I'm taking a personal day. Nothing serious; just call it a restoring equilibrium day. See you tomorrow.
Question of the Day
Was there ever a time when you were a kid that your parent(s) got a totally—and hilariously—wrong idea of you or something you were up to? Like, say, having teh sex (when you totes weren't) or worshiping the debil?
This question arises from a conversation Deeky and I were having earlier today about times our parents got the wrong idea for various reasons. Mama Shakes loves to tell the story (and has in comments here before) about the time she found a baggie containing some pills tucked between the cushions of the sofa in the basement area that my friends and I hung out in while I was in high school. And instead of just asking me what it was—presumably because if I were a druggie I'd be a liar, too (lol)—she drove to another town (lol) where there would be no chance of being recognized (lol) to ask a pharmacist if zie could identify the pills. And she was perplexedly informed that she was in possession of a dose of over-the-counter anti-diarrheal meds. Scandalous!
Jesus Makes Another Fabulous Appearance
[Content Note: Image of bruise below.]
Sure, Jesus could play the Palladium, as they say, but why lower himself to such a gauche public venue when he can book the very exclusive engagement of a bruise on some lady's arm?
"The Lord works in mysterious ways." I'll say!
Male Anchor: A South Florida woman says she went to the doctor and came home with something she says really strengthens her faith.[Holy folks Gone Wild: Weeping and bleeding and appearing in Cheetos, more Cheetos, pretzels, fire and on pancakes, baking sheets, pizza pans, doggy doors, ice, peanuts, x-rays, turtles, ultrasounds, chocolate, dying plants, sheet metal, trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, more trees, wardrobes, water stains, plates of pasta, drywall, fish, grilled cheese sandwiches, potato chips, a bathroom door, and a banana.]
Female Anchor: Mary Massa had a routine blood test, and after two needle sticks, she says, the bruise in [sic] her arm looks like the face of Jesus Christ. [Male anchor laughs.] Take a look at that—you be the judge. Pictures of that bruise are now posted throughout the doctor's office.
Male Anchor: Mary is a Christian—surprise—who's [female anchor laughs] so devout she has pictures of Jesus already hanging at home, and she once shook hands with the Pope.
Female Anchor: Now, in her defense, Mary did not want to say anything about it [Edit and note from Liss: This is not literal; it's that Mary didn't want to make a big deal out of it. But in the video, there is a clip of Mary, being happily interviewed, and showing where the bruise was and showing pictures of it.]; it was the people at the doctor's office who were so convinced it looked like Jesus Christ. I have to say, I can kinda see a face in that bruise. Could you see it?
Male Anchor: You can always see something in there! But—
Female Anchor: Yeah.
Male Anchor: —there's so many things out there. Potato chips and waffles and—
Female Anchor: Maybe it's a New Year's miracle!
Male Anchor: I, you know, you can see something there. I didn't mean to make fun, but—
And I Was Worried About Being Grounded at the Airport...
I spent last week in Ohio visiting my parents. As a Christmas present, my brother had sent Mom Windows 7 for her computer, and my mission, should I choose to accept it, was to install it for her. I was going to do it in the afternoon, but I decided to put it off until after we got back from the movies and dinner. So when we got home around 9:00, I started doing it, and it ground away, telling me that the upgrade would take “several hours.” I was in Mom’s little study, and after a while my folks went to bed. I was writing away on my own computer, checking occasionally as her computer re-booted every so often. Around 11 Dad came out of their bedroom in his pajamas and said, “When are you going to bed?” I had an immediate flashback to being 15 and being busted for sneaking down to watch “Mission: Impossible” on Sunday nights.
You are always 15 to your parents, even when the three of you go to the movies and you all get senior citizen discounts.
Film Corner!
Today's selection is Remember Me. Or, as I like to call it, The Emo Prince and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Existential Crisis.
