Remamber when Time Magazine used to be a legitimate news publication?

I suppose the downhill slide really became an off-the-cliff tumble when they declared that the "Person of the Year" was YOU!




But this might take the cake:

Ideas Business

Netflix’s New Parental Leave Policy Could Make Things Worse for Women

• Suzanne Venker @SuzanneVenker

5:26 PM ET

Yeah. They're giving a forum to self-loathing female misogynist Suzanne Venker who is, I believe a relative of mummified hate lizard Phylis Schlafly.

So how is Netflix's new parental leaver policy going to somehow make things worse for women? I mean, generally Venker insists that the best thing for women is to stay home with their kids, so how is a policy allowing women to stay home with their kids going to be harmful? Well, let's see:

The needs of children don’t end after one year

No doubt people are dancing a jig with Netflix’s announcement Tuesday that the tech company will allow its employees to take unlimited maternity or paternity leave during the first year after their child’s birth or adoption—while earning their normal pay.

Okay, we're starting out with snide sarcasm. That's the hallmark of good journalism.
And I think maybe I figured out why Venker has a problem with this policy. It's not because new mothers are allowed to stay home with their babies. It's because they're still getting paid while staying home with their babies. Like most conservatives, Venker is driven by a pathological fear that someehwre, someone who is not her is getting over.Someone who is not her is getting money they don't deserve, or getting some kind of special treatment and this just infuriates her.

“We want employees to have the flexibility and confidence to balance the needs of their growing families without worrying about work or finances,” said Tawni Cranz, Netflix’s chief talent officer. “Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home.”

Okay. Sounds good. But is it? Or is it in fact bad? Very, very bad?
Could there be problems with this new policy? Even several problems? 

 There are several problems with this new policy. First, offering an unlimited leave policy in the first year to new moms and dads means the remaining employees who don’t fit the bill will be left to pick up the slack. This will likely, in turn, strain relations among co-workers and make the workplace environment less effective.

Oh, sure. I'm sure a tiny little inexperienced mom & pop startup like Netflix probably has no idea how to make a workplace more effective. I would think that someone like Venker, with her vast experience typing on a laptop in her bathrobe probably has a much better handle on corporate efficiency.
Also, the remaining employees have always had to pick up the slack when someone goes out on maternity leave. Or on vacation. Or gets the flu. Or injured. And yet, somehow companies manage to stay in business somehow.

Second, it isn’t fair to babies. By encouraging mothers, who are the still the primary parent at home, to bond with their baby for a long period of time with the expectation they’ll return to work at the end of the year means the baby will become even more attached to his mother, and separation may become intolerable.

Oh my God! Do babies not normally bond with their mommies? Is this going to be some new thing where babies don't like being separated from their mamas? And it takes an entire year for this bond to form? With a normal maternity leave of, what, 6 weeks, the baby is all "Have a nice day at work, lady. See you tonight!"

Same goes for the mother. Her attachment to her baby, or her re-thinking of her priorities during this time, may make her even less likely to return to work—thus negating the whole point of the policy, which is to get her attention back on work and off of baby.

 So, shouldn't that make you happy? Mothers deciding to leave their jobs and be full-time mothers? Isn't that what you've been preaching all this time?

Finally, being home with one’s baby doesn’t mean a parent’s worry will magically vanish. Most parents, mothers in particular, do worry about what’s going on at home in their absence. That’s the point. Most women change when they become mothers. They aren’t the same people, let alone the same type of worker

Right. Worries won't magically vanish. Got it. No one's saying that they will, but whatever. . .
And of course, as is the right wing's response whenever a solution is proposed, Venker goes with the tried and true "it won't solve everything so we should instead do nothing."

Solar power can't completely replace every drop of fossil fuel? Then fuck solar, let's do nothing.
Gun control laws won't prevent every single crime in America? Then we should just do nothing about guns! And so on.

Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface.

So, instead we should do nothing?
Since a year off of work is not enough, Netflix should offer their employees 10 minutes with the baby and then back to the salt mines? What exactly are you suggesting? What's your better alternative?

No company (or government) policy can possibly solve the work-family conflict. The needs of children undermine the needs of employers, just as the needs of employers undermine the needs of children. As Katharine Hepburn once said about why she never had children, “Well, I’m not dumb enough to think I could have handled that situation. If your mind is on something else, you are useless. If someone needs you, they need YOU!”

Indeed.

So. . . women should just stop having babies altogether? Since the work-family conflict is totally insolvable?  

None of this is to suggest that women can’t have it all over the course of their lifetimes. It’s only to say that choices and concessions must be made. 

Um, you do realize that if one is making concessions, one inherently is not having it all, right? I mean, that's kind of what "concessions" means. 

It’s also to say that no parental leave policy, even the one at Netflix, can possibly solve a problem as monumental as the anguished pull parents feel between home and work. It could potentially make it even worse.

So. . . companies should have no parental leave policies? What exactly is the thesis of this article? If you're going to say that this policy is so awful, shouldn't you suggest a better alternative? Otherwise, what's the point? Anyone can find fault. I can say my car's not fast enough or too loud, but unless I have an idea for improving the performance of the engine, I'm just being a malcontent. It's a perfectly good car, the fact that it isn't perfect doesn't mean I should have it towed to the scrapyard.
And just because Netflix's family leave policy isn't a cure-all for all of society's ills doesn't mean it isn't a good policy. 
Do you have a better idea? We're all ears!

