Ted Cruz did not have a dildo stashed under his pillow. Ted Cruz slept on top of his pillow. https://t.co/MgFrrmeLe3
— Craig Mazin (@clmazin) April 13, 2016
It always is with these panty sniffers:
The brief insisted that Texas, in order to protect “public morals,” had “police-power interests” in “discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, combating the commercial sale of sex, and protecting minors.” There was a “government” interest, it maintained, in “discouraging…autonomous sex.” The brief compared the use of sex toys to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy,” and it equated advertising these products with the commercial promotion of prostitution. In perhaps the most noticeable line of the brief, Cruz’s office declared, “There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.” That is, the pursuit of such happiness had no constitutional standing. And the brief argued there was no “right to promote dildos, vibrators, and other obscene devices.” The plaintiffs, it noted, were “free to engage in unfettered noncommercial speech touting the uses of obscene devices,” but not speech designed to generate the sale of these items.
The brief by Cruz’s office compared the use of sex toys to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy,” and it equated advertising these products with the commercial promotion of prostitution.In a 2-1 decision issued in February 2008, the court of appeals told Cruz’s office to take a hike. The court, citing Lawrence, pointed to the “right to be free from governmental intrusion regarding ‘the most private human contact, sexual behavior.'” The panel added, “An individual who wants to legally use a safe sexual device during private intimate moments alone or with another is unable to legally purchase a device in Texas, which heavily burdens a constitutional right.” It rejected the argument from Cruz’s team that the government had a legitimate role to play in “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation.” No, government officials could not claim as part of their job duties the obligation to reduce masturbation or nonprocreative sexual activity. And the two judges in the majority slapped aside the solicitor general’s attempt to link dildos to prostitution: “The sale of a device that an individual may choose to use during intimate conduct with a partner in the home is not the ‘sale of sex’ (prostitution).”
Summing up, the judges declared, “The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the State is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence…Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices, government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution.”
I maintain that a Cruz Presidency would be worse for the nation than a Trump Presidency. Trump doesn’t believe in anything. Cruz is the fucking American Taliban.
Cermet
WTF!!!??? One of the judges disagreed with this logic? Really!? Either insane or trying to protect his right to control women again.
John Cole
So you all complained so much we got rid of the special colors for front pagers.
John Cole
Or at least I thought we did.
Punchy
It’s all about small gubbmint, non-intrusive laws, and FREEDUM(TM) unless there’s secksytime involved. Then it’s 237 laws prohibiting it. Unless it involves Republicans or other white men. Then it’s 18 exceptions to said law. Until the Blax and Messicans and Wimmunz find the loophole. Then it’s a Constitutional Amendy banning SSM and pet rhinos.
Betty Cracker
I love Craig Mazin!
ETA: It’s not easy being green…
bystander
Puce is daring!
I do wonder if anyone is pursuing the charges of infidelity against Cruz.
Iowa Old Lady
@Cermet: That was exactly what I was thinking! Who thinks this is anyone else’s business? Everyone masturbates. Everyone.
StringOnAStick
Agreed that Cruz is more dangerous, plus the fact that he and his followers are pretty sure they’re cheating and manipulating a broken delegate system for a higher purpose, therefore no moral sanctions need apply.
Kropadope
@Cermet:
Not mutually exclusive possibilities. I would even suggest strongly correlated.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Cermet:
My thought exactly. This decision should have been a unanimous no-brainer.
Calouste
You missed the tweet by Craig Mazin right before the one you quoted:
(My apologies to everyone who is working hard to keep their lunch from trying to escape their stomach).
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I’m still waiting to see what shakes free from the DC Madam’s lawyer.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole: The comment colors remind me of the varna (hue) system, the precursor of the caste system, FPers are Balloon Juice Brahmins and the commenters are shudras.
Mnemosyne
I wish I could remember which wise person said it first, but Republican policy revolves around getting the government out of our boardrooms and into our bedrooms. These guys need a hobby so they stop spending so much time worrying about what other people are doing.
MattF
Years ago, I used to read the Texas Republican Platform for grins and giggles. Little did I know. I guess the concept that these guys (and yeah, I’m sure they were mostly guys) were serious was just unbelievable to me.
Live and learn.
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack (phone): Forget it, Steep – it’s Texastown
Tim C.
@Iowa Old Lady: And everyone thinks of Wilford Brimley when they do it! Right! Back me up here!
Calouste
Really? Young guys are assholes enough as it is. Can you imagine what they would be like if they were no longer allowed to wank?
Paul Weimer
I call Ted Cruz Nehemiah Scudder for good and logical reasons.
kindness
Where the Taliban will obviously claim to have been smeared by linking it to Ted Cruz.
Just One More Canuck
Our former Prime Minister, and father of our current one, said it best
“The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”
schrodinger's cat
Ted Cruz is the worst and the scariest among the GOP clowns running this year. He has such an annoying voice and a smug mug, he exudes unpleasantness.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Fun historical fact that our Victorian ancestors didn’t want us to know: up until probably the mid-19th century, it was assumed that the female orgasm was just as essential to conception as the male orgasm, so our female ancestors of the early 19th century and before were having a LOT more fun than was generally believed post-Victorian times. Even the Puritans had regulations saying that a wife could divorce her husband if he wasn’t satisfactory in bed, because he was interfering with her God-given right to have children.
