Donahue's NewTatt
I've pondered for a while, now, about the connection between the Fetch-Me-The-Smelling-Salts Gene and the Prurient Interest Chromosome.
When Bill Donahue got the vapors about the Folsom Street Fair's parody of Leonardo DaVinci's "Last Supper", and encouraged good, God-fearing people to boycott Miller Beer because they were sponsoring "this obscene event", little did he know the contribution he would make to my research.
You see, Donahue's "Catholic League" was not satisfied with simply describing the horror of of the "sick behaviors" of this depraved event -- they also needed to post 43 pictures, on three pages of their website (which I will not link to here) -- so that Miller Brewing (now dubbed "S & M Brewing" by Donahue) can see just precisely how depraved it is.
Forty-three pictures, on three pages, of the most graphic (NSFW), sexy detailed (NSFW) pictures they could find about this horrible, awful event.
Because that's What Jesus Would Do.
These Upstanding Christians[tm] (God bless 'em for protecting us!) also made sure that they sent links to these pictures to the "all-male committee" at Miller and to the world, along with these clear instructions: "In the outside chance you are not disturbed by these photos, please show them to your mother, wife and daughters."
While Donahue has contributed in a very serious way to my "Scratch a Prude, Sniff a Perv" theories (for which I guess I should be thankful somehow) -- JEEBUS KRUSTEAZE IN FREAKIN' CROSS-TIES ALREADY!!
Regardless of what you think or feel about BDSM -- can you imagine what a wank-wank-wankity fest Donahue has awarded to nice "Christian" people who can go to that site and, as they are feeling all outraged and overcome and collapsing onto their chaises, saying "Oh! The Perverts! Oh no!" -- they will soon be moving on to: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh Dear God! Oh! Oh! Ooooooooohhhhhh!"?
And just in case the irony is not stinging enough for you (yes, I admit it's getting more and more difficult to discern irony these days, since it seems to be everywhere ) -- consider this: They're protesting openly gay and queer-positive people's parody of a closeted gay artist whose closeted status was a direct result of Catholic suppression -- a piece of art that's been parodied a non-nillion other times (check out Incertus' brilliant compilation of "Last Supper" gags) ---- and they do it by making a public display of queer-positive art by a queer-positive artist.
By the way -- that new tattoo? Billy probably got it while he was at the Folsom Street Fair, snapping pictures of the ---- ewwwwww! ----- perverts.
For the edification of the Christian faith, of course.
Christian Conservatives Are Revolting
...and to complete the Mel Brooks homage, "You said it! They stink on ice!"
Actually, they are thinking of bolting from the Republican Party and backing a third-party candidate if Rudy Giuliani is the nominee.
The group making the threat, which came together Saturday in Salt Lake City during a break-away gathering during a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for a written resolution that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third party candidate.”The question then becomes who would they pick? Who's out there they could rope in that thinks the way they do that isn't already either in the race (Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee) or is just too crazy for even them to back (Alan Keyes)?
I think it's hilarious that these blowhards are up the creek with Giuliani as the front-runner. After all their big talk about being the heart and soul of the base of the Republican Party, after all their threats, intimidation, coercion, and just plain bigotry and bullshit against gays, women, science, the law, the Constitution and anything else that doesn't fit into their exact measurement of right and wrong, they end up finding out that they can't even get the Republicans to do their bidding.
I do hope they run a third-party candidate, and I hope that whichever white bread right wing blowhard they pick sinks like a turd in well. Then we can finally give them the burial they so richly deserve.
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Iran So Far
Absolutely hilarious SNL Digital Short on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live last night, "Iran So Far," featuring Andy Samberg serenading an Ahmadinejad-clad Fred Armisen, with the help of Maroon 5's Adam Levine.
They call you "Weasel" / They say your methods are medieval / You can play the Jews / I can play your Jim Caviezel...
(Click pic to go to video.)
McCain: Still Insane in the Membrane
So, that BeliefNet article in which McCain said he believes that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation" had another great bit that Steve Benen teased out in which McCain also noted he wouldn't want a Muslim president.
