You know, I really liked Due Date the first time I saw it, when it was called Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Glad to see that Fat Math still works:
[Trigger Warning for trans/homophobia]
A few days back Liss laid down an [TW: body policing] epic post about the way in which people police themselves and each other against the perception that they eat a culturally inappropriate amount of ground beef. Having a body (particularly a female body that eats food) is a good way to disappoint strangers.
Two of my favorite ways to disappoint strangers who should really mind their own business are being queer and having a child. Gender non-conformance (and/or transsexuality and/or GLBQ-ishness) will get you some lectures and stern looks. If you have a kid, you've also probably experienced other people's disappointment, ranging from your doing pregnancy wrong to 'your kid does/doesn't do what for a living'?!? If you've decided not to have a kid, you've probably been lectured on that, too.
Thus enters the story of Boo and Cop's Wife, currently making the rounds on the internet.
Cop's Wife's child, Boo, is 5. This Halloween, Boo dressed up as Daphne, from Scooby Doo. Lots of kids dress up as lots of things, right? However, since folks are assuming that Boo is Cop's Wife's son, it wasn't that straight-forward. :sigh:
Boo was scared. Cop's Wife was supportive. Therefore, other moms chose to lecture Cop's Wife. She was [TW: homo/transphobia, ableism] having none of it.
Maude bless parents who get it. Parenting is not easy, nor is gender non-conformance. A 5 year-old dressing as Daphne is a 5 year-old dressing as Daphne. (I would have gone for Velma, but it's none of my business either). As Boo's mother said, maybe Boo's gay, maybe not. What matters is that zie rocked the orange wig.
I'm shocked; SHOCKED, I tell you: In new memoir, Bush makes clear he approved use of waterboarding.
Human rights experts have long pressed the administration of former president George W. Bush for details of who bore ultimate responsibility for approving the simulated drownings of CIA detainees, a practice that many international legal experts say was illicit torture.Ha ha. Consequences for George W. Bush? Cute.
In a memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - NOVEMBER 04: The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton receives a Hongi (Maori Greeting) during a welcome ceremony at Parliament on November 4, 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand. Hillary Clinton is on a three day visit to New Zealand as part of a tour of the Asia Pacific region, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua-New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. [Getty Images]I love this picture so hard.
'Two and a Half Men' ratings go up:
Since actor Charlie Sheen had a headline-making stay at the Plaza in New York and confirming that he's heading back to divorce court, ratings for Sheen's CBS hit "Two and a Half Men" have gone up.Sure. Why wouldn't people tune in to see a self-destructive, violent, misogynist, racist, privileged jackass in a hilarious! sitcom the scripts for which are written with farts from the 1950s?
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show saw a 7 percent increase for Monday's episode, with 13.6 million tuning in.
[Trigger warning for ageism and disablism.]
I know it's early, but I'm reasonably confident that nothing will be more deserving of the title than this piece of shit: Letter to a whiny young Democrat.
You know, just last week I was talking to a young friend of mine, a 21-year-old straight, white, cis man who knew going into the 2008 election that much of Obama's Hope and Change rhetoric was just that, but was still excited to cast a vote for him and was optimistic about his presidency. Two years later, he's profoundly disillusioned, not because he hasn't been paying attention or doesn't understand how politics work, but because he has and he does.
He's paid attention to the way Obama has governed, and to the hippie-punching. And—surprise!—after the Obama administration's strategy of alienating progressive voters (of any age) with not-progressive policies and contempt for the Democratic base, my young friend feels alienated. Huh.
And given that Obama was elected on the back of a promise to "change the way Washington works," and now he and his staff openly admit they were arrogant to believe they could do that, and have failed, why the fuck is anyone getting blamed for being disillusioned? His most significant campaign promise was made with foolish bombast. Blaming the people who believed him, particularly young liberals whose entire experience with politics had been the grim horror of the Bush administration and were longing desperately for something better, seems entirely misplaced.
And, frankly, as an experienced political observer who had no illusions about the nature of this president, but was eminently willing to give him a chance, I'm still disappointed with what he's done.
So scolding political n00bs for (alleged) apathy when they've been demonstrably let down is just seven layers of bullshit.
When someone engages in divisive behavior, any resulting division is their responsibility. Blaming progressives whose support, enthusiasm, idealism, loyalty, and trust were sold out in favor of pointless bipartisanism is not just a shitty thing to do; it's illogical as well.
[H/T to Shaker Neintales.]
What one person who has never held public office would you like to see run?
It can be any public office (though you're not required to specify which), and the person you'd like to see run does not have to be someone famous. Obviously, we'd all like to see Chuck Norris run for president (no, we wouldn't), and those sorts of answers are very fun, but please feel welcome to answer that you'd love to see your mom or your brother or your BFF run for office, too.
