SOME GOOD NEWS FOR THE CRONES
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Marc Bolan once had a TV show in the 1970s that ran for six episodes. Here is episode four; as best as I can tell it’s just a series of music videos that blur into one another. The name of the show was MARC, which I think is just wonderful.
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The Supreme Court unanimously struck down the law that bans protestors from going within 35 feet of abortion clinic doors, but I think my idea to quietly play the Benny Hill theme song over their yelling is still pretty good.
I have almost no significant impulse control, so I would make a terrible clinic escort (I once rolled to a stop in front of the Planned Parenthood in Mountain View and said something very offensive about Catholicism and oral recreation to a group of priests-in-training standing outside the door), but consider taking the time to volunteer as one if you have the time and can keep your mouth shut when you’re pissed off.
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THANK YOU for bearing with us this week as we have slowly but surely dealt with our server issues and made some necessary behind-the-scenes alterations to better serve you! Growing pains, my friends; nothing but growing pains. Please fling copious praise at Nick and Maria for their unrelenting, efficient good cheer, lest they grow dissatisfied with us and fly away.
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“Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision, marrying an extreme sports calendar model.”
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Controversial Copenhagen Zoo Official: Zoos Are Selling Disney “Fairy Tales”
“We should not tell the Disney story that animals are only cute and only get born and never die,” said Bengt Holst, the Copenhagen Zoo’s science director, at the 2014 Euroscience Open Forum. “We have to tell the real story: ‘Death is a natural consequence of life.’ If [we] don’t tell that story, [we’re doing] a bad job, because then we don’t work for conservation—we work for an imaginary world.”
I cannot tell you how happy this cynical, committed-to-the-truth, anti-bullshit zoo crusader makes me. He puts down his cigarette. He pounds on the table. “COME TO THE ZOO AND SEE THE DEATH THAT MAKES LIFE. CAN YOU DO OTHERWISE?”
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We are going to have a one-year Toast anniversary party in a few weeks! I still have to…plan that entirely, so give me a day or two to figure stuff out. Details to follow. It will be in Oakland. That is where I live. Do not ask me when we can throw a party in whatever town you live. I don’t live there. I like you, but I’m not going to drive to your house to have a party in it.
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Buy it!
Tags: link roundup, the internet
Thank you, Nick and Maria!!
If you’re not going to throw a party outside of Oakland, I will settle for an open thread in celebration of the anniversary. I will suggest the menu: buttered toast and champagne for everyone.
I will totally spring for some Kerrygold for this party.
YES THIS.
Maybe we can have a bunch of Toast meet-ups/mini-parties around the world on the same day?
If any Lower Mainland of BC folks want to try to do this, I am all ears.
I’m assuming no one will mind if cheese happens to appear between two pieces of butter toast!
There’s an old dude who occasionally protests outside the abortion clinic downtown (although I haven’t seen him so far this year, so hopefully he died in the winter). Occasionally he will trade in his horrifying “dead baby & bible verses” sign for one that says simply “65 BANK STREET IS AN ABORTION CLINIC!”
I sincerely want to give him a big thumbs-up for that. The clinic itself is is in a midrise office building, surrounded by other midrise buildings, squeezed between a Curves and a McDonalds. For obvious reasons it does not advertise its presence in any way. I like to imagine a distraught young woman, pacing up and down the block, muttering, “Fuck, where is this place, I’m going to miss my appointment!” – and then she spots the anti-choice protester and her face lights up. “Oh! It’s at number 65! Thanks, old man who wants to rob me of my basic human rights, even though, as an old man, you are the total opposite of the demographic that is affected by abortion access!”
I hope they put up a memorial statue to him where he’s holding a “65 Bank St is an abortion clinic” sign.
<3 helpful information immortalized in bronze
YOU LIVE IN OTTAWA! I used to live there and I remember that guy! That was really close to Edge, the gay bar I went to sometimes. There were only ever, like, 3 anti-abortion protesters at a time there, which I found pretty encouraging. It was nothing like that footage of American abortion clinics you sometimes see.
The most protesters I’ve ever seen at an abortion clinic were in an episode of Degrassi Junior High, so I’d say we’ve got it pretty good here! Except for the really long wait times if you’re unlucky.
Related, did you guys see the craigslist post that was making the rounds on twitter yesterday? I can’t find it now, but it was a woman posting a thank you to all the protestors for helping her find the abortion clinic, and saving her half an hour of driving around looking for it.
