This is how my phone notifies me that I just missed a call from Melissa.
Carry on.
Pre-Frankenstorm FYI
This is how my phone notifies me that I just missed a call from Melissa.
Carry on.
The Feministing Five
Feministing's Anna Sterling interviewed me for The Feministing Five this weekend, and the interview is here, if you'd like to check me out talking about feminism, blogging, fat activism, and the women who inspire me, among other things.
My thanks to Anna, and to Jessica/scatx for suggesting me!
[Click to read.]
Open Thread
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
(See what I did there?)
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
And don't forget to tip your bartender!
Happy Shark Time!
Do you need a nice story about a shark rescue? Here is a nice story about a shark rescue!
The 2-pound, 2-foot-long leopard shark was apparently plucked from the ocean by a seabird then dropped on [the 12th tee of the] San Juan Hills Golf Club, Melissa McCormack, director of club operations, said Thursday.When he found the shark, which was okay except for small wounds sustained from the bird's grasp, the marshal put the shark in his golf court and made for the clubhouse, where "homemade sea water" was fashioned in the clubhouse kitchen.
No one was teeing up when the shark fell Monday afternoon, although some golfers had just left the area, she said.
A course marshal, who makes sure players maintain an appropriate pace, saw something moving around on the tee and went to investigate.
"We knew we had to get it to the ocean as fast as possible," McCormack said.Awwww. Yay! Good luck, little shark!
She grabbed a photo of the shark before Stizer headed to the seaside at Dana Point, which is about four or five miles from the golf course,
"When Brian put it in the water, it didn't move," she said, "but then it flipped and took off."
(Btw, this has to be one of the best news quotes ever: "It's the first time anyone could remember a shark falling from the sky at the golf course." Perfect.)
[Via Andy.]
Film Corner
[Content Note: Stalking; domestic violence; rape culture; misogyny; barf talk.]
I'm sure there are people reading this post who love Nicholas Sparks, because he is very popular! He has written somewhere between five and a million novels, which some people find to be super romantic and other people find to be super barfy and there is very little middle ground between the romance and barf camps, and each of those five-to-one-million romance/barf novels have sold fully 30 trillion copies apiece and they have all been made into films starring famous attractive white people, each of which has made like 100 nonillion dollars at the box office (like I said, he's very popular), and now here's another one!
It's called Safe Haven, and if you are one of the people who love Nicolas Sparks, or his books, or the movies they've made of his books, you are probably very happy! Yay for you! Even though I do not share your joy because I hate Nicolas Sparks SO MUCH (Team Barf), please know that I am glad you're happy and that I don't judge anyone for liking Nicholas Sparks because literature and film and the stories we like are very subjective things, and even if it could be objectively determined that his stories are terrible, I like lots of things that are pretty widely regarded as garbage myself, so TO EACH HIR OWN, I say! (I definitely said that first, right? Probably.)
Anyway! To the video clip! And my accompanying paraphrase/commentary! At least one of which will be enjoyable for you whether you are roasting marshmallows at Team Romance or using the buddy system to visit the outhouse at Team Barf!
The sound of seagulls. Obviously. Because Nichols Sparks:seagulls::Michael Bay:sparks.
(Cinema-heads might argue that John Woo's doves are the more obvious parallel, but they would be wrong because John Woo is cool and that renders him ineligible for any comparisons to Nicholas Sparks.)
Text Onscreen:
Sirens. Feet running down an alley. It's a young thin white woman, being played by the future Mrs. Ryan Seacrest, Julianne Hough. She is wearing a hoodie and looking frightened. ACTING!
Cut to a slightly older (?) thin white man, being played by someone I don't recognize and who cares, who is slamming the picture of Lady Seacrest against some glass like he's a cop (I think he's a cop) and demanding to know if the man behind the glass has seen this woman. The man says he doesn't think so, but somehow Officer Jerkbag catches up to a bus she's just gotten on IN THE RAIN and says, "STOP THIS BUS! I AM OFFICER RICHARD JERKBAG, MEANBERG P.D.!" or whatever, but the driver is all fuck da police and drives away.
Lady Seacrest heads straight to Sparksville, North Carolina, where the sun in shining and Cobie Smulders is waiting to be her new BFF. Music. Sepia memories of a time when she was being hurt by Officer Jerkbag in Meanberg, and had long brown hair instead of the stylish blond bob she has now. Sexy disguises aren't just for Halloween, ladies.
Lady Seacrest meets Josh Duhamel, the current Mr. Fergie Blackeyedpeas, who works at a shop, but is probably an architect of lovely things in his spare time. He's all, "Usually people just pass through this shithole," and she's all, "I like it here, and I hope you can tell by my demeanor that I am lady-damaged in that perfect way where I am mistrustful but am totally open to being hella rescued from my dark past by just the right handsome widower who is definitely ready to love again." And he's all, "Ten-four, blondie."
