Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 777
May 17, 2016
Noam Chomsky: The Democratic party now belongs to moderate Republicans
Noam Chomsky (Credit: AP/Hatem Moussa)
The majority of Democrats have shifted to the right so far that the two-party system is almost unrecognizable, according to Noam Chomsky.
“There used to be a quip that the United States was a one-party state with a business party that had two factions: the Democrats and Republicans—and that used to be pretty accurate, but it’s not anymore. The U.S. is still a two-party state, but there’s only one faction, and it’s not Democrats, it’s moderate Republicans. Today’s Democrats have shifted to the right,” Chomsky told RT America’s Anissa Naouai.
And apparently, so have the Republicans.
According to Chomsky, “[Political scientist] Norman Ornstein simply describes the Republican Party today as a ‘radical insurgency that doesn’t care about fact, doesn’t care about argument, doesn’t want to participate in politics, and is simply off the spectrum.'”
Is it any wonder, given Chomsky’s statements two years ago, that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee? But if there’s any doubt in how much the Republican Party has changed, just listen to the 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole advocate for the food stamp program. Can you imagine our current Republican nominee saying anything similar today today?
What about when George W. Bush condemned the 9/11 attacks by announcing “Islam is peace”?
Even Obama admitted he would be a moderate Republican if this were the 1980s.
May 16, 2016
White privilege of Westeros: “Game of Thrones” finally addresses its racial politics
Peter Dinklage in "Game of Thrones" (Credit: HBO)
On last night’s “Game Of Thrones,” Tyrion Lannister made a controversial offer to the slavers of Yunkai and Astapor, the pissed-off former despots whose slaves and livelihoods were snatched from them by Daenerys Targaryen. Dany’s liberating forces demanded immediate compliance, but what followed was unrest and conspiracy. Tyrion—in control of Meereen because Dany flew off on her dragon and then got herself kidnapped—is left to try to make peace.
His strategy is to offer the slavers a compromise: Instead of freeing their slaves immediately, he will offer them a seven-year grace period to comply with Dany’s mandate. The buffer, he argues, should give them time to adopt a new economic strategy. And to sweeten the deal, he rings a bell to produce three non-slave female prostitutes, who drape themselves over the slavers with the practiced ease of women who were sold into sex slavery and know what their lecherous masters expect. The women have no names, of course.
The scene leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, because it’s supposed to; Tyrion is proposing extending unimaginable, violent oppression for the slaves of Astapor and Yunkai for seven more years, and in the meantime, showering the brutal slavers with earthly delights. It is appalling, and the onlookers are appalled. Grey Worm and Missandei, in particular, as former slaves themselves who pledged their loyalty to a now-absent liberating queen, are shaken. It is easy enough, in a boardroom, to decide on seven years as a compromise. It is much harder to endure seven years of slavery. Tyrion tries to assure Missandei that he knows “the horrors of that institution.” She levels a dispassionate, unimpressed gaze at him. “How many days were you a slave?”
Tyrion and Dany have long been presented in opposition to each other in “Game Of Thrones” for embodying two oppositional forms of leadership. Dany is the ruler that inspires people with her dragons and force of personality; Tyrion is the ruler that cuts through politics by being the smartest policymaker in the room, much to everyone else’s irritation. Dany deals exclusively in ideals and absolutes; Tyrion can’t afford to.
In “Book Of The Stranger,” the same dichotomy plays out, as Dany conquers another nation with fire and blood and Tyrion brokers backroom deals for what he believes to be the common good. And smartly, both approaches are depicted with their flaws. As I wrote this morning, Dany’s conquest leaves its own sour aftertaste. To quote some of the relevant points:
Dany already had three saviors in attendance before she pulled out her party trick [… ] and her masses of new subjects—all people of color—seem stunned into submission, more than praising her name. […] The bloodthirsty, casual way that Dany overthrew Vaes Dothrak is actually a rather unsettling harbinger of her particular brand of charismatic tyranny. Instead of being framed as a savior, she could just as easily be seen as a despot. Back in season three, in Slavers’ Bay, Dany was liberating the enslaved, who cried out her name with joy when she broke their chains. In the heart of the Dothraki sea of grass, no one is calling her a savior. They’re afraid. Dany hasn’t liberated them, she’s conquered them. She decided to burn everyone to death mostly because she wanted to; Dany, flush with six seasons of power and entitlement, is now just doing whatever she wants.
