Wednesday Reads: Homecoming Queens and Coming Home

Good Morning

This was going to be a kick ass post, honestly…that is what I planned it to be at least.

I’ve had some beautiful artsy links stashed away for weeks that I know you will all enjoy, but once again real life is kicking me in the ass, and I find myself writing this post in an exhausted state of mind.

The first part of September is usually busy, since both kids birthdays hit in the middle of the month…bam, bam, right after one another. Then comes the Homecoming Football game, and while the kids are not involved in that fiasco, Bebe is going to the Homecoming dance.

So as I write about a few news stories, take a look at homecoming queens from the past. Some of them are “celebrities” and I bet you will be able to spot them off the bat.

(On a side note, it was a disturbing bit of news to find out that the girl who won for one of the Homecoming court for Banjoville’s High School, got it because she sent nude pictures of herself i.e. sexting, to all the boys in her graduating class. When you see the pictures think about that nugget of insight into life as a teenager in today’s world. My daughter was disgusted about it, but as she was saying, so many of the students just take it as normal behavior. And that is what makes it disturbing as hell.)

Homecoming, October 15, 1967

Alrighty then….on with the day’s reads:

History of storm surge in Florida strongly underestimated | Earth | EarthSky

Northwestern Florida was thought to get hit by a hurricane with a five-meter (16-foot) storm surge every 400 years. In fact, the frequency may be every 40 years.

Wow, talk about a great way to grab you in?

Today (September 23, 2014), the American Geophysical Union released a study suggesting that the history of storm surge in the U.S. state of Florida has been strongly underestimated. They say the observational hurricane record for northwestern Florida is just 160 years long, yet hurricane activity is known to vary strongly over thousands of years. Digging back into the prehistorical hurricane record, Lin et al. find that scientists’ reliance on such a narrow slice of observations has led them to underestimate the frequency with which large hurricanes have slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Based on historical records, northwestern Florida gets hit by a hurricane packing a five-meter (16-foot) storm surge every 400 years. Incorporating long-term paleohurricane records, the authors find that the frequency of such a storm is actually closer to every 40 years.

When strong storms batter the shore, waves can carry sediment far inland. Digging down into the sediment record, researchers can reproduce the occurrence of past storm surge. Using a hurricane model and storm surge sediment observations, the authors calculated the intensity and frequency of past hurricanes in Florida’s Apalachee Bay. They find that while the frequency of hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast has remained relatively the same over the past few thousand years, the storms’ average intensities have been, at times, much higher than during the past 160 years.

Based on their paleohurricane storm surge observations, the authors suggest that, historically, northwestern Florida would see a storm surge of 6.3 meters (20.7 feet) every 100 years, 8.3 meters (27.2 feet) every 500 years, and 11.3 meters (37.1 feet) in a worst case scenario event. A storm surge of eight meters (26 feet), they say, would push tens of kilometers (miles) inland.

I don’t know how all that relates..but in other climate news:

This Poet From a Tiny Island Nation Just Shamed The World’s Leaders | Mother Jones

Presidents and diplomats aren’t the only ones calling for climate action at the United Nations. During the opening ceremony of today’s climate summit, ​Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner—a 26-year-old poet from the Marshall Islands—spoke eloquently about the threat that rising seas pose to her country.

Jetnil-Kijiner warned delegates of the high price of inaction and described the current challenge as a “race to save humanity.”

“Those of us from Oceania are already experiencing it first hand,” she said. “We’ve seen waves crashing into our homes…We look at our children and wonder how they will know themselves or their culture should we lose our islands.”

1961 Homecoming Queen of Cando High School in Cando, North Dakota

Video at link.

Now, an article on privilege. You know, the Black and Muslim kind. White Evangelicals Think They’re Discriminated Against More Than Blacks, Jews, and Muslims | The Daily Banter

The Pew Forum has released a doozy of a poll about religion in public life in the United States showing that white evangelical Christians possess grossly overdeveloped feelings of victimhood. Given that the voting bloc evangelicals comprise is one of the most heavily pandered to in American politics, and given the fact that evangelicals themselves are the cause of some very real discrimination, there is thus a mountainous irony at play here.

In a survey of 2,002 Americans, Pew found that 72% believe that religious influence is waning in the country, and sadly, 56% regard this as a “negative development.” A disturbing 59% of Americans say they want members of Congress to “have strong religious beliefs.” When it comes to discrimination, believe it or not, more Americans think that evangelicals are discriminated against than atheists. Here’s the breakdown of the religious/irreligious groups Pew asked about:

Perceptions of Discrimination in U.S.

