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.

Seriously, do we need to tack a gorram Venn diagram onto every feminist blog, or what?

little light commenting at feministe:

THIS IS THE GODDAMN PROBLEM. To you, WOC and queer people are allies to feminism. They are adjunct groups, special interests, separate causes distract from women’s issues.
Let’s unpack that a little.

Women of color, in bringing up their concerns, are allies to (regular) women, who are just doing plain old feminism. Women of color are allies to feminism. Queer people are allies to feminism. Issues of racism, gender identity, and orientation, plus the accompanying oppressions and concerns, are “interesting” side dishes to feminism, which is for women.

Women of color and queer women are women. We are women. Our issues are women’s issues. They are inextricable from our womanhood. They are part of our feminism, and part of we want feminism to pay attention to, because these things are women’s issues. Your version posits that there’s regular women, who just do feminism, and then there’s those allies who drag those regular women in the trap of paying attention and giving energy to other causes–like the concerns of the women next to them who are brown, trans, and queer.

What does that make these regular women, the core of feminism, so gracious as to allow in the interesting sidebars on race and gender and orientation and ability and class, so vulnerable to falling into the trap of paying too much attention to those issues? White. Straight. Cissexual. Able-bodied. Not working-class. Those are “just plain women” in your frame. Their issues are “WOMEN’S issues.” Other women? Women who are different? Their issues aren’t “WOMEN’S issues,” except for the ones they share in common with white, straight, upper-class, cissexual, able-bodied women. Their issues are an occasionally-interesting distraction from real women’s issues.

Thanks but no thanks for your inclusion, pal.

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?

yes, THAT, dammit.

On who "Joe Sixpack" really is.

See, JSP isn't referring to our rock hard abs. JSP literally means "the blue collar guy who picks up a six pack of cheap beer every night after work and goes home to watch Nascar (and probably beat his wife/kids and light a cross on the black neighbor's lawn but we won't say anything about that wink wink nudge nudge)." That is the message that they are trying to get across to America.

when in fact, Joe Sixpack IS the black neighbor, and he's having a Nascar watching party with his boyfriend and his sister and her girlfriend, and yeah, sure, they're drinking beer, only Joe's not having too much because he has to get up early to finish writing his sermon. Then they all play Scrabble and talk about trends in science fiction and Japanese horror movies for a while before putting the kids to bed. Guess how they all vote? Go on, guess.

And this bit, I really liked this:

I wish I were only talking to one camp. But I'm talking to my own, too. We "liberal elitists." Because we say the same kind of things when talking about "the average American."

...And that's kind of dangerous, and it's also kind of not true. Like I said, there are those people out there, and we know what camp they are in. But how many of us assumed "the average American" would say that Palin won the debate, because she didn't fall down and start speaking in tongues? And what are the polls saying? And hasn't our side also been moaning about how "Joe Six-Pack" wouldn't vote for a black man? Assuming "the average American" is that special demographic? Do we really think he did so well in the primaries because there's such a vast quantity of "intellectual elites" out there to compensate for all of the average people who'd naturally vote right wing? Come on, people...

(read the rest. Srsly, do.)

This. This. This is the problem I've been having with the lovely nihilism punctuated with spasms of GO TEAM!! all over way too many of the hardcore politicos, from mainstream horserace watching a la Kos down to the more esoteric branches of feminism and beyond.

Because, you know something: it's all too easy for a "the rabble is so easily swayed by this cheap crap, if only they were all as enlightened as me/us" to tip over into the sort of kitschy reactionary bullshit we're looking at right now. (Gerard Van der Leun, here's looking at you). All it takes is a jolt of fear in the right place and we're off to the bunker.

The problem isn't "intellectual elitism." The problem is people on either side of the aisle who're so busy congratulating our clever selves for not letting anyone put anything over on -us- that we forgot what we stood for in the damn first place.

I think, last I checked, it supposedly had something to do with "other people." Democracy, don't you know. The antithesis of "elitism."

You know, Joe and Jane Sixpack. All those zillions of -people- out there. Salt of the earth for sure, maybe, possibly; just don't trust them to find their own ass with a map and a flashlight, the dumbasses

Unlike, say...us, who totally know what we're doing.

