holy crap: IL gov arrested!

so...Gov. Rod has been arrested. i'm listening to the press conference now. (and, can i say that patrick fitzgerald is awesome?)

i was in an early morning meeting, standing in line for coffee when the guy next to me looked down at his blackberry and said, 'huh. the governor was just taken into custody by the feds.'

a white-haired woman said, 'get out.'
i said, 'you're kidding.'

he said, 'no lie. the trib just sent an alert.'

all of us whipped out our blackberries and checked. we gasped and hurried to sit down and read the news. the trib updated about every 20 minutes or so and when 2 state senators referenced it from our panel later in the meeting, the majority of the audience gasped.

dude. this is huge.
this dumb, awful, incompetent man was trying to sell Obama's old senate seat, among other things.

you have to read the trib story. appalling.

the thing is, until he's convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime, he's still governor! technically, he could still appoint obama's successor!

consider this your place to mull all things corrupt and shameful.

sigh.

I, myself, am a half-breed silk jacquard but who am I to judge?


What We’re Up Against | RaceWire

shorter bailout blame: The Brown People Did It! and what i'm reading this morning

It is a truth universally acknowledged (among Republicans) that when the economic shit hits the fan the one holding the shovel is most likely a low-income person of color.

So it is with this bailout mess. Now that the package has been approved, all eyes are looking for a scapegoat. Surprise, surprise, the luminaries on the Right have lit upon their various whipping persons: people of color, poor people, affirmative action, immigrants and even the nice fuzziness of multiculturalism.

You can catch reaction to this line of spin at Feministe and Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose thread includes a very good parsing of CRA lending policy.

(No, I'm not going to link to Malkin, Coulter or Sailer. You can Google them yourself and gag in the privacy of your own desk.)

Of note is Tim Wise's essay that not only takes this line of thinking to task, it also pokes some holes in the 'personal responsibility' canard the Right is so fond of trotting out:

So there you have it: white conservatives who simply cannot bring themselves to blame rich white people for anything, and who consistently fall back into old patterns, blaming the poor for poverty, black and brown folks for racism, anybody but themselves and those like them. That anyone takes them seriously anymore when they prattle on about "personal responsibility" is a stunning testament to how racism and classism continue to pay dividends in a nation whose soil has been fertilized with these twin poisons for generations. Unless the rest of us insist that the truth be told--and unless we tell it ourselves, by bombarding the folks who send us their hateful e-mails with our own correctives, thereby putting them on notice that we won't be silent (and that they cannot rely on our complicity any longer)--it is doubtful that much will change.

When conservatives say things like 'Oh, if only those darkies hadn't whined about equal access and equal opportunity, we wouldn't be in this mess!' I realize that there is a huge gulf between us that will never be bridged.

Conservative anger always seems to float downward, blaming people who always get the shorter end of the privilege stick; my anger floats up. I'm not going to blame the folks who use pay day loans to make their tiny paychecks last a little longer; I'm gonna look fish eye at the greedy white-collared sonofabitch who calculated that he could fleece more sheep by putting a pay day loan office on every corner in the south side.

I know, very noblesse oblige of me. But it's not, really. It's called freaking compassion!

...

I'm working on a complicated piece I've been wanting to write about intentional motherhood so I've been snapping up essays on motherhood, birthing and contraception. This is one linking increase demand for food and family planning.

This is also one about black midwives fighting the AMA for the opportunity to provide black maternal care.

And, of course, the asshat from Louisiana who thought it was a good idea in a brainstorming session to throw out 'sterilize black women' as a way to combat poverty. Uh-huh. No, that's not racist or problematic as shit at all.

Oh, and then there's this - it only took one month for the bloom to be permanently rubbed off the rose. (Yeah, there are huge problems if Parker thinks Palin is a picture of modern feminism but to get a huge, horking female conservative to admit Palin was a bad pick? I'll gloat.)

And here - a third party (who??) solution to the economic crisis at hand from Cynthia McKinney (via Alas, a Blog.)

Get to reading!

shorter bailout blame: The Brown People Did It! and what i'm reading this morning

It is a truth universally acknowledged (among Republicans) that when the economic shit hits the fan the one holding the shovel is most likely a low-income person of color.

