Which one of these things doesn't belong? From the Washington Post's On Leadership column:
Barack Obama still sneaks cigarettes. Gordon Brown has a mean temper. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin struggles with her weight. At what point do a leader's personal vices begin to undermine effectiveness?Um.
by Shaker Vgnvxn, a lady-attorney who lives in DC with her parrot and foster kitty (want to adopt a kitty?).
I am an advice junkie and love to read Dear Abby, even though she isn't always a beacon of progressiveness. However, I was particularly horrified to read last Thursday's article, a response to an article she wrote in December about holding doors open for women.
Before I get started, I want to point out that I am speaking of one specific instance of door-holding: A man gets to a door well-ahead of a woman, then holds it open as she approaches. Not to prevent a door-slam to the face, not because she has packages or visible disability (though that's another issue), not because they were both at the door at the same time so he just grabbed it, not because he opens it for everyone like that, not because of the weather or because he knows she likes it, but because she is a woman.
So back in December, some dude holds a door for a woman, and is "told off" by her: "She said she didn't need any ‘help,' that she was capable of opening her own doors, and it should have been obvious that she wasn't disabled." So this hapless dude (well, his "friend") wants to know if there was "polite comeback" he should have used to respond to this woman.
Dear Abby responded: "No, not unless he wanted to get into a spitting contest with a viper. You say your friend was raised to open doors for ladies. Well, it appears he opened a door for a woman who wasn't one. Please tell him not to give up because anyone with manners would have said thank you and appreciated the gesture. I know I would have."
!!! Uh, what? Absolutely no awareness of the history of chivalry, feminism, or ablism…and totally insulting. But wait, there's more!
So on March 4th, Dear Abby printed reader responses to that craptastic letter. Most offered various insults to future door-hold-objectors: You're rude, not a lady, old, and "must lead a bitter life." Amazingly, there were three responses which did validate the woman's reaction: One from a woman with fibromyalgia, who noted that attempts at help could unsteady her; a short woman who said that it made her physically uncomfortable to walk under a man's arm; and a woman who stated that the practice makes her feel inferior (though I wish she could have gone into why—for me, it's because it originate from a practice that treats women as weak, and it feels like tokenism).
So, you would think our Dear Abby would print a retraction of her original response when faced with evidence that women have valid reasons for objecting to this practice. Instead, she practically cheered on the reinforcement of patriarchal standards through harassment, with a few totally contradictory anecdotes! It was almost as if a woman's physical safety, comfort, or bodily integrity is up for debate—against a man's desire to feel good about "helping!" This brings to mind the street harassment argument: Why should I stop doing something "nice" for women just because some find it offensive/scary/unpleasant?
I actually learned something pretty relevant in my corporate diversity training last year: The Platinum Rule. The Platinum Rule decrees that we should treat others as they wish to be treated. It's not whether we like having doors held open, or our girlfriend likes it, or we think it's probably best, or we just really like to fucking do it—it's realizing that some women don't like it, and it only takes a moment to figure out what she prefers. I love that phrase because it reminds me as a privileged person and as a marginalized person to check myself before I assume I know how someone would prefer to be treated.
And you know what, Abby? Teaspoons notwithstanding, we will never create a more polite and respectful world by wielding rudeness to correct perceived rudeness. (Which okay, I learned from Ms. Manners. I told you I was an advice junkie!) 
Write Dear Abby here or send snail-mail to P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069—and wield a teaspoon in her general direction.
A Florida state representative wants to exclude movies and TV shows with gay characters from receiving a tax credit if they are filmed in Florida.
Current state law grants tax credits on productions considered "family friendly" — with no smoking, sex, nudity or profane language.I have a couple of questions. First, I would like to know how Mr. Precourt defines "nontraditional family values" and what exactly that means. For example, would that exclude making a film version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Huck comes from a non-traditional family, he smokes a pipe, and I assume that when he goes swimming in the Mississippi River, he's not wearing Ocean Pacific surfer jams. Or what about filming a remake of The Ten Commandments, since there's a lot of "gratuitous violence" in there, not to mention animal sacrifices and lots of drinking.
The proposal by Republican Rep. Stephen Precourt of Orlando would increase the credit and expand the field of disqualified productions as those that include any "exhibit or implied act" of nontraditional family values and gratuitous violence.
Precourt says he's not targeting the gay community but that shows with gay characters would not be something he'd want "to invest public dollars in."
