...to Jen Tucker, celebrating four years (and two days) of sharing A Few Choice Words with us!
Things I Learned About Manliness
From Mars Snackfood, which recently released its rankings of the "Manliest Cities In America"*:
1) Real Men™ like hearty pretzel and cracker snacks made with Real Cheez™! (Unlike the wimminz, who like yogurt.)
2) Minivans, IKEA, and subscriptions to Vogue are scientifically proven to reduce penis size.
3) Manly men drive American-made cars--which is why Detroit, St. Louis, and Dayton, OH won out over sissy places like San Francisco and Seattle, where grown men ride bicycles, wear floral prints, and have little dogs.
4) Combos Brand is Home of the Combivore, not to be confused with the Combover. Good to know.
* A "study" that was, to my utter lack of surprise, picked up as legitimate news by publications all over the country, virtually none of which mentioned that the "survey" was done by a snack-food company.
Action Alert: Save About Face
Shaker Sarah emailed me the following, which I am reprinting with her permission: "I know you're a Chicago local and I wanted to alert you to the fact that one of the vital spaces in the city might be closing its doors. If you don't know about About Face, you should - they are a LGBTQ theatre company, based out of Chicago, dedicated to creating work about the LGBTQA experience.
"What's more significant, they have extensive youth programming, that creates a safe space for amazing youth artists and activists to express themselves. I worked with the youth theatre for two years, and I could go on for days about the incredible work that happens within the youth theatre. This past summer, for example, we put up FAST FORWARD at the Center on Halsted, an original production presented by and for young people about sex education and HIV awareness in our educational system. Previous productions have explored issues of identity, homelessness, coming out, allies and much, much more.
"The basic info is below: People can donate by going to www.aboutfacetheatre.com or check out video testimonials at facethefuture.wordpress.com, from youth, community members and other artists who reflecting on what AFT means to them and to Chicago's queer community."
The following is from the theater's press release sent out to promote the campaign:About Face Theatre, one of Chicago’s leading LGBTQ institutions and the original home of Pulitzer-prizewinning I AM MY OWN WIFE, is in danger of closing.
They're almost halfway there:
To confront this immediate crisis, About Face has launched a national "FACE THE FUTURE" campaign to save the organization and ensure its future. The About Face Board of Directors is asking for immediate financial contributions in order to keep its doors open, staff paid, and the youth theatre program intact.
About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity. If About Face does not survive, the country will lose one of the few high-profile theaters making new work by and about the LGBTQ experience. The award-winning About Face Youth Theater serves queer youth by providing artistic experiences and leadership training.
In response to the economic downturn and significant debt, About Face has reduced its budget by over 30% by implementing staff and production cuts while also postponing our third show. This is the responsible action to take, but it is not enough. If you help us raise $300,000, we will solve our immediate crisis and build a foundation for ongoing financial health. DONATE NOW at www.aboutfacetheatre.com.
Let's help finish that rainbow. If you can't donate, it's okay—teaspoons come in all shapes and sizes and purposes. Pass on the word to people who might be interested in helping; blog about it; drop a link in comments at other blogs with amenable crowds.
Teaspoons ahoy!
o.oP
Welcome to the Party
Time catches up on an idea that LGBTQI activists and feminists have been discussing for decades. Wheeeeeee!
Number of the Day
146. The number of years the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has been published. And there shall the number stay:
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday.
The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the 146-year old newspaper, Seattle's oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.
The company, however, said it would maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation's largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.
lol your fat assvertising
[T]his bus-stop ad for a health club in the Netherlands…has a scale in the seat and displays the sitter's weight for all to see. We're sure Fitness First is expecting a huge spike in membership from this, but the effect is ruined the moment two people share the seat. That and, you know, trying to win people's business by humiliating them. (Link)Not only fat-hating/shaming, but deeply hostile to the physically disabled, who have to exchange their privacy and dignity for their basic comfort just to wait for a bus.
I would say it's unbelievable, but, of course, it's not.
