The week’s worst news, of course, was the mass shooting in Uvalde, TX. Never forget: Women in the US are 28 times more likely to be killed by guns than women in other high-income countries (many more mass shooting facts at the link for those interested).
The 18-year-old male shooter — whose name I’ll avoid because murderers don’t deserve publicity — was a little young to call him a misogynist a-hole; but in addition to the children, he shot and killed his grandmother and two female teachers: Irma Garcia, 23-year teacher and mother of four, whose husband passed away of a heart attack shortly after losing her; and Eva Mireles, 17-year teacher, “loving wife and mother,” also owned by three “furry friends”.
Please take a moment to also say the children’s names (where family spoke to the press, more information and photos are available at the link): Nevaeh Bravo, 10; Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, 10; Makenna Lee Elrod, 10; Jose Flores, 10; Eliahna Garcia, 10; Uziyah Garcia, 10; Amerie jo Garza, 10; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10; Tess Mata, 10; Maranda Mathis, 11; Alithia Ramirez, 10; Annabell Rodriguez, 10; Maite Rodriguez, 10; Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10; Layla Salazar, 11; Jailah Nicole Silguero, 11; Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10; and Rojelio Torres, 10. Most lists do not mention the wounded, but there were several. Some of the above information was double checked with other sources.
The United States is not the only country with mental illness, domestic violence, or hate-fueled ideologies, but our gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries.1 The difference is easy access to guns.
There are a lot of things that were horrible about the response to the school shooting in Uvalde Texas, and there are hints (or shouts) of racism that will have to be sorted out. But this also addresses the connection between domestic violence and mass shootings.
The Uvalde shooter had a history of threatening rape and other violence toward women on the social media app Yubo. He was reported multiple times, but never got more than a temporary suspension. This is the biggest red flag in mass shooting cases, and the one that always seems to be ignored.
And quick fact check: Bill Cassidy says people need AR-15 to hunt feral pigs. Total deaths in the US from feral pigs: 5 since 1825. Just this one school shooting had a whole order of magnitude more victims than that.
California Is Taking Action: In February, California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan of San Ramon introduced a state bill targeting the marketing of firearms to children and those not legally allowed to possess them. It passed out of the California state Assembly last week. Also a bill by San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, specifying that the state can bring lawsuits against gun manufacturers based on their marketing.
...That exception is already included in federal law, but gun makers have challenged that interpretation in court.
Are guns actually marketed to children? Consider the logo of Wee 1 Tactical, the producer of the just-for-kids JR-15: “Two skulls with a target in one eye and a pacifier in each mouth. One skull has a mohawk and the other has pigtails.”...
Federally: Here is a Daily Kos petition to end the filibuster to finally pass some common-sense gun reforms (and an end to the filibuster would also allow us to get a lot more Democratic priorities passed!), actionnetwork.org/… After you sign, if DKos responds to you as it did to me, it will hook you up with donating to Daily Kos in order to help fund the fight against the NRA.
Another Daily Kos petition might also help: Demand that the Faux Network stop promoting white replacement theory, which fuels so much unreasoning fear and hatred: actionnetwork.org/… It too then asks you to donate to DKos.
Or you can donate to other organisations in this fight such as Everytown above, or work with them on any of their many ways to take action. And next weekend, wear orange for National Gun Violence Awareness Weekend, whether or not you are able to attend an event!
In Other News
Abortion Of Course
Don’t believe those who say ending Roe v Wade will leave society largely intact
If the high court adopts Alito’s draft opinion, it will be a legal tidal wave that sweeps away a swath of rights unlike anything America has ever seen
www.theguardian.com/…
The upshot is that the radical change in law and society that Dobbs would represent truly has no parallel in the history of the supreme court or in the history of the United States. As David Cole writes, the “proper analogy is not Brown overruling Plessy, but a decision reviving Plessy, reversing Brown, and relegating Black people to enforced segregation after nearly 70 years of equal protection.” For, as Jamelle Bouie rightly observed, “equal standing is undermined and eroded when the state can effectively seize your person for its own ends – that is, when it can force you to give birth.”
Know your abortion facts! Even Pro-Choicers Believe Abortion Myths
We may not be typical of those polled, but it doesn’t hurt to check. Amongst the big issues, pregnancy is MORE dangerous than abortion, and regret is exceedingly rare.
Anti-choice politics are based on lies. Dispelling abortion myths may be one of the few things progressives can do to convert the convertible, and get the apathetic to understand how dangerous things really are.
Why the anticipated demise of Roe v. Wade puts a spotlight on PRIVACY risks to EVERYONE: Your phone reveals more about you than you think. e.g.:
It’s not just people who might be seeking abortions whose privacy is at risk from this data that phones shed. It could be your kid applying for a job: For instance, the company could check location data to see if they are participating in political protests. Or it could be you, when the gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer data gives away that you and your co-worker went to the same hotel room at night....
medscape Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Wednesday that bans almost all abortions in the state, starting at fertilization. ...The new law is the most restrictive abortion ban in the U.S., making exceptions only when necessary to save the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest if they have been reported to police. It takes effect immediately.…
Senators: Companies collected data on patients at abortion clinics, then sold to pro-life activists q13fox.com
(Treat all Faux “news” as necessitating a fact check, but some local news still has a few scruples even under the Faux label.)
medscape Abortion Debate May Affect the Way Pregnant Women and Their Physicians Approach Teratogenic Medications.
