"Is she lame?" Oh, Disney.
Breaking: "Cougar" Star Still Dating at Advanced Age of 40
OK, everyone, I hope you're sitting down for this one.
Stacey Anderson, an actual 40-year-old (I know, and it gets worse) and Mother! Of! Four! (SEE?!?) is seeking to "make a connection" with men more than a decade younger than her on the new TV Land series "The Cougar."
Although, as the Arizona Republic helpfully explains, there's "a certain 'ick' factor" about a woman dating men who are, biologically speaking, young enough to be her children, I, for one, am confident that a show with a name like "The Cougar" will be a thoughtful, sensitive exploration of female sexuality at every stage of life, even (I know, but try to keep an open mind here) the advanced age of 40.
And followed, no doubt, by "The Panther": A show about a 40-year-old man just looking to make a connection in the unlikeliest of places: Among women in their late 20s.
Question of the Day
Stolen wholesale from Chris: Where's the last place you went for vacation?
The last place I went on vacation was to Deeky's, with Spudsy, last August.
The last (and only) place Iain and I went on vacation together was our ill-fated camping trip in 2001, the week we met. We intended to have a honeymoon, but it never happened. Then we intended to have at least a dirty weekend on our 5th anniversary, but it never happened. Maybe we'll manage to get somewhere by our 10th, lol.
If we can afford to buy my fat ass two seats!
Scenes from a Presidency
U.S. President Barack Obama bends underneath a guard to pose with workers after speaking at the wind energy production facility, Trinity Structural Towers Manufacturing Plant, during an Earth Day visit in Newton, Iowa, April 22, 2009. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)
Conservatives are currently meeting at this hour to discuss how they can spin the president's "bow" before hardworking Americans into a weeklong shitfit during which they obsessively detail the traitorous evidence of his slavish devotion to the American people.
Number of the Day
48. The percentage of Americans who think the country is on the right track after 100 days of Obama's presidency. Love this AP lede:
Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track.Perhaps that's because more Americans than not don't have their heads in their asses and know who's responsible for those millions, billions, trillions...
In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree.
The "right direction" number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31 points since October, the month before Obama's election.
Assvertising
by Shaker JMonkey
This afternoon, as I was eating lunch and scanning through my RSS feed of blogs, I came upon a regular feature of Andrew Sullivan's, where he embeds a video that he finds interesting. Some are wonderful. Others, not so much. This time, I should have thought twice, given the title: "Cool (Gross, German) Ad Watch."
What I saw was quite possibly the most disturbing and misogynist ad I've ever seen.
BIG TRIGGER WARNING
For those who don't click to watch the video, or can't view the video, the ad opens with a wide shot of a shopping mall and then focuses in on two women who are shopping in a lingerie store in a mall. I don't speak German, but the ensuing events are very clear.
They're standing in front of a lingerie bin, and, though they seem pleasant at first, they begin to argue over a piece of lingerie, tugging it back and forth. Finally, one woman slugs the other hard, knocking her down, and then walks off with the lingerie, smiling. But before she can exit the store, the second woman comes up from behind, jumps on her back, and bites off her ear.
Seriously. And it only gets more violent and disturbing from there. Pretty soon, all the women—and they're ALL women—are mercilessly killing each other. The ad ends with a bloodied hand pressing against the glass of the store.
The tag line at the end, which is in English: "Better Shop Online." It's an ad for Jungstil, an German online women's clothing store.
But clearly, that's not the real point. The real point is that women are just a bunch of crazy bitches who would kill for a great piece of underwear. And even worse, it's supposed to be funny. Because, as we've all learned by now, violence against women is just fucking hilarious.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One, Forty-Two, Forty-Three, Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six, Forty-Seven, Forty-Eight, Forty-Nine, Fifty, Fifty-One, Fifty-Two, Fifty-Three, Fifty-Four, Fifty-Five, Fifty-Six, Fifty-Seven, Fifty-Eight.]
Lost Open Thread
Well, we just had a stupid recap episode last night—and, really, who the hell was it for? It sure wasn't for people who have been watching it all along, and it couldn't possibly have been detailed enough to really be valuable to people who haven't, so it was a big waste of a Wednesday. Harrumph.
But I thought I'd open a general Lost thread, so people who have picked up the show more recently could get in on the action, too.
