When making the syrup for baklava and going to add a dash of ground cloves, make sure the "spoon side" of the spice container lid is really as closed as it looks like it is.
Much swearing ensues otherwise.
That is all.
PSA
Verdict in Cyberbullying Case
Lori Drew, the Missouri mother on trial for her role in an internet hoax that culminated in a 13-year-old girl's suicide (background here), has been convicted of three minor offenses, each punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Well, I guess it's something. I'd like to say I hope this case might deter other people from engaging in similar vicious online "pranks," but I know as well as I know my own name that it won't.
RIP Megan.
Habeas Schmabeas
Constitutional tomfoolery is afoot! Gasp! The world is alight with talk of emoluments and essential oils. And Clinton. (Just google "emoluments" and "Clinton" and see.)
In case you didn't know before today, "emolument" is a word powdered wig types used way back when instead of "paycheck." Maybe because back then senators got paid in livestock instead of money.
In case you didn't know before today, Obama appointing Clinton Secretary of State would be unconstitutional. Because of emoluments.
The problem is, Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution says a senator who has voted a pay increase for a job like Secretary of State can't then serve as Secretary of State. I guess to keep them from voting a big fat raise for a job they're eyeing in the future. Kind of presumptuous, if you ask me. Does anyone really think Clinton's (or anyone else who approved the pay increase) grand plan was to vote for the emoluments, then lose the primary, then sneak her way into that (presumably now) high-paying job as Secretary of State? Okay, maybe people do think that.
There may be a way around the issue of emoluments, as far as the Oval Office is concerned: Roll back the pay; render the increase null and void. Unfortunately, according to constitutional scholars, this is totally not cool even though Taft did it to get Philander Knox in the White House. As did Nixon and Carter and W.J. Clinton. And who the hell names their kid Philander anyway? Seriously, that's messed up. See, even if the emoluments were dropped to pre-Clinton-vote figures, it would still be a violation of the Constitution. Let me quote pertinent bit (which, like all good bits of that document, I've snipped down to its useful parts) which makes it clear:
"No Senator shall, during the Time for which (s)he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office, which the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."
Just as you can't unring a bell, just as you can't shove sausage backward though a meat grinder and pull a pig out the other end, some things just can't be undone. Even if you did roll back the pay, you can't undo the historical fact that the increase was made. Even if it's gone now. So there. Suck on that, Taft! It may seem like mere equivocating, but it's not. No sir. It's the Constitution, and it can't be fucked with.
It's wonderful to know there are those fine, brave folks out there willing to stand up to our incoming president, and they won't let him make mockery of the rule of law in this country. Just imagine what would happen if our president tried to suspend habeas corpus on a whim or something.
Bitch
Chicagoan Shaker Veronica, whom I met at the first ever Shaker meet-up (or at least the first one that wasn't just Spudsy and me hanging out, lol) and is truly a supercool woman, was recently interviewed by Chicago's WGN for a segment they were doing about "the B-word." She's got video and some commentary at her place, and more commentary at WIMN's Voices.
It's really tough to say exactly what you want to say at exactly the right moment, no less have your intent remain intact through the filter of editing—but Veronica, who's also an editorial contributor to Bitch magazine, did a good job of advocating the virtues of reclamation.
Anyway, check it out and then discuss.
For the record, there's certainly no requirement or expectation of agreement. There are feminists of good faith on both sides of the reclamation debate. I am pro-reclamation, as is Veronica—but you'll see that she draws the line at the c-word, for example, which I, of course, don't (to Shaker Constant Comment's everlasting chagrin). And there are feminists who would argue that bitch can be reclaimed as an insult, with which both Veronica and I disagree. And there are other feminists (including some Shakers) who aren't pro-reclamation at all, whose opinions I can totally dig and respect and who I'm grateful dig and respect mine in return.
[Related Reading: On "Bitch" and Other Misogynist Language.]
Daily Kitteh
"Whazzat?"
"Whozzit?"
"Say what now?"
"Who's there?"
"Who, me?"
"Huh?"
"Buh?"
"Wuh?"
"Guh?"
"Zuh?"
"Zzzzzzzzz."
Oh, Do Tell!
Delay schmelay.
