Hosted by licorice wheels.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Blog Note
Hey, Shakers. Iain is off today, so we're going to start our weekend a little early. The pub, will, however, still be posted later this afternoon, of course!
To all the USian Shakers: Have an enjoyable and safe Labor Day weekend!
Roethlisberger's Suspension Cut Short
[Trigger warning.]
The NFL has cut Ben Roethlisberger's suspension from six games to four.
In a letter to Roethlisberger, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said "You have told me and the Steelers that you are committed to making better decisions. Your actions over the past several months have been consistent with that promise and you must continue to honor that commitment."
Swell.
Q&A at Shakes Manor
Last night...
Liss: How many balls do you think Andrew Zimmern has eaten?
Iain: Seven thousand varieties. Fifty thousand individual balls.
Liss: [laughing] That's very specific.
Those aren't balls; they're squirrel brains—an Appalachian delicacy!
[Image Description: Andrew Zimmern, host of "Bizarre Foods," sits at a table at Embers restaurant on Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia, and holds up a plate of some unusual-looking meat, in a still shot from his Appalachian episode.]
You know, I always say, "Try everything once!" and I'm pretty adventurous. But some of the stuff he puts in his mouth...? No. Fucking. Chance.
It's a texture thang. [/kblogz]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of How to Get Along with a Big Dog When You're a Little Cat, by Sophie McEwan.
Recommended Reading:
Digby: Message: They Care
Echidne: Christina Romer's Farewell Speech
Loryn: What's Wrong With "Regular" Black Girls?
Resistance: Watching Wo Ai Ni Mommy So You Don't Have To
Fannie: Quote of the Week
Mo Pie: Last Night on Project Runway…
Leave your links in comments...
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: Iain gives a huge belly laugh (in response to some ridiculously hyperbolic comment I made about how stupendously lovable Dudley is, just before I started filming), and then says himself: "Oh my god, Dudley, you're just so adorable."
All the while, Dudz sits in his dog bed, being totes cute.
[Yesterday's Daily Dose O' Cute was snapped either right before or right after this.]
My Breasts Hurt
Actually they don't (today), but that's another story.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about bras for small-breasted women and the ladies who wear them. It was fluff, in the same way that a restaurant review is fluff; not dealing with the most pressing issues of the day, not interesting to everybody, but most definitely the sort of thing that some readers might enjoy and find useful.
Certainly, the article had flaws. For one, it suggested that taking pride in one's small breasts is a symptom of fat people and OMFG ARE PEOPLE FAT. :sigh: Still, the article made some good, if fluffy points. But, because this was a story on women's bodies (and :gasp: one of the supposedly womanlier parts of many women's bodies) there was an immediate backlash.
To hell with that.
The Times article alluded to the marginalization of small-breasted women's bodies. Permit me to verify that this exists.
You know how in puberty pretty much all girls suffer teasing about their breasts? (You should have seen mine back in high school. Ugh.) That's pretty much how the grown-up world works. It's really the same world, if you think about it.
Flat-chested women supposedly aren't quite grown up. We're not that sexy, or certainly not as sexy as we'd be if we had bigger breasts. (Breasts that we could buy, btw, provided we were willing to put up with the blowback that plastic surgery gets you in some circles.)
Of course, we could get padded bras. Which, incidentally, are everywhere. And always improved. Revolutionary, even. Sometimes shit explodes. Breasts that appear to be of a culturally accepted size and shape are a big deal.
The Times piece actually mentions that some of us don't necessarily want padded bras. Or don't want to wear training bras designed for teens. It doesn't mention this, but those of us who are tall can't usually wear bras designed on the assumption that we're comparably short teens whose 36A breasts are growing to be of an appropriate size. The article mentions the rise of boutiques where one can get grown-up bras that fit. I noted the information on the chance that someday I have money to invest in nice bras.
Small-breasted women are real people with real experiences. I, for one, noticed that many people didn't really take my womanhood seriously until I was a full A-cup. That was kinda a big deal, because the alternative was pretty shitty. Did I mention this was a real experience in the real world?
