All the local stations are calling it. Coakley conceded. Somehow Massachusetts elected a forced-birth advocating, birth-certificate denying, Kennedy-hating teabagger.
I am deeply ashamed of my state right now. Congratulations, fellow voters. If you’re a wealthy, straight, white, able-bodied, Christian man between 35 and 60 who has a recession-proof job, high-quality, low-cost health insurance, and a small enough heart to only care about people just like you, Scott Brown might not be that bad for you.
Anyone know of any expatriate newspapers looking for a good editor?
Wish I had a moment to say something more in-depth, but since I’m using my lunch break to both eat and post this, I’ll have to settle for a few thoughts.
1. The weather here is shitty—wet, sloppy snow—and that probably helps Brown. Low turnouts are generally good for challengers because their voters tend to be more motivated. They’ll turn out in muck to change the system, whereas supporters of incumbents (or members of entrenched incumbent parties, in this case) feel their candidate is safe without their votes and are more easily convinced to stay home.
2. However, turnout has been surprisingly strong so far, which I think is a good sign for Coakley. It could be that every last member of Brown’s base is at the polls and they alone are enough to make turnout look high for an off-year special election, but I doubt it. What I think is happening is that all the national coverage of Brown’s surge has led a lot of complacent Massachusetts liberals to realize that, for once, the primaries were not the only vote that matters. The same goes for people who were going to stay home because because, you know, Coakley sucks, who’re now realizing that it’s important to hold their noses and vote the ticket if they don’t want zombie Ted Kennedy on their doorsteps tomorrow.
3. It’s important to note that the Globe article is referring to strong turnout in Boston, which is usually very strongly Democratic and always the source of the lion’s share of the state’s votes. In Boston, most people can walk to their polling places. This may make a difference, because the largest Republican enclaves are on the Cape and along the I-495 loop that skirts the city, where all those people who have office jobs in Boston but don’t want to see a person of color in their neighborhood live. If it snows hard enough, especially if the roads get bad, those people might decide to go straight home after work. A girl can dream.
4. If Scott Motherfucking Brown wins this election, I’m moving to France, where I can vote Socialist, spend a month on the Riviera every summer, and drink red wine by the gallon. À bientôt, mes amis.
I saw the 30-second TV cut of this trailer probably 3 or 4 times before I realized that the reason Mel Gibson sounded like he was wearing someone else’s dentures was that he was trying to effect a Boston accent. Even then, it only clicked because I recognized a quarter-second shot of the I-93 tunnel.
Which is really to say, Hi, I’m not dead. Just busy with new-job stuff. Please continue to bear with me while I adjust.
I hope to have coherent thoughts on the death of Senator Kennedy in a few days, but I’m having trouble pulling them together right now.
I will miss him. And although our standard-bearer may have fallen, the best way to heal ourselves and pay tribute to him is to keep fighting. Not in his name, but for his causes. As my boyfriend said, Teddy would probably rather the health care bill be called the “Ted Kennedy Was A Drunken Schmuck Health Care Act” and include a robust public option than have it lionize him but be toothless itself.
Those interested in paying tribute to the late senior Senator from Massachusetts should head to the memorial website his family has set up, TedKennedy.org, and those in the area who are thinking of attending one of the public mourning events in his honor can find information about the arrangements here.
God, I thought I had said all I had to say about this, but the unending dipshittery of the American public in general and my fellow Bostonians in particular forces me to post on the arrest of Professor Gates once again.
Allow me to enumerate some of the asshattery:
Last night, the president gave a long national address about healthcare. Today’s main headline on the Boston Globe? “Obama scolds Cambridge police.”
The cop, Sgt. Crowley, went on a local conservative talk radio show to give his version of events (Summary: Gates just would not shut up!), and said he thinks it’s “regrettable” that the president or anyone else would comment on the story without knowing all the facts. A Globe blogger basically calls Crowley a hero for not voicing full-throated agreement with the hosts’ bilious criticism of Obama, instead just demurely refusing to disagree. (So much more, after the jump.) (more…)
I mean, it’s a crime most everywhere, but Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., is certainly the most high-profile person to get arrested for it in a while.
For those who haven’t yet heard the story, Professor Gates, director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, was returning home from a week-long trip to China and discovered that his front door was stuck. He and the driver from the car service he was using attempted to force it open, and the sight of two black men trying to break open a door prompted a neighbor to call the Cambridge police. A cop showed up after Gates had gotten in through the back door, asked that Gates prove he lived there, and then, after some kind of unfriendly exchange, arrested Gates for “tumultuous” behavior.
