Archives for 2014

WTF Is Wrong With These People?

by Tom Levenson| August 28, 201410:55 am| 170 Comments

This post is in: The War On Women, Vagina Outrage, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue

By these people, I mean (some) male gamers:

Earlier this week, feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian posted the latest in a series of crowdfunded videos called Tropes vs. Women, devoted to aggregating and analyzing games that portray women as damsels in distress, ornamental eye candy, incidental victims, and other archetypes that tend to be written in service of and subordinate to male players and characters….

…Since the project launched on Kickstarter way back in 2012, the gaming community has been treated to an incessant, deeply paranoid campaign against Tropes vs. Women generally and Sarkeesian personally….now, she’s apparently spent the night with friends after contacting law enforcement about “some very scary threats” against her and her family. She’s published a page of extremely violent sexual threats from the person who apparently drove her to call the police; in it, the user mentions the location of her apartment and threatens to kill her parents, who the user names and claims to be able to find.

Sarkeesian has tweeted out that she’s safe. The good news is that some very prominent people in and around gaming and tech have weighed in on her project. The bad news is that such public encouragement may be making Sarkeesian even more of a target:

In this case, the vitriol might have been compounded by the support her latest video received from popular developers and media figures. Joss Whedon and William Gibson, among others, mentioned it, and Tim Schafer of Double Fine — known for Psychonauts and the Kickstarter-funded Broken Age — spent several hours fielding responses after urging everyone in game development to watch it “from start to finish.”

I started to write here about how this is a test of the gamer community, and the need to shame and shun and all that, but we know. We do. Take it as read.

And, of course, it ain’t just gamers, though it’s pretty damn obvious at this point that tech in general has a dude-bro problem. I’ve recently been engaged in efforts to respond to gender bias and sexual harassment on my own patch, science writing, so I know better than to suggest that this is an isolated pathology. The hate and genuine danger may vary by degree, but it’s hardly confined to one corner of contemporary life.

IOW: if this is a test, it’s a test that we’re all are taking. Judge for yourself whether, when or if we manage to pass it.

Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Tarquin and Lucretia, before 1579.

WTF Is Wrong With These People?Post + Comments (170)

Charmers

by @heymistermix.com| August 28, 20148:33 am| 116 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

Kirsten Gillibrand relates a few experiences with her esteemed colleagues in the cooling saucer:

In one incident from her early days in the Senate, Gillibrand describes an older senator who approached her from behind and squeezed her waist. “Don’t lose too much weight now,” she recalls him saying. “I like my girls chubby.”

Orrin Hatch, butching it up, is my guess. You?

CharmersPost + Comments (116)

Good news from Arkansas

by David Anderson| August 28, 20147:46 am| 19 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance

From the Arkansas Times:

Insurance companies have proposed a net reduction in premiums of 2 percent next year for the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, the health insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act. The Marketplace includes all of the plans used for the private option, the state’s unique plan which uses Medicaid funds to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans….

Health insurance premiums for consumers buying coverage on their own was growing 10 percent or more per year before Obamacare. It’s become almost axiomatic in health care that insurance premiums will go up every year, so a potential decline is huge news.

This is good news for two reasons. The first is the simple reason that managed competition seems to be working reasonably well in Arkansas. There were a couple of companies that were approved for increases, and more that were approved for decreases. Flat or slightly declining aggregate insurance pricing is a massive deal for the state budget, and a good deal for the residents. Given the federal subsidy structure, almost every subsidized Arkansas resident (assuming income growth at or below national rates) will see their out of pocket premium expenses stay flat or go down slightly in the second year.

More interestingly from my point of view is how this applies to the 1115 waiver that established the private option in Arkansas. The 1115 waiver process has a number of requirements including federal government budget neutrality or budget gain. I’ve always been a bit suspicious of private option net budget neutrality as the reimbursement rates are significantly higher. A net decrease in Silver premiums makes achieving federal budget neutrality more reasonable.

