You Know...

...what I'm really tired of reading about? Some famous dude who's having all kinds of angst because his famous wife is more famous than he is.

If I had a dollar for every time I've read the construction, "He was the more famous of the two when they met, and now his career is on the wane while her star has continued to rise," I would have lots of dollars!

I'm sure in my history of reading things, I've read the reverse—wife can't take being eclipsed by husband's career. But I sure can't remember it.

(That is not, by the way, an invitation to offer up exceptions to the rule. I'm just making the point that it is, indeed, an exception to the rule. The very, very annoying rule.)

I'm not primarily directing my ire at the dudes about whom this is written, since who knows if it's even true, though it gets printed like it is; I know lots of straight/bi men whose wives are more well-known and/or make more money than they do who are super proud of their wives and not remotely threatened by a career disparity that doesn't conform to retrofuck notions of gender (im)balance.

A few famous dudes end up in "she's trouncing me!" stories, however, because they've said as much themselves in interviews, matter-of-factly, like, Of course it pisses me off and makes me feel small and kills my boner that my wife/girlfriend is more successful than I am. Have you not noticed that I am a man?

But it's more just that this shit gets printed at all, and the fact that it's still so easy for so many people to believe, in the year 2012, that OBVIOUSLY any man would be emasculated by a wife who surpasses him in any demonstrable way.

Oh, pardon me—not any demonstrable way. Straight/bi women are still allowed to be better than their husbands at "female" tasks, like changing diapers or cleaning the house. We're just not allowed to be better than our husbands at Man Stuff, like a career.

Whoooooooooops

Arthur S. Brisbane, you are not helping your case by condescendingly implying that your readership is stupid.

The problem is not that the Times readership doesn't understand the nature of your examples. The problem is that you don't seem to.

True Fact: The New York Times Does Not Know What Journalism Is Or What a Journalists' Job Is

That can be the only explanation for this column by the Times' public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane: "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?"

I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge "facts" that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

...If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:

"The president has never used the word 'apologize' in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president's words."

That approach is what one reader was getting at in a recent message to the public editor. He wrote:

My question is what role the paper's hard-news coverage should play with regard to false statements – by candidates or by others. In general, the Times sets its documentation of falsehoods in articles apart from its primary coverage. If the newspaper's overarching goal is truth, oughtn't the truth be embedded in its principal stories? In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn't the Times's coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?

This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. ... Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?

OMFG. If I had asked these questions of my high school newspaper faculty adviser, she would have sent me back to retake Journalism 101. This is deeply embarrassing stuff. Or should be.

I don't even know how Brisbane can frame this scenario as a "reporter choosing to correct one fact over another." Does he know what the meaning of the word fact actually is? If it needs correction, it ain't a fact.

And howsabout the radical idea of not picking and choosing which not-facts to identify and/or correct, but identifying and/or correcting them all.

Meanwhile, Brisbane wants to know if a "separate fact-check sidebar" is insufficient. YES IT IS! "Do you like this feature, or would you rather it be incorporated into regular reporting?" Literally, the public editor of the "paper of record" just asked the paper's readership if they want accuracy inserted into their reporting.

That explains everything. *jumps into Christmas tree*

Today in Rape Culture

[Content Note: Media coverage of sexual violence against children; gun violence.]

I've seen this story from late December in a couple places now, because its facts are so unusual: It's an article from Utah's Deseret News about a child sex predator whose offenses were discovered in a very peculiar way—police found his 13-year-old victim hiding in a closet when they searched his house after one of his roommates accidentally shot another roommate in the chest while drunkenly attempting to shoot a mouse.

The 34-year-old abuser, Paul Daniel Kunzler, was "booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of two counts of rape of a child, three counts of sodomy of a child, and three counts of sexual abuse of a child."

There is no state in the union in which a 13-year-old is considered old enough to consent to sexual activity. And Kunzler is clearly not her peer. He is 21 years her senior.

Nonetheless, the Deseret News repeatedly describes Kunzler and the 13-year-old girl as being in "a relationship."

The four-month relationship was discovered after a bizarre incident at the man's house...

During an ensuing search of the house, officers found a 13-year-old girl hiding in a basement closet, Wyant said. The girl told police she had sneaked out of her house without her father's knowledge to see Kunzler, according to a jail report.

After further questioning, investigators learned Kunzler and the 13-year-old had been having a relationship for four months. The two had met through a common friend, Wyant said.

It was not known Wednesday whether any of Kunzler's three housemates were aware of the relationship.

That "relationship" is considered an appropriate and uncontroversial way to describe a sexually abusive situation between a child and an adult 21 years her senior is just another reminder of how pervasive and profound the rape culture really is.

The irrelevant note about the girl sneaking out "without her father's knowledge" is interesting, too. Not only is it implicitly victim-blaming, framing her as a naughty girl who was looking for trouble, and suggestive of the possibility that 13-year-olds can give authentic, informed, enthusiastic consent to sexual activities with people old enough to be their parents, but it reinforces the narrative that fathers are protectors and defenders of their daughters' sexuality, and that female sexuality is a commodity to be exchanged between two men.

