Hey, it’s the 24th. Merry Christmas, for those of you who do that sort of thing. (Me, I have my own way of celebrating Xmas – I call it “time and a half day”).
(I’m going to be traveling more or less nonstop for the next five or six days, by the way, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to check in on “Alas” in that time.)
Please feel free to use this thread to discuss anything, including posting links to anything you think is cool (including your own stuff – in fact, posting links to your own stuff is encouraged!).
People In Our Blogging Community Need Help
If you have even five bucks you can spare, now’s the time to hit the donation buttons on the sidebars at:
Black Amazon’s place. BA is broke because she got ticketed in an empty subway car by the NYC Transit Cops (for those of us without perfect vision, you have to kneel on the seat to be able to read the tiny print on the maps!) Note: You’ll have to go to BFP’s front page to find the donate button!
Wampum, which does a huge service to the entire lefty blogosphere by running the annual Koufax Awards, but needs a new hard drive on their server to make it happen.
Shakespeare’s Sister, where a combination of a car accident and long-term unemployment is turning SS’s wallet into an echo chamber.
Brownfemipower is looking for help attending a variety of academic conferences which will be otherwise be Brownfemipower-less, which would be a loss for all parties.
And Bitch|Lab is fundraising for mysterious purposes a new host after her old hosting was attacked by hackers (see her comment in the comments). You can click through on her ads to help her out, or donate on the right sidebar, or get her a lead on some work in Web design, Web development, editing, proofing, graphic design, book design, or database development.
Please, if you can drop just a few bucks into a few of these fine blogs, do so. I’ll do the same.
* * *
Sandy D’s presents: The 29th Carnival Of The Feminists!
Shaenon: Why Everyone Should Hate Anthony
This post, a feminist-informed critique of the character “Anthony” in the comic strip For Better Or For Worse, is the best post I’ve read all week. And, sadly, it convinced me that it’s not just me getting tired of the strip; For Better Or For Worse really has lost a lot of its spark.
Obsidian Wings: Carrying Water Has A Huge Impact On Third World Women’s Lives
Think about spending 660 hours a year just collecting water — and often pretty vile water at that. An hour and 48 minutes a day. Think about 40 billion wasted hours, hours that might have been spent working, caring for children, or doing any number of productive or interesting things.
Washington Post: My Life As an Open-Identity Sperm Donor
Youtube: Mary Poppins, The Horror Movie Remix
Brilliant! The best I’ve seen since the remix of The Shining. Curtsy: Boing Boing, The Disney Blog.
YouTube: Dude, I’m Deaf
Far better to be hearing-less than clueless. Curtsy: a fabulous post at Making Light about how some Deaf people are using YouTube as a public forum for Sign speakers.
The Debate Link: Young Black Men, The Cops, And “Existing While Black”
The Gimp Parade: The Best Gimp Parade Posts of 2006!
One of my favorite bloggers (and an occasional “Alas” contributor). The best of Blue is guaranteed good reading – check it out.
The Gimp Parade: Finding The Langauge, Making The Connections
Blue bounces off of Richard’s recent post about male survivors of sexual abuse and adds thoughts of her own.
Feministing: Interview About Immigration and Lesbian And Gay Issues
Box Turtle Bulletin: Another Scientist Objects To Focus On The Family’s Anti-Gay Distortion Of Their Research
Follow the links at the bottom of the post for more info.
Making Light: The News Media Have Sided With The Privileged Elite
Big Queer Blog: Why Gender-Neutral Pronouns Don’t Work For Me
The Debate Link: Why A “Top 10%” Alternative To Affirmative Action Does Far More Harm Than AA
Blackfeminism.org: Why Aren’t More Black Women Married?
Clue: It’s not because of the bias of bridal magazines.
The Infamous Brad: Is “It’s Cold Outside” The Date-Rape Christmas Carol?
Brad says “yes”; I think “it can be, but it depends on how the female singer interprets her role” is a more accurate take on it. But I’m just being pedantic. (Thanks, AJ!)
