Me: [sends picture]
Liss: WTF??
Me: It's like wingnut heaven.
Liss: And art aficionado hell.
Deeky: I am soooooooooo making that my wallpaper on my work computer.
[Via.]
Email Art Critics
Me: [sends picture]
Liss: WTF??
Me: It's like wingnut heaven.
Liss: And art aficionado hell.
Deeky: I am soooooooooo making that my wallpaper on my work computer.
[Via.]
The Return of the Banana Boys
Our favorite banana-wielding bad boys of evolution debunkery are back!—and they've got a T0TES AW3SUM!!1!eleventy! project planned for November that you'll definitely want to hear about, Shakers.
[Full transcript below.]
(1,000 points to the first Shaker to send me photographic evidence of having received 50 copies of this special edition of Origin of Species to "hand out at a university.")
This video absolutely slays me. I can't decide if my favorite part is "Sixty one percent…That's sixty-one percent!" or "So who isn't gonna take it and say, 'Thank you very much'?" or the incandescently spectacular contention that "an entire generation" is being brainwashed by 61% (that's 61%!) of the professors in only two disciplines at only fifty universities. Those are some powerful profs, yo!
Kirk Cameron: Are you concerned about what's happening to our country? One by one, we're being stripped of our God-given liberties. Our kids can no longer pray in public, they can no longer freely open a Bible in school, the Ten Commandments are no longer allowed to be displayed in public places, and the Gideons are not even allowed to give away Bibles in schools.
Did you know that a recent study revealed that in the top 50 universities in our country, in the fields of psychology and biology, sixty-one percent of the professors describe themselves as atheists or agnostics? That's sixty-one percent! No wonder atheism has doubled in the last twenty years among nineteen- to twenty-five-year-olds. An entire generation is being brainwashed by atheistic evolution without even hearing the alternative! And it's radically changing the culture of our nation.
There's only one way to change the heart of a nation—and that is to change the sinful heart of the individual, and that's through the power of the Gospel. Only God can take the sinful heart of a man or a woman and cause them to love that which is right and just and good.
Now listen to this: On November 21st, 2009, the world will celebrate the one-hundred-and-fiftieth year since the publication of Charles Darwin's book, Origin of Species. Now when my friend Ray Comfort heard about this, and that the book was public domain, he actually wrote a fifty-page introduction for the book which gives the history of evolution, a timeline of Darwin's life, Adolph Hitler's undeniable connection with the theory, Darwin's racism, his disdain for women, and Darwin's thoughts on the existence of God, and put them in the book.
It also lists the theory's many hoaxes; it exposes the unscientific belief that nothing created everything; it points to the incredible structure of DNA, and the absence of any species-to-species transitional forms actually found in the fossil record. It then presents a balanced view of creationism, with information from scientists who actually believe that God created the universe!—such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, Faraday, Louis Pasteur, and Johannes Kepler. And most importantly, this introduction presents a very clear Gospel message.
On Thursday, November 19th, just a few days before the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the book, fifty thousand copies of this special publication will be freely given out at those Top 50 universities. Now think of it: In one day, the Gospel, and a clear presentation of intelligent design, will be placed in the hands of fifty thousand of our future doctors, lawyers, and politicians.
And we're working with Campus Crusade for Christ, Answers in Genesis, and the Alliane Defense Fund to get copies of Darwin's Origin of Species into the hands of this generation. And all we want to do is present the opposing and correct view, rather than being censored—which is exactly the case at present. These students aren't stupid—they should be given both sides of the argument and allowed to make up their own mind, right? We think that's healthy.
This is a beautiful, three-hundred-and-four-page, full-color cover edition of Darwin's famous Origin of Species book, that will be given away free, on the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the book! So who isn't gonna take it and say, "Thank you very much"?
There's nothing to fear! Ray Comfort and I are going to a local university to give away a thousand free copies ourselves on November 19th. And we're very excited to do this. Listen, for instance, to UC Berkeley's policy right here in California: Their own website says anyone is free to distribute non-commercial materials in any outdoor area of the campus. Besides, what are they really gonna do? Ban the Origin of Species?! That'd be big news—especially when their own bookstore sells it for $29.99.
So get a hold of a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand copies, for yourself or for your church, and go to your university. We'll give you a free poster and a clear and a simple strategy: Go there as a team and get the Gospel into the hands of this generation, the hands of future doctors, lawyers, and politicians. Remember: This is America. It's still the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave. And this is a life and death issue.