The cop’s report, which the Boston Globe had made available but then took down without explanation, said that Gates accused him of racism, told him he didn’t know who he was messing with, and made some kind of incoherent “your mama” remark. Gates says he simply requested, repeatedly, the cop’s name and badge number, and when the cop left his house without replying, he followed the officer to his front porch, where he was arrested.
I think this is one of those instances where the truth actually does, in all likelihood, lie somewhere between the two versions. I think that Gates—tired, jetlagged, understandably outraged—probably said something not-nice to the cop, although it probably did not contain the phrase “your mama.” And I believe the cop did refuse to give Gates information, an explanation, or at least a cursory apology for inconveniencing him.
But even if we try to cast this in a light that is as friendly as possible to the police—for example, if Gates were belligerent and loud from the second they showed up, if he swore at them and refused to cooperate, if he threatened them with lawsuits and ignored protestations that they were just doing their jobs (none of which I believe to be true)—the Cambridge PD is still clearly guilty of, at the very least, abusing its power. Cops really, really don’t like it when they think people don’t respect them, and Gates probably was guilty of insufficient asskissery. But we have laws against throwing people in jail for saying shit that the authorities don’t like, so it was the cop’s duty to swallow his anger, bid Gates a polite goodbye, and leave. But he didn’t do that; he decided to teach Gates a lesson about how you talk to cops.
And, realistically, his decision was almost certainly affected by Gates’ race. I can’t read the dude’s mind, obviously, but even if he weren’t thinking anything so blatantly racist as “I’ll put this uppity black dude in his place,” he probably would have been a little more willing to believe Gates’ statement that he lived there if Gates were white. He probably would have found it a little easier to ignore his anger and wounded pride at not being deferentially sucked up to. He probably would have been less inclined to see Gates’ heated remarks as disturbing the peace rather than justifiable anger that will pass when its cause is removed. He probably would have been less likely to think he could get away with arresting a Harvard professor if that professor’s wealth and powerful connections were written all over his pale skin.
That’s the kind of racism many people face and many of us perpetuate today. There are still people in white hoods, yes, and people willing to say out loud and without apology that Mexicans are lazy and black people are thieves and Asians are emotionless mathbots, but there are also a lot more people whose opinions have been shaded by these stereotypes in ways that can be hard for their holders to detect. All of us have received these messages from our culture, and all of our thinking has been, in varying degrees, shaped by these messages. Even those of us who fight against discrimination and work to eliminate our own prejudices whenever we can identify them.
The Cambridge police and prosecutor’s office have announced they will drop all charges against Gates. In a few days they will probably release a statement about how they don’t engage in racial profiling, and some of that officer’s best friends are black. But even if no one involved in the situation thought they were treating Gates any differently than they would treat a white man, their actions still seem racist, and they need to be called on it.
I just saw a breaking news report on TV announcing that the Cambridge PD was dropping all charges against Professor Henry Louis Gates, who was arrested yesterday for trying to get into his own house.
Update: Finally! A linkable source. This post will be updated when I have a source to link, and I’ll put up a real post later today.
For those not in Boston, the description that suits both is “foul.”
This tidbit on the front page of the Boston Globe‘s website:
Cuts reached, Times does not foresee closing Globe
With the 23 percent pay cut imposed on members of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the paper’s owner, the New York Times Co., said today it has achieved the savings it needs and doesn’t foresee shutting down the paper.
Now, of course I’m happy that the Globe won’t be closing. But I was never really afraid that it would be closing, because this same little melodrama plays out every year or two. Each time, the Times Co. tell the unions that if they don’t make big sacrifices, the paper will shut down and everyone will lose their jobs. And yet even though the company almost never gets the full amount of concessions it was asking for, the paper miraculously continues to publish! Why, it’s almost as if the parent company were exaggerating the paper’s financial distress in order to cheat employees and weaken the unions! But that can’t be, because corporations are fundamentally ethical and have come to recognize the important role unions play in today’s business world.
Dr. Tiller’s clinic is closing permanently. It’s hardly surprising, as there are few people trained to do the procedures Dr. Tiller performed, and, thanks to terrorists like Scott Roeder, fewer still willing to perform them, but part of me was hoping that something amazing would happen to allow the clinic to carry on its vital mission. But in real life, terrorists often win.
