I agree with LeMew, who says: "I agree with Lindsay—the choice of photos for the article about women in the military suffering from PTSD is exceedingly strange, although this charitable interpretation of the editors' motives is plausible enough. Kay has more on the article's substantive content."
God'll Get You For That
Yesterday saw the release of the Emmy-winning 1970's television series "Maude" season 1 on dvd. Growing up as a kid in the 70's, my parents watched "All in the Family", "Maude" and "The Jeffersons" religiously. They and my grandmother would just laugh and laugh over "that Archie Bunker" or "Maude's balls" as my dad would say. I never really got what the fuss was about, but then I was too busy playing with my blocks and mud pies.
It wasn't until the 1990's when the shows surfaced again on TvLand (as well as "Archie Bunker's Place") that I started watching regularly and was frankly shocked at what subjects they were able to tackle/talk about/get away with on those shows during that time period. If Archie Bunker was the conservative "lovable bigot" who couldn't get used to "them minororities", then Maude was the liberal anti-dote; fiery, in-your-face, self-righteous to the point of bigotry herself.
Every time I would watch an episode, I would think, they could never get away with shit like that on t.v. anymore.
Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed Jill Vejnoska's take on the release of "Maude" in this past Sunday's Atlanta Constitution. Vejnoska is the AJC's t.v. critic and she nails exactly why "Maude" is such a great show and how, given our afraid-to-offend culture today, the show wouldn't last a single episode (bolds mine).
"The Emmy-winning sitcom "Maude" would never even make it onto broadcast TV now. Its bold story lines about race, abortion, feminism and drugs would have the typical 2007 network executive balled up in a corner, cradling old "Touched by an Angel" tapes and trying to ignore the fallout from all sides of the political and moral spectrum.
"In every way, "Maude" is too grown-up to be a network sitcom these days. The actors all look age-appropriate for their characters (indeed, frequent guest star Rue McClanahan, who joined the cast full time in Season 2, looks older than she did 12 years later on "The Golden Girls"). That couldn't happen now, when everyone's literally and figuratively trying to clone "Friends."
"We live in an era in which broadcasting images of dead soldiers' closed coffins is considered taboo, but nobody bats an eye at the nearly naked bodies gyrating on "The Pussycat Dolls Present:" It pays to be dumb on TV ("Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" is the No. 3-ranked show), and comedy has largely ceded what passes for frank discussions of sexism and race to reality shows like "Survivor," but only peripherally and only among people who look really good in bikinis."
Read Vejnoska's entire piece. She absolutely nails what's wrong with dumbed-down t.v. today and why there may be some truth to the old line "they just don't make 'em like that anymore."
cross-posted from AoF
Heroes
Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley (left) and Karri Cormican work at Noe's Bar in San Francisco, as a bartender and waitress, respectively. And they are also heroes of the highest order.
Cormican was serving a couple on a date who looked like they were having a good time—and was shocked to see, when the woman got up to use the restroom, the man "shake a white powder into the Hefeweizen beer he had ordered for his date."
"Did I really see that?" Cormican asked herself. "Why would he do that? It seemed like they were having fun."But our story doesn't end there.
… Cormican, 23, quickly approached the bartender, Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley, 27, and told her what she had seen. The two women hatched a plan.
Cormican returned to the table and told [Joseph Szlamnik, at the time a 43- year-old senior management assistant for the San Francisco Unified School District] and his date, whom the court identified only as Tatiana K., then 34, that the woman's beer had come from a fermented keg and that they were going to replace it. Cormican brought her a Stella Artois.
Cormican carried the adulterated Hefeweizen to Bridgeman-Oxley and out of sight into a back room. They held it up to the light and saw, unmistakably, a white powder. At a preliminary hearing last summer, Nikolas Lemos, chief forensic toxicologist at the San Francisco medical examiner's office, identified the powder as zalepron, a prescription sleeping drug sold as Sonata.
After they saw the white powder, says Bridgeman-Oxley, they were panicked. "We had to figure out a way to keep her away from this man." So when Tatiana went outside to smoke, Cormican followed her with the tainted beer and showed it to her. Then Bridgeman-Oxley came running out to tell them "He did it again"—Szlamnik had dropped two pills into Tatiana's new beer.
