[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Thanks to Shaker lulubells for tonight's pub name.
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Thanks to Shaker lulubells for tonight's pub name.
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Daily Dose o' Cute
...be the same comical pooch as this?
Yup.
Where's
More outrageous cuteness below the fold...
Matilda.
Olivia.
Sophie.
Dudley.
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
What do CBS and FAIL! have in common?
[Trigger warning for dehumanization.]
Shaker Andrea emails (which I am posting with her permission):
I think Shakesville would be the perfect blog to discuss the horrifying and hilarious slideshow displayed on cbsnews.com today. "Vaginas: 14 Amazing Facts You Won't Believe," subtitled "What do sharks and vaginas have in common? Find out," contains lots of pictures of mostly white women [frequently just disembodied parts, and one woman with her mouth taped shut], green buttons, pink water guns, neon capital letters, and, er, sharks.Zoinks.
These pictures are captioned by dubious sex ed (apparently the vagina comes with a pleasure button called the clitoris? uh, really?), and generally objectify women's bodies. CBS News. Gah, CBS News.
I saw the first frame of the slideshow (thin white woman's naked thighs, question mark in pink square covering the place where the thighs meet) in the corner of a page containing an interview with Sarah Shourd, the hiker just released from Iran. I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't reading the Onion, and then I had to click to see whether the slideshow was as awful as it looked. It is. This is a real thing in the world.
The Lube Thread
Or, if you prefer, the LOOOBE thread!
Some comments in the ongoing Let's Talk About Sex Threads (1) physical questions; 2) communication issues) indicate that a separate thread on lube information and preferences could be useful.
There are lots of potential issues to consider when choosing a lubricant--is silicone OK for my needs? Oil-based? (NOT for latex condom-use!) What about glycerine? This is actually a complicated topic, all tittering aside.
What's your favorite lube and why, Shakers? Some folks need lubricant on a daily basis just to be comfortable; others use it for sex, solo or otherwise. Some may simply have never thought of adding it to their routines.
Discuss.
What Rome Would Have Looked Like With TeeVees
Surely I am not the only non-conservative person who thinks Stephen Colbert testifying before Congress in character is totally fucking ridiculous...?
I know I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, but, even as HILARIOUS as the idea of recording fat jokes into the Congressional record for all posterity is, I don't really want my elected representatives turning Congressional hearings into govertainment.
Democrats, you might have noticed that the infotainmenting of the news didn't exactly work in your favor. It's hard to see how turning C-SPAN into an adjunct of Comedy Central is a wise strategy.
A partial transcript is here, with a full transcript to be posted when available.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud publishers of the upcoming memoir Thank Maude I Never Played Atari at Deeky's House or Drums at Liss' House, by Everyone.
Recommended Reading:
Paradox: Fun Times, Eh, David?
Cara: San Antonio Woman Assaulted; Police and Media Respond With Transphobic Excuses [TW for violence and transphobia]
Himanshu: "You Know That's Saag Paneer, Dude": A Review of Outsourced [TW for racism]
Resistance: The Privilege of Words [TW for violent imagery and racism]
Eric: Breitbart's Selective Reporting [TW for violence]
Andrew: Ingraham, Perkins Balk at GOP 'Pledge' for Lack of 'Family' Angle
Leave your links in comments...
Update On Predatory D.A.
(Trigger warning for discussion of domestic violence, prosecutorial misconduct in domestic violence cases, attempts to coerce sex from a position of authority, and lawyerly attempts to impugn the motives of victims)
Action is being taken by the state of Wisconsin which may remove D.A. Kenneth Kratz, the subject of my previous post It's Hard Out There For A D.A., from his position as District Attorney of Calumet County, WI.
As detailed in this story at JSOnline, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle Wednesday received several formal complaints about Kratz from residents of Calumet Co. regarding his treatment of crime victim Stephanie Van Groll, in response to which Doyle has appointed a state lawyer and former D.A. of a different county, Bob Jambois, to be the commissioner of a public hearing into whether there is cause to remove Kratz from office.
