Palin was at her worst today: disjointed and rambling, contradicting herself — she argued, for example, that “it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: ‘Sit down and shut up,’ but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’”

This was Palin’s argument for why she was quitting.

But it wasn’t just Palin’s phrasing that was odd. It was her whole manner. The speech sounds as if she gave it after consuming six Red Bulls and four pots of coffee; when she lashes out at the people who have dared to file ethics complaints against her, there is undisguised bitterness in her voice. Long stretches of the speech seem to sort of meander off into nowhere, an address-style version of her conversation with Katie Couric. In short, if the bizarre resignation by Palin wasn’t enough to kill her political career, this speech may be. Palin came off as petty, confused, and simply unable to deal with the basics of being a high-profile politician. And by quitting eighteen months early, she ensures that her resume — already light for a national figure — is essentially non-existent. It’s telling that the only Republican I’ve read who didn’t see this speech as a disaster is Bill Kristol, a man who is wrong about everything.

Ultimately, one can’t watch this speech and feel that all is well with Sarah Palin. Some have speculated that there is another shoe waiting to drop, and this is Palin’s way of trying to preemptively avoid disaster in the form of impeachment. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised — the speech seemed to be given under duress, and with little forethought. Maybe it’s mavericky, but more likely Palin is trying to get out ahead of something worse.

But even if Palin is simply quitting to focus on her speaking career, this turn of events should solidify, once and for all, just what a disastrous pick for vice president she was. She was, quite simply, the wrong person for the job by any measure. If, God forbid, she had become president, I shudder to think of what that would have meant for the country. Thankfully, after today’s debacle, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that. But it’s unfortunate that we ever did.

I’m starting a new regular feature here on the ABW (and also on the Carl Brandon Society blog) wherein I list all of the SF/F/H short fiction by writers of color published each month.

We used to do a similar thing on the SFBookswap blog for women writers (online only, though) and I always wanted to do the same for WOC. There were some logistical barriers, mostly surrounding identification. Though it’s not completely accurate, you can usually tell female writers by name. In the case of initials or ambiguous names, the bio usually provided the necessary information. Not so much with WOC.

I’ve decided to try and get around this barrier by asking authors and editors to be a little proactive in the process.

Around the 15th of each month I’ll publish a list of all SF/F/H short stories by writers of color published in online, podcast, or print magazines and anthologies. Authors, editors, if you think a story you published/had published counts as speculative fiction and the author counts as a POC, then please give me a heads up. The deadline to be listed is the 12th of each month. If you had a story published in January - June 2009, please send those along, too. I’ll create some retro-posts. Eventually we’ll also get previous years in.

Send the following information to this gmail address: theangryblackwoman+pocfic (yes, include the +pocfic in there. that will sort the email into a filter and keep it from getting lost.)

Title:
Author:
Market Name:
Pub Date:
URL of story (if online) or market website:
Reprint: Yes/No
Author Website:
ISBN (if anthology):

I’m going to post the list here, the Carl Brandon blog and appropriate wikis, etc.

I’m not going to do this for books just yet, but I may in the future.

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I’m starting a new regular feature here on the ABW (and also on the Carl Brandon Society blog) wherein I list all of the SF/F/H short fiction by writers of color published each month.

We used to do a similar thing on the SFBookswap blog for women writers (online only, though) and I always wanted to do the same for WOC. There were some logistical barriers, mostly surrounding identification. Though it’s not completely accurate, you can usually tell female writers by name. In the case of initials or ambiguous names, the bio usually provided the necessary information. Not so much with WOC.

I’ve decided to try and get around this barrier by asking authors and editors to be a little proactive in the process.

Around the 15th of each month I’ll publish a list of all SF/F/H short stories by writers of color published in online, podcast, or print magazines and anthologies. Authors, editors, if you think a story you published/had published counts as speculative fiction and the author counts as a POC, then please give me a heads up. The deadline to be listed is the 12th of each month. If you had a story published in January - June 2009, please send those along, too. I’ll create some retro-posts. Eventually we’ll also get previous years in.

Send the following information to this gmail address: theangryblackwoman+pocfic (yes, include the +pocfic in there. that will sort the email into a filter and keep it from getting lost.)

Title:
Author:
Market Name:
Pub Date:
URL of story (if online) or market website:
Reprint: Yes/No
Author Website:
ISBN (if anthology):

I’m going to post the list here, the Carl Brandon blog and appropriate wikis, etc.

I’m not going to do this for books just yet, but I may in the future.

And now a word from our sponsor...

Your ad could be here, right now.

My friend Elise Bryant wrote a play called The Zoo-zoo Chronicles about her life on the University of Michigan campus in the 1970s.  In the first scene, Elise’s stand-in moves into a four-bedroom dorm suite with three white women.  As an ice-breaker, one of the white women asks their new Black (we capitalized it back then) roomie, “Who’s your favorite Beatle?”

Silence.  For three full seconds.