Science ruined orgasms for women for over 100 years. Thanks a lot, science.
J R in WV
I didn’t see anyone really complain about colored comments by front-pagers, although I did see some remarks about lavender/violet/pink colors being implemented. Surely we can discuss colors being shown to the world? I like some variation myself.
And I agree with the general opinions of Cruz – truly a dominionist religious politician, has no business running for office in a nation where the state and religion is constitutionally separated. I would have thought his brief before the court being so strongly rejected would have educated him, but I guess such is not possible.
He seems about like Denny Hastert as a person, to me. And I intend that in the harshest way – he seeks to participate in every sex act in the nation !! How much more perverted can you get than that? Repulsive in every way, speech, appearance, opinions, disgusting religious beliefs… I’m amazed that anyone voted for him, but I guess the national population has more preverts than anyone suspected.
Luthe
Dildo libel! Dildoes have a nobler purpose on this earth than Ted Cruz.
@Calouste: I cannot stop laughing at this.
Hurling Dervish
In other court news, this just in:
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a fraud! He’s not a god at all!
vanaugh v. Bartelt, (D NE, April 12, 2016), a Nebraska federal district court became one of the few to undertake a serious analysis of whether “FSMism”– the doctrine of the Flying Spaghetti Monster whose followers are called “Pastafarians”– qualifies as a “religion” for purposes of RLUIPA or the 1st Amendment. In a suit by a prisoner seeking accommodation of his Pastafarian faith, the court (in a 16-page opinion) said:
The Court finds that FSMism is not a “religion” within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and FSMism contains a serious argument—but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a “religion.”
Later in the opinion, the court explained:
This case is difficult because FSMism, as a parody, is designed to look very much like a religion. Candidly, propositions from existing caselaw are not particularly well-suited for such a situation, because they developed to address more ad hoc creeds, not a comprehensive but plainly satirical doctrine. Nonetheless, it is evident to the Court that FSMism is not a belief system addressing “deep and imponderable” matters: it is, as explained above, a satirical rejoinder to a certain strain of religious argument…..
This is not a question of theology: it is a matter of basic reading comprehension. The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement. To read it as religious doctrine would be little different from grounding a “religious exercise” on any other work of fiction….. Of course, there are those who contend … that the Bible or the Koran are just as fictional as those books. It is not always an easy line to draw. But there must be a line beyond which a practice is not “religious” simply because a plaintiff labels it as such. The Court concludes that FSMism is on the far side of that line.
Uncle Cosmo
@John Cole: @John Cole: Does it really serve any purpose to highlight front-pagers’ posts in special colors with no other functionality?
How about also linking the usernames in those posts to their BJ e-mail addresses? That way the colorization provides special functionality (“to e-mail this front-pager just click the username”) instead of merely announcing to the thread that these are Special People.
Jack the Second
Meh, I don’t think the hypocrisy makes it any worse.
Ted Cruz wants to take away people’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. That’s the problem, that’s what’s wrong. He could be giving every campaign and stump speech with a dildo up his ass and a foot-shaped fleshlight down his pants and it wouldn’t make him any worse of a person than he already is earnestly, outright, and non-hypocritically.
Tom Levenson
I’m writing this just to find out what color, if any, attaches to this comment. Also it’s simply creepy how much Ted Cruz and his ilk care about what happens in other people’s bedrooms. Take care of your own business, FrustraTed, and leave the rest of us to ours.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: Note: The Technology of Orgasm. Science has a lot to answer for, but the Victorians were just… special.
patroclus
@Just One More Canuck: Well, if your former Prime Minister hadn’t have done something in his bedroom, your current Prime Minister wouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t Canadians be interested in Prime Ministerial succession?
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
I swear your color looks more turquoise than green to me… maybe my eyes? or the monitor? no matter, whatever.
MattF
@Uncle Cosmo: Front pagers get those special bagels.
schrodinger's cat
@Tom Levenson: I guess you have to be twice born to get the color, its like the thread you get after the thread ceremony or something.
Gin & Tonic
@Hurling Dervish:
Um, Scientology?
Uncle Cosmo
@Paul Weimer: +1000.
From the Wiki article on Heinlein’s Future History:
Anyone here have any doubt that the Second Amendment open-carry whackjobs will form ranks right (um, far right) behind DisgusTED if he finagles the nomination?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Not entirely true. It’s said that Queen Victoria did not believe that lesbianism could exist. And in any case, Victorian England was hardly the sum total of the entire world’s view of sex. OTOH, Victoria’s son, Bertie did as much as he could to advance the cause of sexual excess and mutual pleasure.
Ah, but science and medicine helped bring about the vibrator, originally used by Victorian and later physicians to help relieve ladies of hysterical paroxysm. There is a great poster (image available somewhere via google) of devices sold by The Beaver Moon Vibrator Corp. Their motto: Vibration is Life.
J R in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
I think breaking up the pale gray / light gray non-color scheme with pastels here and there is a worthy goal by itself, to say nothing about marking front-page posters as special, because no one said anything like that until you did.
I don’t see much superior posing on the part of our posters here. Which is a good thing, they are superior and have no need to pose.
eemom
Like I said yesterday, it’s totally elitist for just the kewl kid FPers to have colors. We the great unwashed should get colors too.