Kingmaking and policymaking are not pretty. Dany and Tyrion have known that for a while, in their own ways. For me, the most interesting perspectives in “Book Of The Stranger” weren’t Tyrion’s expressions of rational self-interest or Dany burning down most of Vaes Dothrak; they were instead the perspectives of Missandei and Grey Worm, two people who are both definitively subjects under far more powerful leaders. Both are struggling to maintain their composure as their ideals seem to be constantly unraveling; slavery is a very real concern for both of them, and Dany freeing them from slavery made them both single-issue voters, if you will, on the topic of being treated as human beings. To shift from black-and-white ethics to political shades of gray is a major leap; and unlike Dany and Tyrion, they do not have the safety nets of either three fire-breathing dragons or massive vaults of gold to return to if this Meereen experiment fails. This is their home and their lives, and they cannot so simply dissociate their emotions from what happens to them. Tyrion might know how to handle a backroom so as to save the most lives, but it’s Missandei and Grey Worm whose lives he’s discussing, not his own.
“The Book Of The Stranger” offers a look at privilege, both in terms of rulers and their subjects and—more saliently to our world—that of white powerbrokers with little skin in the game as compared to the people of color who are daily fighting in the trenches. It is no accident that former slaves Missandei and Grey Worm are people of color, while Dany and Tyrion, their well-meaning and oft-blundering white “allies.” Tyrion still doesn’t know how to speak Valyrian, and he has the temerity to assume that his brief experience of slavery, where he was a prized acquisition of known Good Guy Jorah Mormont, is even remotely similar to the terrorization and brutality endured by Missandei and Grey Worm and the rest of the slaves in this part of the world.
Tyrion has always identified with the Stranger, that god of the seven that is depicted as a mysterious, terrifying figure; what he has not realized, perhaps until “Book Of The Stranger,” is how lofty and privileged that role is. For what it’s worth, I’m interested in the complicated interplay between Strangers and our own world’s semiotic Other, too, which might be a subtext the show is consciously playing with. But at the very least, it is fascinating to see “Game Of Thrones” introduce a plotline that addresses and understands white privilege, and digs into the complicated identity politics of both types or rulers, whether that is Dany as savior or Tyrion as fixer. The takeaway from last night’s episode is that pragmatism, no matter how funny or logical it sounds when coming out of Tyrion’s wine-swilling mouth, is itself a privilege; not being emotionally invested in systematic oppression might be the best way to broker peace, but it is a dispassionate role that very few people can claim the right to.
I don’t feel your pain: Study finds Tylenol might be making you apathetic
(Credit: Lars Klove for ProPublica)
In today’s world, “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” really just sounds exhausting. Luckily, a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience suggests that acetaminophen, the generic name for the popular pain reliever Tylenol, may curb your ability to do just that.
Researchers at Ohio State University found that when subjects took acetaminophen prior to learning of another persons’ physical or emotional pain, they were less likely to empathize with the person than those who were given a placebo.
“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen,” said co-author Dominik Mischowski. “Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.”
In two double-blind studies, the researchers measured the reactions of subjects “reading physical or social pain scenarios, witnessing ostracism in the lab, or visualizing another study participant receiving painful noise blasts,” finding that the group given acetaminophen were less likely to experience “perceived pain, personal distress, and empathic concern.”
This isn’t the first time research has discovered that Tylenol dulls pain beyond the standard headache. Last year, researchers discovered that the popular pain reliever—which is taken by a quarter of U.S. adults each week—blunts positive stimuli in addition to negative ones. A separate study released in 2013 discovered that the pill also reduces existential anxiety.
So when the physical or emotional pain of living gets to be too damn much, have no fear: Big Pharma’s got your back (and your wallet, and—in all likelihood—your congressman, too).
Just like a woman: I’m a feminist and I love Bob Dylan—even though I know I shouldn’t
Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" (Credit: Columbia Records)
Fifty years ago today, a week before he turned 25, Bob Dylan’s album “Blonde on Blonde” was released. (On the same day as The Beach Boys’ legendary LP “Pet Sounds,” a cock-a-hoop day in music history.) For 42 of those years, since I was six, I’ve been listening to the album and being inspired by it to create art of my own, namely painting and writing. As a feminist, I’m conflicted about my devotion to Dylan and to this album and its damaging portrayal of women, a theme that runs through his body of work.
Of course, Dylan is a legendary influence on artists across genres. He is also an artist who has obviously been directly and vastly influenced by other artists from every realm. Fittingly, his own artistic influences are a frequent subject of his work, in myriad songs including “Song to Woody” for Woody Guthrie. In his essay, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” Jonathan Lethem writes, “Appropriation has always played a key role in Dylan’s music.” Dylan borrows heavily from everyone from Dylan Thomas to Charlie Chaplin to Guthrie. The gorgeous weight of the artists who have gone before him is evident in his oeuvre.
Also evident is Dylan’s sexism. Women are rarely represented in the musical or production staff on Dylan’s albums. Sexist imagery prevails and there is a frequent casting of women who have done a man wrong. Most often, his work tends to cast women into narrow tropes and roles. Marion Meade in The New York Times describes his “Just Like A Woman” from “Blonde on Blonde” by saying, “there’s no more complete catalogue of sexist slurs,” and goes on to note that he “defines women’s natural traits as greed, hypocrisy, whining and hysteria.” Sorry, Bob—a passing reference to Erica Jong in a 1997 track doesn’t undue a lifetime of woman as object, woman as crying mess, woman as fashion model, woman as sweetheart in need of a kitchen, woman as child, woman as vixen in your songs. What does it mean for a feminist like me to have one of her great artistic influences be such a sexist in so much of his work?
