Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday, dear Errrricaaaaaa!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
And many moooooooooooooore!
Happy Birthday, Erica!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday, dear Errrricaaaaaa!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuu!
And many moooooooooooooore!
What the Hell?
Shaker Steve/Pido
Nice hat.
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud Temeraire: Redux, Mama Shakes II, Bonus Deeky, OuyangDan, J.Goff, Iain, Talonas, The Great Indoors, gogo, kiwi_a, em_and_ink, Tik_bev, phdintraining, Deeky Freakhands, busydani, Jenny Anne, rowmyboat and DesertRose.]
RIP Patrick Swayze
Blub:
Patrick Swayze, the actor and classically trained dancer whose role in the enduringly popular "Dirty Dancing" made him a movie star, one who struggled with the alienation of fame and against being typecast as a leading man, died Monday. He was 57.
I had such an enormous crush on Patrick Swayze when I was a teenager. Ever since he was Darry Curtis in The Outsiders, I lurrrrrrved him. He also had the greatest hair of the 1980's (save maybe James Spader), which reached its awe-inspiring pinnacle around the time he hosted the SNL with that iconic Chippendales try-out sketch (homage; immortalized) with Chris Farley.
And then there is this, always this:
In "Dirty Dancing's" climactic scene, Swayze delivers a line with swaggering perfection. "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," he says as he defies her father and pulls her up for a final uplifting dance sequence. Fans said that scene secured the movie's place in the pantheon of best date movies of all time.
[From an outdoor screening of Dirty Dancing commemorating its 20th anniversary.]
Blub. RIP Patrick.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite place?
Actual location (Chicago), general location (an art museum), relative location (next to my partner), virtual location (my favorite blog), or any variation thereof are all welcome.
Good Luck With All That
Actual Headline: Some fear GOP is being carried to the extreme.
Actual Subhead: The Republican establishment hopes cooler heads will prevail over strongly anti-Obama parts of the conservative base.
My Actual Response: LOL.
[Related Reading: Rank (and File) Bigotry]
America the Beautiful
The final round of trip pix: Taken on our road trip to the East Coast, starting in the flat (flat flatty flat flaaaaaaaaat) terrain of northern Indiana, moving east through the rivers of northern Ohio, and onto the mountains of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and finally to the NYC skyline. It is a lovely drive, one I've made countless times and of which I never tire.
Quote of the Day
"Six months ago I would not have spent ten seconds [considering whether I want to run for president], but it's not six months ago. I see that, I hate to be calculating, but I see that 2012 is not just throwing somebody out to be eaten, but it's a real opportunity for success."—Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Douchelandia). [Via.]
From the Wayback Machine: The image of Saint Santorum was the cover of The New York Times Magazine the week they ran this laughably pathetic piece of journalistic wankery profiling Santorum called "The Believer." Oy.
Today in Disembodied Things
I'm so pissed at the planet today.
This image [NSFW and possibly triggering] of a "womanskin" rug, complete with gaping sexdoll-style mouth, was posted for a caption contest at a gossip blog earlier today.
All I can do is marvel at the how the world never runs out of ways to try to make me hate myself, hate being a woman, be shameful of my sex and our sexuality, feel scared and threatened and weak and small.
Fuck that. I'm not going to hate myself; I'm just going to hate the world for awhile.
There are people who say that's unhealthy. As if turning my rage about shit like that rug inward, or being indifferent to it, is healthy. There are people who say that anger's an overreaction. As if regarding as No Big Deal "jokes" about women being skinned alive as trophies isn't an under-reaction. There are people who say it's futile to be mad at the world. As if being mad at the world once in awhile isn't exactly what motivates me to change it.
My teaspooning arm's got a steam-powered engine, bitchez. And I'm fucking steaming today.
[Disembodied Things: 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.]
WWJC?*
[Trigger warning.]
Another friendly reminder that no one's got the market cornered on morality, no matter what they may claim:
One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader, a survey released Wednesday says.A power that allows for coercion via the assurance of God's personal stamp of approval:
...It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.
...[Diana Garland, dean of Baylor's School of Social Work, who co-authored the study] said, "when you put it with a spiritual leader or moral leader, you've really added a power that we typically don't think about in secular society -- which is that this person speaks for God and interprets God for people. And that really adds a power."
Carolyn Waterstradt, 42, a graduate student who lives in the Midwest, said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with a married minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for 18 months. He had been her pastor for a decade, she said, and told her the relationship was ordained by God.It may be tempting for some of the heathens among us to make cracks about Waterstradt (or other coerced victims) being naïve to believe such a thing, but adults (and not just religious ones) choose to interact with other adults in positions of authority all the time, and frequently do things that seem inexplicably compliant to onlookers. Doctors have taken advantage of patients by telling them they need to undress for exams (when they really don't), or that they need to be photographed naked before simple procedures, or that intimate touching is required (when it's really not).