All three women looked through a window and saw Szlamnik trying to wipe up beer that had foamed over the edge of Tatiana's glass and was fizzing as if there were Alka-Seltzer in it.That makes me all verklempt just thinking about it!
In fact, as Dr. Lemos would later testify, the pills were alprazolam, commonly sold as Xanax, a central nervous system depressant prescribed to relieve anxiety. "In combination with alcohol," Lemos testified at the preliminary hearing, the two drugs "are encountered frequently in drug-facilitated sexual assaults ... without giving the victim the chance ... to even realize what's going on."
On the sidewalk, Tatiana was sobbing. Bridgeman-Oxley stalked back into the bar with Tatiana following, swiped the foaming glass off the table and looked the stunned Szlamnik in the eye when he began to protest that she had served him a second bad beer.
He said to Tatiana, "Let's go."
"You're date's over, mister," the bartender told him. "She's staying with us."
The asshole wannabe rapist offered to buy all three women a shot of whiskey, and when they (shockingly!) declined, he took off. The police were called, and, when they arrived, they were given the two beers.
Last week, Szlamnik was sentenced to a year in jail "on narcotic charges related to the incident."
Way to go, girls!
(Thanks to Shaker Susan for passing that along.)
Oh, Wingnuts—You Never Fail to Delight!
Over at WorldNetDaily, there's a breathless story about some local Chicago DJs who applied for a trademark on the phrase "It's an Obamanation!" and were turned down, because—duh—the slogan was "offensive or objectionable." Personally, I don't think trademarks should be denied on those grounds, but they are, so the DJs should never have figured on getting approval. Then again, I've heard John Howell and Cisco Cotto, and they're total flaming idiots, so wev.
Okay, but here's the zany part of this story: In the correspondence from the attorney handling the trademark application, there was a description of why it was being denied, including a dictionary definition of the word "abomination" and a "number of screenshots of websites as background material to justify her decision," one of which "absolutely stunned Cotto."
"It is a Wikipedia entry for a pretty disgusting, unorthodox sexual device," said Cotto, struggling to find a way to politely describe what he received. "I was at work, and my jaw dropped open. I literally screamed for my co-workers. They freaked out just as I did."What was the "disgusting, unorthodox sexual device" that so alarmed Cotto he screamed and could barely explain to his wife what it was…?
…Cotto says he had trouble explaining to his wife what was included in the rejection notice, and even more trouble trying to describe it on his morning radio program, aware of Federal Communications Commission regulations.
A butt plug!
I have no idea why on earth an attorney at the Patent and Trademark Office would include a screenshot of Wikipedia's butt plug page in her correspondence with Cotto, but I suspect this woman is either a complete kook or a comedy genius.
Either way, she could not have evoked more hilarious apoplexy from the aggrieved Cotto, whose delicate sensibilities may never recover.
"I would have been fined by the FCC if I explained what the federal government sent us in e-mail. I am not risking losing my job over this. If it were a dildo, you could say 'marital aide.' This is not a device you'd find in the average bedroom."
SWOON!
But wait—here's the best part: "Despite the whole sordid affair, Cotto and WIND Radio are not letting the trademark refusal hinder their efforts to raise money for charity, as they've set up a website selling clothing, cups, buttons and stickers all emblazoned with the 'Obamanation' slogan."
Aww, bless. The Market really is the answer to every conservative problem, even the terrible tragedy of testicular recoilitis at the monstrous sight of the dastardly butt plug!
Doc Dump and Emailing
There was another huge document dump last night regarding the Prosecutor Purge—3,000 pages of related documents; NYT coverage here—and some interesting things are already beginning to trickle out. Former Gonzo deputy Kyle Sampson (who resigned last Monday) expressed concern in an email "about one of the fired attorneys testifying before Congress. … Sampson indicated his concern over questions [Bud Cummins] would likely have to answer and advised against [testifying]. Some of the questions Sampson feared Cummins would have to answer were 'Did you resign voluntarily?' and 'Were you told why you were being asked to resign?' … The Justice Department replaced Cummins with an associate of White House political adviser Karl Rove."
Huh. Seems to me, there's no reason to be concerned about those questions if there are perfectly sound and reasonable answers.
