In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: October 2008

Nursery Gassed at Ohio Mosque, Not a Hate Crime

Pardon my language, but this is straight fucked up. Less than a week after anti-Islam DVDs were distributed by mail and in newspapers all across the Midwest, in Ohio a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. More succinctly, it was sprayed into the nursery where the babies and children were kept while their parents prayed.

“She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there.

“The paramedic said the young one was in shock, and gave her oxygen to help her breathe. The child couldn’t stop sobbing.”

The local paper reports that police have uncovered “no evidence of a hate crime” because no words were exchanged between the attacker and the victim, and whatever gas was sprayed dissipated too quickly to show up on preliminary chemical tests conducted by the police.

I know hypotheticals are presumptive and annoying, but I’d comfortably venture to say that if this happened in the nursery of a Midwestern Episcopal church during Easter, the story would occupy a large corner of all national news coverage for weeks.

Where’s the fucking outrage?

(H/T, H/T)

UPDATE: Cara posted a more comprehensive look at this story at The Curvature.

I now know without a doubt I’ve been paying too much attention to the (American) Election.

I’m going to do something that no blogger should ever do.  I’m going to talk about something so personal, so esoteric, and so boring, that nobody could possibly care to hear it.

I’m going to blog about my dreams.

I can tell I’ve been thinking too much about the election, because even in my dreams I’m reading election blogs.  Here’s a high-light.

“I predict that on Tuesday, November 4rd, a young rest home worker in West Virginia will intentionally provoke an all-day argument about the relative merits of Orange Pimm’s before driving his residents around the block for three hours.  Months later, to their horror, he will tell them all that they accidentally voted for Obama.”

That’s of course reconstructed from hazy dream-memory, but you get the idea.  (Evidently my subconscious is somewhat age-ist.  And why has my subconscious turned West Virginian seniors into upper-class English people?)  I also remember the dream-blogs discussing the logistics of a last-minute replacement of a VP candidate, for what it’s worth.

Please allow me to introduce myself…

Good evening, and be forewarned.  Jill has invited me to live-blog the next presidential debate, and I’ve wrangled the invitation into a de facto guest-blogging gig.  I warn you for a simple, but important, reason:  I have a strong tendency to try to say everything all the time, and to get wordy about it.  For example, by abandoned first draft ran nearly 400 words before I said anything relevant to the US Presidential Election.  I’ll try to behave myself.

My name is Ryan Rutley, I post in the comments, and you may remember my posting a few years ago under the name KnifeGhost.

I live in Victoria, BC (yes, Canada), and I’m an absolute geek for American Presidential politics.  As you may know, Canada’s in the middle of a federal election (we vote on the 14th of October), and although I care, and have made up my mind (Green!), Canadian Federal politics are at a low point and I can’t be bothered to may any attention to it.

I remember that Reagan was at some point the president, and then some guy named Bush was, but 1992 was the first year I was aware that the election was happening and that one guy or the other won.  I was 10.  In 1996, I was making cracks about Bob Dole with my friends over ICQ.  I was 14.  In 2000, I rushed home after school each day to mix up a big glass of chocolate milk and watch the primaries on CNN.  I was pulling for a Bradley-McCain election, had no particular love for Gore, and by November I was a big Nader fan.  (Hey, I said I’m Canadian.  I didn’t actually vote for him.  For the record, Gore ran a dismal campaign, and should have fired everybody remotely tied to the Clintons in June.)  I was 18.  In 2004, I read Salon.com religiously for election coverage, was pulling for Dean (pettiest scandal EVAR), tried to work up a good head of optimism for Kerry, but we all know how that ended.  I was 22.

Now, I’m 26, and the greatest leader of our generation (so far) is poised for a strong win in one month, and I think is on pace for a landslide.  I’m here to try to provide some perspective, some analysis, some dare-I-say wisdom, but at very least I can promise some smartass one-liners.  And that, ultimately, is enough to keep me happy.

I’ll wrap it up now because if I don’t I’ll write a novel.  I’ll save that for, at the earliest, Sunday evening.

Thanks, Jill, for the invitation, thanks, readers, for the indulgence, and thanks, previous bloggers on Feministe, for being such illustrious company to now be a part of.

(Register to vote, if you haven’t already.  I haven’t.  Because in Canada all you need to vote is to prove your identity and address.  And all citizens are eligible to vote.  Cause we’re wacky socialists about that kinda stuff.)

