"Heh heh heh - you said Bangkok."
Do You Feel a Draft?
The Pensito Review wants to know:
Why is Washington making sure Florida’s draft board is at capacity?Hmm. Good question.
Go read the rest.
Don’t Do It, Molly!
Molly Ringwald said she's in discussions to make a sequel to Sixteen Candles, the 1984 movie about the obstacles and embarrassments a teen girl faces on her birthday.No, it’s just so, so wrong. I haven’t been so annoyed by the suggestion of a sequel since Scorsese and DeNiro were babbling about a follow-up to Taxi Driver. Just leave well enough alone, you dipshits!
The John Hughes film shot Ringwald to teen stardom but she has not appeared in a major role in many years. She said she's been appearing in theater, small TV and film parts and raising a daughter, now 1 1/2 .
Ringwald, 37, said she had been approached repeatedly about doing a sequel but recently read a script that she liked and wanted to star in the movie.
"I've turned it down for years. I couldn't see how it would work," she said Saturday. "Now, it seems right."
Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore
Note: I really debated about whether to post this. It’s the kind of thing that inevitably raises charges of angling for attention, fishing for links, trying to drum up controversy, etc., and really, all I want to do is vent about something that’s irritating me. Readers can take me at my word on that, or assume ulterior motives; that’s something I can’t control. I just felt, in the end, that it was important for me to stand up for what I believe—and every day on this blog I argue for gender politics to be recognized as legitimate and of equal importance to issues like Social Security. I can’t back down no matter at whom my ire happens to be directed. —M.
--------------------
So, recently, Kos ran an ad for TBS’ new reality show, the Real Gilligan's Island, and some women were unhappy with his decision to run the ad, as it featured two sexy women throwing pies at each other.
I saw the ad over the weekend at other places, too, and I didn’t click on it, because I didn’t feel compelled to do so (probably because it wasn’t really designed to catch the attention of someone like me, now was it?). Anyhow, most of the regular Shakers know I’m not exactly uptight or humorless about this stuff—but I’m also not remotely unsympathetic to women who get genuinely upset by it. Even for a woman like me, who doesn’t begrudge a guy the enjoyment he gets from such a thing, it’s not particularly easy to watch without feeling that pang, that sense of what I can only describe as a discomfiting exposure, something like but not exactly embarrassment. Getting it isn’t the same as being unaffected by it.
In any case, whether one opposes or sides with those raising concerns at Daily Kos about the appropriateness of liberal sites running ads for shows that promote the exploitation of women (or something damn close to it), surely people on either side of the debate can see the value in a discussion about it. Raising the question with liberal bloggers, who ostensibly support women’s equality, is a fair one, in my opinion. Kos, however, disagrees:
Wow.Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.
Whatever. Feel free to be offended. I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst. I don't care for such sanctimony from Joe Lieberman, I don't care for it from anyone else. Some people find such content offensive. Some people find it arousing. Some people find it funny. To each his or her own.
But I am not Lieberman. I won't sit there and judge pop culture and act as gatekeeper to what I think is "appropriate", and what isn't.
And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad.It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.
Me, I'll focus on the important shit.
If women who read Daily Kos didn’t have something to be upset about before, they sure do now.
Asking why the most influential liberal blogger is running an ad promoting something that is generally anathema to liberal women is not the same as being a culture-vulture like Joe Lieberman. There’s a big difference between seeking to ban content, and questioning whether that content is in alignment with the objectives of those who profit from it. This distinction seems patently clear to me, but apparently it was easier for Kos to assume to sanctimonious and arrogant tone of which he was accusing women of having in order to scold them for gettin’ uppity, rather than address the actual issue—whether he had chosen to either overtly or covertly condone the exploitation of women.
Kos has a right to disagree with the sentiments of women who are offended by his decision. He also has a right to be condescending…
Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.…dismissive…
Whatever.…judgmental…
I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst.…insulting…
And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site.…egotistical…
Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.…and demeaning…
Me, I'll focus on the important shit.…every right to be all of those things. (As do his merry band of groupthink wankers, many of whose own sexism is put on display in the comments thread associated with the main post). And I have the right to declare him a wanker and remove him from my blogroll, which I’m sure would give him a good laugh, considering I’m a Lilliputian to his Gulliver. But damn it, I won’t stand for that shit. Someone’s gotta stand up to those on our side who would continue to relegate us to the margins, treating our concerns about fairness and respect with mockery and scorn. The liberal sphere is a not a place where strong women should be branded as hysterical or over-reactionary for being concerned about the possible appearance of support for the denigration of their gender, even if there are those who disagree. Disagreement is not the same as ridicule. It’s thoughtless, and worse than that, it’s bad politics.
