Here's the full list.
Yay! Gabby Sidibe, nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Precious. Yay! Mo'Nique, nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Precious. Yay! Meryl Streep, nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Julie & Julia. Yay! Matt Damon, nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Invictus. Yay! Kathryn Bigelow, nominated for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.
Maybe this year will finally see a woman win Best Director.
Check out the dearth of female screenwriting nominees across both categories (original and adapted). By my count, one—Terri Tatchell, co-writer of District 9.
Wow.
UPDATE: In comments, Shaker just_em pointed to this post in which Monica notes that Lee Daniels, who directed Precious, is "only the second African-American director to garner a Best Director nod (John Singleton was the last for 1991's 'Boyz In The Hood'). Precious also holds the distinction of being the first African-American directed film in the 82 year history of the Oscars to be nominated for Best Picture."
"After 82 years, it's the first film nominated for best picture directed by an African-American," Daniels said. "Isn't that great? It's so exciting."
Indeed it is.
Maybe this year will finally see an African-American win Best Director.
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White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has apologized for referring to liberals as "retarded" during a strategy session last summer.
A White House official said Emanuel called Tim Shriver, the CEO of the Special Olympics, last week after his comments were reported in a Wall Street Journal article.
"Rahm called Tim Shriver Wednesday to apologize and the apology was accepted," a White House aide said. "The White House remains committed to addressing the concerns and needs of Americans living with disabilities and recognizes that derogatory remarks demean us all."
Via. (
Also.)
It strikes me as rather fucked-up that Emanuel would apologize to someone who is an advocate for the intellectually disabled, and that Shriver would accept on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities (though he is not intellectually disabled himself). Does that not necessarily communicate the message that disabled people can't understand bigotry, can't understand an apology for expressing it, and lack the capacity to accept (or not) that apology? Was there no one with intellectual disabilities who could have been an ambassador for the Special Olympics (or some other advocacy organization), who could have spoken to Emanuel directly?
Or, more importantly, to whom Emanuel could have offered his regret directly?
That is, of course, a rhetorical question. There are indeed plenty of people with intellectual disabilities who could have been involved in this communication so that it was not one privileged man apologizing to another privileged man.
The whole exchange just seems to reinforce the very narratives about people with intellectual disabilities that the Special Olympics purports to challenge. Icky.
I'll also just quickly note that, although the word should not be used that way, Emanuel clearly called liberal Democrats "fucking retarded" as an insult—and he has yet to apologize to them.
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There are still some issues being worked out on the site. I know that some people are still experiencing some technical problems, and some features are still missing, but we're working on it as fast as we can. Something in the code of our old template quite suddenly became incompatible with Blogger (as a result of a Blogger update), and we have been literally rebuilding the site over the past few days. Given that reality, we've had remarkable little downtime and few glitches, thanks to the combined efforts of Portly Dyke, Space Cowboy, Iain, and myself. And I appreciate your continued patience as we get everything working again.
Once we're reasonably sure everything's back in working order, I'll make a note, at which point you can let me know if you're still having unresolved problems.
My profound thanks again to Portly, Space, and Iain for their time and talents and hard work.
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107. 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.
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Every time I see this guy's name in the news, it's another disaster. This time, it's an interview with the Times headlined "Ricky Gervais: Bad parents should be sterilised. Fact." Um, whut? He didn't really say that, even in "jest," surely?!
So it's no to God, no to marriage, no to voting — "Can't be bothered" — and no to kids, too, a decision he and Fallon made ages ago because they "just didn't fancy it. Too much hassle. Not something either of us wanted to do. We just ... didn't fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course".
A population problem? "Yes, but it's where it's condensed. It's not too many people, it's too many people with nothing, too many unwanted children, too many people who are poor and struggling, as opposed to too many people. If they all had a good quality of life, no one would complain. What there is, is too many useless people. Too many people who shouldn't have children."
Should we impose a limitation, then? "Yes, based on ... stupid, fat faces," he snarls. "If there's a woman in leggings, eating chips with a fag in her mouth, sterilise her."
You think we should sterilise chavs? He laughs: "You said 'chavs'; I didn't. I described an irresponsible parent. Chavs could be included in irresponsible, though."
So, Ricky Gervais' "humorous" definition of an irresponsible parent who should be sterilized is a poor, fat woman who wears leggings, eats chips, and smokes. Um, okay.
And this is "funny" because poor people are rubbish, and fat people are gross, and women are bitchez, and leggings and chips and cigarettes are only for fashionable, thin, rich people. Har har!
