Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker DornierPfeil: "What is your favorite shape of pasta noodle?"
Cavatappi.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by almonds.
Recommended reading:
The Atlantic Editors: Against Donald Trump
Kenrya: [Content Note: Police brutality; racism] Charlotte Police Release Additional Video of Keith Lamont Scott Shooting
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred; eliminationism] Is Canadian Obesity Network Really Okay with Killing 15 of Every 1,000 Fat People?
Jenn: [CN: Racism] Fox News Airs Appallingly Racist Anti-Asian Segment
Fannie: [CN: Misogyny; racism; violence] On Small Town White Rage
George: Why the Human Lifespan Ends at 122
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Winning by What Measure
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
Politico's morning playbook began thus:
The general consensus: Mike Pence won the debate. The CNN/ORC poll post-debate poll -- which tends to track pretty closely with public surveys taken days later -- has Pence beating Tim Kaine last night, 48% to 42% (http://cnn.it/2dIQihu) Pence turned in a far better performance than Donald Trump.Except: A far better performance than his own running mate is: 1. A low bar; and 2. Not typically the objective of a vice-presidential debate performance.
Normally, we expect the veep debate to be about reflecting well on the top of the ticket—and by that traditional measure, Tim Kaine was the clear winner. His opening statement was about being proud to run with Hillary Clinton, a message he has delivered clearly and often on the campaign trail, while Mike Pence spent the entirety of the debate unable and unwilling to defend Donald Trump.
This election, however, has seen all traditional measures thrown out the window. Trump is so appallingly weak on policy that the media have seemingly decided to abandon policy as a metric, focusing heavily instead on "optics." Pence's ability to "look reasonable," irrespective of the actual policy positions he was espousing, thus rendered him the winner, by some accounts.
But Pence and his dreadful positions on everything from Syria to abortion don't make him a winner for the people affected by those policies.
By that measure, Kaine was the winner, too.
But Kaine, pundits complained, interrupted too much. Which is somehow now more important than, for example, the fact that he trusts women to make our own reproductive decisions—and his opponents don't.
If the trajectory of one's life depends on the right of bodily autonomy, perhaps one assesses the winner of a debate differently than whether one guy looks "too interrupty," especially if the reason he's interrupting is to stop his opponent from lying about expressed and legislative bigotries.
Kaine had a couple of important tasks to accomplish during the debate: He needed to bolster Clinton, which he did successfully by communicating his pride at running with her and defending her record; he needed to hammer Trump, which he did successfully by staying relentlessly on message about Trump's odious comments and tax avoidancce; and he needed to remind women that the Democratic Party is the party of women's rights, in which he succeeded expertly, strongly reiterating his belief that he trusts women.
Pence, well, he managed to convince a lot of conservatives he could be a contender in four years. Thing is, if he imagines he can take on Hillary Clinton, good luck to him. They've met before, and that didn't come out well for Pence.
Just like this debate, by any metric that matters to progressives.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
One byproduct of the linguistic asymmetry between male and female behaviors is that there are dozens more scripts by which female participation in the public sphere can be invalidated. One of the most available scripts condemns the woman who is too public by specifying that she is too available sexually (the slut) or too fame-hungry (the attention-whore). Neither term lets her participation in public life be understood as anything other than venal and self-serving. But what the latter term does, more or less, is pathologize a woman's desire to make a name for herself.—Lili Loofbourow, in her terrific piece "The outing of Elena Ferrante and the power of naming."
And we are so quick to reduce female artists to their names. That is, to identify how their artistry is infected by self-interest, to tarnish their artistic efforts with the horrible, calculating language of "branding." When a woman speaks, there's a knee-jerk impulse to focus on how exactly she might be operating in bad faith: The question is less what is she saying? than how does saying it benefit her? What base desire for attention does it gratify?
Elena Ferrante short-circuited that reflex. She couldn't be writing great literature "for the attention" because she refused to accept any. She hacked a system that pathologizes female bids for greatness.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Extreme weather; video may autoplay at link] "Hurricane Matthew likely won't strike the US for another day—but after seeing its deadly, devastating impact in the Caribbean, authorities are urging residents to get ready. 'I cannot emphasize enough that everyone in our state must prepare now for a direct hit,' Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday. 'That means people have less than 24 hours to prepare, evacuate and shelter. Having a plan in place could mean the difference between life and death.' ...President Barack Obama warned Americans in the path of Hurricane Matthew to pay attention and take any evacuation orders seriously. He said if the core of the storm strikes Florida, it could have a 'devastating effect.'"
