As part of the obnoxious trend of masculinizing shit by adding or substituting "man" or "bro" as a prefix, which has already brought us such delightful terminology as man-cave, man-date, man-purse, mancation, mandals, manscara, and bromance, Dove—a property of Unilever, which also owns Axe, progenitor of the most execrable adverts this side of beer commercials—has brought us the "man-hide."
Footage of gnarly old leather boots, an old leather glove, a leather jacket. Voiceover: Cow-hide dries out. So can your man-hide. Footage of white dude lathering up in the shower. Voiceover [over image of shrinking leather patch washed with some other soap and leather patch retaining its shape washed with Dove]: Dove Men + Care has micromoisture to help keep your skin from becoming dry and tight. This unique micromoisture technology activates on contact to fight skin dryness. [Over more dude lathering in shower.] So that man-hide of yours stays clean and moisturized. No matter what you put it through. Dove Men + Care: Be comfortable in your own skin.
The exhortation to "be comfortable in your own skin" at the end of an advert pandering to the basest masculine insecurities would be hilarious if it weren't emblematic of the insidious (and tragic) mixed messages the Patriarchy delivers to men all the time.
When we first saw this commercial recently, Iain remarked that the absurd phrase "man-hide" is not merely insulting to secure men, but is also inherently misogynist, embedded with a distancing from the feminine: "Fates fucking forfend that a man would use a product for WOMEN on his precious fucking MAN-HIDE!"
It is a well-known fact around the classiest of dudely locker rooms that using a lady-soap on your man-hide can turn you gay. Or female.
Note the implicit assumptions of a campaign for body soap that feels obliged to pander to men's masculinity, assuring them that they are indeed still MEN even if they clean their bodies with soap like women do (?): Men are sensitive and their delicate sense of security is precarious and fragile and must be reinforced at all times.
Yet the narrative is that women are the hypersensitive ones, the weaker sex.
There are plenty of men whose male identity is not frail, not in constant need of nurture and reassurance, not held in thrall to a compulsion to display their masculinity in order that it may be acknowledged and admired.
Those men, however, tend to be feminists.
It's the men who listen to the dictates of the Patriarchy whose male identity is most insecure—and adverts like this one underscore precisely why that is. Dove diligently reassures men that they're manly, explicitly to counter its own subtext that caring for one's skin is sort of silly and feminine. But no it's not! YOUR MAN-HIDE NEEDS CARE! JUST NOT IN THAT GRODY LADY WAY!
Compare to a frame like, "Taking care of one's skin isn't something men have been encouraged to do, but skincare is important for every person who cares about his or her body." Men, you've been ignored. We're not ignoring your needs anymore. Your skin is worth caring about, too. Blah blah blah.
Of course that model is wholly without an embedded subversion of confidence, so THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK. It continues to be profoundly depressing that the beauty/hygiene industry took a long look at gender inequality and thought, "Well, we can sell shit to men by preying on their insecurities, too!"
Which perfectly underlines the point that the solution is not more Patriarchy—which, no doy, is no picnic for men, either—but more Feminism.
Patriarchy limits the definitions of manhood and masculinity; Feminism throws them wide open. And as Feminism successfully redefines womanhood and femininity every more expansively, reactionary patriarchal imperatives to define manhood and masculinity in contradistinction to womanhood and femininity are necessarily closing more and more doors to men who hew to traditional manhood.
"Well, now that WOMEN are doing something, it's not MANLY anymore! So DON'T DO IT if you still want to be considered a MAN!"
When your definition of manhood is "anything that isn't female," it's no wonder traditionalists are so hostile to feminists. We keep encroaching on their territory, with our inconvenient insistence on comprehensive humanity.
"Could you remove any metallic items and step back through for me, ma'am."
Polite and professional though it sounded, it was a command and not a request.
Despite this being the Celebrities-Only No-Hassle VIP Waiting Room For Celebrities, Fanboy is giving Fake Natalie Portman a hassle. Oh, Kyle, won't you interject! These VIPs need your manicured hands to intervene. Maybe you could clear your throat meaningfully from where you're standing. Or not. Just stand there like a buffoon, taking crap from some nerd. I'm sure that's what Noah is paying you for.
