Shakesville

Mary Mary, Why Ya Buggin'?

Okay I just had to share this with you.

Anyone who sees the Virgin Mary in that fucking water stain is a complete dingaling. I love how it's holding up traffic because a bunch of buffoons have to see it for themselves. Could this make Chicagoans look any more ridiculous? The best is how one woman recounts that people were honking. I'm sure Mary appreciates the toot.

It's been changed, but I swear this morning the caption they used was - "Like a Virgin?" When did the Tribune get so camp? And on the photo titled "Our Lady of the Underpass" (snicker, snicker), notice the graffiti next to "Mary" -- "Satan loves U." Hysterical! I just had to share that.

What Kind of American English Do I Speak?

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% Yankee

35% General American English

15% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

That’s interesting, considering I’ve lived in the Midwest my entire life.

The only explanation I can offer is that I was raised by a mother who was a recent transplant from NYC.

Also, being married to a Brit has screwed up my language. I now unselfconsciously use terms like take the piss out of (tease), half four (4:30), and on the beers (out for drinks) without realizing, until I see puzzled expressions, that those aren’t colloquialisms that have any meaning to most Americans.

Uh-Huh

President Bush on Tuesday called newly elected Pope Benedict XVI a "man of great wisdom and knowledge."

[…]

At the State Department, spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States welcomed the announcement of the new pope.

"We look forward to working with His Holiness and the Holy See to build upon our already excellent bilateral relationship and to promote human dignity across the world," Ereli said.

Brain…malfunctioning… Too…many…snarky…comments…competing…

Let’s just start with this. A true attempt at promoting human dignity precludes both state-sanctioned torture and a far-reaching conspiracy to harbor and abet child molesters and rapists. So, at this point, that fantabulous bilateral relationship isn’t exactly batting a thousand, you know what I mean?

Gay-Bashin’ for God

Da New Pope (as Ezra would say) doesn’t like da faggots. As anyone who’s spent more than five seconds hanging around this joint knows, here at Shakespeare’s Sister, we likes da faggots, and so we don’t likes da new pope.

In 1986, Pope Ratz (as by which he will heretofore be referred) wrote a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, in which he recommended that “appropriate forms of pastoral care for homosexual persons” be developed with “the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences, in full accord with the teaching of the Church,” even though homosexuality had been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) thirteen years earlier. By 1986, the psychological, sociological, and medical sciences didn’t regard homosexuality as a “disorder” in need of treatment, but clearly, Pope Ratz (and the rest of the church) did.

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.

If it weren’t for the fact that this gay-hating bigot was just made head of the largest network of institutionalized homophobia in the universe, that would almost be laughable. A strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil, says the former member of the Hitler Youth. Whether he was compelled to join or joined voluntarily is a matter of debate, but regardless of the origins of Pope Ratz’s former Nazi associations, including serving in the German army, they surely gave him the opportunity to see intrinsic moral evil up close and personal. Those fuckers were marching the fags off to the gas chambers, not the other way around.

As many as a million gays and lesbians were killed in the concentration camps during the Holocaust, with particularly harsh treatments reserved for gay men, who were also widely recruited for bizarre scientific experimentation, in search of a cure for future Aryan homosexuals. Gay men also had the highest death rate (60%) of any other social group relegated to the camps by the Nazis. Lesbians and gays were viewed as a threat to the future of the Aryan race, because they did not procreate, and when the Nazis came into power, they facilitated a swift backlash against the progressiveness of Berlin which had fostered a vibrant and thriving gay community. The entire country was delivered a steady stream of anti-gay propaganda, and the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated with virulent homophobia, which may well explain Pope Ratz’s strange acceptance of violence against gays, even as he condemns it:

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.

A man like this has no business leading the church.

Using the same logic that instituting protections against lesbians and gays will incite violence against them, because they have no right to be protected, it is understandable why the church makes no exceptions for abortions when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Clearly, the victims of crime deserve no remedy, if such remedy is anathema to church teaching. Once brutalized by an attacker, prepare to be victimized again by the church if you want anything more than prayer.

I reject this pope, I reject his church, and I reject its teachings. I reject the notion that people I love are evil for being gay, or that any expression of love between two consenting adults is somehow sinful. There’s nothing sinful about love, and there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the way I love Mr. Shakes, and the way Pam loves Kate, and Mr. Furious loves Mr. Curious; I reject all claims to the contrary. And if that consigns my eternal soul to the fires of hell, then off I go, tra la la. I never fucking liked harps, anyway.