Latina Lista: Why Are Latino Candidates For Office So Often Dismissed As “Unqualified”?
Planet of the Blind: Thoughts Regarding A Guy Wearing A Gorilla Mask At A Bus Stop
And check out Connie’s followup , as well.
Geogreeting: Your name or message spelled out in sattilite photos of buildings. Neat!
Blackprof: China, the Adoption Market, and the Demand For Healthy Non-Black Babies
Thinking Girl: Reflections On Barbie
The National Student Genderblind Campaign
These folks advocate for gender-neutral policies in college housing for bathrooms and dorm rooms. Curtsy: Hugo.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Many Muslims Have Simply Never Heard Of The Holocaust
The Guardian: Interesting Article About “Orthodoxia”
Taken from the Greek “ortho” (meaning “correct” or “true”), this term was first coined by a Californian doctor, Steven Bratman, in 1997, to describe a “fixation on righteous eating”. It refers to people who, while generally not as extreme in their limitations as Hackney, are obsessed with healthy eating, concerned with quality rather than quantity, refining and restricting their diets according to their own personal understanding of which foods are truly pure.
Rabble News: Excellent Article About Working For Iraqi Women’s Rights In Iraq
CM Lee: Latin@ American Citizens Sue INS For Illegal Raids And Harrassment
The agent twisted Perez’s arm behind his back and held him that way for 10 minutes while other agents searched his home and property. The agent then suggested Perez and his family should leave the area for two weeks to avoid any more such incidents.
YouTube: This kitten falling asleep is so cute it’s almost painful.
On The Whole: Incredibly offensive, anti-fat program airs on public radio.
Screw Bronze!: On Being Female And Over Six Feet Tall
Because height is a key part of how our society determines masculinity, tall women are societally often viewed as unfeminine….
Racialicious: Odd Trend Of “Ask A Racial Minority” Columns Being Used To Endorse Misogyny
Cerebus Fans Take Note: New Comic Strips by Dave Sim
These three odd strips, about a Canadian actress I’ve never heard of, are lighter than lightweight, but diehard Sim fanatics will want to take a look. The first two strips are drawn in Sim’s Al-Williamson-esque style; the third is done in Sim’s more lively and slightly cartoony style, which for my taste is far more interesting to look at.
The Silence Of Our Friends: Free Anti-Virus Software
Donna has the current scoop on which free anti-virus software is good. I’m linking it here because I need to get around to installing some of that stuff on my own computer, and putting it on the blog makes it unlikely I’ll lose the link. But hey, maybe it’ll be useful to some “Alas” readers as well. :-)
There were too many good posts from Junkfood Science for me to pick just one to link to… so here’s a bunch!
Junkfood Science: The Holiday Weight Gain Is Mostly a Myth
Junkfood Science: Some Health Benefits Of Being Fat
Junkfood Science: Being Fat Does Not Increase The Odds Of A Miscarriage
Junkfood Science: On Mass Hysteria
Nutrition Today: It’s Not Healthy To Cut Fat Out Of Kid’s Diets
One of the principal worldwide goals of public health practice is to provide adequate nutrition for children. In the Third World, this goal is not attained because of the lack of food. In the Western World, this goal is in jeopardy because of unwise recommendations from expert committees that fat in the diets of children be restricted in the vain hope that this measure will prevent coronary artery disease many decades later. (Found via an excellent Junkfood Science post on the subject).
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where we think every day is Christmas Eve, because we’re just that clueless. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]
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Lumping special diets in as a disorder, point blank, is quite silly. I have a friend who once required insulin for diabetes and now does not; she has been maintaining on a raw diet for something like ten years. (She isn’t skinny, either.) The explanations for why it works are mostly ridiculous (I have my own theories having to do with caloric reduction / longevity, and minimizing the types of sugars that form when foods cook) but it does work for some actual people.
She agrees with me, however, that the community is frequently several carrots short of a salad, and quick to jump on any piece of paranoia that comes around.