I'm going to request that people start their comments by indicating the season they're on, so someone who's only on season 2 can skip any comments with a season 3 or higher marker.
Have at it, Losties!
Quote of the Day
"Torture, my ass."—The always-charming Bill O'Reilly, on whether waterboarding constitutes torture, in the middle of a rant about how exasperated he is with the people who insist on regarding it as torture and thus support investigations into its use.
Newsday Columnist Ellis Henican: Why are so insistent on politicizing this? Why don't we let the [crosstalk]—
O'Reilly: I'm politicizing this?
Ellis: Yes. Why don't we let the professionals—
O'Reilly: Leahy is the guy calling for it! MoveOn and Soros!
Ellis: We've got politicians on both sides of it yelping, but you're a man who ought to have some values that we share—
O'Reilly: I do.
Ellis: —and those values [crosstalk]
O'Reilly: I do. Here's my value: I would have done exactly what Bush did.
Ellis: You disappoint me.
O'Reilly: Exactly.
Ellis: You disappoint me. You know better.
O'Reilly: I woulda dumped that guy in the water a thousand times to save your life!
Ellis: You learned the same—
O'Reilly: YOU!
Ellis: You learned the same thing from the nuns that I did—
O'Reilly: Yeah, yeah.
Ellis: —that expediency does not justify doing something wrong.
O'Reilly: Expediency!
Ellis: Something that's wrong. Waterboarding people!
O'Reilly: To save your life, I woulda dunked the guy in the water!
Ellis: You're coming out for torture now?!
O'Reilly: Torture, my ass.
Ellis: Torture?! TORTURE?!
O'Reilly: Bleep that word. All right, Ellis. Calm down. [to camera] We'll waterboard Ellis in a moment.
Ellis: [laughs]
Mercliess Mercenaries
Tucked as an aside into former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan's must-read op-ed for the New York Times "about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding" is this interesting note (emphasis mine):
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D'Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that "we don't do that," and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department's inspector general).Those would be the same contractors who the Bush administration used to fill in the gaps (and avoid a draft), making Cheney's friends at Blackwater and Halliburton subsidiaries and other private mercenary corps rich beyond their wildest dreams, the same contractors about whom, in 2006, Bush couldn't say if they were controlled by any recognizable law while operating in Iraq.
My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It's worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)
At some point, I hope there's a reckoning for the influence private military contractors were allowed to have on our national policy during the Bush administration. I hope, but I suspect there won't be.
In fact, I suspect that outsourcing the really ugly stuff was the point all along.
Teaspoons
Shaker Lyndyn just sent me this email, which I am reprinting with her permission, as it's a great suggestion, and I'm sure there are other Shakers who might be able to use it:
Liss, I know that you know Shakesville touches people and changes lives and behavior, but I thought you might like to know, in specific detail, how and when and why, sometimes.Note that Lyndyn is also helping the museum, too, when she donates services instead of volunteers.
I'm a working artist – sculptural textiles, mostly, although I'm also a fine art photographer and an occasional event and documentary photographer. I volunteer to shoot for a lot of events, including at my day job (a public library), and several other cultural organizations.
Yesterday, I quit volunteering. Instead, for a gig for the local art museum, shooting their new, not-yet-opened exhibit for promotional materials, I wrote up an invoice and wrote SERVICES DONATED across the bottom. This gets them a couple of hundred dollars of in-kind closer to their matching grant, and it also puts a dollar value on what I do. It short-circuits the idea that artists' work, and women's work, has no value. I'm not asking for cash from this particular job because I know that the organization simply doesn't have the cash to give; but I am giving notice that I expect my work to be valued appropriately. This thinking follows directly upon this post.
"Donating" rather than "volunteering" is such a small shift, and the outcome is mostly the same, but it feels so different. I feel like a Real Professional who has the leisure to give back in the form of labor, and not a passive community resource to be mined at will, a camera with a girl attached. Thank you.
Which is not, of course, to denigrate volunteering. It is merely to highlight that there are times when being a volunteer is appropriate, and times when being someone who donates her services is appropriate, and times when being someone who charges for her services is appropriate. Recognizing that those choices exist is a teaspoon; navigating them in a way that redefines service work is another.
Separate and Not Equal
by Anonymous Shaker Couple
So, the UK government is forcing me and my wife to get a divorce this year.