Ray Comfort: We've had a number of requests from people asking if we could expand our giveaway from fifty to a hundred universities. We want to be able to do that, but we need to act quickly. Have more books printed. To date, we know of a hundred and thirty yard sales that are being held across the country to raise money to try to make this happen. One millionaire has said he'll match the biggest donation given to the project. Those who would like to help us reach that goal can get details on living waters dot com. Please be in prayer for us. Thank you for listening.
[Forty seconds of the URL.]
Flooding in Georgia
I just read, back to back, two heartbreakingly sad stories about the flooding in Georgia this week, which has claimed at least nine lives and left possibly thousands of people with nothing. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that most of the people affected do not carry flood insurance on their homes, because they weren't considered to be living in high-risk areas.
Hundreds of people are in shelters at the moment. You can donate to the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross here, if you want to help.
Please feel free to leave links in comments to other relief organization seeking funds to help in the area.
If there are any Georgia Shakers who need help, please email me and let me know.
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, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four. 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.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, producers of the smash hit CD "Liss' Dulcet Tonez: Feminist Lullabies for Feminazi Cooter Cultists."
Recommended Reading:
The Angry Black Woman: The BINGO Project
Renee: Unfamous Last Words
Andy: Maine Update: What's Happening with the Marriage Equality Fight
Lauredhel: "This never happened in my day; I blame the internet"
Marti: Daily Transadvocate Digest
Ginmar: Help a Fellow Blogger Gin emails: "Gina is a feminist blogger having some serious difficulties as a result of her unemployment and her hubbie's medical bills totaling over $200k. She's a social worker, doesn't have insurance, and has trimmed her budget to the bone. She's good people who's helped so many others herself, and if you could reach out a hand, it would be very appreciated."
Leave your links in comments...
Things I Learned While Watching The Season Premiere of House
Or, a Psychotherapist and His Psychiatrist Husband Watch a Television Program Expecting Plenty of Fail, and are Not Disappointed.
1. Every mental disorder at a psychiatric hospital has a quota of one. So, for example, you won't find multiple people with schizophrenia, but you will find a colorful cast of characters each suffering from their own, unique quirk mental disorder. We've got someone suffering from paranoia! And over here we have an anorexic! Look! We've also got someone who's been catatonic for years! What a ragtag bunch of misfits!
2. People working in psychiatric hospitals who are not mental health providers will either be:
a. Cold and distant, or
b. Bullying and aggressive.
3. The best way to work with a patient suffering from a major delusion is to directly confront the delusion as bluntly as possible, at random, in front of every other patient in the hospital.
4. Male mental health providers are clueless, bad at their jobs, and easily duped. Female mental health providers are clueless, bad at their jobs, easily duped, and always subservient to men, including patients.
5. Psychiatric hospital recreation areas are like prison recreation areas, only not as roomy and pleasant. A single basketball hoop and razor wire are allowed, but nothing that might contribute to a pleasant atmosphere.
6. Although patients are only allowed "outside" in this recreation area, if a patient decides to take another patient out of the facility, get into another visitor's car and drive off, an alarm must not be raised, let alone an eyebrow.
7. Psychiatric hospital workers will never check to see if you have actually taken your medication, therefore, you can easily "cheek" the pill to be thrown out later.
8. The best way to medicate a violent, struggling patient is to shove a pill in his mouth.
9. Curing mental disorders is easy; you simply need to find the "key" that will reverse it. For example, if someone has been catatonic for years and has spoken to no one, all one needs to do is hand her the object she has been staring at during this entire time, and she will simply snap out of it.
10. No one working at a psychiatric hospital will ever think to investigate what catatonic patients have been "staring at" all these years.
11. Handing a catatonic patient a music box cures schizophrenia.
12. The head of a psychiatric hospital will have no ethical qualms about breaking all professional boundaries with a patient. It is perfectly acceptable and healthy for the patient to bring him to the hospital to meet your dying father.
13. When in a psychiatric hospital, it is acceptable to use other patients' mental disorders against them to get what you want.
14. Providers are too stupid to check a bathroom stall after you have insisted on going into one to provide a urine sample, even if you are conspicuously singing to cover up the sounds of the person hiding in the stall, providing your sample for you.
15. When a patient brings up something in group therapy that is greatly troubling them, it is acceptable to drop this subject and minimize the patient's fear if a more "interesting" patient begins speaking.