Okay, so, Kyle takes her cell phone and jewelry and blah blah blah she walks through the metal detector again.
The vertical line of indicator lights twitched upward from dark green to barely yellow—maybe in reaction to the tiny hinges in her sunglasses—but this time there was no audible alarm.
Noah was the only one in a position to notice a touch of private relief on Molly's face.
Private relief? Sounds like some sort of polite way of saying she went pooh. (Is this post gonna need a "butts" tag? We're gonna need a "butts" tag!) But seriously. What does "private relief" even mean? Who is writing this garbage? A less awkward sentence could have easily been constructed. Should have been constructed. I mean, this works better, just off the top of my head:
"Noah noticed a subtle expression of relief flicker across Molly's face." See? That's not so hard! I'm not even a professional writer or nothin'.
She was nearly to the end of the exit track of the detector when she was stopped by the officer's voice.
"Miss ... Portman?"
When Molly turned around she must have seen exactly what Noah was seeing. The TSA man wasn't focused on her at all. He was staring down at her possessions in his plastic tray.
Molly must have seen what Noah was seeing. Well? Did she? Or not? You're the author here. Why is it unclear, Narrative Voice, what the main fucking character may or may not be seeing? Ugh. What garbage. What fartful, unrepentant garbage.
What everyone is (or perhaps not) seeing is Molly's silver cross necklace. "I thought that you were Jewish," comments the nerd. For No-Hassle VIP Waiting Room staff, this guy is really fucking nosey. Kyle, why don't you do something to stop these shenanigans? If I were Noah, I don't know that I'd give Kyle a tip.
It felt like the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by fifty degrees. Noah's mouth went totally dry, his skin tingling as though all the moisture had flash-frozen out of the atmosphere, settling into a thin layer of frost on everything exposed, suspending those six words on the air.
To whom exactly did it feel like the temperature dropped? Noah? Ah, nevermind. I don't care.
Cops know liars like plumbers know leaks. They encounter them every day, all day; they know all the little signs and symptoms, and they're trained to understand that where there's even a little whiff of smoke, one should always assume there's a fire. As they challenge a person they study their reactions, pick apart the little telltale movements, listen to the timbre of the voice, and more than anything else, they watch the eyes. Most suspects have already made a full confession by the time they begin their denial.
Why are we talking about cops? There are no cops here, are there? This is the No-Hassle VIP Waiting Room For Celebrities. I thought the staff consisted of an x-ray tech, a bartender, maybe a couple of fluffers. Certainly the x-ray tech nerd fanboy isn't a cop. Is he? Oh, I know, he's a Stormtrooper! Which is why he demands Molly take off her sunglasses. Just like that scene in Empire Strikes Back.
Molly turned to the officer, pulled back her hood and let it settle onto her shoulders, removed the baseball cap and let it fall to the floor at her feet, and then slow and sure, began to walk toward him.
"The Force is strong with this one," Molly said, as calm and smooth as a Jedi master. Her accent was gone, and her voice was just breathy enough to obscure any other identifying qualities of the real McCoy.
Oh, for fuck's sake. You're joking right? This is a fucking joke, isn't it? No one puts garbage like this into their little espionage novel. Do they? No. No, they don't. Yoda help me, this is a terrible, terrible book. What the fuck is the point of this? Is it supposed to be funny? I think it is supposed to be funny. But it isn't. It's not funny, it's not clever. Fuck, it isn't even timely.
The TSA man's cheeks began to redden slightly. A power shift was under way, and as Noah had learned firsthand, when this girl turned it on you never knew what was about to hit you.
She continued nearer, put a finger to the frames and lowered her sunglasses partway down her nose, tipping her chin so she could look at the officer directly, eye to eye, just over the top of the darkened lenses. As she stopped barely a foot away she subtly passed an open hand between their faces, and spoke again.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for," Molly said. After waiting a moment she gave him a little nod, as though it had come time in their close-up scene for his own line of dialogue.
There was an eternal pause, and then before his eyes Noah saw this big, intimidating young man begin his grinning transformation from the TSA's most vigilant watchdog into Natalie Portman's biggest fan.
This isn't the ghostwriter you're looking for, Beck.