Quote of the day, 6/26/08

Honestly, I don’t buy either the nature or nurture arguments with regards to gender. I think it’s a combination of effects, and I agree with the line about gender being a “performance” — which I don’t think is the same thing as belittling the importance of gender in the lives of many people or saying that any one gender identity is more or less legitimate than the other. There are a huge range of gender identities, from feminine women and masculine men to feminine men and masculine women, transgender people, genderqueer or gender non-conformative people who alternate gender expressions. For example, I was born female, and since I adapted so easily to that identity I believe that I was also born with a feminine gender. But I think that the ways in which I enact femininity — i.e. the way I cross my legs, or the fact that I shave them, or the way that I often apologize for things that aren’t my fault — were most likely taught to me in a subconscious way and probably don’t have much to do with my vagina or estrogen production at all.

I do agree though that people who take the most strict “gender is a construction” stance are those who tend to be transphobic, or vice versa. Personally, I take the same stance with regards to trans-ness as I take towards sexual orientation: I think that it’s mostly biological, but don’t really give a shit whether it’s biological, social conditioning or a choice. People have the right to express their gender(s) and sexuality however they want, regardless of the reason, and the whole “reason” conversation, I think, distracts from that extremely important fact.

--Cara at the Curvature (read the OP while you're at it)


...actually, minor quibble, I think probably the "most strict 'gender is a construction stance'" is really just...not. I think when you see this from transphobic feminists these days, it's an expression of the contortionist attempt to fuse actual radical feminisms that do/did actually mean the whole "gender is a construction" business (which tend -not- to be at odds with queer theory or ffs the existence of transgendered people) with cultural feminism, which is essentially...essentialist. (I've posted about this before).

But you know, just: if one is THAT invested in the idea of Class Woman and woman-only spaces and so forth, one is pretty much by definition -not- trying to "do away with gender." And no, the whole "nonono, Class Woman is about SEX, that's TOTALLY DIFFERENT from 'gender'" doesn't wash. At all.

a) it's projection on the parts of the feminists in question onto (a lot of) trans people to assume that the -trans people- are the ones who are so hopelessly fixated on genitalia, as Cara notes in her OP

b) hi, speaking of "examination:" exactly how much "gendered" shit that actually has nothing to do with your genitalia or reproductive organs do you take for granted?

Start with the pronouns you use for yourself and expect others to use when talking about you. Then, move onto the amount of tsuris you -don't- get specifically about the "M" or "F" on your government-issued ID when you try to get a job, move to another country, get married, get on a motherfucking plane, get a driver's license, or, well, just a whole shitload of things. Oh, yeah, and of course you have the right to use the "correct" bathroom, don't you? Or any public bathroom at all, really.

Guess what, folks: -none- of that is about "sex." That is about "gender." Presentation, pronouns (you know, in some languages the "genderedness" of possessive pronouns, i.e. "his" or "her" in English, is related to the -object- ("sa plume"), -not- the possessor, so this is hardly a universal), and the everfucking -importance- people place on all of this shit to make sure that everyone either fits into column A, column B, or, well, the outlands. Where we can "pity" "them" (ta awfully so, mAndrea, you hoser), but certainly no more than that.

Yeah, that's radical "deconstruction of 'gender,'" all right. Clap, clap.

And, you know, of course, even if you -did- have The Most Radical Radness Of All, this idea that you're entitled to therefore make or contribute to making other peoples' already difficult lives even more difficult on account of they haven't justified their existence to your stringent ideological demands sufficiently? Or for that matter, even, when the chips are down, write them off as "we eagerly accept and even solicit your emotional and financial contributions to Our Struggle, Which Is Of Course Universal; but as for your -particular- problems, so sorry, not our table?" What part of "fuck off" did you not understand?

On the "personal is political" note, as opposed to "just" being an ally note: this goes out to, well, Certain Of The Same Women Who Should Be Safely Fringey Enough To Just Ignore, But Nonetheless:

You know, even if my less-than-clear-eyed queer pervy lusts and relationships did turn out to be more in line with patriarchal standards than your ever so pure political lesbian and/or separatist and/or wymyn fyrst whatever it is...well, I do think you're full of shit about this, don't get me wrong (this is a separate post); but also? Really not my -first- concern here, how fucking -transgressive- I am against the Evil Empire as compared to you or anyone else, mirror mirror on the wall. I don't live my life in order to conform to -or- rebel against an ideal ideology; my ideology evolves and adapts around actual needs and lives, not the other way around.