"I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it," he said. "But I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith."Do you think he learned about "the Islam" on the internets using the Google?
I'd like to point out that McCain's statment also suggests he would not be comfortable with a Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, pagan, or atheist president, either. And I'd further like to point out that, Christianity itself being so vastly diverse, some Christian denominations have more in common with fundamentalist Islam than they do with Baptists (or whatever denomination he's claiming to be this week), and some have more in common with pagans. This comment doesn't even make sense just given the enormous breadth of Christian beliefs, no less the Constitutional prohibition on religious litmus tests.
Anyway, in an attempt to pull his foot out of his mouth and his head out of his ass, McCain later tried to clarify his remarks:
Apparently, McCain later realized he'd made a mistake, because the transcript of the interview added, "McCain contacted Beliefnet after the interview to clarify his remarks: 'I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.'"Right.
In other words, McCain was for discrimination before he was against it.
My Little Cthulhu
Want.
That will go great with my Big Lebowski action figures, if I ever get them, and the Hurley and Locke action figures my pal JWM bought me for my birthday. Thanks to Shaker Tabetha for passing My Little Cthulhu along. [Explanation for the bemused.]
More Myanmar
by Arlen
With regard to the situation in Burma/Myanmar, how much do you really need to know about it to form an opinion, other than the fact that the Myanmarese government has censored its own newspapers, shot foreign journalists to death and switched off all internet access for all of its citizens to prevent them from communicating with the outside world about what’s going on there?
(Cross-posted from The Daily Background.)
Noooooooooooooooo!
Oh, the pain! The pain! The unbearable pain of a dream deferred, of it all being over before it even began. I weep with the agony of loss as I report with deep regret that Newt Gingrich will not run for president after all.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday.Good point. How could the nation possibly suffer the devastating blow of losing all the amazing solutions being provided by, uh, what's it called again? Oh, right: American Solutions. They're awesome.
"Newt is not running," spokesman Rick Tyler said. "It is legally impermissible for him to continue on as chairman of American Solutions (for Winning the Future) and to explore a campaign for president."
Gingrich decided "to continue on raising the challenges America faces and finding solutions to those challenges" as the group's chairman, Tyler said, "rather than pursuing the presidency."
So, basically, I'm guessing that Gingrich looked at the range of responses to his announcement (approximately: lukewarm to cruelly mocking) and figured it wasn't worth his time or effort to become a giant loser. Gianter.
Worst trial balloon evah.
Why BMI Is a Crock, in Pictures
So, the "Guess The Rotund's Height and Weight" game gave me an idea. (Oh, and hey, if you want to see a scatter graph of the results, there's one here now.) I talk a lot about how BMI is bullshit, but we all know talk is cheap. Photos of people who actually fall into each category, however? Say a lot.
Thus, I have created the Illustrated BMI Categories Project, to demonstrate just what "normal" and "overweight" and "morbidly obese" really look like. I'll continue to add photos until people stop sending them -- if you'd like to participate, please send a (worksafe) photo along with your true height and weight to katesblog at gmail dot com. I may not use all the ones I get, but I appreciate the courage of anyone willing to send one. (Oh, and I'm also creating a general Shapely Prose Readers photostream, so let me know if you want to be in that.)
Check out a few of the entries below the fold.
These are the first 5 brave souls who agreed to participate in this project -- all friends of mine, so it's not like I had to go looking very far or bust out the professional athletes to provide good examples of why BMI is a crock.
Underweight
My friend Mindy is naturally very thin (as you'll see in the "normal" picture below). But even she fell victim to the pressure to be thinner. For a while, she was depressed, overeating, and not exercising. She ended up at 5'8" and 145 lbs., BMI of 22 -- well within the "normal" range. (That's what happens when a naturally thin person acts like a stereotype of a fat person, y'all. BMI of freakin' 22.) Changing her eating and exercise habits for her health would have been a good idea for her at that point (although, ahem, her doctor wouldn't have known that, since most doctors would never think to hassle someone with a BMI of 22 about her eating and exercise habits).
