(my cafe press shirts with this on it are still available here, btw)
Author Archives: The Red Queen
A language lesson for wingnuts and deniers
Since there seems to be a shit ton of denial going on as to whether the assassination of Dr. Tiller was a terrorist act or not, I thought it’s time to clear up some things regarding the definition of terrorism.
Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as:
the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
and the definition of terror is:
1: a state of intense fear
2 a: one that inspires fear : scourge b: a frightening aspect
3: reign of terror
4: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
bolds mine
So murdering a doctor in order to intimidate other doctors and government officials into outlawing abortion is an act of terrorism. Publishing the names and addresses of doctors and clinic workers so that they fear for their lives and safety and cannot perform the job that you hate is an act of terrorism. It is “using a destructive act in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands” and “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”.
But maybe you fucksticks need more. Certainly I’ve heard a a bunch of talking heads whine about how this is “just a murder, not an act of terrorism according to the law”.
So let’s look at how the US federal law defines a terrorism:
(d) Definitions
As used in this section—
(1) the term “international terrorism” means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than 1 country;
(2) the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;
(3) the term “terrorist group” means any group, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism;
(4) the terms “territory” and “territory of the country” mean the land, waters, and airspace of the country; and
(5) the terms “terrorist sanctuary” and “sanctuary” mean an area in the territory of the country—
(A) that is used by a terrorist or terrorist organization—
(i) to carry out terrorist activities, including training, fundraising, financing, and recruitment; or
(ii) as a transit point; and
(B) the government of which expressly consents to, or with knowledge, allows, tolerates, or disregards such use of its territory and is not subject to a determination under—
(i) section 2405(j)(1)(A) of the Appendix to title 50;
(ii) section 2371 (a) of this title; or
(iii) section 2780 (d) of this title.
(bolds mine again)
Neither the legal nor the English definition of terrorism include phrases like scary Islamofascist or dark skinned foreigner. Terrorism is not a crime committed only by people of a certain race or ethnicity or religious persuasion (though if you can find an atheist terrorist group I’ll eat my shoe). Terrorism is very simply an act of violence committed by a non governmental group or person in order to intimidate or coerce.
The person that killed Dr. Tiller is a terrorist. The groups that organize to terrorize doctors and nurses and clinic staff by publishing their addresses are terrorists. The people who recruit others into doing violence (I’m talking to you Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin) are terrorists. Eric Rudolf was a terrorist.
So was Timothy McVeigh. So are the right wing militia groups plotting to violently overthrow the government.
If you don’t like being called a terrorist, then stop using or excusing or promoting acts of violence meant to intimidate or coerce the population into doing your will.
If they are really pro life
then why do they celebrate killers? Or threaten clinic workers. Or bomb clinics and shoot doctors and post home addresses so that other people can do violence?
If it is all about the babies, then why don’t they adopt them? Or make sure that their are support services to make it easier for their moms to keep them, or advocate for universal health care so they can be born healthy?
If they aren’t trying to control women’s bodies, then why do they lie about birth control? Or rip out IUD’s without consent? Or block access to clinics? Or eliminate funding for family planning? Or forbid even talking about abortion if you want governmental funding to deliver healthy babies?
Why do they treat children as a just punishment for having sex? If they love children so much, why would they want those children to be born to mothers that don’t love them or can’t care for them?
The bible, which most of these people claim to follow, says “Know them by their fruits”.
Their fruits are rotten.
You cannot negotiate with people who are not acting in good faith. Lying about their goals by claiming to be pro life is bad faith. They aren’t concerned with saving lives. Actually, without birth control and abortion the maternal death rate would sky rocket.
So why does our president keep giving credit to liars and terrorists when he says that abortion isn’t really about a woman’s right to control her own body?
Rest in peace Dr. Tiller. You were a braver person than most of us can ever hope to be. Your tragic end shows them for what they are, murderers and misogynists and terrorists.
We should not negotiate with terrorists. Why should we negotiate with them?