Hero

Mr. Shakes’ best mate, MWS, a wonderful bloke, who is smart and tough and wicked and brilliantly funny (much like Mr. Shakes himself), is a hero.

On Saturday night, MWS, along with his brother and his mate, were out on the beers in Edinburgh, when they saw a couple of fuckwits jump a guy who was wheeling his bike up the street. The guy had been selling flowers in the pub, which the fuckwits scattered all over the road, then turned to wrecking his bike.

Bravely (or, at least, beer-soaked to fearlessness), MWS and his brother raced into the fray to protect the little guy, throwing his attackers to the ground, at which point eight more of the gang showed up to pummel them, one of whom proceeded to smash a bottle in MWS’ face. The police then arrived (luckily), and MWS was taken to emergency, where he received eight stitches to seal a gash running from his eyelid up his forehead, a stitch in the corner of his eye, and two on his nose. His brother got four stitches above and four below his eye as well.

My first thought was that I was incredibly relieved that MWS was okay; my second thought was that he had done a really admirable thing, stepping up to the defense of a man he didn’t even know—and getting glassed in the face in the process. Such an experience might well make some people think twice about stepping in to help someone the next time, but I can say with some certainty that MWS would do the same thing again if he had to; courage isn’t easily dissuaded.

I’m quite looking forward to seeing the fearsome scar. Very Tony Montana.

In addition to his balls and his word, however, MWS also has a couple of admirers across the pond—which he had before, too, and doubtless always will.

New Pope

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a hard-line guardian of conservative doctrine, was elected the new pope Tuesday evening in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI and called himself "a simple, humble worker."

Way to go, Catholic church. Awesome choice.

Question of the Day

This is our country.

We seem to have forgotten. This country does not belong to its president, or its Congress, or even its judiciary. It is not the possession of corporations, of special interest groups, of lobbyists, of any religion. It belongs to us. And it’s time for us to take it back.

Last night, Robert Reich was on The Daily Show, and he referenced one of the most dire problems in our government—that members of both parties are beholden to greater forces than the will of their constituents. Our needs are lost among the chaos and noise of a feeding frenzy which has seemingly immutably taken over the Beltway. We shake our heads, we gripe, we moan, we bitch at the water cooler, we blog. We bemoan the lack of our elected representatives to counter the assault on the safeguards which have carefully and deliberately been put in place over two centuries, and we turn our eyes to the mid-term elections, to the next presidential election, beyond…

We steadfastly hold ourselves to the democratic process, waiting for our next chance to vote, even though we (rightfully) complain that voter intimidation, dodgy and suspicious machines, corrupt election officials, poor election coverage by the media, the electoral college, and on and on and on have turned the voting process into all but a perfunctory ritual with little result other than to keep the sheep from storming the gates. And perhaps even more damagingly, we ignore that voting is not our only democratic option. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly—those freedoms were granted for a reason. We have the right, and the responsibility to make ourselves heard, to reclaim this country for its people.

So, my question is, what do you think it’s going to take before we make some noise?

More Media Critique

The Gadflyer’s Joshua Holland is sick and tired of jackasses who are incapable of putting together a conservative argument without deliberately misrepresenting the facts. Check it out; it's really good.

What the F#@K?!

Sometimes I almost can’t believe what I’m reading:

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."

But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

This is bloody outrageous! Such claims are patently specious; Bush’s foreign policy has made us less safe, not more so; there was no al-Qaida in Iraq before the war, only after we got there; terrorism is on the rise, not on the run; Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11 is still on the loose, no doubt planning his sequel. Eliminating a report that tracks the potential danger to our country and our allies does not erase these facts.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.

"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."

And any news organization, any newspaper, any news show, any magazine, worth its salt should be covering this story, alarming the American people that this administration cares more about its ability to say they’re winning the war on terror (without any pesky reports proving otherwise getting in their way) than actually developing smart foreign and domestic policies that will keep Americans safe. The emperor has no fucking clothes, and every rag in the nation ought to show his shriveled little dick swinging in the breeze until every last person gets the goddamned picture.

According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.

That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

Of course attacks on American troops in Iraq wouldn’t be counted, because it wouldn’t help their little report if they were. An odd decision, though, considering the administration’s insistence that the insurgency is comprised entirely of foreign Islamic extremists (that is, terrorists), despite the fact that even the Iraqi people aren’t totally sure from whence the attacks come, and whether they are possibly a combination of terror and resistance.

The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.

