- Hermit shells face a housing shortage. A proposed solution: artificial shells for Hermit crabs. I can’t decide if this is parody or not. Via Majikthise.
- Excellent letter to Paul Krugman regarding his recent anti-fat editorial. Via Big Fat Blog.
- Federal Immigration Officers think up a policy guaranteed to kill immigrants – a sting operation disguised as an OSHA (occupational safety and health administration) meeting, putting the lie to decades of effort by OSHA to convince illegal immigrants that they can talk to OSHA without fear. These racist, evil fucks deserve to be shot – no, to be buried alive in an industrial accident – but since the Bush administration is in charge, probably they’ll be given raises.
- Reseach study ironically shows that one-third of all research studies are wrong.
- “I understand that you’re upset,” one officer said, “but there’s no ramp, so you shouldn’t be in here, and the restaurant has the right not to serve you.”
- Often, the self-proclaimed nice guy wants special credit for just for being nice. It’s as if he wants you to exclaim, “Oh, you poor fellow. What a burden it must be to treat women as you’d like to be treated. Above and beyond, old chap. Above and beyond!” I’m all for niceness, but I consider it a basic moral requirement for all humans, not a special bonus feature.
- A propos of yesterday’s female genital mutilation vs. plastic surgery thread, I bring you, courtesy of Knotted Knickers, the jaw-droppingly sadistic Designer Laser Vaginoplasty. I invite you to scrutinize the countenance of the gynecologist/pyschopath who performs these mutilations, and ask yourself, “is this the face of a man who should be anywhere near my pussy with a laser?”
- I remember being young and naive and truly shocked at how girls who were just harassing me with a tenacity that would get them promoted in the SS could turn around and demure and flutter around popular boys like they were born to toady. And you find yourself thinking, “Man, if those guys only knew…” And from that moment, you can see how sexism perpetuates itself. Because if the boys didn’t know consciously, they knew subconsciously. Girls who show immense ruthlessness and power to the nerds and geeks and then toady to the jocks are reinforcing the power of the jocks. That they can expect their lessers to enforce the status quo for them is the jock privilege.
- Should a temporary majority of 50.7 percent have control over the entire United States government? Should 49.3 percent of Americans have no influence over the nation’s trajectory for the next generation? Those are the stakes in the coming fight over the next Supreme Court justice. The much-maligned “outside groups” preparing for battle over President Bush’s choice deserve credit for openly acknowledging this struggle for power.
- The trouble with being stuck with the whole “women want to be equal” instead of “let’s revolutionize this society so it’s better for everybody,” is that you get stuck, again, with “male” being the norm. So instead of revolutionizing the workplace so we’ve got onsite childcare, or better, can have kids hanging out acting as interns at the workplace and functioning as members of society instead of subordinates, we just figure, hey, the parents will work and just hire somebody to take care of the kid, like a wife.
- In contrast to the existing explanations, this study shows that suicide terrorism follows a strategic logic, one specifically designed to coerce modern liberal democracies to make significant territorial concessions. Moreover, over the past two decades, suicide terrorism has been rising largely because terrorists have learned that it pays.
Immigrants who are legal according to the "I support LEGAL immigration" crowd: 1) Hot asian women who date older divorced…
Argh! I’m conflicted.
On the one hand, hermit crabs should learn to be self-reliant and stop looking to other species for a handout. Lazy fuckers.
On the other hand, corporate sponsorship of hermit crab artificial housing would increase the pervasiveness of capitalism and bring another piece of nature into its proper role as a subordinate of human hegemony. Which would be a good thing.
Solution: make the hermit crabs pay for the housing! I’m not sure where they’d come up with the money; perhaps they could select a certain portion of their species to be sacrificed and turned into gumbo each year, and the seafood chain that gets the gumbo would also provide the housing. Kind of a barter deal. (Can’t expect these lower life forms to grasp the full-blown nature of the capitalist project on their first time out.)
Should a temporary majority of 50.7 percent have control over the entire United States government? Should 49.3 percent of Americans have no influence over the nation’s trajectory for the next generation?