16. All psychiatric hospitals have an easy to access bus stop right in front of the facility.
And finally,
17. Mental health professionals are not needed in psychiatric hospitals. An intelligent, over-the-top patient can do more in a few days than providers can do in years. Providers are simply indulgent, and what patients really need is tough love.
See here for further study. If you happen to be writing a television episode set in a psychiatric hospital, feel free to change a few names, and use this as your blueprint.
[Commenting Guidelines: On-topic comments will be about this episode of House, or how this show presents medical care in general, not a debate over whether it is a good or enjoyable series.]
On War Photography
Shaker dreamingcrow sent me the link to this New York Times piece in which the history of American war photography is discussed and its merits debated, following "the impassioned recent debate over a decision by The Associated Press to release a picture taken by Julie Jacobson of a mortally wounded marine in Afghanistan."
It's a very compelling issue for me, as it requires finding a balance between conveying information about an event that remains otherwise intangible to the people funding it, and not exploiting the subjects of the imagery in pursuit of that message.
I have spoken with people about this subject who say, approximately, I know war is hell; do I really need pictures of it? When I ask them how they know war is hell, inevitably it is because of war photography. And I think that unspoken reality is central to every generational debate about war photography: Each new cohort feels squeamish about capturing images of ongoing wars, even though they will provide a necessary education to citizens not yet born.
What's notable to me about the photography coming out of the Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan wars—where, in both cases, we were ostensibly liberating the people from tyrannical regimes, not warring with the people—is that I have seen more battlefield images of wounded Iraqis/Afghans than American soldiers. And the images I have seen of wounded American soldiers are not from the battlefield, but from medical and rehabilitation centers, where injuries are being healed and cutting-edge prosthetic limbs are being attached and scars have already formed.
Both of those send interesting messages indeed.
Liberace Biopic Update!
Matt Damon has signed up to star as Scott Thorsen opposite Michael Douglas's Liberace in Steven Soderbergh's biopic of the "flamboyant pianist." The script focuses on the palimony suit filed by Thorson and the subsequent court case, so don't expect any snogging between Damon and Douglas up on the big screen.
Failful Reporting Ahead
[Trigger warning.]
Actress Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of musician John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, reports in her upcoming memoir High on Arrival that she and her father had a "sexual relationship," which is her framing, despite the fact that it was clearly rape:
"On the eve of my wedding, my father showed up, determined to stop it," writes Phillips, who was 19 and a heavy drug user at the time. "I had tons of pills, and Dad had tons of everything too. Eventually I passed out on Dad's bed."I'm not sure that a "sexual relationship" with a parent can ever be truly consensual, but, leaving that aside, the fact that there is an attempt to distinguish between the "consensual sexual relationship," and the time she awoke to "find [her]self having sex with" her father, ought to make plain that she wasn't "having sex with" him, but being raped by him.
"My father was not a man with boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father."
"Had this happened before? I didn't know. All I can say is it was the first time I was aware of it."
Phillips' life began to spiral out of control. In 1980, she was fired from One Day at a Time because of her constant drug use. That same year, she went to rehab – with her father. Her sexual relationship with him had become consensual.
The media, however, should not use that as permission to not say it, either—but, of course, they do.
Anyway, there's probably going to be some really ugly reporting, commentary, "jokes," and other hot messes about this story, so I basically just wanted to open a thread for people to talk about the coverage, if they want/need to.
UPDATE: Deeky points to E!'s coverage in comments, where it is reported:
Phillips says in her new memoir, High on Arrival (which she discussed with the daytime queen), that she confronted John, who died in March 2001, about their sordid past, saying, "We have to talk about when you raped me."They appropriately title their piece "Mackenzie Phillips: I Was Raped by Papa John." So, basically, People and CNN (et. al.) have no excuse for soft-peddling.
Except, naturally, their typical rape apologia.
Open Thread on Healthcare
Pelosi backs away from deal with Blue Dogs: "Speaker Pelosi is backing away from a deal she cut with centrists to advance health reform, said a source familiar with talks. Pelosi's decision to move away from the agreement that was made with a group of Blue Dogs to get the bill out of committee would steer the healthcare legislation back to the left as she prepares for a floor vote."
Meanwhile...
The GOP Reversal on Individual Mandates:
In many cases, Republican lawmakers asked Democratic leaders to make specific concessions on health care reform. When Dems like Max Baucus agreed, the GOP balked anyway.Discuss.
But there are other areas in which Democrats simply embrace policy ideas endorsed, or even created by, the right. For quite a while, conservatives liked the idea of giving an Independent Medicare Advisory Council more power to determine what the program should pay for. It's a straightforward, money-saving measure. When the Obama administration agreed, Republicans decided they didn't like their own idea anymore.
