The two men spoke for half an hour in the 12th century Tower of St John, a private area in the Vatican gardens which is used by the pope for private reflection.
…[One Vatican source said] that while the Holy See deplored the war in Iraq, "on ethical matters he has always had a line that is practically identical to that of the Vatican." Mr Bush has spoken out against gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research. He proposed amending the US constitution to "fully protect marriage" as the "union of man and woman as husband and wife".
He has repeatedly made clear his admiration for Benedict and has even claimed to have read some of the pope's theological books.
Has even claimed—LOL!
Apparently the thinking is that since Bush's lapdog good pal Tony Blair converted to Catholicism, Bush might follow suit. Considering he doesn't even go to church or seem to give a flying fart about any of Christianity's major tenets, like caring for the poor and not lying, little stuff like that, and considering that he stands to gain no benefit from even pretending to be religious or God-fearing anymore, I can't imagine why he'd convert. But wev. Maybe he likes the smell of incense. Maybe he heard they use real wine.
What I like about this story is how it reminds me there's a day we'll be rid of this fucknut, and will only hear occasional news items about whatever silly shit he's getting up to in his post-presidency quiescence.
The New York Times is reporting that Tim Russert has died of a heart attack. Nothing so far from MSNBC, CNN, or the AP yet.
I'll update as and when information becomes available.
UPDATE: It's now breaking news at MSNBC: "BREAKING NEWS: NBC News 'Meet the Press' moderator Tim Russert dies." And at CNN. He was only 58.
My condolences to his family.
RIP Timmeh
UPDATE 2: If there is consciousness after death, I am, upon reflection, quite certain that Tim Russert is cursing that he died just in time for the Friday evening news hole—an observation I make with the sort of wry news junky humor that I suspect Russert appreciated.
UPDATE 3: Thanks to Petulant for providing the below video of Tom Brokaw's obit on MSNBC.
Petulant asked me the other day what sage and seer The Amazing Criswell had to say on the subject of queers in his 1968 book Criswell Predicts: From Now to the Year 2000! Ole Criz (that's my pet name for him) only mentions homos twice in his book. Once is a single line, about halfway through, under Headlines of the Future:
ENGLAND LEGALIZES HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGES (1969)
Nice try. What's 35 years, more or less?
But, anyway. Back to page one. Criz lays it on thick with talk of "organized orgies" and "perversion … parade[d] shamelessly" across the land. The good citizens of Des Moines should be so lucky. Here's the full text:
I predict that perversion will flood the land beginning in 1970. I predict a series of homosexual cities, small, compact, carefully planned areas, will soon be blatantly advertised and exist from coast to coast. These compact communities will be complete with stores, churches, bars and restaurants which will put the olden Greeks or Romans to shame with their organized orgies. You will be able to find them near Boston, Des Moines, Columbus, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, St. Louis, New Orleans, Dallas, and Miami.
Not only will these tastefully decorated carefully planned areas be blatantly advertised, they will also exist. In Iowa. Does Des Moines even have a gay pride parade? Something tells me they're still not ready for the Castro to move into the heart of the corn belt.
Much thought and planning will be expended in setting up these communities where perversion will parade shamelessly. And all this will be within the law because the perverted will claim they have been discriminated against. The Supreme Court will rule that whatever these consenting adult males, or females, wish to do, they can! Greece and Rome, along with Carthage and Babylon once permitted the same type of communities. I predict that history will repeat itself right here in America beginning in the year of 1970, and increasingly after the Supreme Court upholds them in 1973.
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Ole Criz was using the Mayan calendar in his predictions. I'm also beginning to wonder if he was sniffing glue as he wrote.
Katherine Patrick, 18, tells her parents she has to talk to them about something serious, then comes out to them; her mother laughs with relief; her father, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, tells her they love her no matter what and arranges an interview with a gay publication to come out publicly. Father and daughter plan to march together tomorrow in Boston's Pride Parade.
Forbes has just released its annual Celebrity Top 100 list, which considers earnings, popularity, and press to come to some arbitrary ranking system. It's sort of a big wev, to be honest, but I noticed this year that three of the top 5 are women—two of whom are women of color.
And the top two earners on the entire list were women, too: Oprah came in second with a mere $275 million last year, while JK Rowling earned $300 million.
Kinda cool.
Btw, I don't know how the fook Judge Judy came in at #40, but that is totally cracking my shit up.
I was hanging out with someone I had met recently and I proclaimed, "If you get Welcome to the Dollhouse, you get me." That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I do feel that the Todd Solondz film from 1995 perfectly captures a moment in time that most of us have to endure: the horrors of junior high. The awkward awakening of puberty, the unlimited cruelty of other kids, and the cold indifference of worn out teachers and principals. It's all presented in darkly comic, cringe-inducing detail in the film.