Right. That’s what happens when you lose a presidential election. The same question could have been asked to even greater effect in 1992, when Clinton won only a plurality of 42% of the vote. But of course, even Orrin Hatch recognized that Clinton as President had the right to appoint liberals to the Supreme Court, as Clinton did.
Amp, given your earlier cartoons about Coke overseas, you might be interested in this, as well:
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2005/1077.html
Thanks for the link, Alsis.
Robert, how about advertisements printed on the outside of the false shells? Yes, usually the shells would be occupied and not readily visible, but perhaps enough empty ones would wash up on the coast to make it worth the advertisers’ while. Not to mention the benefits of having their ads shown on nature specials on PBS.
Niels, during the period that the Democrats had both the White House and the Senate, the Republican minority was permitted to block Clinton’s nominees without sending them for a vote – and often did (many more of Clinton’s nominees were denied votes than Bush’s). Apart from a few outliers, the Democrats did not support changing the Senate rules to prevent the minority Republicans from exercising this influence.
In contrast, Republicans have changed the rules until the only option Democrats have to block judicial nominees is the filibuster – and now they’re threatening to change that rule, too. As a result, while Clinton was successfully pressured by Republicans to choose “moderate” judges, no such pressure has operated on Bush.
Under Democratic rule, Republicans had a real and important voice in the process. Republicans have worked very hard to make sure that Democrats can’t say the same thing under Republican rule. In retrospect, it may have been a bad mistake for Democrats not to use the “51 votes means that we can change any procedural rule we want” analysis to lock the Republicans out of all influence over judicial nominations and approval; you can’t play fair with people who have no sense of honor at all and are interested only in power.
Alsis, after reading that Coke link, I think whoever is in charge of Coca Cola India must be criminally incompetent. Remember the uproar over use of contaminated water in soft drinks last year? You would think they would be concerned about maintaining future profits, at the very least.
I like it! Once again, advertising bridges the gaps in the market system.
(Of course, then you’ll have Coca-Cola going around vacuuming up the beaches to get rid of all the 7-Up-logoed hermit crabs…but that just makes more market space!)
Interesting article about high school hierarchy – especially some comments indicating it isn’t always “jocks picking on geeks”.
My playing football and doing track put me into the B-list in popularity in high school – I was the victim of no bullying or social ostracism, but I was clearly not in the “in crowd”. (I figured the B-list to be non-wealthy jocks and minor sport jocks, band geeks, nerds with some social graces, and “normal kids” with some specialty or ambition.)
Popularity is not necessarily correlated to excellence – the valdedictorian or all-conference jock didn’t get on the A-list because of their excellence. But your parents’ money is more likely to get you onto the A-list or keep you out of the “lumpenproletariat” of my school.
Get away from me, you creeps.
>/blockquote>
(Hello from the techonolgicaly challenged.)
You’re welcome, Amp.
Lee wrote:
Yep. You’d also think they’d take the fate of the McDonald’s libel case in Britain as a cautionary tale. If you’re enough of an arrogant corporate fuck, the court may not care if you’re unhappy. They’ll just notice you’re six zillion times bigger than the individual you’re going after hammer and tongs over one obscure picture/essay.
BTW, if you look at Haksar’s homepage, (it’s nicely laid out, but you need Flash) you can see that he does quite a bit of advertising work. So presumably Coke will have to forgo the “look at that unwashed anti-market freak” tactic if they do end up taking legal action against him. I don’t what free-speech law or precedent is like in India as compared to the U.S., however.
Personally, I think that if anyone’s getting near enough to see my labia, they’d better be damned happy and properly worshipful. Anyone who goes “Eww, you’re lips are odd shaped” will have me make fun of the size of his penis, and summarily dismissed from my bed.
Damn, people, don’t you realize that cuts mean less sensitivity? Maybe I’m missing something because I’m young and never given birth, but seriously, sharp things don’t get to go near my girl-parts. ‘Cept for teeth, and those better not be too sharp.
Ampersand — fair points as to some of Clinton’s lower court nominees. But come on, now: Republicans didn’t even remotely treat Ginsburg and Breyer with the same attack-dog mentality that the Democrats showed towards Bork, Douglas Ginsburg, and Thomas. Not even close. And Republicans didn’t demand that Clinton appoint someone who was pro-life (as Democrats are now demanding from the opposite perspective).