And then he builds her a bike, which is a gift she CANNOT ACCEPT. Until she sees that he has a daughter, and then she's like, "Ohhhhh he's definitely not a rapist or in any other way dangerous!" because as we all know, men with daughters never hurt them, but carefully protect them from harm like the delicate orchids that they are.
FUCKING GOD I HATE NICHOLAS SPARKS SO MUCH.
If I make him a gold, jewel-encrusted crown and anoint him King of the Kyriarchy, will he finally feel like he's achieved his goal and go the fuck away? Because obviously MORE MONEY THAN THE SULTAN OF BRUNEI isn't convincing him that he can TAKE A NAP!
Anyway. Lady Seacrest finds out that Duke Fergie is a widower with two perfect white children, one boy and one girl, and so she goes to visit him to say, and this is not made-up dialogue: "Okay, maybe I overreacted." HA HA PERFECT. The best thing about Nicholas Sparks stories, AND I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY, is how the women are always misunderstanding something about the men, making them suspicious of the dudes for a totally logical reason, but then BOOM! They were all wrong and have to APOLOGIZE for behaving like women who live in a goddamn rape culture and not immediately trusting every handsome white man to be the perfect gentlemen they definitely all are. And the men then MAGNANIMOUSLY accept the apology, because women are silly and usually somehow broken by OTHER MEN (who they shouldn't have trusted?) and they just need a good white man to fix them. UGH. THE BARF. SO MUCH BARF.
Nicholas Sparks is a rape culture apologist! He writes stories about how women need to apologize for not trusting men! He writes stories that urge women to undermine their own good instincts and treat straight white handsome men like the benevolent saviors his stories suggest that they axiomatically are! IT IS SO GROSS! HE IS A PEDDLER OF PRACTICED SELF-DOUBT DISGUISED AS ROMANCE! ACK!
Anyway. Canoeing. Running and laughing in a rainstorm. Sexy beachtimes. Making out. Falling in love. UH-OH! LOOK WHO'S HERE! It's Officer Jerkbag! NOOOOOO! And as everything starts to FALL APART in montagery, I shit you not, the text onscreen reads: "It's not what you're running FROM... It's what you're running TO."
Sirens. "He's gonna find me!" Running. Fireworks. Worried faces. ACTING! Fire! Swimming! Love. "There's no safer place for you than here with me." Actual fucking dialogue from this goddamned trailer. Because the only thing any woman running from a determined domestic abuser who is a POLICE OFFICER needs is the love of a good man with a strong streak of chivalrous paternalism. VAWA SCHMAWA.
Coming in February to a barfatorium near you.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cheese.
Recommended Reading:
Paul: Why the "War on Fat" Is a Scam to Peddle Drugs [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of fat hatred, eliminationism, and expliotation.]
Dr. Wes: The Return of Counter-Conventional Wisdom [Related to above article; same content note applies.]
Kao Kalia Yang: The Science of Racism: Radiolab's Treatment of Hmong Experience [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism, genocide, and pregnancy loss.]
John: A Fan Letter to Certain Conservative Politicians [Content Note: The post at this link is written from the imagined perspective of a rapist; it may be triggering to survivors of sexual violence.]
Jorge: 93% of Front-Page Election News Stories Are Written by White Reporters
Echidne: The Tasteless New York Times [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence.]
Pam: Landmark Moment: Army Vet and Trans Activist to Head LGBT Military Advocacy Org
Ragen: Many Things Are Not About Fat People [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of fat bias and fat shaming.]
Amanda: Romney Don't Know Much [video]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
The Parks and Rec Open Thread
"If you don't like how I tweet, don't follow me."
(Spoilers are writing sternly worded letters to the Pawnee City Council herein.)
So, here's one of the things I love most about Parks and Rec: After the episode airs, my phone and FB and inbox light up with messages from many of my favorite women in the world. And all of them are happy.
Suffice it to say there was MUCH COLLECTIVE SQUEEING after this episode!
I mean, you had your Leslie dressed up as Rosie the Riveter for Halloween (!!!), you had your Ann and Leslie dancing to LMFAO, you had your Ron and Diane OMG. As if that wasn't enough: FART ATTACK! Plus! Joe Mande! Good Table: $500! Case closed; candy please! Rent-a-Swag! And:
"Am I interrupting something important?" "Impossible. I work for the government." "Gone but never forgotten. Who was that? Just kidding." "I'm applying to the Police Academy and the manual says I have to work on my observational skills, so: Tree, leaves, night, sky, hand, Andy's hand. Pfft. What else you got?" "The Pawnee Municipal Employees' Healthcare Plan is kinda crappy. One time, I sprained my wrist and our insurance claimed that having a wrist is a preexisting condition." "Babe, how much should I sell this hat for?" "I dunno. Eight cents?" "Honey, this is the hat I was wearing the first time I ever heard Vitalogy by Pearl Jam!" "Ohhhhh. Nine hundred dollars." "Yeah, sounds about right." "What are you doing now? I'm talking to you." "I'm live-tweeting this dumbass conversation." "Don't know what you're thinking, but I'm definitely not thinking what your thinking." "Ohhh, that's not as bad as I thought it would be." "I'm going to bid a million dollars on myself going once going twice SOLD!"Okay, now here's where we're getting into the SERIOUS SPOILERS, so if you don't want to know, DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT!