Now, you may feel differently, and you know, that's your prerogative; but kindly keep me the hell out of it. And yeah, spouting off ignorantly, and derisively, but Importantly (o rational objective observer that you are!) about things that matters to me and mine? qualifies as -not- "leaving me out of it." You talk a lot of stupid, hateful crap about people; being actual people and not -objects-, they respond, often angrily. This is how it works. Welcome to reality.

Further, I for one reserve the right to be as sweary, mean, and "irrational" as I want to be when you pull this kind of crap, same as I would with any other reactionary, smug, ignorant bigot using someone else's personal shit as a trampoline for hir own sorry, selfish (yeah, you read that right) agenda.

Finally, I keep coming back to this: if transgenderism is an "ideology," then so is homosexuality. As a cis queer person who's heard the latter argument as well as the former invoked by right wingers -way- too often, this shit hits way too close to home. And I want to know, from feminists, lesbians included: exactly how it is that you justify "being transgendered is an ideology/sickness/perversion/trend" when these are EXACTLY the arguments, but EXACTLY, used by homophobes*.

...*Who, by the way, are also inevitably Terribly Offended by being called -homophobes-, because they're not -afraid- and they're not -bad people- and they're discriminated against TOO, at least as much, even, and some of their best friends are, and they don't actually nail anyone to a fence and leave them there to die horribly over a period of days (COOKIE PLEASE) and how dare we label them something they don't believe they are, o irony irony.

Virtual March for the Jena 6

HQ at the UltraVioletUnderground.

Black Amazon kicks ass as per usual.

Quote of the day, 6/5/07

MY VAGINA DOES NOT CONTAIN A MAGIC WELLSPRING OF POLITICAL SOLIDARITY, THANK YOU.

Dora/sigelphoenix at Official Shrub, h/t sara speaking

A reminder:

These excellent women want to go to the Allied Media Conference. They totally should go, for a whole bunch of reasons. So, if you can, help 'em out.

This is just gorgeous.

Ravenmn reports on the Minneapolis/Heart of the Beast Theatre Mayday parade, a tradition since 1975. This year's theme, "Somos Agua" ("We are Water"); the above photo, which I hope it's okay for me to gank, is "the Mother of Waters." More commentary and more stunning pics at Fly By Night, check it out.

How not to be an asshole, a long overdue expanding of the template.

An observer, thegirlfrommarz, whom I'd not heretofore been familiar with, chimes into the FFF/WOC blowup with some words of wisdom and basic sense:

There are always going to be some people who will be jealous of the fact that she has been picked to represent the world of feminist blogging by writing a book or who will be angered that she is the one whose views on feminism are published in the mainstream media (and that the article is so very simplistic, but that’s another story). In short, people are people. Maybe that was why some of the “big bloggers” got it so wrong - they were expecting a backlash from people who wanted some of that limelight for themselves.

And yet that’s not what this was about…

The furore over whether Valenti’s book was inclusive of women of colour (apologies to fellow Brits - we just don’t use that phrase here, but I’ll use it rather than any of the Brit alternatives) wasn’t about jealousy over not getting a book deal, personal issues with the author or the rest. It was about an accusation that has been made about feminism since the very beginning: that feminism is largely a movement for well-off white women talking amongst themselves and that issues of importance to non-white women are systematically marginalised. This is a HUGE issue, and the response from many of the WoC bloggers out there shows that it is one that strikes a chord with them. Saying that it’s not important is simply not an option when there are so many many women out there telling you that it is.

As feminists we hate it when left-wing men tell us to suck it up about our issues because talking about them is “divisive”. Why can’t we white feminists get that it’s just as patronising and just as wrong...to ask non-white feminists to shut up about their issues?

...Chris Clarke wrote a great post for Pandagon back in April as a guide for men (written in response to the Kathy Sierra online harassment situation and the way in which it was dismissed by Kos, one of the big liberal blogs). I can’t imagine a single feminist who won’t have read it and nodded along...

