money exploiting workers. But, in case you haven't heard, he's entertaining! And that is a key qualification for the United States presidency. IT'S IN THE CONSTITUTION. Look it up.
3. Our national media is garbage.
4. Tim Kaine continues to be very delightful and also makes good and serious points about how Donald Trump is a terrible candidate. I hope he's never sent or received any emails. Although it probably doesn't matter, because he's a dude.
5. Mike Pence continues to be the absolute fucking worst.
[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia; gender essentialism; misogyny.]
I've got a new piece at BNR about Donald Trump's newly named campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who said in 2013 if only women were as physically strong as men, there would be no more rape:
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump unearthed video of a January 2013 PBS panel, featuring a number of women from across the political spectrum discussing the issue of women in the military. Conway, expressing concern that women aren't as strong as men, said: "If we were physiologically as strong as men, rape would not exist. You would be able to defend yourself and fight him off."
I cannot – and will not – soft-pedal this: What Conway said is utterly horrendous. It is an utter fallacy that "rape would not exist" if women were as strong as men, because rape is not exclusively a physical struggle between a man and a physically weaker woman.
Women who are incapacitated are raped. Women who are physically disabled are raped. Women who are physically stronger than their rapists are raped, through coercion or a number of other means, including having a gun held at their heads. There are women who are scared to try to defend themselves for fear that it will escalate the rape into something deadly. There are women who are virtually paralyzed by the shock of the assault.
There are also men who are raped – and not always by men who are physically weaker than they are.
This is, unfortunately, not a comprehensive list of the many ways in rape is more than just a sheer battle of physical force.
Conway is espousing an absurdly and harmfully reductive definition of rape, which frames rape as a power struggle between a stronger man and a weaker woman – which suggests that if only women were somehow better, bigger, tougher, mightier, we should be able to prevent rape.
Tasking victims with rape prevention is a key tenet of the rape culture. Rape prevention lies exclusively with predators, who have the responsibility to not rape people.
Click through to read the rest, which includes statements from women's organizations who are just as incandescently angry about this garbage as I am.
Joan Walsh has written a terrific piece about the false equivalency the media is trying to create between Hillary Clinton's speech on Donald Trump's white nationalism and Trump calling Clinton a bigot: "The Media Are Doing an Abysmal Job of Covering Donald Trump's Racism."
Now, you can dislike Clinton's speech. You can fact-check it, and perhaps find something wrong—although to my knowledge nobody claimed any inaccuracy. But what you really shouldn't do, if you are a journalist of any kind of conscience or capacity, is act as though Clinton had somehow gotten down in the gutter with Trump—merely by describing what Trump is doing.
Yet that's the kind of coverage we got. Some commenters got it right, but the reporters and editors charged with "objectivity" immediately equated Clinton's clear-eyed exegesis of Trump's racially divisive campaign with Trump's calling her a "bigot."
Yes, yes, and more yes.
Meanwhile: The press continues to harangue Clinton about not doing more press conferences, despite the fact that they don't deliver similarly sustained outrage over anything Trump does, or fails to do, which is evidence of their double-standard routinely applied via the "Hillary rules," which is nothing more than rank sexism.
How do these two things relate? Well, here's how: The function of pressers in a typical election is to help distinguish the candidates. In this election, however, the candidates are observably different. And what the media is trying to do is make them seem more similar than they are, to create a horserace.
It's one of the primary reasons they are desperate for a press conference, because it will afford them an opportunity to try to fashion the illusion of parity they're desperately trying to create.
Clinton is denying them that opportunity, and she's wise to do so.
Not only because it would potentially damage her (as is the objective), but because it would also potentially enhance Trump's fortunes (which is also the objective), and Clinton doesn't just want to win for winning's sake; she wants to win because she cares about her country. Trump is a danger to that country.
She shouldn't avail herself of situations that help him. And the media has, regrettably, made it abundantly clear that they will use press conferences to do precisely that.
This is not a typical election. This is an election in which there is no overlap on issues. The two candidates aren't even close on any policy.
Between Clinton and Trump, I could be a single issue voter on any issue. Choice, immigration, diversity, the economy, literally anything. Trump's position on every single issue is so outwith the realm of acceptable policy that worrying about Clinton doing a presser is absurd.
Because there is no need for a presser that helps us choose between these two candidates. There is no usefulness in a presser to voters. There is no value to we the people.
This is an election unlike any other. The sooner the press gets on board with this reality, the better.
In the Washington Post, Paul Waldman explains why the presidential debates could really matter this time—because the candidates might show us who they actually are. After sharing anonymous reports from the candidates' respective debate preps, Waldman notes:
We see Hillary Clinton as methodical and thorough, approaching the debates like any test demanding lengthy preparation. She may not be the most natural performer, but she's going to do her homework and try to prepare for every eventuality. She's immersing herself in briefing books and the meticulous research she has instructed her people to carry out.