Elise’s stand-in rises in righteous anger.  How dare these strangers assume she likes a Beatle, any Beatle, Beatles qua Beatles?  Corporate rippers-off of Black culture, lily-white wannabe Blues singers, what would any self-respecting Black woman see in them?  After making it clear the answer is “None of the above,” Elise’s stand-in goes on to become fast friends with at least a couple of these women, bonding in sisterhood with them over sit-ins; student strikes; love ventured, gained, and lost; all the standard 1970s joys and perils of life.  What sticks with me, though, is that initial moment of hegemonic attitude and challenge, that culture clash right at the beginning, that careful mapping out of common ground and unacknowledged gaps in the “favorite Beatle” call and response.

Because I did have a favorite Beatle.  Still do.

When I was six I saw the Beatles’ debut on Ed Sullivan and knew this was gonna be something big.  Drew them with my Crayolas playing Gibson guitars when teacher told us to illustrate Kalamazoo’s industrial base in action (Gibson had a factory there).  After college, singing with my rock band, I studied the chord progressions for Beatles’ songs like “Yes It Is,” then stole them and wrote my own.

Why?  Was it because I wanted to be white?  No.

Because they were good.

It’s not inconceivable that whites sometimes admire and emulate the cultures of people of color.  And sometimes it works  the other way.  Sometimes it’s not a matter of being forced to accept the dominant paradigm but rather of identifying with certain of its elements….

John Lennon was my favorite Beatle, right from the start, though it took me till after his assassination to articulate the appeal.  Basically, I loved Lennon for his unabashed idiocy.  The man was never afraid to make a fool of himself.  Audacity wins me over every time.

Is it audacious to take the stance of a cultural tourist towards territories supposed to be well inside the boundaries of the dominant paradigm?  To treat as fodder for my own dreams the harmonies and psychedelic insights of white men given license to rebel?  To tune myself to the excellencies they discovered within themselves almost by accident?

Maybe it would make as much or more sense to expand the meaning of the word.  Say my favorite Beatle is Michael Jackson.   Or Prince.  Or Sly Stone, or George Clinton, or Jimi Hendrix, or any of the other small-b-black rockers trampling down marketing categories with gorgeous unconcern.  Ya think?

Who’s your favorite Beatle?

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The History Channel’s “Life After People” is one of my favorite TV series, so I was amused to see this mention of an “Immortality Drive” that’s apparently in space at this very moment. The Immortality Drive is a kind of high-tech time capsule; put together by video game auteur Richard Garriot, it contains messages to our descendants/alien resurrectors, a list of humanity’s greatest achievements, and the digitized genetic data of “a select few” members of our species. All this is currently preserved on the International Space Station.

And who are these select few, meant to represent and possibly recreate us in case we nuke ourselves/get Raptured/are eaten by grues? Oh, you know where this is going.

These were the 10 names I could find:

Stephen Colbert (yes, the comedian; white)
Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy (included for charity; both white)
Matt Morgan (pro wrestler; white)
Jo Garcia (female, Playboy model; Latina according to Wikipedia)
Eric Johnson (musician; white)
Patrice Pike (musician; white)
Tracy Hickman (male, if you’re wondering, and white; fantasy author)
Scott Johnson (Olympic gold medalist; white)
Brian Crecente (Kotaku editor; race/ethicity unknown, but misogyny noted)

Also, here’s some photos of the folks whose DNA is being included, from the “Operation Immortality” Facebook page.

So OK, we’ve got 30% women here, one definitive Latina, and one disabled person. No African Americans, AFAICT. No Asian Americans. No Native Americans. So the future of humanity won’t be exclusively white and male… just mostly so.

Now, in Garriot’s partial defense, “Operation Immortality” actually includes 40 people; these were just the 10 names I could find. The whole batch might be more diverse than this sample. Also, although this thing got billed as putting “the best of humanity” into space, that was BS; Garriot specifically sought to put the DNA of gamers into space, to promote his latest game (which bombed). In reality the slots got sold to the highest bidder as a publicity stunt. But y’know what? Since this was meant to be promotional, I think some consideration should’ve been given to making the Operation Immortality list at least tacitly resemble the audience that might buy the game. Since black and Latina/o gamers make up a substantial proportion of the US gamer demographic — 50% of console owners according to this 2005 study, probably more since — you’d think there’d be a few more of us in that list. Actually, given that Garriot’s game was an MMORPG, PoC make up an even bigger proportion of those players; 5 million of World of Warcraft’s 7 million players are in China. And that 30% female thing? Should be more like 65%. So I can’t help wondering if a contributing factor to the failure of Garriot’s game was his failure to use this and other promo opportunities to really connect with his audience.

What really annoys me here is not Garriot’s shortsightedness — well, yeah, OK, that annoys me too — but the fact that my tax dollars are involved. See, while Garriot himself paid for the Russian mission that shot his and his friends’ spooge into space, it’s being stored aboard the International Space Station — which is partially paid for and maintained by NASA.