House Approves the Bail-Out

Let’s hope this works.

I’m really conflicted on the bail-out scheme — asking taxpayers to patch up Wall Street’s greed is not a fair deal. The lack of oversight, and in particular the lack of regulations and controls that would prevent this from happening again, is a big problem. It means that we threw Wall Street a life raft, but we’re not doing anything to stop them from sinking it. It also strikes me as the worst aspects of socialism coupled with the worst aspects of capitalism — nationalization of private industry (along with all of its attendant inefficiencies), with taxpayers footing the bill to keep the private sector afloat.

But the plan that passed is far better than the original, and since I’m not coming up with better ideas, I’m trying not to be too critical. Of course, it’s worth noting that there are other ideas out there, and I — perhaps shockingly — agree with Larry Summers that a multi-pronged approach is the way to go. Brookings also has some interesting thoughts.

This plan is not a win for anyone, but something had to be done, and it had to be done quickly. I know there are those out there who think the government should have just let Wall Street clean up its own mess, and that’s a position that I’m theoretically sympathetic too — but not in the real world. The fact is that if Wall Street totally tanks, we’re screwed. Really, really screwed. And yes, I realize that Middle America has been getting screwed for a long time, but I’m talking more screwed. I’m talking screwed Great-Depression-style. There are levels of screwage, and the whole country is going to be taken to a whole new one if nothing is done.

But I sure don’t envy Congresspeople right now. These are uncharted waters, and this plan could be wildly successful or a massive failure; chances are it’ll be somewhere in between. But to have to make the call on something this important… I wouldn’t want to be in those shoes (which is why I’m extremely skeptical of anyone who thinks that this plan is 100% a great idea, or 100% a terrible one).

All we can do now is cross our fingers (and personally, I’m hoping that when Congress has more time to process and discuss — and when they’re not in crisis mode — they’ll patch up some of the holes in the plan, starting with regulations and oversight). And we can do our homework, because if you’re like me, you don’t know nearly as much about this stuff as you should. The Money Meltdown is a really good starting point to learn about what exactly is going on.

Friday Random Ten – Don’t Call it a Comeback

So I’ve been delinquent on the FRTs for a good month now, which I attribute to traveling and now working. But this week, I remembered to craft my FRT on Thursday night (it’s not technically cheating, since it was certainly Friday somewhere) and set the post to publish on Friday. Genius, I know. So here’s my triumphant return. Set your MP3 player to shuffle and leave yours in the comments.

The first Friday Video is a song I’ve had stuck in my head all week:

The FRT came out pretty good this time:
1. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson – Woodfriend
2. Neko Case – That Teenage Feeling
3. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – O’Malley’s Bar Part 1
4. The Blow – True Affection
5. Radiohead – Suck Young Blood
6. The Mountain Goats – Minnesota
7. Band of Horses – The Great Salt Lake
8. Tom Waits – Misery Is The River Of The World
9. The Avett Brothers – The Day That Marvin Gaye Died
10. Chick Corea – Medieval Overture

Second Friday Video is another song I’ve had stuck in my head for far too long. I don’t listen to the radio here so I have no idea if the Ting Tings are getting air time, but I did watch a lot of MTV in Thailand, and this song is apparently a big hit over there:

In other music news, I really, really want to go to this. And for all you Canadians, you should check out Feist.

Also, Meghan McCain: WTF?

Posted in Uncategorized

So, the debates.

Everyone is talking about how Sarah Palin did well. And she did do well — for Sarah Palin. But that isn’t saying much. It reminds me of the day after the first Bush-Kerry debate — expectations were so incredibly low for the Republican candidate’s performance that when they didn’t set the stage on fire, it was considered a blinding success.

So no, Palin didn’t choke, and didn’t do a repeat of her horrendous Katie Couric interview. But she didn’t seem too big on actually answering the questions, and that tends to annoy people — especially political moderates and independents who don’t have their minds made up and want to hear actual substance (and it looks like independents did prefer Joe Biden). Plus her entire presentation could have just been summed up with, “Allow me to refer you to my talking points.”

A lot of people have been arguing that the focus on Palin is over-emphasized, because at the end of the day, voters are looking at the top of the ticket, not the VP. But every election has its quirks, and I think in this one, Palin is significant (I don’t think Biden really is, though). I don’t think Palin is getting a whole lot of people to switch over from the Obama camp to the McCain side, but I do think that she’ll get out a fair number of voters who, if McCain had picked many other of his top VP choices, would have stayed home on election day. And I think her debate performance matters to those folks.

