Suggested by Shaker Kate217: "I've seen a lot of great bumperstickers recently. Just this morning I saw 'Diapers and politicians need to be changed for the same reason.' What is your favorite bumpersticker?"
My favorite bumpersticker will exist when I put this on one.
Question of the Day
Oh for Maude's Sake
Why, oh why, do I still have to read articles desperate to convince me that housework is intrinsically fulfilling? It fucking isn't. And all the glorious rhapsodies sung to the undeniable satisfaction of a clean house does not and will never magically turn the process of cleaning itself into an enlightening slice of personal fulfillment.
I'm just so bloody pissed off that the infernal suggestion that women should derive their self-worth from a clean countertop yet persists. Men who know how to scrub a goddamned floor aren't subjected in the pages of the fucking Washington Post to silly pieces gushing about how fulfilling it ought to be to their gender to engage in the "creative pursuit" of cleaning their "little kingdoms." Nor should they be. And, meanwhile, as long as the focus remains on the alleged value of cleaning, the actual value and sacrifice of cleaning for others goes unacknowledged (and unvalued). This horseshit cannot be retired fast enough.
Honestly, going on about how creative and fulfilling it is to clean your own house is as preposterous as suggesting that adult humans can find self-respect and meaning in wiping their own arses after taking a dump. Some tasks are just freaking functional. Unless you're cleaning your butt with a canvas that will, say, serve as the basis for a multi-media project commenting on the state of American journalism, it ain't creative. It's just the stuff you do so that life doesn't suck more than it has to.
Ann's got more.
From the Compassionate Conservative Playbook
Page 162: Launch mendacious smear campaigns against 12-year-old SCHIP recipients and their families. Harass family while spreading lies.
Quote of the Day
"Will Al Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize this Friday, as the London Times speculates? I certainly hope so. This isn't because I think it will prompt him to run for president. It won't. It's not even because I think he's necessarily done the most for world peace in the past year. Rather, it's because this would be a huge prospective triumph. If Gore does win, I expect it to cause a massive collective seizure among the conservative crackpot brigade, and that would do more to advance the cause of world peace than anything else I can think of."—Drum
The five books you read in heaven
The place: A Bradburyesque dystopian society. The time: Reeeeeal soon now. The event: Some biblio-hater of your acquaintance has ratted you out to the firemen, who have dutifully arrived at your home with the intention of torching your beloved personal library (and the house along with it, of course). There's no saving the house, but you successfully bribe the fire chief into allowing you to retrieve five books. Only five.
Which are they to be? Which five books currently in your possession are most important to you?
I asked myself that question yesterday (not while reading, oddly), and off the top of my head produced this list:
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien*
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff
With or Without by Charles Dickinson
The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove
The Men's Health Home Workout Bible by Lou Schuler and Michael Mejia
*The Tolkien saga is three books, you say? In the words of Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend! LOTR is but one novel, divided only for your convenience into volumes. The fire chief agrees with me, and so does the author.
So that's one work (!) of high fantasy, two collections of short contemporary fiction, and two weight training books. That's a funny list, but I should feel diminished without these works. No religious titles on the list, I note. No sentimental volumes from childhood. The only glaring lack here (to me) is a cookbook, but I just don't have a strong favorite.
So, as the commercials say, who's in your five?(Cross-posted.)
The Return of Macaca
Erstwhile Senator George "Macaca" Allen has joined Fred Thompson's campaign as a co-chairman of its National Campaign Leadership Team.
That's just great. I hope that the former Republican senator and current racist douchebag will being some of his many "positive, constructive ideas" to the Thompson campaign. Something positive and constructive like adding a Confederate flag emblem to Freddie's famous red pick-up truck, perhaps! That would look hot as Thompson breezes past a Tavis Smiley-moderated debate, for instance.
The cheese stands alone.
