The June issue of Vanity Fair brings together two of my favorite people: actor Carrie Fisher and photographer Annie Leibovitz.
General Leia
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Author Archives: genderdesk
Dressing for Allah
Presumably Trump does not speak Arabic, and we hope will not be tweeting over the single Saudi government censored internet line in and out of the country, so we should be seeing more like this for the next few days.
Melania gets on the plane at Andrews base, gets off the plane at King Khaled airport in Riyadh.
Described in the press as a black pantsuit with a gold belt, I would say if it looks like an abaya and quacks like an abaya, the Saudis will see it as an abaya.
Ivanka gets on the plane at Andrews and gets off the plane at Riyadh:
While a Saudi woman could get away with sleeves like this, having the white pattern on the whole outfit is definitely pushing the envelope. It looks black from a distance, especially next to her husband’s lighter navy suit, but it’s actually navy. Again, this pushes the envelope of what is allowed, without defying the rules completely. These outfits are not power statements, or social status statements; any woman without status could get away with something like this. Allahu al akbar and long live the king.
Now, Michelle Obama, Angela Merkel and Teresa May:
But these are women who are used to pulling their own weight, not window dressing. Ironic that the women who break the “modesty” rules are the most modest looking, but the ones who follow the rules look the most provocative. Welcome to the Middle East.
Edit war at Trump’s law firm
Joe Lieberman is senior counsel at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres and Friedman, and is one of four names on Trump’s short list to replace James Comey as FBI director. Trump’s relationship with the New York law firm goes back years.
The lede for the Wikipedia article for Kasowitz, Benson, Torres and Friedman includes the information that “Notable clients have included Donald Trump…”
So there was a small audience standing by with a prediction “Look for them to edit that Wikipedia entry in 3,2,1…”
And the internet did not disappoint. Trump’s name was removed from the list of clients within hours. The edit war was carried out from an IP in Horton, Alabama.
Oh my, and the thread has rumors about KBT&F’s ties to Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-run bank, and Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who bought Trump’s mansion for $95M … who could have seen that one coming?
Joe Lieberman speaks in favor of Betsy DeVos at her Senate confirmation hearing
[And what is that ampersand doing in the title….]
UPDATE: the firm is now known as Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP [source], since partner David Friedman accepted a Trump appointment as ambassador to Israel. Friedman was confirmed by the senate on March 23, 2016, and his name removed from the firm the next day. See official website.
The article has now been protected from IP edits, but Wikipedia has yet to discover the correct name of the firm.
Stephen Miller–wonder what he does in his free time…
Ooooh! and look what else the little Alabama IP has been editing…removing some negative sources from the article about Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller –quickly reverted. And Miller is from …Alabama.
Wikipediocalypse now?
I’m not in any of the Wikipediocracy dead pools, but … “the forums are down for maintenance”? What maintenance. At 3 AM?
Is this the end, my friend…
[UPDATE: Nah, they’ve struggled to their feet again, but judging by the way Rogol’s posts are dominating the boards, I would say it’s too soon to put away the death watch beetles.]
Wikipedia’s zombie navy women
Gladys Commons, appointed by Obama, does *not* work for Trump
So what is new… yet another group of women ignored by Wikipedia. This time it is women in the U.S. Navy.
Exhibit A is one Gladys J. Commons, who served as a high level comptroller, or maybe assistant, from 11/3/2009 – 3/29/2013. According to her official Navy bio, she retired from the Navy in 3/29/2013. But according to her Wikipedia article, this Obama appointee is still holding down a seat in the Trump administration.
Fortunately for the Navy, they still have the unfortunate Kumioko as their only link to fixing these Wikipedia snafus, and Kumioko has posted it on one of the criticism sites.
So, is she notable? Did she do any “heavy lifting”, as one of the regulars asked? Probably and probably not. Her bio lists all kinds of awards and honors, so that’s good enough for me. And without knowing the particulars of this specific individual, my understanding of these “assistant” positions, especially so high up in the food chain, is that they are political appointees and as such have been able to garner political and/or financial support for their candidate. Chances are, as comptroller, her signature might even have appeared on the paychecks, so there’s that. For anyone who wants to delve into these things, here is the chart, the “Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Financial Management and Comptroller)” is in the second row, third from the left. I found the chart here (and here), in this book by the U.S. Office of the Federal Register so it’s probably even in the public domain.
So what else is in this little book? A list of Navy employees from 2011. Hmm shall we have a look?
Scanning for more names of women, I see that Gladys J. Commons is not Wikipedia’s most egregious case of neglect. That would be:
Exhibit B: Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, former Assistant Secretary (Energy, Installations and Environment), who is dead. Yup, she died in April.
