Angela Benedetti

People for the American Way reports that the American Family Association has been campaigning against Home Depot for months because the company supports GLBT rights by sponsoring pride events. The ultra-conservative AFA can’t stand the thought of GLBT people having the same rights as everyone else, or being able to live their lives free of harassment. PFAW reported on 2 June:

Today, the AFA’s Executive Vice President, Buddy Smith, traveled to a Home Deport board meeting to present the company with a petition bearing nearly a half-million names of those who have vowed to stop shopping at Home Deport stores until the company decides to “remain neutral in the culture war.”

Rather than caving, though, Frank Blake — the Chairman of Home Depot — apparently told Mr. Smith where to go and what to do with his petition when he got there. All right, he was probably more polite than that, but I can’t help imagining. Check out this video to see Mr. Smith gravely reporting his failure to Bryan Fischer.

I love the bit in the video where Mr. Smith claims that they’re persecuting GLBT people “because we love our neighbors.” Umm, right. All their neighbors except the gay ones. But they’re going to hell, so who cares about them anyway? [sigh]

I do hope, though, that other companies learn from Home Depot’s example that businesses don’t have to cave under the pressures of ultra-conservative hatred and bigotry.

And a note on the concept of “remaining neutral in the culture war.” Bishop Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” I think he was dead on target there. When a marginalized group is being oppressed by a group with more power, there’s no such thing as neutrality. If you’re not on the side of the oppressed, then you support the oppressor by doing nothing. The American Family Association is hoping that most of the people and companies in this country will be “neutral” in conflicts like this, because that neutrality is a win for their side. Support Home Depot in not being neutral.

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

Angie

Yes, this.

Clue delivery for Jack Davis: You know you’re a radical wingnut when even the folks in charge of the modern Republican party dump your butt because you’re embarassing them.

[Caveat: yes, I know there are plenty of thoughtful, intelligent Republicans in this country. They're just not the ones in charge of the party right now, and that's a major problem for the US in the 21st century.]

Jack Davis has been pushing for a congressional seat for the last few elections, and threw his hat into the ring when Chris Lee resigned over an internet sex scandal, necessitating a special election to fill his newly empty spot. Things were apparently going well until Mr. Davis suggested, in public, “that Latino farmworkers be deported — and that African-Americans from the inner city be bused to farm country to pick the crops.”

Wow. Seriously.

Because clearly 1) all Latino farmworkers are illegal aliens, and 2) rounding up black people and forcing them to the fields to do agricultural labor worked so well for this country last time we did it.

W. Curtis Ellis, a Davis spokesman who apparently needs to look up “damage control” in the political dictionary, said afterward:

“It may not be politically correct and it may not be racially correct, but when you have African American people in Buffalo who do not have jobs and are out of work, why are you bringing people into this country illegally to take jobs?” Ellis asked.

Wow again. Apparently Mr. Ellis agrees with Mr. Davis that the whole forced-agricultural-labor thing turned out well enough in the early days of our country that it’s worth trying again. (And with the “fact” that all Latino farm workers are illegal aliens.) Note also that Mr. Ellis’s statement is a classic example of how, when someone says that something “may not be politically correct,” the subtext is “This may well be grossly offensive, but I agree with it anyway because it’s my privilege to do so.” At least Mr. Ellis is working for a candidate whose world view and position he can wholeheartedly support.

Having been dumped by a Republican party leadership that’s proven even it has limits, Mr. Davis is trying to collect enough signatures to get onto the ballot as the Tea Party candidate. It’ll be interesting to see whether they have limits.

Thanks to the Field Negro for linking to this.

Angie

Gay Marine’s husband surprised at respect shown by Naval Academy

Mark Ketterson’s husband John Fliszar passed away in July. Mr. Fliszar was a veteran of the Navy and served two terms in Viet Nam. He’d loved the Naval Academy and had told his husband that when he died he wanted to be interred there. Mr. Ketterson contacted the Academy to arrange for it, and once it was established that he was indeed Mr. Fliszar’s legal husband, everything went smoothly, no different from how it would’ve been if they’d been a heterosexual couple.