As far as I can tell, most of these dietary systems are for specific health purposes (before the trend folks latch onto them as a “trend”, annoying everyone who actually needs the special diet) — avoiding food allergies is one example that is glaringly overlooked by the Guardian article. Gluten-free foods? Are not an example of disordered thinking, unless it is disordered to desire that one’s bowels not bleed, or one not feel sick all the time, in the case of a couple of my friends.
I am somewhat of a nut on making certain people get the food they need. When I met one of my partners, who has a non-fatal food allergy, he felt an internal sense of decorum against asking whether food would make him sick. I learned (being a naturally blunt person) to overcompensate on his behalf, and learned vast amounts of information about food allergies and sensitivities while I was at it.
I will add that I DO think orthorexia exists. Example at hand being those dieters who decide that because products are being advertised as gluten-free, gluten must be BAAD FOR EVERYONE, and run on accordingly. I have heard various complaints of “trend celiac”, i.e., no symptoms of any disorder but hypochondria and dietary zeal.
But the article is lousy journalism. Calling gluten-free, dairy-free, etc., foods a “trend” will mean that it is even harder for people with problems to be treated well. I don’t want it to become socially OK to feed your friends food that makes them sick.
We got kicked off line b/c the site was getting attacked. We lost the 8 months of hosting already paid and must find a new place. I can’t house it where my portfolio is since, when the site gets attacked, my portfolio goes offline. Lose all my hosting then. We’re told we have to get dedicated hosting, even though I do a fraction of the traffic even Alas gets. Very weird. We haven’t traced it to spammers yet, but it could be that. Don’t know. The host was very unhelpful and then just denied us access to any of our files so we could look at the logs.
As for the rest, oh the obvious answer is because we are no talent losers. Geez Amp, I thought that was obvious! Anyway thanks for the plug but I feel badly since, while my readers understand the saga, it’s weird to think about how to explain it all to people who have no idea who I am.
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Thanks, Amp. Mr. Shakes and I are much obliged. :-)
Happy Holidays!
adding a big thankyoukindly to mr. amp–and a happy holidays. hope you sleep well and laugh a lot tonight!
~bfp
Any interest at all in the evidence, or are you all a bunch of disillusioned losers?
[Thanks for that well-developed argument, Greg! The strength of your arguments has persuaded me completely. I’m wrong, you’re right. Thank you for presenting clear, logical argumentation that showed me the errors of my views. I bow to your superior rhetorical skills.
Clearly, your work here is done. You can go away now. –Amp]
I do realize it’s probably a bit silly to get agitated about a comic strip, but thanks for the For Better or for Worse link. The whole Anthony subplot is so silly–he marries a psychobitch for no apparent reason, she gets mad because he’s obviously still mooning after Elizabeth, and leaves him an eligible single dad who rescues Elizabeth from a rapist. Argh.
and speaking of comic strips….I find it odd that a feminist blogger would recommend Dave Sims’s work without comment.
As I’ve said on “Alas” on a couple of occasions, I think Cerebus was one of the best-written, best drawn-comics ever done, until Sim unfortunately went mad with woman-hating and the comic turned into a nicely-drawn misogyny-fest. So I agree, recommending Cerebus requires a lot of cautioning.
But the comic strips I linked to aren’t misogynistic (imo), and would only hold interest for people who already know who Dave Sim is – and so are already aware of his extreme anti-feminism and misogyny. Which is probably why it didn’t occur to me that I needed to mention it.
(Plus, let’s face it, I tend to write fast and sloppy when doing these link farm posts. :-P )
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Thanks for the FBOFW link! I now know why Anthony gives me the creeps.
And I’m also glad I’m not the only one who thought about date rape when listening to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
Anthony’s a loser. She should marry the cop who a) loves her and b) has shown a hell of a commitment by moving from where he was born and raised to where she lives to be with her.
Having said that; the cop needs to get his courage up and actually ASK HER TO MARRY HIM!
I’ve followed the comic because I’ve vacationed a few times in Canada and really like the people up there, and how it is different from the U.S. even though it appears to be similar.
Following on the theme of unproven rape accusations and the idea that men’s lives can be destroyed by such, I’ve opened the question on my own blog: here.
