TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison.
I don't know about you guys, but I felt like an early pub today.
New posts below, natch—including the Shakesville Virtual Sports Bar!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison.
I don't know about you guys, but I felt like an early pub today.
New posts below, natch—including the Shakesville Virtual Sports Bar!
Friday Cat Blogging
I haven't taken any new pics in awhile, so here are some classic pix of the two resident furballs at Shakes Manor:
Matilda would like you to go fuck yourself.
Olivia would like you to notice that she's very cute.
Quote of the Day
"There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea'."—Bloviating retrofucketeer Bill O'Reilly, on safari at a restaurant in Harlem, expressing his utter surprise that black people are sort of like white people.
Hoosier Pride
Total fucking genius Alejandro Valencio of Evansville, Indiana got stuck in the chimney of the house belonging to his girlfriend Connie Deweese when he got drunk and tried to go all Santa on her ass after she locked him out. He was rescued without injury, but the fire department had to tear a massive hole in the wall to do it, and Connie was not pleased: ''I told them to leave him in the chimney and let him die." Oof!
Good fucking lord. It's really the FUBU shirt that puts the icing on this delicious cake of supertrash.
These are the questions I have: Why on earth doesn't he call the cops—or at least move!—when she starts throwing bottles at him? Why is she hitting him with a garbage can in front of rolling TV cameras? Didn't I see this sketch on Mr. Show once? And, most importantly, why do I live in Indiana?
This is why I find My Name Is Earl about as funny as a documentary on coin collecting.
[Via Michael K, who declares Connie "a true American icon."]
Weapon of Mass Awesomeness
Via Recon, who I note with amusement has labeled his post "balding semi-talented relatives of Francis Ford Copolla."
Assvertising
Part wev in an ongoing series…
Stacey May wants to know: "Is it just me? Or does this print ad for P. Diddy's new fragrance seem, well, wrong? Unforgivable Woman? Really?"
"You're a dirty little unforgivable woman, aren't you?"
It's not just her.
The name of the fragrance is, of course, appalling. It sounds like the title of a book written by Kathleen Tuner's fictional romance novelist Joan Wilder, for a start. But it's somehow—unfathomably—made even worse by the accompanying image, as the unforgivable woman in question weakly submits to Sean Combs' manly, masterful advances while he holds her against a wall.
Meanwhile, Combs refuses to edit the accompanying television advert, which is so explicit it's been rejected by MTV, and includes scenes of "Combs pulling up [model Jessica Gomez]'s skirt and putting his hands under her dress. In another scene, a woman holds Gomez's breast and pulls down her underwear."
There's something unforgivable afoot, but I'm not sure it's a woman.
Bush: Foreign Relations Supergenius
In case you missed this stunning portion of his presser, the "C student" showed everyone how he must have also gotten a C in current events:
In a press conference this morning, President Bush tried to assert that Saddam’s brutal rule over Iraq wiped the country clean of potential democratic reformers — individuals who may have possessed leadership skills like former South African President Nelson Mandela. In doing so, Bush inartfully suggested Saddam killed Mandela:The problem with that dumbfuck mistake, aside from the obvious fact that Nelson Mandela is still alive, is that now we've got a problem with South Africa:I thought an interesting comment was made — somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, “Now, where’s Mandela?” Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.
"It's out there. All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive," Achmat Dangor, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said as Bush's comments received worldwide coverage.Fantastic. That's some great Grade-C work, there George, and we didn't even have to bomb them. Another great step forward for America, bitchez.
[...]
References to his death -- Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail -- are seen as insensitive in South Africa.
How not a cowboy is George Bush?
He's afraid of horses, that's how much.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy" – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life".Giddy-up!
He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a "big palomino" horse.
Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush "backing away" from the animal.
''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion," he said, according to the Washington Post.
Mr Bush has spoken of his fondness for shooting doves and cutting brush on his Crawford ranch in Texas, which he bought in 1999.
The property reportedly has no horses and only five cattle.
This is just another thing Mr. Bush and I do not share in common. My whole reason for suffering through Girl Scouting was so I could go to horse camp and learn how to ride! I've pretty much adored horses from the moment my brain could register what a horse was.
