"What would people most like to see in 3-D? Probably a naked lady."—Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, whose magazine features a 3-D centerfold in its June issue.
Y'know, 'cuz that's what "people" want.
Quote of the Day
What About the Menz Indeed
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
In what is one of the most deplorable examples of "What About the Menz" I've ever seen, Milwaukee County's chief mental health official, John Chianelli, decided to placate violent male psychiatric patients by housing female patients in the previously sex-segregated locked ward. When the integrated ward resulted in a surge of sexual assaults against the female patients, Chianelli then defended the decision as a "trade-off."
Three Milwaukee County supervisors turned up the heat Monday on the county's top mental health official, calling for the firing of John Chianelli over mishandling of patient assaults.A "trade-off." Sure. Spoken like a true believer in the idea that no one gives a fuck about female psychiatric patients, anyway—so might as well hand them over to the male patients who will be less inclined to be aggressive toward one another if they've got vulnerable, unprotected women to rape. Heaven knows we wouldn't want those men hurting themselves, or each other, or one of the facility staff. You know, people who matter.
Their remarks follow a report Sunday in the Journal Sentinel in which Chianelli defended housing female patients with dangerous male patients to quell male-on-male violence, according to written account by Supervisor Lynne De Bruin. Chianelli called it a trade-off that resulted in more sexual assaults of female patients, according to De Bruin and two other supervisors.
…Chianelli described the rationale for the county's mixed-gender wards as a "trade-off" that avoided more fights common to all-male wards but increased the chance of sexual attacks in mixed-sex wards, according to De Bruin's letter.
"Going to gender-based units trades violence for sexual assaults," based on his review of psychiatric literature, Chianelli told the panel, according to the letter.
The profundity of my contempt is bottomless.
[H/T to Shaker Julie.]
There are four and a half hours of Lost left.
JEARSBLUB!!!!11!eleventy!!1!
Because Why Should McCain Get All The Asshole Points?
White cis man Dan Fanelli, standing for Congress in Florida, wants in on the party.
(Warning: thoroughly racist bullshit, may induce a desire to make rude gestures at Mr. Fanelli)
Tip of the CaitieCap to Jen over at Disgrasian. Plus, y'know, it's a damned good blog, read it anyway.
DeeplyProblematic also has a post analysing this racist screed, here.
Transcript below the fold, provided by the good offices of Shaker museclio.
[Two men speaking in what appears to be Arabic. A young man is balancing what looks like a metal thermos but I think is supposed to be a bomb.]
Young Man: (captioned)How will I reach martyrdom if I’m captured?
Man two: (captioned) If you spill the blood of the infidels [obscured] allow yourself to be captured. We will use the infidel’s lawyers and Miranda rights to send a message. Then you will go to God.
[Men freeze. Dan Fanelli comes out.]
My name is Dan Fanelli. Send me to Washington and I’ll send our enemies where they belong. And that’s not to a court room.
[DF stands next to elderly white man] Does this look like a terrorist? [Man 2 appears] Or This? Time to stop this political correctness and invasion of our privacy.
[DF steps up an mugs for the camera] Let’s face it, if a good looking ripped guy without much hair was flying airplanes into the twin towers I’d have no problem being pulled out of line at the airpoirt.
[DF appears next to a small plane and points] This is an airplane. [DF reaches down and yanks up Man 2 with a white turban, duct tape over his mouth and what appears to be a bomb strapped to his chest] And this is a terrorist. Send me to Washington, and get rid of that bum Alan Grayson and I’llmake sure guys like this get nowhere near things like this.
[DF’s face over the American flag]I’m Dan Fanelli and I approved this message.
CNN Headline Nooz
An important list of "Men who stuck by the 'other woman'."
My favorite part is the first bullet point on CNN's regrettable "Story Highlight" article-summarizing feature: "Some times an affair can lead to marriage."
Classic.
Hey, Losties!
Episode Twenty-Three:
The Lostcast
In honour of Liss's birthday, and the impending finale of Lost, this week's show is a collection of songs featured throughout the series. Press the button, download, listen.
Songs: 15. Running time: 1:08.
Here is a link to the podcast blog where you can download the show.
And this is the list of all songs used in this week's ep.
You can also play the show in a pop-up.
The show is available via iTunes, on Feedburner, and on reel-to-reel in the Dharma rec room.
The RSS is here, if you need it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse.]
"Persecution!"