Ketterson sent a copy of the marriage license. That changed everything.

“I was respected,” he said. “From that moment on, I was next of kin. They were amazing.”

Which is how it should be. Props to the Navy for having its act together and doing the right thing every step of the way. Hopefully some day soon there won’t be any need to praise a person or institution for doing what’s right regarding GLBT people, but for now I think positive reinforcement is still called for.

This is also a major reason why we need legal gay marriage throughout the country, not just here and there in a handful of states. The devoted life partner of a veteran — or a civilian for that matter — should always receive this kind of respect, not just an occasional few.

Angie

Cooks Source managing editor Judith Griggs has just tanked her career with great energy and enthusiasm.

For folks who don’t want to wade through the sea of links above, or the many more below, the basic story is this. A writer named Illadore on LJ (whose post is the first linked above, under “managing”) wrote an article on the history of how apple pie has developed, which was posted on a web site for historical reenactors, back in ‘05. Recently, a friend pointed out that the magazine Cooks Source had the article, and asked her when she’d sold it. Illadore went, “Huh?” She figured she’d contact the Cooks Source folks and straighten this out:

So. I first phone the magazine then send a quick note to the “Contact Us” information page, asking them what happened and how they got my article. (I thought it could have been some sort of mix-up or that someone posted it to some sort of free article database.) Apparently, it was just copied straight off the Godecookery webpage. As you can see from the page, it is copyrighted and it is also on a Domain name that I own.

After the first couple of emails, the editor of Cooks Source asked me what I wanted — I responded that I wanted an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine and $130 donation (which turns out to be about $0.10 per word of the original article) to be given to the Columbia School of Journalism.

Sounds reasonable to me, particularly since she wasn’t asking for any kind of cash restitution for herself, but rather as a donation to a school which, presumably, teaches its students about copyright law. [cough]

Ms. Griggs responded (in part) thusly:

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

So… right. Not only is anything posted to the internet automatically public domain (?!?) but Illadore should be paying Ms. Griggs for the editing! After all, Illadore now has a nice piece for her portfolio, so Illadore’s come out ahead, right?

I think it says something about Ms. Griggs’s knowledge of English and her editing skills (or research skills, since this is easy to look up if you can’t tell from the context) that she was unable to recognize through a reading of the actual article she stole that the recipes were from 14th and 16th century cookbooks, and their language was perfectly appropriate for their time, and for the historical reenactor audience. Instead, it apparently just looked wrong to Ms. Griggs, bad writing that Illadore should’ve thanked her for fixing. Wow.

But seriously, this is a woman who is taking a paycheck for her work as a magazine editor, and she honestly — really?? — believes that anything posted to the internet is in the public domain? She’s so sure she’s right that she feels comfortable taking a patronizing tone with someone she’s ripped off. Clearly it couldn’t possibly be Ms. Griggs who’s in the wrong here; that’s completely outside the realm of possibility. Right? Right?!

This woman is in dire need a a few good smacks with the cluebat. Luckily, the internet is giving them to her.

Aside from the above links, on Making Light (in a nearly useless link because it’s an open thread and only a few of the hundreds of comments are on this topic, and there’s a sidelink but I can’t link to that, but anyway) there are reports in comments of Ms. Griggs also having plagiarized Martha Stewart, Weight Watchers, The Food Network, CNN and WebMD (per James MacDonald, citing a Facebook page), Martha Stewart (again) and Cooks Illustrated (per Tom Whitmore, citing the Washington Post), and Disney (per Jon Meltzer).

Paula Dean (linked under “career” above) has been notified on her Facebook page of a recipe theft and has said that she’s forwarded the matter to her legal department. You don’t mess with Paula, folks, seriously.

I’ve also seen mention in several places that Neil Gaiman has Twittered about this, but I couldn’t get his page to come up when I tried the link. Seems Mr. Gaiman’s feed is even more popular than usual today for some reason.