This just in: Washington Times full of shit! Okay, you probably already knew that. According to a member of the Obama transition team, the president-elect has no plans to delay the repeal of DADT.
[N]ot everyone familiar with the issue has said that repealing the ban on open service would come later rather than sooner. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of legislation that would repeal "Don’t Ask, Don't Tell" told CNN earlier this month that the administration would approve of such a bill next year.Once Obama's national security team is in place, something I assume will happen prior to 2010, the administration will develop a strategy to get DADT repealed.
"The key here is to get bills that pass the House and the Senate, that we can get to President-elect Obama to sign, and I think that we can do that, certainly, the first year of the administration," she said.
"Mwah-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha" Said the Gaylords
The Gaypocalypse is moving more swiftly than originally anticipated, as the erosive influence of the radical homosexual agenda seeps into one of the innermost bastions of sanctimonious Straightville -- an evangelical church where parishioners are being encouraged to do something once considered the exclusive province of sex-crazed queers -- make lots and lots of whoopie.
"Mr. Young, an author, a television host and the pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church, issued his call for a week of “congregational copulation” among married couples on Nov. 16, while pacing in front of a large bed. Sometimes he reclined on the paisley coverlet while flipping through a Bible, emphasizing his point that it is time for the church to put God back in the bed."Now, you are probably saying: "But Portly, I don't think that there's anything particularly queer about good Christian couples sharing increased conjugal bliss!"
Oh, sure -- it may look innocent at first glance -- but let's take a good hard look here: The pastor "reclined on the paisley coverlet while flipping through a Bible". If that's not a scene out of an actual gay porn flick, I'll eat my hat.
And surely this phrase alone -- "Congregational Copulation" -- is enough to send up rainbow warning flags, don't you agree?
As everyone knows, we queers are always having lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of wild gay sex (apparently, even lesbians have gay sex -- who knew?) -- and no, I don't need to cite any of the hundreds of articles and blog-posts that claim this, because, as I said, everyone already knows it.
That's why we must never, ever, ever be allowed to get married -- because our steamy, saucy, sex-rompy marriages would make straight marriage look so pallid and undesirable by comparison, and as Pastor Young says: "if you make the time to have sex, it will bring you closer to your spouse and to God" -- so everyone would want to be gay-married.
Because if the good pastor is right, and the rumors about our sex-lives are true, then we queers must be very, very, very close to God.
(Serious true story: When my fundie brother-in-law used to insist that AIDS was God's curse on gays, I would simply reply: "Hmmm. Then, since lesbians have the lowest risk-rate for HIV infection, we must be God's Chosen People! Yippee!" This has been another Portly lesson in how to turn twisted Christianist logic to your own advantage.)
End snarky, sarcastic portion of post
Begin serious, analytical portion of post.
When 'Liss emailed me the link with this comment: "Something about this (no, everything about this!) is totally making me hurl, and I thought maybe you'd also find it nauseatingly amusing", I waded into the article with my Phenergan close at hand, to see what I could see.
I found these two lines particularly puke-worthy (emphasis mine):
"One parishioner, Rob Hulsey, 25, said his Baptist relatives raised their eyebrows about it, but he summed up the reaction of many husbands at Fellowship Church when he first heard about the sex challenge — “Yay!”"Gee. I wonder who those "others" could be?
"Others found that, like smiling when you are not particularly happy, having sex when they did not feel like it improved their mood. Just eight months into their marriage, Amy and Cody Waddell had not been very amorous since Cody admitted he had had an affair."
Since it's usually pretty anatomically difficult for a man to "have sex when they do not feel like it" (at least the kind of church-sanctified penis-in-vagina sex that I'm pretty sure Pastor Young is advising, rather than the pervy none-PIV sex that is the scourge of Christendom), then I'm imagining that the only "others" who could have sex when they "didn't feel like it" would be . . . . . that's right . . . . . women.
And given the "Yay!" reaction from the male members of the congregation, I'm guessing that Pastor Young's "Sex Challenge" actually boils down to this:
Wives! Service Your Husbands!
Which is not a new message in the church.
When my fundamentalist nephew was married, I was very worried about attending in the service in his Baptist congregation. It was the late 80s, and anti-gay fervor on the Right had been recently re-energized by ballot-measures and intiatives in several states, so I steeled myself for a possible barrage of queer-bashing from the pulpit.