Now, I’m pro-space exploration (duh, see my avatar). I know a lot of ya’ll (speaking to the black folks here) feel like it’s a waste of money given the number of people struggling to get by in our society, but I’m with Octavia; I believe the destiny of humanity is to spread among the stars. That said, it still pisses me off when my destiny, and that of other people who look like me, gets excluded from or severely underrepresented on NASA-sponsored missions like this one. I think that if NASA would try a little harder to make sure space travelers — or their genes — represent the breadth and variety of Americans, then a greater breadth and variety of Americans might actually support NASA funding. (It’s not like there aren’t other wastes of money to complain about.)

Anyway, this marks the start of another series I’ll be periodically running here at ABW, which I’m going to call I, For One, DON’T Welcome Our New White Overlords. It’ll examine all the many ways in which our society’s so-called futurists repeatedly envision lily-white futures, and what we can do to smack those visionaries in the head until they see better visions remind them that the future will be — like the present already is — 50% female, and a lot browner than they realize.

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My argument: copyright law as it currently exists does the opposite of its original intent (as formulated in the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to legislate on copyright, and in the very first copyright statute enacted in 1790): to promote arts and letters and encourage learning, by giving authors an incentive to create new works by ensuring that they can fairly profit from their writings. (In olden days, it wasn’t at all uncommon for unauthorized editions of books to be legally sold with no profits going to the writer.) Today, copyright violation claims are commonly invoked to suppress new works — whether it’s 60 Years Later, The Wind Done Gone (the “Gone With the Wind-from-a-slave’s-point-of-view” novel that was finally declared legal after much wrangling in the courts), a production of a James Joyce play, or fan-made Xena: Warrior Princess videos on YouTube.

I agree. But Cathy also writes:

Would it really be perfectly fine, from a libertarian point of view, if, after the huge success of the first Harry Potter book, Joe Smith or Mary Jones quickly popped out a sequel before J.K. Rowling could publish the second one?

Well, I’m not a libertarian. But why not?

I’d suggest that Smith and/or Jones should be legally required to pay Rowling some sort of licensing fee if their book has a print run over a thousand copies in a year; and that the front cover include a clear (”not written or authorized by J.K. Rowling”), so consumers aren’t deceived.

But with that in place, I don’t see what the problem is. Few if any Harry Potter fans would have said “oh, why even bother reading the Rowling versions when they come out, now that quick knock-offs are available,” so it’s not as if allowing the knock-offs would deprive Rowling of her ability to earn a living.

Meanwhile, forbidding Smith and Jones from publishing their Harry Potter knock-off might well deprive them of their ability to make a living as Harry Potter knock-off writers, and it arguably infringes on their freedom of speech.

I can already hear people saying: “Who cares? Smith and Jones don’t have an original thought in their head. They don’t have a right to other people’s speech.” But some artists work best by reimagining works they already love, rather than by creating “from scratch.”¹ Sometimes the result is a better work than the original — think of Stephen Sondheim’s great musical Sweeny Todd, which was adapted from a play. I think the culture be richer for it if artists who feel compelled to work with the books and characters they loved as kids, were free to do so, and to do it full-time if there’s enough of a market for their work.

Often, when I make this argument, people ask me how I’d feel if someone out there produced a sleazy porno Hereville comic. Well, obviously, I’d be appalled. But just because I find someone else’s work appalling, doesn’t mean it should be illegal.

1. Actually, no artist in the world creates from scratch.

When Ahmadinejad defeated Mir Hossein Mousavi on the night of the election, the clerical elite saw themselves in serious danger. The margin of victory Ahmadinejad claimed might have given him the political clout to challenge their position. Mousavi immediately claimed fraud, and Rafsanjani backed him up. Whatever the motives of those in the streets, the real action was a knife fight between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani. By the end of the week, Khamenei decided to end the situation. In essence, he tried to hold things together by ordering the demonstrations to halt while throwing a bone to Rafsanjani and Mousavi by extending a probe into the election irregularities and postponing a partial recount by five days.

The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.

The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad’s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.

The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges — and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting.

Friedman argues that in terms of foreign policy, there is likely to be no difference to the US, no matter which faction comes out on top.

We do not believe that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, a point we have made frequently. Iran understands that the actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon would lead to immediate U.S. or Israeli attacks. Accordingly, Iran’s ideal position is to be seen as developing nuclear weapons, but not close to having them. This gives Tehran a platform for bargaining without triggering Iran’s destruction, a task at which it has proved sure-footed.

In addition, Iran has maintained capabilities in Iraq and Lebanon. Should the United States or Israel attack, Iran would thus be able to counter by doing everything possible to destabilize Iraq — bogging down U.S. forces there — while simultaneously using Hezbollah’s global reach to carry out terror attacks. After all, Hezbollah is today’s al Qaeda on steroids. The radical Shiite group’s ability, coupled with that of Iranian intelligence, is substantial.

We see no likelihood that any Iranian government would abandon this two-pronged strategy without substantial guarantees and concessions from the West. Those would have to include guarantees of noninterference in Iranian affairs. Obama, of course, has been aware of this bedrock condition, which is why he went out of his way before the election to assure Khamenei in a letter that the United States had no intention of interfering.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing, as well as this earlier piece by Friedman.