Your Resident Humorless Feminist Strikes Again
Shaker Darrow sent me the link to this post by David Sirota at Open Left in which he posts what he calls Delta Airlines' "sizzling new safety video," featuring
real-life flight attendant Katherine Lee, otherwise known as the "Deltalina." As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted, she is "a fetching redhead who scolds against lighting up with a saucy wave of her finger."Sirota says he feels "a wee bit dirty admitting" that he finds himself
Lee is definitely hot, and the video accentuates her hotness by creating an enticing kind of come hither feeling, likely from the repeated extreme close-ups that makes it seem like she's about to lick your face through the camera, and from the talk of inserting tips into things near laps.
glued to the monitor when the safety video comes on—and I don't think I'm surprising anyone (or upsetting my wife) by admitting that my attention is not motivated by some deep desire to hear the same boring safety info I've heard over and over and over again.And once he's sufficiently explained exactly why and how he leers at the woman in the video, he wants to know: "Is sex appeal OK if it's being employed in pursuit of a good/necessary cause? Or is the use of sex appeal automatically demeaning to women/misogynistic and therefore wrong?"
(This is one of the leading lights of the progressive movement, folks. Remember this post next time someone asks you if feminism/womanism is still necessary.)
I'm not even going to bother answering his questions, because they're intellectually dishonest questions in the first place. Sirota has already admitted he doesn't watch the video to learn anything from it, so his question about its employ "in pursuit of a good/necessary cause" is contingent on imagining that there are sufficient numbers of first-time fliers who won't watch a safety video unless it offers a pornified flight attendant for their consumption.
No rational, honest person could believe that to be the case.
Thus, his questions are mendacious bullshit from the get-go, nothing more than a truly contemptible bid to get a pat on the head for being progressive enough to consider whether the video is appropriate, even as he struggles mightily with his conflicted feelings about "sex appeal as flypaper" for a good cause. What horseshit.
And what transparently privileged horseshit at that.
You see, it never even occurs to Sirota, as he carefully weighs misogyny against the Greater Good of passenger safety, that a female passenger might not be transfixed by the exploitative video, but, in fact, might turn away from it with disgust. That the possibility of the video being a disincentive to female passengers, and hence an impediment to their safety, is never given the merest consideration exposes this exercise for exactly what it is—another thinly-veiled wankfest for fauxgressive men trying to justify their enjoyment of objectified women.
Or maybe Sirota just doesn't give a shit if feminist passengers don't know where the exits are. Nobody likes a critic.
Good News! (And An Action Item)
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler have respectively introduced legislation to the Senate and House which would afford same-sex mixed-citizenry couples equivalent immigration sponsorship rights:
THE UNITING American Families Act would allow gay and lesbian Americans and permanent residents to sponsor their foreign-born partners for legal residency in the United States.Blub. This legislation has particular importance to me, for evident reasons.
..."Under current law, committed same-sex foreign partners of American citizens are unable to use the family immigration system, which accounts for a majority of the green cards and immigrant visas granted annually by the United States," Mr. Leahy said upon introducing the bill. "The promotion of family unity has long been part of federal immigration policy, and we should honor that principle by providing all Americans the opportunity to be with their loved ones." According to the most recent census, he added, about 35,000 binational, same-sex couples are living in the United States. The new legislation would ensure that the family connections valued under immigration law are extended to gays and lesbians.
What I love most is the way its summary [pdf] is worded: "To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate discrimination in the immigration laws by permitting permanent partners of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status in the same manner as spouses of citizens and lawful permanent residents and to penalize immigration fraud in connection with permanent partnerships."
That the purpose of the bill is written "to eliminate discrimination...by permitting permanent partners" rather than "to permit permanent partners..." is just amazing. For so long, any proposed legislation trying to rectify inequalities has tried to hide its pursuit of social justice behind the action being proposed, and now social justice is the action, and the rest are just the steps by which it is achieved. Beautiful, that. Progress, right there.
