They should be angry about the fact that poverty is on the rise. They should be angry about unemployment, about corporate tax breaks, about lobbies that control Congress, about the fact that the Supreme Court basically wrote a blank check that millionaires can cash any time they want to buy political campaigns. They should be angry about the rise of poverty porn on prime time television, whether it’s ghastly shows like Secret Millionaire or grim documentaries on Detroit. They should be angry about the exploitation of poverty and poor people in the pages of magazine. They should be angry about the fact that people have to win the lottery to pay for health care in the United States."
My kids saw E.T. for the first time. Big success.
Interestingly, they noticed that there was only one real bad guy in the movie: the captain of E.T.’s ship, who ditched his crewman because he was afraid of the locals. They felt the captain should lose his command.
Ten Little Suffergets tells the sad tale of ten little girls who lose their pro-suffrage leanings when they spy shiny objects like toys, men, and the Sandman. The 1915 picture book ends with the final baby suffragette cracking her baby doll’s head open. “And then there were none!” ends the book on a gleeful note.
The suffrage movement, both in America and England, involved angry debates about the ideals of womanhood, the power and purpose of government, and how much beer everyone should be drinking. The debate continued until the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act in Britain, and in the U.S. with the 19th Amendment in 1920. While often overlooked today, the anti-suffrage movement attacked the power-hungry, unnatural women (as they saw the suffragettes) with word and policy and pen and ink.Comic poetry was another outlet for suffragette retaliation. In Are Women People?: A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times, Alice Duer Miller listed 12 common reasons for anti-suffragette belief. On the next page, she writes, “Reasons Women Should Not Have Pockets.” These reasons include:
1. Because pockets are not a natural right.
2. Because the great majority of women do not want pockets. If they did, they would have them.
3. Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.
4. Because women are required to carry a great number of things without pockets as it is.Responding to the claim that women would be placed in danger while visiting the polls, the author mimics an equal-opportunity anti-suffragist.
“You must not go to the polls, Willie,
Never go to the polls,
They’re dark and dreadful places
Where people lose their souls.”
(via lickypickystickyfree)
Langley School Music Project - Band On The Run
The Langley Schools Music Project is a collection of recordings of children’s choruses singing pop hits by the likes of The Beach Boys, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney. Originally recorded in 1976–77.
The project was undertaken in 1976–77 by Canadian music teacher Hans Fenger with students from Langley School District in British Columbia. Recordings were made in a school gym in Langley, in Metro Vancouver. (via: Wikipedia)
This came on while listening to my itunes on shuffle. Kinda forgot about it. It’s an interesting listen.
The always amazing Kate Harding wrote a great article for Jezebel today that touched on both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn specifically their tendency to grope unsuspecting and unconsenting women. Also the pass they (and many, nay most men) seem to receive from society as a whole for this type of behavior.
That’s not to say these things are entirely unrelated, mind you. There are certainly points of overlap between being a cad and being a criminal: An overblown sense of entitlement, an apparent lack of empathy for anyone you might hurt, an erection. But cheating on your wife is not a gateway drug to sexual assault. They are two different things, one of them a crime. If you’re a journalist, please take a moment now to repeat that to yourself a few times.
And then please consider this: A man who’s known for grabbing women’s breasts and asses without their consent (a crime) is not just some amusing, slightly pathetic Pepe Le Pew cartoon until the day someone accuses him of non-consensual penetration. He was actually already a sexual predator! And yet, inevitably, as soon as someone does accuse him of rape, friends who are familiar with his history of non-consensual groping will rush to tell the press that the accusations are absurd, insulting, inconceivable! Sure, everyone knew the lion liked to chase gazelles and pin them down and bat them around a bit for fun, but he would nevereat one. That’s just not in his nature.
Do you see the difference? One guy treats women rather shabbily, and he should be ashamed of himself. The other guy treats women like inanimate objects he is entitled to do whatever the fuck he wants to, and he should be ashamed of himself and also held legally responsible for his crimes. The line between the two is really not all that fine or blurry, you guys! It’s actually pretty recognizable!
Great right? But it also was kind of depressing. I mean how many times have you as a woman been groped? A lot right? Or at least once, most likely. I started to think about it and I remembered little shits in middle school grabbing my ass because why? It was funny? That’s just what they as boys (young men) were “supposed” to do? How they were supposed to treat women? I mean it wasn’t ever a huge deal, I don’t think it traumatized me for life or anything. But it was just accepted. That’s just what happens.