After holding his rapt gaze for a few more seconds Molly pulled out the secret weapon more fearsome than any light-saber—that sweet, wicked smile that made your knees feel like they could bend in all directions. She slipped the pen from his pocket protector, clicked it, took the hand that still held her necklace, and autographed his palm with an artful flourish.
Oh, barf. Then Kyle whisks them away to the safety of the tarmac. Whew! That was close! Or something. It was stupid. Definitely stupid. And a waste of time. Pointless, stupid, hackneyed garbage. But, guess what: It gets even stupider!
"I need to ask you something," Noah said.
"Sure." It seemed she could see that he'd become more somber.
"When we were there in Times Square, when we kissed that time ..."
She took off the sunglasses and hooked them on her pocket, moved a little closer to him, brushed a windblown lock of hair from his eyes. "I remember."
"Is that when you pickpocketed my BlackBerry?"
Molly smiled, and pulled him willingly into her embrace. It was no real surprise, but this kiss was every bit as stirring as that first one had been, and as he realized then for certain, as good as every single one would be thereafter.
She stood back a step, her face as innocent as a newborn lamb, and held up his wallet between them.
"I love you," Noah said.
Molly looked up at him with all the courageous resolve of the doomed Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
"I know," she replied.
Why? Why does he love her? Because he's the hero and she's the heroine? There is no other reason for them to be in love aside from them both being characters in this book. They are complete fucking strangers, brought together not by fate but through manipulation, deceit, treachery. Take away all the lies, the murder, the NWO, the poisonings, the burglary, espionage, treason, et cetera et cetera, the two have had a couple breakfasts together and little else. I tell you what, if some dude I met three days prior told me he loved me after one date, I'd not be flattered but a little fucking unnerved.
Garbage. This book is total garbage.
On the plane, Molly sleeps and Noah reads some Jefferson quotes as he wonders why they're heading to Vegas. Good question. Didn't Danny text her and tell her to stay the fuck away from Nevada? Ah, well, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.
On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."
From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."
Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.
There is more about Jeff Cox's public political opining at the link, much of which is violent, racist, and misogynist in nature. And, quite obviously, his exhortations to use live ammunition on pro-union demonstrators is even more ominous now that the same issue has moved to Indiana.
Bryan Corbin, a spokesperson for the Indiana attorney general's office says that Cox's conduct will be reviewed to see if he violated "the standards of professional conduct expected for all licensed attorneys and for employees of the Indiana Attorney General's Office" laid out in their personnel handbook. If he didn't, time to rewrite the handbook!
UPDATE: Jeff Cox is no longer employed by the Indiana Attorney General's office.
The problem with Emanuel isn't that he's rank with cronyism. Cronyism is a way of life in Chicago. The problem with Emanuel is that his cronyism, and all the associated questionably ethical and dubiously legal goings-on that are inevitably associated with cronyism in Chicago, is built around exclusively benefiting him and his cronies.
The Daley Model was built around benefiting the city, with a little grift to go around for everyone's trouble.
Chicagoans don't care as long as the trains run on time.
While Emanuel's mayorship was being preordained and preemptively celebrated, especially by all his suburban donors, ahem, no one seemed to notice that his campaign slogan was "Fuck those trains."
If you could try one vocation (other than your own, if you've already got one) for a day, what would you try?
For the purposes of this question, figure that any of the prerequisite knowledge you'd need to competently do the job was Matrixed straight into your brain for the day.
I'd be a vet.
Or I'd be president, if I could get 535 Shakers to play along for the day!
"Stories of hardship and desolation can be found throughout Vermont and the rest of the nation. The true extent of the economic devastation, and the enormous size of that portion of the population that is being left behind, has not yet been properly acknowledged. What is being allowed to happen to those being pushed out or left out of the American mainstream is the most important and potentially most dangerous issue facing the country."—Bob Herbert, in his latest column, "At Grave Risk."
Rescue workers search for survivors in a collapsed building on Manchester Street in Christchurch, New Zealand on Tuesday, where a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit during the lunchtime rush, killing at least 65 people and leaving many others trapped beneath debris from crumbled buildings. [Getty Images via CNN]
My thoughts are with the New Zealand Shakers, many of whom reside in or near Christchurch. It seems coarse to wish that you and your loved ones are all okay, when we know that there are people who are not okay, but there it is. I am hoping you are among the people who are physically unhurt, and you have my profound compassion and sympathy for the hurt you are all certainly feeling amidst the aftershocks.
