May 2009 – Page 4

How States Can Use Economic Recovery Funds to Help Child Care

Yes, my bias here is clear – I take a particular and personal interest these days in all things related to parental leave and child care.

Do you? Then this call is for you. The National Women’s Law Center and the Center for Law & Social Policy are hosting a call tomorrow to discuss how states are using their economic recovery funds to help boost support for child care and support working families.

An Economic Recovery Update: How States Can Use Economic Recovery Funds to Help Child Care will take place on Thursday, May 21, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

If you have not yet registered, we encourage you to join us for this call. This conference call is free to participants, but registration is required.

More details about the key provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are available on our website at www.nwlc.org/economicrecovery.

The call will be moderated by Helen Blank of the National Women’s Law Center and Danielle Ewen of CLASP. Presenters will discuss highlights of their states’ plans and include:

Bruce Liggett, Executive Director, Arizona Child Care Association

Sessy Nyman, Vice President of Public Policy & Government Affairs, Action for Children

Sheila Hansen, Policy Director, Child and Family Policy Center

Patty Siegel, Executive Director, California Child Care Resource & Referral Network

Clare S. Richie, Senior Policy Analyst, Georgia Budget and Policy Institute

Evelyn Keating, President, Delaware Association for the Education of Young Children

New York Statewide GENDA Call-In Day

CALLING ALL NEW YORK STATE RESIDENTS!

You may have heard a whole lot about the marriage equality bill currently awaiting a vote by the state Senate. What you have likely heard significantly less about is GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (pdf). GENDA would provide anti-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity and expression in areas of housing, employment, and much more. The legal right to not be discriminated against is something that transgender New Yorkers currently live without.

Today, Wednesday May 20, is the statewide call-in day to help get GENDA passed! GENDA passed through the Assembly back in April (before the marriage equality bill). But now it’s still awaiting a Senate vote. This legislative session is ending shortly, so it’s absolutely vital that the bill be brought to a vote now.

Details on making your call(s) from the NY State Pride Agenda:

We need you to get on the phone and call the lead Senate sponsor Tom Duane and your Senator to tell them that you want them to bring GENDA to the Senate floor and pass it. We’re in the final stretch and it is vital that they hear from you.

With more than half of the Senators indicating their support for GENDA, we know that we have enough votes to get it passed in the Senate if it comes to the floor for a vote. So now is the time to call Senator Duane and your State Senator!

Talking Points:

Reach Tom Duane at (518) 455-2451 and find your Senator’s Albany phone number here. Call their offices on Wednesday to tell them that the time is now to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers.

Remember to give them the number of the GENDA bill (S.2406).

Ask your Senator to vote for GENDA, and ask lead Senate Sponsor Tom Duane to bring the bill to the floor for a vote now.

Tell them about the broad support for GENDA statewide, including:

78% of New York voters

Unions representing 2.1 million working New Yorkers

27 Fortune 500 companies based in cities like Rochester, Corning, New York City and White Plains.

344 clergy and lay leaders, representing over 20 different denominations

Working together, we can make this happen! Start making those phone calls now!

It sounds like Duane’s phone may be ringing off the hook, but calling your own senator (assuming it’s not Duane) should only take you a moment or two.

If you’re still wondering what to say, something along the lines of “I’m a constituent of Senator X, and calling to ask him/her to vote for GENDA, which is S.2406. GENDA would protect New Yorkers from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and has the support of 78% of New York voters” should be more than sufficient.

So get calling, and tell your like-minded friends and family, because every call is going to count.

cross-posted at the Curvature

“Do our students become tramps to more effectively enjoy the weather, or do they use the weather as an excuse to more effectively become tramps?” and other deep philosophical questions from the University of Chicago

Trampy indeed.

Fuckwit college columnist of the day: Luke Dumas.