I’m a lifelong feminist, sporting an “ERA YES” button on my book bag at the same time I started listening to “Blonde on Blonde.” But despite Dylan’s treatment of women in so much of his work, I’ve always been a fan, and have always been inspired by his songs, despite the sexism to be found there. Is it wrong for me to be such a devotee? Yes, no, maybe — I could argue all three positions. Regardless, I am.
Dylan’s art moves me and transforms how I experience myself, the world and my own work. Are women able to find sustained inspiration in male artists in ways that men rarely seem to find similar inspiration in women’s work? A joke among my writer friends is that every time the social media meme, “List the 15 authors who have most influenced you” goes around, every cisgender, straight white man we know lists a dozen cisgender, straight, white men — and adds Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin, “for diversity.” Sometimes, if the men are the evolved types who went to college at, say, Hampshire or Vassar, they toss in a Joan Didion or a Susan Sontag. And then they tell us about it, and the women’s studies course they took in 1989. Sometimes they tell us without mentioning the professor’s looks. Sometimes.
But sexism and exclusion are not a joke, and lack of intersectionality and under-representation of women and people of color in every realm of art and literature is a crisis that has been well-documented. People and groups like Alison Bechdel, VIDA, We Need Diverse Books and the Feminist Art Project have been fighting against such exclusions. Yet, I keep listening to Bob. He’s turning 75 next week, and I’ll be 50 myself in a couple of years, and tonight I’ll be staying here with him, on repeat — and buying tickets to see him for the 25th time.
I’m not Bob’s only feminist fan, of course. Is this acceptance of sexism — even by feminist women like myself — part of what perpetuates it?
It’s been important to me to have both male and female artistic influences. Zora Neale Hurston, Grace Hartigan, James Baldwin, John Irving, and Adrienne Rich, along with Dylan, are some of my major ones. Or course, I believe men should be influenced not only by men, but by great women and gender non-conforming artists as well. I hold that a broadly inclusive array of models makes all of our work better. I believe that feminist models serve us all well.
At the same time, I also love Aaron Sorkin’s work — and let me tell you, we need to stop saying, “he has a woman problem.” He does, but it has a specific name. Aaron Sorkin’s woman problem is sexism. I still receive beautiful, sprawling inspiration from his work — much like I do from Dylan’s. I gain a renewed hope in a better tomorrow from “West Wing,” a richer understanding of how artists create from “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and an idea that we the people have the power to change the world from “The Newsroom.” I should forsake him, and Dylan, and Philip Roth — despite my love of the fidelity to some sexual truth in his novels — for the sexism in their work. Yet I don’t. Their art has had the ability to reach me, and that trumps sexism to me. I love it too much to let it go. And yet, that’s my own double standard — if I found a body of work to be racist or homophobic, I’d abandon the artist.
Yes, I am being imperfect in my feminism, as most of us are. Yet I disagree with the current zeitgeist that that’s OK — I think we should all aim higher and not excuse ourselves by saying, “This is bad, I shouldn’t do it, but I’m going to anyway.” Sexism is not an occasional pasta dish or the once-a-year cigar. It’s a pervasive scourge that damages all of us, that directly maims the lives of women and leaves us all in chains. I don’t think it’s OK to whisk away a total buy-in with “but I like it!” I also accept that I’m a human being, and deeply flawed, and that one of my flaws is my imperfect feminism, which includes my love of Dylan.
I started with Dylan’s “Self-Portrait” album. I took my painting in preschool somewhat seriously — as seriously as you can at age 4 and 5 — with a palette I mixed to match Dylan’s painting on the cover of his LP. At that early age, I followed his lead both in creation and imitation and felt the inexorable link between the two. At six, I started listening to “Blonde on Blonde” — unfolding the double album and studying the stretched-out portrait of Bob himself revealed. I slept with both albums propped up next to the wall in bed with me. In Catholic school, I heard the stories of the saints and martyrs for the faith being stoned to death. I though “Blonde on Blonde”’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” was about that kind of stoned, and I hated it. I liked some of the other songs and didn’t like some, but “Visions of Johanna” had me at the first chord. From the first time I heard that sweet A major that opens the song, I was smote.
Fast forward many years: Last month I was in residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts, on the estate of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I spent a lot of my time with Keith Wilson, a poet who lived next door, and visual artist Roeya Amigh across the hall. The three of us would stay up all night working and would often meet for a 3 a.m. coffee break. Roeya, who is from Iran, told stories of the revolution and what it has meant for women. She told us of leaving Iran to come to Boston to study with John Walker, whose paintings she had so admired from afar. Keith showed me former Millay colonist Leonard Cohen’s name carved in the doorjamb of his studio, and we made rubbings. I started to take myself so much more seriously as a writer because of the other artists who’d come before me.