So, the thing about greyhounds is that they sleep like 18 hours a day in some absurd position, and spend most of the other six hours lying around staring at you, trying to Jedi your ass into giving them a treat. And the thing about the specific greyhound that is Dudley Q. McEwan is that he is quiet and calm and chillax, even by greyhound standards.
We had him for months before we ever heard him bark at all, and even now, he almost never barks. He looks out the front window when someone pulls in the driveway, and runs to the door when someone rings the bell, but no barking. He virtually never even barks when he's playing, even outdoors with other dogs.
I'm not complaining. It's just important to convey how much he doesn't bark in order that one might appreciate this video of him BARKING!!!!!eleventy!! while we're getting ready to go to the dog park because we are NOT MOVING FAST ENOUGH!!!1! and he wants to go NOW!!!!!11!!!1!
I don't know how he bloody knows; he never does this if we're getting ready to go to the grocery store. We've tried to figure out what the "tell" is and change up our getting ready ritual. We've tried speaking in code. Nope. He knows. We can't fool him.
And as soon as he gets to the car, he calms right down until we're about 30 seconds from the park, at which point he whines with the urgency of a creature who is convinced that it is exclusively his whining that fuels the vehicle those last 400 yards.
Meanwhile…
After he's had a run about the park, he sleeps like the dead for two solid days. This weekend, we were at the park for about an hour until some other dogs arrived for him to play with. And not that he doesn't have fun running around with us, but it's not the same as socializing with other dogs. So we spent another hour or so while he played with his good pals Uma the German Shepherd and Sophie and Ellie the Newfoundlands, all of whom are really sweet dogs.
And this was the scene across which I stumbled in the living room about a half hour after we got home from the dog park:
[Iain lies on the floor with Dudley, who's all curled up and looking very sleepy.]
[Iain lies on the floor with Dudley, holding his paw in his hand.]
Ridiculous. That's some professional grade cuteness, right there.
Unless you're a robber baron. In which case the GOP's priorities are you. Which is not so much "terrible" as "awesome." For you. And the other robber barons. And nobody else.
As in Wisconsin, Indiana State Democrats are leaving the state in order to "filibuster" anti-union legislation:
House Democrats are leaving the state rather than vote on anti-union legislation, The Indianapolis Star has learned.
A source said Democrats are headed to Illinois, though it was possible some also might go to Kentucky. They need to go to a state with a Democratic governor to avoid being taken into police custody and returned to Indiana.
The House came into session this morning, with only two of the 40 Democrats present. Those two were needed to make a motion, and a seconding motion, for any procedural steps Democrats would want to take to ensure Republicans don’t do anything official without quorum.
With only 58 legislators present, there was no quorum present to do business. The House needs 67 of its members to be present.
Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, told House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, that Democrats "continue to be in caucus" to discuss potential amendments to several bills.
Bosma said he was "flummoxed," adjoured until noon, and labor union members watching in the gallery and hallway outside cheered the work stoppage.
Today's fight was triggered by Republicans pushing a bill that would bar unions and companies from negotiating a contract that requires non-union members to kick-in fees for representation. It's become the latest in what is becoming a national fight over Republican attempts to eliminate or limit collective bargaining.
Yet the Indianapolis Star nonetheless headlined this article "Democrats trigger Statehouse showdown."
Things look funny from the depths of Mitch Daniel's front pocket, I guess.
UPDATE: The Indiana Democratic Party chair has confirmed on the record that the Dems have flown the coop and won't come back as long as the union-busting legislation is on the table.
[Trigger warning for the casual use of "bitch" in an appropriative fashion.]
@JamesFranco: "they pulled this from the oscar show. damn it."
[Audio Description: James Franco practicing Cher's "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque, singing it BADLY, and laughing about singing it BADLY. In the middle, his singing coach or accompanist (?) tells him a story about being bitchy and bitches and bitchines, or something.]
What is wrong with the world? How could this number be axed? IT IS BEAUTIFUL.
