[I originally posted about this charming item back in September, but I've seen it all over the place lately, and Shaker Jenny just emailed me a link about it, so I figured I'd just re-run the original post.]
Q: What's the going rate for indisputably proving to the world that you are a tiny little man who is profoundly afraid of women?
[I originally posted about this charming item back in September, but I've seen it all over the place lately, and Shaker Jenny just emailed me a link about it, so I figured I'd just re-run the original post.]
Where are my Chicagoland Shakers?
If you're in the Chicagoland area, raise your hand. (Or, if you'd prefer not to identify your location publicly, email me.)
Senate Finds Rove and Bolten in Contempt
I've been holding them in contempt for years, and I was hoping the Senate doing the same would be more meaningful. But probably not:
A Senate panel found former presidential adviser Karl Rove and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten in contempt of Congress yesterday for refusing to testify and to turn over documents in the investigation of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.And never at the latest.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against Rove and Bolten on a 12 to 7 vote, rejecting the White House position that the work of two of President Bush's closest advisers is covered by executive privilege.
Earlier this year, the House Judiciary Committee cited Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for contempt. But action by either chamber of Congress is still weeks or months away. Lawmakers and aides said neither house will take up the issue until late January at the earliest.
I look forward to Nancy Pelosi's announcement that taking action that in any way would reflect badly on King George of Bushlandia is "off the table."
Question of the Day
Over at Feministe, Christina notes that that this year's Golden Globe nominees, announced earlier today, include no female directors once again. (It's a pretty white list, too, ahem.) So today's question is: Who's your favorite female film director?
Okay, I couldn't pick just one, so here's my Top 10 list:
1. Jane Campion—The Piano is one of my favorite films of all time.
2. Agnieszka Holland—Europa Europa and Olivier, Olivier are masterpieces. She did a beautiful job realizing one of my favorite childhood books, The Secret Garden, too.
3. Gurinder Chadha—Bend It Like Beckham is just fantastic; I've watched it a nonillion times at least. And Bride & Prejudice (with the delicious Naveen Andrews, for interested Losties) is hilarious.
4. Nicole Holofcener—I absolutely adore Walking and Talking, and I liked Friends with Money, too. I've still not seen Lovely and Amazing.
5. Penny Marshall—Gotta give it up for A League of Their Own. And Awakenings. And Big. And Jumpin' Jack Flash. Gotta give it up for Penny.
6. Julie Taymor—I've sung her praises for Titus before. Just watched that again recently; it's such a beautifully shot film.
7. Kasi Lemmons—Loved Eve's Bayou. Still looking forward to seeing this year's Talk to Me.
8. Sophia Coppola—Please don't hate me, Rox. I adore Lost in Translation, enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, and, Maude save me, I really liked Marie Antoinette.
9. Penelope Spheeris—In case it wasn't enough that she directed the Decline of Western Civilization documentaries, she also directed Wayne's World.
10. Jodie Foster—Home for the Holidays will probably always be my favorite holiday movie. I love it. Holly Hunter. Anne Bancroft. Cynthia Stevenson. Robert Downey, Jr. Charles Durning. A flying turkey. Forget it.
Honorable mentions: Alison Anders, Mary Harron, Amy Heckerling, Patricia Cardoso, Mira Nair, Martha Coolidge, Mimi Leder.
Another Dem Snoozefest Debate
There was another Democratic snoozefest debate in Iowa today. You'd think that with all these debates, they'd accidentally stumble over something interesting occasionally, but…no.
Here's the snoozefest debate highlight, in which Obama totally gets pwned by the moderator, who asks him how he plans to be an agent of change when all his advisors are former Clintonites, prompting Hillary to unleash Teh Cackle!!!11!!
[Thanks, Petulant.]
Brutal
Reason #1 why Mike Huckabee should never, ever, be president:
"My name is Lois Davidson. My daughter won't be home for Christmas this year."
VO: Carol Sue Shields won't be home for Christmas, because she was brutally murdered by Wayne Dumond. Dumond was in an Arkansas prison for raping a 17-year-old high school cheerleader, until governor Mike Huckabee helped him get out. Thanks to Mike Huckabee, Dumond was released from his Arkansas prison 25 years before his sentence was to end. Then, less than one year later, he raped and murdered Carol Sue Shields.
[Dear Wayne… My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel now that parole is the best way for your reintegration into society. — Mike Huckabee]
"If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne Dumond would've been in prison, and Carol Sue would've been with us this year for Christmas."
[Via TPM. Info on the creation and creator of the video here. Previous posts on Huckabee and Dumond here and here.]