**Crickets**

Great job, Time Magazine. Hell of a hire. 

So, Martial Law as a Campaign Promise?

No wonder you're polling at six and a half percent!

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said at a campaign stop on Thursday that he would consider sending federal troops or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stop abortions.
“I will not pretend there is nothing we can do to stop this,” Huckabee said. When a reporter asked if hew would use federal troops or the FBI to this end, he said, “We’ll see if I get to be president.”

Seriously?

The Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is perfectly legal. You don't like that. So you're toying with the idea of sending United States troops on to American soil to prevent women from accessing this perfectly legal procedure? And that's a selling point?

How in the hell would you justify this?

Huckabee said he would “invoke the 5th and 14th amendments for the protection of every human being.” The Fifth Amendment states, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.”

So. . .  the 14th . . . the equal protection under the law amendment? So you figure that as long as martial law was applied equally to everyone? That would pass Constitutional muster?

Also, you are familiar with the Posse Comitatus Act, right? You're not allowed to use US troops to enforce the law. You know that, right?  Although, I guess in your defense they wouldn't actually be enforcing the law, they would be doing kind of the opposite. Preventing the law from being enforced and . . .HOW THE FUCK ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS????

So I assume that the other Republican candidates have all been called upon to "refudiate" Huckabee's terrifying statement?

**Crickets**

Haha, of course they haven't. Huckabee is only a former governor and FOX tv host who's currently polling fifth in the Republican primary race. It's not like he's Sister Souljah!

Uh-oh. It's learning.

It's learning.

“Real-estate mogul Donald Trump said Monday that he is in favor of Republicans moving to shut down the federal government in the Planned Parenthood funding fight.
“I can tell you this: I would,” the presidential candidate said when asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he supports shutting the government down in the fight.”

He's learning how to pander. Because you know Trump doesn't give a shit about Planned Parenthood or aborted fetuses. He's never been a "family values" guy.

 

Trump only cares about two things:
1.  Being rich and famous
2.  Getting richer and famouser.

That's it. So the only reason that he's talking about this is to shore up his support with the Religious Right. For some reason, they've taken a shine to the thrice-married libertine, but anything less than full-throated opposition to reproductive freedom could cost him some votes with the Bible-thumpers, and, contrary to what I was sure of a few weeks ago, Trump may actually be in this to win it.

I assumed he was running as a publicity stunt, a chance to try and garner some adulation from the rubes before returning to his game show hosting gig, but suddenly he found himself leading in the polls. And having spent a lifetime surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, he may actually have started to believe he can pull this off. But if he was going to make a serious run, he had to learn to pander. He seems to be learning.

The Far Country

I hadn't ever heard of this movie until a couple days ago when I saw that Encore was running a "six-gun salute" to Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart being one of my favorite actors, I set the DVR to record it.

It's not he greatest western ever made, but it's not bad. But what struck me about this movie is that I'm fairly sure that, 50-some years before "Brokeback Mountain," this movie featured a couple of gay cowboys.

Jimmy Stewart and Walter Brennan speak often about their plans to buy a little house in Utah and "settle down" together.  Stewart's character has a bell on his saddle that Brennan's character bought for him, planning to hang it on the door of their house to let them know when visitors arrive. "It's a pretty small bell" says Renee (One of two women in love with Stewart) "Well, it's gonna be a pretty small house." answers Brennan.
At the end of the movie, when Renee leans in to kiss Jimmy Stewart, and the music swells dramatically, Stewart turns away, walks over to his horse and wistfully fiddles with the bell given to him by the now-dead Walter Brennan. He's clearly heartbroken and not at all interested in making kissy-face with Renee, or with Ruth Roman, from whom he also walked away when she tried to kiss him.

 

That's right. THIS did not impress him!

Plus, three times in the movie, Jimmy Stewart reaches into Walter Brennan's pocket, pull out his pipe, puts it in Brennan's mouth and lights it for him. It's a very loving gesture, especially when, as he is doing this, he says to Brennan "I can take care of me. And in a pinch, I can take care of you, too."

 

It's much more romantic than it looks in this picture.

The screenplay was written by Borden Chase and the film was directed by Anthony Mann. I can't find a whole lot of biographical information on either of them, so I don't know if either or both were gay or not, not that that would necessarily matter, I mean, I don't think Ang Lee is gay either.

Anyway, if anyone has seen The Far Country, I'd love to know what you think. Were Stewart and Brennan acouple, or am I just reading too much into their friendship? Because if I'm right, this film would be pretty groundbreaking and it's definitely not getting any credit for it.

 

Flashback Friday - Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper

Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper burst out of the Southern California Rockabilly/Cowpunk scene in the early 1980's with a string of albums featuring Mojo on vocals and guitar and percussionist Skid Roper on everything from washboard to washtub bass. Mojo was the spiritual descendant of Hasil Adkins with bits of John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf for good measure but his sound and lyrical worldview were uniquely his.

I never did get to see Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper perform, but I did see Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors at Slim's in San Francisco, and I saw Mojo perform as part of the Pleasure Barons somewhere in San Jose. He was a consumate showman and hopefully still is.