She sneaked out without her father's knowledge. Presumably, given the opportunity, he would have selected someone more suitable to whom to grant access to his daughter's cunt.

Is what we are meant to infer. In less blunt and more palatable terms, of course.

Parallel to that is the implication that parents can protect their children from sex predators (if only those naughty children don't sneak out of the house). Which: No. An alleged (or real) lack of parental vigilance is not a justification for the exploitation of a child. The exclusive responsibility for rape is always, always, the rapist's.

US Politics Rulezzz

Headline of the Day: "Gingrich: Mitt Romney is a liar." LOL! Perfect. But wait—it gets even better!

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support in Iowa has withered after riding on top of the polls, on Tuesday called former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a liar who would mislead the American people if elected to the White House - but added that he would still vote for him if Romney won the GOP nomination.

On CBS' "The Early Show" this morning, CBS News chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked Gingrich about comments he had previously made about his chief rival and the Super PAC whose negative campaign ads have hurt his campaign: "You scolded Mitt Romney, his friends who are running this Super PAC that has funded that, and you said of Mitt Romney, 'Someone who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president. I have to ask you, are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?"

"Yes," Gingrich replied.

"You're calling Mitt Romney a liar?"

"Well, you seem shocked by it!" said Gingrich. "This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC - it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth.

"It's just like this pretense that he's a conservative. Here's a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in 'Romneycare,' puts Planned Parenthood in 'Romneycare,' raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he's magically a conservative.

"I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine."

Yet, when pressed by CBS News' chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer on whether he could support Romney if the "Massachusetts moderate" became the Republican nominee, Gingrich replied, "Sure."

LOL FOREVERRRRRRR!!!

"Mitt Romney is a snake-oil salesman. I mean, dude's a shady operator, a deceitful double-crosser, a villainous hoodwinker, a master of chicanery, and a flimflam aficionado of the highest order. I wouldn't trust that prevaricating fabulist any further than my butler could throw him! What I'm saying is that the guy is real lying sack of shit. GOD I HATE HIM. I am also endorsing him for President of the United States of America. I am Newt Gingrich and I approve this message."

Gingrich explained that he would support any Republican candidate "because I think Barack Obama is tearing the country apart."

It's a fair point. If there's one criticism I have of Obama, it's that he should really try reaching across the aisle a little bit more and stop alienating the Republicans with his rigid adherence to leftist principles.

By the way, I love the breathless coverage of Newt Gingrich stating the demonstrable fact that Mitt Romney is a liar. Congratulations on your continued dominance in the field of manufactured controversy, US Media.

MLK Day Bomber Gets 32 Years for Not-Terrorism

[Trigger warning for terrorism, violence, racism.]

In January of this year, I wrote about an incident of Totally Not Terrorism that our Liberal Media failed to widely report with the breathless intensity reserved for brown-skinned terrorists who target white men: An undetonated backpack bomb, in which the packed shrapnel was coated with an anticoagulant to prevent blood clotting, was found along the parade route of a Martin Luther King Day event in Spokane, Washington. Fortunately, the device was discovered before its engineer could remotely trigger it, and no one was injured.

By March, what was obvious was confirmed: The suspect, Kevin Harpham, is a white supremacist, and for years had been on the radar of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, despite his not even being a significant player in organized white supremacy.

Harpham is a terrorist.

The good news is that he was found, charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to commit a federal hate crime, pleaded guilty in September, and has now been sentenced to 32 years.

The bad news is that this is still barely a blip on the radar, and the linked story at CNN does not even use the word "terrorism," despite quoting a Justice Department statement reading: "Harpham admitted that he is a white supremacist and white separatist, and that he placed the explosive device at the march with the intent to cause bodily injury to the person or persons in order to further his racist beliefs."

Meanwhile, Harpham, from whose home FBI agents excavated "racist books and magazines, and information about domestic terrorism ... an AK-47 assault rifle, a handgun, and a digital clock that had been modified as a timing device," was described by his federally-appointed defense attorney Kailey Moran as someone who "cared for others" and was viewed by his friends and family as "a kind-hearted and gentle soul who would go to any length to help someone in need."

Moran's just doing her job (hoo boy, I would not want that job, and I am grateful to the people who are willing to do it); the media, however, is under no obligation to report the irrelevant sentimental bullshit that a federal defender presents to the court on a confessed terrorist's behalf.

Is it newsworthy that Harpham's family thinks he's a swell fella? Nope. And I daresay I don't remember reading what Zacarias Moussaoui's BFFs thought of him during his trial. "He was always there to help us move to a new underground hideout!" Great. Who cares.

But suddenly when it's a white man (who served his country!) who conspires to murder people of color, it is of the utmost importance to report that the people who loved a dude who made no secret of his violent racism thought he was a nice guy.

Yeah, he's a real goddamn charmer. Rot, fucko.

[H/T to Pam.]