Yes, that's my wee diaper-sagged ass feeding carrots to Todie, a horse owned by neighbors. I was about thirteen months old in that photo, which was taken the summer of 1975. Mama Shakes and I used to walk down to the pasture, which was maybe 100 yards from our house, and it always seemed like the longest walk in the world, because I couldn't wait to see Todie, and his small companion pony Princess.
Via Memeorandum.
Hmm
Do you think CNN's decision to pick possibly the ugliest picture of Hillary Clinton I've ever seen, despite her being a rather attractive woman, to accompany a snippet about being asked if she's a lesbian, has anything to do with the tired old trope that that ugly women (especially pissed-off-looking ugly women) must be lesbians? Not the "good" kind, either, who are hot and totally D0 IT!1! for the pleasure of straight men, but the mean, humorless, hairy kind who want rights and stuff.
Why not use this picture, which is used just down the page? (And yes, they repeat images—at least the unflattering ones.) The whole framing seems to say, "She says she's not a dyke, but this picture tells a different story!" Wev.
Doulter Strikes Again... And Misses
In her latest attempt to mislead, due to either laziness or just plain evil, Ann got carried away in her diatribe and fucked up again. While screaming about the evil lawyers (*cough*John Edwards*cough*) going after doctors, she notes that doctors, like her old college roommate, do more good in the world due to organizations like "Doctors Without Borders," subsequently claiming that no such organization like "Lawyers Without Borders" exists. Perhaps the organization doesn't exist in Doulterville, but it sure does in the real world.Lawyers Without Borders bills itself as "the world’s largest group of volunteer lawyers from around the globe who stand ready to offer pro bono service to worldwide projects and initiatives."
Swing and a miss! (Sa-wingggg batta). But perhaps the most heinous lie that she propagated would be this gem:
[...]
Lawyers Without Borders, which is headquartered in the U.S., is not related to Avocats sans Frontieres (AsF), which in translation means also "lawyers without borders."
So actually, there is not one organization named Lawyers Without Borders: there are two.She was going to Johns Hopkins for yet more medical training while I was skiing and following the Grateful Dead.
There is simply no fucking way that this woman actually listened to the Dead. Abso-fucking-lutely not. I mean, listen to her. That's no Dead-head. Never was, and never will be. Next thing you know, she'll be writing an article in November about how Led Zeppelin flew her in specially for the reunion concert so they could hang out with her.
That's right, Ann. Keep on spewing your bullshit for all to enjoy.
Spew, hydra, spew! Good hydra.
[Of course that's Liss' graphic. What were you thinking?]
Ma Moto Chhu
Two observations sent to me recently by thin friends:
From Spillah:
I am sitting at my desk waiting for layouts and reading my Nepali phrasebook. To differentiate between the ser and estar equivalents, it tells me how to say I am a Nepali. ("Ma Nepali hun.")From Mindy:
Next, it tells me how to say, "I am fat." "Ma moto chhu."
There it was, page 11. The book is written by a Nepali. Would you EVER see that phrase on page 11 of an American textbook?
If only they followed with my favorite adjective in Nepali-- applied to absolutely everything:
"Ma raamro hun." I am beautiful. I am good.
I like to see what people put on their vanity plates. Yesterday I saw one that made me think of you: ACTL SZ 2. Apparently this woman needs to flaunt the fact that she is an "actual size 2," not a fake size two like all those fat size fours out there. She should be soooo proud of her accomplishment.I think I've said it before, but one of my biggest fears when I decided to start fat blogging was what my friends -- most of whom are thin -- would think. I knew there was an audience out there for this stuff (though I had no idea there would be so many of you so fast -- THANK YOU!), but it was an audience of strangers. And as Heidi noted the other day, it can be a hell of a lot easier to reveal even your most intimate secrets to a bunch of faceless strangers than to your closest friends.
And the fact is, before this blog, most of my close friends didn't know that I believed in fat acceptance (some didn't know there was such a thing), or that I'd finally sworn off dieting forever. If the subject of my weight came up, most of them would just say I wasn't fat -- meaning, of course, that I don't fit the negative stereotypes of fat people, and I shouldn't feel bad about my body, two things that are true but still don't make me not fat. But until last winter, I couldn't bring myself to ever say, "Hey, you might want to think about why you associate the word 'fat' so strongly with negative characteristics you don't associate with me, you can't even process the thought of me as a fat person, despite the ample (HA!) evidence that I am one."
I mean, obviously, I'm relatively small for a fat person. But that's exactly what I am -- small for a fat person, not big for a thin person. Not in some non-existent category most frequently described as, "Well, you're not exactly thin, but... you're not fat." And definitely not just a floating head with a big brain and some nice hair, completely detached from any body, which is how we often see people we love, I think. I am plus-sized. I am clinically "obese." I am fat. And it's okay.
I didn't say any of that to my friends for a long time. Hell, I never really said it to them -- I just started writing about this shit, knowing they'd read it. And I was nervous about that. What if they thought I was deluded? What if they thought I was just making excuses so I wouldn't have to diet? What if they thought I hated thin people? And most dauntingly, what if they thought I was being stupid -- not looking at or understanding the evidence, not thinking critically and drawing reasonable conclusions? I can handle my friends thinking I'm clumsy, loud, ranty, spoiled, weird, overthinky, depressive, half-crazy, terrible about returning phone calls, only moderately reliable, chronically late, and chronically untidy -- mostly because I am all those things. I couldn't handle them thinking I'm not smart. (I mean, shit, that's practically all I've got going for me, in light of the above.)
As it turned out, I had nothing to be nervous about. There was a little head-scratching among my friends at first, but what I've heard most often from thin friends in the last few months is, "You know, I just never thought about this stuff before. It's really interesting." I've also heard that my blog is helping with their body images, helping them examine their beliefs about fat, helping them see that this is a social justice issue, and helping them see how fucking omnipresent exhortations to lose weight are in this culture -- and what an effect that can have on anyone's self-esteem.
And now, I'm hearing that they're starting to notice the little things, too. A vanity plate. A line in a Nepali textbook that would never appear in an American one, because we're so goddamned fatphobic. How awesome is that?
Not one friend has said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" or "Aren't you worried that you'll just encourage people to be unhealthy?" or "It's okay for you, since you're not really fat, but what about people who are?" or "Seriously, the Harvard School of Public Health says you're wrong, dude." None of the stuff I was afraid of. Plenty of strangers have said those things, but none of my friends. (Not to my face, anyway.)
Since I first read it, I have never forgotten Joy Harjo's line, "The world begins at a kitchen table." One of the big stumbling blocks to the fat acceptance movement is the real possibility of not being taken seriously, of being dismissed as a bunch of excuse-making nuts. (Though I think that's changing rapidly at the moment. As I said to Spillah the other day, in the "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" progression, I think we've officially tipped from being laughed at to fought. Which means all that's left is the winning.) But I know I was afraid for a long time to start talking about this stuff to the people who were already predisposed to take me seriously, to respect my intelligence, to consider what I was saying on its merits. Now that I've done that, friends with no dog in the fat fight are on board, to varying degrees, because they trust me. Because I've earned a credibility with them that has nothing to do with degrees or professional experience. The world begins at a kitchen table.
Some days, it feels like there's nothing we can fucking do about all the anti-fat messages out there, that the problem is just too big to be approached, that we will never get the attention of anyone who matters. But you know what? Nobody matters more than the people we love. So why are they so often the last people we tell about stuff that's really important to us?
"have you tried turning it on?"
There are a few shows that John and I enjoy(ed) watching together--Dr. Who, Firefly, Six Feet Under, and The IT Crowd. The last of which has caused us to laugh 'til we've had tears. Many moons ago, John worked in a similar position, so the show is especially funny in that regard.
So, some humor for a Friday! Here is a snippet from the most recent episode, with an anti-piracy parody ad (potentially NSFW):
To check out more of the show, open up!
Episode one, Season One (part 1):
Part 2:
Tearful Republican reverses his stance against gay marriage
[This is Arlen Parsa, crossposting from The Daily Background.]
San Diego’s Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders revealed his plan to support a city measure guaranteeing equality to gays and lesbians, after previously opposing it.
Through teary-eyes, Sanders revealed his stance on gay marriage had changed after considering that anything less than full marriage equality would be demeaning to his own daughter, who is a lesbian.
(Partial transcript below.)
The LA Times reports:
Sanders, tears welling and voice breaking, said he realized that he could not tell his daughter Lisa, who is gay, that her relationship with a partner is not as important as that of a straight couple.I’d encourage everybody to join me in thanking Mayor Sanders for his courage by sending a nice email to jerrysanders@sandiego.gov. You know there will be tons of bigots emailing him too, so every word of encouragement counts for a lot. This was obviously something that was very hard for him to do, so our words will be very appreciated.