Checking the doorways and calling out the big names is a pastime at Millay. Being part of the history of the storied Millay — both the poet and the colony — is an uplifting gift. We residents felt the weight, the tradition, of what those earlier artists had done, given us. The walls covered with their paintings and sketches, the bookshelves crammed with their volumes. We all want to tap into some ancient river of creation — visual art mixing with poetry mixing with composing mixing with writing. Elizabeth Riggle in her studio, painting. Ben Irwin in his, composing. Racquel Goodison writing. Millay herself buried down the lane. Gary Krist and LeVan D. Hawkins and Lacy Johnson and Nick Flynn and Kelle Groom’s names carved into the wood. This is art, we are artists, is a vibe that hangs in the air, leading residents to work long days and nights on their craft. You are surrounded there by the notion that all of these artists came before you, and all of these others will come after. This is what lives on, when we are long gone — this practice, this creating. Life is short, but art is long.
That’s what Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” song “Visions of Johanna” is to me, and maybe it’s why I still love Dylan so much. It’s the musical embodiment of the idea that all these other artists — past and present — swirl around us and feed us, inspiring us to give our art to the world and in turn fuel the next generation.
Anyone who says they are giving the meaning of any given Dylan song is full of shit, unless they are quoting what Dylan has said what the song is about, as he almost never does. Yet there’s no shortage of “definitive” explanations of Dylan songs out there, almost all by men, because usually it’s men who write about Dylan. Women writing about Dylan is a rarity in a world where there is a lot of writing about Dylan. Women writers make up only about 20 percent of “The Oxford Companion to Bob Dylan” contributors, and that’s a high oddity. Rolling Stone has published roughly nine-billion major pieces on Dylan and interviews with him over the yeas, and one is hard pressed to find a dozen of them written by women. In fact, I couldn’t find a dozen by women, but then, I gave up after a few hours of trying. (I’m sure 87,543 of you will now point out all the women who did write about Dylan in Rolling Stone and how I’m just a dumb girl and this is why chicks shouldn’t write about rock and roll. Yeah, just like a woman.)
So to be clear, I offer no definitive explanation about the meaning of “Visions of Johanna,” but to me the song is about the beautiful weight of past creations that artists carry. “Lights flicker from the opposite loft,” Dylan sings in the opening verse, and that’s all about the elusive nature of inspiration. It’s there, it’s not there, we want it but it can’t be the only thing, we can illuminate our own way with it, but only so far. We have to do our own thing, too. “The country music station plays soft but there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off,” Dylan warbles. He grew up listening to country music on the AM radio in Hibbing, Minnesota, and he still hears those masters from the wayback in his head, even when the radio is not on.
And those “visions of Johanna” are? Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. It was Van Gogh’s sister-in-law Johanna Bonger who had the vision to make him famous after his death and the death of her husband, Vincent’s brother Theo. She arranged shows and deals with famous art dealers. She published his letters. Dylan’s songs references Van Gogh’s art, and in the larger sense, Van Gogh as meta-inspirational artist. It’s these visions of Johanna — literally, Van Gogh’s paintings, and metaphorically, the ancient greats — who keep him up past the dawn, just as Van Gogh himself stayed up past the dawn each night creating his masterpieces.
I didn’t have all that figured out at six, of course — I was a freaky kid, but not that freaky — but even as a first grader, Dylan translated the big for me, spoke to me of the effect of art on later artists. It was, and is, powerful. Life-shaping.
I still love “Blonde on Blonde” — its sound, its energy, its place in the world. I don’t listen to “Just Like a Woman” anymore, because “she takes just like a woman / she makes love just like a woman / but she breaks just like a little girl” conjures a woman whom Dylan isn’t really seeing, so I don’t want to hear about her. Women are so much more complex than that, and the song pisses me off. But overall, the album is vast and true, and when Dylan describes the sound of it as “that thin, that wild mercury sound” we nod. Yes. I read or heard it described once as an album that sounds like three o’clock in the morning feels. Yes. How it feels boozy, on fine liquor, with the promise of sublime sex just as the coal of night fades into aching blue wonder of early morning. That’s the sound. And I remain mesmerized by Johanna. I’ll be listening to that song until I die.
Four decades after I started listening — now that I am a working writer with the challenges that presents — “Visions of Johanna” is more resonant to me than ever. It sings of my everyday, of the work and influences I carry with me. “Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial,” a looming lyric from the middle of the song, speaks of the art we memorialize and value, as well as the way art is harshly judged, and how that’s how our culture decides what lives on ad infinitum. Everything about art in our culture might be in that line. For me, it evokes the feeling of trying to balance taking my own work seriously, pitted against the knowledge that all this big, great, important art already exists, so why bother? In the face of that, what does my work mean, if anything? Maybe nothing, but if art is what remains, I’d better make some. Infinity is going up on trial. If I want to compete, I better be good. The lyric is an invocation to greatness.