Imagine my surprise when no mention of teh evil gay was made, but the pastor whipped out good old Ephesians 5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord". That was just the opening sentence -- I will leave the rest to your feminist imaginations.
I was sitting between my two straight sister-in-laws, and they each, unbeknownst to the other, dug their fingers into one of my thighs as the homily commenced -- apparently in an effort to quell their desire to jump up and burn their bras over the altar candles.
Which is not a new message in the church.
When my fundamentalist nephew was married, I was very worried about attending in the service in his Baptist congregation. It was the late 80s, and anti-gay fervor on the Right had been recently re-energized by ballot-measures and intiatives in several states, so I steeled myself for a possible barrage of queer-bashing from the pulpit.
Imagine my surprise when no mention of teh evil gay was made, but the pastor whipped out good old Ephesians 5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord". That was just the opening sentence -- I will leave the rest to your feminist imaginations.
I was sitting between my two straight sister-in-laws, and they each, unbeknownst to the other, dug their fingers into one of my thighs as the homily commenced -- apparently in an effort to quell their desire to jump up and burn their bras over the altar candles.
If I were a pastor (oh wait, I am!), and had deep concerns about the state of the marital intimacy amongst my parishioners, I guess I'd start with a sermon like . . . . I don't know . . . . maybe something about not cheating on your wife at all, much less in the first eight months of your marriage? That's just me, of course. I'm funny that way.
However, Pastor Young says that "The real “f word” in the marital boudoir, he says, is “forgiveness.”" In other words, it's not that important if your husband has an affair -- what's important is that you forgive him.
Because what would Jesus do?
And have sex with him anyway, even when you don't feel like it.
Because what would Jesus do?
(Oh wait -- strike that last bit.)
/end serious analytical portion of post -- which was a complete failure anyway, as I cannot seem to restrain my Bitter Angels in the face of a pastor who wants to wrap the tired old Christianist package of manipulation and control of women in a trendy new wrapper of god-proximity and loving-legacies-for-our-children.
Well -- gotta go now -- Beloved and I both have the day off.
*Wanders away humming "Nearer My God To Thee"*
Luck Squared
My favorite thing about watching any kind of competition, whether it's a sporting event, an old-school game show like Jeopardy!, or a reality series like Top Chef, is having someone for whom to root. I love rooting. I love living and dying with a contestant (or team, as the case may be), and, while rooting against someone can be fun, rooting for someone is even better.
(See: The Amazing Race 7, during which hatin' Rob & Amber and Ron & Kelly was fun, but rooting for Uchenna & Joyce was bliss!)
Basically, I love the opportunity to be happy for someone.
So, all that said, I am madly in love with this clip (via Chris) from The Price Is Right, where the awesome luck just keeps on rolling a contestant's way. No transcript, but the only information you might not be able to glean from watching if you can't hear the video is that it was also the contestant's 19th birthday.
Happy Birthday! The IRS is on the phone...
Wednesday Blogaround
What's the frequency, Shakers?
Recommended Reading:
Phil: The Upstairs Cat
Dave: Hate Crimes and Illegal Immigration: O'Reilly Reverses the Reality
Lena: Shades of "To Wong Foo"
Lauredhel: The "Be Cervix Savvy" Campaign
Rachel: On Ann Coulter's Jaw
Leave your links in comments...
www.nobodycares.org
Ever wonder what a talking douchebag sounds like? Wonder no more:
"Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration," [Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman] said during a visit to Hartford.I'm sure Obama will get an extra-special awesome good night's sleep tonight, knowing that Joe Lieberman approves. Nothing's quite so meaningful as a compliment on one's decision-making from a man whose last big decision was to endorse and campaign for John McCain.
The AP frames this as Lieberman taking a step "toward mending his relationship with Democrats," but anyone who's paid the slightest bit of attention to Lieberman's trajectory over the last decade should know this has nothing to do with making amends and everything to do with a wildly inflated ego and the firm conviction that he is an unassailably wise and objective observer of All Things Beltway, conferred by the two parties fighting over him like starving dogs over a scrap of meat.
Just because both dogs want you doesn't make you a steak, you old piece of gristle.