Link or it didn’t happen!
I can’t find it! But I swear I read it yesterday. INTERNET SEARCH HISTORY WHY HAVE YOU FAILED ME??
That clinic is really hard to find! I bet most people wander by and wonder why he’s protesting there. Before I realized a clinic was there, I thought the occasional sign-holding person just viewed the neighbourhood as a general den of sexual immorality.
Of course, Canada does have legitimate buffer laws (thank you to reasonable free speech), which means there’s a lot of confusing abortion protesters (such as picketing outside a funeral home when it’s across the street from a hospital that conducts abortions).
When I was a middle school student in Fredericton some of the Morgentaler clinic picketers would end up in the alleys behind the school, or in front of the Loyalist graveyard. I had no idea what their deal was. I thought the graveyard people were protesting stillbirth or something.
Retroactively protesting the Loyalist movement.
Bitter Americans.
I used to volunteer at that clinic and those same people were loons. Occasionally they’d accidentally protest parents dropping their kids off at school.
Tangential, but I used to work for a ballet company. For some reason, PETA decided to protest one of our performance weekends. I guess because they thought people wore furs to the ballet? It made very little sense but was entertaining.
SCOTUS-related: Anyone else quaking in their boots waiting for this Hobby Lobby decision? And does anyone have any insight as to which way it might go?
Based on the way oral arguments went, I’m…not optimistic. Here’s Dahlia Lithwick, who I like, discussing it in March: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/s…
Thanks! Unfortunately, between yesterday’s decision and this, if this goes the wrong way, I may in fact take to the sea…
I’m really nervous. A friend of mine said on twitter yesterday that she worries for Hobby Lobby specifically because the SCOTUS seems to be giving the same weight to facts and to things that Hobby Lobby people are just straight-up inventing.
I just have this hope that enough people on the bench still remember that letting an owner dictate their faith upon their employees is violating the religious freedom of those employees, because otherwise…
Just seconding this with all my heart. The way SCOTUS seems to be prioritizing everyone else’s “rights” over a women’s right to control her body and, I don’t know, be an independent human being capable of making her own choices, is not leaving me optimistic. But I want to believe!
I volunteered as a clinic escort for the first time last week, and, obviously, will definitely be going back now.
I took an escort training, and then promptly flaked out after moving, so I need to get back on that.
Thank you for your work! Your comment inspired me to look for clinic escort volunteer opportunities in my city, and Planned Parenthood of Boston needed volunteers so I applied!
Cool! I want to volunteer, but there’s nowhere in my province to go now.
Yeah, I’m in the same boat. Our local clinic closed three years ago. We’re a moderately-sized college town. =(
Donate to abortion access funds or your local clinic!
I would LOVE to do this, but I live in a small town and haven’t been able to find any opportunities nearby.
How was it?
full of admiration for you, lady!
Re the zoos: The thing that raises concern is not that there are animals dying, but that it looks like the zoo just killed an animal that it didn’t have room for, even though other places offered to take it in. I realize more animals are born and able to live to maturity in zoos than in the wild but it’s a little appalling to think they just kill off the ones they don’t need…
I think part of the problem is that bureaucracy makes it incredibly difficult to send animals across borders, and many zoos don’t want to send animals to certain other zoos where they won’t be able to absolutely vouch for their caretaking. It doesn’t matter if six other zoos want your giraffe if they’re going to keep him in a dank pit or chained to a wall, you know? And even if you want to send your animal to the other zoo you trust, and they want him, if the governments of your nations will take three years to process all the paperwork and make all the arrangements–that’s really a major problem. And too much inbreeding (the result of keeping all your animals) weakens the population as a whole
Another problem is that baby animals are a HUGE draw but then they become adult animals who take up space and require care and food. From a for-profit zoo standpoint they want to crank out as many babies as they can while only keeping the minimum number of adults but that obviously has huge ethical issues…
The Copenhagen Zoo people also said that they believe parenthood is an important and enriching experience for their animals. Maybe that’s just an excuse for pumping out babies…
European zoos are definitely way more open to displaying the whole circle of life than US zoos. I went to the Rotterdam zoo last year and saw birds of prey munching on cow heads, weasel-like critters eating whole mice and a seal that had just given birth in a giant puddle of blood and placenta.