Paul Weimer
@Uncle Cosmo
No doubt in my book. Cruz’s maneuvers, from Iowa to Colorado, just reinforce the parallels, and how much danger he represents thereby.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: By the way, interesting little tidbit in USA Today:
Did you order a copy? I missed out, for the moment.
boatboy_srq
@Calouste: Part of me laughs. And part of me is demanding brain bleach for the image of MasturbaTed that just flashed before my eyes.
Trollhattan
@Tom Levenson:
You need a a color. Pick a color. Be the color! By my count there should be about 16,777,213 left to choose from. I prefer rgba.
ThresherK
@Cermet: Well, look at it this way: The career ladder from that court goes to the Fifth (*spit*) District*. Whenever anything gets adjudicated something like actual supportable law there, instead of “then a miracle occurs”, I’m a bit astonished. (I don’t live there so I don’t have to deal with the Fifth’s crap findings, though.)
(*Is this accurate on my part?)
Hungry Joe
I’d like to know, what, exactly is the government’s interest in “discouraging … autonomous sex” — although I guess that first I’d have to know what “autonomous sex” is. Sex outside of government-licensed marriage? Sex with an automoton of some kind (see “Blade Runner”)?
It reminds me of government’s supposed interest in an individual’s choosing to alter his consciousness through inhaling smoke, snorting powder, or injecting a liquid of some kind. HOW it’s in the government’s interest to declare such behavior illegal, and to capture people who do it and put them in cages, has never been explained to anything near my satisfaction.
LAO
Seriously, how can we discuss this important topic with a reference to Dan Savage’s take.
Brachiator
@Cermet:
Actually, Terrible Cruz is about controlling men and women. This bunch of dopes think that they (and the state) have a duty to make sure that mens and wimmins have sex only in the way that insures that they make babies, because that it the Lord’s will.
Autonomous sex sounds like something that Google is working on.
Trollhattan
Completely accurate, every letter. Cruz is one of the most awful prominent American politicians of my lifetime and even in the current warped era where sociopathy is a feature, not a bug, he stands apart from the rest. And unlike Trump, Cruz has that fancy book-learnin’ and enough knowledge of constitutional law to cause true and lasting havoc, the kind that lasts a century. By contrast, Trump is a carnival barker. He’s nuts but in a knowable way, since he’s changed little in the last forty years.
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: ;-)
MattF
@Trollhattan: Speaking of colors, did you know that the CMYK gamut has been made into a jigsaw puzzle?
boatboy_srq
@Hungry Joe: Short answer? According to wingnuts, nobody is supposed to have fun. Nobody. Nowhere. At no time. Suffering, abstinence, and painful sobriety are your lot in life.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne: I’ve been looking at a good number of Victorian-era photos thanks to the geeks who’ve found, restored and digitized them. Seems that standing still in front of a camera for the time it took a decent image to register has made us tend to think of all Victorians as much more dour and expressionless than many of them actually were.
I know it surprised me, and I actually paid attention in English lit class and liked some of the stuff from that era.
gratuitous
A shiny nickel to the first reporter on the political beat to ask Sen. Cruz exactly what he meant when he wrote that the state had a public morals and police-power interest in citizens’ private sex lives. Or that the use of marital aids was engaging in consensual bigamy. Does he think the use of a dildo constitutes a marriage cognizable in law?
In fact, I’ll give that reporter two shiny nickels if they get a coherent answer from Sen. Cruz.
Trollhattan
@J R in WV:
A lot of monitors have limited color gamuts and most are out of whack, some badly so. Video cards have their own problems, especially motherboard video.
One of the bestest things I own is my color calibrator. Sure makes editing photos easier.
MattF
@LAO: I recall seeing a little video about that Texas law. They interviewed the owner of an Austin sex-toy shop– she had to come up with euphemisms for the uses of the various instruments on sale there, except for the butt-plugs. Turns out, butt-plugs were left out of the ordinance. Or, maybe the Texas Legislature’s imagination let them down.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: I think of myself more as a kshatriya, but each overlord to their own self be true.
Trollhattan
@MattF:
Nope, that’s awesome! And really, really scary to consider actually doing, but maybe not so bad once you dig in and figure out a system.
AkaDad
If Cruz becomes President, he’s gonna have to pry my blow-up doll from my cold, dead hands.
Trollhattan
@John Cole:
BTW, I like the colors. I vote “keep” if we’re voting.
MattF
@Trollhattan: Actually, since the position of each piece is determined quite precisely, it’s easier than it looks.
Brachiator
@Hungry Joe:
I think that prior to Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case which invalidated laws preventing most people from buying condoms and other birth control devices, many conservatives thought that the government had an interest in making sure that people got married, preferably to someone of their same race, and made babies.
It is amazing how far we have come in attitudes towards privacy and sex. And, unsurprisingly, conservatives see this as the collapse of civilization.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Scientology became a real religion the day they had a schism where disgruntled church members left to form their own church (Google “Freejack Scientology.”)
It may have started as a scam, but it’s the real thing now. Kind of like the ending of “Book of Mormon” (the Broadway show, not the book).
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Actually, if this source is to be believed, our Victorian/Edwardian ancestors *still* believed that female orgasm was, if not strictly necessary to conception, at least necessary to mental/physical health in general.
@Brachiator: ETA: I see you got there before me!