...You know what, everyone? Shut the fuck up. Listen to what fellow feminist bloggers are telling you. They feel marginalised and ignored in a movement whose goal is equality and whose members are quite able to spot a man exercising his privilege at a thousand paces, yet somehow can’t see how a white feminist could be doing the same thing.

It’s hard not to put on the blinkers when a friend is being criticised. It’s even harder when it seems like you are being criticised. But we ask men to do this all the time. We say “it’s not about you - you don’t have to identify with the people who happen to have the same chromosomes as you but who act like assholes“. So take off the blinkers, listen and learn. If we can’t do this for our friends and allies amongst non-white women, how can we expect men to do it either? We owe it to ourselves but, most of all, we owe it to the women around us.

on edit: also see:

You are not the default at tiny cat pants.

Carnival of Radical Action

Sylvia, picking up bfp's initiative, is launching:

I think we should move on with this, and so I’ll repost BFP’s call for submissions here. Please advertise this on your blogs so we can get maximum participation for this first attempt.

Announcing:

The Carnival of Radical Action

Most of us are organizers or activists in our real lives. Or at the very least, we think about it an awful lot and wish we had the skills and/or knowledge to organize. But contrary to the images of protest that make front pages and cause our hearts to swell–actual organizing is not as easy as it looks–nor is it very glamorous.

More often than not, the process it takes to actually get to the glamorous protest part is boring, tedious, filled with infighting, or done by one or two overburdened people who haven’t quite figured out how to say no.

And yet, the organizing part is so vitally important to achieving liberation (whatever that may be). It was through tons and tons of grass roots organizing and hard work that the right managed to come to power in the U.S. the way it has. The Zapatistas and the U.S. based Civil Rights movement both also have a history of achieving goals towards liberation through grassroots organizing.

So how does one go about doing this grassroots organizing?

That’s what this carnival is all about. I will be accepting any posts/submissions that have anything to do with organizing on a grassroots level. Some topic ideas that you might feel inclined to think about:

How do you do radical leftist organizing in the Midwest [or wherever you are]? How do you confront racism/sexism/disableism/homophobia/classism etc within your group? How do you work with a community instead of on a community? How do you confront accessibility issues (that is, you’re all working class mothers and there’s rarely a time to meet or the site where you meet is not wheelchair accessible etc)? What’s been the major problem/setback your group has faced? How did it over come it? What has been a successful tactic in your organizing (for example, you found that taking pictures of violent cops and posting them online is more successful in stopping the abuse than reporting them to their superiors)? If you’re a life time activist, what are some problems you see today with organizing compared to when you first started? Or, if you’ve never organized before, write about why you never have.

This carnival will be about sharing strategies more than finding a “right” answer. In the world we face today where there are so many intersecting forms of oppression, one answer will not fit every community. But something that worked for one community might work for another if they alter it and adjust it to suit their own needs.

[…]

DEADLINE: MAY 25th
and the carnival will be posted on May 27th.

I’ll be waiting!

and many thanks to fire fly for motivating me to organize this!

You can post links to your submissions in the comments or e-mail them to me at sylviasrevenge at gmail dot com.

Let’s turn this idea into an excellent carnival in honor of BFP and our dedication to human rights.

She's got a point there, kids.

I have very ambivalent feelings toward the whole glass half full/half empty thing these days. I come from a long line of Chicken Littles, I am well aware of my own hereditary and learn'd response to immediately start projecting the direst possible outcome for, like, a hangnail. What I've firmly come to believe: most of the time, That Doesn't Help. (which does not, please note, mean that I won't do it anyway a fair percentage of the time. I'm working on it.)

but, as Liz reminds me, there -are- times when just melting down into an incoherent primal puddle is really the only -sane- response. And:

Another common response to a meltdown was for a concerned onlooker to try to silence my uproar (or end my silence) by trying to rope me into denial, minimizing the problem. "Oh, it's probably nothing!" they might chirp gaily, gazing past the swollen lymph nodes that had ballooned up overnight to the size of hens' eggs. Or, "A 104 degree fever's not so high! Six weeks isn't such a long time to wait for treatment! That enormous needle they're about to stab straight into your bone could be a lot longer! You're going to be fine, you've just got to quit being so negative."