Yeah, well, that’s a pretty fair interpretation, I think.

Media Mention

Thanks to Eponymous for pointing out that Shakespeare’s Sister was mentioned in Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes column, which addresses in part Time’s Ann Coulter piece, in the Washington Post:

Shakespeare's Sister complains that Time runs a picture of satirical protest group (giveaway detail: a banner that says Communists for Kerry) as if they were seriously protesting her at the GOP convention:

"I don't think Time really is part of a conspiracy. I think this mistake is just typical of the assortment of lazy, complacent, imprecise, conscienceless, bottom-line driven, easily intimidated and manipulated twats that are collectively known as our mainstream media."

Something tells me that line will ensure this is both the first and last media mention Shakespeare’s Sister ever receives, heh heh.

Sexxxxy

Ananova reports:

A German inventor claims to have created the world's most sophisticated robot sex doll.

[...]

[Inventor Michael Harriman] said: "They are almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing, but I am still developing improvements and I will only be happy when what I have is better than the real thing."

[...]

The model can also be made to move by remote control, wiggling her hips under the bedclothes and making other suggestive movements - all at the touch of a button.

Apparently, they'll also spew venom about liberals like a screeching harpy. The only question is, will anyone buy one?

Shakespeare's Sister Writes Letters

To the Editors:

I am deeply disappointed in your decision to feature Ann Coulter on the cover of your magazine. Regardless of one's political persuasion, Coulter adds nothing to the national debate except distracting noise of a vicious and unproductive nature.

Additionally, there were several rather disturbing errors in the story. The author, John Cloud, writes: "Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words 'Ann Coulter lies,' you will drown in results. But I didn’t find many outright Coulter errors."

Whether such a statement was made out of poor research skills or a desire to whitewash Coulter's true colors is irrelevant, as either option is equally disturbing. Coulter's lies and distortions are well documented. A sampling: Coulter lied and distorted to defend fake reporter “Jeff Gannon"; falsely attacked President Clinton’s remarks on the tsunami relief effort; falsely claimed that the New York Times op-ed page “outed” gays and quoted NYT columnists out of context to defend inauguration costs; distorted and attacked Sen. Kennedy’s major Iraq speech; claimed that reports of hundreds of tons of munitions being looted in Iraq were “false"; distorted a 2002 article by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof that predicted the difficulties of the Iraq war; falsely implied that the group behind a December 21 attack on American soldiers in Mosul was not linked to Al Qaeda; defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by falsely claiming that a reporter had devised a controversial question a soldier posed to Rumsfeld; falsely claimed that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was unable to identify any African-Americans in Florida who had been wrongly disenfranchised during the 2000 election ("We’ve found more WMDs in Iraq than we’ve found disenfranchised blacks in Florida"); and printed scores of errors (as well as specious ‘corrections’ of those errors) in her books. (Compiled by Think Progress.)

Can the editors of Time defend such an outrageous misrepresentation of Coulter's work?

Additionally, Cloud writes: "Coulter -- who likes to shock reporters by wondering aloud whether America might be better off if women lost the right to vote -- howls at the idea that she was a college feminist. But even today, she can write about gender issues with particular sensitivity."

As a woman, I do not find any of the following comments indicative of someone who addresses gender issues with "particular sensitivity":

"I'm so pleased with my gender. We're not that bright." (Link)

"The real reason I loathe and detest feminists is that real feminists, the core group, the Great Thinkers of the movement, which I had until now dismissed as the invention of a frat boy on a dare, have been at the forefront in tearing down the very institutions that protect women: monogamy, marriage, chastity, and chivalry. And surveying the wreckage, the best they have to offer is: 'Call me Ms.'" (Link)

"I think the other point that no one is making about the [Abu Ghraib] abuse photos is just the disproportionate number of women involved, including a girl general running the entire operation. I mean, this is lesson, you know, one million and 47 on why women shouldn't be in the military. In addition to not being able to carry even a medium-sized backpack, women are too vicious." (Link)

Such blatant misrepresentations of Coulter's positions is unconscionable. I hope that Time will realize its error, and give equal space to Coulter's detractors in a subsequent issue, as a bare minimum to address the damage done to our political environment by attempting to normalize a divisive character such as Coulter.

Sincerely,
Melissa McEwan
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com

Pitcher

According to my notes on the past five years,
this marks the first time Karl Rove
has let him be the pitcher.

[Alternative caption: After much discussion, Bush finally agreed to take the mound after a count of 0-1 was registered on the board. Critics complained he had taken the concept of the preemptive strike one step too far.]