Another interesting tidbit is that there "are no emails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use email." Well, my my my. Another top Bush administration official who doesn't use email. The ignorance of the internets in that joint is downright astounding. They need to call the Video Professor.
Or maybe it has something to do with Bush's profound paranoia about email. Maybe it's a top-down policy about which someone needs to ask the president, instead of pretending as per usual that he's just too damn dumb to know what's happening in his administration. Every blog in the lefty blogosphere should be asking two questions today—"Why do the president and many of his top staffers not use email?" and "Are they attempting to skirt the provisions of the Presidential Records Act?"—and posting this video.
[The full text of what he says about not using email at all is: "I tend not to email—not only tend not to email, I don't email, uh, because of, uh, the different record requests that could happen to a president. I don't want to receive emails, 'cause, you know, there's no telling what somebody would email me and it would show up as, uh, you know, part of some kind of a story that—and I wouldn't be able to say, 'Well, I didn't read the email'—'But I sent it your address; how can you say you didn't?' So, in other words, I'm very cautious about emailing."]
Seriously, this shit needs to be hung right around the Googler's neck. Between the outside email domains and the refusals to use email at all, it seems fairly suggestive of a criminal effort to maintain secrecy—and it emanated from the Oval Office.
White House Seeking Replacement for Gonzo
That's the rumor, anyway. Under some circumstances, I might call that a trial balloon, but I don't think there's any real doubt among anyone—even the ridiculously stubborn White House—that Gonzo's days are numbered. I love the list of wingnut cronies being considered:
Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend. Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect. So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job.Also listed for possible consideration are Tennessee Senator Fred "Law & Order" Thompson, former Ashcroft deputy and current general counsel of Pepsi Larry Thompson, retired federal judge and co-chair of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the US Regarding WMDs Laurence Silberman, and former deputy AG and leader of Bush's legal team during the Florida recount George Terwilliger III.
On Monday night, Republican officials said two other figures who are being seriously considered are Securities and Exchange Committee Chairman Chris Cox, who is former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and is popular with conservatives; and former Attorney General William P. Barr, who served under President George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and is now general counsel of Verizon Communications.
What a list. From Katrina crony to corporate cronies to recount crony. At least Bush is considering the whole gamut…of cronies.
Maybe Bush could try something new his last two years in office, something like not constantly breaking the goddamned law, so he could nominate an Attorney General that's good for the country, as opposed as some asskissing loyalist who will fall on his own sword to protect that collection of White House hooligans. Maybe he could go straight and nominate Patrick Fitzgerald.
Or someone like him, since Fitzy was " ranked among prosecutors who had 'not distinguished themselves' on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday."
The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.Never mind that he's good at his job. His loyalty was for shit!
The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.
Question of the Day
Are you superstitious about anything?
I'm not superstitious at all, save for touching/knocking wood. Mr. Shakes and I both do it. I don't know why that sticks, when nothing else does. I walk under ladders, spill salt, coo at black cats crossing my path, step on cracks, go through life with no lucky numbers, objects, or clothes. But I touch wood about the smallest things.
"Hopefully the library will have a copy of it."
"Touch wood!"
Like someone in my one-horse, many-horse's-asses town is going to check out The Complete Plays of Aristophanes in the five minutes it takes us to drive to the library.
"Ooh, you're so lucky. There were three other people here looking for it just now, but coincidentally, they all forgot their library cards!"
"Thank the fates I touched wood!"
Quote of the Day
"There's been good progress. There's a lot more work to be done… Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won." — President Bush, today, during his address on the Fourth Anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom
That President Bush. Such a tease.
Phew! That's a big sigh of relief!
Ann Coulter's upcoming book isn't being cancelled:
Ann Coulter may be dealing with newspapers upset over her use of an anti-gay slur to describe former North Carolina senator John Edwards, but she is having no problems with her latest book, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, which is set to be published in October by Crown Publishing Group.Nice title.
Look for my upcoming book, If Ann Coulter Had a Modicum of Shame, She Would Have Killed Herself Years Ago, on bookshelves this summer.
Project Shaker Mosaic: Home Stretch!
Big thanks to everyone who has sent in a photo to include in our very own Shaker Mosaic. Shakes is in the process of formatting all of the images at this very moment, but is still willing to accept more photos until the official deadline of midnight tonight.