OH, I’m probably not gonna write about it, but if you were not noticing this on Twitter, a horrible man wrote something so vicious and unhinged and disturbingly misognyist and 11 thousand words long (!) about Emily Gould that even the subset of the population who hates Emily Gould rose up and were angry, and then he panicked after ONE DAY of receiving a limited dose of the sort of treatment women get every day online and announced he was going to throw himself off a bridge, and then his girlfriend informed us that we were ALL RESPONSIBLE, and then Choire Sicha, who was described as “aging” in the jerk’s dumb article, like that’s not a UNIVERSAL ADJECTIVE, stomped over to the dude’s apartment to go check on him out of the goodness of his damn heart, yelled at the girlfriend to quit projecting, and then the guy unrelatedly decided not to kill himself, and now ideally his friends and family will pressure him to receive the mental illness treatment he seems to require, and, essentially, there are those who are “Twitter drove this man too far!” and those who are “TWITTER FUNCTIONED PRETTY GODDAMN WELL TODAY,” and I am in the latter camp.
OH LOOK I WROTE ABOUT IT.
YES. Firmly on team “TWITTER FUNCTIONED PRETTY GODDAMN WELL TODAY.” Jesus H. ELEVEN THOUSAND WORDS.
And I feel like I spent a weird amount of time explaining to really well-meaning men that the piece was not normal, that it was written by someone who seemed unwell, and it was ZERO COMFORT to be right. Had he actually harmed himself, this somehow would have become The Emily Gould Bodycount. And I know that, because there were those who called her CRUEL for not being suddenly deeply sympathetic to him.
DON’T WORRY “well-meaning” is one of the many types of men who will burn
#ALLMEN
Yessssss
Yeah – that post was definitely a symptom of much greater issues, not the cause of them. If you are not ill, then you don’t write 11,000 words of invective about someone unless they kidnapped your first-born to meet the demands of an evil witch’s spell.
Ok, I’ll admit to not knowing any of the specifics of this, not being on twitter, but like any proper internet commentator that does not prevent me from having an opinion! It is just such a perfect encapsulation of what a misogynist society we live in, and what different standards men and women are held to, that he can write 11,000 FUCKING WORDS viciously attacking Emily Gould and then threaten to kill himself as a way of manipulating people into sympathizing with him – and somehow SHE becomes the cruel one for not being all, awww poor baby, let me do my feminine duty and give you all the sympathy and understanding you need to soothe your troubled soul!
The whole notion of “twitter drove this man too far!” is ridiculous. It is just fucking laughable, the vast difference between what men and women are expected to endure – both in general as human beings, and specifically as a consequence of having opinions and airing them in a public forum. Women can be subjected to the worst forms of abuse and intimidation online, and the response we generally get is a shrug and an admonishment that “that’s just how it is” or “don’t feed the trolls”. He gets legitimate (i’m assuming mostly legitimate) pushback against his misogyny and makes a dramatic suicide threat to quash criticism, and suddenly it’s all,”twitter has gone too far!!!!!”. I hope he gets the help he needs, truly – but him being possibly mentally ill does not mitigate, explain or excuse his misogyny or his manipulativeness. It does not mean he is owed sympathy from someone he targeted for abuse. It is not comforting or helpful to know that he may be mentally ill, because the consequences of what he’s done or might do to Ms. Gould or other women are the same.
I delurked just to say: this. Oh my fucking God, THIS.
For whatever reason I reached my tolerance for misogynist bullshit early this week, and this was so, so satisfying to read. Now I’m going to stay in a quiet misandrist cave for the rest of the day. *twirls cape*
DING DING DING DING DING. Perfectly said.
:: applause ::
*standing ovation*
Agree, and it has become a bit of a brush off to be like, “oh, he’s mentally ill.” Plenty of people with mental illnesses are functioning human beings and don’t write extreme internet rants. People with mental illnesses are far more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators so when people say “oh, that asshole is just mentally ill” it really grates on me because 1. “mentally-ill” doesn’t magically wash away all your responsibility for your actions and 2. it paints all people with mental illnesses with the same brush of stigma when they are already more vulnerable.
Jeez, he doesn’t have to jump off a bridge. Just maybe never write another word about a woman ever again.
I’M GLAD YOU MENTIONED THIS. I know if this man was really mentally ill and requires help then yes, good, get help, but there is such a huge part of me that is screaming ABUSER TACTICS at this.