Chronicles of the Unhip
w00t is the word of the year.
Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t."I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever typed the word.
"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.
Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
"It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It's a term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically with each other," Morse said.
Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call "l33t speak" -- that's "leet" when spoken, short for "elite" to the rest of the world.
For technophobes, the word also is familiar from the 1990 movie "Pretty Woman," in which Julia Roberts startles her date's upper-crust friends with a hearty "Woot, woot, woot!" at a polo match.
I think it's groovy.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Squabble Gobble Cluck
So, someone in Clinton's campaign said something stupid about Obama and how he did drugs once upon a time and now that person has resigned and Hillary has apologized to Obama and of course it's a big kafuffle.
Maybe I'm supposed to care, but I don't.
I give it two wevs and a meh.
This is really shaping up to be a "back-to-bed" day of the highest order.
Canada, Dec. 13: "Nothing like some good old victim-blaming. A judge ruling a Canada rape case called the 18-year old survivor 'stupid' and 'naïve' for getting into a car with the offender, who then brought her to a cemetery to rape her."
Cue my refrain, first said here, about victim-blaming: Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article), I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn't raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.
Consider for a moment, how stupid victim-blaming really is, when rapists are, if nothing else, opportunists who exploit the goodness of people's natures and prey on weaknesses.
Rapists rape children.
South Africa, Dec. 13: "A man has claimed to have sexually abused his small granddaughters because he could no longer afford to pay prostitutes."
Rapists rape babies.
Massachusetts, Dec. 11: "A former Somerville police officer has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing and burning a 23-month-old girl more than two years ago."
Rapists rape people who trust them, because of their position.
New Jersey, Dec. 12: "Seven state troopers in New Jersey have been suspended with pay after they were accused of sexually assaulting a university student."
Rapists rape people who couldn't consent even if they wanted to.
Minnesota, Dec. 13: "The last of four people charged in the gang-rape of an unconscious 16-year-old girl three years ago in Winona has pleaded guilty to felony sexual conduct."
Rapists rape vulnerable people.
California, Dec. 13: "A man who allegedly raped a 24-year-old woman who became stranded on the San Diego (5) Freeway early Saturday morning following an accident has been charged [following a positive DNA match] with forcible rape, two counts of sexual penetration, sexual assault with the intent to commit rape, dissuading a witness and making a criminal threat."
Rapists rape the elderly.
Texas, Dec. 11: "Two boys aged 11 and 14 have been charged with breaking into a 60-year-old woman's home and trying to rape her in what police said was an apparently premeditated and cold-blooded attack. The boys wore bandanas and gloves and carried a 'rape kit' that included items to restrain the victim when they broke through a window of the woman's home."
Rapists rape the disabled.
Oregon, Dec. 12: "Benjamin Keylin … the executive director at Youth Theatre Northwest since 2003, allegedly raped an 18-year-old woman who has a mild form of autism, investigators said. According to detectives, Keylin raped the woman multiple times… Investigators said Keylin also [sexually assaulted] the victim's 16-year-old sister."
Rapists rape pregnant women.
Florida, Dec. 13: "Police are seeking help in identifying the suspect in the rape of a pregnant woman and theft Monday."
Rapists rape people in their own homes.
Australia, Dec. 13: "[A man] has pleaded guilty to 3 counts of rape and one each of unlawful imprisonment, theft and stalking [after entering his victim's bedroom, tying her up with a cable, and raping her three times, before removing the door handle so she could not escape]. A statement read to the court on behalf of the victim said she had nightmares since the attack, her hair had fallen out in clumps and she was afraid to be alone. … The County Court was told the man apologised during the attack, and blamed it on the medication he was taking."
Rapists rape strangers who happened to be nice to them.
Utah, Dec. 13: "Police have arrested a man they say stalked a woman and violently raped her. … Farmer met the victim at a Wal-Mart, made small talk with her, then followed her home. He allegedly returned to her home the next day dressed as a package delivery person and forced his way inside. Police say the woman was tied up and raped while her 3-year-old son was in the home."
Rapists rape their peers.
New Zealand, Dec. 13: "Matamata residents are angry at the release of a 16-year-old from police custody for the second time in recent weeks, after he allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl at the weekend while free on bail for another serious crime."
Rapists rape anyone they can get their hands on.
Ireland, Dec. 13: "More than 30 women who were raped last year went on to give birth as a result of their attack, shocking new figures from the Rape Crisis Network Ireland reveal. In all, 47 women who were raped or disclosed a previous rape in 2006 became pregnant as a result—including a third of all rape victims who were raped by a close family member. Nine of the rape victims who consequently became pregnant were under 18 at the time of their attack."