Pope Benedict XVI says the Church's child abuse scandal shows that the greatest threat to Catholicism comes from "sin within" the Church.Okay, first of all, the Catholic Church is not being persecuted. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Political prisoners, women being raped as a weapon of war, trans men and women assaulted by bigots, gay teens bullied at school, children being abused by parents, ethnic minorities denied basic rights, people who don't conform to dominant religious faiths (including, perhaps, individual Catholics in some places), marginalized people all over the world—these are people who are persecuted. A vast international organization with its own country and immeasurable wealth and influence, whose members are shielded from the law, is not suffering from persecution. And the mere suggestion is almost incomprehensibly vulgar.
"Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church," the pontiff told reporters on a plane bound for Portugal.
People and institutions persecute. "Sin" doesn't. The "sin" being committed by predator priests is making the Church look bad, not persecuting it—and the wall of silence (sans the occasional gay-scapegoating rape apologia) that the Church has constructed around that "sin" is doing its fair share to make the Church look bad, too.
The only thing of which the Church is a victim is its own crushing corruption, cloaked in an impenetrable, arrogant, self-pitying conceit that allows it to see itself as the primary sufferers at the hands of predator priests, and the actual children and adults they assaulted as nothing but inconvenient evidence of the "sin" that the Church is forced to publicly bear. Boo fucking hoo.
OMG LOL John McCain Is Such An Asshole
Check out his new campaign advert:
[John McCain, wearing a Navy baseball cap and casual clothes, walks along the border fence with another white male, wearing a uniform, who is identified as Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona. They both look Very Serious.]He approves this DANGED message!
McCain: Drug and human smuggling, home invasions, murder.
Babeu: We're out-manned. Of all the illegals in America, more than half come through Arizona.
McCain: Have we got the right plan?
Babeu: Plan's perfect. [Text onscreen: McCain/Kyl Border Security Action Plan: National Guard Now. CompleteTheDangedFence.com] You bring troops, [Text onscreen: 3,000 New Border Control Agents] state, county, and local law enforcement together. [Text onscreen: Complete the Fence]
McCain: And complete the danged fence!
Babeu: It'll work this time. [Text onscreen: Paul Babeu is appearing only in his personal capacity. McCain squints into the sun, all tough-guy like.] Senator, you're one of us.
[Freeze-frame on John McCain's face. Text: Arizona's John McCain.]
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
Happy Birthday, 'Liss!
As everyone knows, we here at Shakesville do every single thing that Melissa wants us to (/snark), so the theme of this year's cake was not a question.
However, we had more than one cook in the kitchen this year, so I'm posting both the cakes that were made.
First, this lovely offering from SKM and The Lady Eve:
and my own humble video offering to the QCoFM, on this, the anniversary of her nativity (for those without sound, the soundtrack is the Beatles "Birthday"):
Big huge titty-wrap hugs and happiest of Happy Birthdays to you, Melissa -- on a LOST day, no less!
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Quixotess: What's one movie that you wish you could get everyone to see?
Betty White on SNL Open Thread
So. After Teh Internetz decided to "ironically" launch a grassroots campaign to champion the idea of recent Superbowl commercial sensation Betty White hosting SNL, seemingly ignorant of her legendary history as a hilarious lady that renders White's hosting less "ironic" than "way more sensible than the parade of talentless jackholes who usually host," the Golden Girl hosted this weekend alongside a bevy of other returning funny ladies, turning SNL into, for one glistening moment, a show in which women were centerpieces instead of stupid fucking props.
***Trigger Warning: Which still didn't preclude the inclusion of one of the WORST recurring sketches ever on SNL—which is really saying something—the Scared Straight sketch, which is just a series of horrible rape jokes. And it was included even though Debbie Downer, Bronx Beat, and Joyologist sketches hit the cutting room floor, so to speak—only viewable because rehearsal was taped; they didn't air.***
And, although Betty White was great, and the episode was funnier than usual, and even though I know that bawdy humor has always been a part of White's shtick (it's one of the reasons I love her!), I was disappointed at how many of the sketches ultimately came down to laughing at the ABSURD IDEA that an older woman could still be sexual. Which, ya know, isn't actually an absurd idea at all.
Discuss.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[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.]
In Which I Substitute an Email Exchange With Melissa for an Actual Post
I was just scrubbing the kitchen at my folks' house, where I will be until after my mother's latest hip replacement. Out of the corner of my eye I caught an ad for the new film Letters to Juliet, which led to the following email exchange:
From: [SKM]
Subject: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 1:57:47 PM CDT
To: [Melissa]
...or did the ad for Letters to Juliet that just ran on The Food Network feature a blond white dude saying to his blond, white girlfriend, "If I met my Juliet, I'd just grab her from that balcony and be done with it!"?
Really?
I must have misheard.
I fear I did not.
But then, I am scrubbing the kitchen...
From: [Melissa]Yes. Interesting. Feel free to discuss.
