Fun Fun: "Happy Station"
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by locker combinations.
Recommended Reading:
Sean: Comment Policy [Take note of the very first comment in response to Sean's post. lolsob forever.]
Jen: Criticizing a TV Show for Its Lack of Diversity Does Not Equal 'Woman Hate'
Anonymous: The R Word: Rape in Gaming [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion and description of sexual violence.]
Flavia: We Cannot Have It All Because We No Longer Have Dreams
Dana: The Contagion of Fat (Positive) Friends—Infect Me PLEASE! [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of fat bias.]
Renee: The Bad Mother and the Uncaring Community [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny, racism, child abandonment, depression, and communal neglect.]
Andrew: Maryland's Marriage Equality Opponents Are in Massive Debt
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Today in Mitt Romney Stands in Front of Something
This guy: Obama prepping thousands of lawyers for election in anticipation of legal disputes surrounding voting.
That guy: Senator Rob Portman says Romney "willing to risk being a one-term president in order to make the tough decisions".
Poll! Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania Swinging to Obama, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds; Voters Back President on Immigration, Split on Economy.
Well, This Pretty Much Sums It Up
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Gender Rebels, I give you the Republican Party: "Rand Paul Fetal Personhood Amendment Stalls Flood Insurance Bill."
Of course it does.
RIP Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron died yesterday at age 71. Her New York Times obit is here, in which she is described as "a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director—a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men."
Nora Ephron was a trailblazer.
I always had a complicated relationship with Ephron's work. It elevated women—but typically (with notable exceptions) the most privileged women: White, straight, cis, wealthy, educated, beautiful, thin. Her work was profoundly a reflection of herself, and there were many times I couldn't relate to her female characters. The neurotic insecurity, about weight or aging or being single, of her comedic female characters did not feel familiar to me, and frequently their "quirks" were things that I felt reinforced negative stereotypes of women, rather than humanizing us.
But. Then there were the ways in which she humanized women, as simply as telling stories from a female perspective or acknowledging that women have sex. And orgasms!
It's hard to believe now how revolutionary the "I'll have what she's having" scene was, back in 1989. Consider how revolutionary it is still, and that will give you some idea.
And underline Nora Ephron's legacy.
My sincerest condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.
[Note: If there are less flattering things to be said about Ephron, they have been excluded because I am unaware of them, not as the result of any deliberate intent to whitewash her life. Please feel welcome to comment on the entirety of her work and life in this thread.]
An Observation
Calls from the increasingly radical right wing to eliminate university programs in the humanities that can't "sustain themselves financially" make sense only if you imagine that, say, a Classics or History department is an incredibly expensive program to run.
Such programs generally aren't, in pretty much everything from the pay of humanities professors vs. salaries in business or medical school, to the cost of conducting research and classroom equipment. Seriously: my university buys me a new computer maybe every 6 or 7 years, I get maybe $500 per year in research and travel funds, a couple hundred to order books from the library, and... that's pretty much it. The extent of my fancy classroom equipment is whiteboards, a computer, and an overhead projector. True, my colleagues and I don't bring in big-dollar grants when compared to my colleagues in the sciences, but we don't have to in order to break even. And we don't attract as many students as, say, pre-med (although our numbers are quite healthy) but then again, we don't have to attract as many students in order to contribute our share towards the university running in the black. We're actually kind of a bargain.
Those calls do, however, make all kinds of sense if your goal is ideological right-wing purity, disguised under the laughably thin excuse of "budgetary constraint."
Random Nerd Nostalgia: Spidey vs Twinkie-Takers
[Description: In the first panel, a short white person in a green jacket with curly red hair, wearing what appears to be a Groucho Marx type disguise and holding a gun, facing away from the reader is saying: "Everybody lie down. We're gonna steal all the Twinkies." (SUBTLE!) A white man in similar glasses/moustache and a hat, holding gun, says "You! Go down to the store-room! Bring up all the Hostess Twinkies!" But Ho-ho joke is on THEM! Because they are ordering Peter Parker around. Peter smirks as he heads down into the basement: "Little do they know that Hostess Twinkies are never stored away...(next panel as Peter changes into Spider-Man, clings to the ceiling, and thinks "..they're always fresh on the Hostess display. I'll stay up here and wait. They'll have to come down and see what happened to Peter Parker." Panel 3: Person with green jacket: "What's taking that guy so long. I can't wait. I want more Hostess Twinkies. I'm going downstairs!" Be-hatted Villain: "That's not wise. I can't control all of these people by myself!" Green Jacketed Villain: "I don't care. I can't wait. I must have those delicious Hostess Twinkies!" Panel 4: Green-Jacketed Villain, not seeing Spidey on the ceiling, thinks "I'm going to double-cross my partner and keep all the Twinkies to myself!" Panel 5: Spidey swings into action, de-gunning and dis-disguising GJV, saying: "Ha! This will be the end of your Twinkie-taking!" Panel 6: Spidey shoots out a line of webbing, de-gunning the Be-hatted Villian, as GJV says: "We can't get away with it. Drop your gun. We should never have tried anything so evil as to rob a store--especially of Twinkies. I'll never do it again." Final panel, Spidey holds up Twinkies and says "You can say that again! There are just too many good people waiting to enjoy that golden sponge cake with creamy filling inside. What could be more delicious than Hostess Twinkies?" A tagline: "You get a big delight in every bite of Hostess Twinkies!"]
