In one of the most shocking reality TV ideas yet, E! has ordered a new series that crosses a wedding competition with extreme plastic surgery.
The network is set to announce "Bridalplasty," where brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win extensive surgical procedures.
Each week, a group of women competes head-to-head in such challenges as writing wedding vows and planning honeymoons. The winner receives the chance to choose a plastic surgery procedure from her "wish list." She's given the procedure immediately, and results are shown at the start of the following week's episode.
One by one, the women are voted out by their competitors and, according to the show's description, "possibly walking away with nothing and losing [their] chance to be the perfect bride."
The last bride standing will receive a "dream wedding," where she will reveal her new appearance to friends, family and the groom. "Viewers will witness his emotional and possibly shocked reaction as they stand at the altar and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time following her extreme plastic surgery," E! said.
Celebrity surgeon Terry Dubrow (Fox's infamous "The Swan") will lend his expertise to the procedures, and celebrity bride Shanna Moakler (ex-wife of Blink-182's Travis Barker) will host.
Giuliana Rancic executive produces the show, as do Mark Cronin and Cris Abrego of 51 Minds, the company behind VH1's "The Surreal Life" and "Rock of Love" franchises.
Case of the sads. :(
I don't believe in the "sanctity of marriage," but, if I did, I'm certain I would hold the position that this undermines it more than same-sex marriage does.
[Image from last night's season finale: Chefjudicator Eric Ripert buys some cuttlefish or something.]
Last night's episode will be lamented as the most unengaging finale in the history of finales, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your tools and go...
So, there's this lady named Elizabeth Warren who's awesome. If you watch The Daily Show, or you've seen any recent documentaries about the disaster that is the US economy—e.g. Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, or James Scurlock's Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders—you know who she is, even if you don't know who she is. She's the one who made you think, "I wish she were in charge."
Awhile ago, Warren proposed the establishment of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which everyone thought was a great idea! Everyone except all the people who like to rip off unprotected consumers, who have lots of lobbyists who they've hired with all the money they made ripping off unprotected consumers.
Nonetheless, President Obama was in favor of the Bureau. Thing is, he wasn't sure the very smart lady who actually conceived of it was the right person to lead it. It seems like all those highly-paid lobbyists funded by unprotected consumers were whispering in his ear that they didn't really want someone competent running a bureau that might cramp their ripping-off-unprotected-consumers style.
But labor unions, consumer advocacy groups, and progressives of various stripes lobbied on Warren's behalf, since she's sort of the perfect gal for the job and all.
So it was almost exciting when it was reported yesterday that Warren would be appointed to lead the commission. Sort of.
Elizabeth Warren, who conceived of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will oversee its establishment as an assistant to President Obama.
...Ms. Warren will be named an assistant to the president, a designation that is held by senior White House staff members, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff. She will also be a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and report jointly to Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner. The financial regulation law delegated to the Treasury Department the powers of the bureau until a permanent director was appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term.
The decision does not preclude the possibility that Ms. Warren could eventually be named director, and at the least, she would play a pivotal role in deciding whom to appoint to the job, according to the official.
We're meant to understand that this is GOOD NEWS, because it avoids what could be a gnarly confirmation battle.
Some called on Mr. Obama to formally nominate Ms. Warren to lead the bureau even if it led to a confirmation battle, arguing that Democrats should embrace such a battle as a means of drawing attention to the bureau's significance.
However, the White House saw drawbacks to that approach, according to the official. If Ms. Warren's nomination were in limbo for months, she would be generally precluded from serving fully as the public face of the bureau, or even testifying before Congress.
"The stakes are too high to delay the standing up of this agency," the official said.
We want to get her in an easily-marginalized role as quickly as possible!
Oh, I know. I'm the most cynical cunt in all of Cuntistan, but it's just that Warren, who has spent her career advocating on behalf of middle- and working-class families, is hated by the people with the deep pockets who fund US politics these days: "She has drawn fire from financial institutions for her persistent attacks on abusive, deceptive and unfair lending practices; some banking executives believe she has been overly broad in criticizing those practices."
They're too big to fail piss off.