This dude’s “My Brief Life as a Woman” article. He was prescribed Lupron, which suppresses sex hormones, as part of his treatment for prostate cancer and discovered that the drug induced in him a state similar to menopause. From this he “confirm[ed] my lifelong sense that the world of women is hormonal and mysterious,” including such difficulties as uncontrollable food cravings and weeping jags brought on by nothing in particular. It’s not worth going into any depth about this, but let me briefly enumerate the assumptions required to make this article possible:
His problems were all caused by hormone fluctuations, none from the side effects of Lupron itself, even though I hear it’s a pretty powerful drug.
The symptoms produced by testosterone withdrawal in men in no way vary from those produced by estrogen withdrawal (menopause) in women.
Menopause, far from being a relatively brief transitional phase between two much longer, more stable phases in a woman’s life, is pretty much the state of all women, all the time.
Despite being in a constant state of hormonal change (…is that even possible?) for decades on end, women have developed no strategies for coping with the effects of these fluctuations and are completely at their mercy.
I saw this cartoon on the front page of Slate the other day:
For those who can’t see the image, Osama bin Laden is in a cave reading a newspaper with the headline “Obama Reaches Out to Muslims” and declaring “And we’ll be reaching out to Christians.”
Ha ha ha! Get it? It’s funny! It’s totally funny! Don’t you get it? It’s funny because A) America is a Christian nation, and attacks on America—even those directed at international symbols of secular concepts and institutions like finance/capitalism and the U.S. government/democracy—are properly understood as attacks on Christianity and Christians, for it is our official national religion with which Muslim extremists take issue, B) the primary purpose of Obama’s Cairo speech was to combat terrorism, C) giving speeches is all the Obama administration is doing to combat terrorism, and D) making a public gesture of basic respect for the 1.5 billion members of the world’s second-largest religion would do nothing at all to prevent terrorism and might even encourage it! Now you get, it right? I shouldn’t even bother typing anymore, because surely you are now laughing too hard to read this through your tears of mirth!
Yes, Obama’s first 100 days ended about five minutes ago, but the 2012 campaign has already begun. This unwelcome news was forced upon my consciousness, which had been dutifully trying to ignore it for weeks now, during an afternoon perusal of the Boston Globe‘s homepage. There I saw, under some much less interesting news about former Mass House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi’s indictment for being more than usually corrupt, the following two headlines in close proximity to one another: “Romney takes Obama bashing to CNN, ‘Today Show’” and “Minn. Governor Pawlenty won’t seek third term.”
Two inescapable conclusions must be drawn from each of these. From the first, I conclude that Mitt Romney will never, ever stop annoying the shit out of me, and that that annoying fucker is running for president. Still. Again. Some more. From the second, I conclude that Tim Pawlenty is also running for president, and that Al Franken is screwed. Y’see, now that he’s set his sights on the White House, Pawlenty no longer has to pretend he gives a shit what Minnesota voters think, and he has every motivation to do things that empower or curry favor with Republicans, and refusing to certify Franken’s election does both. So unless the Minnesota Supreme Court rules not only that Coleman has no grounds to continue contesting the election, but also that Pawlenty must certify Franken immediately, the junior Senator from Minnesota probably won’t be seated before Congress breaks for the summer. And with a judicial nominee to filibuster, you can bet the party leadership would be extremely grateful to anyone who could hold the Dems to 59 seats.
For those of you who are actually filing your taxes today, I hope everything goes as smoothly as possible. But remember, the fact that it’s Tax Day and hundreds of wingnuts are standing around trying to teabag the government in public pales in comparison to the fact that the weather’s finally turning nice. There’s sun! And, not unrelatedly, baseball! So enjoy this pic I took at the ballgame last week and try to sneak out of the office and feel the sun on your skin for at least a few minutes today. Tell your boss you’re taking a cigarette break. It’ll make everything seem better.
Pack is back! But he’s too damaged to reattach, so the city will have to commission a replacement. I hope someone takes up a collection for that $8-10,000, because I doubt there’s any duckling money in the stimulus package. However, I asked for eight ducklings, and eight ducklings is what I got.
The weather for game time looks OK. Not great, but the chance of precipitation is only 20%, which means Opening Day will probably actually happen. Finally. Unfortunately for me, Second Monday is known to the rest of the world as Tuesday, which means I have to go to class and miss most of the game.
And the Vermont legislature overrode the governor’s veto, legalizing gay marriage in a fourth state (third in New England. I’m just saying. And what I’m saying is, we’re awesome.). Woohoo! It was a real squeaker, getting through the House by just one vote. I can’t wait to see the wedding pictures.