What if you heard a commercial that used language like this (words in brackets indicate a paraphrase to heighten your suspense!) :
There’s nothing good about [ __________ ]. They don’t [engage in beneficial activities]. All they do is [cause a specific problem]. That’s their sole contribution to mankind.What would you think filled in the blanks? What would you think of the language? What would it remind you of?
And that’s why, they have to die.
It’s that simple. You cannot rehabilitate [ __________ ]. You have to kill him, his little friends and the [reproductive capacities of “his” community].
What you need is a quick, easy extermination plan. [One simple step] and you’re done. And here’s the really good part: everybody dies!
And while there is joy in all creatures living in harmony, it’s nothing compared to killing [ __________ ]. Now, that’s a rush.
There’s nothing good about fire ants. They don’t pollinate your roses, they don’t make cute little sounds when they rub their legs together. All they do is build a big mound in your yard and bite the hell out of anyone who gets near it. That’s their sole contribution to mankind.
And that’s why, they have to die.
It’s that simple. You cannot rehabilitate a fire ant. You have to kill him, his little red friends and that big fat queen down there making more fire ants.
What you need is Orthene Fire Ant Killer from Ortho. You put one tablespoon of Orthene over the mound and you’re done. You don’t even water it in. The worker ants track it back into the mound. And here’s the really good part: everybody dies, even the queen!
And while there is joy in all creatures living in harmony, it’s nothing compared to killing fire ants. Now, that’s a rush.
Orthene Fire Ant Killer from Ortho. Guaranteed to kick fire ant butt.
Sad news from Bristol, UK, this morning, to read that Andrée Peel had died at the lovely ripe age of 105, but perhaps vaguely appropriate that it comes on International Sop-to-the-Majority-of-the-Population Day.
Mrs. Peel was awarded the Legion d'Honneur (twice!), the Croix de Guerre, and the American Medal of Freedom, for her work in her native France during World War II, helping downed Allied pilots to escape back to the UK. Captured by the Germans and sent to Buchenwald to die, she was lining up for a firing squad when the Americans liberated the camp, saving her life.
She married an English man in Paris, and they moved to a home near Bristol, where she lived until her death over the weekend at the age (get this!) of 105. I know I said it before, but that's so awesome, to see the righteous rewarded with long and happy life.
Take that, you gender essentialists and evo-psych knobs who suggest that women can only be roused to great courage by threats to our families. We are capable of every possible courage - as of every possible cowardice - just as any other human being. Thank you for your heroism, Mrs. Peel, and requiescat in pacem.
Tip of the CaitieCap to my dear friend Julian for the link.
I've decided I want to get my creativity working again. You might think it has been from the stuff I've written here, but that's just...warmups, mostly. And one of the best ways to get better at something is to do it. But how does one force creativity on-demand? By doing it! Weren't you listening?!
So, Caitie's Poetical Corner. I know Liss loves structured poetry as much as I do (we're both huge sonnet fangirls, for instance - I believe I posted my Star Wars in Sonnets here, didn't I?).
What I'm going to ask is this: you give me the ideas. Give me your suggestions for a song or a poem or a type of song or poem (either by name or by structure/genre/what have you), and the topic you want it on.
And by the following Monday, I'll come back to post at least one of your suggestions completed, maybe more if I'm feeling up to it. If you want a limerick about Darth Vader and Captain Jack meeting at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, I'm there. You want a villanelle on the suckiness of bipartisanship? Totally (if that's okay with all of you, that is, I don't want to take sides).
Doesn't have to be humourous, either: I wrote a sweet little love song for Zoe and Wash once, for instance. If it's a song you're wanting filked, post me a link to someone performing it (because believe me, as much as I know a lot of music, I'm well aware that there's plenty more I don't know, and the more recent, the more likely I don't).
Put my pen to the grindstone, Shakers: what do you want to see me write?
Ugh. The Oscars.
Every year, for like 15 years, I go to my friend J's house for the Oscars. (Now Iain comes along, too.) We make our Oscar picks, we watch the red carpet, and then we watch the broadcast and award points for correct picks (2 points for your #1 choice; 1 point for your #2 choice), and see who gets the bragging rights. J always makes something delicious to eat; last night it was a brisket with parsleyed egg noodles and carrots, and OMG it was delicious.
And that is fun.
The Oscars themselves are usually made of fail. And this year was no exception.