The same thing is happening with an individual mandate, which Republicans trashed during the first day of Senate Finance Committee debate yesterday.
...Starring Deeky!
In which Liss re-imagines landmark moments in postmodern film-making, rendering them all the more brilliant by adding me to their iconic posters. Today, a movie about sucking and shopping:
Pretty Woman
This week's top downloads: Braveheart, The Shining, Cinema Paradiso, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Jaws, Mamma Mia!, Home Alone, Anchorman, Ernest Goes To Jail.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
One of the worst "Happy Days" spin-offs, which is really saying something.
Question of the Day
What would you say if you had hir in front of you?
Undoubtedly, people will wonder: Who? That's the beauty of the question. An ex-lover, a former boss, a dead friend, an estranged parent, that asshole who picked on you in 8th grade gym class, that poor kid you picked on in 8th grade gym class, a person you admire but have never met.... Who? That's up to you.
Identify hir or don't. All you've got to answer is what you'd say, given the chance.
[Thanks to Shaker Rachell for the suggestion.]
WTF Ricky Gervais?
[Trigger warning.]
More Ricky Gervais FAIL.
For those who can't see/hear the video, he's recounting a "game" he invented called "Offal Jim-Jam," in which he pulls a bit of his junk through the flapfront of his pajama bottoms, then shows it to his girlfriend and asks, "Cock or balls?"
When I invented it, I was so pleased with myself. And I played it on my girlfriend, and she got it wrong! [laughs]What a dumbass! Ha ha! Girls are so stupid.
Lest there be any doubt about the nature of this "game," note that Gervais says he "played it on" his girlfriend. Games aren't things you play on people, are they? No—I believe those are called tricks.
A sexual prank may be the sort of thing that's funny in the privacy of one's own home, between consenting partners who presumably have established boundaries about what's acceptable sexual behavior. But publicly sharing stories about exposing yourself to your partner, and exhorting audience members to do it, when we live in a rape culture where Frank the Flasher is an acceptable Halloween costume, is just fucked up.
Especially when you're including rape jokes in your stand-up material and in the new film you wrote, directed, and star in.
I love, btw, how he says you can play the game with "your mum," but leaves out "your boyfriend." Gays—nonexistent. Incest—hilarious!
And so the Ricky Gervais "Rape Is Hilarious" tour continues…
Tils Wants Something
[Transcript below.]
[Tils is on the bathroom sink, rubbing her face against the faucet.]
Tils: Mrow. Mrrrrow!
Liss: Whatsa matter?
Tils: [looks at Liss] Eoww!
Liss: What?
Tils: [rubs face on faucet] Rrrahhh!
Liss: Whatsa problem?
Tils: [looks around exasperatedly] Rreww.
Liss: [laughs] What's the problem, Tils?
Tils: Eoww! [rubs face on faucet]
Liss: Is there a problem?
Tils: [looks at Liss] Yah-eroo!
Liss: What?
Tils: [rubs face on faucet] Mrow. Yrow.
Liss: [laughs] What is it?
Tils: [looks at Liss] Yow. [rubs face on faucet]
Liss: I can't figure out what you want.
[Tils rubs face madly on faucet.]
Liss: What do you want?
Tils: [looks at Liss] Mrow!
Liss: Can you be a little clearer?
Tils: [runs at camera] Myahhhh! Yahhhh!
Liss: What?
[Tils runs back into sink and looks pathetic.]
Liss: Oh dear.
Tils: Myah! Yah!
Liss: That's so sad. [turns on faucet]
[Tils, in standard practice, dips left ear into stream of water, then takes a few sips, then looks at Liss and licks lips, as if to say thanks.]
Liss: Izzat better?
[Tils licks lips; looks at water.]
Liss: Go on then.
[Tils laps at water with adorable pink tongue.]
Feminism Fail
[Trigger warning.]
Shaker Anna emails: "Disappointing. Was the person who wrote this aware that they work for a feminist magazine?"*
[For those who don't want to click through or can't view the text, it's a tweet from Bust magazine reading: "dont [sic] know about you but i'm getting a little tired of geting [sic] raped by my insurance company, lets [sic] demand a public option!"]
Um, nope. That would fall under an Inappropriate and Unnecessary Use of the Word Rape, i.e. things that do not describe the force or coercion of a nonconsensual sex act.