Yeah, I am hoping that the sudden outrush of “hope you’re okay, Ed!” means what it means when I say “I hope he gets help,” which is “I hope he gets help so he doesn’t murder any women.”
This is what abusers do – because everything is all about them.
Also, he has a girlfriend? She needs help too.
Is there anything at all to suggest that he is actually mentally ill beyond being a big foot-stompy baby and thinking that using words like ‘pellucid’ makes drawing out a Youtube comment over 11000 words into an intellectual exercise.
https://twitter.com/a_girl_irl/status/48257528255…
It reminds me of this dude on tumblr (confusedtree) who was outed as a sexual predator who sent nudes to teenagers and, when confronted about this fact, started making suicide threats. His family/ex-girlfriend (who must have the patience of a goddamned SAINT) bundled him off to the hospital, and that was the last Tumblr ever heard of him, save for a brief update from the girlfriend saying he’d been released because he wasn’t considered a danger to himself. Which: I know due diligence is important, but duh.
(On a less consequential note, one of the female characters on one of my favourite shows was forced into staying married in the finale because her husband pulled the “I totally attempted suicide because I thought you left!” card. When her boyfriend pointed out that he was probably bullshitting and she started crying and said “but I can’t be sure!” I had two reactions 1) who gives a shit, and 2) THAT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. RUN HONEY, RUN.)
Thanks for the overview, Nicole! I was trying to track down what was going on with this, but I didn’t have the heart to get involved enough to figure out. Glad I know now.
Maybe someone should point out to this asshole that there are over a million books published in English in the United States per year, so if you don’t like Gould’s work (which is fine, and allowed), FUCKING READ SOMETHING ELSE AND GET OVER YOUR SHIT.
Jesus. I’m 4 paragraphs in and already enraged. Did anyone actually make it to the end of this piece?
I read the whole thing, but only bc I became immediately concerned this guy was going to murder her and wanted to see if he said anything specific enough to pursue legal options.
You deserve a medal.
When I saw the miniscule drag button on the scrollbar, I skipped straight to the comments. My thanks and respect to those who endured the whole horrific novella.
And a special citation of merit for commenter H.L.:
Of course this essay isn’t misogynist! Had it been about a man, the author would have used exactly the same words to describe him: “chirruping”, “bright and invasive voice”, “torrid hoyden hopped up on spite”, “careerist bedhopping”, “rewarded for… fucking the right people”, and all the rest! He also would have published just as many similar pictures of a man smiling in his kitchen, a man lying on the floor with a cat, and so on! Replace the word “Emily” throughout with a name like “Clive” and you’ll see what I mean — this article and its weirdly focused obsessions are truly gender-neutral!
“Torrid hoyden.” I’m horribly sure that’s what you get when you type “hot bitch” into thesaurus.com.
I actually just finished it (took most of the day, with breaks for rage screaming and also lunch) and… whoa.
And they say women are overly emotional.
I made it to the end and fucking hated myself the rest of the day, although it was fun to talk shit on his jerk-off writing with friends who had also put themselves through it.
it’s like that scene in The Shining except instead it’s dozens of pages of “Kids these days!”
“It does not matter if the audience is three, three thousand, or three million. A real writer is free and imaginative enough to take risks. A real writer writes when the chips are down. A real writer writes when she is hungry or when she is at her lowest point.”
NEVER FELT SO INSPIRED TO WRITE MY “PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT,” THANKS SO MUCH!!! <3 <3 <3
That’s totally what I’m going to think about when I’m writing the executive summary to a proposal in response to an RFP the government just sent out. #NotARealProfessionalWriterIGuess #EvenThoughWritingIsActuallyTheJobIAmPaidToDo
Holy fucking shit, that article was terrifying to read. I don’t particularly like EG’s writing or persona but MAN am I on her side on this one.
Also, for someone who is so concerned about protecting Writing from Inferior Writors, Edward Champion has a baaaaaad case of thesauritis.
Honestly, I thought the guy was gonna commit an act of violence against either Emily Gould or some other woman who offends him. The suicide threat, as has been said, was complete abuser tactic and god bless Choire Sicha for going over there. It was basically the Santa Barbara shooter’s manifesto except about Brooklyn female writers instead of sorority members.
As for the girlfriend: run, run now.
WHOA WHAT?
When you say “a limited dose of the sort of treatment women get every day online ” I hope that you are not speaking from personal experience – but hey, you run a feminist website, so you probably are. I am sorry that is a thing you have to deal with! I am glad that you run the Toast anyway! It is a wonderful place, full of wonderful people!