Going in, I was unthrilled about the hosts, and dreading noted feminist James Cameron being anointed King of the World. But I had not the merest inkling that Sandra Bullock would ruin the night for me, by grabbing the statuette away from Gabby Sidibe. Fuuuuuuuck.
Throughout the entire broadcast, I was seething that they'd seated James Cameron directly behind Kathryn Bigelow, so every time they got a shot of her, they also got a shot of her ex-husband looking over her shoulder like some grim specter, evoking the Battle of the Sexes as which their dueling director-best film nods had been framed by the media. Ugh.
But then the most magical thing happened. Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director! FIRST WOMAN EVARRR! And then she kept! winning! The Hurt Locker destroyed Avatar! Suddenly no more shots of James Cameron. Har har Battle of the Sexes isn't so funny when women win, isn't that right, Billie Jean King?
I didn't even love The Hurt Locker (although I will admit that Point Break is one of the ultimate guilty pleasures for both residents of Shakes Manor—"100% pure adrenaline!"), and I would have much rather seen Precious kick the pants off of Avatar, but, given the whole tiresome Battle of the Sexes set-up of Bigelow vs. Cameron (and given the fact that I can't stand James Cameron), I was positively delighted to watch Bigelow walk up onto that stage again and again. Wheeeeeeeee!
She's Queen of the World!
(And—trigger warning—here's Cameron "hilariously" pretending to strangle Bigelow before the show even started. I suppose he spent the after-parties following her around pretending to stab her, har har.)
And OMG Mo'Nique. Come on now. That was some 10-tissue blubbing right there, as she gave one of my favorite Oscar speeches of all time: "I would like to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel, for enduring what she had to so that I would not have to," she began, and then thanked her husband for reminding her that "sometimes, you have to forgo doing what is popular in order to do what's right."
Did you notice that all the women associated with Precious were wearing sapphire? (The author of the book on which the film is based is named Sapphire.) Mo'Nique, Gabby Sidibe, Mariah Carey, and Oprah Winfrey were all in sapphire blue dresses. Blub.
Finally, it was a good night for Losties, too: Evangeline Lilly (Kate) is in The Hurt Locker, Michael Giacchino, who scores Lost, won best score for Up, and Fisher Stevens (Minkowski) produced the winning documentary, The Cove. Woot!
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco, now introducing a new line of Shaxco™ brand Sparkly Pink Dildo Wands, for the Fairy Maudemother in you.
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner, or to maybe begin a discussion about a given act.
Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
(fixed codestamp in subject line - relevant to me only, but I thought I'd acknowledge it, save someone the trouble of commenting to tell me I'd bollixed it)
...to be reminded of how dangerous it can be to be a woman who displeases a man/men. I swear, I was reading news links sent to me, and here are three of the first five:
Doctor guilty in wife's cyanide murder:[Yazeed] Essa laced his wife's calcium supplements to escape a loveless marriage.
Man killed ex-lover over Facebook photo with new man:A woman was stabbed repeatedly by her ex-lover after he saw a picture of her with her new boyfriend on Facebook.
Bartender says exotic club demoted her because she was pregnant:
Paul Bristol, 25, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Camille Mathurasingh, 27, at her east London home in April 2009.
The IT technician, who lived in Trinidad and Tobago, flew to London within two weeks of seeing the picture and killed the accountant. Due to the tough economy, [Jennifer] Paviglianiti says she needed this specific bartending job and feared she'd soon be out of work. To protect herself, she decided to secretly record her boss on tape.
I know this woman could possibly lose her livelihood, not her life, like the other cases, but imagine losing your job, with a new baby in this economy. And if you have never had a workplace environment that you felt was hostile, let me tell you it can be one of the most draining, self-doubt-inducing, literally depressing things in the world.
On those recordings [John]Doxey can be heard saying, "Customers don't wanna come in and see a pregnant woman behind the bar!"
[snip]
In other recordings, Doxey is heard suggesting that Paviglianiti's appearance is hurting business. "Maybe they don't go there because the bartender is pregnant and doesn't look sexy."
In addition to the second story, I also received two links to stories about how Facebook can work against women wrt their lives and their jobs:
Teacher killed herself after ex-boyfriend posted naked photos on Facebook:A British teacher working in the Middle East killed herself after an ex-boyfriend posted naked pictures of her on Facebook, an inquest heard yesterday.
And lots of female colleagues have been circling this one, warning each other to be on guard:
Emma Jones, 24, drank poisonous cleaning fluid after confiding in friends that she feared she could be jailed in the Muslim country [UAE] over the explicit images.