But back then, Mindy wasn't really thinking about her health, frankly. What she was thinking was, I am too fat. So she went on a diet.
She ended up here:
5'8", 114 lbs., BMI 17.4.
Please note that although Mindy's thinking and behavior were somewhat disordered (like, uh, practically every western woman's), she was not anorectic. She was just on a regular old diet, like millions and millions of regular women.
Please also note that according to the National Eating Disorders Association, the average top fashion model's BMI is 16.3. Mindy would have had to lose another 7 pounds to fit in with them.
The good news is, looking at that very photo made Mindy realize she'd gone too far. She knocked off the dieting, gained a whopping 11 lbs., and is now also our poster girl for the "normal" category.
Normal
Here's Mindy again at 5'8", 125 lbs., BMI 19:
That, my friends, is "normal."
Now, don't get me wrong -- for Mindy, it IS normal. She's healthy and beautiful at that weight, and it would be hard for her to get very much fatter if she wanted to. She's got beanpole genes going back a long way. But this is the category we are all supposed to aspire to. And how many naturally thin people do you know who are that thin?
Well, you're saying, Mindy's close to the bottom of the "normal" category. Surely, no one's suggesting I have to be that thin to be healthy?
So let's look at the bottom of the "overweight" category.
Overweight
That's my friend Laurie. 5'0", 130 lbs., BMI 25.4. Laurie would benefit from losing weight, if BMI standards are to be believed.
Laurie wears a size 4.
And now on to THE OBESITY CRISIS!
Obese
Here's Joy, whom you might remember from her Fat Rant:
Joy is not only "obese," but well into the obese category, at 5'8" and 224 lbs., with a BMI of 34.1. I asked her to be my first illustration of this category for two reasons.
1) Boobies!
2) Because there's a line in the obese category between a "high" risk of associated disease and a "very high" risk. Joy is under it.
Fillyjonk, one of my co-bloggers at Shapely Prose, is over it.
Fillyjonk is 5'7" and 225 lbs., BMI 35.2. One inch shorter than Joy and one pound heavier.
But she's gonna die sooner, evidently. Because of teh fat.
Extremely/Morbidly Obese
Take a minute to picture what you think "morbidly obese" looks like. Are you seeing one of the headless fatties used to illustrate every freakin' article on the "obesity crisis"? Are you seeing someone sitting on the couch stuffing her face? Are you seeing someone housebound, barely mobile?
Or are you seeing someone who looks like Sheana?
Sheana's 5'7" and 280 lbs., BMI 43.8. So don't get too attached to her. She could drop dead of a heart attack at any minute.
That's the reality of BMI, y'all. If you have trouble believing that people in the "overweight" category actually have the lowest mortality rate of all, check out the "overweight" people in this project. If you tsk-tsk at all the delusional fatties when you read that studies show a high percentage of "obese" people describe themselves as merely "overweight," check out the "obese" people. If you think it's impossible to be truly fat and truly happy, check out the "morbidly obese" people.
And remember this the next time you read an article on the "obesity crisis."
Scenes from Myanmar
Below is video [via Its my Right to be Left of the Center] of the continuing unrest in Myanmar. Dusty notes that the video "captures the shooting of the japanese journalist Kenji Nagai. ... They killed him because he was filming the protest..and nothing more. AP has a writeup here."
BlueMeme also has a good post thinking about "what is happening in Burma. The ruling party has shut out all outside journalists, and the internal state-controlled media are known to be worthless. But brave citizens have been blogging, sending phonecam videos and pictures and otherwise getting the story out. What you have in Burma, in a sense, is bloggers without journalists."
Carrying A Grudge
I haven't read Justice Clarence Thomas's memoir, My Grandfather's Son -- it goes on sale on Monday -- but according to a review in the Washington Post, he doesn't hold back.
Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.Well, Justice Thomas is entitled to his opinions and his feelings, and I certainly agree that his confirmation hearings in 1991 were not the height of calm and deliberative advice and consent, but in the end Mr. Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, which could probably be considered a vindication for him. Yet sixteen years later he's still seething, and I can't help but remember all that helpful advice the conservatives were so eager to dole out after a somewhat similar occurrence in 2000: "Move on, get over it, you lost, end of story." And, to his credit, the recipient of that advice, Al Gore, did put his humiliation and excoriation at the hands of the righties behind him. He didn't hole up in some dark garret and brood about the raw deal he got of winning the popular vote but losing the election, and the irony is that one of the people who had a hand in his loss was Clarence Thomas.
[...]
They are the most extensive comments Thomas has made about Hill since his confirmation. Though he has given numerous speeches since he has been on the court, he has rarely mentioned Hill or spoken in detail about the nomination fight. In the book, Thomas writes that Hill was the tool of liberal activist groups "obsessed" with abortion and outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African American should believe.
"The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns," Thomas writes of his hearings. "Its weapons were smooth-tongued lies spoken into microphones and printed on the front pages of America's newspapers.... But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose -- to keep the black man in his place -- was unchanged."
Not for nothing does Justice Thomas's continuing grudge make me wonder if somehow it might seep its way into the rulings and decisions he makes on the court. Does he vote with the conservative majority based on the law or does he allow his personal feelings of resentment play a part? Of course his defenders will say he is above that kind of ethical lapse, but he's human, and it's hard to believe that he can completely divorce himself from the simple fact that we are incapable of making decisions or seeing points without the color of our human strengths and failings. I hasten to say that that goes for everyone on the court, including the few remaining liberals. But such outspoken anger bordering on hatred makes you wonder.
It's a pattern among conservatives to carry their grudges forever regardless of whether they win or lose. Robert Bork, who was denied a seat on the Supreme Court in 1987, still makes a living off his contentious hearings and blaming his defeat on the same crowd Justice Thomas does, in spite of the fact that a number of Republicans, including Arlen Specter and John Warner, voted against him. He has since never failed to remind anyone who will listen that he was unfairly treated. Perhaps he was, but given his rather stark opinions on the rights of privacy and his minimalist view of the role of the judiciary (given the chance, it sounds like he would overturn Marbury vs. Madison), it's a very good thing he's not on the Court. But twenty years is a long time to grind an ax and perhaps he should just get over it. I'd give the same advice to Justice Thomas. It wasn't pretty, and I understand the hurt, but you got the job and you can't be fired.
The one thing that conservatives excel at is being the victims and sore winners. It's not pretty, but it does sell books.
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Party of Moral Values
Rudy's biggest fundraiser was behind the electoral vote initiative in California; the McCain campaign uses active duty soldiers in uniform at a campaign event in violation of Defense Department regulations. Rock on.
Meanwhile, Digby answers the question "everybody's asking today":
"Why are the Republican front runners skipping all the debates sponsored by racial and ethnic minorities? That just doesn't seem smart." I think people just don't want to admit the obvious:It's tradition, bitchez.
The Republicans are the party of racists.
None of the front runners are able to use the usual racial codes of being Southern good old boys, or evangelicals or even reliable "pro-life" conservatives so they are reduced to blatantly proving to the racist base of the Republican party that they are one of them by publicly snubbing blacks and Hispanics to win the nomination from the racist GOP base. They have to make explicit what others, like bush, could do obliquely by pretending to be a bubba when he was really a blue-blooded playboy.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar
and name your poison!
As part of my annual "Here Comes Winter!" ritual, I had about a foot of hair chopped off this week, hence your virtual hostess debuting a new haircut this evening. (It's scary how I can always manage to find my exact hairstyle in a South Park avatar generator.) By next winter, the weed will be a tumbling mess once again. I guess I need a new author pic, too... Slàinte!
Nice . . . erm . . . Boots
A couple of days ago, The Rotund had a little contest, in which she challenged readers to guess her height and weight. The inimitable Kate Harding cross-posted this to Shakesville, and let the games begin.