I'm often asked to name my favorite film. I hate that question, perhaps because of my difficulty with decision-making, but probably because there are so many great films I have loved over the years. I have a list, not a favorite. But I judge my favorites by identifying films I could watch repeatedly without getting sick of them. Dollhouse is in that category. One of the great things about it is its wealth of quotable (if offensive or raunchy) lines. The other great element is how much we can feel for Dawn Weiner, the awkward geeky protagonist who gets shit on repeatedly throughout the film by family, friends, teachers, and classmates. We feel her pain, but we laugh, knowing we've been there (but hopefully not to that extreme!).
True to real life, the ending is open and bleak, not offering a reprieve for Dawn, simply more of the same. When she asks her older brother if high school is any better, he answers, "Not really," and all we can do is nod our heads knowingly. It may sound like the film is one big downer, but it's not that simple. Like many things in life, it's funny because it's true.
Right in the article: "The establishment news media were faulted too. The New York Times wrote about Mrs. Clinton's 'cackle' and The Washington Post wrote about her cleavage."
On June 23rd, my dear friend (and the person who introduced me to Al) Paula Cisewski, will be reading in Chicago, along with our fellow Vermont College grads Rauan Klassnik and Carrie Olivia Adams. If you're in town, please come check it out.
Rauan Klassnik was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Now he spends most of his time in Mexico looking after birds and dogs with his wife Edith. His poems have appeared in such journals The North American Review, MiPoesias, No Tell Motel, Caesura, Sentence, Tex!, Pilot Poetry, and Hunger Mountain. His first full-length collection of poetry, Holy Land,is newly released from Black Ocean.
Carrie Olivia Adams works in publishing in Chicago. She is also the poetry editor for Black Ocean, an independent press based out of Boston, New York, and Chicago. She has published one chapbook, "A Useless Window," and her first full-length collection, Intervening Absence, is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press. Her poems and criticism have appeared in such journals in Backwards City Review, Cranky, DIAGRAM, Verse, and Lilies and Cannonballs.
Paula Cisewski is the author of Upon Arrival (Black Ocean, 2006), the chapbook How Birds Work(Fuori Editions, 2002), and the co-author, with Mathias Svalina, of Or Else What Asked the Flame (Scantily Clad Press, 2008). A Pushcart nominee and amateur thereminist, she lives in Minneapolis where she teaches writing and humanities courses and hosts the Imaginary Press Reading Series.
With apologies to our friends in another hemisphere: What song most evokes summertime for you?
For me, it's got to be Mozza's "Suedehead." Too many (hundreds, truly) summer days spent in the car with the windows down while this blared away on the stereo. And this song, rather than others, because it's on at least half a dozen different albums and singles in my collection! So I hear it a lot.
Your little one will look fabulous in these soft crib shoes designed to look like high heels! Each pair of heelarious heels is packaged in a darling purse-shaped gift box, complete with a rhinestone closure.
Yeah, they are real and there are six styles of the tacky, atrocious abominations to put on the sweet little feet of your newborn to (appx) 6 month old baby available.
I wrote Melissa an e-mail about this, and she said I should "totally blog that." So I am.
I have been sitting through three and a half days of intense training for my new job, along with about 170 other people. It was all rather mind-numbing, including a collection of new terms, acronyms, and geekspeak that made it sound like a graduate seminar in “The Jabberwocky.”
But there was one moment that stood out. As they were talking about quality control of file management, they put up a huge Power Point slide that read “QC of FM.” Everyone turned and looked at me when I let out a loud “HA!” and snorted a few times. Apparently I was the only one who got the reference.
No, I didn’t explain my outburst, but it did brighten my day.
Shaker Vivelafat passed on this article from Slate, detailing the relationship between two elderly nursing home residents with dementia and the subsequent fallout.
While concerns about consent are well-founded, it doesn't sound like that was difficult to establish in this situation—and I've got say I find it rather heartbreaking that Dorothy and Bob were forcibly separated. I also wish Bob's son had given his side of the story.
Hey, remember Glenn Murphy, Jr.—the president of the Young Republicans and chairman of the Clark County Republican Party who had a problem with his mouth ending up on other people's privates while they were sleeping?
Well, he's now pleaded guilty to criminal deviate conduct.
Criminal deviate conduct is a Class B felony in Indiana. If the judge accepts his plea, Murphy will have to register as a sex offender. Sentencing is set for June 30.
Christopher J. Ward, the former NRCC treasurer, improperly diverted as much as $725,000 from the committee to himself over a six-year period, according to several GOP insiders. [...]
Ward is under investigation by the Justice Dept. over his alleged embezzlement from the NRCC. On Friday, the Justice Dept. filed a civil forfeiture claim against Ward's home in Bethesda, Md. Court documents filed by DOJ charge that Ward diverted more than $500,000 from the President's Dinner accounts to his own use, using the funds to pay his mortgage and to finance nearly $200,000 worth of home renovations.