All I know is that my state’s junior senator is this guy:

Join science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors Linda D. Addison (Being Full of Light, Insubstantial), K. Tempest Bradford (Interfictions, Federations), N. K. Jemisin (forthcoming: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms), and Alaya Dawn Johnson (Racing the Dark) for a reading and discussion on women of color in speculative fiction. Far from being indifferent to the genre, people of color are creating and consuming SF literature and media more than ever. Come hear some of the best new and award-winning speculative voices of color writing today.

When: Thursday, July 30th @ 7PM

Where: Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen Street (1 block south of Houston), NYC

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But in this case, I think the analogy to slavery is important, for two reasons. First of all, it was the last time we had an extended, society-wide debate about personhood. [...]

Listening to the debates about abortion, it seems to me that really broad swathes of the pro-choice movement seem to genuinely not understand that this is a debate about personhood, which is why you get moronic statements like “If you think abortions are wrong, don’t have one!” If you think a fetus is a person, it is not useful to be told that you, personally, are not required to commit murder, as long as you leave the neighbors alone while they do it.

Conversely, if Africans are not people, then slavery is not wrong.

Although Megan is (I think) pro-choice, I’ve certainly heard this argument made by pro-lifers any number of times. But “lack of personhood” was not, in fact, a major pro-slavery argument. I’d recommend listening to (or reading the transcript of) this lecture by Yale historian David Blight, in which he outlines the pre-civil-war pro-slavery arguments.

The entire lecture is worth your time, but here — heavily edited for space — is Blight’s outline of the important pro-slavery arguments.

Now, there are many ways to look at pro-slavery. Deep, deep in the pro-slavery argument–I’m going to give you categories here to hang your hats on–deep in the pro-slavery argument is a biblical argument. Almost all pro-slavery writers at one point or another will dip into the Old Testament, or dip into the New Testament–they especially would dip to the Old–to show how slavery is an ancient and venerable institution. [...] You can therefore assume it was divinely sanctioned. [...]

A second kind of set of arguments, I’ve already referred to, are the historical ones. Here it is not just the venerability of slavery, how old it is, but it’s the idea that it has been crucial to the development of all great civilizations. That slavery may have its bad aspects but it has been the engine of good, it has been the engine of empires, the engine of wealth, the engine of greatness. How would you have had Cicero? How would you have had the great Roman philosophers and thinkers? [...]

Pro-slavery ideology is also part of–at the same time it’s resistant to–the greatest product arguably of the Enlightenment, and that is the idea of natural rights; natural law, natural rights, rights by birth, rights from God, being born with certain capacities. Now pro-slavery writers were inspired by this to some extent, but many of them will simply convert it. They will convert it–they’ll take portions of John Locke that they like, and not the others–and they’ll say the real rule of the world is not natural equality, but it is natural inequality. Humans are not all born the same, with the same capacities, abilities.

Now, then there’s a whole array of economic arguments, and the cynic, the economic determinist, simply goes to the economic conclusions of pro-slavery and nowhere else. [...] “You will say that man cannot hold property in man. The answer is that he can, and actually does, hold property in his fellow, all over the world, in a variety of forms, and has always done so.” [...]

Some would get worried and they would discuss slavery as a necessary evil–this system entailed upon them. [...] “But the question is, in my present circumstances, with evil on my hands, entailed from my father, would the general interest of the slaves and community at large, with reference to the slaves, be promoted best by emancipation? Could I do more for the ultimate good of the slave population by holding or emancipating what I own?” [...] he develops a highly intricate theory of how he’s going to use slavery to save black people. He’s going to ameliorate their conditions, he’s going to make their slavery on his plantations so effective, so good, such a even joyous form of labor, that he will be doing God’s work by improving slavery.[...]

There are many pro-slavery writers who developed, like James Henry Hammond, what I would call the cynical or amoral form of pro-slavery argument; and this is a potent form of argument when you think about it. [...] “The only problem with slavery in America,” said James Henry Hammond, is that too damn many northerners didn’t understand it is the way of the world as it is, and they ought to stop talking about the world as it ought to be.” [...] “Is it not palpably nearer the truth to say that no man was ever born free and that no two men were ever born equal? Man is born in a state of the most helpless dependence on other people.”

And then there’s the whole vast category of racial defense and justification of slavery. [...] Probably the most prominent pro-slavery writer to make the racial case–and they all did–but probably the most prominent was George Fitzhugh. [...] “The Negro,” he said, “is but a grownup child and must be governed as a child. The master occupies toward him the place of parent or guardian. Like a wild horse he must be caught, tamed and domesticated.” [...]

And lastly, there was a kind of utopian pro-slavery. [...] In Hughes’s vision and Hughes’s worldview slavery was not only a positive good–it was the possibility of man finding a perfected society, with the perfect landowners fulfilling their obligations, supported by a government that taxed the hell out of them to do it, and perfect workers, would make the South into the agricultural utopian civilization of history.

It’s politically useful for pro-lifers to pretend that abortion and slavery were similar debates, and that the major argument for slavery was the claim that Africans were not people. But that’s simply not true.