Emo Prince (aka Robert Pattinson) in pictured on elevated train, looking mardy. He says in voiceover: "Gandhi said that whatever you do in life will be insignificant." Emo Prince sees street fight and jumps in to help victim. "But it's very important that you do it." Emo Prince and his friend are getting arrested and a girl says, "Officer, those two were just trying to stop it." Grumpy Cop (aka Chris Cooper) says, "Go home!" Emo Prince says, "Hey!" and grabs at Grumpy Cop for some undiscernible reason, and Grumpy Cop throws Emo Prince to the pavement. Fascist! Emo Prince says in voiceover: "I tend to agree with the first part." Emo Prince is tres emo.
Emo Prince is bailed out of jail by his dad, Pompous Suit Guy (aka Pierce Brosnan). Pompous Suit Guy says in raspy New York (?) accent: "You could do worse than to have a father who bails you outta jail." Emo Prince says, "I don't want to be bailed out of anything!" Emo Prince turns to leave. Emo Prince is tres emo.
Emo Prince is in the park with his little sister, as emo guitar music begins to play. The Emo Princess says: "Why do you think Dad doesn't want to spend time with me?" Pompous Suit Guy says, "She knows I'll take care of her. That's all there is, Tyler." Emo Prince says, "That's all there is? Not enough!" Emo Prince turns to leave. Emo Prince is tres emo.
Text onscreen: "He broke the rules."
Emo Prince is in the corporate waiting room of Pompous Suit Guy, Inc. Receptionist Lady tells him, "You know you can't smoke in here." Emo Prince gestures to a square glass bowl. "Why, why do you have an ashtray?" Receptionist Lady tells him, "It's a bowl! It completes the room!" Emo Prince stubs out his cigarette in the bowl. Emo Prince says, "I guess it was just here to tease me." Emo Prince pats the bowl and turns to leave. Emo Prince is tres emo.
Text onscreen: "He had lost his way."
Emo Prince stares out a dirty window. (No, I am not shitting you.) Comic Relief Pal says, "You've been a ghost the past couple of weeks. You don't want to go out anymore. I've had enough of this introvert stuff, okay?! I'm ready to set up an intervention here!" Emo Prince snort-laughs.
Text onscreen: "Until the moment."
Manic Pixie Dream Girl (aka Emilie de Ravin) gets out of a truck. "He has got A DAUGHTER!" declares Comic Relief Pal. "Who's got a daughter?" asks Emo Prince, not even looking up from his journal in which he's writing on his bed. (No, I am not shitting you.) "The cop that busted your face all up!" explains Comic Relief Pal, as we see images of Manic Pixie Dream Girl and Grumpy Cop at home, all domestic and shit. "He's got a daughter." Cut to Emo Prince and Comic Relief Pal checking out Manic Pixie Dream Girl on campus. "I know her, " says Emo Prince. "She's in my global politics class." Comic Relief Pal tells Emo Prince, "Go get 'er!" Emo Prince walks toward her table; cut to Manic Pixie Dream Girl telling him, "I don't date sociology majors." Emo Prince says, "Lucky for you, I'm, I'm undecided." Manic Pixie Dream Girl asks, incredibly, "About what?" despite the fact she just mentioned majors. Emo Prince replies, "Everything." Manic Pixie Dream Girl licks her lips and grins. (No, I am not shitting you.)
Text onscreen: "He let someone in."
Emo Prince and Manic Pixie Dream Girl are in a restaurant. Manic Pixie Dream Girl asks the server, "What desserts do you have?" Emo Prince looks all emo. Manic Pixie Dream Girl explains, "I have my dessert first." OMG, you guys, that is so Manic Pixie Dream Girl!
Back at Emo Prince's shitty apartment, Manic Pixie Dream Girl does some vague cute thing and Emo Prince smiles. He pulls out something covered by a lampshade for her. "What is that?" asks Manic Pixie Dream Girl. "This," says Emo Prince, pulling off the lampshade to reveal a cake with "In case of Asteroids" written on it in icing, "is our appetizer." Manic Pixie Dream Girl looks swoonful. Cut to Comic Relief Pal commenting, "That's why chicks dig you, man. They love this freaky, poetic crap." Oh, Comic Relief Pal! What an unsentimental card you are!
