"Nothing interferes with a man’s ability to score like a woman who doesn’t think his ego trumps her safety."

Via guerrillamamamedicine, over at Shapely Prose hits all the points that -should- be obvious, but apparently still aren't, to any number of dudes like o f'r instance this one.

We’ve recently had a number of dudes dropping in to complain that asking them to be sensitive to women’s boundaries is essentially cock-blocking them. Sure, they say, if they don’t talk to us when we clearly don’t want them to, they’ll be making us feel less threatened in a world where one in six women is the victim of sexual assault — but on the other hand, they won’t get to talk to us, and how is that fair? Nothing interferes with a man’s ability to score like a woman who doesn’t think his ego trumps her safety. Underlying this argument, along with a host of other scuzzy notions, is the same idea Saletan spikes and the Navy wives catch: that taking a “womanly body” out in public is an a priori invitation for male attention...

Then there were the guys who were clutching their pearls (if you know what I mean) in the epic thread, horrified that women might think they were a danger. After all, it’s not their fault that women feel threatened — they’re decent, humane guys. Maybe some men are dangerous, but not them, and aren’t we really creating the problem by not letting them prove how decent they are all over us?

Those guys are right, sort of. There are lots of great men out there — you can tell who they are because when they read that thread, or Saletan’s piece, they go “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?” And it really isn’t fair that sometimes their wives also think they can’t be trusted in a sub with 138 other guys and a lady. That’s not their fault. But it’s also not their wives’ fault, or the ladies’ fault. It’s the fault of a culture that tells all of us, over and over, that men just don’t have the ability to resist. A culture that assumes it’s women’s responsibility to keep themselves armored and invisible, because sexual violence is a direct result of temptation.

In other words, the same cultural bullshit that asserts men’s right to invade women’s personal space and/or fuck 13-year-olds also perpetuates the notion that men are more dick than brain. That’s why they just have to talk to women, when they can see the women don’t want to! That’s why they get addled by a womanly body when they know it comes with a pubescent mind! They don’t have the willpower or intelligence to not act like cavemen, at least not when faced with feminine wiles.

Fuck that noise! The real decent guys sure don’t deserve that. And the pearl-clutchers, the ones who were horrified by our insistence that rape doesn’t occur in the passive voice… well, who says they deserve it either?

...But what if that’s not good enough for you? What if you’re the kind of self-styled decent guy who still doesn’t feel like it’s fundamentally worthwhile to contribute to a culture where women don’t feel threatened because they aren’t threatened? What reason do you have to forego the rape-joke T-shirts, notice body language signals, object to misogyny, back off when asked to, maintain a comfortable distance, or any of the other little things you can do to bring rape culture down by degrees?

If the well-being of women isn’t enough for you, consider this: patriarchy thinks you’re fucking stupid. It thinks you’re a penis without a brain that’s worthwhile and powerful only because women are vaginas without brains and that’s somehow worse. It thinks you’re untrustworthy, that you can’t be left alone with a woman, that you can’t be left alone with a child. Feminists didn’t make that shit up — they’re just noting it and passing it on.

Anyone who wants to lump this in with "victim feminism" or whatever the current moniker is isn't paying attention. Yes, women have agency. And responsibility. Same as any other human. But what's conveniently left out of the equation a lot of the time, or at least underemphasized, is not only that men have responsibility (also! too!), but what that responsibility consists of. It's not about being "good." It's not about not overpowering delicate wimmins with your brute masculinity or however that incredibly tedious and ubiquitous cultural fetish/trope goes.

It's about have some fucking empathy. It's about, there -is- such a thing as community, no matter what Maggie Thatcher said. And while you're trumpeting about your rights, your individual autonomy, your -free speech-, all those terrific American concepts that are the very same ones we invoke with such handy catchphrases as "my body belongs to me" (nifty little one, there, applies to a lot more than reproductive rights), you might consider that other cliche wherein "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose."

And, further:

When a whole bunch of swinging dickheads are swinging like all get out and getting into womens' space, at minimum, your responsibility is to not -unsee it-, because it makes you uncomfortable. At -minimum-, you don't go: "Well, yes, he's a jerk, but hey, freedom of expression!" even as someone's standing there clutching her nose. At minimum, you don't go, "yes, okay, there's a lot of fist-swinging going on, (although not as much as you say there is, because -I- don't experience it), but it doesn't add up to anything; it doesn't signify; one and one and one and one do not add up to four, because I will it so."

A side note about the latter phenomenon:

How often do people-the "male pearl clutchers" alluded to above, for instance- not believe that things aren't as shitty as someone else says they are, not just because they wish to perpetuate said shittiness themselves or at least passively profit off it, but because they don't -want- to believe that shittiness exists? Because, that might fuck with their entire worldview as well as their self-image?

(part two to follow)

On the other hand, I postively love the Moon Dancers compared with the Misogynist Ratfuckers

Between this charming piece of "art" **

and the revolting ads for the motherfucking Tucker Max piece of shit all over -my- city (can't we have a ban?)

and the upcoming Roman Polanski nauseafest about to take over the media for the next ever...

among way too many others

i am not feeling the love today

**the "rape tunnel" would appear to be a hoax. to be honest I hadn't even gotten as far as someone was suggesting he was actually going to -do- it. It pisses me off enough that someone--like, o I don't know, Tucker Max? and the people putting ads like "Blind Girls Can't See You Coming" all over the goddam walls (unpeelable, I tried) not only think such things are hilarious and clever and "art" but get paid fuckloads to spray that shit all over everyone?

Enough.

Actually, we already -have- "death panels."

They're called, "the curtain on the window available for you to get any kind of health care under your insurance plan, even when you have one." And, don't hold back, Progressive Nation:

In your free market wonderland every one some how manages to get health care, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assis­tance from the federal government.

