![image of a pub Photoshopped to be named 'The Beloved Community Pub'](http://web.archive.org./web/20180407073239im_/http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/shakes6/bcpub.jpg)
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
This list o' links brought to you by question marks.
Recommended Reading:
Molly Ringwald at the New Yorker: [Content Note: Rape culture; racism; homophobia] What About The Breakfast Club?
Vivian Kane at the Mary Sue: [CN: Domestic violence] Jordan Peele Is Making a Lorena Bobbitt Docuseries and It's About Damn Time
Lisa Needham at Dame: [CN: Nativism] Trump Is Now Going After Legal Immigrants and Children
Charles Pierce at Esquire: What's Happening in Oklahoma Is Remarkable Evidence of the Power of Public Education
Anisa Khalifa at Reappropriate: [CN: Colonialism; white supremacy; colorism] On Being a Brown Asian: Expanding the Boundaries of Asian America
Catherine Lizette Gonzalez at Colorlines: Uncommon Bonds Explores What It Takes for Women to Have Real Friendships Across Race
Maddie Stone at Earther: China Is Definitely Winning the World's Clean Energy Race
Rae Paoletta at Inverse: The Milky Way Is Hiding a Mind-Blowing Number of Black Holes in Its Center
Rochelle Johnson at Beauticurve: Fun Spring/Summer Look from My Fave
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
This is very, very, very, very, very, very, very not fucking good:
Department of Homeland Security to compile a media database because everything is really that terrible, folks https://t.co/K4BisBsxkp
— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) April 6, 2018
[T]he United States government, traditionally one of the bastions of press freedom, is about to compile a list of professional journalists and "top media influencers," which would seem to include bloggers and podcasters, and monitor what they're putting out to the public.MAKE YOUR CALLS.
...As part of its "media monitoring," the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have "24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc." in order to "identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event."
"Any and all media coverage," as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes "online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media."
The database will be browsable by "location, beat, and type of influencer," and for each influencer, the chosen contractor should "present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer."
One aspect of the media coverage to be gathered is its "sentiment."
...The real question, of course, is what the government plans to do with the information it compiles, and there's been no comment on that beyond what is in the posting, which, by the way, has interest from at least seven companies. Will those on the DHS media database be questioned more harshly coming in and out of the country? Will they have trouble getting visas to go to certain countries for their own reporting or personal vacations? Worse?
...If you think the idea of the U.S. government's compiling and monitoring a list of media professionals and "top media influencers" is a potential threat to democracy, now would be the perfect time to call your local and congressional representatives to let them know how much you value a free press and the freedom of speech, just in case they've forgotten.
I am again participating in the #365feministselfie project, now in its fifth year, and promised a thread for others to share selfies and/or talk about the project, visibility generally, self-apprecation, and related topics. So here is a thread for Week 14!
A few of my selfies over the last two weeks:
Hundreds of people have marched through the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Crown Heights to protest against police for shooting an unarmed black man.Everyone except the police.
Saheed Vassell, 34, was shot and killed by police on Wednesday afternoon. The New York police department said it had received calls that a man was wielding a gun, but it turned out to be part of a welding torch.
People blocked the corner of Utica Avenue and Montgomery Street, where Vassell was shot, chanting: "No justice, no peace."
...Vassell would regularly hang out at the corner where he was shot, residents said, and was known to suffer from mental illness.
"I gave him a dollar the day before he was shot," said Mavis Mayfield. "Everybody in the neighborhood knew him."
Do you believe that the Fake News Media is pushing hard on a story that I am going to replace A.G. Jeff Sessions with EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, who is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege? Do people really believe this stuff? So much of the media is dishonest and corrupt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 6, 2018
Facebook has asked several major U.S. hospitals to share anonymized data about their patients, such as illnesses and prescription info, for a proposed research project. Facebook was intending to match it up with user data it had collected, and help the hospitals figure out which patients might need special care or treatment.Jesus fucking Jones, this company.
The proposal never went past the planning phases and has been put on pause after the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal raised public concerns over how Facebook and others collect and use detailed information about Facebook users.
"This work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared, or analyzed anyone's data," a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC.
But as recently as last month, the company was talking to several health organizations, including Stanford Medical School and American College of Cardiology, about signing the data-sharing agreement.
While the data shared would obscure personally identifiable information, such as the patient's name, Facebook proposed using a common computer science technique called "hashing" to match individuals who existed in both sets. Facebook says the data would have been used only for research conducted by the medical community.
The project could have raised new concerns about the massive amount of data Facebook collects about its users, and how this data can be used in ways users never expected.
I love listening to Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard talk about their relationship, which feels so familiar to me in so many ways. I like the sweet stories; I like the stories about times that are tough; and I like the funny stories.