With friends like these, who needs Republicans?
(I should add that since this was originally written, Kos has apologized for lumping together everyone who’s ever taken a women’s studies class, saying that it was “a poor choice of words that cast the net far too wide to cover the people that have, in fact, pissed me off,” but noted that he stands by his original point that to raise the issue is the same as exhibiting the sanctimoniousness of “people like Lieberman, Dobson, and the Family Values Coalition.”)
Pope Declares Gay Marriages Anarchistic and “Pseudo-Matrimonies”
Pope Benedict, in his first clear pronouncement on gay marriages since his election, on Monday condemned same-sex unions as fake and expressions of "anarchic freedom" that threatened the future of the family.Yeah, all you gays with your demands for pseudo-freedoms and pseudo-equality and pseudo-rights, and you women with your pseudo-desires to have control over when and if you have babies. The true liberation of man comes from the oppression of queers and the subjugation of women. How will men ever be truly free as long as you keep harping on about being pseudo-repressed? Selfish bastards.
The Pope, who was elected in April, also condemned divorce, artificial birth control, trial marriages and free-style unions, saying all of these practices were dangerous for the family.
"Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," he said.
[…]
The Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the Vatican's doctrinal department for more than two decades, said "pseudo freedoms" such as gay marriages were based on what he called the "banalisation of the human body" and of man himself.
(He's really holding onto that whole "man" as shorthand for "humankind" thing. That's some kind of tenacious sexism. It would almost be impressive in its audacity, were it not for the fact that he's one of the most influential men in the world.)
Attention BBA members... fuel for the fire
Go to this post at Democracy Now! for some great Downing Street Memo discussion. Transcripts included.
(Cross-Post)
Don’t Point Those Things at America
Pam’s got a truly outrageous post up about how, as she notes, nipples are the new WMD. The basic gist is that actresses are being forced to tape down their nipples during filming so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of people who are watching shows with titles like Desperate Housewives, the producers of which have also taken to blurring out visible nipple outlines in post-production.
What makes me angriest about this is the notion that there’s something offensive or scandalous about women’s nipples poking through a shirt. Okay, I know it can be titillating (no pun intended) in certain circumstances, but it’s also just a normal human function that happens sometimes (to both women and men—I’m talking to you, Simon Cowell), and I really, really dislike the way that it’s now considered somehow “dirty.”
I’d sooner have the god-botherers whining and the drooling pervs slobbering over the occasionally extra-perky titty than have the whole lot of nips across America maligned as filthy for doing something they’re meant to do.
Jean O’Leary, RIP
Pioneer gay rights activist, Jean O’Leary, organizer of the very first meeting of gay rights advocates in the White House and the first openly gay person appointed to a Presidential commission, has died. O’Leary’s contributions to both the gay rights movement, and on behalf of women in general in her fight for gender equality within that movement, are innumerable. Some highlights:
President Jimmy Carter … named her to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. In that role, she negotiated the inclusion of gay and lesbian rights on the agenda of the International Women’s Year conference held in Houston in 1979. In the 1980s, Jean founded National Gay Rights Advocates (NGRA). As head of NGRA, O’Leary pursued “impact litigation” and won important victories protecting gay people from discrimination in employment, housing and other areas. In 1985 NGRA became one of the first advocacy organizations to focus on the legal and civil liberties ramifications of the AIDS epidemic.Thanks, Jean, on behalf of us all, for making a difference.
Yeah, I know, I'm obsessed...
...but over at Booji Boy's Basement this weekend, I found this Devo Wallpaper (1024 X 768) that I thought the rest of you might enjoy....
(Fluff cross-post)
Army Looks for Linguists...in the Online Classifieds
The Army is recruiting Arabic translators on Craigslist:
Your primary responsibility will be to interpret Middle-Eastern languages into English to help with rebuilding efforts. On a day-to-day basis, you might:You know, maybe the Army shouldn’t have canned a bunch of linguists for being gay. Just a thought. I know it’s a kind of radical notion that our national security is more important than institutionalized discrimination against fags, but maybe we should give it a try for awhile and see how things work out.