Mr. Dumas, a University of Chicago student, is very, very offended that in warm weather, women decide to wear — wait for it — shorts. He penned an op/ed calling his fellow students “tramps” for switching from their winter uniform of sweats into shorts and camisoles as soon as the weather changes. After all, it’s only 80 degrees today in Chicago — what are those whores thinking? The above-linked article is groan-worthy enough, but check out the original (thank you, Google cache). It turns out that the reason Luke Dumas dislikes springtime is because he can see women’s bodies, and that somehow prevents him from getting “participation points” in class. The column sparked a backlash on campus, and the editor of the paper pulled the controversial piece and replaced it online with a toned-down version. But apparently Mr. Dumas is a regular complaint machine — if it’s not slutty chicks that disgust him, it’s late students, or pride events that aren’t gay enough, or the music kids these days listen to, or the shocking revelation that dining hall food is not good.

I would suggest that Mr. Dumas try some deep-breathing exercises, or maybe a little yoga. Life is far too short to devote so much time and energy into being upset over the sight of a nipple outline.

Thanks to ginjoint for the link.

Holy War

You’ve probably all seen those Rumsfeld intelligence briefings, but just in case you haven’t had the pleasure, click over and read this GQ article. This is the kind of stuff that, if you replaced Biblical quotes with Koranic ones, would be on every right-wing blog (not to mention network news) as evidence that crazy, irrational Jihadists are fighting a holy war. I have nothing more intelligent to say than that is some scary shit.

Kept from a dying partner’s bedside

This article is heartbreaking. It details the stories of several families who weren’t allowed to be at the bedside of a dying loved one because same-sex partners aren’t considered “real” family members. I’ve already seen it being used by marriage equality activists to emphasize the importance of marriage rights — after all, it’s grossly unfair that same-sex couples can’t marry and simply have these rights handed over to them. And as the article details, even having all your legal documents prepared doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be treated fairly in an emergency.

But what I find more interesting is the question of why we privilege marriage and blood relations over other, less traditional relationships. For the many of us who have built our lives far away from our immediate family members — and even for many of us who stay close — “family” includes a more complex network of friends and loved ones. I can understand why we wouldn’t want friends making end-of-life or important medical decisions without some sort of legal authorization — those things are complicated enough with only family and legally-designated guardians involved — but joining a sick person at their bedside? Surely wedding vows or blood relations shouldn’t be a prerequisite.

Because Regular Chocolate Bars Are Way Too Masculine

I don’t even know what to do with this one.

Fling is a new chocolate bar that’s aimed at women. You can tell, because the packaging is pink. Also because the damn thing is called “fling,” indicating that there’s something thrilling and “naughty” about the chocolate bar — and no one considers it “naughty” when a dude eats a Snickers. But a Fling only a little naughty — it just has 85 calories! (Which is also how you know it’s for women!) That’s why they didn’t call it Affair.

Oh, and the marketing rather overtly references female masturbation, thus again indicating that it’s totally for ladies:

Wrapped in a shiny pink and sliver package, this delicate “chocolate finger” is intended for women. The word “finger” is an industry term for a long, slim confection, Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling says, but with ads that invite you to “Pleasure yourself” in pink lettering, consumers might come to other conclusions.

The tag line on the package is “Naughty, but not that naughty.” A TV spot starts with what looks like strangers having sex in a store dressing room. Currently the candy bar can be bought only California and online, but if all goes well, Mars is hoping women will be having Flings all across the country.

Consider my eyebrow officially and disapprovingly raised.

So: eating chocolate is bad because it makes you fat, and no woman wants to be fat, which is why she should get a Fling because it won’t make you fat, and because you know that for women, not eating chocolate is totally not an option. Also, women like pink, which we already knew. That’s why you have to make everything for them pink, so they’ll know when they’re supposed to buy something! And lastly, women enjoy, um, “pleasuring themselves” with “fingers,” which isn’t exactly news but certainly interesting marketing. And not at all patronizing!