Pompous Suit Guy is told, "Charles, it's your son," and he puts him on speaker. Emo Prince, on the other end of the phone, says, "Yeah, I was wondering if you want to have dinner." Pompous Suit Guy asks, "How many?" Emo Prince, staring at Manic Pixie Dream Girl looking all manically pixie-ish in an apartment window totes not noticing Emo Prince staring up at her, replies, "Three." Cut to the restaurant where Emo Prince and Manic Pixie Dream Girl are at an otherwise empty table. "He can stand me up, but he can't stand you up," says Emo Prince.
One gets the impression Pompous Suit Guy may have stood them both up, as the next scene is of Emo Prince throwing a huge metal canister through a window.
Cut to Pompous Suit Guy shouting, "You've gotta take care of NOTHING! You're responsible for NO ONE! You're a kid!" Emo Prince looks emo.
Text onscreen: "Summit Entertainment Presents."
Manic Pixie Dream Girl tells Grumpy Cop, "I'm going out." Grumpy Cop asks her who's she going out with. Manic Pixie Dream Girl tells him, "A boy from school." Cut to Emo Prince in their house, and Grumpy Cop telling him he's kinda lost. Emo Prince says (I shit you not), "You think you know me. You don't." Grumpy Cop runs at him and pins him to the wall. Cut to Manic Pixie Dream Girl telling Emo Prince, "My dad doesn't know what's going on right now." Emo Prince asks, "What's going on right now?"
Various scenes of kissing, doors slamming, Emo Prince riding a bike, Emo Prince blowing out candles on a cake saying "22," close-ups of Emo Prince, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Grumpy Cop, and Pompous Suit Guy, more making out, and Emo Prince (I shit you not) making a hand butterfly in the sunshine.
Emo Prince says in voiceover: "Someone's been trying to tell me something. Make her yours forever. I'm working on the forever part."
Text onscreen: "Remember Me. Coming Soon."
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96. 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.
News from Shakes Manor
Email edition.
Iain: If a rockabilly named 'Rocky' was seated in a rocking chair atop a giant rocket playing classic rock anthems on Rock Band while toking on a giant rock, this person would not rock as much as you!
Liss: LOL! I'm totes posting that.
If Iain were authoring a book called, approximately, Secrets to a Happy Partnership, I'm pretty sure Chapter One would be "Find new and funny and creative ways to say 'I love you' all the time." And it wouldn't be bad advice at all.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of the Deeky Brand Buttplug, for huge assholes.
Recommended Reading:
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 85
Anonymous Afghan Woman: I Am For Sale, Who Will Buy Me?
Sean: Being Polite and Being Right
Andy: HIV Travel Ban Lifted; First Traveler to Arrive at JFK Today
Renee: Obama Effigy Hung In Jimmy Carter's Hometown
Kathy: Church to Spend $232K to Build Giant Cross
Anna: Happy World Braille Day!
Echidne's got three that are a matched set: The New York Times Hates Women, Part I; The New York Times Hates Women, Part II; TRIGGER WARNING: Just A Crime Of Passion. TRIGGER WARNING.
Leave your links in comments...
Holy Crap
It takes a certain amount of guts -- or chutzpah -- to go on national television and lecture someone about how to turn their life around, but that's what Brit Hume did yesterday to Tiger Woods on Fox News.
Brit Hume: Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation, in my—he's lost his family; it's not clear to me that, whether he'll be able to have a relationship with his children. But the, but the Tiger Woods that emerges, once the news value dies outta this scandal, uh, the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, "Tiger, turn your faith—turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."I suspect that Mr. Hume is going to find out a great deal about Buddhism in the next few days. And when you can visibly embarrass William Kristol, the conversation is officially over.
