An open letter

There is only one thing you need to know about the Grimace:

I want to marry this phrase.

I'm especially unhappy with their redesign of the princesses (now with 500% more glitter !)

This is what pisses me off so much about the toys, they seem to completely miss the point set up by the movies. Because although the princesses themselves represent different colours, the toys are all pink.

I get that, but I did misunderstand your point on this example (albeit partially) because of the phrasing. There's a difference between hyper-dissecting and pointing out when something is awkwardly phrased.

Yeah I don't like the Princess redesign. They all have longer hair too. But that's something that always happens--I remember Strawberry Shortcake, an adorable little tomboyish figure getting a redesign where she got nicer dresses and longer hair. There was even a special cartoon about it to explain the change! And the one where they all got babies. Jesus, they were all like 6. What the fuck, 80s marketing?

I am dating myself here. Does anyone else remember Day to Night Barbie? Hyped for having an actual job? Her working suit could be flipped around to be evening wear for when Ken took her out. ALL PINK!

Or maybe red. I don't think I ever had her. Who wanted a working Barbie? Please. Peaches and Cream was the best.

AHA:

No, but I do remember a McDonald's Skipper. Close enough?

I remember the Dress-Up Nuggets as a happy meal toy. Those were great. And surprisingly hilarious, although looking back at the ones I still have, I still see some sexism in there, too.

AND HOLY FRICK HE REPRESENTED MILK SHAKES? It all makes sense now.

All I know is that, while I still went to McDonalds, we had pretty gender neutral toys for the most part, with the occasional "You want the boy/girl toy, right?"

When I take my nieces to McDonald's for Happy Meals I always cringe a little at the question of "boy toys or girl toys?" I think the cringe is more from the fact that these little plastic piece of crap toys are something I'm just going to step on or throw in the trash within a week.

I don't frequent Burger King all that often, but it seems to me they usually end up going with some bigger movie-tie in toy deal so you don't get the boy/girl option you just get a crappy toy from whatever animated movie was just out.

I am not an award winning writer by any stretchof anyone's fevered dreams. Pointing out or asking about an awkward turn of phrase can probably be done more productively; it literally took multiple replies from two people (i.e., "up to this point") for me to even know what was being misunderstood.

So handshakes all around? :)

I can appreciate that and I thank you for mentioning it. Being a white male my default status for someone expressing opinions however insane is "Well that's just, like, your opinion man" while not always taking care to recognize when an opinion, when presented forcefully enough, can be oppressive and alienating to others.

The thing about it was that it was just surreal. It was depersonalizing, dissociative, and I would guess that is a not uncommon feeling people in those situations adopt to transition past them as they are happening. It's what is felt afterwards, for years. I did not think anyone was laughing at me, FWIW. I did not feel shamed. I was in the same boat of "Man, that was fuckin' weird, wasn't it?" But I wasn't being honest with myself and by extension, not being fair to others to whom that has happened to.

No apologies necessary, but I appreciate it. By the same token, I would like to apologize to the forum and specifically its female contingent on the whole for even by implication to appear to be defending Flowers. It saddens me that his behavior created such a hostile and alienating atmosphere here and on qt3 and that I was no doubt a vocal part of his cheerleading team and implicated by proxy. It is (sadly) part of my privilege that he or anyone else can spout off a wide variety of things and it doesn't personally affect or offend me. That certainly does not ring true for others, and it's time I was more cognizant of it.

No argument.

Hear, here. It's quite simply amazing and hopeful that a website once home to a disturbing contingent of conservo MRA types has become what it is now, all under the admirably open-minded and benevolent communist conservative Old* White Guy's stewardship.

What I'm saying is, Lum owns because nowhere on the internet have I ever felt at ease enough to be as honest I have been as I have been here, and everyone here should be afforded the same right and never felt discouraged even by proxy from being so.**




*Not really that old

**This post brought to you by the Bill Dungsroman All My Feels Foundation

Only in geological terms.

Fair enough. Handshakes it is.