But Obama's voter base expects him to be the eminently reasonable bloke he purports himself to be, and appoint someone who is clearly their ally—and not just another Wall Street Wonderboy like the rest of Obama's Treasury Department appointees—to a position in which an alliance with the people the bureau is meant to protect seems an integral qualification for the job.
Well, that certainly leaves Obama in a pickle!
So here comes the 12-dimensional chess play, and Warren is being pseudo-appointed. And we're assumed, once again, to be too stupid to appreciate the distinction, and too pleased with the crumbs we're being thrown to question why the president isn't willing to fight for what the people who elected him believe in.
Good news, shoegazers! The Smiths' seminal "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" has been confirmed as a playable track on the upcoming Rock Band 3.
The Corn Refiners Association wants high-fructose corn syrup to be known instead as "corn sugar."
Yeah, now that people are catching on to the coincidence that the OH NOES OBESITY CRISIS!!! started around the same time that HFCS was introduced into virtually every food or beverage product USians consume, and researchers have found that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain than table sugar, and people are starting to look for HFCS-free foods, I bet the Corn Refiners Association sure does want a new name on the label.
Unfortunately, it's still the same shitty product.
"I feel like there are a few of us in blogland who spend most of our time trying to come up with new and vaguely interesting ways of say, 'The economy sucks, there are things that could be done about that, why isn't anybody doing those things?' So here's another chart."—Atrios.
That may be too inside blogball to be universally funny, but it made me LOL for realz.
(For those who don't know, Atrios is a pseudonym for very smart economist-type dude Duncan Black.)
Now, I know that Iain and I cannot be the only people in Shakesville who have a morbid fascination with the Rachel Zoe Project, so, fellow Zoezies, can we discuss last night's episode?
(For those who don't watch: Rachel is Rachel Zoe, celebrity stylist and CEO of her brand. Rodger is her husband, who recently become president of her company after "they" decided she needed someone to take care of the business aspects of the business, while she focused on the creative work.)
The totally not scripted (!) narrative arc to this season has been: Rodger wants a baby. Well, that's the ostensible narrative. The real narrative is something more like: Rodger, who doesn't really have a life of his own separate from Rachel, is increasingly agitated by how much time Rachel spends immersed in her work, how little alone time they have, and how he has to play second fiddle to his wife—and seems to think that coercing her into having a child she isn't sure she wants will force her to pay more attention to her personal life (i.e. him).
Rodger constantly badgers Rachel about her biological clock running out, as do her sister and father, while her hairdresser/friend tells her he comes into work every day just hoping she'll tell him she's pregnant. (Huh?) From all directions, Rachel is being pressured into trying to have a baby, even though she has expressed no desire to have a baby herself and has instead expressed strong reservations about her psychological capacity to handle the physical and emotional strain of a pregnancy.
In last night's episode, her hairdresser/friend asked her incredulously if she expected to be happy with nothing but her job in 15 years (perish the thought!), and Rodger flatly stated he wasn't sure he'd stay with Rachel if she wouldn't try to get pregnant. It wasn't that he was ruefully lamenting, "I don't know if our relationship can make it, because I really want kids someday and I'm not sure Rachel does," but that he was essentially demanding she get on board the baby train NOW or face the consequences.
He is trying to use a pregnancy as a means of control over his wife, who he feels isn't dedicating enough time and attention to him. Which is textbook reproductive coercion.
It is difficult to watch. I don't know where this season is headed, and I'm really fearful about where it's going to go.
Dudley wakes up from a nap and sleepily grooms himself. Is he biting his foot or yawning? Eh, both. After nearly 30 full seconds of activity, he collapses with a heaving snort back into the sleep-readiness position.
As always, pix of the entire menagerie below the fold...
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.]
That's the sound of my screaming punctuated with nervous laughter as I watched the below video of a tower technician working on a transmission tower 1,768 feet in the air after partially free-climbing it sans safety line, which I strongly recommend you do not watch if you have a fear of heights or propensity for vertigo. But if you, like me, weirdly enjoy the feeling of your stomach being eaten by fluttering bats that's generally only evoked by roller-coasters and bungee-jumping, then WATCH AWAY!
In either case, let us all give a round of horrified applause to the technicians who keep our visual teletypes and e-newseys transmissioning smoothly.