Why don’t think just change the slogan to “skinny chicks masturbate with low-fat chocolate” and get it over with? It might even add a bit of subtlety.

h/t mk Eagle

ETA: Sit down for this one: these things also sparkle thanks to some kind of colored, FDA approved glitter. In the fucking chocolate bar. Dear god help us all. (Thanks to Bunny Mazonas in the comments.)

Some “Laughs” for Your Monday

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

The misuse of quotation marks is something that frequently amuses me (hey, scare quotes are a completely different matter!), so I am totally in love.

I remember this one time, my husband and I saw a sign sitting outside of a restaurant that said [Restaurant name] “Now” Open for Lunch. We tried to figure out why on earth the word now would be in quotes, and eventually concluded that they were inviting restaurant patrons to discuss the quandaries of space, time and existence — such as what “now” means, how we know that we’re in the present instead of the past or the future, and whether this moment even exists at all — over their meals. Sounds like a good time to me!

h/t to Sarah Haskins

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Sorry I’m getting this up late — just moved and I’m stealing internet, so my access is spotty.

You know the drill. Self-promote away.

Asher Roth, Hip Hop, and Rockism, Or Why Doesn’t My Kid Like Hip Hop?

Because Latoya and Jill polluted my wasting brain by posting about this last week, let’s go ahead and beat this Asher Roth topic into the ground.

And hell, why not? ASHER ROTH IS TEH SUXXOR. ASHER ROTH IS A ROBERT HERRICK REINCARNATE.

First off, Jay “Made Of Win” Smooth did a great interview with Dan Charnas on whiteness and hip hop discussing how Asher Roth presents himself as separate from hip hop culture (and black people) as a whole, how he articulates this by emphasizing his whiteness, and what it means in this context to market his whiteness as a novelty. One of the more telling things is how Roth colors conspicuous consumption as a “black thing” or a “black rapper thing” as though materialism and excess and bloat isn’t a part of the music world in general, or of status-seeking American culture at large. Another one of the more interesting facets of this whole Asher Roth deal is how Roth presents himself as a suburban alternative to all this oogy urban ghetto rap that white kids supposedly can’t relate to (but buy a whole lot of, considering they “can’t relate” to it), completely missing that gangster rap is not the entire genre, that alternatives have always existed, and that suburban angst is a relatively common topic in hip hop. Which raises additional questions, like something Smooth says, about “what it means to be an alternative, and who is or isn’t seeking an alternative.”

Meanwhile, everyone is all, newsflash: black people live in the suburbs. A lot of black rappers come from the friggin’ suburbs.

I don’t know about this Asher Roth kid. He lacks the Big Picture. Maybe his ignorance is his persona. You’d almost think he’s trolling his own industry, except generally someone smart enough to market that kind of persona doesn’t say things like this.

But whatever. I’ve been reading about him, sampling his music, and I still don’t understand what his experience brings to the table. Still, one of the reasons I’m fascinated by the discussion is that I’m having these ongoing conversations with my nieces and nephews, and now my own son, about why they don’t like rap, and one of the reasons it confounds me is that their primary reason appears to be a general ambivalence toward a largely Black culture.

May 17: International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Tomorrow, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. This year, IDAHO is focusing on transphobia:

Each year, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (the “IDAHO”, as it is usually called), will see actions and initiatives take place in many countries and contexts and on many different issues.

All these activities and initiatives are a very strong signal to all, decisions makers, public opinion, civil rights movements, human rights defenders, etc. throughout the world that our fights for our Rights as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, intersex, etc… is vibrant!

The Day provides all different kind of actors with a very powerful opportunity to express their demands and to advocate for their case. Each year also, the IDAHO aims at using the extra public, political and media attention that it provides at all levels to highlight one specific aspect of the struggle for sexual rights.

This year, we chose to highlight the often neglected but important issue of Transphobia.

Click here to read the full appeal for rights for all trans people across the world (pdf). And then click here to sign the appeal yourself.

Remember, this is an international appeal, so anyone can sign. And of course, don’t forget to spread the word.

via Questioning Transphobia