And to recap the rest of New England: Massachusetts and Connecticut, obviously, are already down with marriage equality. Maine and New Hampshire offer domestic partnership protections and civil unions, respectively, and both are considering legislation to open marriage to everyone. Rhode Island is the only New England state not currently making progress toward a measure of legal equality for same-sex couples, and I have no idea why. I do know, however, that Rhode Island is the tiniest state in the union, and if it doesn’t get moving on this issue soon enough, the rest of New England will gang up on it and stuff it in a locker until it sees reason.
Goddamn, this day sucked. I really think we need a do-over.
First of all, this is not what Opening Day is supposed to look like:
THIS is what Opening Day is supposed to look like:
(Note: Photo not actually taken on an Opening Day, but during a park tour I took on approximately this date in 2005. Though I do recall, for some reason, that the weather also managed to be good for the real Red Sox home opener about a week later.)
And postponing Opening Day is just altogether unacceptable. I’ve had a countdown to baseball on my whiteboard for months, and this morning I changed it to say “Baseball TODAY!!!!!” (yes, five exclamation points) and then had to change it back to “Baseball tomorrow.” What a bringdown.
A bronze duckling was stolen from the storied Make Way for Ducklings sculpture in the Public Garden, the beloved bird snapped off at its webbed feet, police said today.
Park Rangers on routine patrol noticed this morning that Pack, the seventh of eight ducklings, had been stolen from their brick path near the corner of Beacon and Charles streets. The young fowl have stood in a curving line behind their mother, Mrs. Mallard, since Nancy Schon created and installed the sculpture in 1987. The work celebrates Robert McCloskey’s timeless children’s book, “Make Way for Ducklings.”
Bring Pack back, asswipe(s)!
After hearing that the game was canceled and people were defacing adorable landmarks, I spent the whole day stomping around my house like a petulant 4-year-old grumbling, “Grump, grump, grump,” under my breath. Because grumpy is obviously a way you can be, but I also think that grumping is a thing you can do. And I spent all day grumping all over the place and at everyone I encountered. And if a whole day winds up taken over by a virulent case of the grumps, I think the grumper should be given a Mulligan. So I declare tomorrow Second Monday, and demand decent weather and eight ducklings. You hear me, universe?
Subject: Drink liberally tonight, with special guest Rachel Maddow!
Hi liberal drinkers,
I’ve got some exciting news for you: Rachel Maddow, host of the hit MSNBC progressive talk show, will be joining us tonight for a special edition of drinking liberally! Stop by tonight to say hello and hear from one of the leading voices of progressive politics! [...]
PS Happy April Fools, everyone! Rachel Maddow will not, in fact, be joining us, but we will have lots of great chatter about liberal politics, as always.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go drop-kick a kitten.
Sorry, dear readers, to have abandoned you for a wicked long time. I was stricken with several Very Serious Illnesses. First, the flu. Then, Rock Band fever. Then, what my friend diagnosed as a terminal case of the Fuckits. I seem to be recovering now. Sunshine and the promise of baseball help.
However! If you are going to be at WAM! and you’re not too mad at me, I would love to meet you! Keep an eye out for me. I look like this:
Or, slightly more accurately, like this:
Have you had YOUR daily dose of Vitamin Crazy?
Don’t be afraid to say hello to the crazy lady. She will introduce you to the Miracle of Science.
Remember, tomorrow evening in Cambridge is the Yes Means Yesreading and book release party hosted by the Center for New Words (the folks behind WAM!). Both events are free, but you must RSVP to get into the party: ally@centerfornewwords.org. You can look for me if you want (curly black hair; post-inaugural sniffles), but considering there are going to be some pretty fabulous, very prominent feminists there, my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t.
While we’re on the topic of WAM!, registration is open, but prices go up after February 13, so sign up now. If you’re thinking, “I know WAM! is awesome, but I’m pretty broke right now,” consider this: An Evening with Sarah Haskins. Yeah, I thought so. See you there!
Boston-area readers should check out Tomes of Terror III in Somerville next Wednesday through Saturday, including Halloween. A local group called the Post-Meridian Radio Players is putting on three staged radio plays (Prairie Home Companion-style) including The Tell-Tale Heart, which comes with a warning: “This production of The Tell-Tale Heart contains brief incidents of graphic audio violence and may not be suitable for younger attendees.” Sounds awesome, right? Tickets are only 12 bucks, and night owls can learn more by listening to WBZ (1030 AM) tonight at midnight. I’m going Saturday. If you want to say “hi” afterwards, I’ll be the one making out with the surprisingly deep-voiced cop in Heart.