That's the thing about rapists, you see. They rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance. The only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck.
Quite literally, the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Since they don't announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple, that's not a very reasonable expectation, is it?
Enough victim blaming. Enough.
[Note that every example used in this post is no older than two days. There are this many stories about rape in the news every. single. day. In fact, there are lots more than I even used.]
Dear Catholics: I regret to inform you that your pope has lost his mind. Love, Shakespeare's Sister
I never thought I'd say it, but I quite genuinely preferred (and had more respect for, which isn't saying much) "God says so" as a justification for refusing to support same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. At least compared to calling them impediments to peace [via Mark]:
"The Human Family, a Community of Peace" is this year's papal message for the World Day of Peace, which will be observed Jan. 1.Yep, that's right, Shakers. It's not the fundy religious wackos who blow shit up and start wars and repress millions of people because their god is the best god and he tells them to kill or control people in his name; no, they're not the threat to peace. And it's not the world leaders who sponsor terrorism and fund wars and build up massive weapons arsenals that could blow up the entire planet several times over, with money that could instead feed the hungry and treat the ill and solve the climate crisis, just for a start; no they're not the threat to peace. And it's not the mega-corporations that exploit human labor and destroy local economies and meddle in global affairs and destabilize entire regions like an überfleet of modern day pirates in three-piece suits; no, they're not the threat to peace.
Presenting the nuclear family as the "first and indispensable teacher of peace" and the "primary agency of peace," the 15-page document links sexual and medical ethics to international relations.
"Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of new life ... constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace," Benedict writes.
It's the people who want to live their lives minding their own goddamned business and fuck whom they want and marry whom they want and have kids when they want; they're—excuse me, we're—the threat to peace. We're the "obstacle" to peace that must be overcome to heal the world.
Blow me.
I Always Tell the Truth. Even When I Lie.
As you may or may not recall, last year I wrote a rather wiseass cheap shot post about Bush's then-recent pardons. I just found it rather amusing that so many of them involved marijuana, cocaine, liquor, *ahem* moonshine, and guns. Throw in a couple AWOL soldiers, and you more or less have a laundry list of Bush's own *cough* alleged "youthful indiscretions."
Well, guess what, folks? Recently, Georgie got out his pardonin' pen, and look what we have here:PARDONED
Interesting, isn't it, that Bush is pardoning all of these people that just happen to be dealing in the very substances that Bush was so reluctant to talk about during the last two elections? (To be fair, I have no idea if he's been accused of using meth or ecstasy. Bush on ecstasy... shudder...) There's more to the list of pardons; liquor and guns make their merry appearances again, but I literally had to laugh when I saw the sheer number of people busted for cocaine and pot getting pardoned.
_ John Edward Casto, of Ripley, W.Va., convicted in 1990 of distribution of cocaine.
_ Jackie Ray Clayborn, of Deer, Ark., convicted in 1993 of manufacturing marijuana.
_ Debbie Sue Conklin, formerly known as Debbie Sue McAlevy, of Douglas, Wyo., convicted in 1990 of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
_ John Fornaby, of Boynton Beach, Fla., convicted in 1991 of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
_ Paul Dwight Hawkins, of Lafayette, La., convicted in 1990 of conspiracy to import marijuana.
_ Roger Paul Ingram, of Round Rock, Texas, convicted in 1987 of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute an analogue of a Schedule I controlled substance, Ecstasy.
_ Billy Joe LaForce, of San Antonio, convicted in 1991 of conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute.
_ Steven Wayne Whitlock, of Sarasota, Fla., convicted in 1990 of conspiracy to import marijuana.
COMMUTED SENTENCE
_ Michael Dwayne Short, of Hyattsville, Md., convicted in 1992 of aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine base.
I guess being one of Bush's old snorty bong buddies pays off, eh? Allegedly. *
One would think that, considering Bush's reluctance to talk about his past drug use, and considering the hysteria over pardons when Clinton left office, and considering Bush is spending millions on the "drug war" while pardoning drug dealers behind the scenes, and considering, well, could he be any more fucking obvious, one would think this might, you know, be news.
Ha, ha, ha! Oh, you starry-eyed dreamers! We can't waste our time on this... don't you know we're at war? Christmas is under fire, you fools! We must act!
