Shakesville

Rent: just too gay

Some parents in Rhode Island are freaking out because the local high school is having a field trip to see the movie Rent. (WTF? Why didn't we have field trips like that when I was in HS?) The parents think that the film is too gay for high school students to see:

(Glocester, Rhode Island) A group of parents is calling a high school field trip a "promotion of homosexuality". The parents are threatening to pull their teenage children from a Ponaganset High School trip to see the movie "Rent" at a local theater.

"Rent", the film version of the long running Pulitzer and Tony-winning drama, is about a group of young New Yorkers coming to grips with poverty and AIDS features two gay couples.

"The lifestyles depicted in this movie are not the majority, not the lifestyles of 99.9 percent of the kids that live in these two towns," School Committee cochair Donna Mansolillo told a meeting of the committee this week.

So because the "lifestyles" are different from people in the towns that means high school students should not see the movie? Because it has something different in it? Is there enough air in that there bubble?

Where did they get their information? Did they see the theatrical production? Did they preview the movie itself? Of course not:

Mansolillo then handed out a review of the film by the conservative group Focus on the Family that calls the movie "an in-your-face glorification of homosexuality and lesbianism."

They got their information from James Dobson! Now there is a legitimate, objective source to go to. Sure.

Thankfully, there are some people who are capable of rational thought:

"I just don't get what the problem is," Kelly Hunter said. "If you don't want your kid to go, don't sign the [permission] slip."

Now that's a concept! Wonder why the others couldn't understand that? Maybe it's because their first place to turn to for information is James Dobson.

And good on the principle, who refused to cave to the bubble-set:

Principal Joseph P. Maruszczak has refused to cancel the trip, saying that it will encourage classroom discussions about diversity and tolerance.

(hat tip to Pam)

The GOP Is Shameless

How shameless? Via Memeorandum, I find that the odious Drudge has announced the unveiling of a new GOP video, put together by the Republican National Committee, attacking Dems on the war. It shows a white flag being waved over images of Dem leaders making “anti-war remarks.” According to Drudge, another in the endless stream of anonymous Republican strategists claims that the video will make Dems crazy, and will be “devastating” for the Democratic Party.

Here’s the thing. One of the Democratic leaders in front of whom a white flag is waved is John Kerry. Aside from the sheer temerity of an administration rife with chickenhawks waving a white flag in the face of a decorated war hero, check out what Kerry actually says in the video:

There is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, women…

Then comes the white flag.

What, exactly, is the message? That the GOP thinks American soldiers should be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night to terrorize women and children? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the Iraqis were the people we were supposed to be helping. So much for “spreading freedom,” eh?

I guess the GOP has given up all pretense of construing average Iraqis as anything but our enemies. If the ad is right, and “Our soldiers are watching…and the enemy is, too,” hearing our administration’s official position is that Iraqis are not to be treated with respect, but as dangerous criminals, and anything less is cowardly, will come as quite a surprise to both of them.

The ad is certainly successful in making one party look like assholes, but it isn’t the Democrats.

Mr. Wankenstein Strikes Again

Dalton Conley is at it again. (If you missed his first go-round, see here, or better yet, Maria Luisa Tucker’s piece here.)

Atrios aptly sums up Conley’s newest attempt to cast his views on abortion as anything but complete and utter claptrap:

I should not have written that a man should be able to get an injunction against a woman having an abortion when what I meant was that he should only be able to get such an injunction by paying just compensation for the temporary seizure of the women's uterus as determined by independent arbitration.

What. A. Wanker.

Indeed.

Frankly, I think everything you need to know about Conley can be summed up in this sentence from his new screed:

Think of men’s inability to conceive as a disability that needs to be overcome by law where science is not able: nowhere is this brought into sharper focus than in the differences between female and male same sex couples. Someday there may be an artificial womb that will allow (gay) men to have kids by rushing off to the ova bank…

Good lord. There are so many things wrong with that passage, I don’t even know where to begin. It is, however, extremely interesting that, should science be able to help men clear the hurdle of their “disability,” Conley implies that only gay men will take advantage of it. Straight dudes like him will still have their bitchez handle the baby business.