So it is with this bailout mess. Now that the package has been approved, all eyes are looking for a scapegoat. Surprise, surprise, the luminaries on the Right have lit upon their various whipping persons: people of color, poor people, affirmative action, immigrants and even the nice fuzziness of multiculturalism.

You can catch reaction to this line of spin at Feministe and Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose thread includes a very good parsing of CRA lending policy.

(No, I'm not going to link to Malkin, Coulter or Sailer. You can Google them yourself and gag in the privacy of your own desk.)

Of note is Tim Wise's essay that not only takes this line of thinking to task, it also pokes some holes in the 'personal responsibility' canard the Right is so fond of trotting out:

So there you have it: white conservatives who simply cannot bring themselves to blame rich white people for anything, and who consistently fall back into old patterns, blaming the poor for poverty, black and brown folks for racism, anybody but themselves and those like them. That anyone takes them seriously anymore when they prattle on about "personal responsibility" is a stunning testament to how racism and classism continue to pay dividends in a nation whose soil has been fertilized with these twin poisons for generations. Unless the rest of us insist that the truth be told--and unless we tell it ourselves, by bombarding the folks who send us their hateful e-mails with our own correctives, thereby putting them on notice that we won't be silent (and that they cannot rely on our complicity any longer)--it is doubtful that much will change.

When conservatives say things like 'Oh, if only those darkies hadn't whined about equal access and equal opportunity, we wouldn't be in this mess!' I realize that there is a huge gulf between us that will never be bridged.

Conservative anger always seems to float downward, blaming people who always get the shorter end of the privilege stick; my anger floats up. I'm not going to blame the folks who use pay day loans to make their tiny paychecks last a little longer; I'm gonna look fish eye at the greedy white-collared sonofabitch who calculated that he could fleece more sheep by putting a pay day loan office on every corner in the south side.

I know, very noblesse oblige of me. But it's not, really. It's called freaking compassion!

...

I'm working on a complicated piece I've been wanting to write about intentional motherhood so I've been snapping up essays on motherhood, birthing and contraception. This is one linking increase demand for food and family planning.

This is also one about black midwives fighting the AMA for the opportunity to provide black maternal care.

And, of course, the asshat from Louisiana who thought it was a good idea in a brainstorming session to throw out 'sterilize black women' as a way to combat poverty. Uh-huh. No, that's not racist or problematic as shit at all.

Oh, and then there's this - it only took one month for the bloom to be permanently rubbed off the rose. (Yeah, there are huge problems if Parker thinks Palin is a picture of modern feminism but to get a huge, horking female conservative to admit Palin was a bad pick? I'll gloat.)

And here - a third party (who??) solution to the economic crisis at hand from Cynthia McKinney (via Alas, a Blog.)

Get to reading!

being busy - and being invisible at church

good gracious!
this week has been a little bit full.

had a date on monday (went well), worked furiously to get ready to leave town for a conference meeting on tuesday, was in indianapolis on wednesday for my meeting, flew back, worked furiously on thursday to catch up and now - hey! more working furiously while also getting ready for a church retreat over the weekend, a birthday party and maybe a tennis date.
...

speaking of church, here's a little story i haven't had a chance to share. it reminded me that, as progressive as my congregation is, it has a LOOONG way to go to recognize something that Macon D over at Stuff White People Do has written about here and here. (And has posted a fine analysis of non-white reaction to what white people do here.)

i was with some church folks at a farewell reception for a church colleague. most of the people there were from Session, some i recognized from my years as Deacon, and some from my position as board member on the non profit organization housed at the church. in other words, these were not complete strangers to me.

but as the cocktail party wore on, it became clear that people did not recognize me to the same extent that i recognized them.

little old white ladies rushed up to me and cooed, 'oh, stacy! it's so good to see you here!' repeatedly, they did this - even after someone else had introduced me as 'Ding,' member of the Such&Such; Board. oh, the stiff smile i'd wear as their eyes would blink and flutter and i could see their confusion, which probably sounded a little like this:

'what? but - but - stacy is The Black Girl! this is a Black Girl, so...this must be stacy! but she says she's not stacy! but she must be! why isn't she stacy?!'

sigh.

when i put in my requisite 90 minutes of cocktailing, i sat in the lounge area to check my messages on my cell phone. a man from the reception came up to me, hugged me and said, 'oh, stacy! it was really good to see you tonight!'