Massive stupidity, seriously. This isn’t some newbie webzine we’re talking about here; Cooks Source is available online but it’s also a paper magazine, supported by ad revenue, distributed on newsstands. How did someone this ignorant of copyright get to be the managing editor? And just how much do the people who hired her for that job regret it right now…? [Ahh, found out the answer to the second to last question at least -- Ms. Griggs owns the magazine. Well, there you go.]

I have to include the title to John Scalzi’s post (which is linked under “tanked” above): The Stupidest Thing an Editor With Three Decades of Experience Has Said About the Web Today.” Also BoingBoing’s (linked under “energy”): “Today’s Web Justice Driveby.” Incisive commentary right there. [wry smile]

How about a quote from Judith Griggs’s Twitter feed: “I don’t know why everyone is so angry.” Umm, yeah. That’s kind of the problem, hon. [EDIT: Cindy Potts has pointed out that this Twitter feed looks like a spoof account. All I can say is it sounded like her. [wry smile]]

And the Bitchery has declared a Googlebomb of their definition of the new verb “to griggs” — Judith Griggs. I’m contributing a link, because when you’ve been in the business for thirty years you get zero sympathy from me for not having yet learned the most basic laws that govern your industry. When you take money for your work, you’re declaring yourself to be a pro and it’s your responsibility — nobody else’s — to have all your ducks in a row. Especially when you get snotty at other people over their supposed ignorance. [eyeroll]

Any bets on how long before Cooks Source is going to be out of business? If it were owned by some conglomerate, they could just fire Ms. Griggs, replace her with someone who knows what copyright means, and move on after some groveling. Given that it’s completely her enterprise, though, I don’t see it surviving. Maybe if it were only a bunch of blogs griping, but with the LA Times and Washington Post and who knows what other mainstream news sources picking it up, they’re doomed.

Not that I’m crying over it. This is an example of blatant ignorance and arrogant stupidity. Good riddance.

Angie

Harriet Jacobs at Fugitivus made this pretty awesome post about how most women in our society are socialized, how we’re taught to behave and relate to others in social situations, and how that leads to a culture where way too many women end up getting raped and then blamed for it. I’m going to quote the core list, because it really needs to be spread around, but I encourage you to read her whole post. I had to stop myself from just going on and on and on with the copy hilighting, because it’s all true and it’s all important.

If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:

* it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
* it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
* it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
* it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
* it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
* it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
* it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
* it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”)

If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.

Most of that crap never took with me. I’ve always been loud and agressive and out there, even as a kid. Most of the times I got punished, it was for something I said rather than something I did. If I didn’t like someone, or what someone was saying or doing, I made it really clear. That made for a lot of awkward social situations. I’ve never been The Popular Girl, never had a lot of boyfriends, never really fit in perfectly with the people around me. But you know what? I’ve never been raped, I’ve never felt unsafe out in public with strangers, even late at night on lonely streets. I know where to draw lines, I know how to say no, I know how to make it clear from the start that I’m not interested in talking to someone. Polite women are the ones who get raped, and I never have been; I can’t regret that. :/

Ironically enough, the only time I’ve ever felt unsafe in that way was at a party at my mom’s house. I was in the kitchen doing dishes and a sort of second-tier family friend (Gusto? I think that was his name) was drunk and insisted on getting close and touching me. He was feeling “friendly” or whatever, and wanted to hug me and press against me. I gritted my teeth and let him have one hug, but he wanted to keep on hugging and after the first one I wasn’t having any. He was sort of a friend, though, and I didn’t want to make a fuss. (Don’t get loud. Don’t set boundaries. Don’t be mean to someone who’s just being friendly.) I was saying no and backing off, but I ended up cornered against the counter with a big wooden meat platter with spikes on it between me and him like a shield, spikes out. He was kind of confused for a minute or three, like he was trying to figure out how to get to me around it, but he finally got a fucking clue and wandered away.