* Provide records of foreign language communications
* Translate, transcribe or produce summaries of foreign language materials into English or target languages
* Identify the language spoken in an assigned geographic area
* Scan written foreign language material for key words and indicators
* Translate written and interpret spoken foreign language material to and from English, while making sure to preserve the original meaning
* Translate and transcribe Middle-Eastern language TV and radio broadcasts into English
* Translate foreign books and articles describing foreign equipment and construction techniques
LANGUAGES
The Army Translator Aide Program specializes in the following languages:
Arabic
* Algerian
* Egyptian
* Gulf-Iraqi
* Jordanian
* Lebanese
* Libyan
* Maghrebi
* Modern Standard
* Moroccan
* Syrian
* Sudanese
* Tunisian
* Yemeni
Other
* Pushtu-Afghan
* Pushtu/Pashto/Pachto
* Kurdish
* Kurdish-Behdini (Kurmanji)
* Kurdish-Sorani
* Persian-Afghan (Dari)
* Persian-Iranian (Farsi)
DSM/BBA Update
To Big Brass Alliance Members: Please make sure to join the Forum today, which can be accessed through the BBA page or by going here directly. (Non-blogging Shakers interested in the topic are also welcome to join!)
Information about today’s blogswarm is posted under Alliance News, and my post on the topic is here.
UPDATE: Make sure to visit The Heretik and Freiheit und Wissen for round-ups of the blogswarm - and if you've participated in the swarm, let them know so they can include you.
Here, Among Other Places
The where are all the women bloggers? question is spinning around again. I can’t be bothered. Go read Lance instead.
Toeing that line
For those of you who, like me, had high hopes for Barak Obama (and if you're in Illinois and, like me, voted for him), you might want to go to Body and Soul and check out the email posted there. The comments are quite interesting, too.
So, Senator Obama... that's... it, is it? After Condi and now this... you're really starting to worry me.
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Tom Tomorrow. Cross-posted from my blog.)
Mehlman on Meet the Press
Crooks and Liars has the video of Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press here. He “respectfully disagrees” with everything. Seriously, if he says that once, he says it ten million times. What a dick.
The Plot Thickens: DSM and Bolton
References to the Downing Street Memo are starting to pop up in the strangest places. Most recently, it was noted in an AP report that was about Bush’s nominee to the UN, crazy-ass bastard, John Bolton. In delving into a situation that serves as yet another example of why the miscreant Bolton is unfit for the position for which he has been nominated, the article also further strengthens the case, as seemingly evidenced by the Downing Street Memo, that the Bush administration was hellbent on invading Iraq long before they had secured Congressional authority to do so.
The aforementioned situation is this: In 2002, Bolton was key in ousting Jose Bustani, the head of a global arms-control agency, because Bustani was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad, which, as pointed out by the report in Newsday, “might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.”
Here’s the timeline:
1997—Bustani, a Brazilian arms-control specialist becomes founding director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Based in The Hague and operating under a 168-nation treaty banning chemical weapons, OPCW’s inspectors oversee the destruction of such weapons and to inspect chemical plants in the US, Russia, and elsewhere to ensure chemicals aren’t put to military use.
1998—Bustani steps up his initiative in an attempt to bring Arab nations, including Iraq, into the chemical weapons treaty. The article notes quite bluntly: “Bustani's inspectors would have found nothing, because Iraq's chemical weapons were destroyed in the early 1990s. That would have undercut the U.S. rationale for war because the Bush administration by early 2002 was claiming, without hard evidence, that Baghdad still had such an arms program.”
2000—“[O]ne year ahead of time and with strong U.S. support, Bustani was unanimously re-elected OPCW chief for a 2001-2005 term. Colin Powell, the new secretary of state, praised his leadership qualities in a personal letter in 2001.”
Sometime between 2000 and 2002, it was suggested that Bustani should be removed. The idea, according to Ralph Earle, a veteran US arms negotiator, and Avis Bohlen, a career diplomat and former Bolton deputy, was not Bolton’s, but “Bolton ‘leaped on it enthusiastically,’ Bohlen recalled. ‘He was very much in charge of the whole campaign," she said, and Bustani's initiative on Iraq seemed the "coup de grace.’”
2001—Bolton makes a menacing telephone call to Bustani, trying to interfere “in decisions that are the exclusive responsibility of the director-general” of OPCW. Additionally, Bolton “sought to have some U.S. inspection results overlooked and certain Americans hired to OPCW positions. The agency head said he refused.”