The following story, which Bell told on a recent visit to Ellen, is one of my favorite stories of all time (and OMG Ellen's birthday party sounds amaaaaaaazing!):
Ellen Degeneres: Hi, adorable Kristen Bell.I could not stop laughing at this, because OMG the well-meaning husband who just wants to participate, but THAT IS NOT THE VIBE, MAN.
Kristen Bell: Hiiiiii!
Ellen: You look beautiful.
Kristen: Thanks! So do you!
Ellen: You look so pretty. Tell me what's going on with you. The last time I saw you, you were at my birthday party.
Kristen: YES! Your birthday party was SO FUN!
Ellen: Wasn't it fun?
Kristen: It was so much fun! There was a very nice dance floor — AND I'd like to thank you, 'cause I had one of the best moments of my life.
Ellen: What?
Kristen: Well, you know, it was a real— I got there, and it was a real who's who; it was very exciting. And I was on the dance floor— Melissa McCarthy started the dance floor—
Ellen: Yes she did.
Kristen: —demanded that everyone dance. And you listen when she talks to you! And I was just kind of casually getting into it, and all of a sudden I see, in a little settee to the side, JLo, like, looking like JLo, right? So elegant! And then she just goes— [mimes JLo pointing at her, then pointing back at herself] And I was like— [mimes looking around to make sure JLo was pointing at her] She gets up! We start dancing together! I'm FREAKING OUT! I'm like: I'm dancing with JLo! I'm dancing with JLo! I'm like hitting her butt— [audience laughter] It's amazing! She didn't mind; it's consensual! But then— [slumps back in seat] My husband sees, and he came over, and he kinda cockblocked me.
[audience laughter, as Kristen looks totally dejected]
Ellen: No!
Kristen: Sorry, he did. But he was — I'm sure from his perspective, he was like, "My wife's dancing with JLo! That's so cool!" And he came over, and he's— [mimes his trying to dance excitedly with them] —comes up, and we were both like, "No, man. No. Nooooo."
[audience laughter, as Kristen slumps back in her seat again]
Ellen: No.
Kristen: No, no.
Ellen: No.
Kristen: He kinda like ruined my vibe with JLo.
Ellen: I'm so sorry to hear that.
Kristen: It's all right.
Ellen: Is he a good dancer?
Kristen: He actually is a very good dancer.
Ellen: Is he?
Kristen: Yeah, he's a really, really good dancer. His moves are fantastic. It wasn't that he was a bad dancer; it's just that he— [picture of the couple is projected in the background; audience awwwwws] —awwwww.
Ellen: Awwwww.
Kristen: It's just that, like, we had a thing.
Ellen: Right.
Kristen: Like we had a slumber party thing going on, you know, and then he came in and it was just like, "Oh, and here's my husband."
Ellen: Yeah, but then— [audience laughter; Ellen and Kristen laugh] I know what that's like. [laughter]
Last week, I wrote a piece addressing the common confusion about why Donald Trump occasionally agrees to a policy that makes him, ever so briefly, look as though he cares about Russian aggression. Like, for instance, kicking out Russian spies. "Russia doesn't need spies in the United States when the United States president will share highly classified intel directly with Russian diplomats right in the Oval Office," I observed.
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] That's the backdrop for today's news that the Trump administration has "unveiled new actions against Russian officials, oligarchs, businesses, and agencies — freezing assets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction."
One of those named is Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire with links to former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort, who has been charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.What a carefully parsed statement that is technically very accurate! There is indeed no question about who is targeted, nor that it will be widely noticed. What the anonymous official studiously leaves out is whether the move will be effective — and that's because it won't.
"There is no question that this activity goes after a number of individuals and entities surrounding the Kremlin regime, and this will be noticed far and wide," a senior administration official said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
If freedom is to prevail over the many challenges to it, American leadership is urgently required. This was among the indelible lessons of the 20th century. But by what he has said, done and failed to do, Mr. Trump has steadily diminished America's positive clout in global councils.Emphasis mine. There is much, much more at the link.
Instead of mobilizing international coalitions to take on world problems, he touts the doctrine of "every nation for itself" and has led America into isolated positions on trade, climate change, and Middle East peace. Instead of engaging in creative diplomacy, he has insulted United States neighbors and allies, walked away from key international agreements, mocked multilateral organizations, and stripped the State Department of its resources and role. Instead of standing up for the values of a free society, his oft-vented scorn for democracy's building blocks has strengthened the hands of dictators. No longer need they fear United States criticism regarding human rights or civil liberties. On the contrary, they can and do point to Trump's own words to justify their repressive actions.