% saying there is a lot of discrimination against…

Muslims                               59%

Jews                                      32%

Evangelical Christians      31%

Atheists                                27%

Catholics                              19%

The 1974 Homecoming Queen and her court Tucson, Arizona.

Like the members of the four other groups listed here, evangelicals are probably more likely to perceive discrimination against them than they are when it comes to outside groups. However, this next breakdown shows the staggering degree to which evangelical Christians — and let’s emphasize that since that is after all the majority religious group in the country — think they are victims of discrimination:

Go to the link to see the graphs from Pew…

Notice that of white evangelicals, white mainline Protestants, black Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics, and those who are unaffiliated with any religion, it’s white evangelicals who are much more likely to think “there is a lot of discrimination” against them, with 50% believing their demographic is discriminated against “a lot.”

1960 Homecoming Queen at the Minnesota-Ohio State game.

Amazingly, white evangelicals believe there is more discrimination against them than there is against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, and atheists. 

Tone. Deaf.

However, this will not come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to the grumblings from evangelical circles about their phantasmagoric plight in an increasingly secular society. This narrative, which has been spoon-fed to them for decades by self-serving preachers, politicians, and pundits, enables white evangelicals to interpret measures designed to stop discrimination against others as actually being discriminatory against the evangelical way of life. For example, it was just last week when televangelist Pat Robertson went on a nonsensical rant explaining why the U.S. Air Force’s decision to let an atheist reenlistee omit the words “So help me god” from his oath, was yet another instance of the armed forces being “terrorized” by secularists.

Meryl Streep 1966

You know this reminds me of something I saw on Monday while taking Jake to the Endocrine doctor in Atlanta. It was a big van…maybe a church van? I don’t know, but it had two bumper stickers on it. One read, “We praise the Lord Jesus Christ at blah blah Baptist Church” and the other sticker read, “No Amnesty” Protect our southern border.”  I have to tell you, it was a van with a Georgia license plate. So, very “Christian” of them innit?

Anyway, read the rest of that Daily Banter post at the link.

Up next, a few links on Obama and Hillary. Not stories about them together however…

Obama’s top 5 “war” euphemisms: Words he’s used to avoid calling latest war a “war” – Salon.com

Listen to Obama’s remarks, however, and it’s clear that the president favors a few “special” words to describe the totally-not-a-war war the U.S. is waging in Iraq and Syria.

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1. “Effort” Perhaps Obama’s favorite euphemism for what the U.S. is up to. In his September 10 address, Obama distinguished the “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan from the “effort” against ISIS. “This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground,” Obama explained. In his weekly address on Saturday, the president said that “[t]his is an effort that America has the unique ability to lead.”
2. “Process” Asked in August 28 press conference whether he planned to seek congressional authorization for military action against ISIS, Obama sounded like the caricature of the professorial, technocratic president his critics purport him to be. “You know, I have consulted with Congress throughout this process,” Obama replied. “I am confident that as commander in chief I have the authorities to engage in the acts that we are conducting currently.”
3. “Fight” As close as Obama’s willing to get to saying the W-word. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday before departing for the United Nations, Obama said that U.S. air strikes in Iraq and Syria were “not America’s fight alone,” echoing his September 20 address in which he said that it was “a fight in which all countries have a stake.”
4. “Campaign” Not unlike a swing through Iowa and New Hampshire! Explaining his expansion of the war into Syria on Tuesday, the president noted, “I made clear that as part of this campaign the United States would take action against targets in both Iraq and Syria so that these terrorists can’t find safe haven anywhere.”
5. “A Moment of American Leadership.” Concluding his radio address on Saturday, Obama called this “a moment of American leadership … a moment we will meet.” Leadership. Exceptionalism. America.

In other words, this war is totally, definitely not a war.

This is Jessica Giddens. She was announced Homecoming Queen at her school in Georgia.

The next story is something you just need to go and read in full…it is way too convoluted to quote from. Tommy Christopher: The Reason Why President Obama Nominated a Pro-Confederate, Anti-Choice Judge | The Daily Banter

As for Hillary, more shit is being flung her way: WND: Hillary Clinton Tolerates Rape Of Women | Right Wing Watch

WorldNetDaily columnist Gina Loudon is promoting her book “What Women Really Want” by arguing​ today that Republicans should be “giddy” about the prospect of running against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

She calls on GOP politicians to attack Clinton for supposedly tolerating rape and other forms of violence against women: “If she stood passive while Islamic women were raped and stoned to death, what will she passively let happen to women were she president of the United States?”

Loudon goes on to claim that immigration reform and gun policy reform are part of the real “war on women.”