...With more states issuing restrictions on abortion, doctors are worried that patients needing certain drugs to maintain their lupus flares, cancer, or other diseases may decide not to take them in the event they accidentally become pregnant. [With drugs known] to affect the fetus, the fear is a patient who lives in a state with abortion restrictions will no longer have the option to terminate a pregnancy. Instead, a scenario may arise in which the patient — and their physician — may opt not to treat at all with an otherwise lifesaving medication...
I also wonder if many drugs potentially cause abortions, if they might eventually be completely outlawed or companies stop making them for fear of suits or prosecution. Even though men and older women have no fear of pregnancy, but the companies could find themselves targeted in this crazy fact-free world.
Sexual Abuse
Bill Cosby Bill Cosby accused of sexual abuse as civil trial begins in Los Angeles
Judy Huth, who alleges Cosby assaulted her at Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16 and he 37, sues for damages in civil suit
Afghanistan
Male Afghan TV presenters mask up to support female colleagues after Taliban decree
#FreeHerFace campaign gathers force as high-profile men rebel against crackdown on face coverings in Afghanistan
Male TV presenters in Afghanistan are wearing face masks on screen to show solidarity after the Taliban issued an order that all women on news channels must cover their faces.
Amber heard and Johnny Depp
Why Are So Many Survivors Supporting Johnny Depp?
Women who have survived sexual assault have been talking about their experiences to defend Johnny Depp in his defamation case against Amber Heard. Why?
www.harpersbazaar.com/...
TikTok’s Amber Heard Hate Machine. NYT
Television turned the celebrity trial into a 24-hour tabloid spectacle. Social media made it into a sport. web.archive.org
From TheConversation: “a social worker and researcher —[who has worked for years] with people who have survived or been criminalized for domestic and sexual violence— addresses] the significant dangers of parasocial relationships (one-sided relationships with public figures) and their ability to reinforce carceral logics (the ways we have been shaped by the idea and practices of imprisonment).”
The Heard v. Depp trial is not just a media spectacle – it is an opportunity to discuss the nuances of intimate partner violence (IPV) which is experienced by an estimated 6.6 million women and 5.8 million men each year in the U.S., around 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men, and:
the occurrence and consequences of IPV have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of isolation and financial insecurity.
While some IPV will be unidirectional, meaning only one partner inflicts violence on the other, the [alleged behaviors are] what experts describe as bidirectional violence, and it is quite common in certain cases of IPV. [To accurately measure and understand the nuances of IPV, one must consider the context under which the violence occurs. For example, are both parties instigating the violence, or is one party acting in self-defense? Is the violence part of a repeated pattern of other abusive behavior? {and so on}.]
Indeed, a 2012 review of published studies measuring bidirectional versus unidirectional violence in relationships found that, on average, nearly 3 in 5 occurrences of IPV were bidirectional in nature…..
Men get all the credit
The Matilda effect is a bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists whose work is attributed to their male colleagues. This phenomenon was first described by suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–98) in her essay, "Woman as Inventor" (first published as a tract in 1870 and in the North American Review in 1883). The term "Matilda effect" was coined in 1993 by science historian Margaret W. Rossiter [describing it as the phenomenon in which women scientists are "ignored, denied credit, or otherwise dropped from sight." In the best of cases, they receive due recognition for their discoveries, and even then, only many years after the fact.]
Rossiter provides several examples of this effect. [A few of them are as follows:] ■ Theano of Crotone, (6th century BC) - early mathematics philosopher, most of whose work was overshadowed by or attributed to her husband, father, or teacher (depending on the source), Pythagoras. ■ Trotula (Trota of Salerno), a 12th-century Italian woman physician, wrote books which, after her death, were attributed to male authors. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century cases illustrating the Matilda effect include those of ■ Nettie Stevens [the American geneticist who discovered sex chromosomes later known as the X and Y chromosomes] ■ Lise Meitner [whose male longtime research partner before the Holocaust was exclusive recipient of the 1944 Nobel in Chemistry for nuclear fission, nominated 19 times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1924-48, and 29 times for the Nobel Prize in Physics 1937-1965, never ‘won’;] ■ Marietta Blau ■ Rosalind Franklin [who pioneered the field of molecular biology with her discovery of the double helix structure of DNA for which 3 men —Watson, Crick, Wilkins— received a Nobel prize, ■ Jocelyn Bell Burnell [the British astronomer who discovered pulsars] [■ Marthe Gautier, whose discoveries included the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome — she died at age 96 on April 30, 2022.]
The Matilda effect was compared to the Matthew effect, whereby an eminent scientist often gets more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is shared or similar. [Including in the case of the husband/wife team who first reported and named The Matthew Effect.]…
As always, this is a group column! Many thanks to Tara, Angmar, and mettle for items and discussion this week!
And as always, I’m taking care of Mom so will have to join you later! Thanks all! Please discuss amongst yourselves.