My wife and I met on an internet mailing list back in the nineties. I was in the US, 16-years-old and trying to find my feet again after a failed suicide attempt. She was in the UK, had just turned 18 and was trying to find some friends and maybe some support. A few days after we became acquainted she told me that she was a trans woman. It didn't change anything for me and we continued to build a friendship.
That friendship grew into a romance over our two year internet courtship. We sent hundreds of e-mails, had a few phone calls and hung out on ICQ nearly every day. We finally got to meet in person just before my 18th birthday when she came to visit me. We had a wonderful visit and it only confirmed that we were on the right path.
After some immigration difficulties, I moved to the UK to join her. She was still considered male under UK marriage law, so we were able to get married in the winter of 1999. Shortly after I was given permanent leave to remain in the country, I gained full UK citizenship in the spring of 2004.
My wife had been on hormonal medications, had counseling and a whole host of other treatments and surgeries. The ‘end' finally came and she changed her name and got all her documents updated last year. Now she is eligible to apply for a gender recognition certificate which will allow us to correct her birth certificate.
Legally then, our marriage will be invalid because it will be between two women. Our only real option is to get a divorce and then a civil partnership.
I do not want to get a divorce. I love my wife, our home and our lives together. I hate that our divorce we will become evidence for the far right that the fabric of society is crumbling. I hate being another statistic of failure when that isn't the case. I just really hate that I have to do this.
The whole situation is breaking my heart.
This is how I know that civil partnerships are not equal – not even when they try to pass them off as 'separate but equal'. If they were, we wouldn't be getting a divorce.
It is hard to write about this without simply echoing my wife's words; I hate that we have to do this. I recognise that this isn't the end of our relationship; just a change in legal circumstances, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Though as much as this upsets me, I feel a strong pressure to go through with it; it feels like the right thing to do. Not just for the removal of some of the dangers of being a person with an incongruous legal gender (having to carry two UK identity cards and travel on the wrong one when leaving the country, inappropriate treatment from the criminal justice system and police, the very real threat of violence from those who 'discover' my past and take exception to me) but because our ongoing marriage represents an unasked-for privilege, an inequality between us and the other queer couples we know.
Why should we be able to be married when those around us are forced to make do with civil partnerships? Either any pair of consenting adults of any combination of genders should be able to be married, or none of us should be. I would rather we were civil partners and campaigning for change than married, but only as a consequence of the ridiculous piece of legal semantics that created this situation in the first place.
The whole situation is very upsetting to both of us, and I hope we can get it over with quickly and quietly then go back to living our lives together.
Daddy-Daughter Dance
[Trigger warning.]
So, I'm chatting with my friend E on the phone this morning, and he's tells me how he and his wife and kids were recently visiting his mother's house, when he spied a picture on her mantel of his 40-something brother with his (the brother's) 12-year-old daughter. They were dressed semi-formally—he in a nice suit; she in a gown—and posed like a couple. He asked his mother what the hell was up with the picture, and she told him it had been taken at the daughter's Catholic Junior High School Father-Daughter Dance.
My friend E was, as you can imagine, deeply disturbed by the whole thing: "It was a just like they were a couple at the prom!" he exclaimed, as I felt the skeeves running up and down my spine. He described how his niece was all dressed up, with her hair done and make-up on and jewelry and new shoes. "It was exactly like a prom photo, with flowers on a little pedestal next to them. You know the same photographer is going to come back for the junior prom with the same set and lighting!"
"That's horrifying," I said.
"I know!" he replied.
"It sounds like a purity ball," I told him.
"It wasn't a purity ball," he said, "but only just."
In other words, there was no exchange of purity vows or gifts of locked jewelry the key to which dads promise to give their daughters' future husbands. (*squick!*) But it was nonetheless a date with daddy.
"Okay," I said, "so, setting aside that this is alienating for girls without fathers, and setting aside the discussion about whether girls should—or could—be kept nonsexual until marriage, which they shouldn't and can't be—"
"Right."
"—where is the logic behind turning the—ostensibly—nonsexual relationship between a father and a daughter into a vaguely sexual one with the purpose of delaying sexual maturity? Not only is it unhealthy as all fuck to sexualize a parent-child relationship, but there's nothing even remotely sensible about the strategy even it weren't completely gross."
