Thursday, December 27, 2012

0 Global Bank, HSBC, Escapes "War on Drugs" for Money Laundering, Ties to Terrorism


(Matt Taibbi's story on Rolling Stone)
The British bank, HSBC, was recently exposed as having been deeply and brazenly tied with money laundering for drug lords in Latin America and ties to terrorist organizations in Saudi Arabi and Bangladesh.  The penalty upon the banks senior leadership? Tantamount to a slap on the wrist.  The Justice Department gave the senior leadership of HSBC a cushy deal that has HSBC taking back deferred compensation to some of its most senior US anti-money laundering and compliance officers and also having the bank "partially defer" compensation for senior executives during a five-year deferred prosecution agreement.  Does it sound soft -- because it is.  The DOJ sold-out, sold-out for so little.  They basically told a huge "fuck you" to anyone who is implicated by the War on Drugs (all of us but especially those of us who are non-white, lower-income, and in the city) because our criminalization wouldn't endanger the global financial system.  In effect, writing in that truth we all wished was a lie: if you have enough money, you're safe from harm.


Read Matt Taibbi's story (Here) for more details.  This is such a crock of shit.  I'm going to bed y'all.


Though this was not stated explicitly, the government's rationale in not pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently rooted in concerns that putting executives from a "systemically important institution" in jail for drug laundering would threaten the stability of the financial system. The New York Times put it this way:
Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system.
It doesn't take a genius to see that the reasoning here is beyond flawed. When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and terrorists. Even more shocking, the Justice Department's response to learning about all of this was to do exactly the same thing that the HSBC executives did in the first place to get themselves in trouble – they took money to look the other way.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2GEObza7l 
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook




PS:

Toni Preckwinkle must be feeling really validated right about now -- even after her apololie after she made the following comments. (Story)
Preckwinkle said she believes drug abuse is a medical matter -- and not one for the justice system. Then, she added 'Ronald Reagan deserves a special place in hell' for 'making drug use political.'
When the shocked crowd gasped, she replied: 'What? You didn't like that?'

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-26-12): German Soccer, German Economics, Science Fiction/Facts, 2013 Sports Predictions

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

0 Best Photos of 2012 & Christmas Around the World (PICTURES)

Just hella photos.

I'm assuming at this point you are pretty full and maybe you've had a drink or two.  Regrettably, this may be the part of your night when the daggers come out because everyone has had just enough wine.

But if it isn't, look on the bright side. There is a Heat-Thunder game on TV now, the Bulls play next, and then there is still another game after that.  What is better than a full day of basketball?

Also, here are a bunch of photos to keep you entertained and give you and the fam something to talk about.


Kottke.org's collection of this year's best photos (here)

Christmas around the world (here)

Monday, December 24, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-24-12): Obama and the Arab Spring, Mourinho, Boehner, and Christmas

The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama's foreign policy - The New Yorker
Ryan Lizza

A Holiday Letter from John Boehner - The New Yorker
Andy Borowitz

Mourinho's genius slipping into madness - ESPNFC Blogs
Nicholas Rigg

Christmas Crackers - ESPNFC Blogs
Phil Ball

Commerce Claus - The New Republic
George Loewenstein & Cass R. Sunstein

Piety and Plenty: The Buying and Selling of Christmas - The New Republic
Jackson Lears


0 Snakes on McCain: 10 Best Articles of 2012

This is just me -- can't speak for the rest of Snakes on McCain we're all different people and I, unlike Andrew, have not had any strange dreams about mud wrestling with Hu Jintao.  I'm sure that I missed some articles and I definitely have a bias with respect to what I like to read -- like any blogger.  Also, I'm a twenty-something so I think I know everything.
I decided to do this in the shower yesterday morning so since then I've been scouring the internet in the hopes of stringing together enough keywords to direct me toward the articles I need but, alas, I'm sure that some have slipped by and will go uncelebrated.  Feel free to sound off in the comments on any pieces you think I missed.  These are purely articles I found on the web so anything that is exclusively in print is undetected to the all-knowing-eye that is this SOM list.
Ranking them would be too tough so this is an unranked top 10 with some honorable mentions toward the bottom.  Sadly, I'm not clever enough to have a grading rubric devised.  Some are narratives I wish we talked about more, others are literary and tugged at my heartstrings, then there are others that I just find illuminating and wanted to share (again).
Happy reading and thanks for a great year.  I'll put the stats for Snakes on McCain in a post closer to New Year's Day so you guys can see just how great you all have been.