"I’ve decided to lead with my heart. . . to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice,” he said haltingly.
[…]
In 2000, 62% of San Diego voters endorsed a statewide measure to restrict marriage to a union between a man and woman.
The council voted 5-3 on Tuesday to back a lawsuit pending before the California Supreme Court attempting to overturn the gay marriage ban.
Partial transcript:
I intended to veto the council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position. The arrival of the resolution, to sign or veto, in my office late last night… [chokes up] Please excuse this… Forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do.
I’ve decided to lead with my heart, (which is probably obvious at the moment), to do what I think is right, and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.
For three decades, I’ve worked to bring enlightenment, equality, and justice to all parts of our community. As I reflected on the choices I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community they were less important, less worthy, or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else, simply because of their sexual orientation.
Go Tell It to Dr. Paidtogiveashit
Sidney Blumenthal has yet another great piece in Salon, extricating some more details from Robert Draper's new Bush biography, Dead Certain, such as all the president's men having learned to manipulate him with flattery. Particularly gag-inducing is the revelation that chief of staff Josh Bolten greets Bush every morning with: "Thank you for the privilege of serving today." But worse is Blumenthal's summary of how the fucktastrophe that is the Bush administration came to be in the first place.The elder Bush assumed that the Bush family trust and its trustees—James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Prince Bandar—would take the erstwhile wastrel and guide him on the path of wisdom. In this conception, the country was not entrusted to the younger Bush's care so much as Bush was entrusted to the care of the trustees. He was the beneficiary of the trust. But to the surprise of those trustees, he slipped the bonds of the trust and cut off the family trustees. They knew he was ill-prepared and ignorant, but they never expected him to be assertive. They wrongly assumed that Cheney would act for them as a trustee.
Jesus.
Cheney had worked with and for them for decades and seemed to agree with them, if not on every detail then on the more important matter of attitude, particularly the question of who should govern. The elder Bush had helped arrange for Cheney to become the CEO of Halliburton, making him a very rich man at last. But Bush, Baker, Scowcroft et al. didn't realize that Cheney's apparent concurrence was to advance himself and his views, which were not theirs. When absolute power was conferred on him, the habits of deference lapsed, no longer necessary. ("Thank you for the privilege of serving today.") Cheney was always more Rumsfeld oriented than Bush oriented. The elder Bush knew that Rumsfeld despised him and that Cheney was close to Rumsfeld, just as he knew his son's grievous limitations. But the obvious didn't occur to him—that Cheney would seize control of the lax son for his own purposes. The elder Bush committed a monumental error, empowering a regent to the prince who would betray the father. The myopia of the old WASP aristocracy allowed him to see Cheney as a member of his club. Cheney, for his part, was extremely convincing in playing possum. The elder Bush has many reasons for self-reproach, but perhaps none greater than being outsmarted by a courtier he thought was his trustee.
Is there a more ridiculous, dysfunctional lot of blindly selfish swine than the Bush family? Only these assholes would use the presidency as both salve and weapon, playing out some fucked-up family melodrama that belongs in the nicely appointed office of a bored but highly paid therapist. H.W. "knew his son's grievous limitations" but figured it would be cool if he were president, anyway. After all, there was no better way to heal the wounds of his own truncated presidency—cut short by a hillbilly Democrat from Arkansas, of all people!—than to see his own progeny take back the White House. And W., stinking of something to prove, takes the gift handed to him by his father and rams it down Daddy's throat with reckless abandon, damn the consequences. What a pair. 
There ain't enough tears in the world to sufficiently
weep for what you and yours done to us, old man.
[H/T Creature.]
Velociraptor Had Feathers!
Because Oddjob knows me so well, he forwarded this article, undoubtedly knowing I would immediately geek out excitedly. And so I have. Tres cool:
The vicious little dinosaur Velociraptor was a feathered fiend, according to scientists who found evidence of quills on this well-known meat-eater's forearm.Best Quote goes to Alan Turner of at the American Museum of Natural History: "If a person saw a Velociraptor today, they would say: What the heck is that? It's some really weird bird!"
In research published on Thursday, paleontologists said a forearm bone of Velociraptor found in Mongolia's desolate Gobi desert retained structures, or quill knobs, where a series of feathers were anchored to the bone with ligaments.