i had been standing next to this man when the departing executive director of our organization publicly thanked me for my service on the board - and said my name.

flatly, i said, 'i'm not stacy.'
he said, 'oh.' silence. uncomfortable silence as i stared at him, with my cell phone in my hand. i was not smiling.

he said, 'well, it was good to see you.' and rushed away while i really tried not think bad thoughts about white people - and failed.

who is stacy? stacy is the african american woman who runs the very successful tutoring and mentoring program at our church. stacy and i look nothing alike.

and, clearly, the white people i serve with at church think she and i are exactly the same person. this is not the first time this has happened to me. at our mission benefit, at a board dinner, and during coffee hour while i stand at our organization's table during a fundraising campaign - i am every other black woman in church except who i really am.

do white people really not see the differences between us? do we really blur and blend into indistinguishable shapes? are we just all brown and black and yellow blobs that float indistinctly in and out of white vision?

this is the kicker: not one person apologized for mistaking me for stacy. not a single word of apology passed their thin, christian lips.

RNC 08!: leaving no civil right unviolated

La Chola has updates on her space on the arrests at the RNC convention.

Oh, haven't heard about the arrests? Haven't heard about journalists, independent media and people being arrested, harassed, detained and whole neighborhoods being raided?

Don't worry. That's exactly how the Republicans like it. Burn that platform they distributed. They crap on the idea of democracy in the name of national security.

Nihilix has posts up at Bitch, PhD about the St. Paul arrests here and here.

Bitch also has good links for coverage here.

Also check out The Campaign Silo and Fire Dog Lake for updates.

Number of arrests: 187 and counting.

Thank you, Republicans. Thanks for the peek into your worldview: you, all safe and pink inside your bunker of freedom while rubber bullets and tear gas flies outside.

[However, if you want to giggle a little, just go here and click on the video of reporter Campbell Brown finally holding a McCain spokesman's feet to the fire about Palin.]

asshat, international edition: Russia!

I was totally going to just keep on working but a pal sent me this: Sexual harrassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules - Telegraph

What. The. Hell.
There are no words to describe the frakked-up-ness of this news item.

Choice bits:

The unnamed executive, a 22-year-old from St Petersburg, had been hoping to become only the third woman in Russia's history to bring a successful sexual harassment action against a male employer.

The judge said he threw out the case not through lack of evidence but because the employer had acted gallantly rather than criminally.

"If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children," the judge ruled. Who knew the word 'Please?' could mitigate patriarchy? And where the hell did that judge get his law degree? A cereal box?

I could make a joke about mail order brides here, but I won't because it's just too messed up.

dear president bush: you really suck

Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid - NYTimes.com

This is the proposed intent:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

How this report proposes to define abortion:

“any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

[bold emphasis mine]

What's the significance of the 'conception' and 'before implantation' lingo? It pretty much makes hormonal contraception into an abortifacient, which it is NOT.

This is the potential impact (from Womens eNews):

Organizations that don't comply with the proposed rule could be forced to scale back services due to lack of funding, leaving women who rely on government-funded family-planning clinics with fewer options for affordable services and supplies, Richards said. That would compound their financial difficulties at a time of rising rates of unemployment and higher costs for food and fuel.
...
The regulation could also undermine state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and that require health care insurance plans to cover contraceptives if they cover other prescription medications, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights lobby in Washington, D.C.

What else is impacted?
My fricking right to control my fertility without having a bunch of patriarchal asshats forcing me to tie my tubes (or stop having sex.)

Why am I kvetching about tying my tubes?
Because if hospitals are suddenly to be staffed by squeamish religious types who believe the Pill (and other devices) kills homunculi babies, then the only way to prevent pregnancy, clearly, would be to sterilize myself.

But would that really be cost effective for me (or any woman, for that matter)?
Tying ones tubes is not like having a vasectomy; it is not a simple snip-snip that can be done with a local anasthetic, in a soothing doctor's office while a little blue napkin lays across your lap. You don't go home and stay in bed for a few days with an ice pack between your legs. It's major surgery. It's invasive, expensive and hellishly inconvenient.

It looks like this.

Contraception, on the other hand, looks like this .