And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market health care system we have now does, indeed, have “death panels.” I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital adminis­trator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be advised that you need to “make some deci­sions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. “Living will” or no, it doesn’t mat­ter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

So don’t talk to me about “death panels” you heartless, cruel, greedy sons of bitches, who are only too happy to keep the profits rolling in to the big insurance companies while you spout your mealy-mouthed bumper sticker slogans about the evils of socialism. You don’t even know what socialism is. You don’t know what government health care is. You have no fucking clue about any­thing except that you lost the last election and you’re pissed off.

And, by the way, guess where the "kill Grandma" shit originated? Surprise, surprise:

When reporters asked former Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin where she got the misinformation she posted to her Facebook page about the health care reform bill creating a "death panel" to promote euthanizing the elderly and people with disabilities, her spokesperson pointed to the section in the House Democrats' legislation that begins on page 425.

If Palin or her staff had actually read the bill, they would have realized this section simply promotes advance care planning, which in fact puts the power to make decisions about end-of-life care in the hands of individuals -- not government panels.

So where did Palin get that bad information? It appears she pulled it from a set of talking points that has been making its way around the internet in recent weeks -- talking points assembled by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right religious group that's part of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University empire based in Lynchburg, Va...

Good old Unca Jerry, fouling up the zeitgeist even from beyond the grave. Well, him among many others. But yeah, these are the oleaginous fuckers that would've been thrown out of the temple in the gorram first place; it's no surprise that they're in bed with Big Insurance, all supposedly in the equally improbably names of Free Market Freedom, Jesus Christ, and Tender Loving Care For The Most Vulnerable. Compassionate as a canker.

There is a special place in hell for people blocking meaningful health care reform in this country

Particularly for the profiteers off the current system and the politicians who are ranting about socialism and so on whilst comfortably partaking of government funded health care (the best there is!) for their very own worthless caracasses.

In it, this spot in hell, they all get infected with each and every one of the diseases that they deemed not worthy of coverage for someone, and are chained Tantalus-like inches away from someone holding out the required meds/ treatment.

Then they're told they can have the treatment if they fill out all the paperwork...in blood. Except by the time they finish one form
they're told that form is now obsolete and they have to start over from scratch.

I'm just saying. You know, in case the threats of political stonewalling and marches and petitions and shit don't work out.

Good old Uncle P[F]a[scis]t

So Rachel Maddow, bless her, allowed Pat Buchanan to display some of his true white starched colors on her show.




ETA 7/20: and now Maddow has a follow-up post-mortem of that discussion, correcting some of his erm creative "facts."

As per the level of his sheer paleolithic racism, the only surprise is why anyone is surprised. Here's a sampling of Unca Pat's most shining moments over the years, okay:

After Sen. Carol Moseley Braun blocked a federal patent for a Confederate flag insignia, Buchanan wrote that she was "putting on an act" by associating the Confederacy with slavery: "The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination, about the right of a people to break free of a government to which they could no longer give allegiance," Buchanan asserted. "How long is this endless groveling before every cry of 'racism' going to continue before the whole country collectively throws up?" (syndicated column, 7/28/93)

On race relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s: "There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The 'negroes' of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours." (Right from the Beginning, Buchanan's 1988 autobiography, p. 131)

Buchanan, who opposed virtually every civil rights law and court decision of the last 30 years, published FBI smears of Martin Luther King Jr. as his own editorials in the St. Louis Globe Democrat in the mid-1960s. "We were among Hoover's conduits to the American people," he boasted (Right from the Beginning, p. 283).

...In a memo to President Nixon, Buchanan suggested that "integration of blacks and whites -- but even more so, poor and well-to-do -- is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable." (Washington Post, 1/5/92)

...In a column sympathetic to ex-Klansman David Duke, Buchanan chided the Republican Party for overreacting to Duke and his Nazi "costume": "Take a hard look at Duke's portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks." (syndicated column, 2/25/89)

Trying to justify apartheid in South Africa, he denounced the notion that "white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong. Where did we get that idea? The Founding Fathers did not believe this." (syndicated column, 2/7/90) He referred admiringly to the apartheid regime as the "Boer Republic": "Why are Americans collaborating in a U.N. conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?" (syndicated column, 9/17/89)

...In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was "an individual of great courage.... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (Guardian, 1/14/92) ...

...and so on.

Oh yeah, about that earnest fist pumping for the white working class:

Given his attacks on scapegoated minorities, his sympathy for fascist heroes like Francisco Franco and his striking distaste for democracy as a system of government--he once described "democratism" as an idolatry that "substitutes a false god for the real, a love of process for a love of country" (Patrick J. Buchanan: From the Right newsletter, Spring/90)--Buchanan could justifiably be seen as a descendant of the political tradition of fascism. But that's not a term that was often applied to Buchanan: While supporters frequently complained about people labeling Buchanan a "fascist," no prominent commentator seems to have actually done so.

Instead, the political philosophy that Buchanan was most often associated with was "populism"--a designation that uncritically accepts Buchanan's self-portrayal as the friend of the working class....

On examination, Buchanan's "populist" agenda doesn't go much beyond "It's the Mexicans, stupid." ...

While his economic nationalism and ties to trade- threatened industrialists like Milliken may lead him to oppose trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT, Buchanan has done little to demonstrate any real concern for workers themselves. In fact, back when he was a regular host of CNN's Crossfire, Buchanan used to argue that it was high union wages, not trade pacts, that were weakening U.S. industry (Crossfire, 7/3/91).

As Crossfire co-host (7/3/91), Buchanan vehemently opposed workers' right to strike. "Listen, the job does not belong to the guy who walks out of it," he argued. On the same show he celebrated the 1981 firing of the striking air traffic control workers, gloating that "Ronald Reagan's approval rating soared."