(Note that in the lecture I’m quoting, Blight’s intent wasn’t making a case about abortion in either direction — Blight isn’t shading his arguments towards a pro-choice or pro-life outcome, he’s simply explaining the history of pro-slavery arguments. Can pro-lifers cite similarly non-biased sources to support their argument?)

See also: Ta-Nehisi.

* * *

P.S. I can’t resist pointing out that the first few arguments Blight lists — the institution goes back forever, it’s in the Bible, and it’s the foundation of civilization — are also the major arguments used in the present day to argue for banning same-sex couples from marriage.

In an effort to give you as many ways of reading our awesome blog as is possible, we’re now also publishing a Kindle edition. You can subscribe to The Angry Black Woman for $1.99/month and it will be delivered wirelessly to your fancy Amazon-branded eReader. Now you can read ABW on the train home from work, in the bath, or while skydiving.

Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can go to the page on Amazon and write reviews of the blog. (Ys, I know, there’s much potential for foolishness. I’m counting on cool people to drown out the haters.)

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Sydney and Maddox were recently flower girls at the wedding of Bean to a lovely, quirky guy named Dan.

Many more pictures — not only of the girls, but also of a few other folks of interest to the “Alas” community — below the fold.

I love Maddox’s expression in this pic. “Why is Sydney holding hands with that boy?”

I’ve always found Sydney extremely easy to take nice pictures of; Sydney has a tendency to arrange herself well and to have camera-friendly expressions. Maddox looks almost exactly like Sydney did two years ago, but is mysteriously harder to take good photos of; her eyes are always closed, or she’s making a face that doesn’t look like herself, or she’s just moving too fast to get anything but a blur. (Bean says that you can capture Sydney with a photo, but it takes a video to get Maddox.)

I’ve taken nice photos of Maddox over the years, but it’s more effort. With Sydney you just point the camera in her direction and nice photos appear. The photos Bean got from the pro wedding photographer seem to prove that it’s not just me; there are tons of nice photos of Sydney, but not that many of Maddox.

Another pretty picture of Sydney.

Sydney explains to Bean that she (Sydney) is a spy. When Bean later repeated this to me, Sydney got quite annoyed, since she had been a secret spy.

The entrance of the flower girls. As far as Sydney and Maddox are concerned, this moment is what the whole wedding was about.¹

Of course, the girls weren’t the only “Alas” related folks present at Bean’s wedding….

The newly married couple of Bean and Dan. Huzzah! And in the background, the officient is me, Ampersand. I’m happy to report that I didn’t have to moderate Bean or Dan even once during the wedding ceremony. But I wish I had straightened my tie.

“Alas” co-moderator and frequent comment-writer Charles, wearing what I always think of as his puffy poet shirt, contemplates a flower girl bouquet.

Frequent “Alas” comment-writer Jake Squid, puffing on that newfangled e-cigarette of his.

Kevin Moore, whose political cartoons I’ve occasionally linked to, and who has occasionally left comments here. Looking at this photo, you may think Kevin is drunk. And for all I know, he was drunk. But the sad truth is, he always looks like that.

When I checked with Kev that it was okay for me to post his photo, he replied:

Here are my restrictions: It’s okay to publish my photo, unless I am naked. But if by some random chance/miracle a pic of me naked looks good and/or hot, then publish it. However, no photoshopping in bestiality. Unless the animal in question is really hot, then go ahead.

Another shot of me, because face it, I look sweet in a suit.

And one last shot of Bean and Dan. Sydney and Maddox, whenever they see photos of Dan and Bean kissing, will scream and cover their eyes, and Sydney will cry out “it burns, it burns!” (We’re not sure where she picked that up from, but it’s awesome.) In fact, Maddox in particular so enjoys this process, she specifically seeks out photos of Bean and Dan kissing, so she can object to having seen them.

Maziltov, Bean and Dan!

1. ”There are no small roles, only small actors.”

1. Raising a child to be neither girl nor boy, just “Pop.” Unapologetically Female and Feministing both comment.
2. It’s like a sick Onion headline come to life: Texas police raid gay bar on 40th anniversary of Stonewall. One bar patron is seriously injured.(Via.)
3. Ten things wrong with the President of France’s wanting to eliminate the burqa.
4. And at Global Comment: “Banning women from wearing the burqa is not about freedom, it is about the normalization of the Western performance of femininity.” (Via.)
5. Like a dictionary, but better, and crowdsourced: Wordnic. (Via.)
6. Ezra on Obama, taxes, and giving in to the Republican framing.
7. My God, who wouldn’t want a wife? (I wish she had posted this on “Alas.”)
8. If we wipe out the financial managers, that would solve many problems.
9. How Spike ruined Buffy, and Buffy ruined vampires. (Via.)
10. Israel has made some improvements in response to Obama.
11. How Obama’s big speech in Egypt gets a “C” at best on women’s rights. Although unlike Cathy, I’m not against mentioning that America has problems too; I don’t believe that Obama makes an equivalence just because he mentions them both in the same speech. (It’s a matter of contextual analysis, however, not a hard-and-fast rule.) In the end, the real question is: How could Obama have put it that would have been more likely to make a positive difference? I’m not sure what the answer is.
12. Womanist Musings on prison rape.
13. Unexpected allies department: The Corner gets it right on prison rape.
14. Posted because it’s of interest, not because I agree with all of it: Does it make sense to “ally” with Iranians when I have no idea what I’m talking about? (Via.)
15. Evolutionary psychology is still nonsense.
16. On being a Christian who wants to treat lesbian and gay people justly.
17. No, the financial crash was not caused by the Community Reinvestment Act. It really wasn’t.
18. Little Wheel. You’re a robot trying to wake up a dozing robot city. “Nothin’ too complicated, not really what I’d call a “game”, more like an animated story with a bit of interactivity, but nevertheless, beautiful and enjoyable.”

