WTF? The fact that she's stunningly gorgeous and has a powerhouse voice isn't enough to sell the album? You have to Photoshop her down to Barbie doll proportions, instead of just letting her be the regular old bombshell she is? Psst, guys, her fans already know she's not Hollywood-thin. It's okay. Some of us even like that about her. For fuck's sake.
A certain conservative CNN contributor who shall not be named lest a bitch feed his already out of control ego is asking the question What’s Right with America? on the CNN.com website the other day.
Now, a bitch knows where he’s going with this shit. He’s going to dismiss criticism of America by calling it unpatriotic and then he’s going to point out all the really cool and truly amazing shit going on in our country followed by some poorly written conclusion proclaiming that we’d all be better off if mouthy liberals would dive into that bag of Soylent Green then chase it with gov’ment Kool-Aid. And there will be some who find inspiration in the notion that what is good is more important than what is bad.
A bitch isn’t inspired by intellectually lazy shit, so I won’t be getting anything out of it but a dull headache developed whilst pondering how Aaron Brown got booted from CNN but some asshole implanted with an RNC microchip got a steady gig.
Pause…swallow aspirin…continue. Anyhoo, what the asshole with the steady gig is missing is that most of what is right in America was made that way by people who had the courage to point out what was wrong.
And I’m not talking about people who gently suggested after multitudes of flattering comments that we may want to form a more perfect union/end slavery/give women the vote/give all Americans the protected vote/give veterans benefits/protect older people from starvation/educate our chil’ren or any of the other positive happenings….you know, if we find the time and are so inclined.
In the real world, Americans who notice something is wrong have to point it out to those who could fix it…and then file a lawsuit or march or do both…and then make it a campaign issue followed by more marches and maybe some media…followed by lobbying then marching then Congressional hearings and/or a legal test case followed by appeals and more appeals until the high court takes the case…and if the high court fucks up, they go back to the beginning and start again.
Getting to right from wrong takes time, dedication and the courage to point out that shit is fucked up before it achieves fubar.
The issue before us isn’t whether there is more good than bad going on in America…the issue before us is whether we are doing our duty as Americans when we ignore what is wrong to fix a glassy ass gaze on what is right.
Yeah.
Ask not what is right with your country--ask what you can do to help right what is wrong...
About an hour or so ago, I brought home one very sore Scotsman from the oral surgeon, where he had a tooth extracted—or toof, as he says it by virtue of the heart-meltingly charming speech impediment rendering him incapable of pronouncing THs. The tooth had broken and abscessed; within about 24 hours, pain was radiating through his (increasingly swollen) jaw and he was in absolute misery.
Because we have no emergency dentists in our area, he had to suffer through the weekend with it—and, after that horror, I think getting the thing out is such a psychological relief that the pain is almost incidental. (For now.) And, fortunately, the procedure went very smoothly. Now he's collapsed on the couch, completely knackered and looking uncannily like the most adorable ginger squirrel in all the world.
...to Birmingham Blues, celebrating three years of general awesomeness. Kathy was one of the first bloggers to go on my Bloglines, and many have come and gone, but BB remains a permanent fixture.
Shaker InfamousQBert forwards a story in the Economist titled "Michelle Obama's America," which is fine, but is subtitled "Is Barack Obama's wife his rock or his bitter half?" Oh, my aching sides. Get it? His bitter half—because the term "better half" isn't stupid enough. IQB also rightly wonders, regarding the accompanying image "what the hay-ell is up with the index finger on her right hand in that picture??"
Shaker JMonkey passes on an item from the ACLU: Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names. Now, we all know that's a load of horseshit—there's no way every single of those one million people on that list is a terrorist. But if the Bush administration is going to argue they are, how can they simultaneously argue that the "war on terror" is anything resembling a success, when the list of "terrorists" keeps growing exponentially?
Shaker Juliemania sends this interesting story about an Atlanta police officer sharing her story of being intersex, as well as this heartbreaking story about "women in countries where abortion is restricted … using the internet to buy medication enabling them to abort a pregnancy at home."