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

When I earlier mentioned my experience from when I was 15 it was the first time I've ever really acknowledged what happened to me. I had never spoken to anyone about it, never talked about it on the internet apart from a few glanced comments of "I do know what sexual abuse is" and I only ever thought about it for as long as it took to dismiss that thought from my mind. The denial that things like that happen in the world strangely worked out for me, inciting real anger in me that made me acknowledge it "out loud" just so ignorance and malice could be slowed for a few minutes. I've just told my mother and have been talking to her about it. She's obviously upset that I was hurt like that.

My self-acknowledgement today brought up a huge array of emotions, anger, angst, nothingness, lostness, etc. However it brought about the latest in a long line of mini-epiphanies. The confusion I experienced as a teenager, the loneliness not of being without social and caring friends and family but of seeing myself as the sole bearer of what I was experiencing should not be inflicted on anyone. I tried to get across to my mother that the same rejection I felt from society then that put me in that situation is the same rejection I'm feeling now and why I need my family around me. She tried to reassure me that they're slowly coming around, and that especially my father isn't able to handle how bad my life could be, without him realising how bad his actions are making it anyway. I'm generally worried that my past behavior has damaged my relationship with my siblings, behavior partly pathologised by the suppression of my self but not excused by it.

I think todays acknowledgment of my own trauma will be good for me personally and it will also help me a better person towards others. And this is a broad thank you to all the people here who are amaxing and make this a happy place on the intertubes. You all really helped me today without realising it. <3

**This post brought to you by U.S. Millie, a card carrying member of the very aptly named The Bill Dungsroman All My Feels Foundation

The Senate just passed an extension of the Violence Against Women Act. Your move, House of Fools.

Oh look. Everyone who voted against it is a Republican Man. But there's no war on women, nosiree.

What's a little stalking between friends? FreedomWorks knows overreaction when they see it.

Seriously. One of those things they list is not like the others.

Anyway, I can already tell due to psychic emanations from the deep gnomes that the 'Heritage Action' reading of any bill that even tangentially involves women is going to be 1200% total optimum bullshit. Like the army of feminist robots of their nightmares if they oppose it, I am for it.

That press release is a fantastic invocation of at least one trope.

Does anyone know what part(s) of the bill this is referencing? I mean I assume it's just not true (except for the part about stalking, which... what the fuck guys, seriously), but is it at least a little bit related to something in the actual bill, or is it made up out of whole cloth?

The full text of the bill.

So the thing that I don't get is what the opposition thinks the nefarious goals of things like the VAWA are. Do they think that Democrats and their allies are just a bunch of effeminate man-hating queers that want everyone to be as wussy and powerless as they are, or something? Same thing as environmental advocates -- do the people hating on enviro regulations think that their opponents just hate jobs or something?

The whole mindset is just weird. I mean, I know that we're far afield from real rationality here, but still.

Some of them think that, yes. Specifically they think that environmentalism is just a cover for Communists, and its real goal is to hinder business in whatever way possible.

Man, the Battlefront forums sure were revealing.

Most of the bill consists of grants to prevent sexual violence, to aid jurisdictions with enforcement, and to aid victims of sexual violence. The only provisions I saw to which they could be referring are (caveat, I haven't had time to really study it):

"The term ‘sexual assault’ means any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent."

AND
Sec. 2261A. Stalking

‘Whoever--
‘(1) travels in interstate or foreign commerce or is present within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or enters or leaves Indian country, with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, and in the course of, or as a result of, such travel or presence engages in conduct that--
‘(A) places that person in reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to--
‘(i) that person;
‘(ii) an immediate family member (as defined in section 115) of that person; or
‘(iii) a spouse or intimate partner of that person; or
‘(B) causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of subparagraph (A); or
‘(2) with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, uses the mail, any interactive computer service or electronic communication service or electronic communication system of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in a course of conduct that--
‘(A) places that person in reasonable fear of the death of or serious bodily injury to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (1)(A); or
‘(B) causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (1)(A),


[is a criminal]

Emotional distress appears not to be defined in either the original law or the amendments, so I guess you're a criminal if you set out with intent to harass your wife and make her cry. I'm sure the prosecutions will be legion.

My apologies for the wikipedia link. Emotional distress is pretty well defined in case law, to my knowledge.

It's just people seeing some of their power slipping away and being afraid of that, same as always. Even if they aren't actually pro-wife-beating, permissiveness with regard to spousal abuse is exactly the kind of "traditional value" that old white guy Republicans hate to see go, because it's one more vestige of the good old days when their power was absolute and unquestioned.