Caption This Photo
Dorky, the Shakesville wonder dog, ready to run dorky errands for Melissa.
via CuteOverload
Impossibly Beautiful
[Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten…]
[Click to embiggen.]
Obviously a reader of Shakesville's Impossibly Beautiful series, the spectacularly talented, fiercely cool, and undeniably stunning Helen Mirren helpfully holds up a copy of her new (and aptly titled) bio last week to illustrate that it just doesn't matter how talented or cool or stunning a woman may be—she's still going to need a digital rhinoplasty, facelift, chemical peel, and Botox treatments for the cover of her autobiography.
Judging a book's cover by its author.
Yowza
One of the giant jellyfish flooding into the Sea of Japan, millions of which have migrated from the coast of China in warming ocean currents over the last five years. These jellified ginormos can reach diameters of six feet and weigh as much as 450 pounds.
Via Mike the Mad Biologist.
Warner Bros. Pres: No More Female Leads
Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently. … Of course, Warner Bros has always been male-centric in its movies. But now the official policy as expressly articulated by Robinov is that a male has to be the lead of every pic made. I'm told he doesn't even want to see a script with a woman in the primary position (which now is apparently missionary at WB).Gloria Allred is decidedly unpleased, saying if the studio "confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros." In that eventuality, I would hope that every actress in Hollywood does the same. Then Warner Bros. can go back to making movies the old-fashioned way. I'm sure Vin Diesel would make a lovely Lois Lane.
Shaker GayAsXmas, who gets the hat tip, says via email: "[T]here are actresses out there who could make credible action heroes (Angelina Jolie, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner, Gina Torres) but [aren't given the opportunity] due to a fundamental lack of imagination from the mostly male Hollywood culture. Just give Joss Whedon $50 million and let him play with it, dammit!" Sing it, brotha.
Of course, it's not just action films that WB is unwilling to make with female leads, but all films. Every genre is to be female lead-free—because, evidently, teh bitchez is Hollywood poison!
I know it's a crazy suggestion, but maybe WB could just try making movies with female leads that people actually want to see before giving up on teh womminz altogether. And, while you're at it, perhaps you could try something original. This precludes endless derivations of Steel Magnolias in which eclectic groups of sassy women are bound by their patronage of the same salon, a book/foodie/quilting club, or magical pants. It also precludes remakes and/or thinly veiled modernizations of Jane Austen's stories, especially Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Emma. It yet further precludes various bastard children of The Odd Couple and Cagney & Lacey. All of these things have been done, and often done well.
Don't try to give us Clarice Starling 2007. Give us a whole new goddamned character. Or open a history book and acquaint yourselves with one of the many women throughout history whose amazing stories would make compelling biopics. I don't need one more fucking picture about Queen Elizabeth I, no matter how well it's done. On the other hand, give me L. Scott Caldwell as Ida B. Wells and I'll consider paying your exorbitant ticket price.
The truth is, I'm just not interesting in paying money to see talented women play hookers, strippers, bimbos, witches, psychos, and second-fiddle to tiny actors with veneered grins. When Kelly McGillis is the Top Gun, give me a call.
Oh—and one more suggestion. When you've got a film with a female lead in the can, try actually marketing it. I never even heard of The Invasion until it was already out of theaters, but, despite barely watching any network television, I can't seem to escape adverts for the truly stinktastic-looking The Heartbreak Kid, which is Dreamworks not WB, but wev, you get my point. Invest in female leads like you do male leads—and that includes occasionally casting a woman who's been seen on film before, instead of constantly casting the ingénue of the month—and I bet you'll find you get similar returns on that investment.
Just saying.
[UPDATE: Ginmar and Echidne comment, too.]
I Want to Wrap My Self-Esteem in a Package of Improbable Preservation! Rah Rah Rah!