Professor Fired for Disgruntled Posts on Facebook: Last week Gloria Gadsden, an associate professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania who had been telling her FB followers stuff like "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day," was put on indefinite paid leave when the school found out about it.
When I first heard of it, I thought, "Why is she even using language like that?" then wondered about the risque things I say (not violent, but my friends and I discuss "sexy" topics all the time). Of course, that FB account is under my pseudonym, but it's not like I'm all that well pseudonym-ized. What really has my colleagues and me cautious is this observation that Gadsden made in another article that reported on the case:Gadsden... says that university officials have been discriminating against her ever since she wrote an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education saying universities don't do enough to retain minority faculty.
Those kinds of political games are what terrify me about this profession.
Now, I hope I made your morning as bright as mine :-(.
With apologies and much love to the women of Bikini Kill, and to a woman I've come to love better than any blood relative:
Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain (to the tune of "Rebel Girl")
That girl thinks she's the queen of the blogosphere
She's got the hottest site around
That girl she holds her head up so high
I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I think I wanna take you home
And do your taxes for you oh
When she talks, I hear the revolution
In her hips, there's a revolution
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her words, I read the revolution
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
And do your taxes one more time oh
That girl thinks she's the queen of the blogosphere
I got news for you, she is!
They say she's a dyke, but I know
Iain is her best friend, yeah
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
I wanna do your dishes too
Love you like a sister always
Soul sister, Rebel girl
Come and be my best friend
Will you Rebel girl?
I really like you
I really wanna be your best friend
Be my Rebel girl
Gay couple's child denied re-enrollment at Catholic school (via):
A preschool student at a Catholic school in Boulder will not be allowed to return next school year because ... the student's parents are two women and the Denver Archdiocese says their homosexual relationship violates the school's beliefs and policy.This is particularly laughable, not to mention ironic, given that it was also reported today the Vatican has been "rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting."
...In a statement sent to 9NEWS, the Archdiocese said, "Homosexual couples living together as a couple are in disaccord with Catholic teaching."
...The Archdiocese also told 9NEWS, "Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment."
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood."The Catholic Church (by which I mean the institution and its leadership) needs to get the fuck over itself and stop pretending it's some kind of paragon of virtue. Of course they have the right to deny a child an education based on the fact that her parents are queer, but, you know, maybe it's time to draw a line under two millennia of bigotry, posturing, hypocrisy, theft, human rights violations, and other sundry failures, and instead replace the patronizing, marginalization, and exclusion with a spirit of, "Hey, whoa, who are we to judge?!"
Dear Cablevision and ABC,
I'll get right to the point.
I think both of you suck for trying to manipulate the New York tri-state area population to fight your battles. This bullshit standoff between the two of you will only hurt you in the long run. I know that corporations think they never have enough money, but the reality is that you have more than enough to solve our health care crisis five times over.
Cablevision: Get your shit together and figure out how to not have constant drama with networks threatening to cancel their broadcast. Heck, you are the only provider who can't even broker a deal to carry BBC America, so maybe there is something up with your company that gives networks reason to get pissed off. Perhaps FiOS is an alternative worth looking into.
ABC/Disney: After 10 more weeks, Lost will be done for good and I will have no further reason to watch your network, or any of your advertisers' shitty commercials. There's nothing more pathetic to me than a filthy rich company throwing a tantrum about how much more money they should be making than any other network. If the entire tri-state area dumped Cablevision and got a digital converter, you wouldn't be making dime one since you're already broadcasting for free. Stop being such a greedy piece of shit.
Now, both of you stop this immature nonsense or else it's Volcanus Eruptus time.
Love,
Space Cowboy
New Line reviving 'Police Academy':
New Line is looking for recruits for a relaunched "Police Academy" movie. Original producer Paul Maslansky is back for the new iteration, which has no writer or director attached.In case you've not had the, ahem, pleasure of viewing any of the Police Academy canon, "lowbrow" means: overtly sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, disablist, ageist, xenophobic, fat-hating, and exploitative, with gratuitous naked titty shots.
"Academy" was a seven-film lowbrow comedy series from Warner Bros. that saw a city throw open the doors of its police force to any recruit, much to the chagrin of its serious officers. The misfit officers band together and, of course, save the city.
..."It's going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV," Maslansky said. "It's going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It'll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we'll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme."