Shaker Dan forwards another one out of Atlanta, where "Men at Work" signs are being replaced with "Workers Ahead" signs, to recognize the contributions of women on road crews. Nice.
Shaker Anne passes on this story with the note: "An abortion clinic owner in San Diego impersonated a physician and performed abortions, some of which had dangerous complications. The news outlets are calling them 'illegal abortions,' a phrase which grates against my ears. The advertisements for these clinics targeted Hispanic women. Just another example of how abortion is safe and legal in this country as long as you're white and wealthy."
Shaker Jim writes: "Another Woman in Victory Lane: Yet another woman in auto racing has visited victory lane this season. [On July 12], Ana Beatriz of Brazil captured the 'Sunbelt Rentals 100' at Nashville (TN) Superspeedway in the Firestone Indy Lights series. Indy Lights is the feeder circuit to the Indy Racing League's Indy Car World Series with numerous Lights graduates now competing in IRL." Cool.
And Shaker Emily sends a link to this post announcing Sony Online Entertainment's first ever Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) design contest scholarship winner. Emily notes: "Check out the comments from the men whining that they can't get this scholarship and how easy it is to be a woman." Oy.
Now perhaps, like me, you're wondering what a "gay driving test" could possibly be. But let's leave "stick shift" jokes aside and look at what's actually happening here, shall we?
ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled the government must pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) in damages to a man who was told to retake a driving test because he was homosexual.
When 26 year-old Danilo Giuffrida told doctors he was gay at his medical examination for military service, they passed the information to the transport ministry, who told him he must repeat his driving test or have his license withdrawn due to his "sexual identity disturbance."
Giuffrida agreed to re-take his test, passed it for a second time, but the ministry renewed his license for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.
Yes, institutionalized discrimination based on sexual orientation is so odd! Doctors spreading confidential information to cause deliberate harm is so odd!
Ironically, or perhaps I should say unsurprisingly, Reuters missed the actual part of the story that made it "odd." Namely, the success of the lawsuit, and its historical significance.
The judge ruling on the case in Catania, on the southern island of Sicily, said the actions of the defense and transport ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination" against Giuffrida and ran counter to his constitutional rights.
The behavior of the ministries led Giuffrida to have "a grave sense of mistrust towards the state," added the judge, who ordered them to pay him 100,000 euros of damages in his verdict issued on Saturday.
Giuffrida's lawyer said the case marked the first time the state had been punished for sexual discrimination, and he hoped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would "summon Giuffrida and apologize to him on behalf of the state and all Italians."
Giuffrida said the sentence was "a step forwards for civil rights because from now on what happened to me can't happen again."
This is a major step forward in civil rights, not simply a goofy story about a "gay driving test." The authors of this piece seem to think the settlement won is the most important detail of this story, as if a pile of euros can somehow be more valuable than a significant civil rights victory.
Kudos also to Reuters for their two other "odd" stories, pooling misogyny and crass indifference. Women arrested in Sex Competition- Of course, the men in this story were arrested too, but it's the women that need to be shamed in the headline. Also, the women were filmed participating in this "competition," to become internet wank fodder. We have no idea if the women knew this was going to happen (something tells me they probably didn't), but apparently investigating women being filmed without their knowledge to become unwilling participants on an internet porn site isn't all that important.
Yeah, I get that it's satire. But, ya know, maybe it's, um, a little ahead of its time, given that approximately half the country would forward this picture to a relative with the note: "Even the New Yorker thinks they're black power terrorists!" without a trace of irony.
[As an aside, I find it rather bitterly amusing that nothing like the same outrage was mustered when another presidential candidate and sitting US Senator was given a similar "satirical" treatment on a lefty rag in the not-too-distant past, even as it was deliberately designed to reinforce offensive narratives, rather than undermine them, as here. Funny how that works.]
I'm shocked, SHOCKED that this video passed me by. I knew DEVO had the XPS commercial featuring this song, but I didn't know until recently that they had done a full video. This is "Watch Us Work It," my favorite song of the last year.