Dylan is not an imperfect feminist — he’s not a feminist. His work is overtly sexist, and often, and yet he gives me, and so many others, the world. Calls us to create. So I keep listening, imperfect feminist that I am. I’m celebrating “Blonde on Blonde” today. I want it not to be sexist, and I want Dylan to be at least an imperfect feminist, like me, and he’s not. But he’s the one who taught me that in this world that is, I hope, hurtling away from the divisive marker of gender, in the future, “these visions of Johanna” — art, man — will be “now all that remain.”
Stop these Caitlyn Jenner rumors: Spreading gossip on transgender people’s struggles endangers lives
Caitlyn Jenner (Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri)
As a Kardashian, Caitlyn Jenner must be used to tabloid rumors by now. A report that began circulating over the weekend, however, upped the ante on Internet gossip: Writer Ian Halperin claimed that the former Olympian, who came out as transgender in an interview with Diane Sawyer last year, is experiencing “sex change regret.”
Halperin, author of “Kardashian Dynasty: The Controversial Rise of America’s Royal Family,” an unauthorized biography on the reality TV clan, told The Wrap that transitioning has “been very hard” for Jenner. Halperin continued, “She’s thrilled she has raised awareness about how transgender people have long been discriminated against but I think there’s a chance she’ll de-transition in the next couple years.” That claim, which was based on “whispers,” would trickle its way onto the Washington Post, Fox News, CBS News, and even the New York Times. As a kicker, there’s now a story on a site called Report Quickly, which bills itself as “a combination of real shocking news and satire news”—with no visible differentiation between the two—that claims she was getting her “man parts back.”
The “detransitioning” claims were quickly debunked by Jenner’s rep, who told the New York Daily News: “Not worth commenting on such an idiotic report. Of course it’s not true.” Her friend, New York Times writer Jennifer Finney Boylan, further responded in an op-ed for The Advocate. “[R]egret over coming out?” Boylan wrote. “Not a chance. If there’s one constant in Caitlyn’s life since last spring, it’s been a sense of joy at having finally found the courage to be herself.” As Boylan explained, Halperin never actually met with Caitlyn Jenner to confirm the accusations before speaking to The Wrap, nor did the publication reach out to Jenner’s camp about it.
There are some who would suggest that by aligning herself with the most ubiquitous reality TV dynasty in the history of the medium, Jenner asked for this. But Jenner, contrary to popular belief, isn’t “just another tabloid figure.” No matter what you personally think about her, Jenner’s public transition and how we report on it matters greatly to the vast community she represents. Statistics show that the overwhelmingly vast majority of those who do transition lead healthier, happier lives because of it, but others may choose to reverse the process. While detransitioning is exceedingly uncommon, the media fascination doesn’t help those who may be struggling with their transition—for any number of valid reasons. What we need is a culture that supports transgender people, not one that spreads shameful gossip to tear them down.
For those unfamiliar with the subject, you might be wondering how many trans folks actually “detransition.” While people like Caitlyn Jenner have increased the visibility of transgender people in the media, the trans community remains a population that’s vastly under-researched in academic circles. That means hard numbers on the subject are difficult to come by, but as the research that does exist suggests, the rate of postoperative “surgical regret” is extremely low. “Virtually every modern study puts it below 4 percent, and most estimate it to be between 1 and 2 percent,” the Huffington Post’s Brynn Tannehill reports. This is much lower than a 2014 poll from The British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons showing that two-thirds of all cosmetic surgery patients regretted going under the knife.
Nonetheless, stories on trans people choosing to “detransition” are vastly overreported by the press. After coming out as transgender, Walt Heyer would change his driver’s license, birth certificate, and legal documents before realizing that womanhood was not right for him. Heyer has since spent his career using his isolated experience as confirmation that being transgender is a fraud and transitioning simply doesn’t work, reporting on the small number of cases that confirm his bias. In an interview with CNN last year, the author compared Jenner’s coming out to a night of heavy drinking. “It’s sort of like, you know, going down to the bar and you’re having a good time and you drink it up good and then, you know, you wake up with a hangover,” Meyer claimed.
In a personal essay, he further attacks the notion that being transgender is a valid identity. “Changing genders is short-term gain with long-term pain,” he writes. “Its consequences include early mortality, regret, mental illness, and suicide.” Heyer is correct that there is an “alarmingly” high rate of suicide among transgender people: As USA Today reports, 41 percent will attempt to take their own life. In 2014, a trans high school student, 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn, reminded the public of these grave realities. “The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living… because I’m transgender,” she wrote in a Tumblr post. What Heyer doesn’t understand, however, is that these tragic incidents have little to do with “sex-change regret” or whether being transgender is the right decision. It’s about the lack of social and medical support people like Leelah Alcorn too often face.