#ForTheBoys

Holla at the homies (some missing)

________________________________________________________



Kiese Laymon
Gawker, July 28



Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Atlantic, September 2012



Laura M. Colarusso
Washington Monthly, May/June 2012



Michel-Ange (Mickey) Desruisseaux
With Apologies to Bill Bennet, October 21



Dear President Schapiro: Why I Can't Recommend Northwestern University Anymore
Greg Wright
Wright and Left, October 22



David Maraniss
Vanity Fair, June 2012



Jason DeParle
New York Times, December 22



Bill Simmons
Grantland, June 8



Kiese Laymon
Gawker, August 25



William Brandon Lacy Campos
My Feet Only Walk Forward, November 5



HONORABLE MENTIONS 




The Caging of America
Adam Gopnik
The New Yorker, January 30*



Michael Lewis
Vanity Fair, October 2012



Brian Phillips
Grantland, August 10



Mike Giglio
The Daily Beast, December 10



Anna Therese Day
The Daily Beast, October 23



Dashiell Bennett
The Atlantic Wire, September 6



The 'Cac Responds to Kate Upton Body Haters
Emile M. Cioran and Anonymous**
In the 'Cac, July 18
**I'm the anon



Reprint: An Account of Sexual Assault at Amherst College
Angie Epifano
In the 'Cac, October 18



Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (re-published by Mondoweiss)
Mondoweiss, December 20



Samee Sulaiman, Sami Kishawi
The Chicago Maroon, December 4


Mia McKenzie
Black Girl Dangerous, July 16



Seth Freed Wessler
ColorLines, January 18


* BONUS: Top 10 New Yorker Stories of 2012 - The Apostate; The Obama Memos; The Caging of America; The Story of a Suicide; Spoiled Rotten; We Are Alive (Bruce Springsteen); Big Med; Super-Rich Irony; One on One; The Choice


Saturday, December 22, 2012

0 But Seriously, I Miss the US Women's National Soccer Team

That was just a magical-ass time to be watching football.  Seriously, somebody, somewhere, has to find a way to make women's soccer profitable -- even if only at the national level.  Too much talent to go to waste.  Play at college facilities; get sponsorships like NASCAR; do anything!  There are too many girls introducing and expanding the reach of soccer in the States for us to deny them a professional track in the sport.



USWNT - The Redeemers from Atlee on Vimeo.

Videos snagged via Grantland and USWNT Tumblr


0 What We're Reading Today (12-22-12): The 2012 Grantland Shootaround, Jordan-Palestine Confederacy, Django Unchained, and Two Horrific Rape Cases,

Rape Case Unfolds on Web and Splits City - New York Times
Juliet Macur & Nate Schweber

Gang Rape of a Girl Inside New Delhi Bus Sparks Outrage - Washington Post
Rama Lakshmi

Is Jordan-Palestine Confederation Back on Negotiating Table - Al-Monitor
Daoud Kuttab

The Amorality of Django Unchained - The Atlantic
Ari Melber

The 2012 Shootaround - Grantland
Grantland Staff




Tuesday, December 18, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today Paris Edition (12-17-12): LSD and Nerve Gas, Wal-Mart, Racial Profiling, Instagram

*IF YOU READ JUST ONE THING:
Operation Delirium - The New Yorker
Raffi Khatchadourian

High Anxiety: LSD in the Cold War - The New Yorker
Raffi Khatchadourian

The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico - The New York Times
David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab

In Sign of Normalization, Pentagon to Reimburse Pakistan $688 Million - The New York Times
Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger

Nate Silver

Time To Profile White Men? - Salon
David Sirota

Instagram, Facebook Stirs Online Protests for Privacy Policy Change - The Washington Post
Craig Timberg

How To Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account - Wired
Roberto Baldwin



Monday, December 17, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today Paris Edition (12-17-12): Daniel Inouye, 2016, Newton, Gun Control, Tim Scott, Obama and Romney

Daniel Inouye Dies - Politico
Kate Nocera

POLITICO ebook: Plenty of 2012 Pitfalls for Obama and Romney - Politico
Jonathan Martin and Glenn Thrush

Fault Lines Also Appearing On Democratic Side in Fiscal Debate - Los Angeles Times
Christi Parsons, Michael A. Memoli, and Kathleen Hennessey

*IF YOU READ JUST ONE THING:
Our Corrosive Guessing Games - The New York Times
Frank Bruni 

Jennifer Stenhauer and Jeff Zeleny

Jeremy W. Peters

Michael Moss and Ray Rivera

Newton: What to Tell The Children? - The New Yorker
Rebecca Mead

JOE SCARBOROUGH on "Morning Joe": "From this day forward, NOTHING can ever be the same again. We've said this before after Columbine, after Arizona, after Aurora, after SO many other numbing hours of murder and massacre. But let this be our true landmark: Let Newtown be the hour after which, in the words of the New Testament [Revelation 21:5], we did all we could do to make all things new. Politicians can no longer be ALLOWED to defend the status quo. They MUST instead be forced to defend our children. Parents can no longer take 'no' for an answer from Washington when the topic turns to protecting our children. ... Though entrenched special interests are going to try to muddy the cause in the coming days, the cause of this sickening mass shooting -- like the others -- is no longer a mystery to common-sense Americans. And blessedly, there are MORE common-sense Americans than there are special interests, even if it doesn't always seem that way
"I say 'Good luck!' to the gun lobbyist . Good luck to the Hollywood lawyer who tries to blunt the righteous anger of millions of parents, by hiding behind twisted readings of OUR Bill of Rights. ... I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA's highest ratings over four terms in Congress. I saw this debate over guns as a powerful symbolic struggle between individual rights and government control. ... In the years after Waco and Ruby Ridge, the symbolism of that debate seemed even more powerful to me. But the symbols of that ideological struggle, they've been shattered by ... violent, mind-numbing video games and gruesome Hollywood movies that dangerously desensitize those who struggle with mental health challenges. And then add in military-styled weapons and high-capacity MAGAZINES to that equation, and tragedy can never be too far behind. ... I've always taken a libertarian's approach to Hollywood's First Amendment rights and gun collectors' Second Amendment rights. ...
"But last Friday, a chilling thought crossed my mind as I saw the Times Square ticker over ABC spit out news of yet another tragic shooting ... How could I know that within seconds of reading that scrolling headline that the shooter would be an isolated, middle-class white male who spent his days on his computer playing violent video games? How did I know that it was far more likely that he had a mental condition than a rational motive? And how did I know the end of the story before the real reporting even began? I knew the ending of this story because we've all seen it too often. I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. ... It's time for Washington to stop trying to win endless wars overseas while we're LOSING the war at home. ... We must give no more ground. ... I choose life, and I choose change. ... And for the sake of our children, we must do what's right. And for the sake of this great nation that we love, let's pray to God that we do."

AND: "All 31 Senators with an 'A' rating from the NRA declined to appear on Sunday's 'Meet The Press' to discuss gun control, according to host David Gregory."



Friday, December 14, 2012

0 "After Publishing Offensive Christmas Carol, Tufts Student Journal Self-Imposes Suspension" - Lauren Landry

The author of this post for BostInno was supremely helpful and eager to cover the story at Tufts yesterday.  Many thanks to Lauren Landry for her professionalism and sincere interest in campus climate here at Tufts.