Shaker Dr. Nick emailed me this weekend to tell me about having inadvertently tuned into and then watched "one of the bizarre shows I've ever seen" in which ten former high school cheerleaders, now ranging in age from 25 to 42 and in weight from 136 to 175, go to "cheerleading camp" to be bullied and berated by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders trainer (and his wife) back into their former selves. The show, called "I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again," naturally pits the contestants against one another, as they are "physically and emotionally challenged" by the trainer's "tough Army-style fitness regimen" while competing for "a $50,000 prize and the chance to perform again in front of a live audience."
Oh my.
For perspective on how profoundly grim this concept truly is, consider for a moment that it's quite possibly sadder to imagine a grown woman in search of self-esteem performing as an actual cheerleader in front of an audience of people who expect her to keep her clothes on than it is to imagine a woman in search of rent money "performing as a cheerleader" in front of an audience paying her to take her clothes off. That, friends, is some dire stuff.
There's a video sneak peek of the show (not embeddable) which introduces the show thusly:
Narrator: They were the darlings of their high schools, the most popular girls in class. Every girl wanted to be them. Every guy wanted to date them. And then… [record scratch!] …life happened. These ten former high school cheerleaders have a problem.
Contestant: My jelly belly!
Contestant: This jelly belly!
Contestant: My butt!
Contestant: My thighs!
Contestant: My bedonk-a-donk!
Narrator: So they've headed back to camp to recapture the confidence and bodies they once had.
Contestant [looking at scale registering 161]: That's so not cute.
Narrator: Their journey back to cheerleaders won't be easy, because bad habits [trainer yells: "Let's go! Let's go! You're wasting my time!"]—and bad attitudes—die hard.
Trainer: What are you doing here?
Contestant: I came here to better myself!
Trainer: Then what are you doing talking?! [points to ground] Better yourself!
And on and on it goes, describing how the "girls" will be tested at every meal with piles of junk food and how their endurance will be stretched to its limits, etc. etc. etc., interspersed with clips of former cheerleaders sadly admitting, "I've been on every diet; I've tried to lose weight," and "Nobody other than my husband has called me pretty in a long time."
It's actually painful to watch.
The worst part of it is train that's inexorably barreling down the tracks—the one that means "life" will "happen" again, which makes maintaining a body dependent on extremely time-consuming daily workouts and a very specific, non-family-friendly diet a practical impossibility for these (mostly) working mothers. Attaching self-esteem so inextricably to this physical ephemeron is just all kinds of cringe-inducing from the long view, as one imagines hard-won confidence melting slowly away as rock hard abs give way to the dreaded "jelly belly" once again.
I want to bring these women to a boot camp of my own design, where they are not faced with hard work-outs but hard truths. It's a lie that every girl wanted to be them. It's a lie that every guy wanted to date them. (Some guys wanted to be them and some girls wanted to date them, for a start.) It's okay if no one but your husband calls you pretty. It's okay if you've got junk in your trunk. None of these things have anything to do with being a good or happy person. Looking "like a cheerleader" is not the apex of anyone's full potential.
And then there's the problem with their definition of what "a high school cheerleader" actually looks like. The name of the show, of course, isn't "I Want to Look Like I Did When I Was a High School Cheerleader." It's "I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again," reinforcing the narrative that cheerleaders share some inherent characteristics, that they're all bearers of some magical phenotype that excludes the imperfect, mere mortals with flaws. But that's not the case, is it? I knew two fat cheerleaders in high school—one in my class, one just behind mine—and not "fat by cheerleader standards" but fat. They were bigger than any of the women on this show, and they could hop around and flip and twirl and yell "Go Team!" at the top of their lungs just as well as any skinny girl. But the women on this show don't want to look like them. And I'm quite sure they don't want to look like the cheerleader at my high school with severe craniofacial deformities, either. Nor my college acquaintance who'd been a high school cheerleader and had only one hand.
They all looked like cheerleaders to me. Because ultimately what makes someone look "like a cheerleader" is pretty much a cheerleading uniform.
What makes someone a woman of confidence is something altogether different. A lasting poise is harder to come by, but I suppose it doesn't make good TV.