Here is the copy from the website:

“Stand by Me” On June 24, Iranian Superstar Andy Madadian went into an LA recording studio with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and American record producers Don Was and John Shanks to record a musical message of worldwide solidarity with the people of Iran. This version of the old Ben E. King classic is not for sale - it was not meant to be on the Billboard charts or even manufactured as a CD…..it’s intended to be downloaded and shared by the Iranian people…to give voice to the sentiment that all people of the world stand together….the handwritten Farsi sign in the video translates to “we are one”. If you know someone in Iran - or someone who knows someone in Iran - please share this link CREDITS: STAND BY ME Andy - Vocals Jon Bon Jovi - Vocals Richie Sambora - Electric Guitar and Vocals John Shanks - Acoustic Guitar Don Was - Bass Patrick Leonard - Keyboards Jeff Rothchild - Drums Tiffany Madadian and Nikki Lund - Background Vocals Produced by Don Was & John Shanks Recorded and Mixed by Jeff Rothchild at Henson Studio C, Hollywood, CA June 24, 2009 Thanks to Faryal Ganjehei Written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller Farsi lyric by Paksima Zakipour Video Edited by Gemma Corfield Mastered by Stephen Marcussen

Remarkably, in a discussion including Saletan, Waldman managed to make the dumbest and most offensive argument: what if we paid those wanton slatterns to keep the precious baby growing inside of them?

Now I wonder, I know this is dangerous territory here, but I’m just kind of thinking out loud…I wonder if we should start thinking about financial incentives or help for women who decide to carry the baby to term.”

[...]

So maybe we ought to be saying to them, if it’s officially important for us as a society to reduce the number of abortions…maybe we should pay her a thousand dollars, uh, I don’t know what the right number is, because you don’t want to create a financial incentive for, uh, making babies.

Genius! The woman gets ten honeybees, the patriarchal society gets its precious, precious baby, and everything is swell. It’s logically air-tight, except for the part of the stuff where he said all about…uh…things.

Before we take this apart on philosophical grounds, let’s first go over the basic argument: we’re going to give women money to continue with a pregnancy she would have aborted. Okay. Well, since we live in a country with de jure legal abortions, every pregnancy can be terminated. So we just agreed to pay every woman who gives birth $1000 cash money. In 2005, there were 4,138,349 live births in America. Presumably, this proposal would increase those numbers, and the numbers are just naturally going up anyway, so let’s say this gets us to a robust 5 million kids a year. At $1000 a kid, that’s a measly $5 billion a year in child bonuses! Pocket change. I mean, sure, it’s just $2 billion less than we give the EPA, but compared to the $660 billion we spent on defense, that’s nothing!

Then again, coming up with $5 billion a year will require higher taxes eventually, and if you hate abortion, you probably hate taxes even more. So somehow, we’re going to have to narrow this down a bit. Why not eliminate married women from the payout? I mean, every child born to a married couple is a loving gift from God, and therefore no married woman has ever had an abortion, so there we go! Now, some naysayers will say nay, that would encourage women and men to postpone marriage until after they had kids so that they can qualify for the child bonus, but that’s just crazy talk.

Maybe we could ask women if they were going to have an abortion, and if they say, “no,” we could simply not pay them. Brilliant! Nobody would lie for $1000. It’s foolproof!

Okay, now that we’ve reduced the cost to $4 billion or so, we run into our next problem: the .000002% of the recipients of the bonus who actually were swayed from aborting are now going into labor, and they just realized that the copay for giving birth is, like, much more than $1000. And that’s the ones who have insurance. They tell all their slutty friends who are cursed with God’s judgment, and now their friends all want to get abortions again! It’s crazy, I know, but given the expense of labor and delivery and having to pay for an actual child (assuming these children aren’t all given up for adoption, which they wouldn’t be), $1000 is absolutely nothing. (This shouldn’t be surprising; the going rate for surrogates is roughly $20,000 — which is probably lower than it should be, considering the health risks of pregnancy. Of course, that would have our plan costing around $100 billion a year, or about the size of the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, Agriculture, and Justice combined.) 

And not for nothing, but $1000 certainly not much of an incentive for women who are, one remembers, already paying easily that much to have abortions – which tends to suggest that the financial implications of childbirth are not the most pressing on women looking to abort anyhow. 