Lauren's article on BostInno can be found here


Hopefully we can count on Lauren to hear more stories regarding campus climate and student activism here.  It's a story that is too often covered exclusively "in response to" as opposed to examined in its own context and with its own narrative.

0 Dikembe Mutombo's 4.5 Weeks to Save the World


It is exactly what you think


Thursday, December 13, 2012

1 Veritas Sine Dolo - Willful Ignorance and Empty Apologies in the Age of the Primary Source

TLDR:
If the Primary Source wants to be the journal of Conservative thought at Tufts, it needs to redirect its efforts.  TCU President, Wyatt Cadley, has asked for an apology from the leaders of the publication but, instead of an apology to the activists and women on this campus -- those who are, frankly, unsurprised by the Source, perhaps the Source should apologize to the Conservatives who it fails with every issue it publishes?  Don't apologize for the sake of an apology.  This is about victims, real victims, who you are willing to re-traumatize.  Just learn something and be better or stop wasting all of our time.



______________________________________________________________

Veritas Sine Dolo

that is the motto of the Primary Source at Tufts University.  The Latin translates to "truth without sorrow" and is the motto the group has upheld since its inception.*  According to their "About" page on the Primary Source's web site, the Source: "owes no allegiance to any group or person on the Tufts campus, and as such, we publish honest criticisms regardless of political ideology. Whether it be a student, teacher, or administrator who oversteps their authority and tramples on the rights of others, THE PRIMARY SOURCE will be the first voice to condemn such an action. We do not bow to political pressure or political correctness, and our opinions are never blunted by the fear of retribution."

Perhaps you and I should start this conversation differently.

I am a progressive -- even worse than a liberal, you must think!  You are the journal of Conservative thought at Tufts.

I am an inner-city black youth who receives financial aid from Tufts.  You published a "Christmas Carol" titled O Come All Ye Black Folk in which you targeted a class of black freshmen at Tufts and labeled them as being under-qualified, boisterous, and undeserving of a Tufts degree. For the record, my ACT scores and GPA were above the average for my class -- just so we can be clear on how I ended up in Medford.

I campaigned for Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama.  You were ardent supporters of Scott Brown, Mitt Romney, and Tea Party politics.

I find nothing funny in racism, rape, and sexual violence.  You do.

This year's string of Christmas parodies had one that was especially offensive and you all probably know exactly which one.  

That's the one.

Take Back the Night, a movement to inspire direct action against rape, sexual violence, and assault of women -- of all things to go after in your holiday issue, why them?

Why make the assertion that, somehow, Tufts feminists are the problem and not rapists?

Why go so far as to say that women who dress in a manner that the staff of the Primary Source deems "slutty" are somehow deserving of unwanted advances?  Why trot out that tired argument, that line of reasoning that is steeped in a perspective that gives women so little agency and control over their lives?

And then, why tell these women who would rather exist without having to fight-back unwanted advances that they should have been born lesbian -- as if their lives and sexual autonomy are nonsensical should they ever reject the uninvited touch of a man?

Do you understand what you are saying?

There was a time during which I was here at Tufts that I thought, "Perhaps the Primary Source just doesn't know any better," but I think that time has long since passed.  I sat in too many places and had too many arguments with folks who wrote for the Source, who distributed the Source, who served as Editor-in-Chief of the Source (or Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, for that matter) and explained to them time after time after fucking time that the things written in that magazine were hateful, that they were hurtful, and that they were so far removed from the realm of Conservative thought that the Source, itself, was failing its "base".

Anthony Romero, the Director of ACLU, wanted to tell us Tufts students that speech codes were the enemy of free speech and that we were doing too little to educate our peers who may disagree with us. But how many more Lunch-and-Learns, Teach-Ins, community forums, lectures, and blog posts can be written before we have to say that maybe, just maybe, these "peers who may disagree with us" just don't want to listen and are simply bathing in petri dishes of willful ignorance?