You know, I have been fortunate enough to get very little nonsense from weirdos, honestly! I just have a lot of friends who write more about feminism and abortion and misogyny, and they get rape and death threats daily.
Oh good! I am glad that there is little emotional trauma and fear for safety involved as a side effect of producing here.
Wow, for the first time, reading the comments on the 35-foot radius/abortion protester article didn’t make me want to die. People seemed….reasonable. WHAT IS HAPPENING!?
MA is an awesome place, man. I love that all the commenters are strategizing about more effective ways to enforce a buffer zone in a content neutral way and/or to use legal loopholes about sidewalk ownership and public space to get around this ruling.
Anyone have any concrete info about becoming an abortion clinic escort in Chicago? My rudimentary googling only found outdated info and I am not awake enough to google more efficiently. Maybe some of you know?
I’d look at PP or NOW chapters’ web sites for info, and/or use the “contact us” feature to ask specifically.
I volunteer with NARAL in Minneapolis, and they do offer volunteering opportunities for Chicago as well: http://www.ilchoiceactionteam.org/get-involved/vo…
Well, it’s not really an answer to your question, but I just want to bring up again the brilliance of PP’s Michigan Ave. Chicago location, which I pass most days on my walk to the L.
Where to put an abortion-services clinic? Right where the police would hassle the hell out of any protesters, not out of concern for abortion rights but out of concern for offending tourists. A++
E(dited) T(o) A(nswer your question a bit): https://twitter.com/daneyvilla/status/48232852274…
ACTUALLY!! I used my google-fu to find out who a couple months ago when the first escort volunteering post showed up. I escort through ICAT: Illinois Choice Action Team
Email Escorts at ilchoiceactionteam dot org, and if you show up at West Washington on the second Sat shift, we can hang out!
Thanks! E-mail sent. I have some Sat. obligations already, so we will see about this week…. but hopefully in the future!
Semi-lurker butting in to say: I just sent an email to ICAT too! (Although, I sent it to the info@icat dot org email address instead, do you think that’ll be ok for getting through?) I’m ready to rumble!
I am currently planning on hauling my ass to Oakland for Mallory’s party, by the way.
YAAAAAAAY!
Ok, so this piece of news just caused the following exchange:
Me, to boyfriend: OMG there is a Toast meetup in Oakland and the lazy reviewer is going to be there and I want to go but I don’t think I’d be able to breathe.
BF: Now you know how I feel when I see David Mamet at schul…
Me: DAVID MAMET IS NOTHING TO THE LAZY REVIEWER.
So…see you there if I can muster up the courage, Nicole?
oh girl i am so nice and unthreatening you should come
Ok, but if I can’t breathe, that’s on you!
(JK, that would totally be on me.)
Oh gosh I just wish it would be next weekend when I’m in San Francisco for Toast-related adventures!
So, basically, that Copenhagen Zoo guy is what would have been if Werner Herzog had directed “We Bought A Zoo”?
I would pay approx. $1 million USD to see that movie.
omg
Well, he’s Danish, so of course he’s like YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT DEATH? Because we’re a famously cheerful people.
I would like to reserve “Yes, But What About Death” for the name of my future Danish gameshow.
I want you to know that I made an ungodly wheezing noise upon readinf your comment, and my cat is now deeply annoyed that I woke her up.
In my youth (my youth!) I somehow ended up chauffeuring several people to various abortions. This was like, the ’90’s so the places we went actually rarely had protesters in any numbers. But I took a high school friend to one place waaay outside of a major city and there was a lone man with a sign that said “Am I a boy or a girl, Mommy?”. After the procedure on the way out he came towards the car as if to confront her/us, and despite being wobbly from drugs and surgical procedures she flipped him the double bird, told him to suck her dick, and that if he came any closer she’d bust his face in. He did not come any closer! I think it was a wise choice!
I was a lot more timid back then, so I just kind of hung back looking angrily supportive and making grandmotherly shooing motions at him. Now though, I like to THINK I’d be good at clinic escorting but I’m not sure that in actuality I can keep myself from going Redneck Super Saiyan and ending up in jail. But maybe it’s time to test that out!
