Shaker Jha emailed me this conversation she had with a friend this weekend (which I am sharing with her permission):
Z says: so the form I had to fill out for the flu shot today made my dayô,ôP!
Jha says: howso?
Z says: "Gender: ( ) Male ( ) Female ( ) Transgender ( ) Unknown" <- that's not something I expected to see on a Nova Scotian government form
Suggested by Shaker Gogobooty, which I am posting today in honor of Ken Ober: For what TV game show have you secretly harbored an ambition to be a contestant?
Gogobooty says, "Bonus points if someone has actually BEEN a contestant. My pick is PASSWORD!!!"
The cause of death was not immediately known.RIP Ken.
Lee Kernis, a manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners who represented Mr. Ober for more than 20 years, said that Mr. Ober was found dead on Sunday. He said that Mr. Ober was last heard from on Saturday night, when he spoke to a friend and complained of a headache and flu-like symptoms. Mr. Ober told the friend that he was going to take something and would see a doctor as soon as possible.
...Van Toffler, the president of MTV Networks, said on Monday, "Ken was a great guy. His personality really brought 'Remote Control' to life, as well as a new style of programming for MTV. We were really flying by the seat of of our pants then, and Ken was the reason it worked."
I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's CifA about Sarah Palin's appearance with Oprah earlier today:
Sarah Palin's back in the news again, with a new book ghost-written, erm, co-authored by the virulently anti-gay Lynn Vincent. The patron saint of conservative mavericks, who remains firmly not a maverick, according to the 59% of Republican voters who say Palin shares their values, stopped by Oprah Winfrey's show today to talk about her life as a wild Republican rogue.Read the whole thing here.
The show is a yawn-inducing puff piece. If anyone expected Winfrey to conduct an interview that would force Palin to account for any of the demonstrable untruths she's told about herself, they will certainly be disappointed. We are instead treated to images of Palin working out and taking care of her son Trig, and the conversation turns to trenchant subject matter such as her grandson's father, Levi Johnston. "I hear he goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now," says Palin, which might be a more withering aside had it not been delivered from the set of the Oprah Winfrey show.
It is during this segment, in which Palin discusses Johnston's decision to pose for Playgirl magazine, that Palin takes the opportunity to engage in her infuriating habit of affecting extraordinariness by asserting a totally common position as though it were exceptional. "I call that porn," she says, of Playgirl. Yeah, so does everyone. But Palin deserves special plaudits for taking the controversial – dare I say, mavericky? – stance of calling Playgirl pornography, unlike those disgusting straw-liberals who want it used as a kindergarten textbook. Or something.
"We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There's an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, 'Let's kick some tail and ask questions afterwards' you know? That's what we really need instead of any reflection."—Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, on Inside Washington, during a discussion of Obama's upcoming decision on Afghanistan, evidently mourning the loss of the Manly Bush Gut. Because it served us so well.
Note: Shields says he was being facetious. Thus the problem with "ironic" humor that appropriates the voice of the kyriarchy. I literally couldn't tell that he was joking, because I hear people saying that shit for real all the time. In any case, my apologies.
Fay Bainter, Presenter: I present the Academy Award for the best performance of an actress in supporting roles during 1939 to Hattie McDaniel.I came across this while looking for something else entirely; I'd never seen footage of McDaniel's acceptance speech.
[crowd applause as McDaniel walks to the stage and accepts the award]
McDaniel: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, fellow members of the motion picture industry, and honored guests: This is one of the happiest moments of my life. And I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of the awards, for your kindness—it has made me feel very, very humble. And I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel. And may I say thank you, and God bless you.
Most American teenagers are not as active as they should be but a lack of exercise does not seem to be to blame for the rising rates of teen obesity, according to a U.S. study.It came as a surprise to people who didn't know anything about fat advocacy, anyway.
Researchers, using government survey data from 1991 and 2007, found the amount of physical activity among U.S. teens has not in fact changed significantly over the past two decades while the population, including children, has got heavier.
Researcher Youfa Wang, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said it came as a surprise to find that a lack of exercise was not to blame for the rise in obesity with nearly one-third of U.S. children and teens now overweight or obese.
He said there was no evidence that teens' exercise levels had changed appreciably at any time during the study period — even though those years saw an increase in teen obesity.Those years also saw an increase in the number of teens taking a daily physical education class and a decrease in TV-watching. So what is causing the increase in teen obesity? I don't know: Maybe it's bad nutrition; maybe it's increased prescriptions for pharmaceuticals with a side effect of weight gain; maybe it's widespread compulsive eating to soothe widespread anxiety provoked by a fucked-up culture; maybe it's something in our increasingly less-regulated water; maybe iPhones are in cahoots with the diet industry and secretly zap your thyroid gland (there's an app for that!); maybe it's corn subsidies and the fact that I can hardly find a pre-made store-bought product to bring into a house with a diabetic that isn't laced with HFCS—I have no fucking clue.
[Wang] said other factors, like unhealthy diets, may be the driving force.Welcome to the Health At Every Size bandwagon, friends.