Oh, and in case you were wondering:_ William James Norman, of Tallahassee, Fla., convicted in 1970 of possession of an unregistered distillery, carrying on the business of a distiller without giving the required bond, possession and custody of a still without the required sign outside the premises, working at a distillery without the required sign outside the premises and unlawfully producing distilled spirits from mash and similar material.
The moonshiner got pardoned, too. Land 'o goshen.
* Snark. I'm not saying these people actually sat there and gnawed on stale pizza crusts while trying to scrub the smell of bongwater out of their pants as Bush cut lines with Poppy's Amex.
Domestic Violence is Hilarious
Shaker Jay in Oregon just linked to this headline in comments, which was the "hilarious" headline the New York Post gave to Ike Turner's obituary:
Ha ha! Get it?! Get it?! Because Ike Turner used to beat the crap out of Tina when they were married! Oh my aching sides!
Even for the trashy New York Post, that's appalling.
Bush Vetoes SCHIP. Again.
Compassionate conservatism blah blah blah:
For the second time, President Bush has vetoed a major expansion of the children's health insurance program, making it clear that the debate will linger as a political issue throughout 2008.Never mind that there's no evidence that anyone has done that under the existing program or would do it under the expanded program, and never mind that it goes against all common sense.
…Bush issued his veto on Wednesday, saying "our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage—not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."
Can anyone remember the last time we had an honest debate about any policy in this country? I can't.
And we should be outraged about that, except we've collectively convinced ourselves that "all politicians are the same." Well, maybe they are in this country, but turn on the British parliament some time and give it a watch. Yeah, there's grandstanding and soapboxing and hyperbole, but the policy debates are basically honest. We're letting ourselves be screwed out of a vibrant democracy by people who routinely lie to us because we're too dumb to notice or too jaded to care.
[H/T Petulant.]
The Coverage of Jocelyn Kirsch is Scandalous
Hi everyone! This is John from the Drexel Democrats, the official blog of the Drexel University College Democrats. Liss was kind enough to ask me to cross post this piece about the coverage of a big story on campus and all over Philly. Thanks!
One of the things I've noticed about myself over these last few years in college is that I increasingly notice misogyny where I didn't before. You may attribute this to growth and maturity on my part, but I blame the feminist blogs I read, like Pandagon or Shakespeare's Sister. With that backdrop, I thought I should say something about the hottest buzz on campus since, well, the recent Democratic Presidential debate.
The short version of the story is that Drexel student Jocelyn Kirsch and her boyfriend Edward Anderton, A UPenn graduate, were living the high life in a ritzy Rittenhouse square apartment and all over the world with money they stole through ID theft. Apparently it wasn't a small time operation either; they had an industrial ID making machine and stole keys to their neighbors apartments to get in and steall ID related material.
Naturally, they got caught, and the story was just too juicy. The more stories I read about it, though, the more I became uncomfortable with the tone and focus of the coverage.
What Kirsch and Anderton did was pretty despicable. Identity theft is a horrible crime that victimizes people for a long time. It violates their sense of being, costs them time and money to recover from it, shatters their trust in people, and often comes back to victimize them again and again, years later. Kirsch and Anderton, if convicted, should rot in jail for a long time. I have no sympathy for them. My disdain for Kirsch and Anderton, however, didn't blind me to the misogynistic tone of the coverage.
Everything I read, from the Daily News coverage to The Triangle's cover story, had a distinct focus on Kirsch. Reporters were ever so eager to dig up stories from anyone with an axe to grind against Kirsch. I can't even count how many times I've read that she alledgedly got breast implants. It was practically the focus of the coverage!
The cover story in The Triangle read like a gossip column. It was disappointing, because the reporters that wrote it actually are very good, and I felt like they knew better. Paragraphs like this jumped out at me:Another source, a Drexel University college friend, says that the breasts implants were likely.
This is blatantly misogynistic. "Poor old Eddie Anderton, just got sucked in by that crafty Siren who conned him into all this bad stuff!"
"She had a nose job and told friends that she needed it after getting hurt pole vaulting," the source said.
After friends confronted her about the pole vaulting incident, she uploaded pictures to her Facebook of other people pole vaulting and tagged herself, according to the source. The pictures have since been removed.
"I always wonder why she stayed with him. She could wrap any person around her finger," the source said.
A Drexel friend who wished to remain anonymous says she was surprised that Eddie was involved in this, and that he stayed with her. Kirsch was allegedly still dating her ex-boyfriend when she first met Eddie.
The Daily News coverage wasn't so blatent, but they did slip in nuggets.Ian Jacobson, 23, whose best friend dated Kirsch in 2006, said she wanted to be a goodwill ambassador, but that "was inconsistent with the way she dressed and the way she presented herself."