I think – but I am not sure – that according to Jewish law, as well, a woman can divorce her husband for similar reasons cited in the Puritan example. However, I Am Not of the Faith, so don’t hold me to that.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Mine is sitting next to me right now. I pre-ordered it back in January. First Edition, bitchez!
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: You can be like Bajirao, Brahmin by birth but Kshatriya by vocation. Basically, if you are a Brahmin, you can choose any profession as long as you don’t antagonize your fellow caste members.
liberal
@Hungry Joe:
Don’t be ridiculous. First, it’s entirely reasonable that government protect people from their own actions. Second, a lot of those behaviors affect others negatively, even if indirectly.
The problem with the drug war isn’t that the government should never regulate “victimless crimes”. The problem is that the approach taken is, empirically, a complete failure, and in fact has almost certainly made things worse than a regime of complete legalization. Not to mention that it’s plausible that a lot of these policies are more motivated to provide extra ways for the state to oppress poor people and people of color.
LAO
@MattF:
I am shaking with laughter at the thought, nay belief, that butt plugs were left out based upon the legislature’s sex toy preferences.
MattF
@Miss Bianca: The Talmud has all sorts of little surprises in it. However, note that Talmudic interpretation is considered a sort of sporting event, so what the law actually is depends mainly on the opinions of whoever’s in charge.
Donalbain
While I agree that Cruz is a disgusting douchebag, this seems a little bit unfair. He was asked by his employer to defend his employer in court. He did that to the best of his ability.
jl
GOP primary campaign has been lacking on the pressing issue of sex toys. If this post can help rectify that, then another case of BJ blog providing an essential service to the Republick.
Edit: I almost typed ‘rectalfy’ in honor of butt plugs, bug caught it in time. Whew! That was close.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Wait, what do you mean it’s RIGHT THERE BESIDE YOU? Oh, “Hamiltome”! Well, all righty then…this doesn’t go into the TMI category after all! ; )
sm*t cl*de
@gratuitous:
There’s something not quite right about that boy.
Does this mean that if a couple happen to have used a vibrator or whatever, together, they have already crossed the threshold of a threesome? Asking for a friend.
Betty Cracker
@Trollhattan: I requested that my comments to go back to uncolored even before I learned there had been such a hue and cry that everyone else was losing their colors. It kinda creeped me out to be so visible in a crowd, as if I were wearing a Vegas showgirl costume at an Amish church meeting.
Keith P.
True story – I found out about the Texas dildo ban during Halloween week 1997. Being alternatively and/or combined stoned/drunk most of the time, I decided that for a college campus (at the English house, with plenty of tenured professors) I was going to go as Ron Jeremy, complete with a bathrobe and strap-on dildo. I don’t know what possessed me to think I would get away with that (this was a Catholic university) but I pushed the envelope a LOT.
So anyway, I go to the adult bookstore across the street from my apartment (called “Studz”) to inquire about a strapon dildo. First, the strap-on harness was $40 (apparently sex toys, like drug paraphernalia, carries a monster upcharge). Then, the toy was another $20, and they could not refer to it as a “dildo” for legal reasons. And the toys could not appear like a penis, meaning no veins, tip, balls, etc.
Long story short (HAHA!), I didn’t buy the strap-on whatever and instead just put about 10″ of rolled-up sock in my underwear.
jonas
So what “medical” purposes might there be for stimulating one’s genitals (other than giving a sample, I suppose)? Reminds me of a great joke: Some administrators and doctors at a hospital are giving a VIP tour of a new wing to a very prim and proper wealthy older woman whose donation made the facility possible. The group passes a patient room with an open door and the woman glances in and sees a man standing next to his bed with his hospital gown pulled up and vigorously masturbating. Nearly fainting, she grabs the executive director by the arm and points to the man: “Good heavens! Don’t you see what that man’s doing in there! This is an outrage!” Seeking to calm the woman, one of the doctors explains, “Oh, don’t worry, he’s not some kind of pervert, he just suffers from a very rare urogenital tract condition that requires him to, shall we say, eliminate in that manner several times a day or he will suffer very serious medical complications. It’s doctor’s orders.” “Well,” huffs the woman, “I suppose if there’s a legitimate medical explanation, I won’t have to reconsider my relationship with this hospital, but still…” And just then, she glances into the next room where there is a beautiful nurse on her knees giving another male patient a blow job. “And how do you explain this!?!” she cries to the doctor. “Oh, same problem as the other guy — he just has better insurance.”
LAO
@Donalbain: Fair point. I’m an attorney, and have through my career, take a number of questionable positions. However, I ask you, do you have any doubt that he agrees with the premise of the brief. It was certainly all in.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I do sometimes wonder if a lot of this is people trying to retroactively erase the idea of their parents and grandparents not only having sex, but actually *enjoying* it. I think the Miss Manners line was something like, each generation believes that their parents invented sex, but it was only their own generation that perfected it.
But, short version is, prior to Victorian times, scientists assumed that the female orgasm produced something similar to semen and it was the mixing of the two “fluids” that caused conception. Once science figured out ovulation, it was all downhill for the useless female orgasm as far as reproductive science was concerned.
Brachiator
@AkaDad:
It’s crazy shit like this that makes me spit out my ball gag.
Ridnik Chrome
“Hillary’s gonna take away your GUNS!”
“Oh yeah? Well, Ted Cruz is gonna take away your DILDOS!”
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Dude(tte), I’m at work! That’s not one of my kinks.