I've bitched about the whole bootstraps-happyface attitude thing repeatedly, but let me sum it up here by saying this: It's tantamount to an American sitting in a nice safe suburban living room offering glib advice to somebody who's screaming and cowering in burning exploding Baghdad basement. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a bit?" the glib American says. "Sure, another bomb could fall on you any minute, or armed soldiers could rush in there in a blast of gunfire and wipe out your entire family. But you know what, a meteorite could also fall on me any minute, and I could die too. But you don't hear me screaming, do you? You just can't spend your whole life being upset and freaked out! Now get out there and enjoy every minute you have left with a positive attitude, and stop subjecting us to these annoying meltdowns."

The kids are all right...

brownfemipower watches this video about the T. Don Hutton facility, which basically boils down to a prison for "illegal" children as young as two years old;



(try not to read too many of the comments at YouTube; it tends to undermine the glimmer of basic faith in humanity that follows here)

...and takes from it the following conclusion:

I watched this video and all I could think was how does the eternal feminist focus on abortion shut these girls out of their rightful place as leaders in a feminist movement?

But you know what? Young women are doing it spite of us all. Young feminists will be reckoned with.

And it is only to our shame that we have done nothing in our own work to support them.

A quick note about those hyperlinks:

1) The Center for Young Womens' Development-Opportunities for High-Risk Young Women

The Center for Young Women's Development (CYWD) is one of the first non-profits in the United States run and led entirely by young women. From the beginning, we have organized young women who were the most marginalized in San Francisco — those in the street economies and the juvenile justice system — to design and deliver peer-to-peer education and support.

2) NPR clip about some Detroit and Milwaukee teenagers' protest of a recently imposed policy (perhaps soon to be coming to a mall near you) wherein malls now are restricting teenagers unaccompanied by an adult from attending on weekends. also see: Detroit Summer,

a multi-racial, inter-generational collective in Detroit, working to transform ourselves and our communities by confronting the problems we face with creativity and critical thinking. We currently organize youth-led media arts projects and community-wide potlucks, speak-outs and parties.

3) Sista II Sista: Freedom School for Young Women of Color

The Sista II Sista Freedom School for Young Women of Color was created in 1996 to involve young women in personal and political development through an exploration of cultural identity, community organizing, and long term relationship building. The Freedom School consists of interactive workshops, physical activities, field trips, organized action projects, and a “herstory” project.

4) Young Women's Empowerment Project

Our mission as the Young Women’s Empowerment Project is to offer safe, respectful, free-of-judgment spaces for girls and young women impacted by the sex trade and street economies to recognize their goals, dreams and desires. We are run by girls and women with life experience in the sex trade and street economies. We are a youth leadership organization grounded in harm reduction and social justice organizing by and for girls and young women (ages 12-23) impacted by the sex trade and street economies.

Other sites worth checking out:

Girl-Mom: support, education and community for young mamas

Queer Today article on Anti-Violence Project's to protest the ban on under-21 club nights in Boston, which has a particular impact on LBGTQ youth (who have fewer alternatives for congregating)

the section on queer youth in Asia at Sayoni Speaks (English articles start partway down the page, keep scrolling)


Next Genderation Network,

a transnational European network of students, researchers and activists with an interest in feminist theory and politics, and their intersections with anti-racist, migrant, lesbian, queer and anti-capitalist struggles.

Hey, thanks, seriously.

The Booman Tribune writes an open letter to the rest of the A-list:

Update [2007-4-14 23:19:14 by Steven D]: I've sent emails to all of the A-List bloggers listed below at the contact email addresses listed at their blogs, with a link to this post, and a request that they consider responding to what Kos wrote about Kathy Sierra. Hopefully those emails will be read by the persons to whom I addressed them.

Dear A-List Bloggers (including, but not limited to, Atrios, Joshua Micah Marshall, Jane Hamsher, Arianna Huffington, John Amato, Glenn Greenwald and John Aravosis):

Surely by now, you have become aware that Markos posted some really stupid shit at his blog about Kathy Sierra. Basically, he downplayed the death threats and rape threats she received in order to argue that censorship of online speech is a bad idea. Which it is.

The trouble with Markos' post is that it was incredibly -- well -- incredibly misogynistic and callous toward Ms. Sierra's plight, to say the least. And a large number of us B and C (and even lesser letter) list bloggers have called him on it...