More simply put, it’s not being transgender that’s the problem—it’s how society continues to treat trans people. According to statistics from UCLA’s Williams Institute, 90 percent of transgender folks have been harassed in the workplace. Currently, you can still be fired in 32 states for being trans, and the fear of being let go because of your gender identity is not a passive one. A separate report from the Center for American Progress indicates that 26 percent of trans people have been terminated due to their trans status. Facing the specter of joblessness, many transgender people may choose not to disclose their identity in the office.
Without federal workplace protections for trans people, the rate of poverty, unemployment, and displacement in the trans community is incredibly high, particularly among people of color. According to the Human Rights Campaign, transgender people are disproportionately likely to be jobless: In 2013, 14 percent of trans people reported lacking stable income, as compared to seven percent of the general population. A 2015 report from the Movement Advancement Project and Center for American Progress also indicated that transgender people were four times more likely than their cisgender (or non-trans) counterparts to make less than $10,000 a year (which, for reference, comes out to under $27 a day). Further studies indicate that 1 in 5 homeless people are trans.
Even though celebrities like actress Laverne Cox, punk singer Laura Jane Grace, and author Janet Mock have helped start a national conversation on trans identities, there’s still so much work that needs to be done. Transgender people face an extraordinarily high rate of violence in their daily lives, with a record number of trans women murdered in 2015; that rate hasn’t slowed down this year. Other trans folks may lack acceptance from friends, relatives, and family members or struggle to find gender-affirming care from medical providers. Although Medicare changed its policy on funding transition-related surgery in 2014, Mississippi passed a law in April making it legal for doctors to refuse transgender people treatment, should they cite religious objections.
In a cultural climate that remains hostile to trans people, it’s completely understandable that any person might have difficulty coming out, even someone as rich and powerful as Caitlyn Jenner. Jennifer Finney Boylan explains that Jenner’s transition has been hard. But the things that have made the process the hardest are the things that make transitioning stressful for just about everyone: “the abandonment by friends, uncertainty about the future, [and] the fear that she might make the life of her family more difficult.” Since the Diane Sawyer interview, numerous reports have suggested that Jenner is now estranged from various members of her famous clan. “Sex change regret” might not be common, but these kinds of family tensions absolutely are.
Sure, some might choose to detransition, but many may make the decision to begin the process again when the time is right. This shouldn’t be taken as a sign that transgender people are fickle flip-floppers or that a trans woman might wake up one day and realize, “Oh gee, I guess I really am a man after all.” That’s not really how it works. Instead, what we need to be focusing on is combating the pervasive transphobia that forces people back into the closet. This is the exact same fear that makes some feel as though being affirmed as the fullest version of themselves isn’t a realistic possibility. We need to recognize that detransitioning is the symptom, not the cause.
In her farewell note, Leelah Alcorn called upon all of us to “fix society” and make it better for transgender people everywhere. It’s time to listen.
The yelling and fighting at Saturday’s Democratic convention was reminiscent of a Trump rally
Thousands of people gather at the Paris casino in Las Vegas for the Nevada State Democratic Convention on Saturday, May 14, 2016. They are picking delegates to send to the national convention in July. (AP Photo/Michelle Rindels) (Credit: AP)
Nevada’s Democratic convention included a fight, pleads for recounts and a lot of boos — and this was not a Donald Trump rally. The atmosphere got tense as Sanders supporters were outraged that Bernie did not win the most delegates.
Watch our video for all the sights and sounds from Las Vegas.
Whoops? CIA’s internal watchdog “accidentally” deleted its copy of the Senate torture report
In this Dec. 11, 2014, file photo, CIA Director John Brennan pauses during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. The Senate report on the CIAs interrogation program and the spy agencys official response clash on almost every aspect of the long-secret operation, from the brutality and effectiveness of its methods to the agencys secret dealings with the Bush White House, Congress and the media. But both reports largely agree on one major CIA failure, the agencys mismanagement of the now-shuttered program. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) (Credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
In a new and shocking twist in the long, convoluted history of the Senate torture report, the CIA’s Office of Inspector General has admitted that it destroyed its only copy of the document, a report from Yahoo News correspondent Michael Isikoff reveals.
The CIA claims the deletion of the torture report was a mistake on the part of the inspector general’s office, an independent arm of the CIA tasked with internal oversight of the agency. The CIA has another copy of the full report, but the Senate Intelligence Committee specifically sent a separate copy of the document to the inspector general’s office for use in a review of agency conduct. Needless to say, the office’s ability to use the report to fulfill its watchdog duties now seems to be compromised, given that it has deleted its only copy.