So, for anyone who's still on the fence, jump off and send those pics in, damnit! You'll see - it will be worth it.
Gay Bomb
"Distasteful, but completely non-lethal."
And yes, it's true. They also considered a fart bomb. A fart bomb. Think about it: The US Defense Department seriously considered creating a bomb to fill the enemy with self-doubt as to whether he who smelt it actually dealt it.
Yes, we really are a nation of five-year-olds.
Enjoy the last bit; it's the cherry on the sundae.
In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.And, of course, our shit doesn't stink.
Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.
However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".
Seriously, "America's Enemies" could defeat us all simply by calling up random people in the White Wouse, scream "UNDERWEAR!" into the phone and hang up. The Powers That Be would be overcome by a huge screaming fit of the giggles, and anyone could just walk in and take over.
It's an Interesting Time to be a Whistle-Blower
Especially when you're surrounded by so many deaf ears.
Official Alerted FBI to Rules Abuse Two Years Ago
WASHINGTON, March 18 — Almost two years before the Federal Bureau of Investigation publicly admitted this month that it had ignored its own rules when demanding telephone and financial records about private citizens, a top official in that program warned the bureau about widespread lapses, his lawyer said on Sunday.More of the same, more of the same, etc, etc... and of course, this story has the wonderful "are you with us or against us" aspect:
The official, Bassem Youssef, who is in charge of the bureau’s Communications Analysis Unit, said he discovered frequent legal lapses and raised concerns with superiors soon after he was assigned to the unit in early 2005.
Stephen M. Kohn, the lawyer for Mr. Youssef, said his client told his superiors that the bureau had frequently failed to document an urgent national security need — proving “exigent circumstances,” in the bureau’s language — when obtaining personal information without a court order through the use of “national security letters.”
Mr. Youssef said his superiors had initially minimized the scope of the problem and the likely violation of laws intended to protect privacy, Mr. Kohn said.
“He identified the problems in 2005, shortly after he became unit chief,” Mr. Kohn said. “As in other matters, he was met with apathy and resistance.”
Mr. Youssef, born in Egypt, is suing the bureau for discrimination, charging that senior officials improperly suspected his loyalties in part because of his Egyptian origins.Nice. He couldn't possibly be telling the truth... he's one of them ay-rabs, after all... how do we know he ain't workin' with the enemy?
One of the F.B.I.’s few fluent Arabic speakers, Mr. Youssef won the Director of Central Intelligence Award in 1995 for his work infiltrating the Islamic group led by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is now serving a life sentence in prison on charges tied to the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993. From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Youssef was the Justice’s Department’s legal attaché to Saudi Arabia, where he won praise for his work with Saudi officials on investigations of the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996.Okay, so he's an award-winning investigator. That doesn't mean he's telling the truth. Geez. Who are you gonna believe; some brown guy, or his superiors?
intellectual abstinence
When it comes to sex, intellectual-abstinence is what some people want to teach children. See Keith Deltano, "Christian comedian", for example (emphasis mine):
Christian comedian Keith Deltano used fear, shame and misinformation to spread his message about abstinence to students at three high schools in Loudoun County this school year, according to a critique by an organization that advocates comprehensive sex education.Damn straight it "falls far short", as does any program that uses fear, shame, or misinformation. Which, by and large, most abstinence-only programs do as they are mostly based on religious ideals that treat sex as something dirty, to be feared, and shameful (until one is married, then that magic ring makes it all glorious and STD-free!).
The group reviewed Deltano's February performance at Dominion High School in Sterling. Its findings were shared Friday night at an event at George Washington University in Ashburn organized by Mainstream Loudoun and some churches.
[...]
The critique of Deltano's performance at Dominion High was conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. It included criticism of his decision to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms against HIV by dangling a cinderblock over a male student's genital area. The group said the drill gave a message of fear and shame and misrepresented statistics about condom failure.
Overall, the critique said, "the presentation falls far short of helping young people develop the skills and knowledge they need to become sexually healthy adults."
Sex is none of those things. Sex does require a degree of responsibility for oneself and partner with regards to health issues and birth control, which is what young people need to be taught. The abstinence-only nonsense is reprehensible--not providing children/teens with all the information they need with regards to sex and safety is akin to child abuse, frankly. It is deliberately leaving kids ignorant and/or misinformed about situations related to their health (physical and emotional).