That seems to sum up his position pretty well—he wants all the choice and none of the responsibility. Douche.

Friday Blogrollin'

Stop by and say hi to:

Orcinus

Busy Busy Busy

Radioactive Quill

A Cat and Twenty

Mixter’s Mix

Mike Wallace: Feisty Bitch

Oddjob pointed me in the direction of this interview in the Boston Globe. The whole thing is worth a read, but this is my favorite part:

Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?

A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

Runner-up:

Q. How long do you plan to keep working?
A. Until my toes turn up.

Wallace has just released a new memoir, Between You and Me.

Quick Takes

Larisa Alexander continues the much-needed focus on the Oregon rape case at HuffPo, as does Carla at Preemptive Karma.

Spudsy's off to New York, but has a second round of tracks for your Smart Patrol Xmas CD here.

House, Senate Agree to Extend Patriot Act

Bleh.

Russ Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, is still just about the only one who seems to find it as thoroughly distasteful as I do:

"I will do everything I can, including a filibuster, to stop this Patriot Act conference report, which does not include adequate safeguards to protect our constitutional freedoms," said Sen. Russ Feingold…

Feingold and five other senators from both parties issued a statement that said, "We believe this conference report will not be able to get through the Senate." They said they wouldn't support it in any form.

The other senators are Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ken Salazar of Colorado.

Meanwhile, the McClellatron 3000 issued its preprogrammed response.

(That’s his actual quote, btw.)

Carnivals!

The Carnival of the Feminists is up at The Happy Feminist. The next carnival will be at Scribblingwoman on December 21. Submissions should be sent to jones AT unbsj DOT ca by December 18.

And the Skeptic’s Circle is up at Circadiana. The next edition will be hosted by Immunoblogging on December 22. Submission info can be found here.

Hi-Def

The difference between what stars look like in reality, and what they look like onscreen or in the pages of magazines, has been long discussed—as a source of interest and amusement for lots of people, and as a very real issue in need of perspective by those who are concerned with the increasing frequency of body dysmorphic disorders among young women and men, some of whom feel that debunking an unrealistic beauty standard is part of undermining the societal pressures that contribute to such dysfunctions. It’s no big task to find online examples of photo retouching, and the tabloids love to run photos of celebrities “caught” without make-up. Cameron Diaz, who has a well-documented problem with acne, is a favorite target in particular, even though this allegedly horrific problem makes her look exactly like any other woman with a break-out. Famously, Jamie Lee Curtis sought to illustrate the difference between reality and image in a photo shoot for More magazine.

But while Jamie Lee (who still doesn’t look like crap, even when she’s trying to) and others try to raise awareness about just how contrived image can be, other stars are supposedly growing concerned about the growing popularity of HDTV, which offers a picture up to six times clearer:

The technology … produces images so sharp that even subtle imperfections, usually hidden by make-up or flattering lighting, are brutally exposed.

To be honest, I’m not sure how concerned stars are getting about how they look in HDTV, since any information about it seems to lead back to one guy. But he does raise some interesting questions about how the technology could indeed affect careers so heavily reliant on beauty. I remember when Mr. Shakes and I saw The Matrix Reloaded in IMAX, we were both shocked at seeing how messed up Keanu Reeve’s skin actually is, compared to the flawless alabaster it normally appears to be. Lawrence Fishburne’s skin, which doesn’t appear perfect under normal circumstances, looked like the surface of the moon. (Mr. Shakes and I both cringed at the mere thought of what we would look like under the same circumstances; I can live an entire lifetime not seeing my nose pores appear large enough to drive a truck through.)

HDTV isn’t IMAX, but it is an interesting question as to how this technology might affect how we (quite literally) view stars. I’m also curious as to see whether, if it has any affect at all, it will disproportionately affect women, who, after all, have a much higher threshold to meet than their male counterparts. (Let’s face it—the female equivalent of Phillip Seymour Hoffman would not have the same career he does.) Frankly, I’m pretty hopeful that being able to tell that someone like Mariska Hargitay (and here, on HDTV—still stunning) is 41 years old doesn’t matter to people anymore. Perhaps causing Hollywood to relax its beauty standards after we get a better glimpse of reality is too much to expect, but it would be swell if it didn’t react by tightening them. I’d like to think that the only thing that HDTV will change is our perspective.