The first war is one where women are being serially gang-raped and stoned to death by Islamists across the world who believe women are only one-fifth of a person. If a woman is raped, under Shariah law, five men must testify that they witnessed the woman being raped. Otherwise, she is stoned to death in front of her friends and family. Christian and Jewish women are being led like lambs to slaughter by Islamists. There is definitely a war on women, but not the one the statist elites in D.C. like to pretend is happening. That is but a ruse designed to distract the simple minded.

Where are the old-school feminists who cussed conservative icons like Phyllis Schlafly and burned their bras in protest of equal pay, in the face of this bloody war on women? Do equal rights not to be stoned matter less than equal pay or birth control?

1977 Homecoming Queen of Gardendale High School in Gardendale, Alabama

Where is Hillary on this? If I were GOP leadership, I would be giddy about the thought of a Hillary run. Aside from Benghazi, think about a campaign based on what she never did to stop the real war on women. If she stood passive while Islamic women were raped and stoned to death, what will she passively let happen to women were she president of the United States?

What the hell? I know, it is all shit talk. And there is more at that link.

Then you have this crap over at Politico about Chelsea and the “royal baby” What Should Chelsea Clinton Name Her Baby? – Adam B. Lerner – POLITICO Magazine

merica’s royal baby is on its way. I’m talking, of course, about the next member of the Clinton dynasty, whose arrival is by all accounts imminent. During a Sunday interview with CNN, Bill Clinton expressed his hope that “by the first of October, I’ll be a grandfather.” He also insisted that neither he nor his daughter knows whether or not the baby will be a boy or a girl.

The 1950 Homecoming Queen Candidates at Iowa State University

Hillary Clinton weighed in too, admitting Friday that she’s “on grandbaby watch.” So, apparently, is the entire U.S. press corps. Because let’s face it: We love our own political dynasties as much as any British tabloid editor. As Mark Twain once put it, “Unquestionably the person that can get lowest down in cringing before royalty and nobility, and can get most satisfaction out of crawling on his belly before them, is an American. Not all Americans, but when an American does it he makes competition impossible.”

We admit it—much of the speculation about Chelsea Clinton’s newborn child is a bit premature and, frankly, more than a little ridiculous. It’s crazy to think that the 2016 presidential election could hinge on whether Hillary can take advantage of her new grandmotherly image, rather than, say, the state of the economy or the candidates’ positioning on other key issues.

Still, political insiders who analyze the Clintons’ every last move can rest assured: This is a family very in tune with their public image. Is it altogether nuts to think that they’d at least muse about the political opportunity presented by Chelsea’s baby?

The thing gets better, with name suggestions that are popular in Iowa and New Hampshire. One thing however, there is a picture of Chelsea with a big belly at the link.

Y’all have heard or read about the speech Emma Watson gave at the UN right? Emma Watson calls on men to help fight gender inequality: ‘It’s your issue too’

The website for  – He For She

The 1971 Homecoming Queen and her court in the Orange and Black yearbook of Wheaton Warrenville South High school, Wheaton, Illinois.

Well, check this out: What is 4Chan? And why does it threaten women like Emma Watson? – The Independent

What or who is 4chan? And why are they such utter douchebags? That is the train of thought that presents itself at news that 4chan, implicated in the leaking of nude photos of celebrities, is now apparently targeting  Emma Watson, after the 24-year-old actress gave a rousing speech to the UN on Monday, not only addressing that favourite topic of the internet’s masses of misogynists, feminism, but daring to call for more men to take up the banner of gender equality.

Sissy Spacek, Homecoming Queen at Quitman High School, 1968

The first question has an easy answer and a more complicated one. Simply, 4chan is an image-board website set up in 2003, by a 15-year-old insomniac. Posters start a thread with a picture; others can then comment. Loopiness runs right across the site. Users can lay some claim to setting the tastes of ‘the internet’: cats are, and have always been, big; trace the genesis of defining memes – Chocolate Rain, RickRolling – and you’ll end up somewhere in 4chan. Except, you may not. Old content on the site gets wiped to make space for the newer stuff – it’s up to other sites to archive what’s considered ‘valuable’; the jokes, the memes, the stolen nudes.

Then there’s /b/, the Random forum. It’s here that things can get a little ugly, and where the group (‘cultural movement’ is too flattering) known as Anonymous first took shape (users post as ‘Anon’ if they don’t specify a username). I spent a little time there about 5 years ago for a piece of coursework. It’s dirty and defiant about it: lots of porn, lots of racism, lots of sexism. If you object to such things, volubly, you a) won’t speak the same language of other users and b) will invite some fairly stiff abuse. Unsurprisingly, users are thought to belong predominantly in the young, white and male demographic. Humour ranges from the dark and funny to dark and hideously depressing.