Jambois will then report back to the governor, who will make the determination as to whether to remove Kratz. Grounds for removal include “inefficiency, neglect of duty, official misconduct or malfeasance in office.”
The state Department of Justice will prosecute the case against Kratz at the hearing. This is the same state DOJ which previously found that Kratz had "not acted illegally" in bombarding Van Groll with personal and sexually suggestive text messages for several days after interviewing her about the criminal case against her ex-boyfriend, who had attempted to strangle her.
The texts stopped only when the victim reported them to the police, out of fear that if she did not accede to the D.A.'s suggestion of a sexual relationship between them, he might not pursue the case against the man who tried to kill her.
It may be, however, that public outrage since the D.A.'s behavior became known may cause the state DOJ to take a more rigorous look at that behavior, and view the situation more as one of an officer of the court preying on crime victims, rather than, say, a fellow attorney and public official trying to have a little fun on the side. Pure speculation on my part, of course.
It's also worth noting that "illegal conduct" and "official misconduct" measure different standards of conduct.
Several people suggested, in the comment thread to my previous post on this, that this was likely not Kratz' first attempt to coerce sex from someone he dealt with in a professional capacity. Way to recognize a practiced predator, commenters! Since the story of Kratz' behavior toward this victim became public, at least three other women have come forward to say that Kratz behaved inappropriately toward them.
One woman whom Kratz had met through an online dating service said that (.pdf), while she was having dinner with him, he had taken several calls regarding the case of a missing woman, who police suspected had been killed by her boyfriend. This woman says that Kratz inappropriately shared information about the case with her, and subsequently invited her to attend the victim's autopsy with him, with the condition that she "would be his girlfriend and would wear high heels and a skirt."
Another young woman, a law student, has reported that, when she sought D.A. Kratz' support in securing a pardon for an earlier drug conviction, to enable her to join the bar on completion of her studies, he agreed to assist her, and then pressured her for sex. The governor, who did grant that woman the pardon she had applied for, says he is "particularly troubled" by these allegations.There was an (alleged) attempt to use my power as governor — my pardon power — to somehow have a relationship with a woman. That is something I take very seriously. Subverting the pardon power of the governor — that’s a very serious allegation.
Well, yes, governor, yes it is. But then preying on crime victims from the position of District Attorney strikes me as "particularly troubling" and "a very serious allegation" also. I don't see the problem of a predatory District Attorney rising to the point of being "particularly troubling" and "very serious" only when it impacts the governor's office.
Kratz' attorney, Robert Craanen, you will sadly not be surprised to learn, has said, "There are no depths to which I will not sink in attempting to defend the indefensible."* Oh, wait, no — he didn't say that, exactly. What he said was that he questions the motives of the women who have come forward since the story of Kratz' behavior with Van Groll became public.“It really is an economic opportunity for these individuals. I look at their stories in that light. There’s something to be gained by these people, other than to correct a wrongdoing.
Craanen hasn't actually talked to his client about any of these additional accusations, as it happens, leaving him free to speculate out his ass about the motives of the victims.
D.A. Kratz, it seems, is "receiving inpatient therapy" and had, at the time his attorney threw these completely baseless accusations against his client's accusers into the mix, conveniently not been available to discuss with his attorney his actual behavior toward them.
The governor has also questioned why the Office of Lawyer Regulation, operated by the state Supreme Court, found Kratz guilty of no misconduct after he had taken it upon himself to report to them last year the allegations made by Van Groll. An OLR intake investigator subsequently sent Van Groll a letter saying that the messages Kratz had texted to her were "inappropriate", but “did not appear to involve possible professional misconduct.”
State Representative Terese Berceau is also questioning the actions of the OLR in that case, and has written to the legislature's audit committee requesting an audit of the OLR, although the article does not give any information about what is involved in such an audit.
(*For the record, I understand, and believe, that everyone accused of a crime or of other misconduct which may carry substantial penalty, is entitled to present a defense, and that the duty of an attorney is to make the most persuasive case possible for the innocence of hir client. I do not, however, believe that that includes an entitlement to publicly cast aspersions which have no basis on the character of victims, nor do I believe that relying on and attempting to encourage public misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. to create a general fog behind which a client can hide, constitutes proper defense.)
H/T to Shaker Rina
Ridiculous
WaPo: "The Obama administration objected Thursday to immediately ending the military's ban on openly gay service members, saying that an injunction to stop the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy might harm military readiness at a time of war."
Truly, deeply absurd. Nearly 80% of the US population supports a repeal of DADT. The administration is literally pandering to the most despicable, backwards, retrofuck homophobes in the country.
Cowards. Liars. Unprincipled assholes.
No one, but no one, honestly believes that repealing DADT "might harm military readiness." That's a rank bit of mendacity used to disguise ignorant bigotry and religious hooey.
The gay, lesbian, and bisexual soldiers who are willing to die for this country, in spite of its stubborn insistence on treating them as second-class citizens, are patriots of such profound resolve that denying them their chance to serve honestly and openly is a rather more spectacular moral failing than two boys kissing could ever hope to be.
The Overton Window: Chapter Nine
Well, this is a disappointment. "Being between tans, Noah had opted to change his clothes in private." I know, I know! You were all looking forward to Noah disrobing in front of Molly. That'll have to wait.
The restroom at the Stars 'n Stripes reeks of weed, and Noah speculates that maybe the "single-issue hemp-heads ... were here to attach their cause to the larger group's ambitions." Noah knows what the group's ambitions are? Because I sure as hell don't. Not in this novel, not in real life.
Noah returns to the pub and engages in behaviour he knows is "a little creepy": He spies on Molly and her new table-mate from across the crowded pub. (Nevermind that earlier the pub was described as being so crowded "it was impossible to keep to a straight line as he walked," now it's clear enough to ogle his date from across the room.) Hollis (the Winnie the Pooh guy) has gone and a new man is sitting at the table with Molly.
They were sitting close together, hand on hand, talking and whispering, intent on one another, each finishing thoughts for the other, laughing easily. It was an intimate relaxation between them, a togetherness without any pretense, the kind of closeness you see only rarely between siblings, and sometimes among old friends, but often between two people in love.
Uh oh. Noah's getting jealous.
Hollis appears next to Noah, busting his creepy spy routine. There's a short conversation. Noah zeroes in on Hollis' accent (Appalachian) as the man offers up some exposition. The guy at the table is Danny Bailey. Noah pretends he doesn't care about Molly. The author repeatedly mentions Hollis' hulking frame. (Will that be important later?) Lastly, Hollis says "To be honest I don't know that much about him. But he scares me some."
Oh my!
Noah returns to the table and meets Danny.
If the twinkle in his deep voice was any indication, Bailey found himself pretty damned amusing. He had the air of someone who was accustomed to being seen from a stage or on camera and had put his look together accordingly. He was handsome enough, but up close you could see all the things the footlights would obscure.
In my mind, Danny is played by Stephen Baldwin. (Again courtesy of Joe Mande.) That doesn't mean you have to imagine him as Stephen Baldwin. But in all honesty, it's something I often do: casting famous people as characters in books. When I read Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom looked just like Sal Mineo in my head.There is a silly conversation between Noah and Danny, the highlights of which I will share now:
"So, you must be Noah. Molly's told me almost nothing about you."
"I'm not surprised. We hardly know each other, and what she knows so far, I doubt she likes too much."
"Here's to new friends, and maybe a new fan."
"I'm sorry, you said a new fan?"
"Don't tell me you haven't seen the video."
Noah blinked, and shook his head.
"Overthrow, man, the video. It's gonna bring on the total downfall of the whole frickin' evil empire, thirty-five million views on YouTube. That's me. I'm shocked, you really haven't seen it? There's e-mails about me flying around all over the Internet."
"Well, I guess I've got a really good spam filter."