I figured the B-list to be non-wealthy jocks and minor sport jocks, band geeks, nerds with some social graces, and “normal kids” with some specialty or ambition.
Well, of course, Thomas was a crotch-pawing thug, was actually confirmed, and has since distinguished himself primarily as Scalia’s always-reliable toady. And putting Bork is entirely insane. Putting him on the Supreme Court would make about as much sense as putting Jason Voorhees on the Supreme Court…
That is juvenile and slanderous, “Scooter.” Thomas wasn’t even accused of having ever touched a woman in any inappropriate way. At the worst, he was accused of having made a handful of too-explicit remarks. But even if you assume that those remarks were made, Anita Hill herself apparently didn’t view them as very offensive at the time; even after Clarence Thomas left the Education department (where the remarks had supposedly been made), she deliberately chose, out of all the other jobs available in the world for a Yale Law graduate, to follow Thomas to keep working for him at his new job at the EEOC.
As for Thomas following Scalia around — you obviously haven’t read any Supreme Court decisions, or you wouldn’t say something so silly. Thomas and Scalia have different jurisprudential philosophies, they have different opinions, and they often write separately or take opposite sides. Try checking out the Raich case (the medical marijuana case — maybe you’ve heard of it; Thomas and Scalia were on opposite sides); or the Kelo case (eminent domain; Scalia didn’t join Thomas’s dissent); or Bajakajian (I know you haven’t heard of that; Thomas joined with the 4 liberals to write the Supreme Court’s first-ever opinion striking down a federal law as in violation of the Excessive Fines Clause). Well, I could go on all day, if it would be any use to someone who obviously doesn’t read Supreme Court opinions in the first place.
Well, breast “enhancement” can reduce sensitivity to the nipples, which would also be crummy sex-wise. That hasn’t stopped lots of surgeons from doing well by oh-so-kindly helping women get this “empowering” procedure done.
I wonder if anybody has broken it to this clown that those women in the Playboy photos are airbrushed. Aparently nobody’s broken it to the women patients themselves. Fuck, it’s all so damn depressing. :( Seemingly with no transition at all, we’ve gone from, “I don’t even know what my genitals look like” to “Ahhh, I’ve seen that porno-babe’s genitals, and mine don’t look like that so somebody change them !! NOW !!”
the hermit crab thing was done by a “conceptual artist,” which I think means it’s neither “real” nor a parody. love your and Robert’s follow-up remarks! :)
and, as for the other stuff, wow!!!
I think that if anyone’s getting near enough to see my labia, they’d better be damned happy and properly worshipful. Anyone who goes “Eww, you’re lips are odd shaped” . . .
Right on, sistah.
I did a birth once for a woman who afterward demanded suturing even when I felt that she didn’t need it (small lacerations heal fine without it if they’re cared for properly). I went ahead and stitched the laceration (her body, her choice), but it turned out that the part she thought needed to be stitched up was actually separate parts of her lower labia. Her previous husband had apparently complained that she was “too wide open” after previous childbirths, and she thought there was really something wrong with her. Her new husband wasn’t the least bit concerned about it, but she had been carrying around those body image issues for years. What a shame.
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Niels,
Actually, he was accussed of asking out suborndinates and making multiple inappropriate remakes (about the size of his penis, for example), and continuing to do so even after he had been asked to stop. If Hill and her supporting witnesses were telling the truth, then Thomas certainly committed sexual harassment.
As for following Thomas, I don’t see what difference this makes. Hill talked herself into believing that it would be foolish of her to give up an enourmous career opportunity just because she had a boss who refused to stop asking her out or making obscene comments, even though she had asked him to stop. Probably that was a mistake on her part, but just because she made a mistake doesn’t magically justify Thomas’ (alleged) behavior.
I agree with you that the “Thomas just follows Scalia” line of argument is wrongheaded.