Though I have heard that there’s a picture of Daveed Diggs in his underwear in the book, my discreet paging through it at work has not yet located it. I’ll have to wait until I get home.
jonas
@Donalbain:
Oh, you can tell he was really committed to this one. A more disinterested lawyerly type would have ginned up a bunch of stuff about consumer product safety or something as demonstrating the state’s interest in regulating vibrators. It was taking everything he had not to quote Bible verses. But he wanted to. You know he wanted to.
Gimlet
I’m sure one the Hillarybots on BJ can defend this version just as they did the last time it was brought up.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/13/shes_baldly_lying_dana_frank_responds
DANA FRANK: Well, I want to make sure that the listeners understand how chilling it is that the leading presidential—a leading presidential candidate in the United States would say this was not a coup. The second thing is that she’s baldly lying when she says we never called it a coup
I just want to say this is like breathtaking that she’d say these things. I think we’re all kind of reeling that she would both defend the coup and defend her own role in supporting its stabilization in the aftermath.
I mean, first of all, the fact that she says that they did it legally, that the Honduras judiciary and Congress did this legally, is like, oh, my god, just mind-boggling. The fact that she then is going to say that it was not an unconstitutional coup is incredible, when she actually had a cable, that we have in the WikiLeaks, in which U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens says it was very clearly an illegal and unconstitutional coup.
So she knows this from day one. She even admits in her own statement that it was the Honduran military, that she says, well, this was the only thing that was wrong there, that it was the military that took Zelaya out of the country, as opposed to somehow that it was an illegal thing we did—that the Honduran government did, deposing a president.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: I guess it would depend on where you worked, eh? ; ) OK, I stop now…
rumpole
Oh, it reaches farther than the device.
“There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.”
He’s the anti-wanking candidate. Millions of teenage boys facing jail time.
delk
So who’s going to start one of those Periods for Pence or Peeing for Pat things to let Ted know whenever a dildo is being used?
rikyrah
It’s rare when I am as bitter about a tv show as I have been about Sleepy Hollow since this past Friday, but I’m STILL pissed.
……………………..
POST MORTEM ON SLEEPY HOLLOW
Everyone is saying that the show had great potential, and that they screwed it up. But I haven’t seen anyone articulate what that potential was. Why was so resonant in season one? At this particular time, and in this particular climate?
I read the phrase “the chemistry between the two leads” and frankly that’s not enough for me. It’s not enough to explain what I saw in the show and why I am so mad. I deeply believe that the value of the fantasy/horror genre is how it lets us symbolically consider big issues of morality in ways that are fun.
…………………………….
If you study American history at all, slavery is three quarters of it. The struggle for racial inclusion and equity is the rest. More than class, more than ideas, more than geography, race is the single focal point that encompasses all of American history. There is no part of this country that wasn’t molded, or counter-molded, without the presence of it. From the very beginning we argued about it. We didn’t stop arguing. We went to war over it. Then we had a second proxy cold war about it during the civil rights movement. We are still arguing about it today with Black Lives Matter.
……………………………
I haven’t talked about Abbie yet. Sorry. I needed to set the stage. I needed to be able to say that the chemistry that existed between Abbie and Ichabod existed because she was black and accomplished and he was white and ignorant. The desire to smoosh them together, to make them work as partners, was more than a desire to see an attractive man with an attractive woman, it was a desire to reconcile the entire American experiment.
Think back to the images in their first meeting. Ichabod, an 18th century man, locked in a cage because he cannot understand the modern world. He’s idealistic, he’s educated, he’s utterly incompetent at modern reality, he cannot understand why he’s not in charge, why all the cretins around him treat him like he’s crazy and refuse to follow his orders. I’m pretty sure I just restated the analysis of trump voters.
Gin & Tonic
Funny dildo story. A few years back my son had been traveling for some time, and had sublet his apartment for the summer to a young lady. At the end of the sublet she left in a hurry without doing much cleanup, my son came back, fell very ill and was hospitalized. So we went there to spend time with him in the hospital, help clean his place for his return, etc. Turns out that among the stuff left there by the young lady were some very vividly-colored sex toys. So we got a box and packed up her stuff (mostly pretty uninteresting) and put the sex toys on top. Day or two later there was a call that her Dad was going to swing by and pick up her remaining things. So we gave him the box of stuff (no, it wasn’t sealed.) Not sure how much awkwardness ensued afterward, but I’ve always wondered.
Alain the site fixer
@schrodinger’s cat: Interesting comparison. I find color coding for type of information can be a very effective visual cue that speeds up understanding. In the site’s case, I figured a different color for each Front Pager would be a visual shortcut that would make it even more conversational, like hearing someone’s voice in a group conversation and knowing who was talking without having to consciously analyze.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Actually, I think that some Jewish and Muslim scholars have asserted that Judaism and Islam insists that husbands and wives have an obligation to please each other sexually.
from one beliefnet article:
For a loving married couple, nothing is forbidden.
Christianity is not the only religion that turned puritanical, but it is a prime offender.
ETA: I am not Jewish or particularly religious, but during my late college years I had the pleasure of spending some time with a Conservative Rabbi and his wife who were clearly and easily respectful and lovingly affectionate toward one another. Their example actually caused me to re-examine some of the dismissive attitudes I had toward religion and the false notion that all religious people were uptight sexually and emotionally.