I've been told that Tufts is too liberal a campus and that its love of "political correctness" is suffocating open discussion and debate -- that, somehow, it is the activists on campus who are the enemies of conservative thought.  Well, allow me to speak truth that is devoid of even a shred of sorrow or restraint.

As one of those left-wing assholes who you seem to believe are out to sink the Primary Source, you should know that I am not against Conservatism.  I'm not against the free market.  I don't want Obama to be crowned king and you better believe I recognize that he is capable of wrongdoing.  I enjoy my rights as an American and, like James Baldwin, "love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."  I want America to be great and I want everyone in the United States to succeed.  At the most basic level, I would hope we agree on the ends -- our means are where we would begin to find disharmony.

That being said, you have labeled me and other progressive-minded folks as your mortal enemies, as the people who want to silence you most actively, as the nemeses of Conservative thought.

For your sake, I will attempt to remove the veil from your eyes and save you from your self-induced blindness.

The antiracists, the activists, the Feminazis, they are not your gravest threat.  You are.

Let me say it again.

The Primary Source, the "journal of Conservative thought" on campus, is the most dangerous threat to Conservative thought on campus.

Putting it plainly, you make all Conservatives look bad, make them seem crazy.

I know Conservatives on this campus who have real opinions on real issues.  They care about government spending and the military and immigration and taxes.  I disagree with them fundamentally but I think they deserve a space and a publication in which to exist that is much better than what you have given them.

You are Bobby Jindal when he was against monitoring volcanoes.

You are Herman Cain during the primaries and especially after he released that bizarre video with his campaign staffer smoking a cigarette.

You are, most recently, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock when they tried to tell voters that there was such a thing as "legitimate rape" and the female body had ways to "shut that whole thing down."

You isolate Conservatives here and everywhere with the rubbish that you publish, with your lack of spellchecking.  You make it so that anyone who is a person of color, a woman, anything less than 100% heterosexual, lacking a trust fund or a lake house, empathetic to the plight of others, concerned at the bravado with which the US employs its military abroad, who believes that a better tomorrow is contingent upon a society watching out for one another, or who thinks Randianism (I know it's called Objectivism) is no way to organize a coherent worldview -- you make it so anyone who is any of these things (or who is just about anything but an upper-middle class, straight, white male with an aversion to deregulating all the banks) worries that they will one day fall prey to the evil Eye of Sauron that is the Primary Source.

Effectively, the Primary Source is an internet troll.  The Source has failed to expand dialogue.  The Source has only derailed it in the hopes of eliciting the greatest outcry it can and then crying foul play when the "activists" say that the Primary Source is targeting a group of students.  You have denied Tufts the fortune to have a sensible Conservative voice on campus and, instead, have given us little more than a string of controversies, headaches, and embarrassments.

You have made students feel unsafe as a reaction to your imagined persecution.

So don't apologize to me.

As one of those progressive morons you imagine to be assaulting your free speech, please do not apologize to me.

As another generation of boisterous and undeserving black students at Tufts, please do not apologize to me.

As an, albeit imperfect and still-learning, black male feminist, please do not apologize to me.

I don't think anyone who has paid attention to your track record and publication's history is surprised -- and perhaps that is the saddest part.  No one expected better of you because you have been that irrelevant, that pathetic, that far from anything we would want to tie our names to.  Jameelah Morris, Co-President of Pan-African Alliance, might have put it best.


With all due respect to TCU President Wyatt Cadley and Dean of Student Affairs, Dean Reitman, I think we're all tired of "statements" and "apologies".  To have had Wyatt ask for an apology from the Executive Board of the Source and to have had Dean Reitman also voice his dismay over the piece is commendable and better than an alternative in which neither comment was published.  But we would be remiss to forget the fact that Senate Presidents have been largely obstinate in the past when it came to supporting activists eager to combat hateful and damaging speech on campus -- the administration has been even worse, one could argue.