And I agree with Scotter that the rejection of Bork was entirely justified; now that Bork no longer has to worry about future appointments, he’s revealed himself to be a far-right extremist, opposed to basic American principles, in his judicial philosophy, just as Democrats who voted against him claimed. In contrast, Ginsberg and Breyer were centrists. You’re comparing apples and oranges.
Antigone,
You should go read the hilarious post and comments on this over at I Blame the Patriarchy
Oops, I should’ve paid more attention to Amp’s links. Sorry for duplicating but the comments alone are definitely worth a second link.
Ampersand — you’re agreeing with me that what Thomas was accused of was making inappropriate remarks. NOT of grabbing someone else’s crotch, which Scooter dishonestly suggested.
It’s not that Anita Hill’s behavior excuses any harassment on Thomas’s part. Not at all: If he did what was charged, that was wrong regardless of her decisions.
But we simply don’t know whether that harassment occurred in the first place. On that question, it was always a matter of Hill’s word against Thomas’s. The fact that Anita Hill chose — out of all the other jobs in the world — to follow Thomas from one job to the next casts a huge shadow of doubt on her testimony. And as a Yale Law graduate, she had more options than about 99.9% of all Americans in choosing where to work. Working at the EEOC was not an “enormous career opportunity”; in fact, as I recall, she was demoted in the new position.
Plus, for what it’s worth, many women who had worked with both Thomas and Hill came forward to emphatically say that they believed Thomas. Read each of the witness’s testimony from Panel 2 and Panel 4 as found here. (Particularly read Ms. Talkin’s testimony.)
Their testimony is well-worth reading (that is, by anyone who cares what knowledgeable women thought about Hill’s allegations).
Amp:
Couldn’t something like that run afoul of child labor laws? I mean, I’m all in favor of something like that. I would have loved to have followed my Dad to work to help out. I’m not up on legal code (and I imagine things are slightly different in each state) but aren’t there pretty strict rules against kids under 14 years working anywhere other than on a family farm?
Matt, just to be clear, I was quoting from the Brutal Women blog. (Obviously I have to format these to be clearer next time. My bad). And yes, what she’s talking about would require reworking many current laws, I think.
Niels:
“Dishonestly” is a word that implies deliberate deception. It’s unkind of you to suggest that, since you have no way of knowing that. More likely Scooter was merely mistaken. Just as you’re mistaken when you say that it’s Hill’s word versus Thomas’; that formulation implies that it’s only those two persons’ words involved, when in fact Hill had supporting witnesses for her account. (Although I have to admit, it’s been many years since I read about this case in detail.)
That not everyone believed Hill is irrelevant, in my view. That 100% of people who know both parties have witnessed the inappropriate behavior, or that no one like the aggressor better than the victim, is not and never has been a requirement for believing that something untoward has taken place.
For someone intending to become an expert in civil rights law, working at the EEOC is not only an important career move, it could (to someone at the start of their career) seem essential. It’s not like there was a different EEOC she could have worked at instead of the one Thomas was running. You might as well claim that someone intending to work in space flight technology wouldn’t consider it a career advantage to have put in year or two at NASA.
In any case, your entire line of argument – “there is a set way, known to me though magical means I haven’t described, in which all victims must act. If they don’t act in that precise way, then logically they aren’t victims” – will not wash with me. That “logic” has long been discredited when applied to rape victims, and to victims of domestic violence; and I think it’s nonsense applied to sexual harassment as well. The fact is, people in the real world don’t always act with perfect logic, or in a way that with hindsight will seem wise or self-protective. which Scooter dishonestly suggested. Victims don’t always act the way other people, with 20-20 hindsight, think they should logically have acted; that doesn’t prove that no victimization happened.
If Anita Hill wanted to work at the EEOC, how come she never wanted to apply for a job there until exactly the time that Clarence Thomas moved there? (Yes, that doesn’t disprove her story, but it does cast some doubt on it.)
And Anita Hill had no supporting witnesses, not in the sense that anyone else ever heard Thomas make any of the remarks that he had supposedly made to Hill. Her side did want to call another witness (Angela Wright) who would have testified that Thomas had harassed Wright in some fashion, but the Democrats kept Wright under wraps after it turned out that Thomas had fired her for calling another employee a “fag.”