So to recap the plan: we’re going to increase the out-of-wedlock birthrate, encourage women to lie, and pay too little to actually affect the abortion rate whatsoever. It’s a remarkable plan, I don’t know why anti-choicers haven’t thought of this before.

Now, obviously, this plan simply wouldn’t work, but frankly, that’s not the worst part of it. The worst part, of course, is that it’s essentially treating the woman as a rent-a-uterus, a thing that must be placated just long enough to extract the thing of value, the baby, from her. It’s dehumanizing, and it’s demeaning, and it ignores all the problems with actually being pregnant that most women, bless them, soldier through in order to have a child. It’s arduous, dangerous work, which is why people of decent character generally think that we should do what we can to make the work voluntary — to allow women to decide for themselves whether to take on the burden of carrying a pregnancy to term — and to allow them to opt out should they decide, even after they start, that they do not want to continue.

Of course, thinking that requires one to recognize that the work women do in carrying on our species’ existence is tremendously valuable and difficult, and something that they, as humans, should be lauded for. But when your view of pregnancy values the potential human within far more than the actual human without, it’s hard to recognize that. And easy to think that the husk which contains the precious child can be bought off with 15 cents per hour for nine months of ’round the clock work. The husk isn’t that important, you see. It’s just a woman.

I haven’t said anything about the situation in Iran, mostly because I don’t feel qualified to speak about it. I’m watching it, though, following the Twitter feeds obsessively and learning as much as I can about Iran’s history. I’ve been finding fellow blogger Richard Jeffrey Newman’s posts over at Alas especially illuminating about the nuances not being covered in the mainstream media.

I had to think hard about posting this here at ABW, though, because for awhile I wasn’t sure whether the situation in a Persian-dominated country halfway around the world, which has its own entirely different racial issues, was on-topic. Then I remembered a book I’d read a few years back, and considered the historical context that’s a constant undercurrent of the Iran situation, and realized it’s completely spot-on for a discussion of racism.

Because modern racism’s roots, we must remember, lie in European and American imperialism. The many hideous dehumanizations of people of color started centuries ago as an attempt to justify the slave trade and its cruelties. These dehumanizations continue today for the purpose of justifying American financial interests (primarily in oil). We’ve seen this again and again, to most devastating effect in Africa and Latin America, but in other parts of the world as well.

Iran belongs in this category. I was aware that the CIA had helped to overthrow Iran’s last democratically-elected government in the 1950s, replacing it with the tyrannical Shah — which itself touched off the Iranian Revolution and seated the government that is now oppressing its own people. What I hadn’t realized was just how cynical and deliberate the imperialist process was, until I read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.

Now, I didn’t like this book. Perkins, who spent the 1970s and 80s working for Chas T. Main, an engineering consulting firm — think Halliburton today — spends a little too much of the book glamorizing himself as some kind of geeky James Bond, lunching with power players and banging his way through the fairer sex; he reads to me as a guy on an extended midlife crisis. That said, the book is spot-on in revealing the ways in which American imperialists function in the modern day. Perkins explains that the NSA, CIA, and US business interests have repeatedly worked together to bribe, blackmail, frame, addict, overthrow, and if necessary, kill the leaders of other nations, so that ours can make more money. He touches on Iran, though only glancingly, but he provides enough other examples in Latin America and Asia, and shows enough of how the pattern works, that anyone who reads this book will have a clear idea of how American fucked up Iran.

And then compounded the initial assault over the next 30 years. Like many of us, I grew up thinking of Iran as “the country of religious fantatics who took American hostages, had something to do with the Contras, and just generally fucking hates us.” This was the framing of Reagan and his cronies, who — as imperialists themselves — had a vested interest in “othering” Iranians. There was frequently a racial component to this othering*, although sometimes it was just matter-of-factly self-serving.

I read Perkins’ book years ago, but I have to admit — I kept thinking of Iranians as a somewhat scary “they” and “them”, even though the book illuminated many of the ways in which they were us. If the US could have done so, it would happily have enslaved the Iranian people — economically if not literally — and frankly, some Americans are still trying. This, I suspect, is what’s really behind the inexplicable demands by Republicans that Obama make a stronger effort to endorse the protesters in Iran, even though this would be the equivalent of shooting the protest movement in the back. My guess is that they want Mousavi’s supporters to be suppressed — so that they can later send in “hit men” like Perkins to offer the same Faustian bargain that got offered to the Taliban of Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This is their favorite tactic, according to Perkins: cultivate a disgruntled minority and then use their desperation for profit. The hit men arrive bearing gifts and a message of hope: Promise to support our interests and we’ll help you gain power, and then you’ll be free to keep that power in whatever fucked-up way you want.

But this is why I’m so hooked on the Twitter feeds. I no longer think of the Iranian people as “them,” and I don’t think I’m the only person to feel this way. Here’s an excerpt from Twitter Ripped the Veil Off ‘The Other’ — And We Saw Ourselves:

All the accumulated suspicion and fear and alienation from three decades of hostility between Iran and America seemed to slip away. Whatever happens, the ability of this new media to bring people together - to bring the entire world into this revolution on the streets of Iran - has already changed things dramatically.