Of course, even if Buchanan did support a broad economic program that would benefit workers, his bigotry would disqualify him as a true representative of all the people. But many of the same elite media who were utterly distressed at the idea that someone like Buchanan might lead a major party seemed quite happy to let him play the role of the leading workers' spokesperson. In many ways, Patrick Buchanan is the perfect "populist" for the corporate press: a charismatic reactionary who channels workers' grievances into the dead end of xenophobia and scapegoating.

There is, of course, a term for this kind of extreme right-wing appeal to the white lumpenproletariat via nationalism and racist scapegoating; and, despite fatuous asses like Jonah Goldberg attempting to Humpty Dumpty the term, it still makes a lot more sense to apply it to a man who praises Franco and apologizes for Nazi war criminals and Klan leaders than to any liberal:

Fascist.

Attacking what he considers the "democratist temptation, the worship of democracy as a form of governance," Buchanan commented: "Like all idolatries, democratism substitutes a false god for the real, a love of process for a love of country." (Patrick J. Buchanan: From the Right, newsletter, Spring/90)

In a January, 1991 column, Buchanan suggested that "quasi-dictatorial rule" might be the solution to the problems of big municipalities and the federal fiscal crisis: "If the people are corrupt, the more democracy, the worse the government." (Washington Times, 1/9/91) He has written disparagingly of the "one man, one vote Earl Warren system."

...Buchanan, shortly before he announced he was running for president in 1995: "You just wait until 1996, then you'll see a real right-wing tyrant." (The Nation, 6/26/95)

So, he didn't make it as a presidential contender. Instead, he's got a comfy position on MSNBC, influential as he's been for at least the past 30 years or so. Lovable old Unca Pat. Yeah. By the way, here's one of several online petitions for MSNBC to at least stop paying him and giving him a soapbox.

ETA: All About Race does a quick debunk of some of Pat's more risible claims from the Maddow clip.

Meanwhile, on the same day Maddow lets him display himself in all his paleolithic but ultimately impotent (at least as regards opposing Sotomayor's inevitable confirmation) splendor in front of a mass audience, the nation's first black president addresses the NAACP:



As Obama noted, there's still work to be done. And no, Obama himself is far from perfect. Still, it is worth looking at the two videos side by side if one needs a reminder of...perspective.

Hey. Here's a wacky notion about "public health care:"

If you're a government official and against "public health care?" As in, the government paying for the public's health care? Then go off the fucking grid and stop accepting our tax money for YOUR health care, you miserable son of a bitch. Bootstraps away, eh? -You- pay for a fucking chronic illness or catastrophe out of pocket. No donations, no insurance, nothing beyond your basic salary. Go on, it'll be funny.

And no, at this point most Americans aren't too stupid to understand we're getting screwed over.

Yessir, that's our Gubernator

Meanwhile, back in sunny Cali:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not get the election results he sought. Now he seems determined to show California voters the consequences.

In a special election on May 19, voters rejected a batch of measures on increasing taxes, borrowing funds and reapportioning state money that were designed to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The cuts Mr. Schwarzenegger has proposed to make up the difference, if enacted by the Legislature, would turn California into a place that in some ways would be unrecognizable in modern America: poor children would have no health insurance, prisoners would be released by the thousands and state parks would be closed.

Nearly all of the billions of dollars in cuts the administration has proposed would affect programs for poor Californians, although prisons and schools would take hits, as well.

All his cuts target the poor and the disenfranchised, but, well, gosh, there's a good reason for that:

“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people,” Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. “It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.” He added: “You have to cut where the money is.”

Blinded. I'm blinded. Fucking brilliant.

"Everyone in favor of dissolving the Gunderson marriage? Motion carried."

If only. If ONLY.






ETA: "Where are your goats?"

Actually I like this version better.

Homemade video to Lily Allen's "Fuck You." should've put it with this post.

h/t Cowtown Bisexual.

Shorter James Dobson: "The prospect of not being able to legally discriminate against queer people anymore plunges me into a dark night of the soul."

What a whiner:

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson yesterday used his daily broadcast to complain about the hate crimes legislation that recently passed the House. Dobson called it “utter evil” and said it will “undermine the rule of law and seriously damage morality and decency in the culture.” Dobson frequently rails against various cultural issues. But as Dan Gilgoff at U.S. News notes, what was different in this broadcast was Dobson’s utter hopelessness:

I want to tell you up front that we’re not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything.

There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can’t stop them.

We tried with [Health and Human Services Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius and sent thousands of phone calls and emails to the Senate and they didn’t pay any attention to it because they don’t have to. And so what you can do is pray, pray for this great nation… As I see it, there is no other answer. There’s no other answer, short term.

We'll pray for you too, Jim.

Speaking of schadenfreude: I was amused by this story on Scalia.

Lily speaks for me.

This one goes out to Virginia Foxx, (please write your Congresscritter and ask for censure);

Miss California aka Won't Someone Please Think Of The Tiaras Children;

and of course the poor, besieged, soggy NOMmers

(p.s. it's NOT FUNNY. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. NO.)

while we're at it, let's throw in the drool-n-bile-soaked crypto-fascist talk show hosts who're using the swine flu as yet another excuse to whip up foaming anti-immigrant hatred. Oink, baby.


"Please, don't stay in touch."





Pee. ess.

"For the first time in a nationwide survey, more Americans say they support gay marriage (49%) than oppose it (46%), according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.

That 49% supporting gay marriage, in fact, is a significant jump from 2004, when the Post/ABC poll found just 32% in favor.

We briefly interrupt this quasi-non-hiatus to say: Fuck Amazon.com

Here's why. It's not just affecting LGBT "adult" books either. Also see re: why it matters.