Alain the site fixer
OT: I made a few style changes to the mobile site to make it in-line with the main site and to improve readability, Please let me know if it causes you angst.
eric
@LAO: a euphemism i did not need, thanks
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s always a catch.
Adam L Silverman
@AkaDad: more like your clammy, sticky hands. Ewww!
Mnemosyne
@Alain the site fixer:
It’s pretty good. The font is definitely a lot more readable on my iPhone.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Yep, its in the Ketubah or marriage contract. The husband is required to provide sexual gratification to the wife. She also has the right to demand a divorce. The husband, of course, can deny this.
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-ketubah-or-marriage-contract/
Brachiator
@Gimlet:
Shouldn’t you be talking about impeaching Obama for this?
And shouldn’t Sanders have the guts to call for Obama’s impeachment as well?
Gimlet
@Brachiator:
Just following orders?
Nice defense.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I also got a reprint copy of a 1926 book called “Life in Regency and Early Victorian Times.” The reduction in price of print on demand is allowing small publishers to offer copies of out of print books that are hard to find even in university libraries. Sadly, it wasn’t cheap — $30 for a pretty slim trade paperback.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: Not to mention LDS. Also, too, all Abrahamic faiths, which are based on works whose veracity cannot be independently demonstrated.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Given the subject matter, perhaps “questionable positions” is not the best phrase to be utilized here.
schrodinger's cat
@Alain the site fixer: I don’t follow the logic of colors facilitating conversation, we can read the handle and know who were are talking to, even without the color coding.
Ohio Mom
@MattF: @Brachiator:
Matt hits it, you can find almost anything you want in the Talmud, it is up to who is doing the interpreting. Since Judaism never had a central authority to filter and edit, there are a multitude of voices and viewpoints to chose from.
And while there *are* a lot of sex positive writings, nowadays the more orthodox you are, the more misogynist.
LAO
@eric: And I thought I’d be able to slip that in, without anyone noticing.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: I’m all about questionable euphuisms here today.
Turgidson
That’s my view. With the Short-fingered Vulgarian, there’s a distinct chance he’d govern like some sort of clownish version of Richard Nixon – his ideology will be Donald Trump, not hard-right, knuckle-dragging conservatism, and if burnishing his ideology means governing as a moderate in order to be popular and accrue power to himself, that’s what he’ll do. And he won’t give a shit how many times Glenn Beck tearfully lectures him on how he’s not a real conservative.
The things that are scary about Trump are his ignorance on just about everything and the way he’s gotten this far – basically running as a 21st century fascist. It’s scary that his shallow demagoguery has that much support in this country. But the idea of a true-believing, fiendish theocratic zealot like Tailgunner Ted Cruz actually being president scares me more than Trump, still.
But Tailgunner Ted Cruz is the most unpleasant, insufferable piece of shit on the planet. I can’t imagine a scenario where he wins. Even a serious October surprise probably wouldn’t save him.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
‘I’m Not Slow’: Black Girls Tell Their Experiences of School ‘Pushout’ in New Book
Apr 13, 2016, 2:14pm
Cynthia Greenlee
If Dr. Monique W. Morris makes anything plain in this book, it’s this: Black girls shouldn’t have to rely on their own resilience to stay in school.
For Black girls, the very schools charged with educating them reinforce and reproduce a dangerous, though often invisible, form of racial and gendered inequality, explains Dr. Monique W. Morris in her new book, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.
Among the young girls the reader meets in Pushout, there’s “Mia” (not her real name, as Morris used pseudonyms for all girls interviewed). Mia talked about how a “juvie” teacher assumed that when she asked for other tasks in class, that the girl didn’t complete her work. But Mia told Morris that she had raced through the assignment. Said Mia: “Then I’m like, ‘Can I write or draw?’ Something? I mean, it’s a whole hour to go.’ She was like, ‘No, you can’t do anything. You’re always getting done before the whole class. You know what, get out.’ …. I’m like, ‘Because I do my work, I’m actually trying to do my work now, and now you want me to get out? Hella shit.’”
What Mia wanted was positive recognition. Instead, she got written up.
Though Morris did not coin the term, the word “pushout” is an intentional reframing of the word “dropout.” It acknowledges that young people leaving school do so for a variety of reasons, many not of their own making. Poverty demands they work. Predatory “boyfriends” induct underage girls into selling sex with promises of love, clothes, and cash. Chaotic schools can make a motivated student dread going to class. LGBTQ teens who don’t conform to gender norms get bullied by peers and labeled “distracting” by adults.
Teachers and administrators often bring racialized and gendered assumptions about what it means to be a “good” girl to the classroom, Morris explains in her book. Notions of appropriate girlhood—nonsexualized though heterosexual, compliant, and quiet—are often the opposite of historical stereotypes that have cast Black girls as sexually precocious, uncooperative, and disrespectful. If a person believes the idea that every Black girl is a Jezebel-in-training or hates school, it’s hard for them to see beyond that.
And, in many cases, affected girls understand this.
Largely absent throughout much of Pushout are Black girls’ parents or guardians. Morris departs from the long tradition of punditry and social science that churns out study after study about what’s “wrong” with this mythical, monolithic, and immutable Black family. It’s a refreshing absence that will make some readers ask about parental involvement. That’s a fair question—but an easy and familiar default that inevitably veers into talk about personal responsibility without taking structural inequality into account.