Contact your Senators here. Contact your representative here and ask them to support the Uniting American Families Act.
Monday Blogaround
You spin my blogaround, baby, right round like a record, baby, right round blogaround...
Recommended Reading:
Jodi: Is this Guy Serious? Steve Waldman Debates What Bristol Should Have Been Forced to Do
Squires: Dear Bethenny Frankel
Frank: Send in the (Abstinence) Clowns
Pizza Diavola: Tax Time
mzbitca: No Matter How You View It, It's All the Woman's Fault
Laura: Dismissive Attitudes Towards Rape Victims Persist
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of The Day
"The problem with American foreign policy goes beyond George Bush. It includes a Washington establishment that has gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement. Other countries can have no legitimate interests of their own. The only way to deal with them is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy. And it isn't likely to work in today's world."—Fareed Zakaria.
You're Welcome, America
This weekend, HBO aired Will Ferrell's one-man-show, "You're Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush." Ferrell's impression was spot-on, as always, though I think he, like most people who send up Bush, play too heavily his idiocy and douchiness, without giving enough time to commenting on how Bush is actually a real mean fucking asshole, too, who blew up frogs for fun as a kid and bullied other world leaders with condescending nicknames and unwanted backrubs.
The below clip [NSFW] of the show highlights pretty well what was good and what was bad about it; I've transcribed just part of it below, but you'll get the idea if you can't watch it. My commentary follows the transcript.
My time at Yale was great; it was very formative. I received a Bachelors degree in history, and my nickname was Gin & Tonic. [TRUE] While at Yale, I was a member of a secret society called the Skull and Bones, which I used to call "Skull and Boners." The guys thought that was funny for about a month, heh, then they asked me to please stop. But I didn't. 'Cuz I'm tenacious.So, the first part, about Skull and Bones was really, genuinely hilarious—because it's something you can totally imagine Bush saying. "Skulls and Boners." Yeah, that's classic Bush humor.
This society is so secret, I should have to stop talking about it. I can't tell ya anything more about it. Okay, I'll tell ya one thing. But it does not leave the theater, okay?
During the intense initiation period, you have to divulge all your sexual exploits to your potential fellow brothers, and I revealed to the group how I had just participated in my first threesome with two hot Latina women and a guy named Dave Rothchild. What I didn't realize was this was actually a four-way. I always thought a threesome was three people plus yourself.
Yeah, well, we all had a good laugh about that, then someone said, "Seriously, though—why was there another guy there in the first place?" And I explained how he wasn't there at first. At first it was just me and the two hot Latina women, gettin' at it. And I mean gettin' at it! There was muff flyin' everywhere. I'm talkin' knee-deep in muff. Had to get your muff waders on. You know what I mean? Needless to say, there was a high volume of muff. Is there anyone at this point in the story who's confused as to how much muff there was? 'Cuz I can keep going with the analogies. Okay, you know the Great Wall of China? Imagine that's made entirely of muff. You know those water cannons that riot police shoot to hose down crowds? Imagine the only thing coming out is liquid muff. At, like, three thousand pounds per second. Yeah. We got it covered? 'K. Muff said.
But then the whole "muff" riff? Nope. Bush, like a lot of conservative men, is weirdly prudish in the way he talks about sex with women; it's a familiar quirk of the wealthy patriarchy that the more likely a guy is to wrassle with other dudez in the locker room of a private, elite, all-male school or club, and the more likely he is to be found snapping their naked asses with a towel while calling them fags without a trace of irony, the less likely he is to be comfortable talking about vaginas, no less using epithets like "pussy" or "muff." (Especially not once he has daughters.)
The other thing people miss about Bush is that, despite his constructed aw-shucks shtick, he's a fucking snob. His Potemkin ranch in Crawford was sold so he could hightail it to an exclusive, all-white gated community as soon as his presidency was over, because he's the blue-blood elitist that his minions always accused his opponents of being. And talking about "muff" is some low-class shit. Men like Bush have nothing but contempt for men who talk like that.