[H/T to Shaker Lena.]
Gates to Stay on as SecDef
Several officials close to President-elect Barack Obama's transition tell CNN that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to stay on the job for at least the first year of the new administration.Pros: Continuity—there are two wars going on; keeping Gates on will make Obama's transition into the Oval Office easier, especially when the economy will be demanding so much of his attention. Bipartisanship—Obama all but promised outright Republicans in his cabinet; retaining Gates subverts inevitable complaints if he failed to include any, and Gates is pretty unobjectionable as far as GOP players go.
One source called it "all but a done deal" that the announcement could come as early as next week.
...[A second] source noted that Gates could stay for longer than a year if he and Obama end up working well together.
Cons: Continuity—there are two wars going on; both have been badly managed and if there was one place Obama sought to distance himself from the former administration (and even his fellow Dems) it was on foreign policy, but keeping Gates around creates a direct connection back to Bush policy. Bipartisanship—the Dems are routinely considered by voters to be weaker on foreign policy than the GOP; retaining Gates implicitly reinforces that narrative.
My take: The primary benefit of having Biden on the ticket is his foreign policy expertise. The divided attentions issue could have been easily mitigated by designating Biden as pointperson on defense during the transition, as a Democratic defense secretary took over operations. (And would, say, Wes Clark really have had much of a learning curve, anyway?) And the whole bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake shit is utterly lost on me, especially when it comes to defense. So, all things considered, I really don't see the upside here.
I'm not suggesting it's a total disaster, but it would not have been my first choice by a long shot.
California to Investigate Mormons' Political Activity Re: Prop 8
California's Fair Political Practices Commission, which oversees state campaign finance laws, will launch an inquiry after a complaint was filed on November 13:
California officials will investigate accusations that the Mormon Church neglected to report a battery of nonmonetary contributions — including phone banks, a Web site and commercials — on behalf of a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage.Indeed.
...The complaint, filed by Fred Karger, founder of the group Californians Against Hate, asserted that the church's reported contributions — about $5,000, according to state election filings — vastly underestimated its actual efforts in passing Proposition 8, which amended the state's Constitution to recognize only male-female marriage.
Broadly speaking, California state law requires disclosure of any money spent or services provided to influence the outcome of an election.
...Mr. Karger's complaint paints a sweeping picture of the involvement by the church leadership, and raises questions about who paid for out-of-state phone banks and grass-roots rallies in California before the Nov. 4 vote.
"Who paid for the buses, travel costs, meals and other expenses of all the Mormon participants?" the complaint reads. "No contributions were reported."
The complaint also touches on a five-state simulcast from church leaders to Mormon congregations, as well as a Web site, preservingmarriage.org, that featured a series of videos advocating passage of the ballot measure and is labeled "an official Web site" of the Mormon Church.
...Mr. Karger said he respected the right of Mormons to vote in line with their religious beliefs, but added "if they're going to play politics, then they need to play by the rules."
A spokesperson for the church had no comment on the specific accusations, but said they would cooperate with the investigation. One hopes more readily than they complied with the law, ahem.
Relatedly, I quite genuinely do not understand how the Mormon Church can keep its federal tax-exempt status after its meddling in Prop 8. They want to preach from the pulpit that same-sex marriage is immoral; fine, wev, bigot-a-go-go all you like. But as soon as that belief compels political action, no more tax free yum-yum. That's the rule. Or at least, it's supposed to be.
I swear we could solve this fiscal crisis in one fell swoop if we collected from every conservative religious organization the back taxes owed from the moment they got political and thereby voluntarily rescinded their tax-exempt status. Focus on the Family alone could probably bail out the Big Three.
Wev.
Question of the Day
Bouncing off of these two posts:
What current phrase is driving you completely bonkers with rage?
I'm seeing this all over the place, and it must stop. Guys are using it all the time on HGTV, which I love, but I may have to boycott if this continues. It's appearing on stupid gift signs that annoying people will buy and give to people even more annoying. It's used on television shows. It's irritating on so many levels.
When discussing a basement rec room, or basement bar, or garage, or toolshed, or whateverthefuck:
"Man Cave."
STOP.
