Well, sort of... Okay, not at all really. But still, this cracks me up:
Singer Jackson Browne has won his copyright battle against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), getting an apology and an undisclosed sum of money from the 2008 presidential nominee for a pro-McCain Web video that appropriated the artist's hit song "Running On Empty."
The "Running On Empty" video was produced by the Ohio GOP, apparently without McCain's knowledge or input, and was intended to parody then-candidate Obama's suggestion that properly inflated tires could save gas. You remember that, don't you? It was an okay idea, as those things go (the inflating the tires, not making dumb web videos), but was largely scoffed because, well, I don't know.
Up next on the docket: Don Henley vs. Charles Devore (R-Karaoke Bar).
Sam Raimi has signed on to direct "Warcraft," the live-action film adaptation of the fantasy videogame franchise "World of Warcraft."
Legendary Pictures and vidgame publisher Blizzard Entertainment are mounting the film, and Warner Bros. will co-finance and distribute. The team boasts an impressive pedigree: In addition to the director of "Spider-Man," the partners have added "The Dark Knight" producer Charles Roven to the creative mix.
The plan is for Raimi to supervise development of "Warcraft" and shoot the picture after he completes work on "Spider-Man 4," which gets under way early next year for Columbia Pictures.
Unlike a video game such as, say, "Asteroids," ahem, at least one can imagine the epic battle central to World of Warcraft translating successfully into a film. And Raimi's got precisely the sort of self-aware ironic humor to make the film cool.
[Nerd Alert: KennyBlogginz actually owns a wizard's hat, which he brought over one night and he, Iain, and I took turns wearing it while watching some shitty totes awesome old film like Beastmaster. I tell you this so that you may trust you're getting your Nerd News from a highly-credentialed professional nerd.]
Last Thursday, Elle sent me this article at MSNBC in which Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, wondered if Dr. Regina Benjamin, Obama's pick for Surgeon General, is too fat for the job. Caplan decided she was not.
Elle and I were amazed the question was even being asked. To be honest, I sort of thought that would be the end of it.
What the hell was I smoking?
Yesterday, Shaker Kathy sent me this ABC News story about the "debate" over Benjamin's weight. I can't even succinctly summarize the overwhelming amount of fuckery in that article—although I can tell you it is slightly less than that of a segment by Fox's Neil Cavuto on the same subject, in which he (I shit you not) interviewed a former gym owner wearing a "No Chubbies" t-shirt.
Dr. Regina Benjamin is a doctor, and a damn awesome doctor at that. If anyone knows how to take care of themselves, it's probably Dr. Regina Benjamin. Maybe she just understands the overwhelming failure rate of diets. Maybe she just understands that eating habits and physical activity are oftentimes not related to weight - come on, don't pretend you don't know at least handful of rail thin friends who can eat what they want and never gain a pound no matter how much they exercise. Or maybe the President picked her because she understands how hard it can be to have access to quality medical care in lower-income, rural areas. Maybe it's just the oysters and the shrimp she's paid in when her patients can't afford anything else. Maybe it's just nobody's damn business how much she weighs as long as she's in good health and capable of doing the stellar job President Obama picked her to do.
The sexism and flat-out fat hatred that requires someone to bemoan the weight of a health care professional they've never seen in person and know absolutely nothing about is something that goes on pretty much every day, from Judge Sotomayor to a fat, female-bodied kid like me. What would you rather have in the Surgeon General spot? A good-looking television guy who doesn't have any problem shaming you about your body, or a more than qualified health care professional who may just understand every body is unique?
Meanwhile, World-O-Crap's Scott asks the question we should all be asking:
At a time when 47 million Americans are without health insurance, and many people are being bankrupted by medical expenses, what can this woman possibly bring to the issue, besides a love of drawstring sweat pants?
Indeed!
The critics' ostensible premise that this is about "setting a bad example" is predicated on the absurd contention that there are people in America who are not currently fat, but will decide to "let themselves go" based on a tacit permission granted by the mere fact of a fat woman serving in the post of Surgeon General. No one with two functional brain cells still knocking together can believe that horseshit, could sincerely argue that position with anything resembling intellectual honesty. It's exactly the sort of lazy, oh-noez-but-what-about-the-childrenz reasoning slapped on to all kinds of bigotry—the old Pied-Piper-of-Vice canard, where "vice" actually equals some morally neutral state of self, by chance or choice or some combination of both. Just being fat (or being gay, or trans, or asexual, or feminist, or Wiccan, or tattooed, or purple-haired) in the presence of others will fill their heads with the unrelenting desire to be just like you, will infect them with your intrinsic traits and/or choices.
That's crap. This is about fat hatred, pure and simple.