You can watch the debate here, either in full or by topic (kind of a handy tool). Or if you want the Cliff Notes version, here’s the debate in 10 easy minutes:

What did you all think? Did anyone else want to throw something at the TV when they were talking about same-sex marriage and “tradition”?

Vote Or Die

Shannon sends in this amusing story from her voter volunteer experiences in Canada:

I was 19 and working as a volunteer for the NDP incumbent in my riding. I did election day phoning on our voters’ list to see if anyone needed a ride to the polling station, and to remind people to vote. I called a dear old woman named Elsie and asked her if she’d voted yet. “Oh yes, dear” she said. I said, “Fantastic. And how about Lew?” and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry dear, he passed away on Sunday.” I said, “Oh goodness, I’m so sorry!” and she cut in with “Oh, don’t worry dear, I made him vote in the advance poll.” I sputtered and choked and tried not to laugh. We talked for a bit and she told me that he’d been sick a while, but there was no way he was “getting out without voting one last time”. I thanked her for her time and went to tell the office manager the story. As soon as I said that Lew died, she said, “Did he vote in the advance poll?” Everyone looked at her like she’d grown a second head, and while she looked sick for even having thought that, I smiled and said “Yup”. So everyone turned to me with the same look of horror and someone said, “Oh tell me you didn’t ask!” I explained that no, she’d volunteered the information, and I told them the story. We dipped into the campaign fund and bought her a huge bouquet of flowers and gift certificates for a nice restaurant.

I only hope that when I’m old and sick that I remember to vote. To care enough about a world you’re about to leave is an amazing gift.

Indeed. Vote early, vote often, and vote undead.

Via email, someone drew my attention to another voter information campaign targeting disenfranchised voters. If you have any issues registering to vote, you can call 866-OUR-VOTE to prompt an investigation into problems or questions about voting or registering to vote. The hotline is ran by Election Protection coalition (866OURVOTE.org), and is the largest voter protection effort ever launched:

Already, we have seen voter suppression attempts well
underway in Florida (No
Match/No Vote), Michigan (Foreclosure
black list), Wisconsin (GOP AG lawsuit to “review”
voter list), Ohio (blocking
one-day registration and voting window), Indiana (discriminatory
ID requirement and blocking satellite voting site in Ball State), Virginia (threatening loss of financial aid to out-of-state student voters), Arizona (proof-of-citizenship requirement aimed at minorities), and elsewhere. We can expect the systematic voter suppression efforts to only increase as election day draws near.

Meanwhile, if you aren’t registered to vote, GET ON IT. You can find out if you’re already registered, and if not, find out your state’s final registration dates here.

Posted in Uncategorized

Boozing Sarah Palin

We had good fun with the Presidential debate drinking game last week, so let’s do a repeat. Here are my suggestions — add yours in the comments.

Might as well start the night off right: Take a shot if Joe Biden walks on stage with an orange tan worse than Blayne on Project Runway.

Sip for every mention of Alaska. Take a big sip if “Alaska” is in the same sentence as “Russia.” (Just look puzzled if someone mentions Delaware).

Gulp if Palin talks about hunting, eating or otherwise interacting with a moose.

Take a shot every time Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, or other Democratic female politician and/or feminist leader is name-checked.

Take another shot if Biden praises Palin for being “bright” or “articulate.” (Chug if he mentions “clean”).

Refill your glass whenever Palin says “Well, hey,” “You know,” or “You betcha” in an inexplicable Minnesota (or is it Wisconsin?) accent. Refill again every time she leaves the “g” off the end of words (changin’, makin’, goin’, etc).

Drink for every mention of media or Washington elite.

Take a big drink if anyone mentions feminism. Drink two if Palin calls herself a feminist. Drink three if she says, “I’m a feminist, but…”

Chug if Palin references the actual name of one of the billions of newspapers she reads every day. Or a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade.

Finish your drink if the camera pans to the audience and Tina Fey is there.

And don’t worry, John and other nervous viewers, if you can’t take that much scotch-and-water — there’s always alcohol-free Palin Bingo.

I’ll be Twittering during the debates; if you want to follow, head here. The Feministe group Twitter will also be active, so check us out.