But our experiences aren't enough to mollify folks who want to tell us what our lives, bodies, and experiences should be.
Like, I understand that bras are the devil and it can be hell on your back to have large breasts and I'm so lucky and why the hell would I ever wear a bra whatthehelliswrongwithme, but, uh.... Sometimes I don't like to show off my nipples at work. It can still be uncomfortable walking around with unsupported breasts, even smaller ones. Also, who the fuck is anyone to judge my choice in clothing, and why the fuck do they think I have to give an explanation of my attire?
I also understand that there are women with other body issues, you know, because I have empathy. Like, I know that fat hatred exists. I've been to the doctor with my partner. And the grocery store. And the sidewalk. Oh, and also we've shopped for bras together. Trying ain't the half of it. Oh! Have any of you seen the selection of sports bras for larger-breasted women? Telling of society, no?
Speaking of body issues and marginalization, do you want to talk about my penis? Me neither.
And why yes, at some point I would like to talk about other issues... about the economy, about health insurance, about public education, about crime. These are incredibly important issues that affect my household more than my breasts do. However, for these ten minutes we're talking about my breasts, m'kay? I promise the Arbitrators of Very Important Things that we can spend the next fifteen minutes discussing what's for lunch before y'all move on to puzzling out the one and only one true important issue in society.
Nobody who's oppressed can truly win the Oppression Olympics, because, well, it's oppressive. Not listening to the voices of small-breasted women and generally dismissing our experiences of marginalization is oppression. It's like we get a higher (or lower) score simply by virtue of participation in that cruel pseudo-sport with Calvinballesque rules and a constantly moving target.
Besides, I own my body. And frankly, I don't think that goes far enough. Mind-body dichotomy be damned, I am my body. My body is how I experience this world. So it's not really appropriate that my body, or anyone's body be treated as communal property to be judged against contrived standards. Yet this is precisely what society does to many bodies (women's bodies being one of many overlapping examples) all the time. Nuts to that.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Taken from an actual text conversation we had yesterday...]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
STFU, Jerry Lewis
[Trigger warning for violence and misogyny.]
Showbiz veteran Jerry Lewis, who is already well-known as a Grade-A misogynist, went off on an absolutely absurd rant this week about Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears (of course), detailing what he would do to set them straight:
"I'd smack her in the mouth if I saw her," he offered the interviewer when asked what he'd do if he saw Lohan. "I would smack her in the mouth and be arrested for abusing a woman!"And everyone knows the way to respond to a cry for help is with belittlement and physical abuse.
He continued, "I would say, 'You deserve this and nothing else' ... WHACK! And then, if she's not satisfied, I'd put her over my knee and spank her and then put her in rehab and that's it."
..."She doesn't have the right to do to herself what she's doing," he said of Lohan, who just did some time in jail and rehab. "She's not hurting my business. What she's doing is hurting herself, and that hurts me. It hurts me for her."
..."What they're saying is, 'I'm f*****d up, can you please help me!"
..."I think they need a f*****g spanking! And a reprimand!" he said. "It has nothing to do with [money and fame], it has to do that they have the intelligence of a box of rocks. A bag of snails will give you better answers than those people. I think a great deal of it is ignorance and crying for something other than love."
As I've had occasion to observe before, I've got no idea, and neither does Jerry Lewis, what it's like to grow up in the information age as a commoditized young woman, inevitably defining my self-worth by the amount of public attention I'm getting, and how that fucks with one's head.
I've got no idea what it must be like to feel equal parts exhilarated and scared when the paparazzi hounds you and equal parts relieved and lost when they don't, how that must compel people to seek out public attention even when it's the last thing they need, because it's all they feel like they've got.
I've got no idea what it must be like to have drugs pressed into my hand by strangers at clubs I'm allowed to patronize before I'm old enough to drink, and how confusing and infuriating and sad and insecurity-making it must be to not know whether people like you because you're you or because you're famous, how that must make clubs full of mind-altering substances and fawning fans an attractive place to be.