2002—A “white paper” from “Bolton's office said Bustani was seeking an ‘inappropriate role’ in Iraq, and the matter should be left to the U.N. Security Council -- where Washington has a veto.” The US then moved to terminate Bustani’s tenure. “On the eve of an OPCW Executive Council meeting to consider the U.S. no-confidence motion, Bolton met Bustani in The Hague to seek his resignation, U.S. and OPCW officials said. … In the Executive Council, the Americans failed to win majority support among the 41 nations. A month later, on April 21, at U.S. insistence, an unprecedented special session of the full treaty conference was called. … Only 113 nations were represented, 15 without voting rights because their dues were far in arrears. The U.S. delegation had suggested it would withhold U.S. dues -- 22 percent of the budget -- if Bustani stayed in office, stirring fears of an OPCW collapse. This time the Americans, with British help, got the required two-thirds vote of those present and voting. But that amounted to only 48 in favor of removing Bustani -- and seven opposed and 43 abstaining -- in an organization then with 145 member states.” Bustani appealed, but in the interim, a new director-general of OPCW was named.
2003—A three-member UN tribunal sternly rebuked Bustani’s dismissal and “said the U.S. allegations were ‘extremely vague’ and the dismissal ‘unlawful.’ It said international civil servants must not be made ‘vulnerable to pressures and to political change.’”
The AP also notes (emphasis mine):
The Iraq connection to the OPCW affair comes as fresh evidence surfaces that the Bush administration was intent from early on to pursue military and not diplomatic action against Saddam Hussein's regime.This information about the US’ Bolton-led actions against Bustani, in conjunction with the Downing Street Memo, seem clearly to indicate that the US would stop at nothing to manufacture justification for a war with Iraq. Fixing intelligence around the policy, using “spikes of activity” to try to provoke Saddam into doing something that would justify an invasion, and removing any obstacles, like the unfortunate Bustani, that might hinder their path to war. We must continue to demand a formal inquiry into these actions. If the US was taken to war based on deceit and a rationale conjured out of thin air, we must know. And the administration who took us there must be held accountable.
An official British document, disclosed last month, said Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in April 2002 to join in an eventual U.S. attack on Iraq. Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help.
Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
Via Political Wire:
"After nearly 60 years at the pinnacle of American intelligence -- and at the elbow of Presidents -- the CIA director is no longer automatically welcome at the President’s National Security Council (NSC) meetings, Time reports. "John Negroponte, the new director of National Intelligence, has taken his chair."What’s so scary about that? Well, it almost certainly means, based on the past actions of the Bush administration, which has shown repeatedly to favor ideology over reality, that career ideologue John Negroponte will be issuing information-gathering demands to the CIA based on policy, rather than the administration using fact-based information garnered by the CIA to dictate policy. Such ass-backwards bullshit is exactly why we’re stuck in the quagmire that is Iraq.
Amnesty International: “Absurd, My Ass!”
Okay, not quite, but close:
In a letter to the editor published Saturday in The New York Times, William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International, responded to President Bush's widely-published charge that the group's charges of wide human rights abuses in the war on terror were "absurd." Schulz called the charge "ironic."Huh. Good questions all. I think the answer has something to do with “hypocrisy,” but that’s the answer to so many such questions these days, that it hardly brings a modicum of satisfaction to point it out anymore.
If Amnesty's reports are so "absurd," Schulz asked, "why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea? And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports?”
"No amount of spin can erase the myriad human rights abuses committed by United States officials in the 'war on terror.' The United States cannot simultaneously claim that it 'promotes freedom around the world' while detaining tens of thousands at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and in Iraq and other locations without charge or trial and allowing those civilian and military officials responsible for orchestrating a systematic policy of torture to escape accountability."A response to this, which would necessarily invoke the concept of “irony,” also fails to rouse much satisfaction, nor, in fact and unfortunately, much surprise.
"Instead of attacking us, President Bush should insist upon a truly thorough, independent investigation of those who tried to circumvent global prohibitions on torture, and he should open all detention centers to scrutiny by independent human rights groups. Only then will the world be able to judge whether it is Amnesty International or the president whose perspective deserves to be called 'absurd.'"The list of things that President Bush should do, but won’t, is so long that it has itself become truly absurd.
I salute Amnesty International’s attempts to register, once again, discontentment with the Bush administration’s hypocrisy, ironic posturing, and abject incompetence. The problem we face, however, is that there seems to be a finite number of Americans with whom such concerns actually register, and we’re so saturated with examples that we’re suffering from a collective case of outrage fatigue so severe that we have been left completely without the ability to discern whether we should laugh or cry anymore.
There’s far too much shock, anger, and indignation to go around, and far too few people informed enough to carry the burden of maintaining the requisite contempt for this administration that it deserves.