"Yes!" E then went on to wonder how it came to be that his brother attended the dance with his 12-year-old daughter, given that E's brother is a fairly antisocial chap and not particularly inclined to prevent his daughter from growing up. He suspected that his brother attended at the request of his daughter, rather than the other way around. "But why would tween girls want to go to a dance with their fathers anyway?!"
"I don't know that they did," I said. "When I was that age, I might have been excited enough just by the consumerism and adultness of it—the chance to buy a pretty dress, new shoes, get all fancy and feel grown-up. That would have been very intriguing."
We chatted a bit more about the whole sordid affair, our conversation frequently injected with one or both of us making gagging sounds or screeching with horror. E wondered just who the hell it was that came up with the idea in the first place. Which is when we started to get to the real source of our faux-vomiting and uncomfortable laughter, the ugliness we were carefully avoiding.
"Perverts and/or conservative patriarchs," I said. "Which is why the whole thing is so unsettling. You know that there was at least one guy in that room, and probably more than one, who was doing something with his daughter, or other daughters—" I sucked in air sharply.
He agreed. "I know. It's horrible. You trace the idea of this dance back to its source, and there's a guy, or guys, who have terrible motives."
"Controlling girls' bodies or abusing them. Possibly both. Buried beneath an irresistible opportunity for girls to play dress-up."
"And I'm sure there's social pressure from the other adults for dads to attend, too."
"It's so upsetting to think about familial relationships, especially fathers' relationships with their daughters, being dictated by pervs and patriarchs—just because of peer pressure to participate in this creepy shit."
We talked again about how disturbing the picture is, about how E saw something flicker across his mom's face as she explained to him what it was—some recognition that she knew something wasn't totally right about it, suspicions about the event that she didn't want to pursue too thoroughly. E predicted his niece will be very discomfited by that picture in a few years.
I'm sure he's right. I hope the picture is the least of her worries, and theirs is not one of the many father-daughter relationships that succumb even to the mere insinuations of daddy being a sexual stand-in until husband arrives.
Why Republicans Continue to Lose
Because they have folks like Rep. John Shimkus in their ranks. He had this to say about the proposed global pollution cap legislation:
This is the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I’ve ever experienced. I’ve lived through some tough times in Congress. We’ve seen two wars, terrorist attacks. I fear this more than all of the above.Given Shimkus' history with asshattery, I propose that Shimkus himself is the largest and most dangerous assault on the Shimkus family line. All those poor strands of DNA gone to waste.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Plan B
Plan B, also known as "the morning-after pill," will now be made available without a prescription to women 17 and older:
The federal government said yesterday that it will allow the sale of the morning-after pill Plan B without a prescription to women as young as 17, a move that would make the contraceptive available to minors for the first time without a doctor's order.Heh. I said: "women 17 and older." The WaPo said: "women as young as 17." That's an interesting difference in perspective, isn't it? Veritable chasms of meaning can be built into such small linguistic variation!
It's also fascinating that the WaPo notes that 17-year-old women are minors, even though that's largely moot, given that the age of consent is 17 or younger in all but 8 states. Only in the fucked-up paradigm where young women are allowed to have sex but not allowed to decide for themselves what to do if a pregnancy results is the fact that Plan B is being made available to "minors" even relevant. In a sane world, dictated by logic, and in which women are smart enough to make their own decisions about both sex and its potential consequences, it's not worth mentioning.
U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman in New York instructed the [FDA] on March 23 to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds within 30 days and to reconsider other restrictions, including whether the drug could be made available to all ages.Looks like Judge Korman is interested in living in a sane world, rather than that fucked-up paradigm. How refreshing!
Advocacy groups and conservative members of Congress … questioned the drug's safety and argued that wider availability could encourage sexual activity and make it easier for men to have sex with underage girls.Honestly, I don't even want to try to understand a mind that opposes emergency contraception on the basis of a fervent belief that the only thing stopping men from "having sex" with underage girls is the possibility of irrefutable evidence in the form of a pregnancy.
And it's feminists who are called the man-haters.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this link.]
Andrade: Guilty
Allen Andrade, who brutally murdered Angie Zapata because she was a trans woman, and whose defense used some of the most despicable victim-blaming about which I've ever written, has been convicted of first-degree murder, marking "the first time in the nation that a state hate crime statute resulted in a conviction in a transgender person's murder," according to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The jury deliberated for less than two hours before reaching their verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder and guilty of bias-motivated crime.