The thing is 12 year old boys become powerful men.
By now you may have heard that Rick Santorum has now responded to John McCain’s claim that torture didn’t lead to Bin Laden’s death by insisting that on the subject of torture, McCain has no idea what he’s talking about…
McCain, of course, has direct experience of this process, He has even written that he did not become cooperative under “enhanced interrogation” at all, and in fact gave his tormentors false information to get them to stop.
So I asked McCain spokesperson Brooke Buchanan for a response to Santorum. She emailed a one word reply: “Who?”
"McCain camp laughs off Santorum torture comments
Once again, Santorum makes an ass of himself.
(via ryking)
Critical Caribbean Feminist Commentary
Just in case you missed it! We’ve got some of the best Caribbean feminist blogging online all in one place!
Jamaica to make fathers’ names on birth certificates mandatory.
Guyana launches Men’s Affairs Bureau.
Barbados looks at paternity testing during Child Month.
CodeRed tackles the imperialism and racism of the American Gay Rights lobby.
Exposing Class and Economic Citizenship in Barbados.
Commodification and Erasure of Indigenous Peoples.
Caribbean media does poor job of reporting on violence against women.
Trinidad Carnival and Fat (Un)Acceptance.
We tackle EVERYTHING from a Caribbean feminist perspective. Trust us, there’s something there that you should be reading.
Reblog ‘cause you know it’s worth sharing!
I avoided this article yesterday because I occasionally get into a head space where I simply cannot. After handing in my thesis proposal that basically seeks to prove that Black women have a hell of a lot harder time dating and being thought of as potential partners than their White counterparts, I just haven’t been in the mood to read some more about why no one is trying to date me.
The “science” backing the article is offensive and, you know, not fucking science. Saying in earnest “The only thing I can think of…” in a study that you want people to take seriously is laughable and makes me think that maybe, just maybe, Kanazawa is trolling us. For what it’s worth, I don’t take anyone seriously who insists that there are biological and genetic differences that account for why one race is inferior/superior to another.
However, I do think that there is something to be said about this “study” and where we go from here. You would be hard-pressed to convince me that we - society - don’t perceive Black women, or women of color generally, as less attractive than White women. There are far fewer women of color represented as symbols of beauty in…well, okay…anywhere. (This is, of course, not including publications, magazines, etc. geared towards women of color. And in these publications it is essentially us reassuring each other that we are beautiful. No one else is really telling us that.) The question that we should be asking is why? Why are Black women perceived to be less attractive than White women? Why are there so few Black women presented (except for in the Black ladies’ edition of Vogue Italia, of course) as symbols of beauty? Why can almost all of us reading this count on one hand the Black women who are presented to us as symbols of beauty?
Let’s start talking about those things.
(Source: ramou)
Washington’s Shiloh Baptist Church has received over 100 calls and faxes they deem as threats in just the past few days, following comments made by the church’s pastor and after a visit to the church by President Obama and the First Lady. On his Fox News evening talk show, syndicated conservative radio host Sean Hannity played a tape of a speech Rev. Wallace Charles Smith gave at a school in Pennsylvania in January, and then asked, “of all the churches in the country that Obama finds himself sitting in, why is he always in pews listening to such controversial spiritual leaders?” In the speech, Rev. Smith was quoted as saying, “Now, Jim Crow wears blue pinstripes, goes to law school and carries fancy briefs in cases. And now, Jim Crow has become James Crow, esquire. And he doesn’t have to wear white robes anymore because now he can wear the protective cover of talk radio or can get a regular news program on Fox.” Hannity compared Rev. Smith to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Church representatives tell the Washington Post one fax they received “had the image of a monkey with a target across its face,” and said they have yet to notify police. The Shiloh Baptist Church was founded by slaves in the 1860’s and has hosted a number of Presidents, including Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Go The Fuck To Sleep: A Storybook For Exhausted Parents
via BoingBoing
The birther situation doesn’t have anything to do with evidence, because to be a birther is to fundamentally reject the notion of evidence. This is a very truncated/shoddy philosophical perspective on why the birther thing happened and why it’s important.
Philosophy has something to do with…