According to Yahoo News, the CIA informed the Senate Intelligence Committee of the incident last summer. Christopher R. Sharpley, the agency’s acting inspector general, reportedly explained that his office had mistakenly destroyed its copy of the report during the process of uploading the Senate-provided disk containing the document to the agency’s server. Once the report was uploaded, the disk was destroyed according to normal procedure. According to Sharpley, a staff member then misinterpreted instructions not to open the document and deleted the file from the server as well, leaving the inspector general’s office without a copy.
It’s an embarrassing explanation that gives the appearance of extreme incompetence in the inspector general’s office, which is tasked with preventing abuse and fraud in an organization that stands accused of committing both in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who presided over the Senate Intelligence Committee while the report was produced and now serves as the committee’s vice chair, sent a letter to CIA Director John Brennan on Friday, in which she requested that Brennan “immediately” provide a new copy of the report to the inspector general’s office. (Sharpley promised the committee last summer that he would request a new copy of the report from Brennan, which he apparently never received.)
“Your prompt response will allay my concern that this was more than an ‘accident,’” Feinstein wrote to Brennan, none-too-subtly conveying her doubts about the veracity of the CIA’s official explanation for the report’s destruction.
The torture report has long been a point of contention between Feinstein and Brennan. In March 2014, Feinstein publicly accused the CIA of spying on her committee while it assembled the report and requested an apology from Brennan for the “inappropriate” conduct. Brennan initially denied the claims and retaliated against Feinstein by referring Senate staffers to the FBI for allegedly improperly accessing CIA documents.
An internal investigation by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General found that Brennan’s denial had been misguided, and Brennan later apologized to the committee and acknowledged that CIA staff had acted improperly. However, a subsequent report from an Orwellian-named CIA “accountability board” contradicted the inspector general’s findings, exonerating Brennan and CIA staff members of any wrongdoing. (For a comprehensive account of the episode, read Jason Leopold’s excellent piece at Vice.)
This latest development comes against a backdrop of continuing tension over whether the full 6,700-page torture report will be released, or even preserved. The report was produced over five years by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Feinstein, at a cost of $40 million.
A 500-page executive summary of the report’s findings was released to the public in December 2014 after intense wrangling between intelligence officials and committee member over which portions, if any, would be made public. The report’s executive summary offers a scathing assessment of CIA conduct, reporting that the agency consistently misled lawmakers and the public about its use of torture and that so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not an effective means of acquiring intelligence. The report was immediately met with criticism from the Republicans on the intelligence committee and former CIA officials, who issued rebuttals challenging the report’s findings.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr, of Virginia, who succeeded Feinstein as chair of the intelligence committee in 2015, has called for all copies of the report to be returned to the Senate in what is perceived by critics as a bid to ensure that the full document is never released.
The Obama administration has not complied with Burr’s request, but it has argued against the report’s full release in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last week that the torture report is not subject to FOIA, a decision the ACLU may yet appeal.
During court proceedings last year, the Justice Department represented to a federal judge that the government would “preserve the status quo” and not destroy any copies of the report while litigation was ongoing. However, Yahoo News reports that there is no evidence that the Justice Department ever informed the judge that the CIA inspector general’s office’s copy had been destroyed.
Feinstein’s letter to Brennan referenced this apparent discrepancy and urged the CIA director to remedy the situation by providing a copy of the report to the inspector general’s office at once. In a separate letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Feinstein requested that the Justice Department immediately notify the courts of the report’s destruction. The Justice department disputes Feinstein’s interpretation, and maintains that because the inspector general’s office operates within the CIA, and the CIA retained its copy, the status quo was preserved.
This is not the first time the CIA has admitted to destroying materials relating to its use of torture. In 2005, the agency destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogation sessions with terror suspects, which were thought to have contained footage of torture, including waterboarding. The tapes were destroyed as the CIA’s interrogation program began to be subjected to increased scrutiny by lawmakers. The indispensable Marcy Wheeler has helpfully compiled a list of torture evidence destroyed by the CIA or others in the executive branch.
Even if the CIA is being honest in its claims that the destruction of the inspector general’s copy of the report was completely inadvertent — and frankly, more nefarious explanations for the report’s disappearance seem to defy logic in this case — the fact remains that the agency would be perfectly content to see the Senate torture report disappear forever. The CIA has thus far escaped accountability for its role in the torture program, and has done little but obscure and obstruct outside attempts to shed light on the matter. Sadly, it does not appear that the CIA’s day of reckoning will come anytime soon.
Clinton’s progressive balancing act: Hillary outlines Bill’s potential role in the White House while her campaign looks to make a strong appeal to Sanders voters
(Credit: AP/Charles Dharapak/Mark Duncan/Jason DeCrow/Photo montage by Salon)
Hillary Clinton finds herself campaigning in Kentucky after Donald Trump has already clinched the Republican presidential nomination, and as she fights to end Bernie Sanders’ 19 state winning streak in a state that last voted for a Democratic president when her husband narrowly won the state during his reelection bid, her campaign is attempting a delicate balancing act to win over skeptical progressives while promising a return to a more moderate Clinton economic agenda.