The new rah rah squad
Well that didn’t take long. What are we- just past 100 days or so and lots of peeps who were all “Obama is the one true shining hope of progress” are now seeing that no, he really isn’t pro-gay rights. And no- he really doesn’t think that women have the right to control what happens to their own bodies. And torture isn’t sooooo bad. And we’re still in Iraq but Obama’s getting more hawkish on Afghanistan.
In the mean time, bankers get a bail out but autoworkers get the shaft. Universal healthcare is a pipedream. Unemployment’s at 10 percent. And we have a majority in both the House and Senate, but aren’t doing any of those things we lefties dreamed about through the Rethuglikan revolution or 8 years of Bushco.
Since straight up logic or ethics aren’t working on the dear leader and the Dem party, I think I shall go back to my high school cheerleader roots with this happy little chant every time another progressive idea is squashed in favor of a centrist (read corporatist) approach.
Be fauxgressive! Be Be fauxgressive!
Anyone wanna join me on the new rah rah squad?
(Not exactly off topic, but I saw Simon Schama on Charlie Rose last night. He said that Obama has “19th century values” and is a “Christian hawk”. I think that explains it perfectly and Schama is totes on my list of Hot Brains I’d Like To……)
mix n match
I was talking to Ruth and Nard last night about women in movies (we were talking about the Abyss in particular). I think it was Nard who asked why they always make the woman (singular- cause in movie land the world is made up of groups of 4 or more guys with a token chick thrown in) the scientist. She can’t be the action hero, but she has to have some reason to be there (unlike dudes, who can be completely useless tools and yet still get a part).
I think that a lot of entertainment creates female characters that are more like the mix and match book above, but everything below the head is always the same*. Head is scientist, torso of porn star, legs of super model. Head is ball busting bitch (who just needs to get laid), torso of porn star, legs of super model. Head is manic pixie dream girl. Head is mushy romantic singleton. Head is anxious and sexually unfulfilled career woman. Head dead set on bloody revenge of the people that have done her wrong (but the porn star/ super model body combo make the whole thing a joke cause a girl built like that could never take a punch, let alone throw one- I’m looking at you Tarantino and even Joss Whedon).
I watch a lot of movies where I don’t need to find the lead actor attractive to make the movie compelling or interesting. Think of fat Russel Crow in the Insider. Or Matt Damon (who I’ve never found physically attractive) in the Borne series. Actually, I’ve found Damon MORE attractive not because of his looks, but because of his feminist friendly comments over the years. Or any movie with a Tom (Hanks or Cruise) in it (ugh I hate them both). Or Brad Pitt (not my type).
But I am left, more often than not, feeling blah about the way women are written, because they are rarely written as people but as mix and match cutouts. Heaven forbid that the male half of the population should be made to possibly watch someone that they didn’t want to fuck. And I think about the stereotypes in movies and on tv and I don’t know a single woman that falls into them. I know scientists and mathgeeks. They are beautiful but not built like porn stars and they have a lot more going on in their lives than their movie versions do. They are also not unfulfilled because of their quest for knowledge. I know girls who look like they could be a manic pixie girl, but they don’t exist in real life as the humanizer of their boyfriends. I know soldiers and sailors who spend their free time painting their nails and wearing dresses. We are more complicated than cardboard cutouts. And we are more numerous than movies or tv would lead you to think.
I was thinking about this when Oceans 11 or 12 or whatever aired for the 57th time not so long ago. I think it was 12 cause it had Julia Roberts AND Catherine Zeta Jones in it. But they never once say a single word to each other in the whole movie. Oh and Cherry Jones (who I love) shows up at the end. 3 women. 12 + dudes. If the population of the world mirrored the population of movies, the human race would die out. The number of available wombs would simply be too few to repopulate the earth. And if the few women that exist entertainment world don’t talk to each other about anything other than the plethora of men in their lives, how would any of them know how to give birth?
