Game on. Rage on. CAPS LOCK ON.
Fire in reflection.
Bravery in the Face of Indifference
Before I get to raging, I would offer a CAPS LOCK ON, BIG BOLD THANK YOU to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The perfunctory nod to a full vetting of a Supreme Court Justice nominee yesterday by the GOP-chaired Judiciary Committee was a sideshow shamshow spamshow. And yet she persisted. Silence would have been easier. Never say a word and she could watch her teenage attacker take a rightful hard-earned SCOTUS seat of white male privilege he assumes.
In the recount of her assault thirty-plus years on, the hurdles she had to leap to be seated in her seat of testimony, the emotions she still lives with, Dr. Blasey Ford is the face of civic bravery.
#IBELIEVEHER
#IBELIEVEDRFORD
Kavanaugh Circus Shamshow Spamshow
Yesterday women listened to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee of the assault she experienced as a teen at a party with SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Women across the country listened. And wept. Vivid memories were recounted for the circus shamshow spamshow the GOP reluctantly hosted to demonstrate THEIR COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT FOR WOMEN, CONSTITUENTS OR OTHERWISE.
Dr. Blasey Ford has been haunted 34 years by the sound of the laughter of her attackers as they walked down the stairs, back to the party. Laughter while she made a hasty exit. In the echo chamber of the internet void yesterday, the webs and live broadcasts filled with different stories, other lyrics sung to the same tune. Abuse, attacks, violence lived through and past and what they can’t forget. What sticks. What haunts.
The pain of the laughter of their attackers in retreat.
Laugh it off.
It.
Objects are ‘it’.
WOMEN ARE NOT ‘IT’.
Hacking Anonymity
The New York Times recently ran an article about Defcon 2018, hackers and anonymity. The tech world has been dissed in the last few years for being too insular, too exclusive. It has been difficult for women to gain a foothold in STEM technologies. Intelligence is not enough.
Concurrent with hackers losing anonymity, the formerly anonymous Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, isn’t. She had to rally her troops, tough it out, move, hire security. She requested the FBI investigate and corroborate her assault. Maybe a chance that she could remain anonymous, but no.
And so it seems fitting that the first portrait featured in the NYTimes article is Nico Sell, a WOMAN.
And I’m conflicted. I celebrate Ms. Sell’s achievements and recognition for dark web expertise.
I tend toward disgust that I think the NYTimes is pandering to the current women’s movement.
The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman
I read a review of the recently published The Fall of Wisconsin by Dan Kaufman.
Once we were a progressive state. I guess now we’re a regressive state. Roads here are the 2nd worst in the country to which I say, what else needs to be wrecked to take 1st place? It can’t be much more less. The Safe Transportation Over Politics (STOP) has renamed potholes “Scott Holes” in honor of current Governor Scott Walker, the self-serving political opportunist who grasps for the national brass ring, Koch money, FauxCons.
And it is Fall in Wisconsin! The leaves turn, the acorns fall, the squirrels chunk up, the sun barrels toward the solstice and rises later, sets sooner. The air is crisp. Cold enough for the furnace to occasionally kick in.
And so, as the winter solstice approaches with the speed of the earth around the sun, I hope November 6th brings with it a metaphorical political solstice. We have wintered through the Walker.
VOTE!
Calendars
I watched the Senate Judiciary hearing yesterday. Some thoughts and prayers:
- Brett Kavanaugh is an angry man. Fuming, spitting angry with a disproportionate response for one who claims innocence. Definitely unbefitting, undesirable, unacceptable behavior for a Supreme Court Justice.
- If he is seated, my prayers are with Justices Ginsberg, Kagan, and Sotomayor. If I were in their robes, I would choke the living spam out of him just on principle. And that is why I expect more of Supreme Court Justices. They are better persons than me.
- Brett Kavanaugh has calendars. Calendars from HIGH SCHOOL! What the spam!? That was a Mitt Romney and ‘binders full of women’ moment.
- Elaborating on small details from high school and then college, I could only think ‘guilty, guilty, guilty’ and if not guilty of the charge, guilty of something. He is definitely not SCOTUS material. Not temperament or character.
- Under cross-examination, an exacting intellect, a kind personality, an individual intent on maintaining the independence and reputation of the judicial branch would not default to aggressive and defensive language. And Brett Kavanaugh was aggressive. When he was yelling — privileged, immune, elite, unaccountable – it was a short leap to imagine him as Dr. Blasey Ford described. I cry for her all over again.
- Someone should check on Ashley Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh’s comportment and delivery of his opening statements seemed to be those of an abuser. Intimidation, outrage, denial, shifting of blame. His were the opening statements of an innocent man? Nope. Not buying it.
Based on his opening statements and comportment throughout the hearing:
- BRETT KAVANAUGH DOES NOT BELONG ON THE SUPREME COURT.
- BRETT KAVANAUGH SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM HIS CURRENT POSITION AS A FEDERAL JUDGE.
- BRETT KAVANAUGH IS NOT A SAFE PERSON.
STILETTOS!
I end with this observation.
Women are taking big steps, huge strides forward to claim, inhabit, and create space for safety, sanctuary, equality.
#METOO will be self-hobbled by fashion if Net-a-Porter is any harbinger of trends, and it is. I flip through its pages looking for a sign that it’s okay to wear mom jeans again, and it is, but I digress.
The latest issue features the article Stepping Back Into Stilettos by Gianvito Rossi. Well isn’t that wonderful? What’s next? Corsets? Foot-binding?
WE WILL INTENTIONALLY HOBBLE OURSELVES FOR FASHION.
HOW ABOUT, LET’S NOT?