Given the political make-up of the coming 112th Congress (which will convene on Jan. 3, 2011), I have a suggestion for you Democratic members of the Disablist-Slur-Involving-Poultry Session of the 111th Congress:
Make Sweeping Campaign Finance Reform Job One!!!!!eleventy-one!!!!
Personally, I'd prefer the following (for a start):
The president held a press conference this afternoon to discuss the relationship between his hat and his hands. I give Obama a zero for stealing off of other people's papers.
There were so many highlights things that happened that it's hard to focus linger, glassy-eyed at one of them. That said, I'm really fond of the part where Obama said the economy wasn't going well in part because the mean old Democrats professional left somebody or other had made businesses feel like the "bad guys." He used BP as an example.
NPR followed coverage of the press conference with a story about the Department of Labor's efforts to shut down a coal mine in Kentucky because the dudes who run Massey Energy are, in fact, bad guys. The web version of the story includes a photo of what I presume is President Obama contemplating the deaths of 29 workers at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine. Oops your timing position sucks.
So Obama and other Democrats have responded to their worst drubbing since Benjamin Grumbles was vigorously matriculating at Emmett Q. Crumblecorn's Preparatory School for Fancy Lads. But what do you think?
This blogaround brought to you by wheat-ear pennies.
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Lesbian Couple Challenges UK's Ban on Gay Marriage
The Advocate: Obama's Latest DADT Promise
Angry Asian Man: On DVD: The Goonies 25th Anniversary Edition
Digby: Reflexive Hippie Bashing For A Thousand
Archie McPhee: Bon Appetit
Leave your links in comments...
Greg Mitchell just tweeted that Rush Limbaugh feted the outgoing (and first female) Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, by playing "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead."
Stay classy, Rush.
Wandering through Baltimore Sunday night, I happened upon The Baltimore Holocaust Memorial. It's stunning, and harrowing, and in the coldness of the Fall night air, it enveloped me, as each piece of the memorial revealed its significance.
At the front, facing Lombard street, is the sculpture I photographed below. I started reading the words cut into it, "Those who do not remember the past are destined to repeat it" nearly wrapping around the entire piece. I wasn't much looking at the top of the sculpture, focusing instead on the words. When my eyes finally went up, I froze, as the full horror of the work settled into my consciousness.
(N.B.: the image below the fold (for most browsers) may be upsetting to some people.)
Not too far away is a quote, taking prominence over the square, from Primo Levi. And somewhere between that, and the sculpture, is a plaque with a short essay on the Holocaust.
It's unflinching, unforgiving, perhaps as it should be. Here is the text in its entirety:
THE HOLOCAUST
The German attempt to annihilate European Jewry between 1933 and 1945, took the lives of six million Jews. Although genocide was not unprecedented, the Holocaust was unique not just in its numerical magnitude. Never before had a state government attempted to annihilate an entire people who were not military enemies but a defenseless civilian population. Gypsies and German handicapped were marked for death as part of the holocaust. Nazi Germany tyrannized homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish nationalists and resistance fighters. Millions died as a result.
Elected by the German people in 1933, the Nazi party quickly instituted a totalitarian regime built on pseudo-scientific racial and anti-Semitic principals. The German people ardently supported the Nazi regime until the latter stages of World War II, when defeat was imminent. Hundreds of thousands of German citizens and nationals of other countries allied with the Germans were involved in the killing process either as guards at camps, members of mobile killing units, architects who designed gas chambers, engineers who built crematoria, railway personnel and bureaucrats who oversaw the distribution of the victims possessions’ including the gold in their teeth. Although many perpetrators claimed they had no choice, there is no record of anyone being punished for refusing to participate in the killings.
Though the Holocaust occurred as part of World Was II, it was in fact something distinct. Its objectives often directly impeded the military effort. Trains, materiel, soldiers and munitions needed for the war were used instead to deport Jews and kill death camp inmates. During the last twelve months of the war, when it was obvious that Germany was going down to defeat, the pace of killing continued and in certain cases increased in intensity.
Many countries and neutral international agencies were aware of what was being done to Jews and other victims. Few, if any, were willing to speak out in protest. To compound the horror, most countries closed their doors to those who tried to escape the Holocaust.
Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies
Emory University
There is more information on the memorial here.
"There was a spirited discussion in my office elevator this morning about inequality and injustice, but unfortunately I think it dealt with who got bounced from Dancing With the Stars. So we've got another four years of GOP leadership (term loosely defined) in Texas."—Shaker norbizness, in comments.