However, to offer a statement only as a reaction to (yet another iteration of) the Source's drama is still leading from behind.  At present, there is little sacrifice in releasing a statement.  Show us your conviction, your stones, your commitment to justice when there is something on the line, when it might require dissenting from the Committee on Student Life or remaining steadfast in the face of FIRE or the ACLU trying to frame this university as anathema to free speech or a safe campus.

I meant to keep this short but failed because there were some feelings I just had to get off my chest.  You all aren't very good at listening so I'll just say it again to be clear.

No one here is against free speech.  Too many of us have tried to educate you as to why your behavior is problematic.

Most important: don't waste our time with a half-assed apology that is mostly a lie about how you "are sorry people feel this way".  Don't offer up that dismissive bullshit.  I'm not about that life.

Call us when you're ready to have those hard conversations, when you're willing to support the women who have suffered from rape and sexual violence.  Call us when you're down to talk about the fact that men are so often erased as the perpetrators of crimes against others and that the victims are, unfairly and unjustly, treated as the makers of their own misery.  Call us when you can sincerely ask forgiveness from the women who you have carelessly subjected to reliving their trauma by publishing this.  Call us when you have the brass to combat rape culture on this campus and elsewhere and be earnest in doing so.

Until then, we are tired of having to deal with you.





* According to my friend, Ryan, this is an inaccurate translation.  "Truth without sorrow" would be veritas sine dolori.  Whereas, veritas sine dolo is, in fact, "truth without trickery".

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-12-12): The Year in Photos; FIFA; Adrian Peterson; Humans of New York (in Iran) and Kids These Days

The Year in Photos
Part III
Part II
Part I

Kids These Days - "Doo Wah" Music Video

Gabriele Marcotti

Steve Marsh

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-11-12): Syria; the Democratic Party; Affirmative Action; and Seattle's Marriage Equality

60 Moments that Gave Me the Chills During Seattle's First Day of Marriage Equality - Buzzfeed
Matt Stopera

The Data Plan - The New Republic
Jeffrey Rose

Are Women Being Targeted in Syria - The Atlantic
Lauren Wolfe

Inside Bashar al-Assad's Army - The Daily Beast
Mike Giglio

How to Save the Democratic Party - The Nation
L.R. Runner


Sunday, December 9, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today, Brussels Edition (12-10-12): Hillary's Choices, Obama's Data Mining, 2012, Jim DeMint, Police in Schools

Hillary Clinton's Countless Choices Hinge on One: 2016 - The New York Times
Jodi Kantor

Schoolhouse to Courthouse - The New York Times
Donna Lieberman

How Obama's Data Scientists Built a Volunteer Army on Facebook - Gigaom
Derrick Harris

Our Hillary Problem: Should She Run in 2016? - The New Yorker
Amy Davidson

2012: The Year of the Attack of the Gay Muslim Kenyan Divorcee President - The New Yorker
Alex Koppelman

The Evolution of Jim DeMint - The New Yorker
Keefa Sanneh




Wednesday, December 5, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-5-12): Rubio; Obama's Data; Bradley Manning; Bob Costas; Bernie Sanders

0 Don't Believe in Rape Culture? Have Some Stats.


Out of every 100 rapes:
  • 46 are reported to the police
  • 12 rapes will resort in an arrest
  • 9 rape cases are prosecuted
  • 5 rape cases lead to a felony conviction
  • Only 3 rapists will ever spend a day in jail
In a survey of 11-14 year-old boys:
  • 51% believed rape was acceptable if a boy spent a lot of money on a girl
  • 31% believed rape was acceptable  if a girl had past sexual experience
  • 65% believed rape were acceptable if a girl and boy had been dating for more than 6 months
  • 87% believed rape were acceptable if the woman and man are married
A woman might not even have grown up understanding what rape is…because in a survey of 11-14 year-old girls:
  • 41% believed rape was acceptable if a boy spent a lot of money on a girl
  • 32% believed rape was acceptable  if a girl had past sexual experience
  • 47% believed rape were acceptable if a girl and boy had been dating for more than 6 months
  • 79% believed rape were acceptable if the woman and man are married
In a survey of college males:
  • 35% admit - anonymously - that they would rape under the circumstances that they could get away with it
  • 1 in 12 admitted to committing acts defined as rape, but 84% of rapists did not recognize those acts as rape
In yet another survey of college males:

  • 43% of college-aged men admitted to using coercive behavior to have sex, including ignoring a woman’s protest, using physical aggression, and forcing intercourse.
  • 15% acknowledged they had committed acquaintance rape; 11% acknowledged using physical restraints to force a woman to have sex.
(citations in the original post)

0 "The consequences of sexism are out there"


I feel like straight men have to work twice as hard as gay men to have sex. That’s what they get for all that slut shaming they do to women.

via The Anti-Intellect Blog

People said that black women were bitches. And that they were the least attractive of God’s women. The mules of the world made, supposedly, for servitude. And that they should be pitied because all they would ever know was disappointment and sorrow.People said that black women were cold and unfeeling. Or hilariously comical and overly intelligent. Intimidating. People said that black women weren’t loved by their fathers or chosen to be loved by black men because they were all born with attitude problems and simply weren’t as nice or playful or sweet or feminine as any of the other women in the world. People said that blackness was evil because of black women.People said that a black woman was anything but a woman.The whole world lies on black women.
via Son of Baldwin

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-4-12): Settlements; Ke$ha; Congress; Multiracial Folks; Sad Romney

19 Signs You are Multiracial - Thought Catalog
Sarah Maldonado

Ke$sha is the Last Great Rock Star - The Atlantic
Jonathan Bogart

Elect More Women - The American Prospect
Jan Schakowsky

Israeli Settlement Mayor to France and Britain: Protests Don't Matter - The Daily Beast
Dan Ephron

'Dialogue' stands in way of justice in Palestine - The Chicago Maroon
Samee Sulaiman & Sami Kishawi

Egypt's Mursi leaves palace as police battle protestors - Reuters
Yasmine Saleh & Marwa Awad

Gallup Finds a Majority of Americans Still Religious - The Daily Beast
David Sessions

Today in 'fiscal cliff': This is what progress looks like - Washington Post
Suzy Khimm

Bill Clinton's people brought down the deficit once. Now they're trying to do it again. - Washington Post
Dylan Matthews

Why Are We Fascinated With Post-Election Mitt Romney? - The New Republic
Alec MacGillis


0 Comments on Spielberg's "Lincoln"

I have yet to see Steven Spielberg's newest biopoic but, without a doubt, the film has drawn the criticism and praise from many on all sides of the spectrum.  I tried to find some different perspectives and put them all together for you guys to read.  Enjoy

Lincoln, Colonization and the Sound of Silence - New York Times
Sebastian Page

Why Aren't More Liberals Defending Lincoln? - The Atlantic
Ta-Nehisi Coates

'Lincoln' as Radical Art - The Atlantic
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Spielberg's Lincoln is a Film for Our Political Moment - The New Republic
David Thomson

The Underrated Radicalism of 'Lincoln' - The Atlantic
A.O. Scott

Lincoln Against the Radicals - Jacobin
Aaron Bady

Spielberg's 'Lincoln' and its Critics - The New York Times
Ross Douthat


Saturday, December 1, 2012

0 What We're Reading Today (12-1-12): Red vs Blue; Rwandan Ghosts; Susan Rice

Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide is Splitting America - The Atlantic
Josh Kron

Susan Rice: Just Another 'Incompetent" Black Woman - The Daily Beast
Sophia A. Nelson

The Ecstasy and Agonies of a Permanent Democratic Majority - The New Republic
John B. Judis

The Ongoing Cost of the GOP's Diversity Problem - The New Republic
Alec MacGillis

Young and Restless: On Brigham Young - The Nation
Chris Lehmann

Hamas the Victorious? - The Nation
Graham Usher

Rwandan Ghosts - Foreign Policy
Jason K. Stearns


 

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