Sure is, and I hope it was obvious that "make her cry" was sarcasm. It requires a whole lot more, and if you behave toward a stranger, your date or your wife as set forth in the statute, go directly to JAIL, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

The stated thinking is that anything that gives the federal government more power is bad. Unless it's even tangentially related to National Security, abortions, or marriage.

Interesting to see Rubio vote against it. Assuming he is positioning himself for a 2016 Presidential campaign he (and his people) are making the assumption that the GOP primary will continue to be a competition to prove who can be the most retrograde, ideologically pure, Republican, as defined by Rush Limbaugh and the Koch Brothers.
This would have seemed like an easy chance to establish some moderate credentials and, y'know, not piss off at least 55% of the electorate unnecessarily.
Not surprised to see Lindsey Graham's name as he is in full panic mode and I expect to see him don a Confederate Uniform and burn a cross in Obama's front lawn to try and impress the good people of the South Carolina primary. Or at least start visibly chewing tobacco while driving a replica of the General Lee.

Thanks. I think the money quote is probably this:

So looking that over I guess number two is the safety valve to prevent any hypothetically too-broad readings of laws such as the VAWA. A lot of it is going to be subjective though; if you cheat on your wife it definitely meets the first, third, and fourth criteria, for example. Does it meet the second? Up to a judge, and I can see how that would worry some people. However, that's just at first blush, and if you dig a little deeper into what constitutes "extreme and outrageous," the standard does seem pretty high:

It seems to me that that's pretty reasonable. It's not impossible that a few men will be unjustly ruled against on this basis, but odds are they'll win their appeals.

Regardless, all complaints are a smokescreen. If they wanted clearer language around "emotional distress" they'd be pushing to add that. If they wanted more gender-neutral language (which would be an improvement, by the way), they'd be pushing to make those changes. But in reality what they want is to just not do any of the things the VAWA does, which is why they're pushing to kill it entirely instead of make improvements to it.

Well, there's always the hate angle. VAWA extends protection to illegals, native women on the rez, and lesbians, three groups the GOP considers subhuman.

VAWA in general is detrimental to being the unquestioned king of the castle that gets to do what he wants to his wife, which doesn't help. Hell, there's still Republican lawmakers proclaiming that you can't rape someone you're married to, so that's definitely a factor. Still, I think it's straight up racism and homophobia that's behind the major opposition, with some regular old sexist collusion.

There's Republicans who oppose it on the grounds that if non-natives can be brought up by natives on reservations for crimes against women who live there (which is epidemic, native women who live on reservations are raped at an outrageous rate, mostly by non-natives who crossover just because they know that can't be held accountable by tribal law) then the native americans will just accuse all white men of raping their women to get revenge.

Of course they assume that, it's what they'd do!

Well, it's not like white men have much of a history of raping Native American women.

Ah yes, false rape accusations. The civil rights issue of our day, certainly white (or otherwise privileged) men have never, ever gone on a spree raping their way through the indigenous countryside. Nope, never. And men are just constantly falsely accused and their lives are ruined forever!

Holy shit do I feel like punching someone right now.

Is there an official statistic somewhere on the second half of that statement? (if it's not too much trouble) From what I can dig up it's not the case here in Canada; which might be due to cooperation between reserve cops and provincial / federal police, differences in the way jurisdiction is handled, or it could just be the remoteness of some Northern reserves denying us lascivious white guys the opportunity.

EDIT: Link to my datas. Page 30 (40 according to the reader) has the relevant bits.

The thing is, to these shitheels, emotionally, if not rationally, one fraudulent rape accusation is more important than a thousand unpunished rapes, because the former affects them, and the latter affects people they never think about and barely acknowledge. It's the same story we've seem time and again - a pinprick to the entitled is a world ending crisis, while a gaping stab wound is so meaningless as to be not worth consideration, so long as it happens to an oppressed group like native women on reservations. It's sickening, but we've seen it repeatedly, and we'll continue to see it, as the entitlements of the privileged are slowly chipped away, with each step towards equality treated as a calamity beyond belief or tolerance.