Trump, on the other hand, is impatient, intuitive, and impulsive, easily distracted and bored with details. He doesn't care about policy. Instead, he's shooting the breeze with a bunch of media people, including Roger Ailes and Laura Ingraham. If Clinton believes that substance is essential to winning a battle of optics, Trump thinks that optics are the only thing that's important. That has been the defining characteristic of his career: succeed through creating an impression of success until the image becomes reality (or at least until you've sold enough seminars to take your money and skedaddle).
So even if there's going to be plenty of spin and plenty of attempts to give misleading impressions to viewers, in the end these debates will probably show us the truest expressions we could get of who these two candidates are.
True enough. But, of course, Clinton and Trump have been showing us exactly who they are throughout this entire campaign, stretching back to the primaries. That "plenty of spin and plenty of attempts to give misleading impressions to viewers" has long been a problem, because most voters don't tune in for entire debates, or entire speeches, but instead rely on clips provided through the filter of the media who want to tell specific narratives about each candidate.
The debates will be yet another iteration of the media reinforcing their preferred frames. Often, the debates are when those frames become hardened in a way they hadn't to that point.
It was during the 2000 debates that the narratives of Al Gore being a boring nerd and George Bush being the guy with whom you want to have a beer emerged as unshakably defining tropes about each man—despite the fact that Bush is a teetotaler and Gore is a guy literally determined to save the planet.
Setting the narrative as FUN vs. BORING was a tragic mistake.
We all remember when the media decided Gore was a boring nerd & Bush was the guy they wanted to have a beer with right? How'd that turn out?
So, between continuing at Shakesville and taking on more responsibility at BNR, I've increasingly been left with almost no time in any of my days where I am not working. Free time, recreation time, even time to do basic chores around the house have become difficult to find.
And I realized yesterday that crowdsourcing In the News is one of the ways I can free up some of my time, and not an insignificant amount, since it usually takes me at least an hour, and often more, every day.
Starting today, and moving forward, I'm going to continue with the more truncated version of In the News, with my apologies to those who really value the longer version, and with the hope you will understand that something's just gotta give, so I don't totally flame out.
So! Here are a couple of links of interest from the news today:
Congratulations to May Garcia, 104 years old and a brand new U.S. citizen! Yay!
"This one quote says it all about Trump's 'minority outreach'... Here's the quote from Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with ABC News: 'This entire conversation had to be had. Republican presidential nominees usually aren't bold enough to go into communities of color and take the case right to them, and compete for all ears and compete for all votes. They've been afraid to do that. So, Mr. Trump deserves credit for at least taking the case directly to the people.'" He deserves credit! LOL!
Every year, another woman makes history at the annual American Ninja Warrior competition. In 2014, it was Kacy Catanzaro, who became the first female Ninja Warrior, in either Japan or the US, to complete the finals qualifying course and move on to the finals. In 2015, it was Meagan Martin, who became the first woman of last season to complete a city qualifying course, making her the first woman ever to qualify in two seasons back-to-back.
This year, it's Jessie Graff, who made history last night by being the first woman ever to complete Stage One in the finals. And not just any Stage One, either. A Stage One that's so difficult this year, many of the veteran men who usually navigate Stage One with ease were shockingly knocked out. Less than 10 of dozens of competitors made it through, and Jessie Graff was one of them, completing the course with the fourth-fastest time.
It was AMAZING, and Iain and I were cheering our hearts out, as we watched another woman make American Ninja Warrior history!
Video Description: Jessie Graff, a blond white woman, who is a professional stuntwoman, stands at the starting line of the obstacle course, wearing a green superhero costume. (She always competes in a superhero costume; she is a stuntwoman on Supergirl.) One of the announcers says that "she'll need to be superhuman; no woman has finished Stage One, and this course has been brutal tonight, taking out some of the very best."
The buzzer goes off, and Jessie begins, first leaping her way across a winding series of wobbly steps, hovering over a pool of water. Most of the obstacles on the course are suspended over water, and if the contestant touches the water with even so much as a toe as they navigate the course, they are disqualified.
Jessie completes the steps and hops onto an inclining ramp. She crawls up to the next platform, then runs toward a small trampoline, leaps off of it, and flies through the air to grab onto a giant suspended propeller. The propeller spins, and, as it spins, she reaches out for a rope with her feet, catching it, then grabs the rope with her hands, swinging away from the propeller and onto the next platform.
She moves on to the Giant Log Grip, a vertical log with shallow hand-holds and no foot-holds, which slides quickly 50-feet across the course with three jarringly steep drops. Jessie clings to the log, managing to hold on, and dismounts onto a small floating mat. "Jessie! Jessie! Jessie!" the crowd shout. One of the announcers says, "This crowd is chanting like she's a rock star!"
She traverses a narrow bridge to the next obstacle, which is the Jumping Spider. She is one of only two women, the other being Meagan Martin, who have made it past this obstacle in the finals. Can she do it again? YES! She leaps off a trampoline and launches herself into a suspended tunnel with no floor, wedging her feet and hands against either wall, then hopping up and through the tunnel, until she jumps out the other side safely. She did it!
She then runs up a ramp, and hops across a curving series of pedestals increasing in height, then leaps to grab a rope, on which she swings across to another narrow bridge. The crowd is going wild.