Know what makes it even
extra funny? How forced sterilization
exists! Oh my aching sides.
Yes, yes, I know—I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. What else is new? As long as "jokes" about sterilizing poor fat women constitute mainstream "humor," I'll be wearing my Humorless Scold badge without regret.
[Previously: Ricky Gervais Thinks Rape Is Hilarious, Parts
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.]
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Following up on yesterday's post about my trip to the antique mall, let me share another great find: Three delightful little books.
I am disappointed to say, there was not one boner in any of the
illustrations featured within. In fact, it was mostly text! And here I thought they might be collections of photographs by Wilhelm von Gloeden. No such luck.
Oh, and who's that in the background?
Is that Gabe Kaplan?
Why, yes, it is! It's an official
Welcome Back, Kotter puzzle. Unfortunately, at only twelve pieces, it won't be offering much of a challenge. That's a real shame, but I won't do a puzzle that's less than twenty-four pieces.
Even better! The mate to the Kaplan puzzle: It's the entire Sweathog gang! Horshack! And Epstein! And Barbarino! And a bunch of other people I don't recognize. Who is that old guy on the left? The principal? More importantly, is Sweathog one word or two? Or is it hyphenated? These are mysteries, to be sure, that will haunt me until someone corrects me in comments.
(Continues tomorrow.)
[
Cross-posted.]
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Welcome to American Christianity 2.0: Jesus was a punk-ass bitch. Or something:
In the back room of a theater on Beale Street, John Renken, 42, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer. ... An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.
"Hard punches!" he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. "Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!"
The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team's coach. The school's motto is "Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide."
Mr. Renken's ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low.
The "predominantly white" churches' recruitment strategy combines "fight night television viewing parties" with lectures that equate ultimate fighting to Jesus Christ fighting "for what he believed in," which calls to mind one of my favorite sermons, the Grapple on the Mount.
The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. "Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too," said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. "But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter."
The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.
"The man should be the overall leader of the household," said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. "We've raised a generation of little boys."
Et cetera. Man good, woman bad. Fight good, empathy bad. Compassion and love
yadda yadda, but it's time to kick ass for the Lord! You get the drift.
This
version of Christianity is not merely one of the most aesthetically objectionable I can imagine from a social justice standpoint, it's also incredibly dangerous. The toxic mix of a religion inextricably linked with physical aggression,
war rhetoric, white male supremacy, a masculinity defined in contradistinction to anything viewed as feminine, and everything summarily dismissed as feminine that is remotely associated with compromise and tolerance—that is the stuff of fascism; that is the stuff of crusades.
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I got a pleading note from the subscription department at Newsweek regretfully informing me that I was now a "former" subscriber unless I renewed right away. Across the front of the envelope and inside, they asked me to "please tell us why" I was not renewing my subscription.
Okay, here's why:
1) I'm not impressed with the new layout.
2) They've replaced a lot of good reporting with thin gossip and political snark. I'm an unpaid blogger, and that's my shtick.
3) George F. Will. Feh.
I wrote that on the back of their letter and I'm sending it back in their post-paid envelope. I don't think it will make any difference, but it gets the point across.
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"By attending the National Prayer Breakfast, elected leaders lend legitimacy to an organization whose ideas and practices are antithetical to the American ideals of transparency and high ethical standards. As a result, CREW strongly urges you to decline to attend the breakfast and to ask those in your caucuses to do the same."—Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), in a letter (pdf) exhorting President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader John Boehner to skip The Family's National Prayer Breakfast this week.
I'm going to go ahead and guess this will be another round of: Sure, it pisses off progressives when Dems attend, but we've got to pander to the ringwing, and, hell, where else are the lefties gonna go har har?
Still, kudos to CREW for laying out the case so splendidly and expecting more.
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106. 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.
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No, really.
Yep. Mr. Universe would be so happy.
"She'll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she'll have sex whenever you please. [...] "She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines."
Cause what we really need in the world is yet another commercialization of women's bodies for men's sexual desire, yet another way for men to become acclimated to the idea that women aren't really people.
Yay. I'm so glad they filled that gaping need (pun intended).
Isn't it wonderful? Is there anything technology can't do?
/lolsob
Tip of the CaitieCap to Irfon for the "Raise Cranium!" Alert.