Maybe that is why women get such flat roles to play. No one has any experience writing for them, at least at the same numbers that they write for men. Maybe that is why, even when women are portrayed as something other than a hooker, victim or doormat they still seem fake and uninteresting. Even “good” movies suffer. I watched the Reader last week, and god love Kate Winslet (who can do no wrong IMHO) but that movie blew Ralph Fines colored chunks. Winslet took a very narrowly written role and made something of it. But really her character was given very very little to work with. We know that she is poor. We know that she can’t read, but likes stories. We know that she is hardworking but terrified of being outed as illiterate. And we know that she has sex with a teenage boy (though we never find out why she finds him attractive, he’s kind of a git). That is it. From Winslet’s acting, we see t
(*- unless they are playing the sympathetic fat girl. But then it’s a chick flick and we don’t have to worry that male audiences will find the lead fuckable)
RQ Cooks- Cold sesame noodles for the allergic
Someday soon I’ll come back and write about non-food things, but for right now I’m so stressed out and freaked out and just plain scared of the future that what’s for dinner is the only question I can answer.
Kid is allergic to wheat. That’s the source of his horrendous dead cat smell. Roomie is allergic to a million things (including wheat and peanuts) so cooking is an adventure in creativity. Enter- rice noodles.
I had sesame noodles at Kid’s b-day sushi dinner and have been thinking about them ever since. So here’s my version for peeps who can’t eat stuff (and for those of us who can)
1 pack of rice noodles (pad thai noodles work great) cooked, rinsed, drained and cooled
chopped scallions
in a bowl mix
6 to 8 tablespoons tamari (wheat free soy sauce)
3 tablespoons sun flower butter (which is awesome because you get whole seeds in it) or peanut butter
4 tablespoons vegetable oil (if you have sesame oil- you can use this in place of some of the veggie oil)
pinch of red pepper flakes
pinch of cayenne (more of either or both of these if you like spicey)
a generous glob of toasted sesame seeds
add noodles and scallions. Keep mixing. It will take a while. Add a wee bit more oil if it’s really too thick.
Taste- seriously. It made need more tamari if (like me) you want it fully of salty goodness.
RQ Cooks- Perfect Roast Chicken
Whole chickens are cheap. And tasty. Sure, they aren’t THAT much cheaper than getting the already roasted ones from the grocery store, but food stamps won’t buy an already roasted chicken and I can’t brag if I didn’t roast it myself.
If you’re afreared of roasting a whole bird, here’s my surefire recipe that will have you standing over the roasted carcass picking at the meat like some kind of hyena, and only a tiny bit ashamed that it’s sooooo good you couldn’t bother getting a plate.
Preheat oven to 375.
Take one whole roasting chicken. Reach in the cavity and pull out any organs, etc. Rinse the bird inside and out with cool water and then pat dry with a paper towel. Let the bird come up to room temp while you do everything else.
Make an onion rack. Basically you slice rounds of onion so they are the same thickness and cover the bottom of the roasting pan with them. This keeps the bird off the bottom of the pan and makes an awesome gravy later.
Microwave one stick of butter in a bowl till it’s all melty. Season heavily with salt, pepper, sage, or whatever you want your chicken to taste like. You’re basically making a flavored butter rub, so go insane with the spices and the salt.
Take your hand and loosen the skin from the breast meat gently. Grab a handful of the butter mix and rub under the skin as far as you can. If you’re good, you can get all the way down to the legs and thighs without breaking the skin. Then rub the top of the skin and the inside cavity with the butter mix. Place bird on onion rack, breast side up. Don’t worry about tucking wings or tying things up. This doesn’t actually do anything cooking wise but make it take longer.
Take one lightish beer and a piece of cheesecloth. Soak the cheesecloth in the beer and drape over the chicken. Save the rest of the beer for basting. Put the bird in the oven and baste with the beer every 20 minutes to half hour or so. Chicken should take an hour and a half to 2 hours, depending on the bird and the oven. Use a meat thermometer in the thigh (careful not to touch the bones of the side of the pan with the thermometer or your readings will be off).
When the thermometer says 190, pull the chicken out and let it rest for a bit. You can now remove the cheesecloth and you will have perfect crisp brown skin and juicy meat.
And a quick how to for carving.
1. Remove the wings
2. Remove the legs and thighs.
3. Most people at this point start cutting down the breastbone- DON’T DO THIS YET. Instead make a horizontal cut from the outside (where the legs used to be) in as far as you can. Do this to both sides.