The thing I love most about this is Mr. Ward's perspective. See, he clearly wasn't worried about increasing the Republican presence in Congress; he just saw the NRCC as an opportunity for himself, which certainly doesn't seem to conflict with the general Republican MO these days. The fact that he totally didn't give a shit about screwing his own people for home improvements is nothing short of priceless.
Then again, the price tag for Mr. Ward will be pretty steep. Boo-freakin-hoo.
Disclaimer that I really shouldn't need to begin with but shall: I will vote for Obama in November. And furthermore, I will be excited to do so, for a number of reasons.
Having gotten that out of the way, if you were wondering why so many women are saying we're sick of being threatened about how we'll suffer -- and be to blame! -- if McCain gets elected, here's a great example of what we're talking about.
For the purposes of this post, pay attention between 1:00 and 1:30. (But don't miss the part later when they discuss how Obama needs to choose a running mate who exudes patriotism and competence, to make up for his deficiencies! Oof.) Transcript of the part I'm talking about:
CHUCK TODD: ... So, I think when you look at this, and our experts, our pollsters said, boy they would worry about the suburban women thing. If they were Obama they'd worry about the suburban women thing first, before the men. They say, you know what? Hey, Bush won men by this much; you can still win it by losing men by that much. I'd argue and say if he slices men from 20 to 15, and you assume those women come home, then that's how he wins a big win. And he forces McCain to play defense.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But in a political [unintelligible], women are low-hanging fruit, though, in the terms of politics.
TODD: Correct.
MATTHEWS: You can reach up and say, "I'm pro-choice, he's not."
Emphasis mine.
This is exactly the kind of attitude a hell of a lot of female Democrats are so angry about right now. We don't need to do shit to get women's votes. All we have to do is scare them about losing their right to choose. Where else are they gonna go?
Where I'm concerned, that's basically true, much as I don't want to give them the satisfaction. I can't stand the thought of McCain winning, and if the Democrats were running the proverbial yellow dog against him, that's who would get my vote. It's just a bonus that I think Obama's a pretty good candidate, even if he's not who I voted for in the primary.
But I do not represent all Democratic women or all female Hillary voters. I know this might be difficult for the pundits and party leaders to grasp, but we're all different people. And some of us are too fed up with our votes being taken for granted to stomach voting for the Democrat in November -- certainly not after this primary season. Some of us -- especially those pesky older white women who are past their childbearing years anyway -- are sick and fucking tired of having Roe v. Wade held over our heads, as if it will somehow be the fault of pro-choice women if it's overturned. Some of us can't stand being told one more time that it's "in our own self-interest" to vote for any Democrat, just because voting for any Republican would be worse. It's also in my own self-interest to choose being punched in the arm over being punched in the nose, but it doesn't make me fucking stoked about that option.
I am not going to protest in the voting booth this year, but boy, do I ever understand the women who are. Yes, even the ones who plan to vote for McCain; I don't agree with that choice, but I understand that lots of women have different values and priorities than I do, and they see that as their best option for any number of reasons. Some of them sincerely believe Obama is unqualified to be president. Some of them were centrists to begin with and don't see McCain as all that horrible. Some of them don't realize McCain is all that horrible, because the media loves him so. Some of them are probably even anti-choice -- women do occasionally vote for Democrats because of other concerns, as it turns out. And untold others of them have reasons I can't even guess at, but that's how they're deciding to use their votes, which is their sacred right as citizens.
And if, Maude forbid, they push McCain over the top, it will not be their fucking fault. If this country is so far gone that McCain can be pushed over the top by a handful of angry swing voters, the Democratic Party's got a serious problem, and it's not just that one we all live with.
Listen up, pundits, party, and bullying bloggers: It is not women's job to "come home" to the party. It is the party's job to make us fucking feel welcome in our own "home." It is Obama's job to earn our votes. Taking us for granted is shitty, and threatening us with the loss of our bodily autonomy is about a zillion times shittier. STOP IT. You are not helping. You are driving voters away.
And you are seriously pissing off even those of us voters you can count on this year. I'm not ready to abstain just yet, but give me another couple decades of this bullshit -- of being told you won't bother to work for my vote, of being told it will be my own fault if Roe v. Wade is overturned, of being told that my concerns about sexism thriving in the party are overblown -- and I might just say hey, you know what? I've spent my entire adult life voting for Democrats, and they've never shown one real whit of interest in me. They've done nothing but take me for granted, because to them, I'm low-hanging fruit, not someone whose concerns actually merit any expenditure of time, effort, or political capital. Well, hey, maybe they'll miss me when I'm gone...
Not surprisingly, a whole lot of the women refusing to vote for Obama this year are a couple decades older than me. Do the math. You can only get away with treating a large chunk of your base as an afterthought for so long.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
Petulant asked me the other day what sage and seer The Amazing Criswell had to say on the subject of queers in his 1968 book Criswell Predicts: From Now to the Year 2000! Ole Criz (that's my pet name for him) only mentions homos twice in his book. Once is a single line, about halfway through, under Headlines of the Future:
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