The Nerve of Her!
Geoffrey Wheatcroft wonders what America is thinking by making Hillary Clinton the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Among so much about American politics that can impress or depress a friendly transatlantic observer, there's nothing more astonishing than this: Why on Earth should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton be the front-runner for the presidency?Either Mr. Wheatcroft is being sarcastic or he is woefully ignorant of American history. We have had plenty of presidents who came to office with comparatively thin political resumes but well-known names, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Oh, and lest we forget, George W. Bush. I think we've had enough experience in this country with families and their histories and their descendants to know that it isn't so much where the person came from or how they got there but what they do when they get there. FDR, the liberal who redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans from the corporate board room to the rural farm in Kansas, was nothing like his libertarian free-market Republican cousin Teddy. John F. Kennedy's muscular Cold War challenge to the world that America would "bear any price" to protect liberty is in sharp contrast to the anti-war sentiments of his only surviving brother. And the last six years have proven that the presidency of the first George Bush was a hallmark of moderate if not nerdy competence as compared to the complete mangling of the job by his namesake.
She has now pulled well ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, both in polls and in fundraising. If the Democrats can't win next year, they should give up for good, so she must be considered the clear favorite for the White House. But in all seriousness: What has she ever done to deserve this eminence? How could a country that prides itself on its spirit of equality and opportunity possibly be led by someone whose ascent owes more to her marriage than to her merits?
[...]
Everyone recognizes the nepotism or favoritism she has enjoyed: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written that without her marriage, Clinton might be a candidate for president of Vassar, but not of the United States. And yet the truly astonishing nature of her career still doesn't seem to have impinged on Americans.
Seven years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had a somewhat tenuous connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation (particularly once Rudy Giuliani decided not to run against her). Until that point, she had never won or even sought any elective office, not in the House or in a state legislature. Nor had she held any executive-branch position. The only political task with which she had ever been entrusted was her husband's health-care reforms, and she made a complete hash of that.
No doubt she has been a diligent senator, even if the cutting words of the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier about "the most plodding and expedient politician in America" ring painfully true, and no doubt her main Democratic rivals have only quite modest experience themselves: Obama's stint in the Illinois state legislature before entering the U.S. Senate in 2005, John Edwards's one term in the Senate. But both men are unquestionably self-made, and no one can say that they are where they are because of any kin or spouse.
But what seems to offend Mr. Wheatcroft the most is that Hillary Clinton is a woman.
How dare she tread on the sacred ground of nepotism and dynasty that has heretofore been trod upon by only men. He dismisses the idea that she's a "self-made woman" because she is married to a former president, but fails to acknowledge the fact that while she may have won her election to the Senate in New York because of -- or in spite of -- her husband, she has been a successful Senator in her own right and won re-election by a landslide. Certainly if she had done nothing but coast on her name she would have been found out and turned out. To dismiss her accomplishment is nothing but snooty male chauvinism. He cites Maureen Dowd's comment that "without her marriage, Clinton might be a candidate for president of Vassar, but not of the United States." He's leaving out the rest of Dowd's point, which was that without his family name, George W. Bush would be pumping gas in Midland -- and not out of the ground. So whether or not Hillary Clinton was elected because of her name the first time around, she's earned her stature on her own, and it sets her ahead of both John Edwards, who served only one term, and Barack Obama, who has yet to face re-election.
But she's a woman, so nothing else matters.
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
The World According to Siegel
According to Awesome Genius Lee Siegel, who was last seen putting on a sockpuppet show at TNR, danger lies the way of atheism, because questioning faith "amounts to an attack on the human imagination," and ergo an inevitable failure to appreciate truth and beauty and goodness and decency and love cannot be far behind. Understanding the world is perilous, you see, because scientific comprehension kills wonder and whimsy and mystery and stuff, and then we don't like crap as much anymore. And I'm quite certain he's right, because ever since I found out storks don't really deliver babies, I've totally hated babies.