Bill Kristol: Well, Brit's concerned about Tiger's soul, which is admirable; I just made a more straightforward sports prediction [laughter] which is that he'll come back and win the Masters. Because, you know, he's still an awfully good golfer, despite the chaos and, uh, um, bad news about his personal life. [Transcript via Liss.]
Today in Intersectional Bigotry
So, one of the things I don't like about our Xbox 360 is that I can't make my avatar look like me, because, like most avatar generators, it won't actually allow me to make my avatar as fat as I am. The idea being, I guess, that people who look like me are meant to be ashamed of themselves, so self-loathing they don't want to look like themselves in real life, no less in a virtual world, and that no one who looks like me would be content with how they look or confident enough to represent themselves accurately or something.
Anyway, so I've always wanted Microsoft to give me the ability to make a fat avatar that really looks like me.
But this is not what I had in mind:
Microsoft has shown a keen interest in boosting the Xbox 360's status as a community hub. Leading this initiative has been Xbox Live Avatars, which offer a 3D representation of their owners on the online service. Now, Microsoft is contemplating tying real-world health and psychological data to said avatars in an effort to discourage many-a-gamer's sedentary lifestyle.Okay, let's stop right there. Aside from fat-hating, I would like to note how gob-smackingly disablist this has the potential to be. Just on the most cursory, simplistic level, this has the "I assume every fat, disabled person I see is disabled because they're fat, and don't consider the possibility they're fat because they're disabled" problem about which I've written before. (Which I stress is only the tip of the iceberg as concerns disablism here.)
Last week, Microsoft's patent application titled "Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristic" popped up in the US Patent and Trademark Offices' online database. The filing details a way in which Microsoft can introduce a heightened degree of reality into the appearance of gamers' avatars by utilizing a third-party health-care data repository (Microsoft gives Health Vault as an example) or a Wii Vitality Sensor-like device.
To incentivize people to improve their physical well-being, Microsoft's filing notes that gamers will be locked out of certain components of a game or a chat room until the proper health parameters are met.
"Physical data that reflects a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication," the filing reads. "Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise."
"For example, a locally executed video game on a game console or other device capable of interactive play rewards players that have achieved a degree of health or athletic skill in real life, even if played in a solitary fashion," the filing reads. "Alternatively or in addition, the degree of health can unlock additional playing time or can unlock certain aspects of a game, such as additional levels."
Naturally, it gets worse:
Microsoft's filing goes on to note that it wouldn't just be physical characteristics that could be refined. "The physical characteristics can be further extended to psychological traits associated with the physical person, including intelligence, religious beliefs, political affiliations, and hobbies that affect the rendering of an avatar," the application reads.So, if you're looking for me online, put out an APB for a fatty with a giant brain, two feminist fists, and a Jesus-shaped hole in her heart (as my conservative Christian correspondents are fond of telling me I have), wielding a pink laptop emblazoned with a feminazi cooter. I'll probably be playing Peggle.
[H/T to Shaker Napalmnacey.]
Quote of the Day
"I'm truly honored to have received this appointment and am eager and excited about this opportunity that is before me. And at the same time, as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others."—Amanda Simpson, a trans woman and President Obama's new appointee to the Commerce Department as a Senior Technical Advisor in the Bureau of Industry and Security.
ABC News notes that Simpson has served as Deputy Director in Advanced Technology Development at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona, and "was instrumental in convincing the military contractor to add gender identity and expression to its equal employment opportunity policy." Simpson was also a YWCA "Woman on the Move" in 2004, is a former Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives, and "was a delegate for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to the Democratic National Convention in 2008."
[H/T to Mr. and Mrs. ASDKids2.]
Today in Fat Hatin'
And by "beautiful," we only mean on the outside:
Dating and social network site BeautifulPeople.com has axed some 5,000 members following complaints that they had gained weight.LOL! Oh give me a hooooome, where the fatties don't roam...!
The members were singled out after posting pictures of themselves that reportedly showed they had put on pounds over the holiday period.
..."As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld," said site founder Robert Hintze.
"Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."