Interviewing almost 40 pushed-out girls in urban areas, including Mia, Morris uses their own words to assert that Black girls are worth study, attention, and equity in education.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: @LAO: Like no one was going to notice “slip that in”?
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: It was in reference to my prior “all in” statement, flagged by Eric.
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: and as I am sure you know, it’s not unknown for ultra-orthodox men to deny their wives religious divorces, leaving them unable to remarry. At least by their rules.
When I was getting married and talking to an artist about having an untraditional ketubah made, I had to listen to a lecture about how wonderful the traditional wording was, how ahead of their time our forebears were and so forth.
I replied that 3,000 years is a long time to rest on your laurels.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: I have a publication in a book on religious ethics dealing with agunot/chained women that result from the husband refusing to issue the get/divorce decree.
nellcote
Republican Who Sponsored TN’s Anti-Trans Law Now “Quarantined” As Danger To Female Coworkers
NASHVILLE, Tenn.– A Tennessee lawmaker is effectively being quarantined from lawmakers, lobbyists and interns after the state’s attorney general determined that he could pose a risk to “unsuspecting women” at the state Capitol complex.
House Speaker Beth Harwell announced Thursday that she is moving Rep. Jeremy Durham’s office to the ground floor of a building across the street and that his access to committee rooms and the House chamber will be limited to when meetings are taking place. The move comes amid a state attorney general’s investigation into the Franklin Republican’s “pattern of conduct” toward women.
Interviews with 34 current and former lawmakers, lobbyists, staffers and interns included allegations that Durham made sexual comments and inappropriate physical contact with women working at Legislative Plaza, according to Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s memorandum to Harwell.
Slatery recommended that the House take action to avoid a hostile work environment at the Capitol complex.
“Representative Durham’s alleged behavior may pose a continuing risk to unsuspecting women who are employed by or interact with the Legislature,” Slatery said in the memo.
Durham, who did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday, has denied any wrongdoing and is running for re-election this fall. His attorney, Bill Harbison, said he objected to what he called an “unusual” investigation.
“We find it surprising and unfair, frankly, that a report would be released without our having had any opportunity to know what was being investigated or what was being discussed,” Harbison told The Tennessean.
In January, Durham told CBS affiliate WTVF that he would not comply with Republican leaders’ requests for resignation.
“I know for a fact I’ve never sexually harassed anybody,” he said. “If I’ve sent a text message that I shouldn’t have, and someone will present it to me I’m happy to address it, and I’ll take responsibility.”
Harwell, a Nashville Republican, said in a statement that she felt “compelled to take proactive steps to protect all parties concerned until the conclusion of the investigation.”…
Baud
I’m glad that the court did not adopt Cruz’s arguments. It saved us from a very . . . messy . . . protest rally.
Brachiator
@Gimlet:
It’s not a defense. The secretary of state does not create or execute foreign policy independent of the president.
So, again, the question is, do you have the guts to hold Obama responsible, or are you just going to whine about Hillary?
And do you expect Sanders to have the guts to demand that the president be held accountable?
Gimlet
@Brachiator:
As a person who voted for Obama, clearly you are responsible for his actions.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: It would have given new meaning to open carry demonstration.
Cephalus Max
@Alain the site fixer: I’m not savvy enough to know what you just changed on the mobile site, but whatever it was, the results are fantastic on my iPhone. Super clear and readable. I’m mostly a mobile reader, and this is a really nice improvement.
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: Why am I not surprised you are part of a book on religious ethics.
When people start cherry-picking out of Judaism, just rubs me the wrong way — my least favorite is listening to how ethical keeping kosher is. Maybe when people lived in small towns and only occasionally slaughtered a cow.
But nowadays it is an industrial system, the animals suffer and worst of all, the people who work in the slaughter houses suffer. The kosher industry is a graft machine. There is nothing ethical about any of it. Which makes me sad because I think it’s a good idea to have a framework where you take a moment to ponder that maintaining your life by eating meat means another being had to die — it’s heavy stuff. But all the idealistic propaganda about kashrut doesn’t make it so.
Same thing with valuing sex as legitimate pleasure. I see lots of Jewish writing promoting this ideal but not a lot in practice. And the more anyone practices, the less I see of this value in practice.
Baud
@Alain the site fixer:
Agree with @Cephalus Max. Good work.
satby
@Alain the site fixer: I only read the blog on my Kindle now. Maybe some day the font on the desktop version could be upsized enough for grownups?
And I’m not sorry I missed the FPers in colors kerfluffle,though honestly I would be agnostic about that. I like colors.
Brachiator
@Gimlet:
Yawn.
You’re a coward, and Dana Frank is a coward and a liar. From the link of the story:
So, what? Obama was not really president? Hillary was the de facto president running foreign policy?
Not only is this bullshit, it comes across as racist bullshit as well.
You really want to defend this? Go ahead. And I want to see your boy Bernie defend it as well.
You got the guts to bring it?
LAO
@Alain the site fixer: new font is great Alain. Thank you.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Brachiator: Cruz and the rest of the Talibangelicals want to return to the heady days before Griswold. Because you know where Griswold led …
Gimlet
@Brachiator:
Got this thing about Bernie? This is about Hillary. No mention of Bernie.
You’re a coward, and Dana Frank is a coward and a liar.