If you'd like to let them know your feelings, here's their express customer service form. or call 1-866-216-1072. or just join the boycott.

good a reason to patronize indies as much as possible anyway. Powell's still seems to be okay, also.

eta: "Book Depot" in the UK looks promising. free worldwide delivery!

eta again: someone cynical theorizes this is a sophisticated trolling effort of some sort. if so, as far as I'm concerned all it means is "hey, still another party is (also) an EPIC asshole!"

and, this is also not the first time this sort of thing has been discussed wrt Amazon, apparently.

but, yeah. "lulz." wtfever. well, hey, if it turns out to be the case I guess we'll hear it from the PR eventually. can't wait for it. so far the response, "skeleton crew" or not, has been less than satisfactory.

In other but sort of thematically related postage: I can't get behind lesbian comic author Erika Moen anymore, much as I've liked a lot of her cartoons in the past. Here's why. And disgusted with Annalee Newitz--another person I -wanted- to like-- for similar reasons: here's why. (including comments section).

O.K. Really, I'm...busy. no more blogging for a while. hold my calls. Really. Oh, and happy Zombie Rabbits And Candy Eating Day.

p.s. Doctor Who special was v. disappointing. why can't Tennant stick around for Moffat? whhyyyyyyy???

later to all 7.8 of my readers...

ETA okay, whether he's actually behind it or not, I think we can all agree that "Weev" is a smug entitled POS

Hay dude. Amazon removed its customer-based reporting of adult books yesterday. I guess my game is up! Here's a nice piece I like to call "how to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code".

I really hate reputation systems based on user input. This started a while back on Craigslist, when I was trying to score chicks to do heroin with. My listings like "looking to get tarred and pleasured" and "Searching for a heroine to do the paronym of this sentence's lexical subject" kept getting flagged. The audacity of the San Francisco gay community disgusted me. They would flag my ads down but searching craigslist for "pnp" or "tina" reveals tons of hairy dudes searching for other hairy dudes to do meth with. So I decided to get them back, and cause a few hundred thousand queers some outrage.

I'm logged into Amazon at the time and see it has a "report as inappropriate" feature at the bottom of a page. I do a quick test on a few sets of gay books. I see that I can get them removed from search rankings with an insignificant number of votes.

I do this for a while, but never really get off my ass to scale it until recently.

[some code which I have no fucking idea about really]

...and I have a neat little list of the internal product ID of every fag book on Amazon.

Now from here it was a matter of getting a lot of people to vote for the books. The thing about the adult reporting function of Amazon was that it was vulnerable to something called "Cross-site request forgery'. This means if I referred someone to the URL of the successful complaint, it would register as a complaint if they were logged in. So now it is a numbers game.

I know some people who run some extremely high traffic (Alexa top 1000) websites. I show them my idea, and we all agree that it is pretty funny. They put an invisible iframe in their websites to refer people to the complaint URLs which caused huge numbers of visitors to report gay and lesbian items as inappropriate without their knowledge.

I also hired third worlders to register accounts for me en masse.

...The combination of these two actions resulted in a mass delisting of queer books being delisted from the rankings at Amazon.

I guess my game is up, but 300+ hits on google news for amazon gay and outrage across the blogosphere
ain't so bad.

Funny. Really funny.

More on why Amazon still isn't off the hook:

What I think is going on: there is a severe vulnerability in the Amazon flagging-for-inappropriate system, and it's been found and exploited by one or more nerds with too much time on their hands. Amazon's mistake, vis a vis the brave new world of social media, is two-fold:

Refusing to acknowledge a vulnerability. People are reaching the point not just that they like transparency in dealing with people who hold lots of important info on their behalf, but they are coming to demand it. Amazon's "nothing more to see here" approach is damaging to the relationship they have with those outraged by the exploit.
Refusing to acknowledge the pain of affected people. If you have an entire relationship built on trust (with personal info, with commitments to move products, with referrals and wishlists, etc), you have the obligation to have that uncomfortable sit-down when a betrayal is introduced to the relationship. Amazon hasn't done that yet. Yikes.
There's a livejournal blogger out there now claiming responsibility for the exploit. I won't link over, because I actually think he's full of crap, as do those who've attempted to reproduce his exploitative code. It's a well known practice for those with no skillz to take responsibility for things they have no part of to build up their hacker cred. Please. You know what tipped me off, for the record? The references to wanting to have anonymous sex with women and heroin from Craigslist. Fetishy-objectifying of women is common in the hacker community, for sure, but this guy is just… silly.

This doesn't mean that someone didn't come up with something similar– I'm almost positive they did. Which means that Amazon has a serious problem, and they better have a better explanation than the "glitch."

There's a bigger picture here: cultural implications

From a tech point of view, recommendation systems and flag-as-inappropriate tools that aren't built to handle gaming the system are just no good. It's unacceptable that a masterminding giant such as Amazon wasn't prepared for this kind of attack. Especially considering how much it affects Amazon's contract and relationship with the people that provide them with the goods its users demand, and how much users trust Amazon to do the Right Thing.

On a wider cultural scale, as I'd mentioned in the article in the WMC, the cultural implications of these attacks — especially when it's big enough to get this kind of attention — are huge. Geek culture is one of the last vestiges of an overtly sexist and toxic environment for anyone who's not a straight guy, most likely white and middle-class. (Not limited to the nerds of computer love, either– check out this post on misogyny and comic books from Amptoons.) When these attacks occur, it reveals not just the hatred that the hackers themselves have for women and LGBT folk, but the wider cultural intolerance we still have running rampant.

...Some would react by clamping on the anonymity, the level of free speech and the accountability, often all at once. Sure, keeping trolls off your comments section is probably a good idea. Enacting laws making it impossible to operate independently and anonymously online? Bad idea. Very bad. We need to be addressing the root causes of our misogyny, our racism, our homophobia — not piling on bandaids, duct tape and bailing twine to keep people's mouths shut...