Although I would like to have no sympathy for the people ousted from the site, because I'd like to imagine they're just Grade A assholes for joining it in the first place, the part of me that knows better suspects many of them joined not because of an outsized ego but instead a dearth of esteem that participating in an exclusive site was meant to assuage. Which is actually quite sad.
But maybe some of them will learn to be happy-go-lucky. If this fat fuck can be, I'm sure those just on the other side of BeautifulPeople.com can do the same.
(Btw, am I the only one who—unfortunately—now has Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People" running through my head...?)
[H/Ts to Shakers Richard and Rumblelizard.]
American Anti-Gay Bigots Meddling in Uganda
[Trigger warning.]
Previously I noted that the extreme anti-gay legislation under consideration in Uganda was underwritten by the secretive American evangelical organization known as "The Family."
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that three American evangelicals affiliated with gay conversion organizations, including the infamous Exodus International, gave "a series of talks" in Uganda last March on "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda" and "the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family."
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how "the gay movement is an evil institution" whose goal is "to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity."And the three Americans—Scott Lively, missionary and author of anti-gay screeds like 7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a "former" gay man who leads "healing seminars"; and Don Schmierer, who sits on the board of the heinous anti-gay Exodus International, which purports to degayify Christians being tested by God with same-sex attraction or whatever—are positively shocked! by the proposed legislation, and had no idea! they would be associated with such hatred blah blah yawn more total bullshit.
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals.
"I feel duped," Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on "parenting skills" for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.Because here in America, evangelicals constantly engage in absurd hyperbole, like "War on Christmas," and don't think that "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda" could actually mean that gay people will be killed as a result of their horseshit. Of course, queer people and trans people and religious non-Christians and atheists and feminists are harassed, abused, and killed in this country because of their horseshit, too, but it's not mandated or sanctioned by law; the connection is less obvious, less direct, and thus easier for the purveyors of Good Christian Hatred to deny and ignore. I would say I'd hope this would make them think twice about engaging in the same rhetoric in America, if there were even an infinitesimal chance of that happening. But there isn't. And I digress...
"That's horrible, absolutely horrible," he said. "Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people."
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda." Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.
Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like "Die Sodomite!" scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.Set the fire they can't quench. And, at best, their defense is: "We didn't know!" At best, they were totally ignorant of the culture, and just saw speaking in Uganda as another opportunity to make money and get notoriety back home. I mean, hey—it's not like they wanted anyone killed; they just wanted to be able to crow to the rubes back home about what great anti-gay missionaries they are and justify holding out the coffers once more. "Your dollars will help stop the gay agenda in its tracks all over the world!" But they didn't want anyone dead. Heavens, no! Geez, we didn't expect the Ugandans to take us so seriously.
"Now we really have to go undercover," said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother's reaction was simply, "'You are too stubborn.'"
Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.
"What these people have done is set the fire they can't quench," said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.
Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans "underestimated the homophobia in Uganda" and "what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families."
"When you speak like that," he said, "Africans will fight to the death."
At best, they colluded with murderous bigots because they were too uninformed, cavalier, daft, hasty, greedy, eager, selfish, irresponsible, ignorant. Too something to understand what the fuck they were doing.
At worst, they colluded with murderous bigots because deep in their hard, dark little hearts, in places they never reveal in press releases, they don't much care if gay people die, as long as their names aren't anywhere near the death warrant.
If I had to guess, it's a little of both.
[Previously: Anti-Gay Legislation in Uganda, Anti-Gay Legislation in Uganda Sponsored by The Family, Quote of the Day, World AIDS Day, Uganda Drops Death Penalty, Life in Prison from Bill, White House Strongly Opposes Ugandan Anti-Gay Legislation.]
Sunday Afternoon Jarvis
The title track from Jarvis Cocker's Further Complications, the best album of 2009.
[Cross-posted.]
Open Thread
Hosted by Tribbles.
*This week's Open Threads have been sponsored by Alien Invaders: Zapping humans since 1898. (Well, except for the Tribbles.)