I've already done this, thank you very much. I would be more than a little resentful if I had to to it again.

As for the petty, ignorant, anti-woman Bush administration, I wonder if they convene meetings with agendas titled "How to Do the Most Damage in What Little Time We Have Left."

asshat: karl rove

So.
Yesterday, Karl Rove called Obama 'cooly arrogant:'

"Even if you never met him," Rove said, "You know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Clearly, if making snide comments was all that counted I guess that makes all of Gen X 'cooly arrogant.'
But I digress.

1. how many black people actually belong to a country club?
2. of those black people, how many would actually make snide comments about their fellow privileged country clubbers?
3. how many country clubs actually allow smoking?
4. since when does 'cooly arrogant' mean something bad when pop culture/literary/cinema tells us 'cooly arrogant' men are frakking hot?

A Few Cooly Arrogant Men We (ok, I) Have Loved:
Mr. Darcy

Captain Wentworth

Toby Stephens

Cary Grant

James Bond

Daniel Craig, James Bond

Pierce Brosnan, Thomas Crown

Steve McQueen

Rupert Everett

Omar Sharif

Peter O'Toole (when he was less cadaverous)

Jean Reno, Swept Away

Morpheus

George Clooney

Clive Owen

almost every Regency romance hero ever written

Batman

Magneto

Bruce Willis

Prospero

Severus Snape

Nick Charles

Mr. Tibbs

Han Solo

Spencer Tracy

Paul Henreid

Humphrey Bogart

Spock

Feel free to add your own.

In the meantime, the GOP needs to resolve their collective cognitive-Obama-dissonance if the best they can come up with is calling Obama a milk chocolate WASP.

rhetorical devices, 101: hyperbole

"This is the happiest day of my life." Really? Are you sure? I mean, out of all your days on earth you're sure that this day, this particular day, is the one that gives you the best feeling of happiness (well-being, satisfaction, contentment and joy) you have ever experienced? Can you measure that happiness and back that up with some sort of empirical evidence - and can you be sure that this zenith of happiness will hold firm in the future?

"Oh my god, that was the worst sex ever." Really? Ever? In your lifetime of sexual activity, this one instance was measurably worse than (and exceeded the badness of) the sex you've had before? So bad that it may put you off sex forever? If you run an analysis of all your lovers, taking into consideration their various techniques and the quality of the sexage, will this one lover top the list as the worst, or just one of the worst?

"For the first time in my life, I am really proud of my country." Oh, please. You mean you have lived in a state of perpetual and uninterrupted dissatisfaction with this country since the day you were born? I mean, you haven't felt even a little swelling of pride during the Olympics?? And what makes this particular moment so great for you that it erases all other, potential pride-inducing moments a country could have, huh?

"Mission: Accomplished." Sigh.

So. Out of all these dramatic, hyperbolic declarations, which one is the most damaging to our civic psyche? Which one makes the person saying it a liar and a person not to be trusted?

asshat: the entire state of Missouri

The Initiative for the Prevention of Coerced and Unsafe Abortions (via Bitch Ph.D.)

This is how I imagine a conversation to go if such a law was established in Illinois:

Ding: I need an abortion
Nurse: Hm. Really. Why?
Ding: Because I'm pregnant and don't want to be. (Ass)
Nurse: Hm. I'm afraid that's not good enough. Are you being forced to get this abortion?

Ding: Yes. I'm being forced by the very fact that I am pregnant. If I wasn't pregnant, I wouldn't ask for the abortion.
Nurse: You're rather hostile.
Ding: I'm hostile to you because you are standing in the way of me not remaining pregnant.

Nurse: Would you like an ultra-sound?
Ding: No.
Nurse: Have you received counseling?
Ding: Have you?
Nurse: I think we might need to order a psych evaluation. For your safety. Just in case you're being forced to get this abortion against your will.
Ding: I'm not. Have at it. Abort away.

Nurse: I'm sorry. I can't. I'll need to refer you to our social worker who can evaluate your state of mind and then recommend -
Ding: How long will that take?
Nurse: Her earliest opening would be...next month.
Ding: So I'd have to wait another four weeks for my abortion.