Questioning authority is a tough thing to do in a one-on-one confrontation (especially for women, who are socialized and expected to be accommodating and agreeable in a way men are not), and religion is just a particular (but not unique) clusterfuck in that it combines strong and pervasive disincentives against questioning authority with flawed human beings endowed with the responsibility to speak on behalf of an authority its adherents regard as infallible.
I'd like to think this would finally put to bed that tiresome equation that finds "religious" axiomatically equal to "moral," but I know better than that.
[H/T to Kev.]
------------------
*Who Would Jesus Coerce?
Daily Kitteh
Little Piggysnoozyface Matilda
You can see one of her front fangs peeking out in this picture. One or both of them seem to be hanging out half the time in a very comedic way (and that's only when her tongue isn't hanging out), which is why one of her many nicknames is "Fang."
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Ginormous Storage Containers, made to hold one metric fuckton of useless crap given to you by friends just to make you gigglesnort.
Recommended Reading:
Amanda: Health Care Reform and Domestic Violence
Aimee: The Jill Question: What is the Role of Privileged White Women in the Reproductive Justice Movement?
Echidne: And Good News Monday Post!
Melissa: Oh Judi, Not You Too…
Mar: Serena Has A(n Expensive) Moment
Sady: If you enjoy the spectacle of Seth McFarlane being blindsided, over and over again, and humiliated publicly, you will like this interview.
Melissa S.: Newsflash: Women Can Direct Movies
Andy: Hot Pink Grasshopper Discovered in Britain
Leave your links in comments...
Rape Is Hilarious, Part 38
[Trigger warning.]
Shaker Anna just sent me the link to this article about more fuckery at the VMAs last night, in which some of host Russell Brand's content was recounted under the headline: "Russell Brand makes saucy jokes about leading ladies at VMAs."
The piece recounts how Brand implied he would try to have sex with Katy Perry if she used him as a shoulder to cry on after not winning any awards, said he was trying to seduce Lady Gaga, and, referring to (false) rumors that she is intersex, said, "If I pull her leotard to one side and find something a little extra there, I will just make it stiff and hang my hat on it," and let loose this "hilarious" zinger about Megan Fox:
She has admitted she is a little bit cuckoo upstairs and I have trained in psychiatry. So Megan, if you do have a little dizzy spell, love, I could probably drop you a little pill. You can go and have a lie down in my dressing room. You might get some crazy dreams about being visited by a scarecrow, a perfumed weirdo leaning over you. But let me tell you, that's a common side-effect. Megan, take your medicine.HAR HAR! Isn't date rape just totes hilarious?!
Note to MSNBC or Splash News or whoever came up with that headline: Rape is not "saucy." It's criminal.
[Rape is Hilarious: 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.]
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips 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. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Today in Hostile Dumbassery
Hi, welcome to Bank of America. How can we totally insult and discriminate against you?
Steve Valdez tried to cash a check his wife wrote to him on her Bank of America Account, but a bank branch in Tampa insisted he had to put his thumbprint on the check before it could be cashed. But Valdez couldn't give a thumb print because he was born without arms and doesn't have hands and fingers.According to this article, they've already made an apology, such as it is: "Valdez said that even as representatives were apologizing they were explaining that the branch manager was just following bank policy."
Valdez says he handed the teller the check with the prosthetic hands and the teller said obviously you can't give us a thumb print. When the branch manager realized he couldn't give a thumb print, she said he could bring in his wife or open a checking account.
Valdez says that's not the way they would treat someone who doesn't have prosthetic arms and he refused to do that. Valdez says he asked if they were aware of the Americans With Disabilities Act and federal law. The manger said yes, they were offering him accommodations by giving him those two options.
A spokesperson for Bank of America says while the thumb print is a requirement for those who don't have accounts, the bank should have made accommodations. She says the company plans to contact Valdez and apologize.
Contact Bank of America and politely ask them to revisit their fraud prevention policy to makes sure it accommodates all people.[H/T to Shaker Koach.]
Kanye West Ruins VMAs for Two Colleagues
So. As you may have already heard, Kanye West made an ass of himself last night by grabbing the microphone away from Best Female Video winner Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech in order to declare that Beyoncé should have won instead, utterly ruining Swift's moment. Later in the night, when Beyoncé won Best Video of the Year, she graciously gave the time which should have been for her own acceptance speech to Swift instead. [Videos with transcripts below.]