4. Then you cut down on each the breast bone. You should be able to remove 2 perfect, skin intact breasts.
Related to nothing
Roommates who refuse to buy toilet paper yet leave passive aggressive notes around the house about EVERYTHING else deserve to be shot.
Buy some fucking toilet paper you cheap ass bastard. It’s been 6 months already!
“they’re viewed as soft and less intelligent”
It’s nearly Mother’s Day, a holiday that I hate with the fiery fury of a blazing sun.
First- a rant about women who buy into the whole mommy fetish bullshit.
Our house is across the street from a very popular local park. On sunny days, there is no street parking. Lucky for us, we have a driveway that will fit 2 cars in tandem. It means there is a lot of parking hokey pokey when the roommate parked at the back needs to get out, but we deal and the street is left to the park goers.
Friday, Ruth had to go to work (and just to make this story a little more tragic- her job is scribing for disabled people on college math tests) and found that our driveway had been completely blocked in by a fucking Prius. (Now I’m as green as any poor person can be, which is greener than even your biggest eco-snob, but Seattle Prius drivers are a bunch of sanctimonious turds). She called to have the car towed and got to work late on the bus.
Several hours later (at least 3) and a pregnant blonde rings the doorbell.
Pregnant Blonde: Was there a problem with my Prius?
Me: Yeah. You blocked our driveway and my roommate was late to work.
PB: (giggling) Sorry, must be pregnant brain.
Me: I’ve got a 14 year old, I’ve been pregnant. It never made me thoughtless and stupid.
And then- just because I am a bitch but not really cruel I asked if she’d called someone for a ride and shut the door on her when she said yes.
I get bitchy with women mothers who buy into the mommy fetish bullshit. Women who act like the miracle of pregnancy (not really a miracle with current population levels) makes them special little snowflakes of purity and bliss and unaccountability to anything but their stomach. I want to punch in the face of women who act like the one true calling of everywoman is to be a SAHM. I get bitchy when people call me “Kid’s Mom” or refuse to acknowledge my last name (different from the Kid’s). I get bitchy with people who want to put me on a pedestal of martyrdom because at one point I chose to give birth. If I were a little less white looking or had a slightly more urban (or rural) speech patterns, those same people would be tisk tisking over my being a mother.
So for mother’s day- skip the cards and the flowers and the brunch (though I’ll take the mimosas, thankyouverymuch). Those crappy items don’t make up for the real harm we do in treating mothers like precious little flowers one day of the year and unpaid idiot servants for the rest of it. Here’s my wish list for a REAL Mother’s day.
1. An end to the mommy wage gap.
2. Universal preschool and college
3. Paid parental leave and sickdays for everyone.
4. Child support enforcement that DOESN”T leave 70% of cases in arrears
5. Universal healthcare that includes birth control and abortion services
6. For mothers to succeed in their careers the same way fathers have been able to.
The title for this post came from this post about the women currently being looked at for the Supreme Court. All are childless and single. Some of my favorite heroines of history (Tina Modotti and Dororthy Parker and Jane Austen) couldn’t or didn’t have children. And that may be a huge reason why they were able to have careers when others didn’t. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had the same kind of options for parenting and working that men do? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do both and be properly compensated for it?
But first WE have to stop buying into our own bullshit. No using pregnancy as an excuse for stupidity. No accepting faux glorification instead of cold hard cash for staying home with the kids. We have been too good at making the best of a bad situation for way too long. Time to make the situation good for all mothers (and fathers too).
Please- go Galt already!
It’s beginning to become the standard refrain of the haves when they are about to be “punished” for their misdeeds. If we take away corporate bonuses, then no one with the kind of talent that led to the financial collapse will want to work in banking and finance anymore. If we make the rich pay taxes, then they will leave for their own private islands.
Now Rethuglikan “thinkers” (I use that term very very generously) say that if we prosecute civil servants for their role in torture, then we will have no civil servants left.
Please, please take your torture ball and go home. Theses are not the best and brightest that we need, now or ever.