Jerry, dear Jerry, lying in his hospital bed after his fart attack: "Leslie, you can't actually plan your future. You know there are no guarantees in this world. As long as the people I love are a part of my life, I will be just fine. Hey, you want to stick around—watch some of my stories with me? Tonight's strawberry Jell-O night!"
Me, on the couch beside Iain: Sniffling in agreement, and then, when Leslie replied, "Oh my god your life is so depressing. No thank you.", thinking: "Leslie, you will know Jerry has the best life someday, after you've been married to Ben for one hundred years."
And even after thinking that, they still managed to completely surprise me with the PERFECT PROPOSAL.
"I am deeply, ridiculously in love with you." (Every man and woman who ever plans to propose to another man or woman needs to remember that line. Or steal it. Just steal it.)
"I need to remember every little thing about how perfect my life is right now at this exact moment."
And then Ben nods, and then they look around the empty room together, and then he turns back to her with tears in his eyes. Amy Poehler! Adam Scott! OMG! Parks and Recreation OMG! *faints*
Discuss.
P.S. Someone tell me who Chris was supposed to be. His Halloween costume—salt & pepper hair and grey jacket. I know I should know, but my brainz won't cough it up.
Daily Dose of Cute
Rake? Who needs a rake when you've got a waggy tail!
Greyhound Gardens.
"Hi!"
Every morning, the alarm goes off, and Iain gets out of bed, and Zelda gets in. Sometimes, she's already in the bed, curled up on my feet, waiting to commando crawl through piles of comforters into the warm spot that Iain has left. She cuddles in next to me, and she finds my hand and nudges it gently, ever so gently, with her muzzle until it is palm up. And then she lays her head in it, waiting for me to pet her velvety wee ears.
Once I stir, Dudley hops to his feet, and he comes over and rubs his long body along the side of the mattress beside me, snorting and tossing his head, like some kind of horse-cat. I roll over to face him, and he nudges my face with his, and I pretend to nom nom nom his impossibly long snout. He stretches in a dramatic bow and wags his tail, thumping it against the dresser, and we both grin.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and it is the last moment of the day I will have without pain. Dudley stands beside me, tucking his nose into the crook of my arm, and Zelly sits beside me, leaning against me and resting her head on my shoulder. And then I stand up, and they leap around with excitement, because IT'S A DAY! WE'RE HAVING A DAY! AND WE ARE ALL TOGETHER! AND ISN'T THAT GRAND?!
Every morning, I wake up to these two lovely beasties and their guileless, joyful expressions of love, which I endeavor to return with abundance. Every morning, I try to remember that this is how I should try to live the rest of my day—accepting love where it is offered, and giving back as good as I get.
* * *
October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month.
Today, the Shelter Pet Project posted on their Facebook page: "Fact: People are three times more likely to adopt a pet if they know someone who already has! Will you promise to mention your adopted pet to at least one person this weekend?" Okay!
In The News
[Content note: racism, homophobia]
Action News!:
Hurricane Sandy will probably grow into a Frankenstorm that may become the worst to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years if current forecasts are correct. Stay safe, everyone!
President Obama endorsed Washington and Maryland referenda and a Maine initiative to legalize marriage equality. His campaign earlier announced his opposition to a constitutional amendment in Minnesota banning equality.
Listen to a new ad for Maryland's Question Six featuring Obama here.
Obama also said Ayn Rand is for misunderstood teens, not grown ass adults. (I paraphrase here.)
But! It doesn't matter because Obama was born in Kenya and someone has proof! Here is a video of President Obama's birth in a Mombasa. Seems legit.
Bishop Earl Walker Jackson thinks gays have stolen all the nice looking black men. Whoops!
This is basically why the internet was invented: How to Be a Juggalo in Seven Steps. Thanks, Al Gore!
Not news: John Sununu is a racist douchebag.
The second installment of Atlas Shrugged had one of the worst domestic openings ever for a movie in wide release. Whoops.
Frosted Han Solo in Carbonite Pop-Tarts.