I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption.
John McCain, who divorced his first wife and left her as a single mom and has yet to provide any evidence that two parents of the same gender are detrimental to the success of a family.
Just a little queer-bashing and marginalizing to keep the fundies happy. Remind me again of what a "maverick" he is.
The headline of this AP article is "Bernie Mac makes off-color joke at Obama event," though it should be "Bernie Mac makes misogynistic joke at Obama event." And, for my money, it's far less newsworthy that Bernie Mac made the joke in the first place, than the fact that presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama chided him for it, only to immediately assure Mac he was just kidding.
Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago, the 50-year-old star of "The Bernie Mac Show" joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language.
"My little nephew came to me and he said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?'" Mac said. "I said, I don't know, but I said, 'Go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd make love to the mailman for $50,000.'"
As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.
"It's not funny. Let's get Barack on," a man shouted from the crowd, which paid $2,300 each to support the Illinois senator.
About 15 minutes later, Obama tried to smooth things over with a joke of his own.
"We can't afford to be divided by race. We can't afford to be divided by region or by class and we can't afford to be divided by gender, which by the way, that means, Bernie, you've got to clean up your act next time," Obama said. "This is a family affair. By the way, I'm just messing with you, man."
Way to convince women you're really on their side there, Obama.
As Lambert points out, another report has Mac making jokes about "the women in the families and living with two 'hoes'," which sounds like an entry for the Michelle Obama Watch to me. Though, because the news reports are so frustratingly vague—"He promised to help Obama and ended his irreverent riff with a joke involving the women in the families and living with two 'hoes'."—it's sort of unclear whether he talking about specific women in his and Obama's families or invented women for a "joke." Nonetheless, it really makes me wonder even more WTF Obama was thinking letting off Mac so easy, especially given that he's "deeply disappointed that John McCain has not spoken out against the attacks leveled against his wife." (Unless he thinks his wife is magically untouched by misogyny, which I sincerely doubt.)
The incident drew response from Obama's campaign, which criticized Mac for his choice of material.
"Sen. Obama told Bernie Mac that he doesn't condone these statements and believes what was said was inappropriate," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement after the event.
Pretty hard to read this crap as anything but Michelle-Obama-Watch-worthy, though:
"Having a black first lady is different. You're still going have to do the dishes and the laundry and all that …you got to pick up the kids. You didn't pick up the kids? I just came from Korea, talking about nuclear weapons. You were on Air Force One and you couldn't stop to pick up the kids?"
[Following up on Mustang Bobby's and Zuzu's posts, here and here, about Phil Gramm's latest nonsense...]
Thursday, Phil Gramm said, "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."
And for Phil Gramm, the economy is not so bad. For the rest of us out here, I only have my experience to share.
In my life I have done fairly well for myself. I came from a dysfunctional working class family who wanted to believe they were middle class. In so doing they ran up credit card bills in their names and when that trick got old, they started working on opening them in the names of the cash cows known as their children.
When I moved far, far away at 17, I got a bunch of scholarships (thank you Imperial Court) and a bunch of jobs and tried my best to make it on my own. Along the way, I met my future husband. When I met him we assumed he was dying of AIDS and so we bought every stupid electronic device (laser disc player anyone?) that Sony put on the market. Then protease inhibitors were discovered and it turned out that he wasn't going to die and in 1998 we turned around, looked at our very scary bills and paid them all off.
Ten years after all that drama, we have awesome credit scores, excellent health insurance, we started and sold a business, bought a house and have a retirement plan. So what could possibly be the problem?
This week, my husband became another statistic on the unemployment lines as he was laid off from his excellent and well-paying job as an executive in the limousine industry. Between the writers' strike, rising gas prices and decreased luxury spending, it was going to be someone but honestly, I didn't see it coming. That is all about privilege. I got soft.