At one time or another, Trump has attacked the judiciary, ridiculed the media, defended torture, condoned police brutality, urged supporters to rough up hecklers, and — jokingly or not — equated mere policy disagreements with treason. He tried to undermine faith in America's electoral process through a bogus advisory commission on voter integrity. He routinely vilifies federal law enforcement institutions. He libels immigrants and the countries from which they come. His words are so often at odds with the truth that they can appear ignorant, yet are in fact calculated to exacerbate religious, social, and racial divisions. Overseas, rather than stand up to bullies, Mr. Trump appears to like bullies, and they are delighted to have him represent the American brand. If one were to draft a script chronicling fascism's resurrection, the abdication of America's moral leadership would make a credible first scene.
Suggested by Shaker Carpe Librarium: "Are you good at snappy comebacks, or do you tend to think them up only after the moment has passed? Was there a moment where you came up with the perfect response at the perfect time?"
I've always been pretty good at snappy comebacks, and I've only gotten better in the time I've had to navigate public trolling.
Here's a witty retort I shared on Twitter last weekend:
"Can't you get your uterus removed to stop you being so hysterical?"
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 31, 2018
"I contend that if men want me to stop being 'hysterical,' then they should remove themselves."
Luckily I was with two men who posed that question facetiously and who laughed very hard at my retort.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 31, 2018
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
* * *
Over the past year I have repeatedly asked Facebook for its stance on bulk harvesting and research use of its users' data. Last February I asked the company if it had comment on the mass harvesting of data by commercial enterprises for political purposes and whether it had any policies prohibiting the use of personality quizzes or other apps that bulk harvested profiles. In June I asked it, in light of all of the ways Facebook itself was conducting research on its users, whether it might consider offering users the right to opt-out of having their personal data exploited by Facebook for research. In September, in the aftermath of the controversial 'gaydar' study that claimed to be able to estimate someone's sexual orientation from their photo and used a large volume of harvested Facebook data, I asked whether the work's mass harvesting of profile photos was of concern to the company. Just last month I asked whether Facebook was planning to request that large holders of data harvested from the platform delete their archives or whether it planned to request that bulk Facebook datasets available for download be restricted to university researches and exclude commercial researchers. Not to mention countless other requests for comment about various Facebook research use of private user data. In every case the company's response was silence.— Kalev Leetaru at Forbes, in a must-read piece entitled "Why Are We Just Finding Out Now That All Two Billion Facebook Users May Have Been Harvested?"
"What I'm sensing now is that we have to pivot back to people who have a deep-rooted knowledge of American history and politics and experience in policy and how laws get made," says Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who also says he didn't vote in 2016. SCREAM. https://t.co/m9WUAs84u4
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
"He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But beyond that reality," Sen. Sanders says, Democrats have lost a record no. of legislative seats.
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) April 5, 2018
I just want to note how carefully Bernie Sanders avoids saying Barack Obama was a good president here. "Charismatic individual, extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy." But nothing about being a good president. Or even being president at all. https://t.co/yx8LkieHkP
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Sanders said he will "try to do better" in reaching out to racial justice leaders in Vermont in response to criticism that he has fallen short in representing the state's minorities during his long political career.Cool cool cool.
"Well, you know, I'm sorry to hear that and I will try to do better," the independent lawmaker said in response to a question about concerns voiced by African-American leaders in Vermont that he had done little to stay in touch with them.
"I think if anyone looks at my record here in Vermont and nationally on issues of racial justice, I think it's a pretty strong record and will continue to be," he said.
On Russian influence on the 2016 election, Sanders said: "Their goal is to divide this country up, and to try to create antagonisms and hatred between different groups of people. My suspicion is what happened is that at the end of my campaign, when it became apparent that I wasn't going to be the Democratic nominee, what they attempted to do is to reach out to people that they felt were my supporters and to tell them not to vote, or not to vote for Clinton or to vote for Trump, and trying to say really hateful and really ugly things about Secretary Clinton."Oh.
Sanders concluded, "I don't suspect it had a major impact" on the outcome of the election.
CNN: Mueller's office wants to know if wealthy Russians used US straw donors to steer $ to the Trump campaign and inaugural fund. We reported last year that the American cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg gave $250K to the Trump inaugural fund. https://t.co/AayXmRjBGT pic.twitter.com/WOpXsVqmW5
— Dan Friedman (@dfriedman33) April 4, 2018
Trump famously spent very little money on traditional campaign strategies. So if wealthy Russians were illegally funneling money to the Trump campaign, virtually all of that money went directly to Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and lining the coffers of Trump properties. https://t.co/ElG66CUR9u
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Remember when everyone was calling @KellyAnnePolls a hypocrite for trashing @realDonaldTrump when she worked for @tedcruz and doing a complete 180 when she joined Trump? The candidates were just disposable puppets. She was working for the Mercers all along https://t.co/f67vcSpnPF
— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) March 23, 2018
NEW:
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) April 5, 2018
More than 1 million jobs that could be vulnerable in a trade war with China are in Trump counties, new data show.