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by Shaker L
It was our fourth (or maybe fourth-and-a-half) date and we have plans for dinner and gawking at people in L.A. pretending to be cowboys. We always had fun and I expected tonight to be no exception. Except... a pattern had emerged where I felt a little sexually bullied. Not powerfully aggressed on, just a little invisible. As if his approach to increasing intimacy was it's-better-to-ask-for-forgiveness-than-permission.
Suffice to say, I didn't like it.
So we got in the car but, before we took off, I told him, in the nicest possible way (really), that I felt bullied and a little invisible sometimes. I asked him to be more gentle and to check in with me a bit more. I bookended the request with how much fun I was having with him and how I was pleasantly surprised as to how much I liked him and all that good stuff.
Now, how might a well-adjusted, emotionally-mature man who is genuinely interested in me respond?
Yeah, that's not what he did.
He told me that no one had ever expressed such a sentiment to him before and that he was a super gentle guy and would never do anything violent to any woman. Then he said that he never felt like he was aggressing on me in any way. "But if you feel that way, well I guess that's how you feel." He asked me if I could give him an example, so I did. And he said that that was not how he remembered it, "but I guess if that's how you remember it, then that's how you remember it."
Um, so far no good dude.
But even so! I responded reassuringly (even as I noted that he had turned the tables such that I had to respond reassuringly to him when I was the one feeling threatened) and reiterated that I liked him and was telling him these things exactly because I wanted to go forward blah blah blah.
And then he broke up with me!
First he said that he didn't think things were going to work out anyway because I was going on a trip for 10 days. At which I made a confused face and he explained that I'd probably want to do whatever I wanted to do on that trip and, not that we were serious or monogamous or anything, but...
And I made a confused face again.
So then he said that it probably sounded like he was breaking up with me because I wasn't on the fast track to sex (no, not at all!) and that that wasn't the case (even though we were, literally, at the precipe of a date).
Instead, he said, there were just some dealbreakers (that he hadn't bothered to bring up till now). And I said, "oh, ok" (and at this point I'm just plain amused), "um, do you want to run them by me just to be sure or no?" So then he says, well I have this picture of Jesus in my car (which is true) and, you know...
And so I said, "okay so you're religious?" and he was like "yeah... blah blah blah" and also Jesus is white in this picture and I'm sure you're thinking "shouldn't Jesus be dark-skinned because it was the Mediterranean" and stuff...
And I made a really confused face.
Because how could he have known that the misrepresentation of Christ is the reason I have to break up with every guy I ever meet! Curse be oh those gazillion images that ensure my singlehood just because they exist!
Yeah, so then I got out of the car, went home, called my friends, laughed, and went out to see a band.
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Earlier today, President Obama sent Congress a $3.83 trillion budget that will "pour more money into the fight against high unemployment, boost taxes on the wealthy and freeze spending for a wide swath of government programs. The deficit for this year would surge to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion, topping last year's then unprecedented $1.41 trillion gap. The deficit would remain above $1 trillion in 2011."
Washington Post: "To put people back to work, Obama proposes to spend about $100 billion immediately on a jobs bill that would include tax cuts for small businesses, social-safety-net programs, and aid to state and local governments. To reduce deficits, he would impose new fees on some of the nation's largest banks and permit a range of tax cuts to expire for families earning more than $250,000 a year, in addition to freezing non-security spending for three years."
New York Times:
No budget proposal is ever enacted wholesale by Congress, and the spreadsheet-boggling numbers in the White House plan are sure to produce anguished partisan and ideological debates over how best to address the deficit and the nation’s lingering economic problems between now and the start of the new fiscal year next Oct. 1 — if indeed Congress manages to complete its work by then, right before the midterm elections.
...In brief remarks in the Grand Foyer at the White House, the president outlined the principles contained in his budget, saying: "Changing spending as usual depends on changing politics as usual." He offered several examples of programs he believes should be eliminated and urged Congress to follow suit.
"I'm asking Republicans and Democrats alike to take a fresh look at programs they supported in the past to see what's working and see what's not and trim back accordingly," Mr. Obama said.
Mmm, I love the smell of bipartisanship in the morning. Or afternoon. Whatever.
LA Times:
"It's not a left-wing budget. It's not a right-wing budget," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a briefing for reporters Sunday. "It's a pragmatic budget. It's a common-sense budget.
Oh jaysus. Not
that old chestnut again.
USA Today notes that the "losers" in the new budget include the departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as NASA, making way for important (ahem) expenditures like "funding for up to 1,000 airport body scanners."
In good news, the proposed budget includes a "$4 billion increase in veterans' programs, including continuing an emphasis on brain injuries and mental health needs."
Discuss.
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