I’m looking for any enlightenment or links to studies on the effect such accusations can have on a man’s life.
Thanks to all who are able to respond.
Sophie
Took a look at the “feministing” blog entry. It started off with a deliberate misdirection:
First of all, there has come to be a belief in the current moment that immigration is bad for the United States.
What I’ve noticed is that in just about every left-wing argument about immigration, there is a concerted push to make it look as though their opposition is against immigration in general; whereas every right-wing argument I’ve ever heard takes pains to present their view as opposition to illegal immigration, but not to legal immigration. Why is it that the left-wing consistently tells the big lie?
And while I’m on the subject of illegal immigration, let me take notice of the CM Lee post on possible civil rights violations by the INS. If the INS people have been in fact harassing actual American citizens, then they should be disciplined and steps taken to ensure this kind of thing ceases.
Why is it that the left-wing consistently tells the big lie?
Because without it, their position is politically untenable.
Thank you for the link to our blog. And thank you again for all the links to all the other blogs. Great stuff!
RonF hasn’t personally ever heard a right-winger make an argument against any sort of legal immigraton; therefore, liberals are evil, Nazi-imitating liars. Did I miss anything?
If the INS people have been in fact harassing actual American citizens
Oh my. Have you EVER crossed a border? Or dealt with the agency formerly known as INS? (USCIS is the citizenship arm; ICE is the enforcement arm.)
RonF hasn’t personally ever heard a right-winger make an argument against any sort of legal immigraton; therefore, liberals are evil, Nazi-imitating liars. Did I miss anything?
A few things. First, you neglected to address why left-wing commentators on opposition to illegal immigration quite consistently conflate opposition to illegal immigration into opposition to immigration in general.
How often have you seen the term “anti-immigration” used by opponents to strictly enforcing existing immigration laws, building physical barriers on the Mexican/U.S. border and private citizens patrolling the border to describe supporters of the same? How often do they use the term “anti-illegal immigration”? It seems to me that this is a clear attempt to conflate the two so as to misrepresent the actual situation.
Second, you missed quoting where I called left-wingers (I don’t use the word “liberals”) evil or compared them to Nazis.
Oh my. Have you EVER crossed a border?
Yes. I have crossed the Canadian/U.S. border about a dozen times each way, sometimes with children not my own in tow and sometimes not; in the latter case, I must confess to having transported rather more alcohol than legally permitted (the Canadian taxes on alcohol are outrageous, but the real kicker is the inferior quality of Canadian beer to my tastes). I have also taken a trip to Japan, clearing customs in Narita (into Japan) and Dallas/Fort Worth (returning to the U.S.). I presented my passport, answered a number of fairly routine questions, my luggage was searched (upon going in and out of Japan only, not Canada), and off I went. The only thing that ever happened out of the ordinary was that I was told I had to take the bottle of Mongolian vodka out of the luggage I was checking and put it in my carry-on.
Why? Was something remarkable supposed to happen?
RonF: are you really going to tell me that you do not know the origin of the term “The Big Lie”?
If we’re going to play Proof By Anecdote, I have heard conservatives ‘quite consistently’ conflate legal with illegal immigrants; other conservatives have put the issue as not one of legal vs. illegal but as Central American vs. the “right” sort. (I don’t, however, pretend that I am talking about all conservatives.)
As for immigration, I grew up on a border; I petitioned to have my (now-ex) husband immigrate legally; I’ve volunteered at legal clinics to help people normalize their immigration status. I’m glad that your dozen or so times was without incident, but kindly don’t make the error of thinking you’ve therefore proved that USCIS is the gentle bunny rabbit of government agencies. I am only about half-joking when I say that I suspect the former INS was a Cold War experiment in which the CIA attempted to make a ‘shadow’ Soviet bureaucracy for study, which got out of hand.
As far as I can see, the ‘big lie” here is that conservatives are generally anti-immigration. I’m not trying to prove anything by anecdote.