This is yet another great failing of our media—to leave us, those all too small in number who are fighting the good fight against the powers that would see our democracy undermined and our country doomed to its very ruination, carrying upon each of our shoulders far too much, while the rest of our citizens remain blissfully unaware of our thankless task.
No.
Just no.
Care of Susie Madrak, otherwise known as the Suburban Guerrilla:
[Welsh singing star Charlotte Church], 19, said gaffe-prone Bush had no idea where Wales was when she met him after performing for outgoing President Bill Clinton in Washington in 2000.(From the Irish Examiner.)
“Clinton was lovely, in tune with everyone else, but George Bush just hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing,” she said, according to the Daily Record.
“He asked me what state Wales was in. I said: ‘It’s its own country next to England, actually Mr Bush.’
“If he doesn’t know the rest of the countries in Europe, he could at least know what’s in his own country. I’m really worried about it. He’s a right weirdo.”
No.
Separation of Church and State? Not So Much.
Welcome to the separation of church and state, Texas-style, which is not so much separation as codifying discrimination into law in a fucking church:
In a letter to [Texas Gov. Rick Perry] (PDF) sent today, [Americans United for Separation of Church and State] warned that the proposed event is a blatant example of exploiting a house of worship for partisan political purposes and could jeopardize the congregation's tax-exempt status.I can’t really add much to the Reverend’s commentary. What I will note, however, is that the two bills being signed are not particularly Christian, in its traditional sense, which makes for some rather potent irony. Parental consent laws are instructive in revictimizing the most vulnerable of victims—those who have become pregnant through rape or incest by a family member or close friend of the family, making their ability to work through the situation with their parents all the more precarious. As I’ve noted before in a post outlining the value of choice for woman of all ages:
Perry plans to sign the bills this Sunday at an event at Calvary Cathedral in Fort Worth. One bill will require minor girls to have written parental consent before they can get an abortion; another certifies a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that will be on the ballot in November.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that a letter and e-mail from Perry's campaign said that Perry backers "want to completely fill this location with pro-family Christian friends who can celebrate with us" and said they might film the event for TV political advertising later.
"This is one of the most outrageous misuses of a house of worship for political gain that I've ever seen," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "It's of highly dubious legality and could put the church's tax-exemption in jeopardy."
In a perfect world, teens wrestling with an unwanted pregnancy would be able to discuss the situation with their parents, who would have their child’s best interests (whatever decision that means) at heart. But, of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and so we need to deal with the messiness that accompanies imperfection.Parental notification laws don’t do very well in addressing that messiness at all. In the black and white world of the modern American conservative, however, such gray areas are ignored.
Similarly, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is neither democratic nor Christian. The flag of the United States of America, and the Republic for which it stands, represent liberty and justice for all, not for a select group of people based on their sexual persuasion, to the exclusion of others with minority orientations. Separate and unequal doesn’t fly in America, folks. We’ve been through that before, as I recall.
As for the Christian standing of such an amendment, there are two problems with such a claim. First, denying equal rights to another citizen because one finds them “sinful” is not the basis of our law. End of story. Secondly, to the oft-asserted argument that legalizing gay marriage somehow undermines the sanctity of marriage, I’ve addressed this before, too:
[T]he realm of the sacred is not the province of government; [it] conveniently ignores the intrinsic conflict of a government-sponsored protection of the “sanctity” of marriage. Religious marriage ceremonies are sacred. Civil ceremonies are not (necessarily), yet they are still marriages in the eyes of the law. Such semantic tunnel vision also ignores the growing number of religious institutions who will perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples; I attended a mass same-sex wedding at a church in Chicago ten years ago. It’s nothing new; what is new is the debate about legally recognizing the union of the participants. Determinedly fixating on keeping the discussion focused on a debate about the sacred, rather than about equal rights, is becoming gradually more obvious as the thin excuse for supporting full equality that it is.The argument that the sanctity of heterosexual unions is undermined somehow in the eyes of God is simply absurd, because it is, in essence, unanswerable, although anyone remotely versed in Christian theology would assure the concerned that there is nothing in the Christian canon to suggest that God has asserted his right to withdraw his blessing from a heterosexual marriage should two dudes get married in the same state.
So there we are. Two resoundingly hurtful, punative laws, rooted in little less than hatred and ignorance, being signed by the governor of Texas in a church, with the expectation to exploit the situation for future political gain. Quite a scenario. Well done, Texas.