For a long moment the legendary Danny Bailey looked like he'd just been double-smacked across his face with the ceremonial dueling gloves.
"Down, boys," Molly said.
If you remember, back in chapter one, I joked about the inevitable Youtube reference that would pop up. Here it is. Not only that, but we have a veritable Youtube star in our novel. God damn if this book isn't timely and relevant!
Danny downs a couple shots and runs to the stage. Molly explains that "Danny's a good guy, he's just living in the past of this movement." Again with the nebulous "movement." Maybe I was supposed to ready Dick Armey's Teabagger Manifesto before picking up The Overton Window. Molly continues:
"You'll see what I mean when he speaks tonight. He doesn't have much of a BS-filter, and he gets people fired up about the wrong things, when there are plenty of real things to fight against. But, there's no denying he gets a lot of attention."
Then Molly and Noah get their eHarmony moment and tell each other something the other doesn't know about them.
"I have an almost supernatural ability to tell when a person is hiding something."
"No, you don't."
"I do. While the other kids went to Cub Scouts I was sitting behind one-way glass eating M&Ms and watching about a million focus groups. I know people." He thumped his temple with an index finger. "Human lie detector."
M&Ms! For authenticity! Right? I don't know. What an odd little fact to drop into the text. It fits, I guess, since everything about the writing is strange.
Noah identifies someone in the crowd, "an infiltrator," who doesn't belong. Oh, yeah, it gets better. Or worse, depending:
Molly nodded, took a deep breath, and then climbed up to stand on the seat of her stool and shouted across the bar. "Hey, you!" She pointed to the man in question, who had turned to face her along with most of those nearby. "Enjoying the show, are you? Look, everybody! We've got a Benedict Arnold in the house!"
Oh, that Molly Ross! What a firebrand! What a scamp! "I can sometimes be a little impulsive," she tells Noah.
Oh yes, he is definitely going to fall for her now, isn't he? He already did in chapter one, but now he's really, really in love.
30 Rock Thinks Rape Is Hilarious
[Trigger warning for sexual assault, spousal abuse, clergy abuse.]
Several people emailed me or mentioned in comments that last night's episode of 30 Rock, which was the season five premiere, contained a rape joke/scene of rape. I don't normally watch the show, so I didn't see it—but I watched the whole episode in its entirely on Hulu this morning, and there was not one, but three rape jokes in it.
1. At 2:12: Jack (Alec Baldwin): "In order for this merger to stay attractive to our friends at CableTown, we have to seem like a sexy, profitable company—and we're almost pulling it off. The Harry Potter theme park is huge hit with both anglophiles and pedophiles."
2. At 12:45: Pete (Scott Adsit): "This Jenna promotion is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Do you understand how much free time I have now? Yesterday, I went to the gym. And, this morning, I made love to my wife. And she was still asleep, so I didn't have to be gentle." [Cut to a sleeping woman being raped by her husband, from his perspective, but it's hilarious because she's fat and her boobs are bouncing around and she's snoring.] Liz (Tina Fey): "That is one of the most upsetting things I have ever imagined." Pete: "Are you sure? Think about it again." [Cut to the scene of the woman being raped again.] Liz: "Yes!" (TW: Shaker Andy emailed this gif that breaks down the scene.)
3. At 19:00: Liz says to her boyfriend Carol (Matt Damon): "How do we move this forward in the time allotted?" Carol says, "All right, let's each say one thing about ourselves that the other person doesn't know, on the count of three. All right, ready? One, two, three." Liz says: "I'm on a waiting list to adopt a kid," while Carol says, "Touched by a priest; it's fine."
It's #2 that people are talking about this morning, because it actually depicts the rape, no less from the rapist's perspective. But it's also bookended by two jokes about child rape.
I don't even know what to say anymore.
[Rape is Hilarious: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One, Forty Two, Forty-Three, Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six, Forty-Seven, Forty-Eight, Forty-Nine, Fifty, Fifty-One, Fifty-Two, Fifty-Three, Fifty-Four.]