It just doesn't ring true.
And because it doesn't ring true, it's just gratuitous sexism.
The thing is, Bush is, of course, an unrepentant sexist. And the way that sexism would have manifested, if this actually had been a night with Bush, and not a night with Ferrell-doing-Bush, is that women wouldn't have come up at all, because they're not worth talking about.
That's the sort of distinction a target of sexism notices and a purveyor of sexism doesn't.
Chatterbox Cheney
If you thought his broken-recordy fear-mongering was barf-inducing, check out the former veep waxing romantic about how much he loves Rush Limbaugh and thinks he's a good man with an important purpose:
John King: What next for your party? There's been a big dust-up in recent days, in part stoked by the White House, about Rush Limbaugh making some comments— David Frum, a conservative who worked in your administration, says that Rush Limbaugh is kryptonite, because he drives away the voters the Republicans need to build a road to recovery. Is Rush Limbaugh kryptonite?Hurl.
Dick Cheney: No, Rush is a good friend. I love him. I think he does great work and has for years. He's now offered to debate President Obama on his radio show. Hell, I'd pay to see that. [laughter] It would be interesting to develop. I think Rush is a good man and serves a very important purpose.
Remember when the most notable thing this guy was doing in public was taking naps? Someone give this guy an Ambien and tell him to STFU.
[Via.]
Seen
A truck with the following spelled out in individual letter decals across the back window: "MY OTHER TOY HAS TITS."
Shakers, let me explain something: This enlightened slogan is available as a bumper sticker. But a bumper sticker wasn't good enough for this guy, or maybe he doesn't know how to use the internets to procure one. He went out and bought individual letters to spell out his important message of hope and love for the world.
I bet sometimes his wife/gf has to drive that thing.
Suggestions Needed
Shaker Keori emailed me asking if I knew of any good teen-level feminist blog communities for girls, "sort of a Shakesville for tweens and teens," that deals primarily with teen issues, and I honestly don't know of any. Got any suggestions, Shakers?
Books From My Youth: Jacques Futrelle's "Thinking Machine" Stories
I am currently visiting my parents. Although they no longer live in the house (or even the state) in which I grew up, they are big book-hoarders and still have many of the books my sisters and I cherished as kids.
When I come here I like to dig out a few of my old favorites to stack up on the little bedside dresser in the back room where I sleep. On top of my current stack is the small volume pictured at left, a 1973 Dover paperback collection of Jacques Futrelle's most popular "Thinking Machine" detective stories.
My parents both love mystery stories; our house is packed with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, A. Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Mary Stewart, and on and on. I first encountered Futrelle and his character Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, a.k.a. The Thinking Machine, when I was about eleven. One of our local beleaguered California public schools had closed, and they were just giving away books. My mother drove down there in our blue Honda Accord hatchback and loaded it up with textbooks, including several hardback 9th and 10th-grade readers.
One of these readers contained Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game", and Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13" (all links are to free full texts). I read the book over and over, and I loved Futrelle's story so much that one or both of my parents dug around in their boxes full of mysteries and came up with Best "Thinking Machine" Detective Stories: "The Problem of Cell 13" & Other Stories.
Fans of Gregory House may well have been Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen fans first. My fascination with the irascible genius probably gave me a higher tolerance for brilliant assholes during my youth than was quite healthy, but I still love these stories. Below the fold is a taste of "The Problem of Cell 13" and an excerpt from "The Thinking Machine":
"Nothing is impossible," declared The Thinking Machine with equal emphasis. He always spoke petulantly. "The mind is master of all things. When science fully recognizes that fact a great advance will have been made."
"How about the airship?" asked Dr. Ransome.
"That's not impossible at all," asserted The Thinking Machine "it will be invented some time. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy."
Dr. Ransome laughed tolerantly.
"I've heard you say such things before," he said. "But they mean nothing. Mind may be master of matter, but it hasn't yet found a way to apply itself. There are some things that can't be thought out of existence, or rather which would not yield to any amount of thinking."