[CN: Bigotry; gaslighting] Great piece by Jamelle Bouie: "This Wasn't a Debate. This Was a National Gaslighting."
[CN: Misogyny] Good grief: "Megyn Kelly Reminds Conway Why Trump Polls Poorly with Women." Which comes mere days after another, similar exchange between the two. Lordy begordy.
Al Gore is fixing to hit the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton: "The former vice president, a climate activist, will speak about not just Clinton's plan to address global warming, but also the idea that voting for an independent presidential candidate could deliver the White House to Republicans in the same way that Ralph Nader's candidacy helped undermine his presidential bid in 2000." Oh snap!
[CN: Racism] This is a really fascinating and heartbreaking piece: "Donald Trump Is Tearing the NFL Apart: Fights. Friendships ended. Racial divides. Requirements not to talk about a combustible candidate on team property. B/R Mag's examination of the football locker room electorate reveals that America's most popular sport is just as politically divided as the nation itself."
[CN: Domestic violence] "ESPN commentator passionately pleads for NBA to take violence against women more seriously: 'It's not a mistake. It's a choice.'"
Neat: "The secret of why dogs are man's best friend could be lurking in their genes, according to new research. Scientists say they have found a handful of genes that appear to be linked to the tendency for dogs to seek human help and contact." I don't know about you, but my DNA definitely include genes that are linked to the tendency to WANT TO CUDDLE DOGS.
What have you been reading?
Daily Dose of Cute
I was taking a picture of Matilda looking all cute as she sat in the doorway of the kitchen, trying to entice me to retrieve a treat for her, and only noticed afterwards that THE PHOTOBOMBING CHAMPION Olivia had somehow managed to insert herself in just the right space so she'd make it into the photo, too. LOL!!!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
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!
Welp
Libertarian ticket veep candidate Bill Weld is pivoting from trying to win, which was never going to happen anyway, to defeating Donald Trump:
As some presumably small portion of Americans sat through a dull debate between the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential nominees on Tuesday night, a far more interesting drama was unfolding within the Libertarian ticket. VP candidate Bill Weld told the Boston Globe that he plans to focus exclusively on attacking Donald Trump for the remainder of the campaign — essentially admitting that running mate Gary Johnson can not become president.Good. Also: Correct.
Trump has Weld's "full attention," he explained, because his agenda is so terrible it's "in a class by itself." "I think Mr. Trump's proposals in the foreign policy area, including nuclear proliferation, tariffs, and free trade, would be so hurtful, domestically and in the world, that he has my full attention," Weld said.
Vice-Presidential Debate Wrap-Up
It's really this simple: One of these men believes marginalized people have agency and equality. The other doesn't. #VPDebate
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 5, 2016
I said before the debate started it would be about one man with empathy and one without it. Evident in every one of those 90 minutes.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 5, 2016
So, those two tweets bookended my tweeting of the vice-presidential debate, and they pretty much sum it up. I did, however, Storify the rest of my tweets, in case you would like to see them.
I don't even know what else to say. Everything Mike Pence believes and says and does is so wretchedly abhorrent to me, and Tim Kaine is just so fundamentally decent, that there doesn't seem to be any point in deep-diving into the content of the debate.
It wasn't even a contest.
And as for their running mates: Kaine started out saying he was proud to be on the ticket with Hillary Clinton, and Pence spent the entire debate comprehensively unable to defend a single thing that Donald Trump has said.
If that doesn't sum it up, welp.
Open Thread: Vice-Presidential Debate
Well, it's finally here! The first and only vice-presidential debate between Tim Kaine, who seems like a very nice person and a politician who cares about the lives of people other than himself, and Mike Pence, who is a childhood nightmare monster come to life.
IT'S A REAL TOSS-UP!
Here's an open thread to discuss the debate—before, during, and after. I'll just be over here, biting my nails.
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five People Whose Lives You'd Like to Experience for a Day. For the purposes of this question, you'd be riding along Being John Malkovich-style, i.e. you'd be inside their brains but you wouldn't be running the show. So, like, if you wanted to experience President Obama's life for a day, you'd get to experience his thoughts and perceptions, but you wouldn't be able to make or influence his decisions. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
Photo of the Day
LOVE.
Barbara Kinney and her beautiful photography is GIVING ME LIFE during this campaign.
This Would Be Funny if It Weren't So Infuriating
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
The Hill: "GOP struggles to find women to lead House committees."
Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.) is the only Republican woman in the House officially in the running to chair a committee, underlining how the GOP has made little progress in diversifying its slate of committee leaders.I love this explanation for why the GOP is having such a rough time finding people who aren't white men to fill leadership roles: "The main obstacle in promoting more women to leadership roles is that there are simply fewer to choose from, particularly in the House GOP conference."
The only woman currently atop a House panel, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), is retiring, meaning House GOP leaders are under pressure to elevate at least one other female lawmaker to ensure their committee chairmen roster isn't entirely all-white and all-male.
...By comparison, seven committee chairmen during the first term of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) tenure as Speaker from 2007 to 2009 were women or people of color.
Nearly a decade later, 12 of the 21 committees' ranking Democrats are female or racial minorities.
That's actually not "the main obstacle." It's a symptom of the main obstacle, which is that the Republican Party is grossly hostile to marginalized people, which is a strong disincentive for most marginalized people in joining the Republican Party.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Extreme weather; death] Dammit: "At least six people are feared dead and several houses, churches, and schools damaged after Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, ripped into Haiti and the Dominican Republic early on Tuesday. The category 4 storm made landfall near Les Anglais on the western tip of Haiti at 7am EDT (11am GMT), the US hurricane centre said, bringing 145 mph winds and storm surges that pounded coastal villages." And it's not over yet. I've not found any relief campaigns yet, but they will be coming (and necessary). As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to drop into comments suggestions on how to help.
[CN: Disablism; war; violence; trauma] Vice-President Joe Biden was extremely pissed at Donald Trump for his comments on PTSD as a weakness. GOOD.
Some new, detailed policy from Hillary Clinton today: "Hillary Clinton's Vision for an Economy Where our Businesses, our Workers, and Our Consumers Grow and Prosper Together." This hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but I really like this plan a lot: "Reward companies that share profits with their employees, not just their executives: Under Clinton's plan, companies that share profits with their employees would receive a two-year tax credit equal to 15 percent of the profits they share—with a higher credit for small businesses."
[CN: Body shaming] At a campaign event, a 15-year-old girl asked Clinton about Trump's body-shaming of women, and Clinton gave her a typically thoughtful response, which included: "We have got to be as clear as possible: You are more than the way you look."
Here are a few news items from Shareblue:
Peter: Crushing letdown for Clinton opponents as promised WikiLeaks bombshell is an epic bust.
Susie: NH Senate: Democrat Maggie Hassan hits Kelly Ayotte over Trump "role model" gaffe.
Me: Fred Trump illegally used millions in casino chips to keep debt-ridden Donald afloat.
[CN: Racism; slavery; sexual violence; harassment; self-harm] This is a long and interesting read by Vinson Cunningham: "The Birth of a Nation Isn't Worth Defending."
[CN: Assault; guns; misogyny] James Cordon seems like a good egg. Which is more than you say for the rest of the late night talk show white dudes. Fuck.
What have you been reading?
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelly lying beside my desk while I work. She would like everyone to know that Dudley isn't the only dog who knows how to relax in this house.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Veep Debate Is Tonight
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
So naturally I've got a primer on the abject horror show of policy that is Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, who could conceivably be an even worse president than Donald Trump:
Pence is not only said to be "nice," but often said to be the more "reasonable" or "measured" member of the Trump-Pence ticket — which misses a fundamental thing about Pence. He is not less extreme than his running mate; he is merely more disciplined.There is, regrettably, oh so much more at the link, and even with everything I covered, that's not the half of it. This guy is horrendous. If there was anyone in the country who could have made the Trump ticket even more terrifying, it's Mike Pence.
Voters will not see clips of Pence on the news mocking Clinton's illness, nor will they discover tweets in his timeline slut-shaming a woman who criticized him. They will, however, find in Pence's record legislation with his signature slashing Indiana's budget for public health programs, leaving the state with one of the lowest per capita investments in the nation: $12.40.
And they will find in Pence's record a host of anti-abortion measures, which has made Indiana one of the most unsafe places to be pregnant in the country.
Trump talks the horrible talk about health and women's agency; Pence has walked the horrible walk.
He has not only turned Indiana into a conservative legislation lab, where all manner of retrograde social policy is run through the Republican-controlled legislature, but also a place where 1 out of 6 Hoosiers (over a million people) now have to rely on food pantries and/or meal service programs to get enough to eat.
There is no way to argue that Pence is "nicer" or "more moderate" than Trump without ignoring his actual record of cruelty and pretending that it matters if a politician uses less overtly hostile rhetoric while making people's lives worse.