Right on

via Ai'shah and Renee:

"choke on your rainbow flag, homo. do i go around saying i’m straight?

no, dear heterosexual. you do not flap about telling everyone that you’re straight, because you have no need to. you’d think this understanding would be enough to silence the people who resent gay men and lesbians for parading our “lifestyle”.

of course, dear heterosexual, it isn’t at all necessary for you to assert your sexuality because it is assumed. that’s what being part of a majority entails. you’d correct someone if they had your name wrong, or your marital status wrong, so why the resentment? we aren’t flaunting anything, we’re doing what you’re doing really. we just happen to have to correct people more often.

for all you queer folk; categorization is a horrid thing. sometimes necessary, which adds to it’s general unpleasantness. if you have somehow managed to surround yourself with groups of people who cannot for one moment step outside their narrow existence and think twice about all of the people that they have so carelessly labeled and discarded; deeming them “things that i know and have processed”, don’t accept it.

resist all attempts made by these people to rationalize you; keep them guessing. scare them. unbalance them. you don’t have to accept their perspectives. they have to accept yours. don’t read me my rights and their rights and our rights, we all have them, but we also have the responsibility to operate in a logical manner when dealing with these societal issues. this is why your in-your-face dance with the rest of the world is justified. you cannot be argued with because the other side has no logical basis to build upon.

and the winner is?

Oh, how much have I not missed this

Catching up a bit with my usual blogs, I must've missed this beaut captured by Renegade the first time around:

I think that anal sex is also a good way of saying, "I hate myself." I work in the microbiology department of a medical lab, but you don't need to be a microbiologist to know that the rectum is a filthy place. Here's my favorite statistic: 60% of the mass of a turd is bacteria.

Why would a man put his penis, which is supposedly his crowning glory, into a shithole? Seriously. Oh, don't try criticizing anal sex for any reason on a liberal site, all the faggots will cry, "Homophobe!" and they'll eat you alive. I don't care. It's disgusting and filthy, not to mention not good for the tissues back there. There's a media doctor here in the states who's always on about rectal prolapse and anal sex.


I believe that men wouldn't put their dicks in such a disgusting place if they didn't feel that they were disgusting themselves. They probably just extrapolate from that that if someone consents to anal sex, they are just as disgusting, too, and therefore, deserve any bad treatment they wish to dish out. And women consent to stuff like that because they have low self-esteem which was caused by men in the first place because they felt bad about themselves. - bonobobabe

Fail. Just...so much fail I can't fail even fail say anything fail but fail. FAIL.

and yes, that's real, and no, that isn't a fundamentalist religious zealot, that is, you guessed it, a putative radical feminist.

nice moniker there, too, not too ironic.

uh, I said -content-, didn't I? yeah. soon, really. Just...yeah.




fail.

ETA Regardez! Encore une faile de plus! via Trinity:

on January 31, 2009 at 11:00 pm bonobobabe
I fucking hate the concept of consent. The human mind is a pretty fragile thing, and you can get people to “consent” to most anything. It’s fucking meaningless.

That Glenn Marcus is a sick motherfucker. BDSM is abuse, pure and simple. If a person gets off on giving or getting abused, that person has something wrong with them mentally. Seriously. They need therapy.

It used to be a couple decades ago, people were willing to see themselves as fucked up. Everyone was in therapy. Now everyone thinks they are just fine and dandy as they are. “I eat shit. I’m awesome! I dress up in a teddy bear costume. I’m special! I like watching women in high heels step on mice and kill them. I’m a living miracle!”

Fuck the lot of them.

on January 31, 2009 at 11:54 pm delphyne

I feel the same way about consent bonobobabe. Consent to me seems like a concept invented by rapists - getting people to agree to be abused or raped and then blamed for what the rapist/abuser did to them.

Either you want something or you don’t. Consent is just another way of saying someone acquiesed to somebody else’s ideas and desires.

Thanks for the suggestion of therapy, though, fr srs. I'll have to keep that in mind, as I enter my ninth year of personal and/or group therapy and my second semester of training to oh noez become a therapist myself. And when I finally do hang out my shingle, as I join this organization, I'll keep y'all in my heart, for truly.

Meanwhile, among other things, I've now relinquished the last bit of guilt I was holding wrt (no doubt accurate in some cases) accusations of ableism for doing this very thing, i.e. consigning people to the wastebasket of fuckeduppitude because of things I didn't understand and/or my own personal shit. At least as such accusations have been raised by delphyne, in particular. Yeah, tu quoque doesn't make it right, but hey, it's not like we're actually engaging, here; I take the critiques on board, and as for the rest, this shit, for a shining example: yer still an asshole. (Yes, I can say that. It's my lunch hour).

Beyond that, there's just a shitload of arguments I could be taking up with this--oh, where to begin really--probably with that whole "consent was invented by rapists (!!) business, but there's just so *much* to choose from (Glenn Marcus=teddy bear fetishism=buttsecks! the real problem with nowadays is -too much self-esteem-, especially sexually!)

--but I'm tired and I'm busy and other people are already on it and I kind of can't be arsed right now and I've been to this rodeo a dozen times by now and it never changes and it's not like the people who most need to hear it ever will in the next kalpa anyway.

So, here is another FAIL icon instead.

The nuclear hetero family=endangered wet trees.

(Hey, baby, wanna plow my huge tracts of land?--shit, I don't know...)

In which the Pope is unclear on multiple concepts:

Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, it ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term “gender”, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator.

The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterised matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ – without modifying the message of creation – has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover the witness in favour of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation.

I'll be sure and do that, reread the Encyclical Whosit; I missed a few nuances the first few times around, I'm sure, seeing as how I'm not actually Catholic and there's supposed to be this nifty separation between the Church and State around and all; but thanks so much for looking out for us all, really. Because if there's anyone I look to for the definition of "love," it's Pope Palpatine wielding crucifixes against us as though we were vampires.