Random Nerd Nostalgia: Dark Shadows Model Kit
[Image description: "Now in scale model kits! Barnabas from Dark Shadows and the Werewolf!" A werewolf runs toward an image of Jonathan Frid from Dark Shadows, who stands in front of a spooooky old house, complete with dead tree and big moon. Text reads: "Quit moping around your coffin! Her's something new..Barnabas the vampire and his creepy buddy the Werewolf. They look....yecch...real! But look out! The arms are soft, cold and clammy to the touch... and they are flexible! Make up your own eerie position! More! More! the glow in the dark! Owwwwww!Too much, too real. Get 'em...before they get you!" A large circle emphasizes: GLOWS IN THE DARK.]
Looks like Barnabas glowed in the dark wayyyyy before Edward sparkled in the daytime.
(Scanned from Wonder Woman 191, November-December 1970.)
Blog Note
There's some kind of server issue going on that's sporadically causing 502 error messages when people try to access/refresh the site. I am aware of it, but it's not something that's in my control. Some kind of Blogger tech issue, I'm guessing, which I hope will be quickly resolved. Sorry, folks.
Quote of the Day
"I think progressives should be very afraid and conservatives should be very hopeful."—Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA School of Law, asked about what the Supreme Court might look like if Mitt Romney is elected.
Too true. Citizens United was decided under a Democratic president who had replaced two justices. If Romney gets elected, the overturning of Roe v. Wade would be the tip of an unfathomable iceberg.
Race, Conservative-Style
[Content Note: Racism.]
So, yesterday, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Obama, which is not a huge surprise given that he endorsed him in 2008, too. Powell is, of course, a longtime Republican who served in the cabinet of George W. Bush, but he is also a retired general who got fed up with the way the war he helped sell on lies to the US people was managed, and also, crucially, he's kind of a d-bag.
So endorsing a Democratic president immediately after serving under a Republican one, who kinda screwed him over, seems like a fun bit of fuck you that a guy like Powell might enjoy.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, the Republican Party is increasingly hostile toward veterans whom they are positively eager to send into harm's way, and their social and economic policies are terrible.
These are observations about why Gen. Powell might have endorsed President Obama.
But they are wrong, or irrelevant, or la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you, according to conservatives, from your average dipshit blogger to Team Romney campaign co-chair and top surrogate John Sununu, who all are quite certain that the reason, the only reason, that Gen. Powell endorsed President Obama is because they are both black.
John Sununu, a top surrogate for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, said Thursday that Colin Powell's repeat endorsement of President Barack Obama could be explained partly by the two men's shared race.What a genuine plaudit, I'm sure.
Speaking on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," Sununu downplayed the importance of the former secretary of state's endorsement, pointing to the support Romney's received from former President George H.W. Bush. He went on to explain that Powell's endorsement of Obama didn't rely solely on the political issues at hand.
"When you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to look at whether that's an endorsement based on issues or he's got a slightly different reason for endorsing President Obama," Sununu said, adding: "I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him."
It is kinda weird how it sounded so much like a dog-whistle diminishing Powell's endorsement because they're both black, though! Huh.
Conservatives' calculations are just amazing. Black people only vote for Obama because he's black and voting for someone who looks like you is IRRESISTIBLE. Except, of course, if you're a white liberal, and then you are compelled to vote for Obama because of your white guilt. The point is: The only reason anyone ever votes for Obama because he is black.
Being black in the US is obviously a HUGE political advantage, which is why Obama will be reelected and we will not allow a white person to break our streak of black presidents: President Shirley Chisholm, President Jesse Jackson, President Carol Moseley, President Al Sharpton, and President Barack Obama. What a run!
It is within this frame, this belief that being a person of color really does confer some sort of advantage, that Romney made his absurd "joke" about how it would really help if he were Latino, at which his equally privileged and willfully ignorant audience of biebillionaires laughed heartily.
Because they all know that people of color get ALL THE BREAKS thanks to affirmative action and white guilt, while straight white cis able-bodied men of means have to work for everything they've got! And, darn it, they have to earn every vote when they run for president, unlike some black dude who even gets black Republicans to vote for him just because he's black! HarRUMPH.
And, naturally, if you're casting a vote, even in part, to change history and tilt the course of our future toward meaningful inclusion, then you're the real racist!
Exponential sighs.
I don't know why, precisely, Gen. Powell endorsed President Obama. I do, however, know that he said it's because Romney's economic plan stinks and he's surrounded himself by neocons, who were the bane of Powell's existence in the Bush White House. Which seem like some pretty solid reasons.
And if anyone even marginally on his side of the aisle wonders if he's right, they would do well to consider that Team Romney isn't disputing his criticisms. Instead, they're pointing to the color of his skin.
Top Five
Here is your topic, suggested by Shaker RedPandamonium: Top Five Fictitious Places You Wish Were Real. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