Back in January, one of the Worst Things was a garbage nightmare article written by one Kay S. Hymowitz, whose bio, I noted, advertised that she is "the author of the forthcoming Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys."
Well, that tome is scheduled to drop into your local Borders on March 1, so the Wall Street Journal, always eager to help advance the careers of the hopelessly unimaginative peddling the latest retread of ancient kyriarchal narratives as an edgy new idea, has provided space to Ms. Hymowitz to share her totally trenchant theories with us.
Where Have the Good Men Gone? asks the headline. Hahaha! I love witty and original things! Can I get an amen, ladies?!
But Ms. Hymowitz does not write her own headlines, and it's really the meat of the article that makes it great. I'm hard-pressed to pick a favorite part, what with all the gender essentialism (YOU KNOW HOW I LOVE GENDER ESSENTIALISM!) and awesome pop culture references (Sex and the City AND Judd Apatow?! NOW YOU'RE JUST SPOILING ME, KAY HYMOWITZ!), but I am inordinately fond of this line:
Today's pre-adults are a different matter. They are a major demographic event.
Don't even TRY to question the rationale for her Important Work, people. Pre-adults are a MAJOR DEMOGRAPHIC EVENT. I know, because she tells me right in her article. No doy.
Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post—Starving Wisconsin's Unions: "At this point, it's clear for all to see that Gov. Scott Walker's true aim is to bust the public employee unions, thus permanently reshaping the political landscape in the Republican Party's favor. Democratic state senators who fled the state to forestall Walker's coup have no choice but to remain on the lam. Protesters who support union rights have no choice but to keep their vigil at the capitol in Madison. This is a big deal."
Paul Krugman in the New York Times—Wisconsin Power Play: "[W]hat's happening in Wisconsin isn't about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker's pretense that he's just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin—and eventually, America—less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that's why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators' side."
Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) is one of 14 Democrats hiding out in Illinois, participating in a "filibuster with our feet" to slow down the budget repair bill, which would strip collective bargaining rights from public employees, among other things. By walking out of the state, Senate Democrats have denied Republicans the 3/5 quorum needed for passing legislation with a fiscal intent. Larson and his 13 colleagues and their whereabouts have become a major part of this unfolding story, but he'd rather the focus go to the legislation on offer and the constituents out in the streets in Madison and elsewhere.
"Ever since we stepped away, there's been a lot of attention on us," said Larson in an interview last night from his undisclosed location in Illinois. "We're trying to focus it back on this ridiculous legislation."
New York Times—Wisconsin G.O.P. Plans to Work Without Democrats: "With the Capitol braced for another week of protests and deadlock over a budget bill that would severely restrict public employees' unions here, the top Republican in the State Senate announced that the body would resume consideration of other matters. ... The issues scheduled for consideration in the Senate on Tuesday were routine: an appointment by the governor, tax breaks for dairy farmers and a resolution commending the Green Bay Packers for their Super Bowl victory. But [Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald] said more significant legislation could also be in play, including a bill requiring voter identification that Democrats strongly oppose."
"I have worked with the University of Wisconsin police officers that are there, along with the capitol police officers, and certainly I've worked with the state patrol officers because I'm a state patrol inspector. I'm not able to even fathom that any of those police officers would not carry out whatever orders were given to do their job.
"I guess that's the one ironic thing about this," he continued. "Last night my wife asked me to make a sign for her to take down there to protest. On that day, I thought to myself I could be making a protest sign for my wife to take down there ... Then I could be down there confronting my wife with the protest sign that I made. God, you see ... That's ... That's my job.
He said that the conversation of resisting an order to attack the protesters "hasn't even come up" between he and fellow officers.
However, Fuller insisted, "I can't even imagine that the governor or anybody else would think that's a viable option. The protesters are not being violent. It's their right to come and protest; it's public property. The politicians are being allowed to come and go... I don't know why there would be the need for clearing anything.
"It would not look like the United States, if we did that."
New York Times—Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute: "Among the thousands of demonstrators who jammed the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds this weekend was a well-financed advocate from Washington who was there to voice praise for cutting state spending by slashing union benefits and bargaining rights. ... What [Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity] did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch. State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts."
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