"Sure, I-- I mean God-- just compared you to pollution, which if unchecked will lead into ecocide/genocide, but you shouldn't take it -personally- or anything."

Does His Holiness have anything to say about this, I wonder:

A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

"It just pushes it beyond fathomable," he said. "The level of trauma _ physical and emotional _ this victim has suffered is extreme."...

Or this:

Here we go again in Memphis, TN. A transwoman was shot in the face and is in critical condition.

Memphis police say the shooting happened sometime around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, December 23, 2008 in the 3100 block of Boxtown Road in south Memphis near T.O. Fuller State Park. Leeneshia Edwards was last seen about an hour earlier at the “C.K.’s Coffee Shop” on Union Avenue in midtown Memphis.

Edwards' cousin reports that Lenneshia was shot in the jaw, side and back and is undergoing multiple surgeries.


...Oliver A. FP said...
Hmm... let me get this straight.

So, mysteriously, a woman who called out the Memphis police on her ill-treatment is dead.

Mysteriously, the police investigations into her murder and the murder of a physically "similar" woman have been incredibly lacklustre.

And MYSTERIOUSLY, another physically "similar" Memphis woman has now been shot.

Gosh, the world is sometimes full of brain-teasers...

Wait, don't tell me, I know: of -course- the Pope and Rick Warren and all their enablers don't support -violence-. Heavens no. They might vote against laws that recognize us as full human beings, whether it's marriage equality or a trans-inclusive ENDA, even put tons of effort and money into making sure we can't actually any of us take a dump without fighting for years for signed permission from Traditional Values, Inc;

But, you know, they -mean so well-, do these great unctuous "spiritual" leaders of ours. Certainly they never EVER meant to endorse -actual concrete results- of their demonizing and scapegoating and politicization of their -beliefs-, especially when those results are a lot of dead or maimed bodies. It would be wrong to suggest that the young men who violently, often fatally, attack people simply for bearing the "wrong" gender markers or sporting a rainbow sticker on their car, are the shock troop enforcers of these -values.- Punishing uppity women, sluts, sodomists, freaks and deviants for their/our transgressions; after all, we're a-threat-, right? And of course these men wouldn't ever be police or (uh oh) priests or ministers or other fine upstanding members of the community; they're probably just "thugs," most of them, right? Suspicious dark poor people leaping out of alleys; just make sure we concentrate on getting -them- off the streets and into the prisons and workhouses, and we'll all be golden. Oh, and pray, of course, I keep forgetting that one. Piety makes all the difference, really.

In fact, now we learn: apparently, what they are, these various angry violent men, are radical environmentalists.

Perhaps Ben and Jerry's will make a new flavor, now that Rainforest Crunch is long out of vogue. "Heavenly Hetero Hash," perhaps. "Family Values Fudge." "Crusader Crunch."

Sleep in heavenly peace to you too, motherfucker.

And then, just in case you'd forgotten for -one second- why the outgoing administration sucks beyond black hole levels of sucking:

Look at this fresh pile of steaming shit:

The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health-care workers -- from doctors to janitors -- who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctor's office or other entity if it does not accommodate employees who exercise their "right of conscience." It would apply to more than 584,000 health-care facilities.

"Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.

The regulation, which was issued just in time to take effect in the 30 days before the change of administrations, was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others as necessary to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.

Women's health advocates, family planning proponents, abortion rights activists, members of Congress and others condemned the regulation, saying it would create major obstacles to a variety of health services, including abortion, family planning, end-of-life care and possibly a wide range of scientific research.

Among other things. Hey, this has got to be wonderful news wrt standards of care for trans folk, amirite?

I'm just curious: say my personal, moral beliefs insist that "thou shalt not suffer someone who has cut me off in traffic to live..." no, you know, I can't even do this right now. Not funny. Not amused. Too mad and disgusted.

Oh, look, and that's a shocker, too, isn't it:

The 127-page rule is the latest in a flurry of federal regulations that the administration is implementing before President Bush's term ends, including a number that would weaken government protections for consumers and the environment.

Shoes are too good for you, you POS.

Although the Obama administration could reverse the rule, it would require a lengthy process. Last month, however, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced a bill to repeal the regulation legislatively.

...The rule will go into effect in 30 days and gives entities until Oct. 1, 2009, to provide written certification of their compliance. Those that do not comply face having their funding cut off or being required to return funding they already received.

Whee.

ETA: Feministe has more.

In one more blow to women’s health and rights, the Bush Administration has issued a sweeping new regulation giving just about anyone the right to refuse to offer basic women’s health services. It’s being framed as about abortion, but here’s the thing: There are existing laws that protect health care workers from performing or assisting with abortion. Under current U.S. law, no one can be forced to partake in an abortion procedure if they have a moral objection.

This is about birth control.

...

Oh yeah, it fits.

In a fitting salute to the end of Dubya's reign of error, an Iraqi journalist flings shoes at his head.



Wear it well, George. Night night; January 20 can't come too goddam soon.

ETA Wow, color me shocked.

Don’t worry, though; Bush laughed it off. And because U.S.-occupied Iraq is such a free society, the man was beaten, dragged outside, and is currently jailed.

Mr. Maliki’s security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room. They kicked him and beat him until “he was crying like a woman,” said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki. Mr. Zaidi was then detained on unspecified charges.

Other Iraqi journalists in the front row apologized to Mr. Bush, who was uninjured and tried to brush off the incident by making a joke. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” he said, continuing to take questions and noting the apologies. He also called the incident a sign of democracy, saying, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” as the man’s screaming could be heard outside.

p.s. and PSA: for the love of God and little plastic baubles, Hugo, shut. the fuck. UP.

Uh, yes, hello, that would be gross sexism right there.

Jon Favreau, luddites and germs.