“Hillary Clinton is considering a running mate who could make a direct appeal to supporters of Bernie Sanders, bridging a generational and political divide,” USA Today reported Monday:
Clinton’s chief requirements include a candidate’s resume and a fighter capable of hand-to-hand combat with Trump. The campaign’s vetting also prioritizes demographics over someone from a key swing state as she seeks to unify the Democratic voting base, said the individuals coordinating with the campaign, who were not authorized to speak on the record about early deliberations.
[…]
A [Elizabeth] Warren pick would leave unattended a gaping gender gap between her and Trump. But according to one source close to the campaign, officials believe she can build a winning coalition by rallying blacks, Hispanics, older women — who already support her — along with younger women, whom Warren could bring into the fold. The source was not permitted to speak on the record about strategy.
According to top Clinton surrogate Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, however, the calculus on picking a progressive running mate could change if Sanders agrees to aggressively campaign for Clinton — suggesting that Clinton’s commitment to a more populist approach may be more about campaigning then governing. “It’s why you see the absolute hands-off respect to what Bernie has accomplished,” McCaskill, who backed then-senator Barack Obama over Clinton in the 2008 primary, explained. “At the point in time that she is nominated, which I believe she will be, this will really turn on Bernie and how Bernie handles it.”
While her campaign has remained rather tight-lipped about specific potential running mates, on the campaign trail, the candidate has begun to give more details on her vision for her husband’s role in the White House.
“The economy does better when we have a Democrat in the White House,” she reportedly told hundreds of supporters in Kentucky over the weekend. “My husband, who I’m going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because, you know, he knows how to do it, and especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out.”
“When my husband was president, incomes rose for everybody,” she said in Louisville on Sunday morning.
The former president was tasked with making his own direct appeal to low-income white working class voters who have repeatedly rejected Clinton in favor of Sanders in many states disproportionately impacted by job losses, in part because of Clinton-era trade deals.
“All I’m telling you is, I volunteer that if Hillary got elected president, I would like to be tasked with the responsibility to take you along for the ride to America’s future,” Bill Clinton told voters in Prestonsburg, the heart of Kentucky’s coal country, last week.
Of course, federal law bars spouses from serving in a president’s cabinet — so even if popular progressive Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren isn’t ultimately tapped to be Clinton’s running mate, she won’t be competing with Bill for the role of Treasury Secretary.
“The Bachelorette” men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
"The Bachelorette" contestants Daniel, Brandon and Will (Credit: ABC)
In anticipation of the May 23 premiere of “The Bachelorette,” ABC has released photos and biographies of the 26 men vying for Jojo’s heart — or a lucrative career as an Instagram influencer, at the very least. But don’t let the puppy dog eyes and Crest White Strip smiles fool you. Based on the bios alone, we speculate that underneath some of these V-neck tees beat hearts of darkness.
Pour yourself a glass of white wine and enjoy 7 “Bachelorette” contestants we would never want to date.
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Brandon, 28, "Hipster"
This self-proclaimed "hipster" by trade — that's right, not an artisanal chocolatier or re-claimed wood whittler but a generic "hipster" — doesn't even have any tattoos. (He does list one of his best attributes as "humble," though).
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Evan, Erectile Dysfunction Expert, 33
Believe it or not, the worst thing about Evan isn't his career. His biggest deal-breaker is: "Girls with chipped nail polish, girls who talk too much, narcissists, clingers, girls who have serious food allergies." Jabbing yourself in the leg with an Epi pen actually sounds preferable to a date with him.
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Daniel, Male Model, 31
A "male model" who refers to his body as a "lambo" not once, but twice, in a biography that he presumably had time to mull over. (Example: "Are you comfortable wearing swimwear in public?" "Very comfortable. Why have a lambo if you park it in the garage?”)
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Nick S., Software Salesman, 26
Not only does Nick S. take neckerchief fashion cues from Fred of "Scooby-Doo," but he lists the food he dislikes most as “scary cheeses.” Bad-mouthing cheese is like bad-mouthing our best friend. Deal-breaker, Nick S. Deal-breaker.
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Grant, Firefighter, 27
On the one hand, Grant is the sexy firefighter of our dreams. On the other hand, his worst date memory is “Getting lunch with a girl and listening to her talk about Harry Potter for 20 minutes” — which actually doesn’t sound like enough time spent talking about the British national treasure.
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Vinny, Barber, 28
Vinny, who somehow lives the paradoxical life of being a professional barber and existing with this haircut.
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"The Bachelorette" men are the worst: 7 reasons why this season is going to be a glorious disaster
Will, Civil Engineer, 26
If Will could switch bodies with anyone for a day it would be serial womanizer and self-proclaimed “recovered ego addict” John Mayer so... um... yeah, enough said.
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