Nurse: Yes. Then, perhaps another couple of weeks for an appointment.
Ding: So maybe another 6 weeks until I can get an abortion, pushing me further out of the window to get an abortion before it's considered a 'late term' abortion and not able to get one at all. You're basically going to stall this thing as long as you can until I'm forced to either give birth or rip this fetus from my own belly.
Nurse: Definitely a psych exam is in order.

(Ding lunges across desk.)

Nice fantasy, huh? Unfortunately, Missouri is taking steps to make sure you don't just have to imagine having asshat conversations like this; they actually want to legislate it.

People, it's time for a revolution.

[Note: Dad, I'm not really pregnant. That was totally made up. Do NOT get excited. There are no grandchildren on the way over here.]

another asshat: the men of UConn

What kind of world do we live in when a woman, who's in the middle of her own sexual assault, fights off her attacker (in a rather bad-ass way, too), then when she's calling out for help, a group of male bystanders then SEXUALLY ASSAULT her for defending herself??

This is what we mean by rape culture. Rape culture says that women's bodies ought to be available. Rape culture says women's default answer to sex is 'yes.' Rape culture says it is unnatural and punishable for a woman to defend her body. Rape culture says it is appropriate for a man to violate a woman's physical space. Rape culture says it is men who can have physical autonomy but women none. Rape culture says that these anonymous men have more legal rights to protection than the woman who fought off her own fucking attacker.

Rape culture says it's ok to raise your sons like this.

This is rape culture and I'm frakking sick of it. Someone needs to track these guys down and take a hammer to their testicles. Really.


[h/t Feministing; read the post and read Melissa Bruen's original post. Her bravery is astounding and exemplary. If UConn doesn't take suitable action, they need to be sued. Here's a thought: has anyone ever thought of bringing a class action suit on behalf of campus rape victims against a university for not suitably protecting its female population?]

the other shoe drops: anti-choicers don't want you to have contraception!

Feministing has a story here about the campaign from the American Life League to stop folks (uh, women) from using the Pill. It's called The Pill Kills!

Yeah, well. It DOESN'T. Basic science, people. Basic. But who cares about basic science when you can write frakked up stuff like this:

The birth control pill does not reduce the number of abortions. The only difference is that you are killing the baby earlier.
[T]he pill and other contraceptives can stop a tiny child’s implantation in his/her mother’s womb because the pill irritates the lining of the uterus so that the tiny baby boy or baby girl cannot attach to the lining of the uterus and the newly formed human person is aborted and dies. This is called a chemical abortion.

Never mind the fact the Pill prevents ovulation so there's no egg to be fertilized. Never mind the fact the Pill cripples the sperm to prevent it getting to the egg. Never mind the fact ... oh, hell. These people are ass and facts mean nothing to them.

Personally, I cannot extoll the wonderfulness of the Pill enough. It regulated my periods, it cleared up acne and, taken in a super concentrated dose, it also backed me up after a condom malfunction. (Yay, Plan B!)

So frak off, sex-hating old Bible thumping ign'ant prudes. Leave our contraception alone.

(And did I not call this 4 years ago?? I totally called it! Not satisfied with messing about with abortion, the 'I hate women' crowd goes for contraception. Arrgh.)

But what am I thinking? They don't even think married people should use contraception.

Ok, you know what my issue is? It's this: If these people really believe that the Pill kills tiny, cute, little homonculi, then fine. Be stupid. That is their right to be so ignorant, they think a fertilized egg is a person. Fill your quiver, baby. (And then home school the quiver and form a militia and get on the ATF watch list. Whatever.)

But they need to stop telling the rest of us to get on board with their freaking weirdo religious ideas!

Because that's what this is: it's a religious idea about when life begins. Religious freedom means they can do whatever they like; but it's a frikking imposition on MY religious and personal freedom when their actions can negatively impact my ability to control my Supreme Court-supported ability to control my own frakking fertility - according to my own religious ideas.

So. Whose religious ideas win? Mine? Or theirs?

Jeebus. I got so worked up I need a cocktail.

um, shuck & jive is NOT 'bob & weave'

Pandagon :: Andrew Cuomo on Obama: ‘You Can’t Shuck And Jive’ at a press conf :: January :: 2008

dude.
really?

that's like the time my white, liberal, lesbian dissertation chair said to me (while i was helping her carry some things for our seminar): "Ding, thanks so much, but I really can't have you be my step and fetchit."

oh, yes, she did! Step 'n Fetchit.

i suppose, nowadays, that would be synonymous with, um, ... what?

but, boy howdy, i sure am glad racism is dead, though.