Yes, sorry, I don't care how talented he is: this is nasty shit, and fucking -stupid- also; and a good case for sexual harassment. It's up to HRC if she wants to include this in the hatchet-burying, of course, but personally, I don't think keeping this jerk as director of speechwriting for the White House is a really terrific idea, Dear Obama. As in, I think firing his ass would be a better one, myself.

I mean, I think there are probably other good speechwriters out there, you know?

ETA: evil fizz points out:

Actually, from the WaPo piece, it sounds like he’s actually in the process of applying for other jobs, specifically with the Secretary’s of State office. A stellar way to make a first impression on your future boss if there ever was one.

And I can say with considerable certainty (although with no small amount of bitterness) that one photo like that is never going to constitute actionable sexual harassment. Not saying it’s not harassing, just that it’s short of the legal definition.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to apply to work for the very woman you’ve been groping-by-proxy, I gotta say. If she really she wants to take him on for whatever reason it’s her own lookout I guess; but at minimum I don’t think he should be Obama’s director of speechwriting, for o just a whole -bunch- of reasons.

ETA, again: I had to go and look.

jenniforhillary 12.06.08 at 10:06 pm
Some of you get my take, and some don’t. I am saying–and it is my
opinion and just that–that I DON”T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HILLARY ANY
MORE. This may or may not be ‘throwing her under the bus’ (in my
opinion, it is not) BUT WHAT IT IS IS REFORMING THE QUESTION AND THE
ATTACK!!

INSTEAD OF ASKING HILLARY WHAT SHE IS GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS BULLSHIT,
LET’S ASK THE FUCKING MEN. LET’S ASK ACLU, NAACP, NOW, and NARAL.
LEAVE HILLARY ALONE is not exactly a condemnation people, but rather a
plea.

What if, like Dances suggests, we have stop having sex with men AND we
stop discussing Hillary Clinton. Let’s deal with issues, and assholes,
and forget about her for a while. And I agree with Trish, what men do
or don’t do is has fucking little to do with Hillary–so leave her outa
it.

I like Sandi’s idea a lot. Let’s make an image of His Lowness and have
some women (how about Oppie and Brazilla) molesting his lower
half….and send it on….let’s fight the boys with bullets they
understand… ...

jenniforhillary 12.05.08 at 11:35 pm
And, for the record, if I don’t hear the word RACIST for 100 years, I
will be happy.

THAT BEING SAID, I accept and apologize that I said something that was
perceived as racist, because that was NOT my intention.

THAT BEING SAID, I think that VAGINA trumps COLOR and always has AND
MUST if women are ever to stop being treated like shit.

THAT BEING SAID, I like mean women a lot, unless they are being mean
to me…..(thought a lil’ humor might be a good thing)

...I can't stop reading that thread; it's a magnificent clusterfuck of fail.

OP: blah blah something or other the usual womanhood is a universal experience if you've got a vagina, BUT WE NEED TO STOP TALKING ABOUT OUR BITS, here is a lovely illustration from "The Yellow Wallpaper" to demo just how universal my call to all wimminz everywherez is. Can't we all just get along?? (except for Obots, obviously)

Commenter: That's lovely, even though I don't really understand what you're trying to say. But it's lovely anyway.

Other commenters: rhubarb rhubarb agreed rhubarb rhubarb, something vaguely approaching what looks like feminist and/or the existence of teh gay CR 101

A commenter: I think I don't like this bit of what I thought you were trying to say, so I'm going to assume you really weren't. You really meant the bit about we should put aside our difference and get along. Right?

Murphy: Wrong. I MEANT, STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR BITS fulminate fume rant

A commenter:...'k then.

Others: ...So! How 'bout that weather or cupcakes or something, then! (We love you, Murphy!)

Murphy: and while we're at it, SCREW THE LESBIANS!! you self-absorbed LESBIANS with your clitoris gazing and so on! what've YOU ever done for anyone, HANH??

A lesbian commenter: Among other things, set up your entire website and do all the work around here. p.s. fuck you too then.

Murphy: Don't LEAVE, lesbian commenter, you've done all the work around here!! Whatever will I do without you? please o please o please don't go

ALC: O.K.

****

It's like an enigma inside a trainwreck, wrapped in bacon. Or something.

ETA, encore une fois: Best. exchange. EVAR.

sandipuma 12.06.08 at 2:25 am
That picture with Hillary is disgusting and i am sure she could have
pushed them away.Anyone of her stature would never have to except that
without doing something about it.

DancesWithPumas 12.06.08 at 3:21 am
sandipuma 12.06.08 at 2:25 am
That picture with Hillary is disgusting and i am sure she could have
pushed them away.
———————-
That picture of Senator Hilalry Rodham Clinton is a cardboard cutout.

sandipuma 12.06.08 at 3:32 am
Dances i noticed that afterward and i still think it’s disgusting and
degrading to all women and their families. After i read then looked
back at the picture, anyway thats Obamas close freinds for ya. I will
never have a good word to say about Obama and if it be for the next 4
years i will never look at him on TV.I will never listen to his voice
and i do not believe Hillary found this humorous.

Today's bigotry in the name of creeping theocracy brought to you by one Howard Ahmanson.

In case you were wondering who was behind Prop 8, The Daily Beast has a profile:

The campaign for Prop 8 has reaped massive funding from conservative backers across the country. Much of it comes from prominent donors like the Utah-based Church of Latter Day Saints and the Catholic conservative group, Knights of Columbus. Prop 8 has also received a boost from Elsa Broekhuizen, the widow of Michigan-based Christian backer Edgard Prince and the mother of Erik Prince, founder of the controversial mercenary firm, Blackwater.

While the Church of Latter Day Saints’ public role in Prop 8 has engendered a growing backlash from its more liberal members, and Broekhuizen’s involvement attracted some media attention, the extreme politics of Prop 8’s third largest private donor, Howard F. Ahmanson, reclusive heir to a banking fortune, have passed almost completely below the media’s radar. Ahmanson has donated $900,000 to the passage of Prop 8 so far.