And it's a hatred so deeply entrenched in our culture that I suspect many of the people engaging in it, justifying it behind piles of illogical contentions about what a "bad example" Benjamin will set, don't even realize they're doing it. That's the thing about pervasive cultural bias—there's a very strong disincentive against taking a moment to stop and examine the profoundly faulty logic behind "perfectly reasonable sounding" theories like the Persuasive Fatty.
Because without the Persuasive Fatty theory, what else is there but naked bigotry?
The Birthers—people who fervently believe, despite evidence of his birth in Hawaii, that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is ergo ineligible for the American presidency—have seen some big names join their cause recently: Rush Limbaugh claimed this week that Obama "has yet to have to prove that he's a citizen," while Lou Dobbs hinted that the president is "undocumented."
What started out as a fringe movement is being transmitted into the conservative mainstream, and that's going to be decidedly inconvenient for GOP legislators. As Marc Ambinder points out: "Republicans have to be extra careful. If they give credence to the birthers, they're (not only advancing ignorance but also) betraying the narrowness of their base. If they dismiss this growing movement, they might drive birthers to find more extreme candidates, which will fragment a Republican political coalition." Oof.
Below is video/transcript of Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) at a townhall meeting earlier this month, in which one of the questioners completely derails the entire thing with birther conspiracies and demands the entire room pledge allegiance to the flag. Castle is utterly flummoxed; it's a good indication of how completely divorced traditional Republicans actually are from the increasing lunacy of their base.
Castle: —okay, this lady in red has had her hand up for some time.
Female Questioner: Congressman Castle, I wanna know—I have a birth certificate here [holds up paper protected in Ziploc baggie and tiny American flag], from the United States of America saying I am an American citizen, with a seal on it, signed by a doctor, with a hospital administrator's name, my parents, my date of birth, the time, the date—I want to go back to January 20th and I wanna know: Why are you people ignoring his birth certificate?! [audience erupts in cheers and applause] He is not an American citizen! He is a citizen of Kenya! I am here with my father's [inaudible] fought in World War II, when the greatest generation in Pacific Theater! In the country! And I don't want this flag to change! I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK! [cheers and applause]
Castle: Well, I've only one comment [inaudible]— If you're referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States of America. [audience shouts and boos] —[inaudible] a citizen of the United States. [shouts and boos]
[clip edit]
Female Questioner [shouting off-mike]: —that died for this country in 1776 'til the present time. I think we should all stand up and give a pledge of allegiance to that wonderful flag [crowd cheers] for all those people who sacrificed their lives! For our freedom! Everybody stand up! [waves arms]
[clip edit]
Castle: All right, we'll do this. [half the crowd is already murmuring the Pledge of Allegiance] You want me to lead it? [inaudible]
Group: —allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic! For which it stands! One nation! UNDER GOD! Indivisible! With liberty! And justice! FOR ALL! [applause]
Castle: Thank you. Now, getting back to healthcare, we're running out of time…
On the general subject, Paul Campos recommends this 1964 essay by Richard Hofstadter on "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."
This is the only clip of this show I've ever found on YouTube. I absolutely adored this show; as I've mentioned previously, it aired while I was at university, and Todd and I used to watch it every day as long as it ran.
It isn't news that the right is a big fan of scare tactics. They've been doing it for decades, all the way back to HUAC and well beyond. "Abortion will kill the next Einstein" and "Iraq has WMD" and "teenage sex will destroy America" and "same-sex marriage will destroy the sacred institution of marriage", and so on, and on and on and on*.
See what they did there? Go and find the most unfavourable outcomes you can find in someone else's system, and compare them to the most favourable outcomes you can find in the one you want to preserve. I'm pretty sure that's Chapter One of the Change-Is-Bad tactical manual, issued as part of the standard kit of a right-wing pundit (along with a Bible with all the icky compassionate bits edited out, Joe McCarthy's biography, and a selection of Rush Limbaugh's most hateful best transcripts). The outcomes experienced by Ms. Spall and Ms. Brickell are very real. I have no doubt that there are similar stories available from Canada, France, New Zealand, wherever there is government-sponsored health care (note that each of those nations has a somewhat different plan - single-payer is by no means a monolithic concept), and they are tragic, and should be addressed within those systems.
However, I have similar lack of doubt that one could find a huge number of people in the United States who've had similar horror stories. Ms. Brickell's heartbreaking story of terminal cervical cancer, undetected because of pig-headed insistence that young women don't need Pap smears - does this sound like something that might ever happen under current US health-care provisions? Like, say, an HMOrefusing to covercertain types of testbecause the HMOsays it'sunnecessary?