Most of the coverage of the event has been framed with some variation of, "West is total douche to Swift; Beyoncé is class act." And, yeah, Beyoncé really is a "class act" (we'll come back to that)—but I find it really interesting that the story being told is that West ruined things for Swift, full-stop.
Because, while I suspect that Beyoncé invited Swift back onstage because she genuinely wanted the young artist to have her moment, the truth is that she would have risked criticism if she hadn't. And, you know, she wouldn't have deserved it. It wasn't she who stole Swift's thunder, and it wasn't her obligation to make amends. But West put her in a position where merely accepting her own hard-earned award would have garnered accusations of selfishness.
So, great—Swift finally gets to give her speech, but what about Beyoncé's?
Everyone's so busy complimenting her on being "classy" that no one seems to have noticed that the woman who just won Best Video of the Year had her moment stolen, too. But isn't that always the way, when a woman (especially a woman of color) self-subjugates in order to atone for someone else's mistakes? Wow, how classy! What a class act! Every time I hear those words, I just cringe—because I know I'm probably about to hear a story that reduces at its essence to a marginalized person having properly demonstrated "hir place."
Beyoncé totally gave up her own shining moment to a white woman who'd been wronged by a man, who'd also, by the way, embarrassed Beyoncé in the process.
Wow! She's a class act!
Grumble.
Beyoncé was a class act (and not in the "recognizing her place" way) before West dropped his hot mess all over the VMA stage—which is WHY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO HEAR HER SPEECH, too. And since MTV doesn't make enough profit ("Thanks for that great video content, Beyoncé!"—oh, the irony) to extend their broadcast by 30 damn seconds, I guess we'll just have to wait to hear it until West wins a VMA and yields the stage to her.Male Presenter I Don't Recognize: And the Moonman for Best Female Video goes to [opens envelope] Taylor Swift.
Rolling Stone notes: "To add insult to injury, after Kanye handed the microphone back to Swift, her time was up, and MTV cut to a video featuring Tracy Morgan and Eminem."
[Cut to Swift in the audience, whose mouth falls open. She mouths: "What?!" Her song "You Belong With Me" begins to play as she walks to the stage. She hugs the presenters and accepts the statuette.]
Swift: Thank you so much! I always dreamed about what it would be like to maybe win one of these someday, but I never actually thought that it would happen. Uh, I sing country music, so thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA award! I—
[She is interrupted by cheers and applause; cut to Pink in audience applauding; when the video cuts back to the stage, Kanye West in onstage with Swift and has taken the microphone away from her.]
West: Yo, Taylor, I, I'm really happy for you; I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! [West points to Beyoncé in the audience, who looks bemused and laughs uncomfortably; the audience boos] One of the best videos of all time! [He shrugs as the audience continues to shout, and hands the microphone back to Swift, who looks stricken.]Andy Samberg: And the Moonman for Best Video of the Year goes to— [opens envelope and shows it to Jimmy Fallon]
Swift said: "They told me to stand by the side of the stage, and I didn't really know what was going to go down. But I thought it was so wonderful and gracious of her to do what she's always done. She's always been a great person before anything else. Before the talented artist, the superstar, she's always been a great person and I just, I thought I couldn't love Beyoncé more tonight, than tonight."
Samberg and Fallon: BEYONCÉ!!!!!
[Cut to Beyoncé in the audience smiling; she makes her way to the stage as "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" begins to play, then dances with Samberg and Fallon before accepting statuette.]
Beyoncé: Thank you. Wow. This is amazing! I remember being seventeen years old, up for my first MTV award with Destiny's Child, and it was one of the most exciting moments in my life. So I'd like for Taylor to come out and have her moment. [the audience goes wild] Where are you?
[Swift comes out and the two embrace; Beyoncé gestures for Swift to take center stage.]
Swift: Um. Maybe, maybe we could try this again? [the audience cheers] I would really like to thank Roman White, who directed my video, and Lucas Till for being in it. And I would like to thank all the fans on Twitter and MySpace and everyone who came out to my shows this summer. And I would like to thank my little brother's high school for letting us shoot the video there. Thank you so much!
Robo-Hank!
I shot this over the weekend with my cell phone (hence the crappy resolution and dreadful sound quality). If I'd had the money, this lovely piece of vintage rock-n-roll memorabilia would already be on its way to Liss's house. Next paycheck, I guess.
[Cross-posted.]
Darwin Award
A British film about the life of Charles Darwin cannot find a distributor in the United States.
US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.The only that that's really amazing is that people are amazed that this kind of religious bigotry and hatred against science is rampant in this country. What did you expect when you have a major political party that panders to the this kind of ignorance and elected a president for two terms who said "the jury is still out" on evolution?
Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.
The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".
Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.
"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
Crossposted.