As far as “thinking you’ve therefore proved that USCIS is the gentle bunny rabbit of government agencies”, I fail to see where I attempted to prove or even imply any such thing. You are the one who brought that concept up, and you also are the one who asked me to bring up my border-crossing experiences.
I went to the Box Turtle blog and read the entry. The researcher said:
I certainly agree that boys suffer from a lack of positive men in their lives but I am at pains to point out that positive men are often as much lacking in two parent households as they are in lone mother (or two mother) households.
Hm. Based on my observations during 14+ years of volunteer work in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, I’d support the idea that there are some two-parent families out there that lack a positive male presence. Hell, that’s why some moms bring their sons by and sign them up. But it seems to me that simple math would argue against “positive men are often as much lacking in two parent households are they are in lone mother (or two mother) househ0lds.”
In checking out the Latina Lista: Why Are Latino Candidates For Office So Often Dismissed As “Unqualified”?, I got interested in the question of Port Chester presented there. In the first paragraph, we see:
“For example, right now in Port Chester, New York, a municipality that has more than 46 percent of its population identified as Hispanic, there is not one Latino elected official on its six-member Board of Trustees.”
Which sounds pretty interesting. It turns out that Port Chester’s trustees are all elected at-large; there are no districts. But even so, it would take a pretty concerted effort by the non-Hispanic portion of the electorate to not elect even a single Hispanic trustee.
So I read the original story from the link in the posting. At the very end, we find:
In an interview Friday, Mayor Gerald Logan denounced the lawsuit, saying that voter apathy, not discrimination, was the primary problem in Port Chester. With roughly 21,600 residents 18 years and over, more than 3,000 of whom are believed to be Hispanic, a total of only 2,600 residents voted in the last election, Logan said.
A couple of observations from that and figures from the Wikipedia entry for Port Chester, New York:
1) If the mayor’s figures and the Census 2000 figures are consistent, then there are 3000 Hispanics 18 years old or older in the city and there are 9000 Hispanic children. If all 3000 Hispanics over 18 years old were balanced evenly between male and female and paired off and had kids, each couple would have 6 kids. I think the conditions I posit are unlikely, so somebody’s figures are off, or someone’s lying about their race to the census.
2) If the Hispanic residents thought this was a big enough deal that they got out and voted, they could elect Hispanics to every seat on the BoT. If even less than half the Hispanics turned out (42% would do it), they would be more than half the turnout and could elect all the Hispanics they wanted to. So either the Hispanics don’t care enough to turn out, or they are and they’re not voting for Hispanic candidates.
3) So I think the Mayor’s got a point; if only 12% of the electorate turned out to vote, I think the DoJ should defer to the voters. The DoJ’s job is to make sure that the rights guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution and Federal law are enforced. There do not seem to be any allegations that any one is being denied access to the ballot box or to electoral candidacy. Seems to me that the DoJ is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
As far as I can see, the ‘big lie” here is that conservatives are generally anti-immigration.
That would be a ‘big lie’ propounded by you, in your insistence that ‘left-wing arguments’ (grammatically, as you know, that means all left-wing arguments, not a particular blogger) deliberately and maliciously portray right-wingers as blanket nativists; and again, please don’t pretend that your use of the phrase “big lie” was accidental.
I fail to see where I attempted to prove or even imply any such thing
I was just highly amused at your surprise that “INS” might ever harass citizens. The short version is, they have an enormous amount of power and virtually no checks or oversight. If I didn’t know Robert better, I’d be astonished that a self-professed anti-jackbooted-thug libertarian type had anything nice to say about USCIS et al.
What did I say nice about USCIS?
My bad. You had nice things to say about RonF for bemoaning the evil liberals, not USCIS directly. I must have been anticipating.
I don’t see where I claimed that my use of the phrase “big lie” was accidental.
I will grant that I should make it clear that those left-wing arguments that I have seen seem to uniformly use the phrase ‘anti-immigration’ conflated to ‘anti-illegal immigration’. Fair enough.
What disturbs me most, though, is that I see that phrase picked up uncritically by the mainstream media, who should really be more on the ball as far as the political spin that phrase represents. The right would hold that as anti-conservative bias, but I lean more towards “sloppy thinking/editing”.