No actual fossils of the feathers were found, but the researchers said quill knobs would not exist without feathers. They are present in many bird species alive today.
What I love most about this story is how it takes me back to being a little kid, manning the control station at the nerdery (i.e. my bedroom), where I would flip through science books and Ranger Rick articles on extinct species, letting my eyes linger on the T Rex's formidable scales and wondering: "How do they know? What if they were furry…?"
To read now that "larger predators, perhaps even Tyrannosaurus rex, may have had feathers or downy 'protofeathers,' at least as juveniles" is just really cool. Such a "never stop learning" moment.
Anyway, the article reminded me of a picture I saw recently at Violet's place:
Violet notes that the picture credit goes to "Hungarian nature photographer Bence Máté. The two grey herons were fighting over a fish (they both lost — the fish fell to the ice and another heron snapped it up). All I can think is: they look like such dinosaurs! Just so gratifyingly dinosaury."
Gratifyingly dinosaury. I love that.
Fetch the Smelling Salts
Michael Kinsley looks at the pearl-clutching by the righties over MoveOn.org.
Goodness gracious. oh, my paws and whiskers. Some of the meanest, most ornery hombres around are suddenly feeling faint. Notorious tough guys are swooning with the vapors. The biggest beasts in the barnyard are all aflutter over something they read in the New York Times. It's that ad from MoveOn.org — the one that calls General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, general betray us. All across the radio spectrum, right-wing shock jocks are themselves shocked. How could anybody say such a thing? It's horrifying. It's outrageous. It's disgraceful. It's just beyond the pale ... It's ... oh, my heavens ... say, is it a bit stuffy in here? ... I think I'm going to ... Could I have a glass of ... oh, dear [thud].These, of course, are the same people who never shy away from saying all sorts of impolite things about the Democrats or who, like Ann Coulter, have no problem calling people "faggot" and thinking that's perfectly acceptable. They can certainly dish it out, but in true bully fashion, can't take it, so they end up wasting their time and the taxpayer's money on bullshit like the Senate resolution denouncing MoveOn.org -- and handing MoveOn.org priceless publicity in the process (and probably giving them a huge bump in their fundraising) -- or jerking off over outrage about the president of Iran's expressed desire to visit Ground Zero.
It's all phony, of course. The war's backers are obviously delighted to have this ad from which they can make an issue. They wouldn't trade it for a week in Anbar province (a formerly troubled area of Iraq that is now, thanks to us, an Eden of peace and tranquillity where barely a car bomb disturbs the perfumed silence — or so they say). These days, mock outrage is used by every side of every dispute. It's fair enough to criticize something your opponent said while secretly thanking your lucky stars that he said it. The fuss over this MoveOn.org ad is something else: it is the result of a desperate scavenging for umbrage material. When so many people are clamoring for a chance to swoon that they each have to take a number and when the landscape is so littered with folks lying prostrate and pretending to be dead that it starts to look like the end of a Civil War battle re-enactment, this isn't spontaneous mass outrage. This is choreography.And it's all perfectly timed to distract the country's attention from the fact that the war is grinding on and people are still dying. Anything that draws attention away from that is a godsend to the president and his backers; it's much easier to condemn a newspaper ad at a press conference than to discuss the reason they ran the ad in the first place.
By the way, in all of this, I haven't heard a word of outrage or a tearful plea for mercy from General Petraeus himself. I'm pretty sure that he didn't get to be a general in the United States Army by letting a schoolyard name-calling taunt get to him.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Maybe It's Just Me
I don't know. Maybe I'm just too "sensitive". Maybe I'm just too much of a "feminist".
But when McCain responds to legislation that would give the human beings serving in a grueling battle zone an equal amount of time at home, experiencing the Value of Their Families [tm] with this statement:
"The effect of this amendment would be to emasculate this surge." (emphasis mine)
Does anyone else sorta/kinda remember that 15% of our current armed forces are female?
I mean, couldn't he say something like: " . . . would be to 85% emasculate and 15% efeminate this surge"? Ah, probably not. I'll bet he knows how to do all 25 of those things.
What was I thinking!? Silly me! You know, it's that time of the month.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite thing to cook? (If you're not the cook in your house, what's your favorite thing that the cook cooks?)