Nah...that'd never happen with the sparkling wonderful American health-care system, which the insurance providers (who, I'm sure coincidentally, make literally billions of dollars a year off it) say is the best in the world, right? Riiiiight.
Looks like an impressive list of links I ran off, yes? I found them in two minutes of Googling, and only looking for HMO stories - let alone general bad health stories, and the millions who never see a doctor at all, and whose stories therefore never get told.
But y'know what? The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data". This is, as so often before, yet another red herring dangled in front of the media and their audiences by those who are so desperate not to give up their money and privilege. None of these stories can really be used to provide informed, intelligent debate about the topic: they're meant to distract us from informed, intelligent debate.
If only the media weren't so gaspingly desperate for scarlet fish.
* I'm using American examples here, as those are the ones that Shakers in general are likely to be familiar with, but it's not hard to find similar examples in right-wing parties just about anywhere or anywhen. The main thrust is "the future is bad and scary, let's do it the way our grandfathers/our forebears/some guys who lived in a desert five thousand years ago/just about anyone but a lefty did it!" Lather, rinse, repeat as many times as it takes to get people to vote for no more taxes/remove sex education funding/factory-kill a few million people/start a war. The left isn't above using the tactic either, but the focus tends to be on "If we don't stop doing it the way we/our grandfathers/forebears/ancient desert-dwellers always did, we'll never stop getting the results we always have". See feminism, atheism, civil rights, pro-choice, environmentalism, et c..
If you could have dinner with any one living person tonight, who would you choose?
This could be someone known to you but far away, someone known to you only via the internet whom you've never met in person, someone famous, someone infamous, someone you just haven't seen in awhile. The only parameter is that zie's a living person.
I would choose my girlfriend Miller, whom I haven't seen since she moved to Brazil, who just had a birthday, and whom I adore and miss like crazy. We became friends rather unexpectedly one night over pizza, and we have had some extraordinarily fun dinners together in the interceding twelve years, from here to London and back again.
This is the trailer for the awesome new show on Lifetime, "Drop Dead Diva," in which an insipid but totes hot! model and a smart but totes fat! lawyer both die, and the model's personality gets transferred, via "divine intervention" into the lawyer's body. What luck!—the model also gets the lawyer's "brains," but, mysteriously, her personality, which is somehow entirely separate from her intellect, apparently is gone, leaving all kinds of room for the shallow beauty to inhabit.
Of course it is the worst. curse. evah. to still be alive but stuck in a ZOMG SIZE 16 body.
Don't worry, Shakers. I'm sure she'll learn lots of good lessons, thanks to the BORING FATTY donating her HORRIBLE FAT BODY to this delightful experiment and vacating the premises, because it's more important for pretty girls to learn lessons that Aesop's Fables apparently never taught them than for fat girls to live.
"Michelle, she looks fabulous. I am a little frumpy. Up until a few years ago, I only had four suits. She used to tease me because they would get really shiny. … Those jeans are comfortable, and for those of you who want your president to look great in his tight jeans, I'm sorry—I'm not the guy."—President Barack Obama, on the Today show, defending the "bleached and baggy 'dad jeans' he wore to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis July 14."
I really hate the terms "dad jeans" and "mom jeans" when what someone really means is "unfashionable jeans." Lots of moms and dads wear fashionable jeans, so those horrible little euphemisms really need to die.
Anyway, I guess we're going to have to go through this every time Obama wears casual clothes. Remember when he was photographed riding his bike, and the media couldn't get enough of talking about what a HUGE NERD LULZ he is?
(Except, of course, when he's shirtless. Then it's time to sexualize "President Beefcake" in a way no other president has been sexualized.)
Go on with your bad jeans, Mr. President! At the home of the What-the-Hellers, you will not be judged, friend.
Of course, if you're the sort of person who would use the occasion of my misspelling something or exhibiting bad grammar (even if it weren't deliberate) in order to justify making fun of feminists as an entire group, I'm going to surmise you're probably beyond shame.
"Any other questions?" he asks. Only one, actually: Are you a fan of irony, sir?
A bunch of Shakers have sent me the link to this thread [trigger warning] about men and rape prevention and men's role in the rape culture. I've been sitting on it, trying to figure out what to do with it exactly, but the truth is, you really just need to go there and start reading. Thanks to everyone who sent it.
Shaker Hayley forwards Walking Woman with the simple note: "Love it." Me, too.
Shaker roro80 emails this link with the note: "If you didn't catch Rachel Maddow last night as she thoroughly slammed our favorite racist Pat Buchanan simply by fact checking his entire argument on last week's 'this country was built by white men' discussion, I highly recommend it. My fellow and I were on our feet clapping by the end." It's great stuff. In fact, it's the perfect argument for why he doesn't belong on her show. Ever. Again.