WTF?!?

this is utterly unbelievable - except i believe it because haven't we heard (some version of) this story before?

if you haven't already received the MoveOn alert, here it is:
...
Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old woman working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several co-workers.
The next day, Halliburton told her that if she left Iraq to get medical treatment, she could lose her job.1
Jamie's story gets even more horrific: For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable. But the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws. They can't be tried for a crime in any court.2
This is one of the most disturbing stories we have come across in a while. We're calling on Congress to investigate Jamie's case, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law so this can't happen again. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out against this outrageous story, we can force Congress to take action.

Can you sign the petition? ... Clicking below will add your name.
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4019649-L9cSbn&t=3

After you sign, please forward this email to friends, family and colleagues—we all need to speak out together.

When you get an email from us, it doesn't usually include a graphic description of a brutal attack. But when we heard this story, we knew we had to do something about it.
Here's how Jamie described what happened after the attack:
I awoke the next morning in the barracks to find my naked body battered and bruised. I was still groggy from whatever had been put in my drink. I was bleeding... After getting to the clinic and having a rape kit performed...I was locked in a container with no food, no way to call my parents, and was placed under armed guard by Halliburton.3

Jamie's attackers aren't the only ones exploiting a legal loophole to get away with their violent crimes. Another female employee of Halliburton says she was raped by her co-workers in Iraq.4 Employees of Blackwater, another private contracting firm in Iraq, were accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians, and that incident turned into an international scandal. Worst of all, they may never be punished.5
Private contractors in Iraq are making massive amounts of money, operating above the law and are accountable to no one. This has to stop.
Congress needs to act now to bring these contractors under the rule of law. If they don't, nothing will prevent a case like Jamie's from happening again. No man or woman working in Iraq should have to fear that they can be attacked without consequences.

Please sign on to the petition: "Congress must investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones and others, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law." Clicking below adds your name:
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4019649-L9cSbn&t=4

Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Wes, Karin, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Friday, December 14th, 2007

Sources:
1. "Halliburton hit in rape lawsuit," New York Daily News, December 11, 2007
2. "Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR," ABC News, December 10, 2007
3. Jamie's Journal, The Jamie Leigh Foundation
4. "Female ex-employees sue KBR, Halliburton—report," Reuters, June 29, 2007
5."Blackwater Probe Narrows Focus to Guards," Associated Press, December 8, 2007

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

wow.

At Jets Game, a Halftime Ritual of Harassment - New York Times

unbelievably crass and tacky. hundreds of men line the ramp at Gate D and chant to women to expose their breasts.
stadium security thinks it's not their problem and the Jets don't think it's their problem.

is it a free speech issue or a threat to the safety of women?

another asshat: tucker carlson

Media Matters - MSNBC's Carlson suggested women may be "so sensible, they don't want to get involved in something as stupid as politics"

you know, maybe black people shouldn't vote, either.

i mean, we're under stress because lynching is making a comeback, we die in prison, we die from violence and hip hop - it's no wonder we all die before we get old! clearly, we have some major issues to address before we can even start to think about voting. we're struggling for survival, people! what is voting compared to basic human survival??

and maybe other brown people should stay home, too. they have other things to deal with - not being deported and avoiding Gitmo and waterboarding. why do they want to vote? they have some serious legal issues to deal with.

and the gays - the gays should look the other way on election day, too. their fight to get married is so important they shouldn't even bother voting. they need to keep their eyes on the prize. certainly not on the white house.

you know who else shouldn't vote? poor people. poor people (sorta like black people) are too busy trying to find food. and shelter. or a job. voting is trivial.

in fact, voting is so trivial it should be reserved for smug, white, privileged, heterosexual men.

(fucking asshat.)