Good news from ArkansasPost + Comments (19)

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Tricksey

by Anne Laurie| August 28, 20145:34 am| 79 Comments

This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads

Elegant simplicity:

Here’s cleek’s Tricksey, as a kitten.

Or, as a big cat, if you prefer.

************
Now that we’ve all enjoyed a moment of Zen, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Thursday Morning Open Thread: TrickseyPost + Comments (79)

Wednesday Night Open Thread

by John Cole| August 27, 201411:05 pm| 142 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Another beautiful day here in the northern panhandle of West by God Virginia, and I took a drive to Harry and Chatman’s farm after hitting the library, grocery, and doctor’s office in the thriving metropolis of Wellsburg. No rain, and I iced early in the morning so the shoulder pain was the best (the least) it has been in a long, long while. Got in 15,000 steps today, which is over seven miles, and the girls are just totally wiped out.

At one point this afternoon, I went to Walt’s house with the girls, scooped him up for a walk and handed off Rosie, then went next door and we convinced Holly to go on a walkabout with us. We went to Harald and Kim’s, who were off at work so we dognapped Smudgie (yes, people in Bethany in my circle of friends have been known to walk into other people’s houses when they are not homeand walk their dogs without them knowing- I’ve woken up from a nap before and Lily and Rosie are nowhere to be found because Walt has ‘borrowed’ them for a few hours to go to the park or on a walk), their alien-like Boston Terrier (he potties by lifting his back legs off the ground and using the front two legs as a bipod- he’s really the weirdest dog I know, but adorable):

We then walked to my mom’s house and forced her to walk Ginny and Guessly with us, and created a big dog walking parade. It was kind of amusing.

Mom and dad had their 46th anniversary today, went out to dinner, and on the way home, mom picked up an iPhone. First things first- she holds the damned thing like it is a live grenade. I’ve never seen such a smart person with such a tenuous grasp on technology. I tried to facetime her while she was in the room, and she immediately said she hated it because she didn’t want people knowing what she looks like. I had to point out that the only people who would facetime her would not only be her friends, but her friends who also had facetime. At that point, she asked my dad to call her from his chair that was situated three feet from her chair so she could “test the volume” on the ringer. I didn’t bother to point out to her that she could test that without him calling, so I just let him call her. He calls, it rings three times, and I start to show her something else and she got feisty and said “Wait, I have to answer my phone.” At this point I just lost it with her- “No you don’t. It’s dad calling you. He’s sitting right next to you holding his phone, you moron.” She responded (and now she was just making shit up because she realized I was right and she didn’t need to answer the phone)- “I want to practice answering it.” I just looked at her with equal parts contempt and pity.

At that point I just got up and went home.

It’s so frustrating dealing with her, because she isn’t stupid. Most of the time.

Got tagged on one of those lists on facebook, this time of books that influenced you. I was supposed to only come up with ten, but I went overboard. I’m really not a rules person.

1.) About Face- David Hackworth
2.) A Wrinkle in Time- Madeleine L’Engle (the whole series)
3.) Charlotte’s Web- E.B. White
4.) Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack- Marijane Meaker
5.) Weaveworld- Clive Barker
6.) My Darling, My Hamburger- Paul Zindel
7.) James and the Giant Peach- Roald Dahl
8.) Trout Fishing in America, The Hawkline Monster, a Confederate General from Big Sur, and Willard and His Bowling Trophies- all by Richard Brautigun
9.) American Psycho- Brett Easton Ellis
10.) The Killer Angels- Michael Shaara
11.) Bang the Drum Slowly- Mark Harris
12.) The Chocolate War- Robert Cormier
13.) The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogies- Stephen R. Donaldson
14.) Bless the Beasts and the Children- Glendon Swarthout
15.) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series- Douglas Adams
16.) A Day No Pigs Would Die- Robert Newton Peck
17.) Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret- Judy Bloom
18.) Neuromancer- William Gibson
19.) The Stand- Stephen King
20.) Slaughter-house Five- Kurt Vonnegut
21.) Dune- Frank Herbert
22.) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- HST
23.) Mythology- Edith Hamilton
24.) Naked- David Sedaris
25.) We Were Soldiers Once and Young- Galloway and Moore
26.) All the President’s Men- Woodward and Bernstein
27.) In Cold Blood- Capote

Technically not books, but I read and re-read every Bloom County and Doonesbury collection, as well as Calvin and Hobbes and the Far Side.