(pass it on)

and yeah, this is the sort of shit that needs to be done more often, and nope, it's not limited to this particular incident or issue. Big fleas have little fleas, etc. etc. The kickers need to be kicked, the watchers watched, and called on their shit. We all have a voice; the Internets, at least, is about direct as well as representative democracy; further, just because the online "representatives" aren't elected politicians doesn't mean they don't still depend on our "vote." Or are sufficiently outside the box that they can't be held accountable to the people they're supposedly (taking up the slack that the pros have dropped) representing.

or, put another way, by Bitch Ph.D.:

The voices of vulnerable people matter too. Maybe even more than the voices of those of us who aren't easily intimidated. And let's get something straight: what needs to happen isn't that the recipients of death threats need to shrug them off. What needs to happen is that those of us who have a fairly weighty online presence need to say, in no uncertain terms, that threats and harassment and sexism and racism and homophobia and all that other offensive shit is flat-out unacceptable, both in real life and online.

TV Guide capsule version:

Here is a chart for you it is simple and easy to remember:

Stop being such an asshole.

Making the same jokes you made in the 7th Grade, when you are an adult interacting with other adults, generally makes you an asshole. So just stop it. If you don’t we are well within our rights to call you an asshole.

Contrary to what this adolescent “politically incorrect” popular culture might have told you that is not a worthy thing to be.

--commenter ellenbrenna over at feministe

Quote of the day, 4/11/07

In response to this:

Just because it makes you have an orgasm, doesn't make it ok.
Think about *why* you might have an orgasm that way.
Put it in a political and gendered context. Think.

(you can find the link to the author of that little gem by going to The Strangest Alchemy; I don't -feel- like linking to her directly)

No.

I refuse to play by your rules any more. I refuse to stop and think because you told me to. I refuse to accept that I have not thought enough about anything at all.

I refuse to think so you motherfuckers don't have to.

--trin

YES goddamit

The Scarlet Pervygirl asks, semi-rhetorically:

Can you ever fight for something? That seems like a ridiculous thing to say: I'm fighting for freedom, or my rights, or some kid named Julia. I don't think it works that way. There may be a reason you ended up in a fight, and one effect of the fight may be the change you want made, but fights themselves are not for anything, but against something.

...And yet I think again of Oscar Wilde, who rather than putting forth effort to change the homophobic, class-based culture in which he lived and with which he was (I think it's not going too far to say) unsatisfied decided to not let it ruffle him any more than a breeze ruffles an emerald and went and spent his life playing with peacock feathers.

But didn't that take effort? I wouldn't say that his was a refusal to put forth effort so much as it was an effort to frame the engagement strictly on his terms...

rest the rest of that entry, and while you're at it have i ever mentioned that y'all need to be reading this woman regularly? I mean, this whole entry, short, sweet and strange:

03 April 2007
Things I would have shown you if you were here: *Bakery of Dr Moreau* Edition

* In the foyer of the classroom building, a sign, neatly scripted in noticeable bubble letters reading "Free Brownies," taped to a completely bare and unattended table; it was still there an hour-and-a-half later when I left, but neither brownies nor an explanation were in evidence.

* The lumpen cakes at the grocery store, iced white and with new-mouse-pink frosting feet, WEARING LARGE BUNNY MASKS DEAR GOD. They were so frightening I have no choice but to use all caps in describing them. I think they were keeping them under plastic lids to prevent them from eating people. Whoever buys one of those things is in for the fight of her life, let me tell you.

Finally: some GOOD news

Via Anti-Essentialist Conundrum:

Shaquanda Cotton [to be] released

also at the Chicago Tribune

HOUSTON -- Shaquanda Cotton, the black teenager in the small east Texas town of Paris whose prison sentence of up to 7 years for shoving a teacher's aide sparked nationwide controversy, will be released Saturday morning, prison officials confirmed on Friday.

Her release, ordered by a special conservator appointed to overhaul the state's scandal-ridden juvenile prison system, is the first of what could be hundreds as a panel of civil rights leaders begins reviewing the sentences of every youth incarcerated by the Texas Youth Commission to weed out those being held arbitrarily.

...