I remember my dad being laid off from job after job in the 70s and 80s, losing accounts left and right and looking forward to breakfast for dinner (a fine and fun cost-saving tip, btw). I didn't quite understand the money situation, but I knew well when it was not a good time to need new jeans.
Today, debtless and firmly ensconced in the middle class, last week I was only feeling a pinch as I commuted to my job and tried to lay off the gas pedal without getting shot by the guy behind me for going too slow. I saved my pennies and dimes and nickels for emergencies but I wasn't afraid to buy apricots, which are fairly expensive, or an extra treat on the weekend. Today, I can't quite say that. I've had my apricots and there will be more next summer and hopefully this will be short-lived.
Meanwhile, I am lucky. We have a financial cushion, and I have a good job at a university with incredible benefits that paid all but $250 of my husband's recent hospitalization for a burst appendix. My grant has been renewed for another year, so I'm pretty safe until March 2009.
Things might be tight around casa Queer for the next couple of months but husband is already out on the hunt and he's super employable. There are those out there who are not so lucky.
Last week's Labor Department reading showed 438,000 jobs lost in the first half of 2008 with 62,000 jobs lost just in June. That is 62,000 families who lost the ability to pay for their groceries. 62,000 families who because the cost of gas is so high, will not allow them to go visit gramma this summer. 62,000 families who are finding it increasingly difficult to find enough to pay their insurance co-pays.
Phil Gramm does not belong to one of those families.
This list has been around for a while, but it always makes me chuckle...before I bang my head on my desk.
1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural. 2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children. 3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children. 4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful. 5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal. 6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities. 7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America. 8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall. 9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license. 10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children. 11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans. 12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.
It's being circulated here in Florida because we're going to vote on Amendment 2, aka the Hate Amendment.
(I probably don't need to say this, but just in case, this list is sarcastic. For some reason, some people who saw this at Gator GSA took it seriously.)
Back in the day when I purchased the original XBox, it came bundled with a 2-game disc from Sega. One of the games was Jet Set Radio Future. For me, this game and Ninja Gaiden were my favorites for that console. I loved the graphics, and I thought the soundtrack kicked ass. In fact, if it wasn't for JSRF I would never have discovered the awesomeness that is Guitar Vader (indie band from Japan).
After I got the XBox 360, I noticed that it was backwards compatible for some old XBox games, but not all. JSRF got left behind on the compatibility list in favor of others. As much as that sucked, I wasn't about to add to the existing clutter by connecting the old XBox up for one game.
A couple of days ago, I just happened to be thinking of the game and decided to hit Google to see if any progress was made on compatibility. Boy, was I out of the loop. Almost a year ago, a patch was released for the 360 to allow JSRF to be played on the new console. Needless to say, right after I got home from work I popped in the JSRF disc to see if would load.
BONUS! It works!!
Now I'm back to rollerblading through Tokyo and spraying graffiti like crazy!
Well, that is, when I'm not working my mad Ninja skillz in Ninja Gaiden 2.
by Mama Shakes: Writer, composer, retired teacher, responsible party for What the Poop?, and mother to Liss.
I was listening to The Kathy and Judy Show on WGN Radio yesterday while I was in the car. The topic was "Words or phrases you use that make your kids cringe."
One woman called in to say she still uses the word "Groovy." She obviously was a "Brady Bunch Fan."
Another called in and said she uses "Fer Shizzle." Her kids hate it and told her that it was a rude term for a woman. She bought that and stopped using it. Even some lies have merit.
A man called in and said he uses "Crucial!" or sometimes just "Croosh!" He also favors "Radical" and a few other dated terms. Judy asked, "Are you starring in 'Guys and Dolls?'"
He said, "No. I'm straight. I'm an insurance salesman."
Okay, so first of all, Judy was using a musical that's way too old for that language to suggest he's out of date, but what did he mean? Does he know what 'Guys and Dolls' is? Does he think that everyone who has ever starred in a musical is gay? Does he think that there are no gay insurance sales people? Can anyone figure out the meaing of this response?
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.