From this profile, you can see she stepped down from the Navy in 2012. And her obit says she battled cancer for five years, so she must have left government service at that time, but it also looks like she had a position (see internet archive) with Haskell Point Advisors, an energy and infrastructure consulting firm. Her bio remained on that website until early in April, and is still in google cache. Archived here: http://archive.is/YqIDZ Her navy bio isn’t any more up to date; it is here. According to a very short note in the Sacramento Bee, her husband may be notable as well, Dan Richard, chair of the high-speed rail commission. At the very least they must have been a “power couple”. And the longer Sacramento Bee obit fills in her career history after she left government service: “After leaving the Navy in 2013, she joined the board of directors of Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure and was named to the National Academies Board of Energy & Environmental Systems. In 2013, Ms. Pfannenstiel co-founded the San Francisco energy start-up firm, Advanced Microgrid Solutions.” And there is a lot of stuff about her “greening the fleet” efforts at the Navy, not to mention her economics background, in this interview.
For anyone who wants to go fishing, there is a navy bio list here: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/bio_list.asp
Fact-checking the failing Wikipediocracy on Gorman and the Heilman affair
So what is going on at the failing Wikipediocracy? For a while now, it’s just been Kohs and Poetlister bumping old threads, and trying to make it look like the place was inhabited. But are the regulars actually returning, or is this just the last hurrah? I see Vig came back to vet the players behind Jimbo’s latest WikiTribue venture, and seems to have gotten sucked back into the vortex. But what’s this? They sure have got this wrong, Kevin Gorman was never any Jimbo apologist, I’m pretty sure he called for Jimmy to step down during the 2016 board fiasco:
RfB sure, no fact checking expected from those quarters, but Vig? SB Johnny? Tsk! Tsk!
Yep here it is.
It's unfortunate that James and Jimmy have gotten in to it in public, but - I hate to say this, but there's no other way around it - Jimmy should be embarassed. He's been exceptionally disrespectful of a respected community member, but worse than that, he's flat out lied on multiple occasions about the situation involving James. If someone challenges me on that statement, as I have time, I will compile a list of diffs and archived emails in which he's done so. If the situation between James and Jimmy is such that a healthy board dynamic with both as trustees is not possible, then frankly Jimmy should step down, or at a minimum give up the concept of a Founder's seat, convert it to a community elected seat, stay on as a board member until the next elections, and then run as an ordinary community member in the next set of elections. I think it should also be stated for the public record that Jimmy was the individual who pushed for Lila's stay to be extended (and I like Lila, I really do,) and for trustees to not speak with the day to day WMF employees that have formed the backbone of the WMF side of the movement. I also don't know who put the FAQ together, but want to point out that it's not factually accurate to say that James cannot run in the next elections, as at least one official FAQ stated at one point. That would be true if he was a community ELECTED board member removed for cause. He wasn't, so the relevant provision doesn't apply, and he's eligible to run again as soon as there are faux-elections again.
Rogol gets free speech and Kohs gets PMS
Alas poor Rogol: a while back he tried to comment here, again and again and again and again, and I’m afraid I must have put his comments offline, poor dear. But Kohs has taken up his cause,
and since I feel sorry for Kohs, with the Examiner being shut down so he can’t run around the Internets spamming the comment sections with his latest anti-Jimbo broadside to try to drum up some SEO, I have decided to take pity on the both of them, and restore Rogol’s comments, in their very own post.
The TL:DR is that Rogol claims to have proofs and insightful comments, but he sees no point in posting them here. Instead he posted something like 16 different comments saying basically that he has nothing to say. So yeah they were taking up real estate in my sidebar, which this format isn’t really geared for extensive threaded comments anyhow, plus did I mention he is insufferable? Anyhow, he was warned, he was given an explanation, but he persisted. So I shook my fist, yelled ‘get off my lawn’, and took the comments offline.
In the meantime poor Kohs seems to be developing an allergy to Rogol, which is only tempered by the fact that Rogol’s bizarre style seems to have energized his base, and brought Kohs’ website back to life.
So you can see Rogol’s welcome is wearing a bit thin, but Kohs must grit his teeth and swallow his sarcasm for now, they can’t really afford to throw Rogol under the bus just quite yet.
Yea, verily, the thrice blessed and cursed Vigilant has returned, as has the inestimable Mason, not to mention the globally loathed Cla68, who everybody seems to be cheerfully tolerating. Wonder what kind of drugs they’ve got.
[UPDATE: Oh wait, I see what they’re doing. They’re just bumping old threads so it looks like there’s something going on. I can’t tell who’s back.
I also see they linked to me three or four times, so no telling how much traffic I really got from there, my stats will certainly be inflated. But Vig has definitely got sucked in again, and SB Johnny and that nasty little RfB who showed so little gratitude when I helped him out with his love life. And where’s Kelly, I miss Kelly. ]
So without further ado, here are the missing Rogol threads, which in the interests of Kohs’ mental health, I will thoughtfully hide under a “continue reading” button:
