This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud distributors of Deeky W. Gashlycrumb's new cologne por homme, Dogfartz.
Recommended Reading:
scatx: The 19th Amendment: 90 Years Old Today
Rebecca: Why The LGBT Community Doesn't Believe Anything Democrats Say Anymore
Andy: Watchdog Pushes IRS to Investigate Anti-Gay Pastor for His Support of Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern
Sandip Roy: Why "Eat, Pray, Love" Makes Me Want to Gag
Tassja: Racism and Social Responsibility, aka Why I Can't 'Just Enjoy' a Movie [TW for violence and othering]
Marianne: Delta Burke, Suzanne Sugarbaker, and My Memory of Being 9 Years Old
Atrios: Nobody Could Have Predicted
Also: Portly Dyke is looking for questions. Got any?
Leave your links in comments...
Last weekend, my friend Miller was visiting from her adopted home Brazil, and we convened at the beach house at the Indiana Dunes, right on the shore of Lake Michigan, which has been in her family for generations. It was a lovely visit, which not only gave us a chance to see Miller and other friends, but also provided Dudley with his first opportunity to go for a swim.
The lake was the calmest as I've ever seen it on Saturday, and when I walked Dudz down to the water's edge, he trotted straight into the water and followed me out into the lake, where he paddled toward me into ever deeper water. Greyhounds are not naturally strong swimmers, having no body fat to help keep them afloat, but he took to it well and really enjoyed it. Iain went back to the house to get the camera, so we could film a bit of it.
Male and female ability differences down to socialisation, not genetics.
[A] growing number of scientists are challenging the pseudo-science of "neurosexism", as they call it, and are raising concerns about its implications. These researchers argue that by telling parents that boys have poor chances of acquiring good verbal skills and girls have little prospect of developing mathematical prowess, serious and unjustified obstacles are being placed in the paths of children's education.There's more, oh so much more, at the link.
In fact, there are no major neurological differences between the sexes, says Cordelia Fine in her book Delusions of Gender, which will be published by Icon next month. There may be slight variations in the brains of women and men, added Fine, a researcher at Melbourne University, but the wiring is soft, not hard. "It is flexible, malleable and changeable," she said.
In short, our intellects are not prisoners of our genders or our genes and those who claim otherwise are merely coating old-fashioned stereotypes with a veneer of scientific credibility. It is a case backed by Lise Eliot, an associate professor based at the Chicago Medical School. "All the mounting evidence indicates these ideas about hard-wired differences between male and female brains are wrong," she told the Observer.
"Yes, there are basic behavioural differences between the sexes, but we should note that these differences increase with age because our children's intellectual biases are being exaggerated and intensified by our gendered culture. Children don't inherit intellectual differences. They learn them. They are a result of what we expect a boy or a girl to be."
"[I]ts only intention was to bring a smile to a few peoples faces, and possibly irritate a few others. Is it fair? Does that matter? It wasn't intended to be fair. It was intended to be funny."—Randy Brown, webmaster for the Minnesota GOP website, who posted a video titled "Republican Women vs Democrat Women," featuring undoctored images of conservative women set to Tom Jones' "She's a Lady" followed by doctored images of liberal women, and/or images of them making weird expressions, set to "Who Let the Dogs Out?".
(Note that the video is not merely misogynist, but transphobic, homophobic, and racist as well.)
"Is it fair? Does that matter?" pretty much sums up the entire GOP platform these days.
[H/T to Shaker Ashley.]
Good news for American women, as the FDA has finally given approval to Ella, a drug which can be taken up to five days past unprotected sex, and which will (in some as-yet undetermined manner) prevent pregnancy. I say "prevent" because it's not at all clear exactly how the pill works - whether it's by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg, or by some other method. The chemical is related to that of RU-486, but is not the same one.
It is said to be more effective than Plan B (currently available OTC in the US), but is a prescription medication at the present time. I'm sure it'll only be a short time before Obama's Bipartisan Wankery Strategy Committee comes up with some useful and totally-not-partisan-at-all way of restricting women's access.