Seated in the front row of the courtroom, the family of Angie Zapata broke out in tears as the verdicts against Allen Andrade were read Wednesday.Blub.
…"I lost somebody so precious," said Maria Zapata, the victim's mother. She glanced at Andrade and continued: "The only thing he can't take away is the love and the memories that I have of my baby. My beautiful, beautiful baby."
Andrade spoke just one word. "No," he said when asked if he wished to address the court.
Judge Marcelo Kopcow then imposed the mandatory sentence for the first-degree murder conviction -- life in prison without parole.
This, despite everything the defense could do to save Andrade's murderous ass—using the "gay panic" defense, playing the old "lying tranny" card, and belligerently referring to Zapata as "he" and "Justin" throughout the trial, though Zapata had been Angie for two years by the time she and Andrade met.
Hatred and fear-mongering simply did not prevail.
I am sad beyond words that I even have occasion to write about this case. What I wouldn't give instead to have known Angie Zapata's name because I was writing about something she'd accomplished, rather than because she is gone. But given this tragic circumstance, I am pleased that justice was done—and I fervently hope that reason can be given to her otherwise purposeless, senseless death, that her name will be remembered the next time our Congress considers whether transgender people need to be included in federal hate crimes legislation.
RIP Angie.
Not a Good Year for EMI
After losing artists like the Stones and Radiohead, EMI now has to answer to Pink Floyd:
Pink Floyd, the band behind Dark Side of the Moon, one of the best-selling albums in music history, have filed a lawsuit against EMI, claiming the private equity-backed firm has miscalculated royalty payments. [...] Pink Floyd, who signed with EMI in 1967, have been one of EMI's most lucrative signings. In the last 25 years their back catalogue has only been outsold by that of the Beatles.Maybe this is what happens when a private equity firm tries their hand at the record biz. They should know better than to "Meddle" with the Floyd. ;)
A Tale of Teaspoons
by ShakerTS
I play our State's lottery somewhat regularly, and the MN Lottery sends the winning numbers to my email each day. This message always contains adverts about their latest games or promotions, and today's featured a new Texas Hold-em style of scratch off game, and an invitation to play in their free online card room to gain entries into drawings for poker tables, chip sets, and the grand prize, a trip to Vegas!
I had some time to kill this morning before work, so I clicked the advert, logged on and played a few hands. Not a bad interface—all browser-based so there are no icky programs to install. It's just you along with 5 virtual players (not real ones), and if you win the table you gain an entry into the drawing. The card playing of the virtual players is fairly soft, but this was probably designed as an "intro to Hold-em" game and does pretty well for that. There are dialog balloons that appear when the virtual players "speak" what they are doing (raise, fold, big blind $20, etc.) as well as other random table talk chatter comments like "I think I should raise" or "too rich for my blood."
And then there was the one I saw right before a player would fold a weak hand—"These cards are LAME!"
LAME? Cringe. Oh, my. I couldn't possibly let that one slide.
So I took action. There was a handy feedback link at the bottom of the poker room table page, and I composed a sternly worded (yet Minnesota Nice) message letting the Powers That Be know exactly what they were doing wrong:Hi, I really enjoy the Hold-em game and am very grateful for the opportunity to play, however I am extremely disappointed in the derogatory usage of the word 'lame' in the table chatter. It is ablist language and has no place in polite conversation. Those who are physically disabled (and therefore 'lame') do not appreciate their conditions being referred to as a negative or a 'less-than'. Please consider removing that particular statement from the virtual players' vocabulary.
Not really expecting a reply—but feeling better for having vented—I was both shocked and very impressed when this hit my inbox just a few hours later:
Thank you.
-[ShakerTS]Hi [ShakerTS],
Rock the fuck on, Minnesota State Lottery Association! Major kudos for not only having the insight to not dismiss the claim, but for acting on it correctly the very same day.
Thank you for your feedback. We will have this phrase removed from the player's vocabulary altogether. We apologize for any negative feelings this may have created. Thank you for playing and once again we appreciate the feedback.
-MN Lottery
Teaspoons, Shakers. It works!
------------------------
Further note: I tried to capture the offending balloon, however when I logged on to play this evening, they had indeed removed that phrase so I could not get a screen cap of it. WOOT!!