 

Football Homecoming Court in the 1972

It looks like many of those Anonymous hackers are part of this site:

It gets complicated when you try and define who or what Anonymous is. They are of course anonymous. Plus, there’s a loose hierarchy; when the group takes up a mass action – say, trying to shut down the Visa and Mastercard websites, in support of Julian Assange – the leaders work in tight-knit cells, then open their plans to the floor, so all the millions of other /b/ users can pile in. Gabriella Coleman, the foremost academic working on 4chan, reckons that something like a fifth of 4chan users are the ‘hackers’ that take precedence in media reporting, the rest, plain old geeks and freaks.

The thing is, since her speech, a threat against Watson has been made on the site…

All of which is to say, it’s pretty hard to tell the exact parties responsible for “Emma You Are Next” message and the countdown clock expiring in a few days’ time. There’s no such thing as a 4chan project organised from on-high but it’s perfectly that the website was set up by one or two regulars on the board. Equally possibly, they’re bluffing: /b/ has a history of hoaxing, and BusinessInsider reckons that’s what’s going on here. What isn’t in doubt, however, is that a few users have posted some vile stuff about Emma Watson: “It is real and going to happen this weekend”,  said one “That feminist b*** Emma is going to show the world she is as much of a whore as any woman.”

Homecoming Queen, 1956 The Duke University

Oh, that is just a taste of the shit comments and backlash Emma is getting. It really pisses me off. Anyway, be sure to go back to the Independent article on the 4Chan site and finish reading about that sub-culture. It goes hand in hand with the attitude we see the male video gaming developers have towards women…the politicians on the Hill have towards women. And it all sucks ass.

In a related story, from earlier in September: High Schoolers Protest Sexist Dress Code That’s Landed More Than 100 Girls In Detention | ThinkProgress

Students at a Staten Island high school are frustrated with a strict new dress code that’s landing girls in detention for wearing shorts, despite the fact that many of their classrooms don’t have air conditioning. After the school reportedly gave detention to 200 kids — 90 percent of whom were female students — teens are gearing up for a protest again the rules.

The interim principal at Tottenville High School recently changed the dress code to prohibit tank tops, low-cut shirts, and shorts that don’t reach fingertip length. But it’s been hot during the first few weeks of school, and students say it doesn’t make sense to crack down on them for dressing comfortably for their “sweltering” classrooms.

“That’s what girls wear when it’s hot out. It’s unfair to them,” a senior at the school told the Staten Island Advance.

[…]

Both male and female students have complained that the dress code is “sexist” and “biased” toward young women. “Tottenville should just be an all boys school considering this dress code is only affecting the girls,” one teen pointed out. Another said it was “humiliating to be pulled aside like an object” to be told that her outfit was inappropriate.

Robin Wright 1981

Amid the growing controversy, school district officials released a statement noting they reserve the right to enforce a dress code in cases when students’s clothing “creates a distraction, is dangerous, or interferes with the learning and teaching process.”

Schools typically justify their dress codes by maintaining that it’s important to keep the classroom free from distractions; however, that language actually reinforces the idea that women’s bodies are inherently tempting to men and it’s their responsibility to cover themselves up. Students and parents across the country are increasingly pushing back against the double standard, saying that it sends harmful messages about gender stereotypes to kids. After all, if students are taught that girls need to dress a certain way so they don’t “distract” boys, that ultimately furthers the idea that boys can’t control themselves — and that unwanted sexual attention is sometimes justified because girls are “asking for it” with their short skirts and low-cut tops.

Uh, on the “asking for it” stance, you know if they say no…there is always a way to turn that into a yes: Limbaugh on Sexual Assault: “No Means Yes If You Know How to Spot It”

Homecoming Queen and her Court, in the 1974

The sweaty armpit of talk radio now fancies himself to be a “seduction” expert. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh decried Ohio State’s new policy instructing students to get explicit, verbal consent before having sex, because “no means yes if you know how to spot it.”

The context for that statement doesn’t help. Limbaugh apparently misses the good ol’ days when rape was just a “misunderstanding.” Here’s his argument, as recorded by Media Matters:

Seduction used to be an art, now of course it’s “brutish” and it’s “predatory” … [According to Ohio State policy,] consent must be freely given, can be withdrawn anytime, and the absence of “no” does not mean “yes.” How many guys, in your own experience with women, have learned that no means yes if you know how to spot it? … Are these [policies] not lawsuits waiting to happen?

Perhaps, sadly, this isn’t the case, but guys like Rush Limbaugh should expect to be arrested and prosecuted if they rape someone.