I clinic escort, and I get a smug satisfaction out of not engaging the protesters (as is PP’s policy), especially when they come up and stand right in my face and tell me things like “You look like such a sweet girl but you’re standing for something so ugly” and “Hitler thought he was doing the right thing too, sweetheart.” They want nothing more than for you to engage them in argument and it feels great not to give them that.
“At each of the three Planned Parenthood clinics where petitioners attempt to counsel patients, the zones carve out a significant portion of the adjacent public sidewalks, pushing petitioners well back from the clinics’ entrances and driveways,”
Oh, I’M sorry, are any of these protestors medical professionals? Okay, do they have a masters in social work or psychology? OKAY, do they know any of the background of these patients? No? THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP, you are making a joke of the field if you are going to equate “yelling at someone that they’re going to hell while waving a picture of a dismembered fetus” with legitimate COUNSELING.
It works better when you use “terrorize” in place of “counsel” because apparently “counsellors” is what we’re calling terrorists now when they are white and Christian.
ETA: I know some people recoil at the use of ‘terrorist’ to describe anti-abortion activists but when you are a politically motivated organized group of people whose sole purpose is to intimidate and discourage people from exercising freedoms granted to them by our government with means that range from screaming and videotaping all the way to shooting and bombing clinics, I think ‘terrorist’ is exactly the right word to use.
NO terrorism is apt because it is a literal description of what these people are doing! Seeing the repeated use of the word “counsel” was making my blood BOIL.
Terrorism is *exactly* what it is.
Just watch the hell out if you’re talking to someone who says they’re a suicide counsellor.
The thing that killed me – and I’m paraphrasing – was when Roberts wrote that the buffer zones were limiting the sweet grandma petitioners’ free speech because the vociferous opponents to abortion were drowning out their counseling. Obviously once the buffer zones are gone, it’s only the sweet grandmas who are going to rush in close to the PEOPLE TRYING TO GET HEALTH CARE and finally their “counseling” will be heard. It’s such a crazy argument that the buffer zones are the problem here, not the crazy terrorists.
The quote’s here, along with a lot of other infuriating information on how the “completely adequate protections” for clinic patients are anything but (and have been proven to be uniforcible time and time again): http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/supreme…
If anyone actually wanted “counseling” they would be perfectly capable of walking 35 feet to receive it. But these people can’t wrap their minds around the fact that no one who is given the choice would want anything to do with them. Like surely if this buffer wasn’t here people would be lining up to interact with them.
In any other public place, this shit would not fly – you are not allowed to campaign within 75 feet (i think, possibly varies) of a polling place, if someone is harassing people outside of your office building you can call the police to have them removed, you can put up signs on your doors that say “no solicitors” and that legally has to be respected… you can even be fucking fined $10,000 for sending an email to someone who has unsubscribed from your mailing list. Why is this different?
Argh argh argh argh basically the only two things I can think about following this ridiculous SCOTUS ruling are:
1) OK so apparently SCOTUS is totally cool with domestic terrorism so long as it’s aimed at women and couched in disingenuous moralistic handwringing (because seriously, buffer zones are there because before we had buffer zones we had PEOPLE WALKING UP TO OTHER PEOPLE AND SHOOTING THEM as well as people leaving bombs in doorways) and
2) ARGH I WORRY SO HARD FOR THE HOBBY LOBBY CASE
Also fuck anyone who calls anti-abortion activists “counsellors” who want to “engage in discussion” have you SEEN ANY OF THE FOOTAGE
HOW … ARGH I’M USUALLY MORE ELOQUENT BUT I JUST CANNOT WORDS TODAY
I’m just going to sit and stare at this GIF because it’s currently speaking to me in a way it’s never spoken to me before. I find it soothing. Thank you.
This gif most spoke to me in reaction that whole deal with the teenager who was raped and the people were like, “but charging the boys will ruin their once bright and perfect futures!”
I also remember this image feeling particularly relevant then (and now too):
If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Angry Dome!
I am fervently praying to the Goddess and anyone else who will listen that SCOTUS came down wrong on buffer zones and on recess appointments because on Monday they are going to do The Right Thing on Hobby Lobby and Harris v Quinn. Please please please please please.
I will help you pray to all higher deities that may or may not be out there listening for that same outcome. Please please please please please.
This analysis is pretty interesting re: what the “unanimity” of these decisions actually meant (sorry to be a weird Slate spambot all morning!): http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/t…
Well, that article about older women as mothers explains a lot. My grandmother is a hale 95 year-old (for a person of that age) who lives on her own and had 9 children, the last of whom was born when she was 40.