"We have no confidence in the system that was in place," said Jim Hurley, spokesman for the conservator, Jay Kimbrough. "And this case is an example of what we expect to happen if something wrong has been done to youths being held inside that system.

...Cotton, who is 15, had no prior criminal record when she was incarcerated a year ago under an indeterminate sentence that could have lasted until her 21st birthday. Her case rose to national prominence and became the focus of ongoing civil rights protests after a March 12 Tribune story detailed how a 14-year-old white girl convicted of the more serious crime of arson was sentenced to probation by the same judge.

Cotton's case occurred against a backdrop of persistent allegations of racial discrimination inside the Paris public schools—allegations that are the subject of a continuing probe by the U.S. Department of Education to determine whether black students in the district are disciplined more harshly than whites.

"When I learned about this case, I thought, this just looks so bad and smells so bad it made me hurt," said state Rep. Harold Dutton, the influential chairman of the Texas Legislature's juvenile justice committee. "I told [prison officials] I wanted her out of there immediately."

he superintendent of the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex in Brownwood, Texas, where Shaquanda Cotton is being held, called the girl's mother, Creola Cotton, Friday afternoon and told her she could come pick up the youth, Creola Cotton said.

But because it is a five-hour drive from Paris to Brownwood, and the weather in the area on Friday was severe, Creola Cotton said she couldn't reach the prison until Saturday morning.

Later Friday, prison officials, who had not told Shaquanda of her impending release, allowed her to call her mother.

'She nearly fell on the floor'

"She thought they were bringing her to the office to tell her I was not going to be able to visit this weekend like I was planning because of the bad weather, so she was already crying," Creola Cotton said. "I said, 'Oh, I'm still gonna come see you tomorrow. But you're going to be coming home with me.' She nearly fell on the floor."
"

(more)

she's right, you know

Emily1 (there are -way- too many Emilys in my personal 'sphere. -way-. cut it out, will you? all you Emilys with your "E's" and your "y's" and your...confusingness), that is, here:

at the end of my last comment on this thread, i demonstrated a profound and astonishing ability to state the obvious: atrios and markos attained their A list status because _everyone_ links to them. A list blogs have a strong tendency to link only to each other. however, the A list pioneers did not make themselves into A listers. they got where they are because lesser known bloggers linked to them in increasing numbers.

while A listers individually have the power to be kingmakers, the multitude of lesser known blogs hasn't lost its ability to do the same. standing outside the warm glow of the A list circle jerk and crying because the kool kidz won't invite you to their parties is the fastest way to get labeled a whiny loser whether it's true or not. it only increases the A list aura because kool kidz get to be kool kidz only because of all the people pining away for their approval and attention. if no one gave a crap, or if most people managed to pretend that they didn't, the kool kidz would magically transform into dorks with unjustifiably large egos.

the crowd outside the A list circle is bigger and more diverse than the A list. if you're complaining that the A listers slammed the door shut behind them, stop. just stop it. haul your butt over to your computer and start exploring the vast territory of liberal blogs with fewer than three thousand visitors a day and LINK to them on your OWN blog and encourage others to do the same instead of wondering why atrios and markos aren't doing all of this work for the good of the liberal blogosphere.

not that y'all who read here don't do this already. but the rest of you. who...um, aren't reading this. but, you should be. so there.

Good idea. Timely, too.

Via Blue Gal: an upcoming blogswarm, Blog Against Theocracy.

There are no real guidelines to this. The idea is to post at least once from Friday to Sunday Easter Weekend, April 6-8.

The post will be against theocracy, in favor of our Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state. But there are a LOT of issues tied to this, as is pointed out in the First Freedom First website:

No religious discrimination.
PRO End-of-Life Care (no more Terri Schiavo travesties)
Reproductive health decisions made by individuals, not religious "majorities"
Democracy not Theocracy
Academic Integrity (like, a rock is as old as it is, not as old as the Bible says)
Sound Science (good bye so-called "intelligent" design)
Respect for ALL families (based on love, not sexual orientation. Hellooooo.)
And finally,
The right to worship, OR NOT.

So take your pick and write your post(s). Really, the wider variety of topics makes it all the more interesting.

When you've posted, email the url of your post to bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com. I'll be posting links as quickly as I can that weekend.