Nice ad hominem.
A Ghost To Most
I agree that MasturbaTed is the scariest choice of president of the 3 Stooges, but still worry that the reptiles will settle on Kasich. He sounds so reasonable next to the other two.
LAO
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): agree 100%.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Three chapters actually!
“A Tangle of Laws: The Ethics and Politics of Divorce in Israel,” In Ethics in World Religions. Regina W. Wolfe and Christine E. Gudorf (eds). New York: Orbis Books, 1999 (co-authored with Christine E. Gudorf).
“A Tangle of Laws: A Conservative Jewish Response,” In Ethics in World Religions. Regina W. Wolfe and Christine E. Gudorf (eds). New York: Orbis Books, 1999.
“Sex and the Single Person: A Conservative Jewish Response,” In Ethics in World Religions. Regina W. Wolfe and Christine E. Gudorf (eds). New York: Orbis Books, 1999.
Chris Gudorf was my boss – I was her graduate assistant – during my MA in religious studies. So right place, right connection, right time.
Brachiator
@Gimlet:
No, it’s all about you.
Adam L Silverman
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I’m not sure heady is the right word for this discussion.
LAO
Speaking of awful Republicans and questionable legal positions. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/13/dennis-hastert-s-defense-it-was-just-a-groin-rub.html
The Lodger
@Alain the site fixer: I agree with the other commenters. The new mobile fonts are very clear and readable. Great job!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Ohio Mom: You crack me up. If you ever want to have a 3D chat, Adam can forward you my contact details. Any frontpager could, but since y’all are talking Jewish stuff and I live in a neighborhood with lots of shuls, that’s right down the road from you, it seems the obvious conduit. Unless I’m confused and you don’t live in a colored tree city!
Adam L Silverman
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): There’s the matter of the small handling fee and surcharges for facilitating digital communications. Also, the tax/fee for line maintenance and insurance, and several pages of charges that no one understands, but we expect you to pay them anyway.
eclare
@Adam L Silverman: Hahaha…..
Brachiator
@Ohio Mom:
As I mentioned, I’m not Jewish or particularly religious. But I have seen people slam religions that have a centralized voice issuing dogma, and people slam religions because there are multiple viewpoints to chose from. I guess it would be ideal if all the writings were universally sex positive, but the multiple opinions at best provides room to fight it out.
PurpleGirl
@MattF: After you mentioned the puzzle some time back, I bought one. I think I got the 1,000 piece one. I’ll have to see about getting the 5,000 piece one.
tones
@Brachiator: the implication is that Hillary is a hawk and involved in the coup – she was there no?
She also supports enthusiastically every single military action, no exception to that.
Factually she is a normal, old school republican.
We can count on endless war with her, that is certain.
Hillary is a neo con, no form of left or liberal or progressive about her.
Brachiator
@tones:
Again, does the buck stop with Obama or not?
It’s really quite simple.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: Yup, some of us pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced.
Others, as soon as shirtless Daveed Diggs was announced.
(I assume you’re enjoying page 151. You are also aware of the Daily Daveed Diggs tumblr, yes?)
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I went to high school with Craig Mazin and heard stories about his gross roommate in 1988. R U JEALOUS?
J R in WV
@Trollhattan:
Yeh, I know. Gimp/Photoshop etc can do a lot, but you have to have an eye, too. And Gamma set right, etc, etc.
J R in WV
@liberal:
Nixon’s political henchmen admitted that their drug policy was aimed at blacks and hippies, pot and hallucinogens respectively.
So, the Republican government’s “war on drugs” was really a race war, and a political war, not a war to save people from the Evil Drugs at all. Some Democrat should save us from it, some day, but we may not live to see it.
J R in WV
@Gimlet:
You were honest in including the last few words, it was a possibly illegal thing the Houduran military did. Not the US Army. Not the US Ambassador. The Honduran Military.
Not Hillary Clinton, who was not in command of the Honduran Military at the time, nor in Honduras. Which is a long long way from here.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
Wow. I am going to order it
NickM
I used to have a joke at the time that in Texas selling sex toys was illegal but selling machine guns wasn’t – so you could purchase an Uzi as long as you didn’t plan to stick it up your ass. It made me laugh every time.
3am
Oh my god, front page post are colored differently! You should immediately cease this bullying behavior.
Also, I think new posts should be highlighted with the blink tag. While all this is going on, we need to have an animated under construction gif.
Also, finally, the design should be more beautiful and skeuomorphic. Also, your font kerning hurts my eyes, I think Garabaldi Romativissimo Blanco San Serif is more readable.
Finally, there should be large buttons on all for corners that I can hit to bring up a contact form that will email all front pagers and each member of Congress where I can make further design suggestions.
ps – Cruz is by far worse than Trump. A thousand times worse. He is a true believer, brilliant, and ruthless. Like Dick Cheney with more personal talent and 10% more charisma.
Mike G
@Calouste:
This guy wins the internet for today.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Gee, thanks!
Paul in KY
@tones: Dude, Bill Kristol is a neocon. David Addington is a neocon. The stupidest man on Earth (forgot his name) is a neocon, etc. etc.
Hillary Clinton is not a neocon.
Paul in KY
@3am: I actually think Darth Cheney has more ‘charisma’ than Darth Creepo.
3am
@Paul in KY:
The limit of 1.10 * X as X->0…..