You know, I knew nothing “serious” was going to happen. There were like a dozen people around and I knew I wasn’t actually going to get raped or anything. But it was frightening anyway, and I can’t even really explain why except that this guy I had no interest in whatsoever, even as a friend because he was frankly a creep from pretty much all angles, was trying to touch me and get way more in my space and way more intimate than I wanted to, and I didn’t know how to make him stop without making more of a fuss than would’ve been socially acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be groped, but what do you do about it when it’s someone’s friend and you’re right there and there are people around and no one else seems to think anything is wrong? It’s exactly like the paragraph in the post above about the woman at the bus stop who’s being hit on by a guy. My brother Sean was right there and didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything to Gusto, even though he was his friend (I think he was; I know he was the friend of someone in the family, and it wasn’t Mom or me; maybe he started out as a friend of a friend, but he came to our house a few times over the years) and afterward, after Gusto staggered off, when I expressed that that’d been upsetting and kind of scary, Sean was very eyerolly and dismissive. He said that if anything had “really” happened he’d have stopped it, but nothing happened and there was nothing to be upset about. It was just a hug after all, nothing to make a fuss about. He sounded kind of angry, just a little, that I’d even vaguely imply that Gusto might’ve done anything wrong, even though Sean was there pretty much the whole time I was being stalked around the kitchen and trying to fend the guy off with no luck.

But that’s the problem — unless it’s some stranger jumping out from behind a bush to drag a woman into a dark alley and rape her, it doesn’t count. Nothing less than that is worth making a fuss about. And if a woman does make a fuss about something not worth making a fuss about, then you’re back to “Mean bitch,” and “Crazy bitch” and “Stuck-up bitch” etc., all that social pressure to be Nice and to be Polite and to be Ladylike and to not upset anyone, to just put up and deal and smile and pretend it’s all okay, because you’re the woman and that’s your job. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if Gusto had tried to stick a hand into my bra or down my pants, Sean would’ve been right there to haul him away and maybe smack him around a bit. But just wanting to hug me, to touch me in a way I didn’t want — that doesn’t count and I had to be pressured into agreeing that it was no big deal. So I’m supposed to be nice and polite and go along when some drunken creep wants to touch me against my will. Keep doing that and eventually you do get raped, and everyone around you is saying, “But you didn’t protest when he groped you!”

And this was ME. Loud, aggressive, social-bull-in-a-china-shop Angie, who (usually) takes no shit from anyone, and still I ended up in a situation where I felt pretty strongly the social pressure to go along, be polite, not cause a fuss in a crowd when some creep was trying to touch me. My fear of the social consequences with my friends and family if I’d shoved him away or cussed him out or raised my voice at him took away effective options, made me seriously afraid because I couldn’t think what to do, and reduced me to a passive defensive action behind a spiked cutting board until the guy trying to grope me gave up and went away. What kind of a chance do normal women have, the ones who’ve actually been successfully socialized in all the nice, polite, ladylike behavior, when some determined, smiling guy wants more than a drunken hug and grope? Not much.

This is why rape happens as often as it does, and this is why so many people jump in to deny that it was “really” rape, because the woman didn’t yell, didn’t punch or kick, didn’t tell him to leave her the fuck alone, didn’t even protest too much when he first groped her. This is how it happens, and this is how it’s dismissed.

Angie, who’s very glad all that quiet-polite-ladylike stuff never really took

So a fifteen-year-old girl named Ashley falsifies a police report — lying about not knowing who attacked her on her way to school one day — and she gets twelve months. Tony Simmons, the forty-two-year-old juvenile counselor who has charge of her — the one shuffling her around in handcuffs in the courthouse — makes a detour to the basement on their way to the courtroom and rapes her, which we find is something he’s done with some unknown number of juvenile girls assigned to him over the years, and when it all finally comes out, he gets probation.

No, really.

And we expect our teenagers to have faith in the justice system? To trust the people given power over them? To be good, cooperative kids because the people in authority have their best interests at heart?

Sure. That’s going to happen any time now.

I’ll just sit here and wait for it….

Angie