Schmucks

Skippy writes a letter to Time. Not only did they put Ann Coulter on their cover; they published a picture of a satirical group as if its members were real protestors.

Sadly, even if Skippy’s excellent letter does get printed, the number of people who would read it and actually have it register versus the number of people who see it and assume it's real, are not even in the same ballpark. This is the problem with a media that refuses to do its most basic homework—the damage gets done, and unless all (three) of the Left’s media personalities collectively scream about how the mistake is part of a vast rightwing conspiracy, no one will be the wiser.

The thing is, I don’t think Time really is part of a conspiracy. I think this mistake is just typical of the assortment of lazy, complacent, imprecise, conscienceless, bottom-line driven, easily intimidated and manipulated twats that are collectively known as our mainstream media. Which, frankly, isn’t really any better.

Say What?!

Wow. It’s when I read stuff like this that I wonder if there’s an office-holding Republican left who hasn’t completely lost touch with reality.

“It’s disturbing that Howard Dean would plot to use the life of Terri Schiavo for political gain,” [Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt] said Saturday. “This demonstrates a troubling lack of sensitivity and one would hope that Democrat leaders in Congress would reject such a strategy.

“The American people expect their leaders to provide solutions and principled leadership rather than overt partisan politicking.”

My god. If she was able to pull that off with a straight face, she ought to consider having a go at professional poker. Those are some serious, serious balls she’s got.

(Hat tip: WTF Is It Now?)

Question of the Day

What do you find the most amusing goal of the Religious Right and why?

Obviously, this isn't really a funny topic, because their agenda is really scary and antidemocratic, but there's something to be said for using humor to deal with that which plagues you. I think my choice has to be the goal of eliminating birth control. Liberals have lots more sex than they do, but fewer kids. If we start having huge families, there will be more of us to counter their idiocy. They ought to fight to make sure we've got birth control with every breath in their bodies.

Monday Blogwhorin'

Your chance to promote your blog, other blogs, and various things of interest.

What's going on?

Scary Santorum

Atrios, who’s celebrating three years of blogging (zoinks), wants to know if anyone else finds this creepy?

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

Um, yes. Not so much that they did it, but that they shared it with a reporter.

Other fun excerpts from the article:

Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey once wondered whether Santorum is "Latin for [anus]."

He is ensconced in the most divisive issues in America's culture wars: homosexuality, abortion, the role of religion in public life, and most recently, the Terri Schiavo controversy. He has compared homosexuality to incest and called the preservation of traditional marriage "the ultimate homeland security issue." He is a proponent of applying religious values to political institutions, and hosts a course on Catholic doctrine for members of Congress (open to Republicans only) in his hideaway office.

Santorum disputed the AP's account, calling it "misleading." The AP in turn released a transcript of the entire interview, which yielded this: "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality," Santorum said. "That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."

He is reflecting on the pope's funeral, which he attended with Karen as part of a congressional delegation. He found himself looking around St. Peter's Basilica at all the princes and presidents and dignitaries surrounding him. He was seated next to Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ."

Yeesh.

Mein Gott!

A LEADING candidate for pope was in the Hitler Youth and saw service in the German army.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is nicknamed The Panzer Cardinal and God's Rottweiler because of his rigorous defence of the faith.

The 78-year-old German joined the young Nazi movement in Bavaria aged 14 in 1941.

And further uh-oh:

At one point, he guarded a factory where slaves from a concentration camp were forced to work. He was later shipped to Hungary, where he reportedly saw Jews persecuted.

Well, I know who’s got the Gibson family vote.

This obviously isn’t news, because I remember an episode of Law & Order from awhile ago that obviously borrowed the story. It was news to me, though.

Shouldn’t this automatically preclude him from consideration, or does the Catholic church really not give a shit about Jews (or anyone or anything else but itself) anymore?

(Pam’s got more here.)

Miserable Failure

Catching Osama bin Laden, securing our borders, and streamlining national intelligence aren’t the only things the administration has failed to accomplish since 9/11:

Security at American airports is no better under federal control than it was before the Sept. 11 attacks, a congressman says two government reports will conclude.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the Homeland Security Department's inspector general are expected to release their findings soon on the performance of Transportation Security Administration screeners.

[…]

"The common finding is that no set of screeners, private nor public, is performing anywhere near the level I think we need," [Representative Peter A. DeFazio, D-Oregon] said.

Awesome.

Four more years! Four more years!