I especially like this line: ‘A long-lived grandma supplies larger broods, good genes and better care. She practically creates the village that ensures her longevity genes will be passed on.”
These days, when I go to the annual Christmas gathering for that side of the family, it certainly feels like a village. There are often several children running underfoot whose names I do not know, nor do I generally know who they belong to.
I know two grandmothers like that, including mine. They’re almost the same age and are neighbours in the summer. They both throw very public parties with all their kids and grandkids. It’s quite a rivalry.
(Can I say about the article that calling families “broods” creeps me out? Especially when it’s “supplying broods”.)
#1 rule of journalism: definitely don’t make women sound like humans
Women: What Are They? We Just Don’t Know.
I used to live in a small, rural garbage pit filled with garbage humans who brought their children to protest. This is every radical queer feminist lesbian’s dream because, AS I AM SURE YOU KNOW, when it’s just the grown ups, you have to froth at the mouth and take your shirt off to make them uncomfortable enough to disband, but when they bring the kids, all you have to do is quietly join the protest, take a knee, and whisper bell hooks quotes to the girls, I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance
HOO BUDDY DOES THAT CAUSE A RACKET
so anyway what I’m saying is that I’m a great escort if you’re in a real I-would-break-your-kneecaps-if-I-could sort of mood and also you are pretty chill on the “law”
OK, serious question re: abortion protestors for the lawyers among us. Since assault is legally defined as “an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact,”* couldn’t we argue that PP should be calling the cops constantly due to the intentional acts (yelling/etc) of the protestors creating an apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact if they are within arm’s reach of patients?
*I’ve also heard it defined as “fear of imminent battery”
I am not a lawyer so I do not know the details, but my guess is that the “protesters” would have an easy time hiding behind free speech/free assembly/right to protest laws, and the cops would be ineffective.
Also not a lawyer but I have done my share of protesting-and-not-getting-arrested: Jaya is right, I think! You have to get in someone’s face/physically touch them/do more than just disagree and yell about Jesus to qualify as threatening.
As someone who’s done my share of protesting-and-getting-arrested, the bar for what is legal free speech/walking on a sidewalk/being a totally uninvolved bystander and what is arrestable behavior is highly contextual and depends almost entirely on how the local police feel about your group, while actual chance of conviction depends on your personal track record with the cops and how well you clean up for court. Churchies almost always own a suit and tie.
Prosecutable offenses: yelling at/near cops, throwing a muffin, assaulting an officer’s baton with your spine
Not prosecutable: spitting on people, screaming incoherently in the face of a tiny woman, drunk and threatening murder at 180 decibels in a crowded public area
Not a lawyer, but my understanding of assault laws is that they vary by state in terms of what does and does not constitute assault. Also in many cases (not sure about assault), the standard isn’t whether or not an individual specific person felt something, but about whether a generic “reasonable” person would. And unfortunately since a lot of men don’t really understand the fear that women deal with on a daily basis, they often think that our fear is unreasonable.
I’ve heard that anti-abortion protesters are *very* careful about not touching people specifically because they know right where the line for assault/battery charges is and will toe right up against it. Which is infuriating.
Law student, not a lawyer (and in Canada), but the ‘fear of imminent battery’ version of assault is a tort – like a basis for suing someone. It’s a separate legal idea from criminal assault.
Meanwhile, I’m not super sure about American laws, but I presume that the apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact would have to be reasonable – and contact would have to be physical. As the protestors usually haven’t resorted to physically abusing women going into these clinics and that doesn’t appear to be their goal or intention, the apprehension of imminent contact isn’t reasonable. (In Canada, that apprehension is more like someone holding a knife to your throat or winding up their fist to punch you, if that makes sense.) Therefore, these actions (while reprehensible) fall outside of assault.
The Learning to Act story is cut off – sorry if you all are already working on it, but just in case it got missed. I want to read the rest!!
I am pretty excited about the first link because my Mom was 35 when she had me so I am hoping that means I get to have her around for a very long time.
The one clinic in my city, coincidentally down the street from my job so I pass it every day, blasts country at the one to three old men who sit outside on a stack of milk crates with their sign on nice days. Yesterday, they were all trying to smile and wave at me as I was going past. Classy lady that I am, I slowed down to make sure they could see me flipping them off. I may start playing the Benny Hill theme while I’m doing so.