Look, I’m not saying that any of this disproves Hill’s version of events. But you can’t say it’s not relevant. If you have two people who are claiming that their boss sexually harassed them, which one is more credible:
1. Hanita —
A. Was glad to see it when her boss finally left, decided to stay in her old job, and certainly didn’t follow him to the next job.
B. Called 12 different witnesses all of whom said, “Oh, I believe Hanita, because that boss was always mistreating women, etc., etc.”
Or:
2. Anita —
A. When her boss left, she didn’t stay in her old job or try to find a new one in any other law firm, government office, or company. Instead, the only job in the entire country that she applied for was to keep working for the boss who supposedly harassed her.
B. Instead of being able to call 12 witnesses to support her version of events, the 12 witnesses were called by the boss. All 12 women said that the boss always treated them with the utmost respect, that he never tolerated any crude behavior in the workplace, that they couldn’t imagine him behaving in a harassing manner, and similar sentiments.
Now, Anita just might be the one who is telling the truth. But still, anyone would have to admit that Anita is less credible than the hypothetical Hanita. Right? Surely you won’t deny that.
And Hanita’s story is in turn less credible than the hypothetical Enita, who happened to be harassed in front of video cameras, twenty-three nuns and the president of NOW.
You can always come up with some hypothetical case in which there’s perfect evidence. To point out that the real-life case isn’t as certain as your hypothetical perfect-evidence case is correct, but it’s not in any way an important or interesting point.
And you know what she wanted when because….?
Whatever. Maybe she never thought of it before being offered the opportunity, but once it was offered to her it seemed like a valuable career move. I infer that you’ve planned out every single step in your life, never making new plans based on new opportunities opening up; but not all human beings work that way.
It’s incredible, how far you’re bending over backwards to find reasons to condemn Hill. What next – critiquing her grammer?
If Thomas acted shamefully in the way Hill described, it’s not implausible that he chose to do so when there weren’t witnesses around. So I don’t think it proves anything one way or another that there weren’t witnesses. And (iirc) Hill also had witnesses showing that she had complained about the harassment in the past, rather than it being something she just made up to scuttle Thomas’ nomination, as some people suggested.
As for Wright, it’s certainly relevant – although not proof positive – that another woman has accused Thomas of very similar behavior. And I don’t see why having used the word “fag” (if she did) changes that relevance. Just because she’s (allegedly) an asshole doesn’t prove, or even imply, that she lied under oath.
Regarding Wright allegedly saying “fag,” it’s ironic. You’re oh-so-careful to point out that just because Thomas has been accused of saying vile things, that doesn’t prove that he’s guilty; but you state as fact that Wright called a co-worker “fag,” even though that accusation hasn’t been proved either. (iirc) Why the different standards?
Sorry for getting sidetracked into relitigating the whole Thomas/Hill controversy.
But:
You have still managed not to address even a single woman’s actual testimony from the Hill/Thomas hearings. Look back above, read Ms. Talkin’s testimony. What do you think? Completely irrelevant? Why?
Of course it’s an interesting point that Anita Hill’s story is less credible than, well, about 99.9% of all other sexual harassment allegations. (I’m assuming that in the vast majority of cases, women who have been genuinely harassed don’t actively seek out opportunities, on purpose, to keep working for the harasser at a new job.)
I’ve barely started to dig into the whole of it. If you read more of the Senate hearings, you’ll find out that the following sequence of events happened: 1) It came out that phone logs from the EEOC showed that Anita Hill had called Thomas about a dozen times after leaving employment there. 2) Hill was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that the logs were “garbage.” 3) questioning, she had to admit that she had been lying — that the phone logs were genuine, not garbage. 4) In fact, one of the phone logs showed that Hill had called and left a message with Thomas’s secretary, saying that she was visiting D.C. again, and leaving her hotel room number on the message.
Now, am I not allowed to take all of that into account? If Hill was voluntarily calling up Thomas to leave her hotel room number, when she didn’t even work for him anymore, doesn’t that cast any doubt on her story? How many sexual harassment victims freely call up and leave that kind of information with former employers who had harassed them (esp. when there’s no reason to leave a hotel room number unless she was trying to invite him over)?