For you poor suckers who aren’t in Boston, here’s Babs Bunny from Tiny Toons rocking out to “Respect.”
In 2005, Rakan Hassan, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy, was orphaned and paralyzed by American bullets when soldiers panicked at the approach of his family car, fearing it was a suicide bomb, and opened fire. A Getty photographer happened to be on the scene and captured the aftermath, which brought the boy’s situation to the attention of humanitarian activists, who in turn brought it to the attention of Senator Ted Kennedy. With the help of the Defense Department and local philanthropist, Kennedy brought Rakan to Boston, to Mass. General Hospital, where he won the affection of everyone on staff, learned to walk again, and begged to go home. In early 2006, he returned to Iraq and what was left of his family. This June, he died.
Rakan was killed by a bomb planted near his house, possibly because he’d accepted help from Americans. Of course he, like his parents, doesn’t count.
Summer classes are ending next week and I’ll be busy all weekend, so I’m trying to crank out papers and prepare for a final and I’m too fried to post anything serious. Instead, I’m stealing an idea from Shapely Prose and asking you all, what’s your favorite part of summer where you are? Do you have any plans for this long weekend?
Personally, I love that in June my housemates and I consume approximately 30 million strawberries fresh from our garden. I love lounging around with a novel that no one assigned me to read. I love riding my bike to and from school (about 4 miles each way). And I love Shakespeare on the Common, the free outdoor performance every year in downtown Boston. I gather up a few friends and some wine, stake out a spot on the grass, watch the daylight fade, and settle in for an entertaining, companionable evening.
Over the 4th, I’m heading down to the Cape for our annual family reunion where I will eat a ton of food, sleep late, lounge by various bodies of water, and drink and discuss books with my 11 maternal cousins, their significant others, and assorted aunts and uncles. We’re Irish, so there should be about 30 people there this year, and none of them will be distant, half-remembered relatives.
This thread should also be considered a general amnesty for lurkers. I know people are reading, but very few are commenting, so consider this an opportunity to introduce yourselves, get a comment approved, and maybe start to build a community.
I don’t know how big a story Neil Entwistle‘s conviction and sentencing is outside of New England, but here it’s on all the front pages. Two-and-a-half years ago, British-born Neil Entwistle murdered his 27-year-old wife, Rachel, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, in the family’s Hopkington, Massachusetts, home. Supposedly, he meant to commit a murder-suicide, but chickened out after shooting his wife in the head and his infant child in the stomach. Entwistle was trying to avoid facing the consequences of his impending financial ruin.
Maybe these murders aren’t really any more or less horrible than hundreds of others, but I find the story deeply personally affecting. Rachel Souza (it seems wrong to refer to her by her married name) grew up in Kingston, Massachusetts, one town north of Plymouth, where I grew up. She was only five years older than me. Her daughter’s baptism was performed in Plymouth. Seven weeks later, her funeral Mass was held in Plymouth. For all I know, I sat next to her at a football game, passed her in a supermarket, or served her coffee during my years at Dunkin’ Donuts in high school.
At the time Rachel and Lillian were killed, I was working for a company that put out many of the area’s community newspapers. Carver, where Rachel’s parents live, was one of my papers. For nearly a year, I edited every story about the investigation. I heard all the newsroom chatter about things reporters learned in off-the-record conversations with local police. I laid out every front page chronicling new developments. I still use one of those covers among my clips. Rachel and Lilly’s story has become part of mine.
When the news first broke, two things were immediately clear: Neil Entwistle was plainly guilty, and he might get off anyway. He was nearly bankrupt, but his family was rich. He was inept at covering his tracks, but he was a foreign citizen and had fled to England hours after the murders. Extradition was by no means guaranteed. He’d have the best lawyers. He might get away with it.
Every hour that the jury was out earlier this week, I worried that despite everything—the DNA, the ridiculous cover story full of holes, the pathetic defense—the jury might not convict. Then, when he was found guilty, I worried that he’d somehow manage to sell his story and profit off his own cruelty. Now that neither of those things has come to pass, I’m starting to miss the worry. The worry had a focus. The worry, I knew, would at some point resolve into either relief or frustration. The worry concealed the aching melancholy at the pointless waste.
The only way Neil Entwistle will ever leave prison is in a coffin. It’s the best anyone could have hoped for. Now we have to face the reality that it means nothing, fixes nothing. It just starts the grieving process all over again and adds another family to the mourners.