The fuckers opened a hardcore evangelical church right next door, and I am none too pleased.
The anniversary party is going to be GREAT, going by the amount of pushups done and kickass folks who were at the previous big Toast-up in the area. Barring spontaneous bleeding, I plan to drive out again! (Yes, yes, I know everyone cares and is very excited.)
I just moved to the Bay Area and am entirely without friends or prospects so YOU BET I’M EXCITED
It will probably be in your best interest to make friends with the many people there who (presumably) actually live in the Bay Area–I’m from the San Joaquin Valley over the hill, so I’m always up for driving out but am not very available for spontaneous hangouts. (This is assuming, of course, that we will immediately bond and become bosom companions. DON’T BE MY FRIEND, I’LL ONLY BREAK YOUR HEART)
It’s true! I met Figgy in Mlps in 2012 and my heart has never been the same since.
I am VERY excited!
yessss i am excited
also, at last a toast-up i can go to! like, i actually in the vicinity. and i’m no longer working wonky service hours. toaaaast.
I will be in Oakland the weekend of July 4! That Saturday would be a great time for a Toast party.
WHAT ME TOO (well San Francisco)
Can we all host simultaneous Toast anniversary parties with an across-the-globe lifting of the glass type toast at an appointed time? It will be recorded in the history books as the beginning of the Misandrist Revolution.
Thanks for being in Oakland and not SF because it takes forever to get to SF.
Since when does having your last child by age 33 make you an “older” mother? I would think that in this day and age having your last child by 29 would make you an unusually young mother. My friends who want kids tend to think of 35 as the cutoff and my relatives who have had kids pretty much all had their last one after 35.
THEN AGAIN, descendant of Catholic peasants here. My ancestors started having kids once they got married and continued merrily along until they hit the wall of menopause in their early 40s.
Well, they studied women who lived to be 95 and 100, so for that generation, having your last child at 33 or 35 was pretty late.
Accuracy high five!
Okay I have thought about it for literally years and never done it, but right now in another tab I am filling out the PP volunteer application. COME AT ME, BROS, I WILL ESCORT THE SHIT OUT OF SOME FOLKS WHILE YOU DO YOUR WORST.
I am like 8000% sure the Toast party will probably be while I am working, since a coworker got fired and I now have her SCHEDULE FROM HELL. But fingers crossed.
Toast party!! I moved back to the bay right on time!
I’m 41 and holding my 3-week-old daughter, so I am hell-yeahing that older mothers story.
I’m 3 years younger, and terrified of the health concerns, but also just found the only person in the world that also would make me consider children. Color me conflicted.
Mallory that clinic and priest story is everything. I have no impulse control but I also am not quick-thinking enough for smart comebacks, so generally I am awful at confronting people appropriately and inappropriately.
WHEN IS THE BOOK OUT, MALLORY
*wants it naow*
Also, I live across the street from a Women’s Clinic, and have to see the crazy people EVERY DAY. Thank god my sprinklers are so poorly aimed:)
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MARC SUCKS
Here's the abstract! http://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/Abstract…
It's from the Long Life Family Study, a study that is looking for genes and behaviors that lead to longer life. They interview people over the age of 90 (birth in 1910s and 1920s) about their health, and the health of their parents and siblings. (So possibly some people born as far back as the 1870s) Here, the researchers compared women who outlived 95% of their cohort – an age that varies with respect to health access, but hovers in the late 90s today – with women who did not outlive 95% of their cohort, but did live to age 70.
Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes were doing aces birth control work right as the youngest people in the study were being born – but access to information about managing fertility was deeply controversial. Of course, I don't actually know what sort of birth control they were advocating – I don't know how effective it was, and I don't know what portion of the population had access to it.
I guess there's always not fucking – but I don't think that's tied to income.
Sea sponges soaked in olive oil.
The rhythm method.
Melting beeswax onto the cervix as a cervical cap.
Vulcanized rubber condoms (Not legal to ship, own, purchase, or sell as of 1973)
Coerced and racist sterilization. (Probably not a factor in late childbirth, right?)
And douching with vinegar or alcohol.
Information was also illegal to sell, distribute, or mail.
Abstinence within marriage to limit family size was encouraged, but then men visited sex workers often, leading to a syphilis outbreak in the 1910s! I wonder if there's a relationship between lower birth rate and syphilis infection rate!