Homecoming Queen in the 1979

Meanwhile…you don’t want to be raped by a cop? Cop’s Tip For Not Getting Raped By A Cop: ‘Don’t Get Pulled Over’

In response to the arrests of three law enforcement officials in Oklahoma for sexually assaulting women while on the job, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper told women they can avoid getting raped by a cop if they simply follow traffic laws.

Raw Story first pointed out on Tuesday that Capt. George Brown, a state trooper, shared a few tips for women in an interview with local NBC News affiliate KJRH. Brown told the KJRH anchor that women can keep their car doors locked and speak through a cracked window if a trooper approaches them. If the trooper asks a woman to get out of the car, Brown said, she can ask “in a polite way” why he wants her to do that.

But the “best tip that he can give,” the anchor said on air of his interview with Brown, “is to follow the law in the first place so you don’t get pulled over.”

In the past month, a Tulsa County Deputy, an OHP trooper and an Oklahoma City police officer have all been charged with repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting women while on the job.

Diana Santifer – Homecoming Queen in the 1988

Brown said Oklahoma law enforcement officials are working to retain the public’s trust. “There are entirely more good officers than there are the few bad apples that exist out there, and we want people to know that,” Brown told KJRH. “We have a lot of good troopers, a lot of good officers out there doing a lot of good things daily, and we want to continue that and have the public continue their trust in us.”

Holy Shit! Emma Watson has a hell of a way to go in her fight to get men to treat women in a equally respectful manner.

And then there is the abortion issue: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Thinks This Justice Is Responsible For Halting Access To Abortions

Guess who Ginsburg calls out?

I will end this section of the thread with some good old fashioned pick-up lines…. The Greatest Movie Pick-Up Lines – Esquire

All 50 of them, from George Clooney to Will Ferrell and everything in between

My favorite…

“Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.”
Groucho Marx, Duck Soup (1933)

In 1970, Doby Flowers became the first African-American women elected Homecoming Queen at FSU.

Video at the link.

This post is getting real long…so on the quick:

Man confesses to ’97 crime, fearing Walmart was messaging him about woman he killed

Michael Brown memorial mysteriously burns overnight – Salon.com

Watch science-minded Breaking Bad fans send a Walter White bobblehead into the stratosphere · The A.V. Club

Scientists Capture The Sound Of A Single Atom, And Apparently It’s A ‘D-Note’

John Malkovich Morphs Into the Most Iconic Photo Subjects Ever – Esquire

Sandro Miller

That is not the famous Dorothea Lange photo. Nor are any of these photos the iconic pictures you know. Instead, they are recreations starring the one-and-only John Malkovich. In a new exhibit (opening November 7th at the Catherine Edelman Gallery) entitled, “Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to photographic masters”, photographer Sandro Miller recreates some of photography’s most well-known pictures using the chameleon-like actor as his subject. The results are nothing short of perfect.

And I will end with this little story about being homesick for your hometown subway system. I guess we all have a homecoming we long for in our minds…(I prefer NYC subways to say, those in DC. Actually, NYC subways are exciting to me. Go figure.)…some are just darker or better mapped out than others.

New York’s subway is so hellish, I’m homesick for London’s underground | Bim Adewunmi | Comment is free | The Guardian

I am a city girl, accustomed to negotiating public transport, but faced with MTA’s needlessly complex map and messy signage, I become an overawed simpleton

The best, most chilling dystopian novels are built around a simple idea: a world very much like the one we live in, except with little things slightly askew. You know: where the images appear sharp and crisp – until you get to the edges and find them blurry, smeared with Vaseline. Think of a book with an opening scene set in a village in rural England. There’s a winding country lane, and in the distance can be heard the relentlessly tuneful whistle of a milkman, and the gentle moo of a cow. Yes, there are still milkmen and there are still cows, but look closer: the cows are wearing smart white coats and jaunty little hats, delivering milk extracted from humans. Terrifying image, isn’t it?

For the past couple of weeks, I have been trapped in a dystopia of sorts. I am in New York, ostensibly on a sabbatical, during which I intended to rattle off a 400-page thriller and maybe have a romcom-style meet-cute in Central Park. Instead, I have found myself spiralling into hysteria, driven slowly mad by the New York subway. On first appearance, it is like the London underground – trains, tickets, announcements, the crush of bodies. But then, slowly, the entire system reveals itself to you. It is the work of a sadist, cooked up in a fever dream and delivered with a flourish and an unhinged grin. I cannot believe I am about to type these words, but here we are: New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has made me homesick for Transport for London. And I will never forgive New York for this.

No don’t say that! Anyway, enjoy that…And have a great day!