[h/t feministing]

candidates '08: hands off my 'single issue'

yesterday, i reluctantly started to research the presidential candidates and what they think about a woman controlling her own fertility. i discovered they suck. republicans, predictably, suck more, but the dems aren't particularly better. (i'll cover the dems later.)

giuliani - meh. he could be totally uninterested in overturning Roe v. Wade, but his recent suck up to the religious right makes my left ass cheek twitch. he also says he 'hates' abortions and would rather states made their own decisions. i think we already know that 'state's rights' is code for 'horrific, regressive social policy.' woe betide the woman who lives in a backassward state filled with baptist zealots.

huckabee - speaking of baptist zealots, candidate huckabee is one dedicated anti-choicer. not only does he want to overturn Roe v. Wade, his ideal world is one in which anti-choice idealogues hold positions of power in his administration, all pro-choice legislation would be vetoed, contraception is neither available nor taught, 'life begins at conception' and abstinence becomes public health policy and 'unborn children' carry more rights than living, breathing women. lovely.

hunter - who? if you take a huckabee and add a dukakis hairdo, you get duncan hunter, a man who wants to 'provide blanket protection to all unborn children from the moment of conception.' it just gets worse from there. his views on 'life' are here. what does he think about birth control? if he thinks a person is a person at conception, i don't really see him being a big fan of anything that prevents...person-making.

mccain - eh. i want to like the man but if he can't figure out if contraceptives prevent the spread of HIV, how can i trust him to be thoughtful about a woman's right to control her own fertility? (nevermind his whole stance on reproductive freedom is rather restrictive.)

paul - who can tell me what a 'pro-life libertarian' is? like huckabee and hunter, he believes a fertilized egg is a person, doesn't want to fund int'l family planning, supports a federal abortion ban but says EC is ok. he doesn't think abortion is a private matter and that abortions are an uneccessary answer to social ills. (whatever that means.) will he respect the right of a woman to control her fertility as she sees fit? i doubt it.

romney - i used to think that the fundies would shun a guy whose doctrine is so clearly extant from the literal bible, but the fundies surprised me; they're not so ideologically pure, after all. again, we have a candidate who seems to have failed simply biology. he, too, wants a fertilized egg to be called a person and thinks that birth control pills are 'abortive drugs.' the man's an idiot and i don't want his political hands on my private parts.

tancredo - by now my head is spinning from reading about all the idiotic men who want to run this country and make decisions about my health and body for me. tancredo thinks so-called 'crisis pregnancy centers' (that offer no medical care other than showing you an ultra-sound and telling you not to kill your 'baby') are preferable to Planned Parenthood centers (that actually offer healthcare services), which he wants to de-fund. the many low-income women who are served by Planned Parenthood thank you, candidate tancredo.

thompson - somehow, the schiavo case warranted a respect of privacy but his support of anti-choice legislation and ideologies says that a woman's fertility does not. thanks, fred.

these candidates' opposition to abortion comes as no real surprise; the more the GOP panders to the socially conservative values of the anti-woman religious right, the more we'll see republican candidates morphing into political dimmesdales, all the more willing to emblazon women with a great big scarlet A. what is surprising is the speed with which their moralizing gazes are turning to birth control.

years ago, i predicted the right wouldn't quit with abortion rights and birth control would be next; from experience i know the mind of a fundamentalist is narrow and can find still more ways to restrict pleasure and inflict punishment. but i still held out hope that modern politicians were reasonable people who knew that certain things are a good idea: birth control benefits everyone. clearly, my hope was misplaced.

i'll just come out with it: reproductive justice issues are my litmus test for this election. more than iraq, more than foreign policy, more than the environment, more than poverty, more than education, more than healthcare - protecting the borders of my physical body and my autonomy is my 'single issue.' the big boys of political strategy may not like 'single issue' advocacy, but it's not their bodies they have to protect. it seems the boys of political punditry and strategy care about bodies when it's war.

for me, this is war.

our government just told us to shut up

this made me so mad i actually just gave money (i can't really spare) to MoveOn.
the senate just passed a lame resolution against the political action group for criticizing Gen. Petraius and the war effort.

how can this be justified? how is this the mark of a democracy? what does this mean for any kind of future criticism against the state?

whatever your political party, a move like this from our government should make us bristle.
at least.

MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action

this is offensive, tom ford

in a move that demonstrates that being an A-gay does not automatically translate into being a feminist, tom ford's latest ad for his men's cologne hammers that point home:

you know. just in case you didn't get it the first time:

[thanks, Feministing!]