“Pro-Life” Reimagined…

…as genuinely pro-life. Quite a concept.

Check out Nancy Goldstein’s great column on the issue. An excerpt:

What might the world look like if our elected officials and “pro-life” activists devoted the time, energy, and funding they currently spend on restricting abortion to helping women to care for their families? Or to ensuring that pregnant women live in a country where they need not worry that their children will survive infancy or go without health care, food, shelter, a good education, and a safe and healthy environment?

The reason women most often cite for getting an abortion is insufficient means to care for a child. Criminalizing abortion does absolutely nothing to solve that problem. Yet the anti-choice crowd continues their march against abortion, unconcerned with the inevitable consequence of any success they might have.

(Further related reading: See this one-two punch from LeMew on the conservative plan to incrementally dismantle Roe. It’s really good stuff; I can’t recommend it enough. And more from LeMew here.)

"We complement each other in every way."

I love this story. Bernard and Joyce Rogers, a British couple, got married in 1967. In 1991, Bernard became Bernadette after undergoing a sex change operation. They have stayed married, because “We have exactly the same affection for each other we have always had. We have an absolutely ideal relationship. We complement each other in every way.” As long as they were married, however, Bernadette could not be legally recognized as a woman…until now.

Before "remarrying", the couple first had to divorce - because the Gender Recognition Bill does not acknowledge a change in a transsexual's gender if the person remains married. A judge this week granted the couple an early release from divorce proceedings at Northampton County Court, giving Bernadette a new birth certificate which showed she is a woman. They were then able to have their civil union ceremony.

How cool are these two? A relationship that can survive so much is really inspirational, and its circumstances exemplify exactly why we need the equivalent of Britain’s Gender Recognition Bill in America. In the confines of a single relationship, it has given one person the freedom to live (and be legally recognized) as she wants, and has given both of them the opportunity to have their relationship be as equal now between two women as it was between a woman and a man.

I wonder how it is that anyone could read about the Rogerses and object to granting the same rights, the same happiness, to people in America.

The proud 76-year-old added: "I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom this morning and thought, 'Yes, you have done it now.' It is a sense of completion."

That’s not radical. That’s the same sense of joy and fulfillment that everyone wants.

President Mandate Can’t Fill a Room

Think Progress shares a last-minute evite they received to the president’s speech yesterday for the Council on Foreign Relations, encouraging them to bring a friend—a ploy that, evidently, failed, since Bush was unable to fill the room. The WaPo reports, “Only a few hundred members showed up for the hastily organized event at a Washington hotel and empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived.”

Oh, and it gets worse. “The audience interrupted Bush for applause only once during the speech and even then, many, if not most, did not clap. There was polite applause when he finished.” Ouch.

Bush chose a more skeptical audience yesterday in addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan organization of diplomats, academics and journalists, many of whom oppose his Iraq policy.

The White House was not allowed to hang its usual slogans, such as "Plan for Victory," behind the presidential lectern. At the same time, Bush refused to honor the council tradition of taking questions from the audience, as Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have done.

Yeesh.

Coulter Heckled

Saucy conservative vixen and professional rude asshole Ann Coulter was unable to finish a speech at UConn last night amidst heckling from the crowd:

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming.

Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

She was then quoted as declaring the audience “full of poopyheads” and retired to the corner to eat wet cigarette butts and pout.

Apparently, some of those dumbos at UConn took issue with Coulter’s calling Bill Clinton an “executive buffoon” and Barbara Boxer “learning disabled.” One would think such well thought-out arguments would be met with fawning approval. Instead, several student groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center criticized Coulter “for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.”

Good for them. I’m all for free speech, even Coulter’s bile…and I wholly support the right of those who are willing to shout her down, too. (Via Raw Story.)

Shakers, Are You Sitting Down?