Assvertising
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, dehumanization, objectification, and violence.]
Diesel is the latest brand to become a repeat offender in this series (thanks to Shaker Sara for passing this along):
The ad, titled "Diesel Kick Ass Sneakers Study #7," shows a foot clad in a Diesel Sneaker kicking a fat female ass, clad in a cheek-bearing leotard, in slow motion. An onscreen digital clock then counts the seconds while the ass jiggles from the kick. 21:03. Text onscreen: "Results: Diesel Sneakers deliver more A.W.S. (Ass Wobbling per Second) than any other sneaker. Diesel Sneakers. Not made for running. (Great for kicking asses.)"This ad would be contemptible enough on its own (for a host of reasons I'm not going to waste my time delineating), but it's even worse when juxtaposed against this current Diesel print ad:
If you can't see the image, it's a Diesel ad featuring a picture of a thin white man kneeling down and biting a thin white woman's jeans-clad ass. (Her head is, naturally, cropped out of the image.) The text reads: "You'll Eat Better."
So: Fat ladies' asses are for kicking. Thin ladies' asses are for biting. Okay.
[Assvertising: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121.]
Discussion Thread: Let's Talk About Sex, Part Two
In yesterday's "How to Fuck" thread, Shaker Jon_Erikson brought up a question about how to have a discussion with a sex partner about frequency without being indirectly coercive.
Lots of conversations with partners about sex can be fraught for the same reasons: Discussions about frequency, about the time of day you prefer having sex, about the ways you like have sex, about fetishes.
And conversations with children about sex can be fraught for other reasons altogether. It's also one of the most frequent subjects about which I get emails soliciting advice and/or good reading materials.
So, this is a thread to talk about how to have conversations about sex.
"How do I talk to my partner about wanting more/less sex?"
"What should we do when I like sex at night and zie likes it in the morning?"
"How do other people navigate one partner's natural lulls in sex drive?"
"How do I introduce the subject of sex to young children in an age-appropriate way?"
"How do I talk to my kids about sex without being heterocentrist?"
"How to I broach the subject with older kids on the cusp of sexual experimentation without alienating them?"
This thread is about sex-related communications. The thread about the physical aspects of sex is here.
Discussion Thread: Let's Talk About Sex, Part One
The last two days, we've done Questions of the Day about masturbation, and, in both threads, there were "Is this normal?"/"I didn't realize lots of people did that!" discussions.
Sex is one of those subjects about which it's tough to get good information as a kid, and, then, seemingly overnight, one may start feeling "too old" to not know the answers to lingering questions, presuming to ask them at this age will elicit laughter and mockery, that the people asked will think you're a rube, or don't know your own body, or are (horrors!) bad in bed, or some other conclusion that makes you wish you'd just kept your mouth shut.
So, this is a thread for all those questions, free of judgment.
"Is X normal?"
"Have other people experienced Y?"
"Is it weird that I like Z?"
This thread is about the physical aspects of sex. The thread about sex-related communications is here.
Question of the Day
[Photo credit: Destination360 Old Faithful]
Following up on yesterday's QOTD: What's the weirdest place you've ever masturbated?
Quote of the Day
"How start?"—A bullet-point in "a newly declassified document that details talking points that emerged from a meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks in November 2001." The bullet-point was followed by suggestions on how to start the Iraq War.
Um, yeah.
Too bad cooking a case for war out of thin air isn't a war crime, huh?
Photos of the Day
WINNER: Getty Images, whose photographer captured and whose photo editor wisely chose to distribute this great shot of "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she spoke about United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in a Security Council meeting during the United Nations General Assembly September 23, 2010 at UN headquarters in New York."
LOSER: Reuters Pictures, whose photographer captured and whose photo editor sadly chose to distribute this tiresome reminder that HILLARY CLINTON IS A LADY WHO DOES LADY THINGS.
Yes, we know. We know, we know, we know. We know.
Funny how I never see any wire images of David Cameron adjusting his nuts in the shadows before he takes the stage, as it were.