The entire exercise was, IMO, brilliant, and brought to awareness, for me, some very uncomfortable places I still have within myself vis-a-vis fat-phobia (like how I would be totally fine having someone else guess my weight, but I wasn't comfortable guessing someone else's). Back to fat-acceptance school for me.
I was struck, though, by something as I read through the various guesses -- the number of comments that included: "I love your boots", or "You have beautiful hair."
Maybe it's just me -- I'm not really a fashion maven (OK, I'm probably actually a fashion moron) -- but I found myself reacting just a little tiny bit every time I read one of these comments, because it seemed similar to me to some compliments that I've heard over and over again from people (directed toward me, or toward other fat people) -- compliments like "You have beautiful skin", and "She has such a pretty face". I don't think these compliments are necessarily completely false -- usually when they're doled out, I think they are genuinely well-meant, and are probably truthful (I do have beautiful skin).
But sometimes, I think these might be a version of "Thumper" compliments (as in: "If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all.") So, rather than make a compliment that would in any way bring notice to the fact that I'm fat (because they assume I'll be offended by that), they choose something safer.
I notice that I most often receive these types of compliments from some of my friends who haven't really "adjusted" to the fact that I am not the skinny little shit that I used to be (IOW: haven't dealt with their fat-phobia). I think they really want to give me a compliment -- maybe I'm looking particularly radiant at the moment -- but I often find that they will say something that seems to point directly at some aspect of my clothing, a specific feature of mine that doesn't relate to my size, etc. -- my favorite (not) is "You look good. Have you lost weight?" (which was, like, the third thing my mom said to me during our recent visit, even though I doubt if my weight has changed at all since I saw her last).
I notice that if I'm glowing in some undefineable way, my friends who are not fat-phobic usually say something like: "You look great!"
I notice that my mate frequently tells me, as we snuggle into the comforter and she wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight: "I adore your body."
The irony here is, when I, a fat woman who is actively working on fat-acceptance, was challenged by a woman who is all about fat-acceptance to make a guess about her height/weight, I found myself in a cold sweat. I think part of it is that I don't really pay attention to "lbs. on the scale" and therefore, have no frame of reference from which to make an educated guess (and I do have this thing about being "wrong" -- I can admit it) -- but at least part of it was: That I didn't want to "offend" her by guessing too high, but I didn't want to be shit and guess low in order to "not offend" her.
So this post is a thank you to The (brave and fabulous) Rotund, and Kate Harding, for raising my consciousness (again).
(cross-posted)
Call a Cab, Douchebag
Conservative Wank Fantasy Jack Bauer Actor Kiefer Sutherland was charged with drunk driving today in a case that could result in jail time—because, when he was arrested Tuesday, he was still on probation from another incident from 2004.
I don't actually have any reason to post this, except that it's a good excuse to note that Kiefer Sutherland is my favorite famous drunk of my generation. He's totally the Gen X Peter O'Toole. Evidence?
Pants down at Dimples karaoke bar in LA
But that's just the appetizer. Here's the entrée:
Transcript:
Voice Off-Camera: Hey, Kiefer. You're a pirate, man.
Kiefer: That would explain everything. [jumps into tree]
Fantastic.
Of course, as much as I adore his drunken antics, he either needs to get help and get sober or use some of his nonillions of dollars to hire a goddamned driver before he kills someone.
Quote of the Day
"I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."—John McCain, in an interview with BeliefNet.
(Thanks to Holly in Cincinnati for the heads-up on the article.)
Friday Cat Blogging
Well, I finally took some new pictures of the fuzzheadz of Shakes Manor, which was no easy feat. Matilda was insistent on hiding under the dining room table any time she saw me with a camera in my hand, and Olivia wouldn't sit still—which resulted in a lot of not good shots and one very cool one:
Olivia on the go.
Matilda peers out from under the table, looking nutz as usual.
Olivia sits still for one moment, before darting off again.
Matilda finally relaxes; looks away,
Happy Blogiversary...
...to The Bilerico Project, celebrating three years of everything LGBTQ!
(Sorry I was late, Bil!)