Obama to GOP
"Know what goes great with my delicious mandate? A saucy twist of preemptively positioning you jerkoffs as obstructionists in case you even consider indulging any foolish impulse to get in my way. Lick it up, suckers."
I Write Letters
Dear English-Speaking World:
Pursuant to yesterday's letter regarding the cessation of your use of the terms "man's man" and "ladies' man," I would also like to request that you jettison the following from your vocabularies: "He's all boy" and "She's all girl."
These terms are used to refer to children, anywhere from infancy to about 10 years of age, who are regarded as conforming nicely to the sex- and gender stereotypes prescribed by The PatriarchyTM. Sometimes, their use is only as pernicious as reinforcing an exclusionary narrative like all male humans like sports or all female humans like fashion.
"I see your son Joe there is playing with a ball."
"Yes, he's all boy!"
"I see Jane likes to carry around her mother's old purse."
"Yes, she's all girl!"
Sometimes, however, they are as nefarious as justifying and/or reinforcing negative behaviors typically associated with one sex.
"I see Jane stomps her feet and cries when she doesn't get what she wants."
"Yes, she loves to throw tantrums—she's all girl!"
"I see Joe often breaks his toys almost immediately after getting them out of the box."
"Yes, he's so rough and destructive—he's all boy!"
In either case, the terms (much like "man's man") create a tremendously limited definition of both sexes. To inextricably associate being "all boy" with toy trucks and tumult, and being "all girl" with dollies and diffidence, limits both the boys who like trucks and girls who like dollies and the boys and girls who don't, the latter of whom are not somehow "partially" girl and boy, or not girl and boy at all.
Our insistence on reducing children to these incomplete and hopelessly retrograde definitions of sex and gender does them no favors. And, besides that, it's about as sophisticated as believing girls really are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and boys of snakes and snails and puppy dogs' tails. Surely, we're cleverer than that.
That is not to suggest that, by some combination of nature and nurture, boys and girls are not different creatures, or to argue for androgynous silver unitards that bespeak the superfluity of sex and gender. This is not really a letter about the differences, or sameness, between girls and boys at all. (For that, you can go here.) This letter is about broadening the scope of what is acceptably female and what is acceptably male, by first and foremost not limiting those spectrums in the first place.
This letter is about the idea that a boy who loves his Easy-Bake Oven is all boy, too. And about the idea that a girl who dresses up in her dad's clothes
—is all girl, too.
It's also about not defining masculinity in contradistinction to femininity (and vice versa), which can have [trigger warning] disastrous consequences. And it's about having respect for people who loudly, proudly, aren't all boy or all girl, but a bit of each, by nature or design, whose bodies or minds or personal aesthetic reject the binary. It's about rejecting the idea that men are women are so different that we come from different planets, that we are so different we're practically different species, that we are separate and unequal.
This letter asks you to reject othering language.
All boy, after all, means no girl. And what could be more othering than saying you're no part of me, and I'm no part of you?
Thank you and have a nice day.
Love,
Liss
Quote of the Day
"We can't revive the ghost of Ronald Reagan."—An anonymous Republican senator, grousing to The Politico's Roger Simon about the GOP's floundering attempts to appeal to the electorate.
Runner-up quote: "We have to talk about education, family, and moral issues like gay marriage and abortion." He'd be onto something there—if he were talking about the moral rectitude of supporting same-sex marriage and abortion. But, naturally, he's not.
Explosive!
In shocking, shocking, shocking news, President-elect Barack Obama will not let Teh Gayz run rampant over the military come January 20th. In fact he may wait until later in his term to attempt overturning DADT. Instead of opening the floodgates of sodomy on the armed forces his first day in office, Obama plans to meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon to develop new legislation he can present to Congress.
Which sounds quite reasonable.
In fact, I've been unable to find any reference to Obama promising a timeline on withdrawal (to borrow a phrase) of the policy. So, what is the point of the article at all? Other than to paint Obama as a liar, a promise breaker, a turncoat on this "explosive" issue (and probably everything else, now that we mention it; he's a secret Muslim and a liar, don't ya know.) Not that The Washington Times, that bastion of fair and balanced reportage, would ever resort to such a thing.
And what makes me think that anything having to do with Teh Gays is "explosive" as far as these douchsniffers are concerned?
Wevs.