Anyway, I’m not bending over backwards to disbelieve Hill. All it takes is a little common sense to say, “Gee, should I be so gullible as to automatically believe someone whose story has about 5 or 6 gaping holes in it? Isn’t it just possible that her story — gasp — wasn’t the whole truth?” Hell, maybe Hill had had an affair with Thomas, and the remarks arose in that context. And maybe she tried to keep up the affair, but he had moved on, and so she always resented him after that. That makes more sense than any other explanation I can think of.
Look, it’s one thing if you said, “I know Hill’s story is implausible in several respects, and I know that all the women who worked with Thomas testified that it was inconceivable that Hill could be telling the truth; but still, I think that on balance, the overall weight of the evidence goes towards Hill.” But you’re not saying that. Instead, you seem to be affronted that anyone would ever think that a sexual harassment accusastion is implausible. You refuse to consider any reason why Hill’s story doesn’t add up. In fact, you’re the one who is bending over backwards to believe mean things about Thomas.
The relevance of Thomas having fired Angela Wright for calling another employee a “fag” is that: Why should I or anyone else automatically trust the word of someone who has every reason to be bitter towards Thomas, having been fired by him? (Plus, you’re wrong about saying that there’s no evidence that Wright called an employee a “fag.” There must obviously have been at least one other person (namely, the other employee) who could corroborate that incident.)
Look, dude, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything like that. I didn’t even imply it. You made it up out of whole cloth.
At the point when you’re making up stuff I never said and responding to it as if I had said it, I think there’s not much purpose in my continuing to respond. So this is probably my last post responding to you; you may have the final word.
(Although I loved your idea that if it’s Clarence Thomas, one person’s word versus another’s doesn’t constitute sufficient proof for certainty; but if it’s Wright, then one person’s word versus another’s does constitute sufficient proof for certainty.)
Here’s what I believe:
1) It’s perfectly reasonable to believe that either Thomas or Hill was telling the truth (I happen to think that the evidence supporting Hill’s story is more persuasive, but that’s just my opinion). It’s mistaken to believe that either position is absolutely supported by solid evidence. Both stories have supporting evidence, and both have inconsistancies (although you seem interested only in Hill’s inconsistancies).
2) It’s not reasonable to create a fictional template of how a legitimate victim behaves, and then use a real person’s failure to conform to that fictional template as evidence that she wasn’t victimized. Furthermore, there’s plenty of real-life experience showing that this sort of “logic” can be unfairly used to dismiss the experiences of people, especially women, who really have been victimized.
If you attribute any other views to me apart from the above, regarding our discussion here, then I think you’re probably mistaken. (Of course, if I held you to the standards you hold others to, I’d have to accuse you of being “dishonest.” But I think your standards are also mistaken.)
The only reason I started down this path was because someone labeled Thomas as a “crotch-pawing thug,” which is incredibly unfair even if you believe every word that Hill ever said.
You still haven’t even mentioned all the dozen or so women who worked with both Thomas and Hill, and who unanimously testified that Thomas’s behavior was always above board and unimpeachable. Is that relevant or not?
You say that real-life women don’t behave according to a fictional template. Fine, I realize that, and I by no means want to diminish truthful accusations of sexual harassment.
But tell me then: Has there ever been a proven, real-life incident of sexual harassment where (1) the victim deliberately followed the harasser to his next job, even though she could have had virtually any job she wanted; (2) the victim kept calling the harasser even after she didn’t work for him any more, including a phone message where she left her hotel room number (clearly indicating that she wanted him to visit her privately)? Why on earth would she invite him to her hotel room if she saw him only as a “harasser”? Isn’t that more consistent with the notion, as I said above, that she was having an affair with Thomas?
One last word: You’re not getting the point about Wright. I don’t think that the Wright situation could possibly have been her word against someone else’s. I think what obviously must have happened is that she called someone else a “fag,” not in a private conversation with that person, but in the workplace where anyone around would have heard it. That, or else Wright admitted to it. How else would Thomas have grounds to fire a government employee?