Yeah. This.

So fight on, people of Iran. I know you don’t like me much; that’s cool. You got cause. I still wish there was more I could do to help — but I think the best thing I can do right now is write to my own American politicians, and urge them in the strongest possible terms to shut the fuck up. And I’ll keep watching. God be with you.

* I’m really, really sorry to link to a post on Michelle Malkin’s site, folks. Unfortunately, it’s a great example of the nastiness that’s out there.

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Anyway. Links.

First, the heavy posts:

Timing Is Everything: Nicolas Sarkozy Defends Women’s Rights by Restricting Them More feminism being used as a pretext for racism. Perfect.

I Didn’t Know "Rest In Peace" Came with a Citizenship Requirement! Yeah, I can’t comment on this one. Because the language I would be using is not allowable in polite company. At all.

And…with very very very STRONG TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Intersectionality and Rape There is a large conversation about rape going on on LJ and I thought that this post was a very very good compilation of links to intelligent posts on the topic.

Then, the thinky posts:

The Intersection of Race and Steampunk: Colonialism’s After-Effects & Other Stories, from a Steampunk of Colour’s Perspective [Essay] Excellent article. But Racialicious consistently brings the cool, don’t they?

Speak CD

Finally, the lighter posts:

The writer of the Steampunk article above, Jha, introduced me to the blog of one Talulah Mankiller. People. You read to be reading her. Seriously.

Take for instance her hilarious and on point eviseration of romance novel tropes in I Love My Dead Gay Husband I&II.

Orgasming Through Penetration Alone

Guys, I took Women’s Health: for most women, this just does not happen on a regular basis, if at all. It’s not because they “haven’t found the right man”; it’s because it’s often physically impossible. So please stop writing this–in some states, romance novels are what passes for sex ed. Think of the children who will one day grow up to be disillusioned, sexually frustrated adults if you keep writing this shit. Do you really want them killing you in a fit of post-coital rage? I didn’t think so.

People, speaking as someone whose expectations are STILL messed up by that pervasive bit of batshittery? I cheered! How can you not love her like I do? And she has more! See I Love My Dead Gay Husband III: Still Dead. Still Gay. And Now with Bonus Manic Episodes (especially the part about the Creamy white thighs *snerks*) and The Werewolf Ate my Homework for a dissection of the wonderful (barf-inducing) world of YA Fiction!

In terms of recs for this week? The Al Jazeera English Program Artsworld, on youtube. Its an absolutely fascinating look at art from around the world, from English gardens to Canadian DNA art to Ghanaian coffins (when I die, I want a book-shaped coffin let me tell you) to Tunisian glassblowing and tons more!

And that’s it for this week! Have yourselves a peaceful weekend!

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For the YouTube impaired, Bachmann states a number of completely made-up statistics showing that this measure would destroy the economy, and then declares, “But what is worse than this is the fact that now because of this underlying bill, the federal government will virtually have control over every aspect of lives for the American people. It is time to stand up and say: We get to choose. We choose liberty, or we choose tyranny — it’s one of the two.”

Because nothing says tyranny like weak, market-based restrictions on carbon emissions. It’s pretty much exactly the same as what’s going on in Iran, only worse.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck decided to go after the bill by using a watermelon as a prop. Frankly, given Beck’s rather unique view of the world, this is barely worth mentioning.

“Obama right now is talking about, he can generate more revenue by taxing the top 2 to 3 percent of Americans,” Wurzelbacher said. “Well, you know, that’s immoral. Just because someone’s worked hard, gotten ahead — it’s not your money.”

Ah, yes, well, you see “Joe,” progressive taxation has been a part of American law since the dawn of the income tax. Even Ronald Reagan supported progressive taxation. Are you saying our country is immoral? Why do you hate America?

I kid, of course; your argument basically just proves you’re a libertarian douchebag who hasn’t thought too deeply about anything. It’s not like you called for the death of a politician.

Wurzelbacher has a reputation for being a blunt, politically incorrect speaker. Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, “Why hasn’t he been strung up?”

Oh. Well, you know, you still have that keen grasp of policy that led John McCain to call you his personal hero, right?

And he glosses over facts. Referring to the Constitution as “almost like the Bible,” Wurzelbacher said of the Founding Fathers: “They knew socialism doesn’t work. They knew communism doesn’t work.”

Of course they did! Everyone knows that Ben Franklin invented the time machine, right after he invented the vibrator.* He and Thomas Jefferson time-traveled to the Soviet Union in 1984, and decided there and then that communism would not work. And thank goodness — had they traveled to Sweden in 2006, all of history might have been different.

Incidentally, “Joe” says he didn’t leave the GOP. Damn liberal media, reporting what he said as if he said it. But I say thank goodness. The Palin/The “Plumber” ticket is still alive for 2012. And that would be hilarious.

*This is why Franklin was so popular with the ladies.