Sunday Reads: Back to Women of the Future
Posted: September 20, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, Women's Rights 11 Comments
Doctor
Good Afternoon
Plenty of links for you today. Let’s just dive in shall we?
Today’s post will have images featured from this thread of Dangerous Minds:
Trading cards: Professions for women of the future imagined in 1902 | Dangerous Minds
French artist Albert Bergeret’s collection of trading cards from 1902 titled “Women of the Future” tries to imagines women’s jobs and professions of the modern era. I’d imagine back then these were quite inspirational to young girls and women. However, I do find some of the wardrobe choices quite suspect. Especially the scantily clad military-themed ones. They seem to be more for the boys.
I tend to agree with the idea about the military themed photos being a bit cheesecake…in a way…but then who knows what the kinds of costumes were available at the time. The military pictures look like they are using women’s theater like costumes seen in many postcards from the time period. Perhaps this was what was available at the time? Eh, that they were even produced in 1902 gives me a smile anyway…
Okay now on with the post.
We had a touch of fall weather here this past week, Banjoville can be a pretty place:
Yes it is lovely, however living in a pretty backward redneck mountain town is not all that it is cracked up to be…
Oh boy, “thank gawd we live in this quiet redneck mountain town….”
But seriously, can you believe the crazy-ass nutty right wing republican statements and declarations made over the past week. Why don’t we look at some of the most ridiculous things?
Quick Sex Ed Lesson For Tonight’s GOP Debate Candidates
LESSON 3: Contraception, by definition, prevents pregnancy
Rick Santorum has been clear in the past that he is ideologically opposed to contraception, and pushes for abstinence only programs instead of evidence-based sex education. However, his recent statements have also made clear that he may need a little help fully understanding the way contraception works.
In a press conference, the former senator said:
“I don’t think there’s any numbers out there that suggest that access to contraception actually reduces the number of abortion. I think there are pretty good studies out there, pretty compelling studies, that show there is no real correlation, and hasn’t been for quite some time.”
People have used birth control control methods for thousands of years to help prevent pregnancy. While there’s no one “best” method of birth control, today there are many safe and effective birth control methods available.
Family planning services available through Medicaid and Title X of the U.S. Public Health Service Act help women prevent 2 million unintended pregnancies each year. Without these family planning services, the numbers of unintended pregnancies and abortions would be nearly two-thirds higher than they are now. A number of studies have shown a correlation between access to birth control and lower abortion rates, including a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that access to birth control lowered pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates; while a study by investigators at Washington University reports that providing birth control to women at no cost substantially reduces unplanned pregnancies and cuts abortion rates by a range of 62 to 78 percent compared to the national rate.
Plenty other examples at the link above, including one about menstruation is something that does not come out of a woman’s eyes.
Sarah Palin. No need to go on with the intro to this story.
ce presidential candidate-cum-Facebook ranter Sarah Palin thinks 14-year-old Texas 9th grader Ahmed Mohamed should have been arrested for making a clock at home and bringing it to school to show his teacher.
In a winding Friday night post, Palin aired her suspicions that the “obstinate-answering” boy was really up to no good and Irving police and school officials have been wrongly maligned in the “reactionary-slash-biased media!” The case hasgenerated outrage amid the belief that Mohamed was arrested due to anti-Muslim bias and not any genuine threat posed.
“Yep, believing that’s a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history. Right. That’s a clock, and I’m the Queen of England,” Palin opined. Throughout the post, she spelled Mohamed’s name “Muhammad,” which is the spelling commonly used in the English-speaking world for the prophet of Islam.
This gets better…
I Guess Muhammad’s Pencil Box is Cooler Than the Palin Kids’
“It doesn’t look like a pencil box to me.” I love Bristol’s perspective on this. You have to read this:
http://www.patheos.com/…/obama-invites-kid-mistakenly-arre…/
Talk about the dangers of a reactionary-slash-biased media! The first reports on this potential bomb-imitator were so fishy to begin with.
Friends, consider the kids disciplined and/or kicked out of school for bringing squirt guns to school or taking bites out of a pop tart until it resembled (to some politically correct yahoo) a gun. Or the student out deer hunting with his dad early one morning who forgot he had a box of ammo in his truck when he parked in the school’s lot later that day. Kids humiliated and intimidated for innocent actions like those real examples are often marked the rest of their lives and made to feel really rotten. Whereas Ahmed Muhammad, an evidently obstinate-answering student bringing in a homemade “clock” that obviously could be seen by conscientious teachers as a dangerous wired-up bomb-looking contraption (teachers who are told “if you see something, say something!”) gets invited to the White House.