Subject: RE: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 2:03:48 PM CDT
To: [SKM]
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
I watched Romancing the Stone this weekend -- y'know, because it was on, so I HAD to watch it! -- and I was despairing to Iain how that movie would never get made today, because Joan Wilder ultimately saves herself and her sister, while Jack T. Colton is off wrestling with an alligator (or crocodile, or wev).
I'm sad for girls growing up today.
From: [SKM]
Subject: Re: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 2:23:45 PM CDT
To: [Melissa]
Yes! I watch Romancing The Stone whenever it's on, too. Can't. Stop. Watching!
Other movies that would never get made today: Jumpin' Jack Flash and Warlock.
From: [Melissa]
Subject: RE: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 2:25:20 PM CDT
To: [SKM]
Dragonslayer.
Tootsie.
Yentl.
From: [SKM]
Subject: Re: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 2:31:05 PM CDT
To: [Melissa]
Have we had a thread on this? If not, sounds ripe for one of those "in which I substitute email with Liss for a post" numbers...
From: [Melissa]
Subject: RE: Did I mishear...
Date: May 10, 2010 2:41:25 PM CDT
To: [SKM]
If we have, it's been a looooooong while. Maybe a QotD once upon a time.
Go for it!
[H]ere are some more of my nominees, which you are welcome to use or not use as you see fit. :)
Labyrinth
Lady Jane
Splash (yes, Splash -- he goes to live in HER world!)
Btw, on the flipside of this, there are some movies being made now that WOULDN'T have been made when we were kids, like Whale Rider and Akeelah and the Bee and Quinceñera (all of which I love), so there's that.
Which brings up an interesting point about how marginalized girls are carrying the torch of feminism, while privileged girls are cast as the stars in the backlash. Interesting, that.
Quote of the Day
"In the underclass (black, white and Hispanic alike), intact families are now an endangered species."—Ideologically moribund dipshit Ross Douthat, using his New York Times column to wring his hands about how the times they are a-changing.
Note to Ross Douthat: These days, lots of families fail by design to fit your definition of "intact," i.e. "the ideal of the two-parent family," wherein those two parents are married and of the opposite sex. But that doesn't mean they're broken. Yeesh.
But I guess I oughtn't expect to be reasonable someone who spends a good portion of his column wrestling with the idea that it's somehow cheating, some sort of smug chicanery, that the East Coast liberals whose families look most like his ideal only achieve that model via their tricksy immoral reliance on abortion.
Yeah, well, Mr. Conservative Genius, call me when you're ready to try our idea: A robust network of social services to service all Americans equally, including those shattered riffraff in the underclass.
Know Who I Like?
Cynthia Nixon. I totes had The Manhattan Project on tape when I was a kid, and I thought Jenny Anderman was the shit. I'm probably the only person whose first reaction upon seeing her as Miranda in Sex and the City was: "Hey, it's Jenny Anderman!"
Anyway. Here's an interview with Cynthia Nixon in The Advocate.
Daily Dose o' Cute
And Matilda-Dudz relations finally began to thaw:
And we went to the dog park, where Dudz has evidently decided his role is maître d', as he politely trots to the front gate to greet every new dog and two-legs who comes to the park. He was also super frisky yesterday, and loved galloping in mad circles around the picnic table.
That's not him barking; we still haven't heard a peep out of him yet!
He also made friends with a little Jack Russell puppy who was like his own personal mini-me:
Watching them run around together was ridiculously cute. Iain and I decided at one point to go for a stroll around the park, leaving Dudz to play, but he came bounding after us and walked so nicely in between us all the way up the hill and around the park. He'd wander off to investigate periodically, and then come back to our sides, as if he'd always belonged there.
Robots Have Let Me Down
[Trigger warning for strobe light effects in a graphic below the fold.]
Everyone one knows I love robots:
Get me an electric necktie, stat!
Last week I was thrilled to read that our anodized friends were teleporting in to the Los Golfo de México to save our proverbial bacon. Is there nothing robots can't do, I asked after reading the headline "Robots position giant box over oil-spewing well."
But it turns out robots aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Nope. The bots dropped the proverbial ball in the murky, leviathan depths. The malfunctioning oil well still spews sticky, black death and the robots have packed their bags gone home. (Where exactly do robots go home to, that's what I wanna know!) Environmental catastrophe: One. Robots: Zero.
Maybe that was a fluke, right? No. No, it isn't. Another new headline: "The day the machines took over Wall Street". WTF? Robots make shitty daytraders, I guess. Last Thursday's plunge (also into murky and leviathan depths) "is being blamed on computerized trading mechanisms." Stockmarket: Zero. Robots: Zero. Deeky's portfolio: -5351.
Thanks, robots! What's next?
Oh, yeah, that.