The video begins with a voiceover explaining: "Getting to work can be a chore—especially if your workplace is 1,700 feet straight up. That's the commute for people that work on transmission lines and antennae in the world of broadcasting. This video shows what it's like to climb to the top of a 1,768-foot tower just to begin your workday." From there, footage from the climber's view, via a camera atop his headgear, as he completes his ascent.
Subhead: Funny. Charming. Ripped. (Even his abs have abs.) As likable as a guy that handsome can be. But while everyone was taking him for granted as a bright spot in mediocre comedies or puzzling over his stealth marriage to the world's most desirable woman, Ryan Reynolds was busy making himself a movie star, which is one way to explain his latest role, as a man who's been buried alive.
Headline: Brian Austin Green Married Megan Fox—and You Didn't
Subhead: Since leaving the 90210 ZIP code, the actor has endured cracks about his hair, his rap album, and his flagging career. But he wakes up next to Megan Fox every morning, so who's laughing now?
Emphasis mine.
A hot, successful wife still makes a great accessory!
To be clear, neither Ryan Reynolds nor Brian Austin Green speak about their wives that way. (Reynolds is married to Scarlett Johansson—whose name, I note, is inserted into the URL for the story for purposes of commoditizing her to draw traffic, but not inserted into the subhead for purposes of commoditizing her as her husband's covetable accessory.) Treating Fox and Johansson like trophies acquired by their husbands is a trick of the magazines, whose uninspired and indistinguishable layouts and virtually identical content—apparently men are longing to read about famous men's hot wives and rock hard abs—would expose their pathetic hackery, even if their revolting misogyny didn't.
Yesterday's Republican gubernatorial primary in New York state was won by thisguy . Go Cuomo!
The Republican senatorial primary in Delaware was won by fellow Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell. O'Donnell is a former Extreme Chastity for Jesus campaigner. (Every time you spill your seed or other lustful bodily fluids, the baby Jesus cries. Why is the baby Jesus' tender infant heart so unfortunately hooked up to your — and everyone's — sexy bits? It is a mystery known only to the holy).
O'Donnell is also the candidate who employed Yates Walker, then of Liberty.com, which subsequently posted a video in which an unseen person asked, "Isn't Mike Castle (O'Donnell's primary opponent) cheating on his wife with a man?" "That's the rumor," smirkingly replied the onscreen woman.
See what they did there, those clever boots? They didn't accuse Castle of having a gay affair, they just said there was a rumor to that effect. And, once the video was posted, there undeniably was a rumor to that effect. Walker claimed the rumor already existed before Liberty.com made the video. So that's just intrepid reporting, then.
O'Donnell, for her part, disavowed any involvement with the video, which appeared shortly after Walker and the Liberty.com team ceased being in the employ of her campaign. So determined was O'Donnell to distance herself from the rumor about her opponent that she took advantage of a number of opportunities to discuss it, that she might once again absolve herself of any connection to it.
Despite her complete lack of interest in Castle's sexuality, O'Donnell did evince some interest in his gender presentation.Commenting on an FEC complaint filed against her campaign by the Delaware Republican Party, which supported Castle's nomination, O'Donnell had this to say:
You know, these are the kind of cheap, underhanded, unmanly tactics that we've come to expect from Obama's favorite Republican, Mike Castle. You know, I released a statement today, saying Mike this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.
Presumably, since man-pants seem to represent toughness in O'Donnell's view, and she was by implication representing herself as being tougher than Castle, O'Donnell was wearing her man-pants at the time. But as she was speaking on a radio program, her audience was deprived of the opportunity to assess what form O'Donnell's own man-pants took.
I am unquestionably no expert in men's fashions, but that term struck me as somewhat imprecise. How might Rep. Castle have complied with Ms. O'Donnell's polite suggestion?
Rep. Castle is a man. So it seems quite obviously to follow that any pair of pants owned and worn by him are, by definition — supposing you feel the need to define such things — man-pants. Yet one has the impression that Ms. O'Donnell is referring to something more particular. What could it be?
Of course, all this confusion would have been obviated if Ms. O'Donnell had simply womaned up — so to speak — and, taking the adult responsibility of expressing herself forthrightly, said precisely what she really meant. Should the voters of Delaware choose to elect O'Donnell to the Senate — and they are not expected to — it will have to be with the understanding that they cannot expect her to say what she means and mean what she says. They can, however, expect her to keep her hands out of her pants. So there's that.