However, the researchers added that this does not mean it is fine for teenagers to be sedentary. Children and teens still need to develop regular exercise habits for the sake of their overall health, according to the researchers.
"Our study suggests that more vigorous efforts are needed to help young Americans engage in adequate regular physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviors, which will help promote good health," they said.
Radio Shakesville
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Giant Gloves.
Recommended Reading:
Ginmar: "...with certain inalienable rights...."
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 82
Heather: Welcome to the 6th Feminist Carnival!
Anji: Sixth Carnival of Feminist Parenting
Marti: The Weekly Transadvocate Twitter Digest
Meloukhia: More Tales From the Good Doctor Files
Thea: Transphobia and the Immigration System
Andy: Ian McKellen on Religious Bigotry, Out Actors, and His Epitaph
Leave your links in comments...
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville.
Asking for donations is difficult for me, partly because I've got an innate aversion to asking for anything, and partly because these threads are frequently critical and stressful. But it's also one of the most feminist acts I do here.
So. Here's the reminder.
You can donate once by clicking the button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription here.
Please don't feel obliged to donate, especially if money is tight. The last thing I want is for anyone to feel stretched because of a donation.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
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* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.
Girls long to be loved and adored, and give their heart to their hero.
Don't fail to note the "customers also bought" line. It's thoroughly revolting, even when held up alongside the page it resides upon.
I'd say more, but sitting up is hard today, so you get what you get. :)
I don't care how many tapes Carrie Prejan made of herself masturbating. I don't care how many nude or semi-nude photos she shot of herself or let other people shoot of her. I don't care if she had breast augmentation surgery. I don't care what she does with her body or what she does sexually, as long as it's consensual.
And neither should anyone else who rightfully objected to her anti-same-sex marriage sentiments.
Support for same-sex marriage is rooted in a belief that people have the rights to love and fuck and spend time with whoever they want, and to do whatever they want with their own bodies. It reflects the idea that sexuality is a private matter—not in the sense that it shouldn't be seen in public, but in the sense that any individual person's sexuality doesn't personally affect anyone else who isn't sexually involved themselves with that person.
So what difference does it make, in terms of Prejean's bigotry, that she has a sexual life of her own? None. Because denying fellow citizens equal rights is wrong no matter what.
She was wrong when she said it before anyone knew she had a "sex tape," and she's wrong now. The existence of a "sex tape" doesn't somehow make her more wrong.
I see a lot of people, including self-identified progressives, cheering the "schadenfreude" of Prejean's being revealed as—what?—having a sexuality, I guess. But slut-shaming Prejean for expressing her sexuality merely perpetuates a culture in which the objection to same-sex marriage is justified with distaste for the icky, icky gay sex. Entrenching puritanical narratives about "deviant" sexuality (and let's all stop and note the hilarious irony that young women who actually express the sexuality the entire culture admonishes them to express are immediately slut-shamed and accused of aberrant behavior) does not help the cause of gay rights. Or women's rights. Which are both denied on the basis of kyriarchal control of bodies that are Othered.
So if you find yourself tempted to crow over Prejean's "hypocrisy," consider that the tapes were made privately and not intended for public consumption. To make hay out of that, when we argue sexuality is a private matter, is a hypocrisy all its own.
And worse than that: To make an issue out of these tapes, to endorse or encourage their release for any reason, is to perpetuate the rape culture. Despite our collective refusal to regard them thus, celebrity sex tapes released without the participants' consent is sexual assault. Consenting to the sex act, even consenting to its being filmed, is not implicit consent that images of the act be publicly distributed.
Prejean was wrong about same-sex marriage. She's not any more wrong if she's a moral scold with an expressed sexuality of her own. And being a bigot doesn't give other people license to victimize her.
These shouldn't be controversial statements.
I don't know Carrie Prejean, and what I know of her makes me suspect I wouldn't like her very much if I did. I couldn't disagree with her more strongly about same-sex marriage, and I daresay that's merely the tip of what's almost certainly a vast iceberg of ideological disagreements.
But it's because I disagree with her—because I believe firmly in every person's right to hir sexuality, because I believe firmly in not treating expressions of consenting sexuality as perversions, because I believe firmly in respecting people's right to privacy regarding their bodies and their consensual sex acts—that I will not shame her for filming herself having a wank, or taking sexy photos, or whatever. I don't abandon my principles just because I don't like someone.
I will, however, invite Ms. Prejean to tea, where I will explain to her the benefits of progressive queer feminism, and how we might rightly be allies, if she's willing to open her mind and heart to it.
I'm sorry, folks, I meant to post this yesterday, but my body failed to cooperate (this is why I say I'm partially disabled - it is by no means certain, on any given day, whether I am to be able that day or not).
So, the NQDTR: where you report acts of teaspooning you committed or observed in the last few days.
We're still under the "no congratulations" restriction for this one - tomorrow's will have a discussion about whether we want to keep that or not.
So, teaspoons up, let's hear about how your teaspoon swings, Shakesville.
ô,ôP