Under the "We have to give time to the people who think the world is flat too" principle, the article includes a quote from Ladies Against Women Concerned Women for America, an organization which strives to take away women's choices and bodily autonomy. I won't bother to quote them, because they've got nothing new to say, just the usual hazy ideas that someone's holy anthology is totes against it, even though it never mentions the matter, and they never actually explain why we should have to live by their holy anthology's rules anyhow.
As Liss said of the same group a couple of months back, speaking of the same drug:
If Wright (CC: head of CWA) were really concerned about women, and of course she isn't, she would support making available every option for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies, which include those caused by partner abuse.Can't say it better than that.
Yesterday I wrote about GOProud, a group of gay conservatives, and their upcoming "Homocon," featuring Ann Coulter, "the conservative Judy Garland," as their featured guest. Remember the first sentence of GOProud's mission?
GOProud represents gay conservatives and their allies.What do you think, "allies?"
Conservative website WND has dropped Ann Coulter as the keynote speaker at its upcoming conference over her plan to speak to a group in favor of gay rights.(Bolds mine.)
WND says that Coulter's decision to speak at Homocon, an event sponsored by a gay Republican organization called GOProud, disqualifies her from speaking at their "Taking America Back National Conference."
"Ultimately, as a matter of principle, it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about 'taking America back' when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very 'unconservative' agenda represented by GOProud," WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah said. "The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning."
Coulter, who is and will remain a WND columnist, said she was hired to deliver a speech at Homocon but that does not mean she endorses GOProud's views.So, for those of you keeping score at home, a website (which employs her, mind you) has dropped Coulter as keynote speaker at their terribly, terribly important conference because she didn't tell a bunch of homos to go fuck themselves. Coulter repays said homos' embarrassing affection with a shrug and a sneer, saying they're not quite as bad as people who "loooove abortion," or an al-Qaida conference. Oh, but she'll take their money...
"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."
[Trigger warning for violence and misogyny.]
Because Penny Arcade is the new Fat Princess, and thus following the same sad trajectory, I am naturally getting inundated with emails from irate fanboys who MUST DESTROY ME LULZ. Or at least tell me I'm fat and ugly and hysterical, which represents a creative vitality I've not witnessed since the glory days of the Dave Matthews tribute band, Trippin' Billies.
Of the impotent flailing in my inbox, many are of the "dumm bith variety, and some of the unrapable bitch variety. And then there are the ones helpfully trying to educate me through the cunning deployment of mansplaining and/or engage me in dialogue about what a silly, misguided lady I am:
Throughout your writings you make reference to a need to redefine manhood; I wonder if you might explain how or why this might be necessary? You frequently allude to men's boorish behavior toward women - to be sure, the examples you give are just ludicrously offensive. I have nothing but scorn for men who would grab a woman on a train, for example, or whistle at them. I have very rarely seen such behavior, though, and I know a large number of men who would never even consider acting so obnoxiously. I wonder if perhaps you are not projecting a couple of semi-civilized idiots' misogyny onto about half the world.And then there are the ones from men who presume to speak for their female partners who are survivors of assault, all of whom have a sense of humor about rape, natch:
Like many women the victim of a rape, my partner has a sense of humor about rape. Not a "normal" sense of humor, often an uncomfortable sense of humor, but a sense of humor nonetheless. … We are not paternalist functionaries. We are familiar with the sacred, with reverence. We are both at the keyboard, and we know that when one loses one's sense of humor about something, when it becomes a sacred cow, then it's well on its way to becoming a dogma or a fascism.And then there are the ones who just want me dead:
Grow the fuck up or get the hell off the Internet, because you're only going to continually get offended, be triggered, or whatever it is that you in particular do. And no one beyond your close-minded bootlicks give half a shit what you think, you ignorant bonehead. People can say what they want - shock, horror - and you need to deal. On the flip-side, I guess you can continue screeching about whatever sets you off, too, but just remember that no one with half a brain cares. Because nothing you have said in regards to this issue was at all new, insightful, meaningful, or relevant. The only thing anyone will get out of this is, "God damn there are a lot more humorless cunts in the world than I thought there were."So, for those keeping score at home, the calculation appears to be:
In short, I hope something pushes you far enough that you kill yourself. I'm tired of assholes breathing my air.