(*Full disclosure: This picture, The American School, was painted by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Matthew Pratt, an 18th c. portrait painter of mediocre talent.
[Trigger warning for sexual assault, victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and rape apologia.]
"Dear Abby," the syndicated advice column currently being authored by Jeanne Phillips—daughter of the original "Abby," Pauline Phillips—has had some big misses over the years, but today's column is absolutely stunning:
DEAR ABBY: I have gotten myself into a "pickle," and I don't know how to get out of it.
I rent a house with two roommates (both males) and have always followed a strict rule of not dating roommates or co-workers. One night, I came home after having a few drinks with friends. One of my roommates was up, and we started talking. Then he started kissing me. I wasn't thinking clearly and didn't object when he trotted me off to my room.
I do like him, but only as a friend. There are no sparks for me as there are for him. I don't want this to happen again, but I don't want to hurt him either. In an ideal world, I'd like to remain friends and roommates, not lovers. Do you have any suggestions? — Can't Believe I Broke My Rule in Florida
DEAR CAN'T BELIEVE: Yes, I do. You need to quit drinking or institute another "rule" that you'll stop at two.
Inform your amorous roommate that in the cold sober light of day you regret what happened and don't want to repeat it. It won't "hurt" him; it will let him know where things stand, and it's important that he get that message.
If you do remain roommates, maintain some distance and don't come home "pickled" again, because you know what could happen if you do.
Holy shit.
The advice-seeker's letter is nebulous in its details the way that many accounts of what we euphemistically call "date rape" are nebulous, especially when the perpetrator is someone whose feelings the victim does not want to hurt.
It might even read, to the casual passerby, as a story about a woman who had two drinks and, feeling tipsy and carefree and a bit horny, slept with her roommate, which she then regretted. But a closer examination of the details reveals something else entirely: It was a "few drinks," yes, but enough that she "wasn't thinking clearly." She was impaired and could not consent—a vulnerable state in which her roommate, who feels a "spark" for her that she does not for him, took advantage, since her dating rules and lack of attraction rendered a consensual sexual liaison out of the realm of possibility.
That is called rape.
And having received a letter from a recently raped woman, still processing the details of what happened to her, and quite possibly substituting a question about how to avoid hurting her roommate/rapist's feelings for an actual inquiry about how to avoid pissing him off to the point where he hurts her/rapes her again, "Abby" does not tell her correspondent to report the incident to police, or to call a rape crisis line, or to move out of the apartment as quickly as possible, but instead admonishes her to curb her drinking!
"Because you know what could happen if you [come home drunk]," she ominously threatens.
Women, it seems, apparently do not even have the right to be intoxicated in our own homes, because, hey, there might be a dude there who wants to rape us, and it's our responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen.
The absurd argument that a women shouldn't drink if she doesn't want to be raped is based on the implicit assertion that being intoxicated puts a woman at greater risk of being raped, which is simply not true. (Although, in yet another classic example of projection, it is true that alcohol lowers the inhibitions of men with a predisposition to rape.) What puts any woman at risk of being raped is proximity to a rapist.
The only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck—and what rape apologists like "Abby" share in common is the patent refusal to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist.
That is, of course, an absurdly unreasonable expectation, since rapists don't tend to announce themselves or have the decency to glow purple or smell like rotten fish or emit the most annoying sound in the world before they brazenly trample across another human being's right of consent.
And, apart from being unreasonable, the expectation that women should never be in the presence of a rapist is wildly, laughably unfair. If women can be expected to "restrain themselves"—whether the expected restraint is never sharing space with a rapist, or never drinking, or any of the other Avoid Rape Rules to which we are meant to adhere every waking moment of our hounded lives—then why is it, exactly, that men cannot be expected to restrain themselves from raping?
I honestly cannot believe that in this day and age such an ugly, dangerous, cruel piece of victim-blaming rape apologia will still be given publication in one of the most widely-read advice columns in circulation, as if it's a totally non-controversial slice of folksy wisdom. To see the rape culture being promulgated and protected so blatantly, by someone of influence, is breathtaking—every single time I have the misfortune to see it.
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