At any rate, I’m off to watch an episode or two of Rectify before heading to bed. The dogs have settled into the 7 am long walk routine like we have been doing it for 20 years,so now if I do not have my coffee in me and shoes on with leashes in hand by 7:15 am, it’s like the doggy equivalent of a prison riot, and that gets Steve so worked up that he starts bitching. When he gets into that mode, the only thing that calms him down is a treat, and since he eats before I am even allowed to think about brewing coffee, he doesn’t need a treat 15 minutes later.

*** Update ***

Also too, this:

@Johngcole Pandas faking pregnancy are why I have trust issues.

— Sonya Lee (@bujeeboo) August 28, 2014

Wednesday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (142)

Long Read: Mary Beard, “The Troll Slayer”

by Anne Laurie| August 27, 20148:51 pm| 52 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, KULCHA!, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

Rebecca Mead, in the New Yorker:

In February, Mary Beard, a classics professor at the University of Cambridge, gave a lecture at the British Museum titled “Oh Do Shut Up Dear!” With amiable indignation, she explored the many ways that men have silenced outspoken women since the days of the ancients. Her speech, which was filmed by the BBC, was learned but accessible—a tone that she has regularly displayed on British television, as the host of popular documentaries about Pompeii and Rome. She began her talk with the first recorded instance of a man telling a woman that “her voice is not to be heard in public”: Telemachus informing his mother, Penelope, that “speech will be the business of men” and sending her upstairs to her weaving. Beard progressed to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Tereus rapes Philomela & then cuts out her tongue so that she cannot denounce him. Beard alighted on Queen Elizabeth and Sojourner Truth before arriving at Jacqui Oatley, a BBC soccer commentator repeatedly mocked by men who were convinced that a woman couldn’t possibly understand the sport. A columnist for The Spectator, Beard noted, currently runs an annual competition to name the “most stupid woman” to appear on the current-affairs show “Question Time.”

Finally, Beard arrived at the contemporary chorus of Twitter trolls and online commenters. “The more I’ve looked at the details of the threats and the insults that women are on the receiving end of, the more some of them seem to fit into the old patterns of prejudice and assumption that I have been talking about,” she said. “It doesn’t much matter what line of argument you take as a woman. If you venture into traditional male territory, the abuse comes anyway. It’s not what you say that prompts it—it’s the fact that you are saying it.” Such online interjections—“ ‘Shut up you bitch’ is a fairly common refrain”—often contain threats of violence, a “predictable menu of rape, bombing, murder, and so forth.” She mildly reported one tweet that had been directed at her: “I’m going to cut off your head and rape it.”…

There is an injunction among users of social media that one should not pay attention to online detractors. There is even a Twitter account, @AvoidComments, which issues monitory statements: “You wouldn’t listen to someone named Bonerman26 in real life. Don’t read the comments.” Beard argues, instead, that comments sections expose attitudes that have long remained concealed in places like locker rooms and bars. Bonerman26 exists; his vileness should be contended with. In this spirit, she posted the image of herself-as-genitalia on her blog—it was surely the first time that the T.L.S. site might have needed a Not Safe for Work warning—and suggested possible responses for her supporters to take, such as flooding the offending message board with Latin poetry. The story made international news, and the message board soon shut down…

I haven’t always lived up to it, but for many years I’ve held this as a touchstone:

“If a man can resist the influences of his townsfollk, if he can cut free from the tyranny of neighbourhood gossip, the world has no terrors for him; there is no second inquisition” — John Jay Chapman, by way of Joanna Russ

Long Read: Mary Beard, “The Troll Slayer”Post + Comments (52)

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

In my day, never was longer.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

This blog will pay for itself.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.