In a contemptible echo of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent comments lamenting the ingratitude of the "professional left," Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Brian Bond used the occasion of a White House meeting with state LGBTQI equality groups to "express frustration at the often intense criticism levied, particularly by bloggers, against an administration that is '99 percent supportive of your issues'."
Says Pam: "If you're 99% supportive, that is a helluva 1% left over."
And if the president is 99% supportive, then his utter lack of leadership on LGBTQI issues is illustrative of what a craven, unprincipled, politicking jackass he is.
Meanwhile, as long as members of the Obama administration are going to sit around whinging about the lack of undiluted support from LGBTQI/lefty bloggers, journalists, commentators, and activists, I'd like them to detail how, precisely, our collective failure to sufficiently bootlick is responsible for any legislative failure they believe they've had.
Because, from where I'm sitting, the criticism is a result of the Obama administration successfully pursuing objectionable strategies and/or not pursuing progressive strategies, and even the Obama administration doesn't seem to feel like they're failing mightily on a progressive agenda. Which means the Obama administration isn't really complaining that we're tying their hands; it means they're complaining about not having enough cheerleaders baking delicious cookies for them.
And that sense of belligerent entitlement to praise and support, from people who aren't being well-served by their policies, is breathtaking in its arrogance.
[H/T to Shaker The Chemist.]
Dear Dr. Laura Schlessinger,
When you apologize for a racist rant that you claim to understand was deeply offensive to people, subsequently quitting your radio gig because "special interest groups" who have an agenda are trying to "silence" you, asserting that your "First Amendment rights have been usurped by angry, hateful groups," whining about people who won't accept your apology, and crowing that you "feel energized, actually—stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country," you pretty exhaustively undermine any possibility that your apology was sincere.
Just FYI.
Love,
Liss
[Trigger warning for sexualized violence.]
The new cover of Rolling Stone, which is [trigger warning for violent imagery] viewable here, features Alexander Skarsgård, Anna Paquin, and Stephen Moyer, all three naked, all three bathed in blood splatter. The accompany text reads: "TRUE BLOOD: They're hot. They're sexy. They're undead."
And, again, I wonder why it is that graphic images of violence aren't supposed to count (no less, are supposed to be "sexy") when they feature vampires.
If I were a more cynical person (the author raises her eyebrow and purses her lips), I would suggest that the great thing about the current vampire trend is how you can get away with all sorts of inappropriate content you couldn't otherwise, any criticism of which can be summarily dismissed with: "It's about vampires. Vampires aren't even real. What are you—stupid or something? Christ, what a hysteric."
I've heard that about me.
Most recently, as I've been informed by ONE BILLION emailers that I am both stupid and hysterical for objecting to a joke about rape, because don't I even realize that the joke was about A MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE raping someone?!
That's really meant to cover all manner of sins these days, innit?
“You want rich people because that’s what creates jobs. If you punish people, they won’t expand or create jobs.”- Rand Paul, giving his totes awesome plan for taking care of Kentucky's drug problem. Aid rich people.
Atlas sneered.
...Really?
GOProud represents gay conservatives and their allies.Allies? Where? I'd be very, very interested to see any actual gay allies in the GOP.
Summer Makeover Edition!
Dougie, whose fur is quite long and wavy, just got a short, chic cut for the hot weather:
For the Key Biscayne's Academy of Martial Arts RDCA:
Created by Zubi Ad Agency, the ads were never intended for circulation, the company says, and were never approved by their client, the Academy Of Martial Arts RDCA in Key Biscayne, Florida. "The ads in question were posted by an individual that works at our agency on a site that creatives use to share ideas and get comments from others in their line of work," says COO Joe Zubizarreta, who's likely referring to sites like Ads Of The World, to BP. "The art director who developed them told me that he had posted this campaign as well as three others to get feedback from other creatives as to their opinions of the work."Ok then.
But creativity aside, the company isn't standing by them: "We want you to know that we don't condone this action and we are taking steps to make sure something like this never happens again. I apologize to you and anyone else that may have thought we knowingly allowed these ads to leave the agency. These ads were never produced nor would they have seen the light of day had they come across my desk. The creator of these ads is very apologetic and never intended to offend anyone however, we as the owners, understand that they can be considered offensive and would not under any circumstances have ever let them ever be produced."