By the way, President Obama’s practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago. Remember him accusing police officers doing their job as “acting stupid”; claiming if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin; claiming he needed to know who was a fault in an industrial accident so he’d “know who’s a** to kick”; etc., etc. Those actions are about as presidential as his selfie stick.
Here’s background on Muhammad’s innocent “clock” he brought to school, and his suspicious refusal to answer authorities:
http://www.breitbart.com/…/09/18/real-story-istandwithahmed/
Yep, believing that’s a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history. Right. That’s a clock, and I’m the Queen of England.
Compare Muhammad’s pencil box to the ones laying around the Palin household:
– Sarah Palin
Reaction to the shitstain’s facebook statement:
Sarah Palin Joins Her Daughter In Bashing Obama For Supporting ‘Kid With Clock’ (IMAGES) «
Actually, that IS a clock inside a pencil box. Not every pencil box is purple or pinkish in color. America is a diverse place, with different products. It’s also a place where Muslims live peacefully, each and every day. But conservatives refuse to believe this, and are still ticked off that Obama invited Ahmed to the White House, even though he represents the best the youth of the United States have to offer.
You want authentic? Sarah Palin is the most authentic voice of the American right we have in public life. Completely confident in its incoherence.
Here are some of her followers’ remarks:
digby 9/19/2015 02:00:00 PM
On Fox News: Misinformed People Should Not Vote – And Obama Is Just Like Hitler | News Corpse
With the methodical precision of the German train schedule, Fox News has come out with their regular feature arguing that the fewer people who participate in America’s democracy the better. They seem to trot out this theory before every election, along with efforts to slash democrats from the voter rolls, in an obvious attempt to exclude those they regard as unfit to vote. This year’s version features right-wing economist, and frequent Fox News guest, Thomas Sowell.
Appearing on Neil Cavuto’s program on the Fox Business Network (video below), Sowell elaborated on an article he published that made the case for shrinking the electorate so that only the “right” people voted. In response to Cavuto’s brazenly leading question, with the premise that voting “is not necessarily a birthright,” Sowell said that…
“Elections are not held just for social participation. They’re not held just to vet our emotions. They’re held to elect people who will hold our lives and the lives of our loved ones in their hands, as well as the fate of the entire nation. To go out as if we’re voting for homecoming queen is madness. I advise in that column that people who really haven’t had a chance to study these things and know much about it, their most patriotic act would be to stay home on election day, rather than vote on the basis of their whims or their emotions, which is really playing Russian roulette with the history of the country.”
Read the analysis of this remark at the link.
CNN’s Clinton Derangement Syndrome Has Now Reached Peak Insanity | Crooks and Liars
On the subject of those Pro-Life PLUBs: My Mother Watched Her Sister Bleed to Death After an Illegal Abortion
5 Jaw-Dropping Right-Wing Idiocies This Week: Palin’s Insane Reaction to Ahmed Mohamed | Alternet
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, admits income inequality is real. But it’s okay, because iPhones.
CEO Jamie Dimon, one of the highest paid CEOs in the world, who was paid $20 million last year, acknowledged this week that income inequality is a thing, and that it has gotten worse in the past 20 years. This was quite an admission by the .001 percenter, who happens to also have the distinction of paying the largest fine in banking history while still holding on to his overpaid job.
But back to the inequality thing. Jamie Dimon does not think that the yawning chasm between salaries for people like him and everyone else in the world needs to be addressed, because even if median income is decreasing, cars and iPhones are better. Yee hah!
“If you go back 20 years ago, cars were worse, health was worse, you didn’t live as long, the air was worse,” he said at an event in Detroit, adding, “People didn’t have iPhones.”
Shockingly, he self-servingly doesn’t think that slashing CEO pay for people like him is a good idea.
“It is true that income inequality has kind of gotten worse,” Dimon said. “You can take the compensation of every CEO in America and make it zero and it wouldn’t put a dent into it.”
Worth a shot, though, don’tcha think?
Congress Sucks Harder Than Your Mom: The Debt Ceiling, Wonksplained – Wonkette
It’s that time of year again, kids! The leaves are turning, students are back in school, and Congress is threatening to drive our national car right over the fiscal cliff. Buckle up, because Republicans are already costing us millions just by threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. Whaaaa? Yeah, that’s right – the GOP is gonna add to the deficit by playing chicken with its own goddam responsibilities. Let’s wonksplain.
We all know that Congress sucks balls harder than Rick Santorum going down on Lindsey Graham in row 69 of Reagan’s Air Force One. But this debt ceiling brinksmanship bullshit has to be one of the stupidest fucking ideas in the history of the multiverse. We’ll start with the basics.
There is a Dem who has put a bill forward that makes sense:
Dem bill would cut lawmaker pay during shutdowns | TheHill
Rep. Rick Nolan introduced legislation on Friday to prevent future Congresses from getting paid during government shutdowns.