...Few Americans have heard of Ahmanson—and that's the way he likes it. He donates cash either out of his own pocket or through his unincorporated Fieldstead & Co. to avoid having to report the names of his grantees to the IRS. His Tourette's syndrome only adds to his mysterious persona, as his fear of speaking leads him to shun the media. While Ahmanson once resided in a mental institution in Kansas, he now occupies a position among the Christian right’s power pantheon as one of the movement’s most influential donors. During a 1985 interview with the Orange County Register, Ahmanson summarized his political agenda: “My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives.”

The campaign to teach “intelligent design” in public school classrooms, the Republican takeover of the California Assembly, and the rollback of affirmative action in California—Ahmanson has been behind them all. He has also taken a special interest in anti-gay crusades. Ahmanson’s most controversial episode related to his funding of the religious empire of Rousas John Rushdoony, a radical evangelical theologian who advocated placing the United States under the control of a Christian theocracy that would mandate the stoning to death of homosexuals. With Prop 8 organizers claiming in a virtual mantra that their measure will not harm gays or take rights away from heterosexual Californians, Ahmanson has good reason to conceal his involvement in the campaign...

What the world needed: A Batman for "The Handmaid's Tale."

While we're on the subject of rightful finger pointing, can we please put a proposition on the next ballot to invalidate the marriage of Frank Schubert? Or, I don't know, take away his right to go to the toilet unsupervised, something? I mean:

Democratic legislators ask state Supreme Court to void Prop. 8

Reporting from Sacramento -- Forty-three Democratic legislators, including leaders of the California Senate and Assembly, filed a brief Monday urging the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and incoming President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg signed the friend of the court brief, filed with the state Supreme Court.

No Republican legislator signed the petition, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, denounced the anti-gay marriage measure over the weekend.

..."This is a Hail Mary, no question about it," said Frank Schubert, manager of the Proposition 8 campaign.

..."Proposition 8 seeks to effect a monumental revision of this foundational principle and constitutional structure by allowing a bare majority of voters to eliminate a fundamental right of a constitutionally protected minority group," the brief says.

"If Proposition 8 takes effect, this court will no longer be the final arbiter of the rights of minorities," it continues.

The action contends that the ban, created by the initiative that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, cannot be done by a mere constitutional amendment. Rather, it must be done by a revision of the entire Constitution and the Legislature would have to be involved.

As advocates of same-sex marriage turn to courts, protests, and perhaps a future ballot measure in an attempt to overturn Proposition 8, Schubert declared that the vote is "as over as Barack Obama's election."

...One of the closing ads featured Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Popular though she is, Schubert said, it was odd that Proposition 8 foes would select Feinstein to lecture voters, including minorities, about discrimination.

"It had the feel of a lily white, liberal campaign," Schubert said.

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK.

Oh, this is Frank Schubert: (whose image I can't seem to be -positive- I'm connecting it to the right Frank Schubert--there are several--but I am 99.7% positive he himself is "lily white," surprise):

The parents of two children featured most prominently in video footage in a Yes on 8 ad have repeatedly asked the campaign to stop using images of their children to promote changing the California Constitution to eliminate same-sex marriage. They've written letters. They've made phone calls. The Yes on 8 campaign has refused to pull the footage.

The parents are at their wits' end. So two of them came to Sacramento on Thursday to appeal to legislators and to Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert in person. I followed them on their journey.

To legislators, their message was: "I don't want to see another parent have to go through this." Assemblyman Mark Leno told the parents that under current law if the ads were for a commercial purpose, consent to use the images would be required. But ads for a political purpose don't require consent. Leno continued that the Yes on 8 use of children's images, however, reveals a tension between First Amendment rights to free speech and the right to privacy. This is a particularly sensitive issue because the campaign did not use images of adults, but of young children -- without the knowledge or consent of the parents. He made a commitment to explore solutions in the upcoming legislative session. But that doesn't do anything now.

Then the parents went to Schubert's office at Schubert Flint Public Affairs at 14th and L. "I've heard he's a father," said one parent. "I want to ask him how he would feel if his children were manipulated like this." She wanted to appeal to him as a moral human being. "This is our last hope," she said.

Neither Schubert nor others in his office would speak to the two parents. Schubert's office called security and a guard escorted them out of the building. The parents left a letter saying, "We appeal to your sense of decency as a parent to take those ads off the air and off your website."

This is disgusting.

GOP unearths aunt of Obama's living in U.S. on expired visa.

At this point, never even mind the intent as a last-minute "smear," which as far as Obama's campaign is concerned is probably a dud. Who cares, right? What does this have to do with the price of beans in Peru (presumably going down the toilet along with the rest of the global economy)? Well, for everyone except the rabid base, pretty much nothing at all, as with all the other shit they've been trying to throw at him (terrorist! socialist! elitist snob! twelve foot grey alien!) Which, of itself, move along, nothing to see here, right?

Except for: -this- time, there's also a real other person there, a middle-aged woman who's been quietly living in public housing on an expired visa because her request for asylum was turned down. Who was dragged--illegally, as it turns out--into the limelight by a bunch of opportunistic vultures operating under the delusion that a) significant numbers of U.S. citizens are going to be so outraged at her existence that it'll upset the race somehow b) because clearly, everyone shares their belief that ZOMG TEH ILLEGALS are stealing our precious collective bodily fluids, particularly the quiet law-abiding ones who don't actually have any power or money and are just basically trying to survive as best they can in the face of constant low-grade fear and exploitation and all kinds of other shit, i.e. pretty much most all of 'em. So, what happens to -her- now, hm?

Obama's already doing the "I never knew ye" thing, which, well, not a surprise, but for -fuck's- sake. How long is this kind of bullshit going to go on? Even assuming he -does- win?