Because I have some shocking news for you. The military lied about the circumstances surrounding the largest death toll suffered by U.S. soldiers in Iraq in a single incident since August:

Last Friday the Marine Corps had announced that the 10 Marines were on foot patrol and hit in an ambush on Thursday by a roadside bomb, an improvised explosive device, or IED, "made from several large artillery shells," the Marines said, according to the Associated Press dispatch. Eleven Marines were wounded in the explosion.

But then …

The military announced on Tuesday that it actually happened at a "promotion" ceremony and they were not on foot patrol as initially reported.

Families of the victims immediately raised questions about the incident and it was unclear whether the site had been properly swept for explosive devices.

The Marines were in a disused flour mill on the outskirts of the city to celebrate the promotion of three soldiers, a military statement said on Tuesday.

As the ceremony ended, the Marines dispersed and one of them is thought to have stepped on a buried pressure plate linked to explosives that caused the devastating blast.

You don’t think this has anything to do with it, do you?

The attack came was just a day after President George W. Bush had given a speech outlining his strategy for Iraq and saying he would settle for "nothing less than complete victory."

Let’s recap. Suggesting bringing our soldiers home from a war we cannot win, may very well be doing more harm than good at this point for the people we’re ostensibly helping, and is clearly being mismanaged, is both unpatriotic and indicative of not supporting the troops. Misrepresenting the deaths of 10 marines to avoid admitting they may be due to said mismanagement and because the truth might undermine a political speech is, instead, demonstrative of supporting of the troops.

Got it.

Question of the Day

It’s a two-parter.

1. Where is Bush going in his snappy trousers?

I say he’s off for some jazzercising.

2. What is your least favorite clothing item or accessory of all time?

I think it’s a toss-up between parachute pants and fanny-packs.

(Image via CapitolBuzz.)

Condi Dogged by Doubt

So, poor Condi has spent her whirlwind European tour being harassed by questions about our secret CIA prisons, alleged CIA prison flights to Europe, and our accidentally detaining a German citizen and flying him to Afghanistan for questioning. Poor dear—I bet she hasn’t even had time to go shoe shopping!

Condi has assured Europe that “Our people, wherever they are, are operating under US law and US international obligations,” but they’re not so sure. Huh. I can’t imagine why they might not believe her. The Bush administration has always been both honest with and respectful of them in the past.

Ohhhhh, Snap!

Think Progress with the smackdown:

Lieberman yesterday: “It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.” Murtha today: “Undermining his credibility? What has he said that would give him credibility?”

I totally know who my money would be on in a fight.

More Blech

Ezra would like someone to explain to him why folks think Townhall.com is important enough to read and wonders if there’s any value (other than humor) in debunking their (and similar sites’) ludicrous arguments.

As you’ve probably noticed, I almost never link to conservative sites, but it’s mainly because I don’t read them. I can't even stand to read a single shitty sentence at drivel depositories like Townhall. Politics notwithstanding, the writing is abysmal.

Attention Conservatives: Bunch Up Your Panties

Michael Schiavo has started a PAC.

But now, as the one-year anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death approaches, Michael Schiavo is changing his approach and preparing to enter the political fray. Terri's fate has already been decided. Now her husband wants to claim her legacy. "For 15 years, I have been watching the politicians working their ways into my case. I felt I needed to do something when this was all said and done," Schiavo told Salon on Tuesday. "I didn't ask for this fight, but now I am ready."

This week Schiavo will roll out a new political action committee, called Terri PAC, with the hope of raising money to defeat the politicians who tried to intervene in the legal battle between Schiavo and Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. "Whatever I can do, I am going to do," says Schiavo, who works as a nurse in the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Fla. Starting in January, he plans to change his work hours to three 12-hour shifts a week, allowing him more time to work on politics.

Cue the Radical Right accusing Schiavo of doing exactly what they did: Exploiting his wife for political gain.

Gee, I predicted that even without a crystal ball.

(Cross-posts are big, yeah yeah yeah... they're not small, no no no...)

The "Drag Queening" of Christmas

Seriously, you need to go watch this clip right now. Olbermann barely keeps a straight face.

I've always said... the best way to deal with these ridiculous fundies and conservatives? Laugh at them.