I am extraordinarily impressed that in one page, the author managed to work in "Little do they know," the phrase "double-cross," and the particularly grave evil of robbing a store for Twinkies (as opposed to, say, money).
(Scanned from Thor #248 June 1976.)
Clap. Clap. Clap.
[Content Note: Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Nationalism]
The stars at night
Are big and bright...
Two years ago I wrote about the abomination that was the 2010 Texas Republican Party official platform. You know, the one where they said things like:
Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.”[...]And
Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.And
Child Support and Visitation – We support equity between responsible parents in child support, custody, and visitation rights and costs, as well as the strengthening of laws designed to protect children from abuse. No parent/grandparent should be denied court ordered visitation, because of jurisdictional disputes between states. We also believe that no homosexual or any individual convicted of child abuse or molestation should have the right to custody or adoption of a minor child, and that visitation with minor children by such persons should be prohibited but if ordered by the court limited to supervised periods.And
"We unequivocally oppose the United States Senate ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would transfer jurisdiction over parental rights and responsibilities to international bureaucracies."Yep.
Thanks to the lovely Jessica Luther, I found out that they're baaaaaaack and holding true to bigoted form (.pdf). They start out with 11 principles, which include things like:
1. Strict adherence to the original intent of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. and Texas Constitutions.That's just the very beginning. You'll not find a much better example of sheer contempt for human decency than the 23 pages of this platform.
2. The sanctity of human life,created in the image of God, which should be protected from fertilization to natural death.
[...]
6. Self-sufficient families,founded on the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman.
[...]
11. “The laws of nature and nature’s God” as our Founding Fathers believed.
Today in Mitt Romney Stands in Front of Something
In not-breaking election news today, Mitt Romney is soooooo terrible. He is definitely the worst, and it would be a dreadful idea to elect him to the US presidency.
In other news today, President Barack Obama is less terrible than Mitt Romney. Additionally, his situational awareness is far superior.
Blog Note
We're on a lighter schedule today, as I've got some personal stuff to do. We'll be back on a regular schedule tomorrow.
ETA. I'm aware that Site Meter, which provides our traffic tracking, is requesting a log-in of some visitors. I'm not sure why that's happening, but it's something that needs to get fixed on their end, and I've made them aware of it. My apologies for the inconvenience.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite spice?
I love me some paprika! And cumin! I'm having a hard time picking one! But it's definitely one of those!
BushQuotes!
Chapter 5, pages 63-66: All of these pages are just a recounting of Bush's various business enterprises and partnerships while working in the oil industry that casually elides his corrupt dealings and repeatedly erases privilege with bullshit bootstraps narratives.
I will just skip right to the last sentence in this exhausting garbage chapter:
"I believe the best way to help American oilmen and farmers and producers and entrepreneurs is to open new markets by tearing down barriers, everywhere, so the whole world trades in freedom."
It is impossible to read that sentence and not see how the Iraq War was inevitable, because he cannot see the world in any other way than through the prism of his own experience, leading to dangerously simplistic views. He has no will, and thus no capacity, to assess whether other individual people have other individual needs. He merely seeks to impose on others what he (erroneously) believes was the key to his success.
Over and over, this book reveals how truly malignant unexamined privilege and its resulting void of empathy really are.
[From George Bush's A Charge to Keep, gifted to me by Deeky, because he hates me. In the US, all people who plan to run for president write a shitty book. (Some are less shitty than others, by which I mean the Democrats' books.) A Charge to Keep was George W. Bush's shitty I-wanna-be-president book, published in 1999. I am blogging one random quote per page every day until I have either made my way through the book or lost it behind a couch.]
Actual Headline
Chuck Norris, once again lending his enviable writing talents to WorldNetDaily: "Is Obama creating a pro-gay Boy Scouts of America?"
Obviously he is. I mean, why WOULDN'T the President of the United States be spending his time creating a pro-gay boy army in order to usher in an era of gay marriage to ruin the entire nation, world, and universe? Answer me that!
You can't, can you? That just proves it!
P.S. The secret pass-phrase is: "Is it a coincidence?"
P.P.S. NO IT IS NOT!
Quote of the Day
This is distilled from a longer item earlier today, at the suggestion of my colleagues. It's a simple game you can try at home. Pick a country and describe a sequence in which:Lost.
● First, a presidential election is decided by five people, who don't even try to explain their choice in normal legal terms.
● Then the beneficiary of that decision appoints the next two members of the court, who present themselves for consideration as restrained, humble figures who care only about law rather than ideology.
● Once on the bench, for life, those two actively second-guess and re-do existing law, to advance the interests of the party that appointed them.
● Meanwhile their party's representatives in the Senate abuse procedural rules to an extent never previously seen to block legislation -- and appointments, especially to the courts.
● And, when a major piece of legislation gets through, the party's majority on the Supreme Court prepares to negate it -- even though the details of the plan were originally Republican proposals and even though the party's presidential nominee endorsed these concepts only a few years ago.
How would you describe a democracy where power was being shifted that way?
An Observation
If I never, ever, for the rest of my days hear the words, "Stereotypes are true for a reason," that would be PERFECT.