When King of the Douchebags Dane Cook gets this and you don't, you've got a serious fucking problem.
--------------------------
* Bust is an ostensibly feminist magazine, which claims to be "filled to the brim with feminist thought, poetry, imagery," but is probably useful as a feminist resource only to readers marginally disposed toward superficial and self-interested feminism, for whom the consumption of pop culture holds more interest and import than its critical analysis, or for baby feminists just dipping their toes into the pool. Which is not to condemn advanced feminist/womanist readers who read it, but I daresay they didn't come to advanced womanism/feminism via Bust.
Never Good Enough, Apparently
I just sent a version of this email to my partner and also to Melissa:
Jessica Lange, who is 64*, won the Emmy award for Best Actress In a Miniseries or Movie for Grey Gardens (I saw it--she was amazing. Grey Gardens has been discussed at Shakesville before). But what does the San Francisco Chronicle's City Brights blog focus on? How much she needs to lift weights, because her arms have " no appreciable muscle tone at all"!
Barf!
*Lange is 60, not 64. Thanks to shaker janedarcy in comments!
The post also speculates about whether Lange has had plastic surgery, but deigns to grant that she looks "fantastic" with the exception of those flabby arms! Ew!
My partner L.'s response was sagacity itself: "Si los idiotas pudiesen volar...no veriamos el sol!" ("If all the idiots could fly, we'd never see the sun!")
A hearty congratulations to Ms. Lange, and a hearty mind your own beeswax to SF Gate's City Brights.
H/T commenter DaisyDeadhead in comments over at Echidne's.
Assvertising
Dad: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Look at this—one contradiction eating another!So, here's the thing: One of Iain's best friends since childhood is married to a Korean woman who immigrated to Scotland. They have a son. He, and his mother, are not "contradictions." They're part of an increasingly multicultural society in which people of color face real challenges—including violent racist attacks—attributable in so small part to the perception held by many white Scots that being a person of color and being Scottish are mutually exclusive identities.
Son [eating Starburst]: What do you mean?
Dad: You're Scotch-Korean. You don't make a wee bit o' sense. And neither does Starburst. Starburst is a solid, yet juicy—like a liquid!
Son: You're right!
Dad: Of course I'm right! Look! There's another contradiction! [points at very pale man riding by on a bicycle, shirtless and in red swimming trunks] It's Timmy—the albino lifeguard! Hey, Timmy! Grab a Starburst!
So, you know, ha ha, Starburst—white supremacy is such a gas!
And then there's this. Contrary to admakers' evident opinion, men in Scotland do not actually run around in kilts and tam o'shanters, carrying around bagpipes everywhere they go. Nor do they SHOUT! everything they say.
As I've (unfortunately) had occasion to say before, one of the, ahem, interesting things about this country's history of treating race as a binary—white and nonwhite, with who is (and isn't) white determined by a constantly (and still) fluid definition—is that the lines between "white" cultures and disparate "white" ethnicities get blurred in service of the idea of a single "white" race. But stuff like this advert makes quite evident the strained seams of that false construct.
Predominantly white American admakers are engaging in some really ugly and cynical sport here. They've realized they're not "allowed" to overtly make fun of racial minorities in commercials anymore (even though it's still totes cool to substitute a talking dog, say, for a human stereotype draped in a zarape and donning a sombrero), so they're starting to appropriate various white ethnicities—namely, the ones with distinctive (and ergo hilarious!) cultural dress—in order to play the same goddamn game while side-stepping charges of racism.
Acknowledging that whiteness is not a monolith, that a universal white culture is a fallacy even though a universal white privilege is not, is an important part, in my estimation, of undermining white supremacy. But Othering certain groups of white people isn't a part of that; Othering some white people doesn't in any way help Othered people of color, and, in fact, serves to reinforce the erroneous notion that there is a default "normal culture" from which people exclude themselves by being "different."
Anyway. This ad sucks.
[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, Fifty-Nine, Sixty, Sixty-One, Sixty-Two, Sixty-Three, Sixty-Four, Sixty-Five, Sixty-Six, Sixty-Seven, Sixty-Eight, Sixty-Nine, Seventy, Seventy-One, Seventy-Two, Seventy-Three, Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five.]
Quote of the Day
"One thing I wasn't prepared for in learning to dance is getting in touch with my feminine side. My biggest fear is that I might embarrass myself."—Former House Majority Leader and current dancin' douchebag Tom DeLay.
Embarrass yourself?! Pish tosh! No chance of that, you hip-shakin' sex machine!