Of course, since you see the same mainstream media arguing that liberals are for unfettered immigration. (This gets flipped around when we’re talking about work visas, where liberals are portrayed as old-school protectionists hurting America’s future, while conservatives are greedy exploiters of other nations’ naive professional classes.)
I don’t see where I claimed that my use of the phrase “big lie” was accidental.
I was giving you an out in case you really were not trying to liken liberals to Nazis. Again, my bad.
OK, mythago. If you aren’t for unfettered immigration, what are you for? What should the quotas be, and how should we assign them?
(Here’s my answer to those questions, more or less.)
As I’ve said previously and you chose to ignore, Robert, I’m opposed to ‘unfettered immigration’ and for controlling our borders. If you want my Grand Immigration Plan, I’m afraid the situation is rather more complicated, and when I rule the universe I’ll assign it to a think tank. But, broadly: reform immigration services so the left hand knows what the right hand is doing; create temporary worker programs that allow people to be here legally without being indentured servants; give preference to nations that have more transparent security and are cooperative (i.e. nations that don’t ship off their undesirables and that don’t have an interest in sending us terrorists). Oh, and allow same-sex couples to fall under ‘married’ immigration allotments.
Seems reasonable, Mythago. But you’ll never become queen of the universe with a delegate-to-think-tanks approach. It’s pretty much full Mongol or nothing.
Thanks for the links.
I’m been dealing with the insurance, because some unknown party(driving a blue and white large-sized vehicle) smashed their vehicle into a wall of my garage and damaged it pretty badly in the front, without leaving a note and I’ve got jury duty, which is great in terms of doing the civic duty but I’d have a better chance getting on “American Idol” than a jury in my county, lol. We don’t have a civil court right now, as all the county’s civil cases are being sent to other counties because we have too many criminal trials that have to be done by their deadlines so there’s a lot of news editorials being written now about needing to get more judges on the bench.
Hmmm. Calling the likes of the Minutemen patriots is a conflation of the situation intended to misrepresent the situation. Just as tying in the United State’s southern border with the terrorists involved in 9-11.
Hmmm. Calling the likes of the Minutemen patriots is a conflation of the situation intended to misrepresent the situation. Just as tying in the United State’s southern border with the terrorists involved in 9-11.
I just searched through this thread and could not find an upthread mention of either “patriot” or “Minutemen”. What are you talking about?
Don’t worry about yourself abit it, it’s just a play on an earlier statement that you made about “anti-illegal immigration” being conflated into “anti-immigration”.
To find this sentiment, you would have to extend your search to other similar threads. Sorry.
I used to read For Better or For Worse ages ago, so thanks for that link.
Regarding the last article on the list, “It’s Not Healthy to Cut Fat Out of Kids’ Diets”. There’s some things that a lot of people don’t know about fat:
1) Fats (not exactly a technical term, so I’ll apply it loosely here) are a necessary structural component of every single cell in your body.
2) There are a number of different kinds of fatty acids in the kinds of fats that make up these structures.
3) Some of these fatty acids can be made by your body, but others cannot and can only be obtained through your diet. If your body doesn’t have access to these Essential Fatty Acids, you will have health problems.
4) Numerous vitamins are lipid-soluble (lipids being fats, oils, cholesterol, among others) and can only be absorbed well by your body if they are accompanied in your diet by fats.
Fats are a necessity in a human diet. Cutting out the wrong kinds and/or amount of fats is a good thing. But cutting out fats indiscriminately is unhealthy.
Hey thanks for the link to Racialicious, and happy new year! (I’m slowly but surely catching up on my blog/email reading)
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Ooo, I guess I’d fallen behind on my reading. While Shaenon may think that everyone should hate Anthony, that ship has sailed. It looks like it’s time to hold our peace.
Ooo, I guess I’d fallen behind on my reading. While Shaenon may think that everyone should hate Anthony, that ship has sailed. It looks like it’s time to hold our peace.