These abstinence-only "educators" should be the ones who feel shame.
See also:
"Be Like Me, Be Sex Free!"
teens, sex, and strap-ons to save the day
Old Grandma Hardcore
This is Old Grandma Hardcore, a gamer whose video game exploits are chronicled by her 24-year-old grandson, playing Resistance: Fall of Man. Not worksafe.
Awesome. Old Grandma Hardcore, says her grandson, has "had two knee replacements and countless surgeries. If you were to see her in a grocery store you would see a old, Midwestern diabetic with thick glasses held up by a crutch or a shopping cart stumbling along smiling at everybody. She's polite, a safe driver, mother of five and grandmother of twelve. She's great. But if you get her in front of a game she likes, she becomes a monster; a demon who craves the blood, nay—the life-force of her enemies manifested as a swear happy old lady in a comfy chair. She has destroyed many controllers in frustration, already wore out two PS2's, and will gladly walk into a Gamestop or EB Games with the swagger of one with more knowledge about games and gaming than the teenager behind the counter can ever hope to amass."
Over the Edge: American Family Association
Memories…
When their former columnist Joe "Sodomy Squadron" Murray is even accusing them of "borderline bigoted behavior from an organization claiming the mantle of Christianity," you know the AFA is one sick outfit.
I mean, this is the guy who said: "The Judeo-Christian compass that once guided our leaders and citizens has been displaced. A new moral order, one fueled by hedonism and a mutated form of individualism, has taken its place. … The Sodomy Squadron has been flying high…" and "The Buggery Blitzkrieg that started in 2003 came fast and furious. Not unlike the French of World War II, traditionalists were quickly overrun and astonished at the lightening-fast strike that came from the homosexual lobby. From Lawrence v. Texas to Gavin Newsom's weddings by the bay, traditionalists were overwhelmed by the war that was unleashed on them."
And now he thinks the AFA is too homophobic. Oy.
Charwomen and butthead astronomers
In one corner, the Fox network and its animated show Family Guy . In the other, comedienne and national treasure Carol Burnett. Let the battle commence:
The actress says Fox and its "Family Guy" show paid her back for refusing access to her music and other copyrighted materials by lampooning her in an episode of the animated TV comedy, and now she wants them to pay for the indignity.In a suit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Burnett and her Whacko production company seek more than $2 million for alleged copyright infringement and other claims.
In July 2005, "Family Guy" producers were refused permission to use Burnett's well-known theme music from her long-running former CBS TV show in an episode of the animated series titled "Peterotica," according to the suit. That's when they decided to cook up some paybacks, it claims.
"After permission to use Ms. Burnett's theme music was denied, plaintiffs are informed and believe that Fox caused the 'Peterotica' episode to be rewritten to disparage Ms. Burnett, using Ms. Burnett's signature ear tug," the suit states.
Oh, no! Not the signature ear tug! Is nothing sacred?
In fairness to Burnett, her treatment by Family Guy can be fairly characterized as mean-spirited, what with the porn shop setting and the intimation of father-daughter incest and all.
Puts one in mine of the old story about grouchy astronomer/exobiologist Carl Sagan and Apple Computer:
In 1994, Apple Computer began developing the Power Macintosh 7100. They chose the internal code name "Sagan", in honor of the astronomer. Though the project name was strictly internal and never used in public marketing, when Sagan learned of this internal usage, he sued Apple Computer to use a different project name. Though Sagan lost the suit, Apple engineers complied with his demands anyway, renaming the project "Butthead Astronomer". Sagan sued Apple for libel over the new name, claiming that it subjected him to contempt and ridicule. Sagan lost this lawsuit as well.
I never get tired of that story; Sagan had a gas giant of an ego. Setting aside notions of relative sympathy, however, it's hard to see how Burnett wins this case on copyright grounds. Parody has a pretty broad license, and the likelihood of confusion between the Family Guy treatment and Burnett's mothballed routine isn't very great. But this is why we have courts.
Extra reading: the legal distinction between satire and parody. It's more crucial than you might think.
(Seems we just get started and before we cross-post...)