The Minnesota Democrat’s proposal wouldn’t apply to the current Congress, which faces a potential government shutdown on Oct. 1 if lawmakers don’t pass a spending bill in time.
Nolan said withholding lawmaker pay would put those serving in Congress on par with other federal employees who would be furloughed in the event of a shutdown.
“If hundreds of thousands of other federal employees are to go without their salaries — twisting slowly in the wind in a government shutdown — then the Congress should not be paid either,” Nolan said.
Democrat Files Bill To Take Away Pay From All Congressmen Who Shut Down Government |
Nolan introduced a similar bill during the last shutdown, and donates his shutdown pay to charities in his district. His actions send a strong message to the rest of Congress. The constant re-fighting of political battles and the brinkmanship that the Republican-led Congress has established as business as usual is a huge embarrassment to our country and a dire indictment of our political system.
This next story is something you need to read in full, it is a long read.
HT: America’s Scummiest Couple : Lawyers, Guns & Money
Who’s Funding Kevin Johnson’s Secret Government?
It isn’t hard to see why nothing bad has ever quite touched Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, Calif., even as he’s authored a long series of lurid sex and corruption scandals, any one of which would have ended the career of a less fortunate man.
Johnson is a youngish, attractive Democrat with a reputation as a national leader on education issues, a gift for making powerful friends, and a superficially impressive background—UC Berkeley, a long run as a top NBA star, a successful business career. He’s just the sort of politician a lot of people want to believe, and a lot of people have done so. His mayoralty will even soon be the subject of a laudatory entry in ESPN’s acclaimed 30 For 30 documentary series.
The scandals didn’t much matter in 2008, when he easily won election in the face of credible accusations that he’d molested teenage girls, defrauded the federal government of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and lorded over an empire of slum holdings. And they haven’t much mattered since, as he’s gone from success to success, his star rising ever higher in the Democratic Party firmament through most of his career.
As mayor, he’s incurred sexual harassment charges in the course of waging a bizarre war on an obscure non-profit organization; soaked taxpayers in his hometown for hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new arena for the Sacramento Kings; and used public employees to do his own private political work while attempting to hide the evidence by keeping email records off the books, Hillary Clinton-style. Most recently—and brazenly—he got a major national law firm to sue both the city of Sacramento and the Sacramento News & Review simply because the tiny weekly newspaper had filed a public-records request.
The ties on this Mayor is more along the lines of the GOP…
Johnson is husband to Michelle Rhee, the controversial school-privatization activist, and there is considerable evidence that their shared desire to turn public schools into engines of profit for private actors is what has driven much, if not most, of Johnson’s more recent wrongdoing. Despite, or perhaps because of, this, he’s enjoyed the profile and appointments of a national figure on the make: public appearances with President Barack Obama, portrayal as a latter-day Metternich by The New York Times, and the patronage of serious players like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates.
A new scandal, though, is putting Johnson’s rise at serious risk. It involves the mayor replacing civil servants with private citizens funded by the Wal-Mart empire and tasked with the twin purposes of working to abolish public education and bring in piles of cash for Kevin Johnson.
The rising star, it seems, set up a fake government—and some people are starting to notice.
Read this in full. Wow.
On the subject of women in Catholic backed hospitals:
Do Religious Restrictions Force Doctors to Commit Malpractice? | ValerieTarico.com
As Reach of Catholic Hospitals Grows, So Does Risk to Patient Reproductive Health Care
Other medical and or feminist links:
America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker – The Huffington Post
3 Signs You Might Have Depression, Because You Can Tell That It’s More Than Just A Bad Mood | Bustle
What Do Black Dots On Hands Mean? The Black Dot Campaign Is Helping Domestic Abuse Victims | Bustle
“On my second night at college, I was raped” – Salon.com
There has been a lot of graves discovered lately…
Toppled Tree in Ireland Reveals Medieval Burial – Archaeology Magazine
Way to go: the woman who invented Britain’s road signs | Art and design | The Guardian
An All-Female Team Is Coming To ‘Justice League 3001’ : T-Lounge : Tech Times
Surely You Joust? – Archaeology Magazine
The World’s Youngest Serial Killers Committed Some Of The Most Grisly Murders In History | Bustle
Up next, History:
How Do You Say ‘Bastard’ in Medieval Latin? – Medievalists.net
Top Ten Medieval Pretenders – Medievalists.net
This great map lets you explore the history of migration for every country in the world
Powerful and moving, 100 years of photo portraits from West Africa – CNN.com
Remembering this image: Richard Drew’s ‘The Falling Man’: AP Photographer on His Iconic 9-11 Photo – The Daily Beast
Jackie Collins Dies: Novelist, Sister Of Actress Joan Collins Was 77 | Deadline
Jackie Collins told sister Joan about breast cancer only 2 WEEKS before she died | Daily Mail Online
And finally: Helen Mirren Regrets Not Telling More People to ‘Fuck Off’
Role model Helen Mirren wishes that she could tell people to “fuck off” more often than she does. Mirren was at Badgley Mischka’s Fashion Week show when she shared her thoughts on her favorite phrase:
“Unfortunately, at least for my generation, growing up (we didn’t say that) and I love the fact that girls are so much more confident and outspoken than my generation were. We were sort of brought up to be polite and sometimes politeness, in certain circumstances, is not what’s required, you’ve got to have the courage to stand up for yourself occasionally when it’s needed.”