Next comes the Warped Wall, which defeated her at this very point last year. No woman has ever gotten past it in the finals. "Can you feel history in the making here?" asks one of the announcers, as Jessie pauses, the clock ticking, to contemplate her nemesis. She takes a running start and then LEAPS for the top of the wall and grabs hold! SHE'S DONE IT! She scrambles up to the top of the curving wall, and the crowd is cheering, the announcers are cheering, and I AM CHEERING AGAIN JUST WATCHING IT!
She runs down several lowering platforms to the next obstacle, which is a series of 6 narrow, wobbly platforms. She traverses them with stunning agility, and she's on to the last obstacle!
"It's about to go down!" shouts one of the announcers. The crowd is going wild!
The final obstacle is pure devilry. The Flying Squirrel is a set of two hanging arms, spaced widely apart. At the end of each arm is a small handle. The competitor has to leap from a trampoline and grab the handles on the first set of arms, then swing the arms to get momentum, without losing grip on the small handles, then leap to the second set of arms, grabbing the small handles, then swing the second set of arms to get momentum to jump onto a cargo net.
Jessie goes for it, springing off the trampoline and flying through the air. She grabs the first set of handles and, as she begins to swing, a huge grin crosses her face. She knows. She's going to do it. She's going to make history.
She swings and swings, as the clock ticks down, and then leaps to the next set of arms. Her hands grab the handles, and now all that is left is the cargo net and the clock. She takes one last flying leap, grips the cargo net, and then scurries up to the final platform, where the buzzer awaits her. With just over 12 seconds left, she hits the buzzer.
EVERYONE GOES WILD! The female competitors are hugging each other in celebration and the male competitors are shouting her name, as Jessie collapses atop the platform. "Jessie! Jessie! Jessie!" everyone chants. She lifts her arms triumphantly and waves to the crowd with a smile.
One of the announcers says, "For the first time ever, a woman will be facing Stage Two of American Ninja Warrior!"
Brock Turner, the former Stanford student and star swimmer convicted of sexual assault of an unconscious woman, is scheduled to be released from jail on Friday, September 2, CNN reports.
Turner was sentenced to six months in jail in June. His September release means that he will leave the Santa Clara County jail three months early for good behavior.
For good behavior. Good behavior.
Three months means that Turner has served one month for each of the three felony counts of sexual assault for which he was convicted.
Part of me wants to spend the next two hours of my life writing a 3,000-word screed riddled with profanity about this execrable nightmare of rank injustice, but I don't even want to give this privileged turd that much of my energy.
I'm sure you know exactly what I think and exactly what I feel about this contemptible dogshit anyway.
Instead, I will simply say this: I take up space in solidarity with his victim. Forever. I will care hard and lastingly for her, in inverse proportion to how little he did.
[Content Note: Misogyny; violence and threats against women.]
This is a four-year-old video, but I only saw it for the first time this weekend. It's Meryl Streep, introducing Hillary Clinton at the 2012 Women in the World conference. The entire intro is great, but I was especially struck by the stories Streep recounted of the women Clinton has helped, just by showing up for them.
This is the part of the video that I want to highlight:
But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, "I met her and my life changed." And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:
"I'm alive because she came to my village, put her arm around me, and had a photograph taken together."
"I'm alive because she went on our local TV and talked about my work, and now they're afraid to kill me."
"I'm alive because she came to my country and she talked to our leaders, because I heard her speak, because I read about her."
I'm here today because of that, because of those stores. I didn't know about this. I never knew any of it. And I think everybody should know. This hidden history Hillary has, the story of her parallel agenda, the shadow diplomacy unheralded, uncelebrated — careful, constant work on behalf of women and girls that she has always conducted alongside everything else a First Lady, a Senator, and now Secretary of State is obliged to do.
And it deserves to be amplified. This willingness to take it, to lead a revolution...
This isn't just symbolism. It's how you change the world. These are the words of Dr. Gao Yaojie of China: "I will never forget our first meeting. She said I reminded her of her mother. And she noticed my small bound feet. I didn't need to explain too much, and she understood completely. I could tell how much she wanted to understand what I, an 80-something year old lady, went through in China – the Cultural Revolution, uncovering the largest tainted blood scandal in China, house arrest, forced family separation. I talked about it like nothing and I joked about it, but she understood me as a person, a mother, a doctor. She knew what I really went through."
When Vera Stremkovskaya, a lawyer and human rights activist from Belarus met Hillary Clinton a few years ago, they took a photograph together. And she said to one of the Secretary's colleagues, "I want that picture." And the colleague said, "I will get you that picture as soon as possible." And Stremkovskaya said, "I need that picture." And the colleague said, "I promise you." And Stremkovskaya said, "You don't understand. That picture will be my bulletproof vest."
I am just profoundly moved by that. By the fact that there are women around the world who view Hillary Clinton as their bulletproof vest; by the fact that we don't know these stories, in no small part because Clinton herself doesn't tell them, probably fearing she would be accused of exploiting these women or actually exposing them to harm; by the fact that Clinton risks her life every day, literally wearing a bulletproof vest on many occasions, to keep campaigning against an opponent who has now repeatedly incited violence against her.
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