I've got no idea what it must be like trying to navigate one's way to adulthood as a woman—a difficult and confusing journey even when one isn't hyper-sexualized at a formative age, tasked with the responsibility of accounting for a professional image one doesn't even have the life experience to contexualize.
And neither does Jerry Lewis. So he should really shut the fuck up.
He has no idea what these young women are going through, and no interest in exploring why it is that young women are singled out for public excoriation for self-destructive behavior. He's just another sanctimonious toad who finds it easier to unilaterally condemn the women who fail to gracefully rise above a deeply fucked-up industry effectively, if not deliberately, designed to destroy them, than to question, challenge, or work to transform the industry.
And why would he? The source of their destruction made him a very rich man.
[Related Reading: I Write Letters, Bad Girls, Oh, For Crying Out Glavin.]
I'm So Glad We Elected a Democrat, Part One Billion
White House considers pre-midterm package of business tax breaks to spur hiring.
Of course they do.
With just two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks - potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars - to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.So now policy is being decided not on what will be most effective for the US citizenry, but based on avoiding mendacious GOP framing. Awesome.
...Permanently extending the research credit would cost roughly $100 billion over the next decade, tax analysts said. And depending on its form and duration, a payroll-tax holiday could cost more than $300 billion. While costing significantly less than last year's stimulus package, both ideas would be far more dramatic than anything the White House has so far acknowledged considering.
...More spending on infrastructure, particularly transportation projects, is also under discussion. But it would be easier for a package composed purely of tax cuts to "avoid the stain of a 'bailout' or 'stimulus' label," said one official familiar with the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations were private.
[S]ome Democratic candidates and political operatives feel the president is not doing enough to help them keep control of Congress, privately expressing frustration that Obama has recently emphasized issues other than the economy.I just don't even know what to say anymore. I really don't.
"We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?" said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke."
...Last November, Obama announced that he would turn his attention to unemployment, calling it "one of the great challenges that remains in our economy." ... But other matters - health care, the BP oil spill - continually stole the limelight, creating the impression, some Democrats complain, that the president was barely focused on the economy at all.
His advisers described his attentiveness - noting, for example, that he discussed the economy with New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) for 15 minutes before golfing - but got little traction.
Feel the Homomentum!
New South Wales passed a bill yesterday granting same-sex couples the right to adopt.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally supported the bill:
Speaking to the lower house on Wednesday night, Ms Keneally said she had considered her Catholic faith, observations of same-sex parents and her own experiences of parental love.
"In considering all of that, I must, in my conscience, support this legislation," she said.
Fine work, Aussies!
[Tip of the kookaburra to Shaker Michelle.]
Today in Analogizin'
"The federal government is basically a drug dealer trying to give out free samples, or give people a taste, get them further addicted."
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, comparing the Obama administration and health insurance "reform" to any number of people in my neighborhood who may or may not have health insurance.
"And I think we just say: 'No, thanks, we've had enough,' and get your own house in order, by the way, at the same time."
Speaking of interesting, word on the street (as the kids say) is that the President is black. Surely that couldn't have played into Pawlenty's insinuation that the White House is basically a drug house. *cough*
FWIW, I was unaware that drug dealers actually give out free samples. Maybe I need to rent New Jack City
Question of the Day
We haven't done a "desert island" question in ages, so here we go… As always, the desert comes equipped with a power source and kickass entertainment system.
Were you to be stranded for an indefinite period of time, which one book, one album, and one film would you want to have with you?
Book: The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Album: "Strangeways, Here We Come" by The Smiths
Film: Harold and Maude
This is a real thing in the world.
[Image Description: Two cake toppers photographed on a store shelf. On the left, a thin white bride dragging a thin white groom across the ground by his collar. On the right, a thin white bride grabbing a thin white groom to stop him from running away.]
Mama Shakes sent these charming cake toppers to me with the note (which I am publishing with her permission):
Hi, Sis. I didn't know if these were nice enough for your "This Is a Real Thing in the World" feature. I know you may find it surprising to learn I spotted them at Wal-Mart.I am shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background.]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