Helen Mirren: the 70-year-old we all hope to be. [NYDN]
This is an open thread.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
I don’t think this postcard series was meant as anything but a spoof. Most of the cards are pretty edgy for the time, I think. Mostly stuff we don’t even see now: a student with a cigarette in her mouth, no corsets under jackets, a debater with a glass of absinthe in front of her. There was a heck of a lot of costuming done by women then. It helped show off their sewing skills, and kept them out of “trouble”.My grandmother, who was white, costumed herself as one of the “Gold Dust Twins” for some Methodist, or Eastern Star silliness, of which I had a record.
[…By 1900, the twins had been transformed into a cartoonish pair of caricature, bald, asexual black children shown wearing tutus emblazoned with the words “Gold” and “Dust”. On product containers and in advertisements, they were often comically depicted, along with a huge stack of dishes in a washtub, with one twin cleaning, the other drying.[1] …]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Dust_Twins
The artist is named. Albert Bergeret was a professional postcard printer. Here’s an article about him in The Daily Mail. They were “tongue in cheek,” as you say, and–as noted in the post–were probably intended to titillate men.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2112557/French-artists-1902-impression-girls-journalist-lawyer-army-general.html
I wish I had woken up to that sky this morning. I’m getting tired of looking at drought stricken street trees. and smelling wind blown smoke. Though, I did see a Gray Hairstreak yesterday in my one struggling aster.
I really feel for you. It must be awful.
My sister and her husband have a house in Sonoma County, near Santa Rosa. They are here in Indiana right now in a second home. I was worried about their house, but they said they would almost prefer to collect the insurance.
Ooh, they probably went through the earthquake. Really, you could still get a pretty nice Indiana home with the money from CA insurance. They won’t have that “luck”, unless they are really up the hill.
Even though I have moved up and down the coast, CA is pretty much my home. However, with Hubby’s recent medical problems after our retirement, we are just about the make a jump back to cheaper Eastern WA. Hubby is from the Tri-Cities, home of the Hanford Facility. There won’t be any less smoke and the rainfall is half of that of Fairfield, CA. (8-10 inches, optimistically, versus 18-21 inches.)
I’m girding up my loins to do permaculture/sustainable battle on a 1/2 acre high desert lot with a lead painted 1949 bungalow, in the middle of monoculture dryland wheat.The drought is about the same up there.
CA, as a state, is leading the way in trying combat global warming and adjust to our new environment. We can’t stay to participate and i am going to have to leave the yard that i developed, in anticipation of retirement, for food, insect and birds. i have no expectation that the next homeowners will care.
However, if you haven’t made use of your gray water yet, do check out the SF GrayWater Manual:
http://sfwater.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=55
I wish your sister good rains.
Thank you BB, I see I’m feeling sorry for me too.
Some battles just have to be faced. So, ok.
They already bought the house in Indiana, so they are paying two mortgages. Their house in Occidental is way out in the boonies, and they don’t think it’s a good place to grow old. They are going to sell the second home in Indiana and try to find something a little smaller and less expensive. Indiana is a good place to retire, because it’s not so expensive to live. I will probably end up out here too, although I wish I could afford to stay in the Boston area.
TriCities area — well, the smoke would only be part of the year and in most years shouldn’t be anywhere as bad or as long as this year. And there is a fair amount one can do with xeriscape planting. But it’s hard to leave a garden you’ve put your heart –and hands and back — into. Many more people now are interested in sustainable plantings and bird habitat — there’s a good change that whoever in the future lives there will appreciate what you’ve done.
That “not a clock” BS is hilarious! Except it’s depressing how many ridiculous things they keep saying, and how many believe them.
I kind of agree with the idea that misinformed people should not vote. Do we really want people who think that contraception doesn’t prevent abortions, or that global warming isn’t real, or that guns save more lives than they end, or that Earth is 6000 years old, and so on, voting in the elections?