Drum's got some smart stuff to say in response to this pile of rubbish, as does TBogg, who notes, "I still have no idea why anyone would pay him to write anything," which is the same thought I had when I saw Siegel's byline. Leaving aside for a moment that he is ethically challenged, he appears to have carved out for himself the distinct but utterly pointless niche of commenting anxiously from the sidelines of various fields on which are played games with whose basics he has only a passing familiarity. Here, Siegel sniffs that he is "not a particularly religious person," but we should nonetheless be roused by his concern about militant atheists. Previously, he stood just outside the blogosphere exhibiting a profound ignorance of its breadth while denouncing it as "hard fascism with a Microsoft face" and its participants as purveyors of "intolerance and rage ... thuggery and fascism."
I see that his author bio at the end of today's LAT piece includes the note: "His 'Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob' will be published in January." Someone more cynical than I might suggest that Siegel appears to be using the spaces in which he's been afforded a platform to create narratives about which he can then later write books as an "expert."
That would just be so despicably slimy, though, it beggars belief. Only journos with absolutely no ethics at all would do something like that.
Oh. Right.
Naaa Naaa, Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Naa Naa
I can't believe I still have to wait until May to see this. Ever since I heard the names "Tony Stark" and "Robert Downey, Jr." together in the same sentence, I've been drooling like a mad hound for this flick.
In the meantime, I'm satiating myself with a Robert Downey, Jr. film fest. I've got Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on right now, which isn't great, although it has a good scene about how guys grabbing tits should not be treated as No Big Deal, but it was on telly and it's got him in it, so I put it on, and last night I watched one of my favorite films, Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, which contains just the Sexiest Scene Evah, involving RDJ, Nicole Kidman, and the liberal use of shaving cream. And now I'm wondering why on earth Chaplin isn't part of my DVD collection. Must remedy.
They are Barbie girls, in a Barbie world...
Blue Gal, beating the press at their own game, goes ahead and turns presidential candidate wives into actual Barbie dolls. I hope there will be a Bill Clinton Ken doll in the next round—although a fair word of warning, from what I've heard, he's not smooth "down there." Maybe it needs to be a Bubba (get) action figure.
Anyway, my only quibble with BG's otherwise excellent choices is that it appears she's actually mixed up the Judy Giuliani doll
with the Rudy Giuliani doll.
Easy mistake to make. Really, the only way to tell those damn dolls apart is that you pull the string to make Judy talk, but pull the string on Rudy to make him answer his dolly cell phone and pretend to listen.
Quote of the Day
"Bush poses for so many Oval Office photos with departing aides it feels like an assembly line."—Peter Baker in the WaPo, in an article titled "An Exit Toward Soul-Searching: As Bush Staffers Leave, Questions About Legacy Abound."
So I'm Just Sitting Here, Minding My Own Business...
...doing a little surfin' on Teh Internetz, checking out some stuff on The Google and whatnot, contemplating whether I should go ahead and buy that autographed first edition of Bill Maher's Proper Public Uses for Ladyboobs, Vol I on eBay, or wait for it to come to the local Dollar Store, when all of a sudden BAM!
Purpose of appendix believed found: "Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. ... [B]efore dense populations in modern times and during epidemics of cholera that affected a whole region, it wasn't as easy to grow back that bacteria and the appendix came in handy."
You've totally rocked my world again, Science.
RIP Rep. Jo Ann Davis
Representative Jo Ann Davis (R-VA) has died at age 57 after a long battle with breast cancer. Our sincere condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.
This has been a rough year for Congress. Rep. Davis is the fourth House member to die this year, following Reps. Paul Gillmor (R-OH), Charlie Norwood (R-GA), and Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA). The Senate also lost Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY) this summer, and of course we nearly lost Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD), too. But thankfully, he's on the mend.
There will be a special election in Virginia to select Davis' replacement.