Shaker Siobhan sends this link with the note: "Did the New York Times actually admit that the testimony given yesterday, where Barofsky said the bailout could cost 23 TRILLION dollars, was based on an estimate that assumed every American lay down and stopped working, California was hit by the 'Big One' and slid into the ocean, and a meteor struck Florida? They didn't just repeat the ludicrous $23T number ad nauseum? I'm scared this may be a sign of the end times." lolsob
Shaker Daniel, at his girlfriend's suggestion, forwards this hot mess for our consideration: "Coding Horror, a blog about computer programming, recently posted this article about how the online game Evony has taken internet advertising to its worst conclusion." It's beyondAssvertising. I'm not even going to say anything else. Just go look. *clunk*
Shaker JMonkey sends the link to this video with the note: "I saw this Sesame Street musical number with Neil Patrick Harris as the shoe fairy and, of course, thought of you. Fantastic!!" I can't even tell you how utterly, unreasonably happy it makes me that Neil Patrick Harris + shoez = email Liss. Rock!
Shaker Elayne, who recalled that I'm a trichotillomaniac (compulsive hair-puller), forwards this article about a potential new treatment for trichs. I love this quote from a trich in the article: "Basically my fingers would search for a texture, a certain type of hair, when I found it, I would pull it out. I would feel like I had found gold." LOL. That's totes me. I call them "my weird hairs."
Shaker Ginmar emails me about this gobsmacking story in which [trigger warning] the prosecutor refused "to prosecute the rape of a seventeen-year-old girl but did show the pictures of the assault to the families of the perpetrators and the witnesses. His excuse? There was alcohol involved."
Shaker InfamousQBert sends this piece at Feministing by SaraLaffs, which is a good reminder for any woman at any time about owning her time and space.
Check out this story about the "followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to 'advance the Kingdom'" known as the Family. If it sounds kind of scary, that's because it is. Creepy Christians who think they're above the law, and have their own twisted ethos known as "biblical capitalism."
David Brooks, who never met a complex idea he couldn't totally misrepresent via an inane metaphorical or imaginary binary, starts his latest column, "Liberal Suicide March," with:
It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.
…It's not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That's because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates.
I could write an entire dissertation on why his mindless "second verse, same as the first!" framing is just more of the same fulloshit fuckery in which he regularly trades, but suffice it to say that the Republican Party did not lose touch with America just because of conservative Southerners. It wasn't just conservative Southerners who got a bug up their collective ass to try to "reform" Social Security. It wasn't just conservative Southerners who stopped the government in its tracks to try to "save" Terri Schiavo. It wasn't just conservative Southerners who catastrophically botched the response to Katrina. It wasn't just conservative Southerners who gifted a glorious government hand-out to pharmaceutical companies. It wasn't just conservative Southerners who outed Valerie Plame. And it sure as shit wasn't just conservative Southerners, nor even mostly conservative Southerners, who were the primary architects of the Iraq War.
As it happens, most of the architects of the Iraq War were northern, urban elites—and most of the conservative media shills who sold the war were, too.
As for the "liberal suicide march" of the "insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates," I daresay if the Dems are having any problems at all with flyover libs like me, it's that they're not being progressive enough. We've got enough Right in this country; their problem is failing to give us enough Left.
Great picture today in the LA Times of the day Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) first met, taken by HP producer David Heyman.
Open thread to discuss the newly-released Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Definitely treat this whole thread as if there SPOILERS so people who have seen the film already can discuss it in detail.
As I've mentioned, I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but Iain is, and I've gone to see all the movies with him. I'm not a huge fan of the movies, either, but David Yates is definitely my favorite director of the series. I liked this one a bit less than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, though, which was his first and my favorite so far.
This is something I've mentioned in comments before, but I wanted to mention it again: Iain, being Scottish, grew up with the British National Health Service—better-known as the NHS, that ubiquitously and ominously cited hobgoblin of the American healthcare reform debate, whose alleged long lines and terrible service are the eidolon of reform-obstructionists in the US. He then moved to the US, country of supposedly the greatest healthcare system in the world.
And he has frequently said that the stress of having one's healthcare attached to one's employment, the constant threat that job loss equals loss of healthcare coverage, is such that he would exchange this fucked-up system for the worst of the NHS in a heartbeat.
For the record, he never had a long line or terrible service at the NHS, either. And, when I was living in Scotland, the local doctor's office I went to was just as nice as any to which I've ever been in America.
One of the problems facing Britain is building enough medical facilities to accommodate all its people. It's a small island with green belt laws protecting the countryside from urban sprawl. One thing America is not short of is space. That's not something about which we have to worry—and you'll note, it's also never part of this debate.
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