My new post, with charts:https://t.co/X8jHIpWxs9
I'm entirely tired of men who insist that Kevin Williamson couldn't possibly have been "serious" about wanting to hang women for getting abortions, despite the fact that he said it multiple times. https://t.co/kAKMWOYFUI
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
And the reason that so many men can *utterly unaccountably* believe that men who espouse violence against women aren't really "serious" about it is because those men themselves all harbor a low-grade hatred of women. They think every man does, but not every man acts on it, so.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
And feminist/womanist women tell you that men who publicly and repeatedly endorse vengeful violence against women are dangerous and serious, and you call us hysterical, and then you act fucking surprised during moments of fleeting reckoning like #MeToo.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Man: Plays devil's advocate and/or apologist for a man who has endorsed hanging women who have abortions.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Woman: I can't trust you.
Man: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #NotAllMen you fucking bitch.
I am too tired. Get yourselves together, men. Jesus.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Two months ago, an Ethiopian woman seeking asylum in the United States went to her interview with an American official who would decide her fate. She was expecting it to be tough. But the officer asked her a series of questions her attorney had never heard before.Fuck this administration. Goddammit.
Like many Ethiopian women, this one survived female genital mutilation when she was 7 years old — a dangerous and medically unnecessary practice deplored by human rights groups around the world.
And the asylum officer grilled her about it.
"Tell me where they cut you," the officer asked, according to the woman's lawyer, Alan Parra. "What did they use? Did it hurt? What did they cut specifically? Did they use anesthesia?"
The woman broke down crying.
This type of exchange with officers — lengthy, and filled with personal questions — is increasingly common among people seeking asylum in the United States, according to a host of immigration attorneys who spoke with The Daily Beast.
Officials with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said there haven't been any formal changes in policy or practice on interviews. But the lawyers who help their clients through these interviews insisted that the process has gotten significantly longer and harder. On top of that, the lawyer said, officers are losing their clients' paperwork.
A group of Somali men alleged they were abused while in ICE detention. Then they were deported https://t.co/Sefyr5UXhY
— Daily Kos (@dailykos) April 5, 2018
[Content Note: Police brutality; death; racism; disablism.]
Saheed Vassell, a 34-year-old Black man, has been fatally shot by police in Brooklyn who claim to have erroneously believed he was brandishing a gun:
A black man has been shot dead by police in New York after he pointed a metal pipe at them.My condolences to the man's family, friends, and community. I am so sorry.
Police had responded to emergency callers who said the man was aiming a firearm at pedestrians in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an official said.
The man took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at police and three plainclothes officers and one uniformed officer shot 10 times, the chief of department, Terence Monahan, told a news conference.
"This was a call of a man pointing what 911 callers and people felt was a gun at people on the street," Monahan said. "When we encounter him, he turns with what appears to be a gun at officers."
...Andre Wilson, 38, told the Daily News that he had known the victim for 20 years, describing him as a quirky neighborhood character.
"All he did was just walk around the neighborhood," he said. "He speaks to himself, usually he has an orange Bible or a rosary in his hand. He never had a problem with anyone."
"Andre Wilson, 38, told the Daily News that he had known the victim for 20 years, describing him as a quirky neighborhood character." So why didn't police know that? Police used to know people in the neighborhoods they policed. https://t.co/AKg5q4Szcz
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 5, 2018
Jaccbot Hinds, 40, who witnessed the shooting said officers jumped out of their unmarked police car and fired without warning.The timeline seems to support Hinds' account: "Police can be heard on emergency radio saying they were on scene at about 4:42 p.m. and 27 seconds later, officers were calling for an ambulance. The NYPD did not give an explanation when asked about that timeline."
"They just hopped out of the car. It's almost like they did a hit. They didn't say please. They didn't say put your hands up, nothing," Hinds said.
The NYPD refused to say if the responding officers warned Vassell before firing.
This was always going to be the inevitable destination of Donald Trump's white supremacist nativism:
Donald Trump aims to "immediately" send members of the national guard to protect the United States' southern border with Mexico, his administration announced on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, said Trump has directed "the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to work with governors to deploy the National Guard" to the border.
Nielsen and the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, dodged questions about the sudden urgency, and whether the deployment of the national guard was tied to reports Trump had seen on Fox News about "a caravan" from Central America that was headed to the border.
Nielsen was unable to answer questions about the size of the deployment and the cost. She said the number of guardsmen called up "will be as many as needed to fill the gaps today." However, Nielsen told reporters "we do hope the deployment begins immediately."
On a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official told reporters that "we don't have a date" for the national guard to be deployed, saying: "This is the first step in a process."
She said that the function of the national guard on the border would "include everything from aerial surveillance and some of the support functions" for the border patrol.
"Probably." Oh. https://t.co/v4ICj7jYrz pic.twitter.com/2RLokGwRag
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 4, 2018
Shaker SKM sent me the following image gleaned from the Washington Post's morning email dispatch:
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