"What, for instance?" demanded The Thinking Machine.
Dr. Ransome was thoughtful for a moment as he smoked.
"Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can think himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."
"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell, which is the same thing," snapped The Thinking Machine.
Dr. Ransome was slightly amused.
"Let's suppose a case," he said, after a moment. "Take a cell where prisoners under sentence of death are confined--men who are desperate and, maddened by fear, would take any chance to escape--suppose you were locked in such a cell. Could you escape?"
"Certainly," declared The Thinking Machine.
"Of course," said Mr. Fielding, who entered the conversation for the first time, "you might wreck the cell with an explosive--but inside, a prisoner, you couldn't have that."
"There would be nothing of that kind," said The Thinking Machine. "You might treat me precisely as you treated prisoners under sentence of death, and I would leave the cell."
"Not unless you entered it with tools prepared to get out," said Dr. Ransome.
The Thinking Machine was visibly annoyed and his blue eyes snapped.
"Lock me in any cell in any prison anywhere at any time, wearing only what is necessary, and I'll escape in a week," he declared, sharply. Dr. Ransome sat up straight in his chair, interested. Mr. Fielding lighted a new cigar.
"You mean you could actually think yourself out?" asked Dr. Ransome.
"I would get out," was the response.
"Are you serious?"
"Certainly I am serious."
Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding were silent for a long time.
"Would you be willing to try it?" asked Mr. Fielding, finally.
"Certainly," said Professor Van Dusen, and there was a trace of irony in his voice. "I have done more asinine things than that to convince other men of less important truths."
The tone was offensive and there was an undercurrent strongly resembling anger on both sides. Of course it was an absurd thing, but Professor Van Dusen reiterated his willingness to undertake the escape and it was decided on.
From "The Thinking Machine" (link to full text from futrelle.com), the story that explains where Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen got his nickname:There was a little murmur of astonishment when Professor Van Dusen appeared. He was slight, almost child-like in body, and his thin shoulders seemed to droop beneath the weight of his enormous head. He wore a number eight hat. His brow rose straight and dome-like and a heavy shock of long, yellow hair gave him almost a grotesque appearance. The eyes were narrow slits of blue squinting eternally through thick spectacles; the face was small, clean shaven, drawn and white with the pallor of the student. His lips made a perfectly straight line. His hands were remarkable for their whiteness, their flexibility, and for the length of the slender fingers. One glance showed that physical development had never entered into the schedule of the scientist’s fifty years of life.
The Russian smiled as he sat down at the chess table. He felt that he was humouring a crank. The other masters were grouped near by, curiously expectant. Professor Van Dusen began the game, opening with a Queen’s gambit. At his fifth move, made without the slightest hesitation, the smile left the Russian’s face. At the tenth, the masters grew intensely eager. The Russian champion was playing for honour now. Professor Van Dusen’s fourteenth move was King’s castle to Queen’s four.
“Check,” he announced.
After a long study of the board the Russian protected his King with a Knight. Professor Van Dusen noted the play then leaned back in his chair with finger tips pressed together. His eyes left the board and dreamily studied the ceiling. For at least ten minutes there was no sound, no movement, then:
“Mate in fifteen moves,” he said quietly.
There was a quick gasp of astonishment. It took the practised eyes of the masters several minutes to verify the announcement. But the Russian champion saw and leaned back in his chair a little white and dazed. He was not astonished; he was helplessly floundering in a maze of incomprehensible things. Suddenly he arose and grasped the slender hand of his conqueror.
“You have never played chess before?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Mon Dieu! You are not a man; you are a brain—a machine—a thinking machine.”
“It’s a child’s game,” said the scientist abruptly. There was no note of exultation in his voice; it was still the irritable, impersonal tone which was habitual.
This, then, was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., etc., etc., etc. This is how he came to be known to the world at large as The Thinking Machine. The Russian’s phrase had been applied to the scientist as a title by a newspaper reporter, Hutchinson Hatch. It had stuck.