It's not surprising at all that you would find people with nasty things to say about Anderton and Kirsch. They would have to be pretty awful people to do what they did. I just don't think that hearing from friends of ex-boyfriends about what a bitch she was is interesting or enlightening. I also think that Kirsch is only half of this pair, and that Anderton should be subject to the same scrutiny that Kirsch would be subjected to.
He said Kirsch liked to change up clothes, hair color and contact colors. She changed from blond to brunette to black hair, then to red hair during the time Jacobson knew her, he said. Her eye color also was changing.
From another article in the Daily News:"This is a great day. I've been laughing so hard," said Ian Jacobson earlier this week. His best friend dated Kirsch, whom he called "very conniving. She kind of just stuck her claws into my friend and twisted his perception of things."
I won't even mention the kinds of things written to the Facebook groups about Kirsch. I was actually surprised by some of it, considering that Facebook, unlike most of the internet, isn't anonymous. I challenge you to find any atricle on the internet that allows comments where someone didn't pop up and say "I'd still fuck her." or some varation on that theme.
Jacobson and Cook, like many others at Drexel who spoke on condition of anonymity, truly never believed the things uttered by Kirsch.
There are some pretty interesting things about this story. These kids had every chance in the world, and they still went out and robbed their neighbors. I don't know what the dynamics were between Kirsch and Anderton, and maybe one of them was the driving force, but the speed at which people seem willing to jump to the conclusio that Kirsch is a conniving bitch who conned that poor sweet boy, well, it rubbed me the wrong way. Just something to be aware of next time you read that some awful woman got breast implants.
The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly
And its elevators are broke-down pieces of shit:
There are many longstanding, seemingly intractable shortcomings in the city’s family court system that might delay a parent in getting a child back from foster care: unprepared lawyers, overcrowded dockets and long waiting lists for drug treatment and mental health services.Because family court judges are constantly at risk for retribution because of their decisions, it's a reasonable policy to disallow the public from using the bank of elevators reserved for court personnel (despite my righteous populism admittedly eliciting instant indignation at the thought of judges too good to mingle with the hoi polloi), but the stairs being closed to everyone, for wont of a couple of security cameras, seems frustratingly short-sighted. Of course, I don't know the whole story.
But Bronx Family Court has added a new obstacle: broken elevators.
…Lines to use a working elevator can stretch around the corner. People sometimes wait for hours to get to hearings, which are held on the seventh and eighth floors. Frequently, hearings have to be postponed because clients and witnesses cannot get to them.
…The judges have less trouble getting upstairs because they use a bank of elevators reserved for court personnel. The public is not allowed on those, and may not use the stairs because of security concerns.
What I do know from the article is that there is a "four-year modernization project" underway for the elevators—and, currently in year two, already one whole elevator has been fixed! Huzzah!
I also know that the Bronx Family Court is hardly the only public building in America is some stage of significant disrepair, resulting in the dysfunction of public services. We are failing to reinvest in ourselves, and it's beginning to show. (Crumble.)
Infrastructure schminfrastructure, we've been cavalierly sniffing for years, as if the country would never fall apart. Sure, we can have a war and tax cuts. We'll worry about levees and bridges and public upkeep later.
Later has arrived—and there's something depressingly poetic about Bush's grand plan to spread freedom and democracy all over the globe having left Americans waiting in breadlines for justice.
[H/T Angelos.]
Project Runway Open Thread
"Hi, I'm Donna Karan, and I'm thrilled to be here!" *wink*
"Uh, not anymore."
Question of the Day
Hi, Shakers! The semester from h-e-double hockey sticks is finally over, so hopefully you'll be seeing a lot more of me in the days and weeks to come. Of course, I've got to ease my way back into the chaos, and what better way than with a QOTD?
I'll take the lazy way out, though. Piggybacking on the "what restaurant chain do you despise" question (Mine is Ponderosa. I was going to respond, but the scars run too deep; couldn't bring myself to remember the last experience at that pile of poo), I offer you this: What restaurant chain is your guilty pleasure?
I know they're reprehensible in every way. I know they're worthy of all of the scorn heaped upon them. I know there is no reason whatsoever to go there. Not to mention the fact that they have a freakin' clown as their spokesperson... but...
I love, love, love, McDonald's french fries.
I know they barely resemble anything potato-like anymore. I know the tons of artificial ingredients and flavoring is the only reason they taste so good. I don't care. Leave me in my shame!
(And you?)
