"I believe a Republican Party that is more tolerant and dedicated to keeping the government out of people's lives as much as possible would be more appealing to the rising generation."—Republican Senator and Professor of Smartology at Genius University Rand Paul.
Ya think?
I love, by the way, how being more "tolerant" (I hate that word) and giving the judgmental dirtbag racket a rest is not being proposed because decency, but because it's a clever political strategy.
Olivia Twist is the most insistent, obnoxious beggar in the household. I cannot eat anywhere in the house without being hassled by this cat. If I eat at a table, she jumps on the table. If I eat at my desk, she jumps on my desk. If I eat behind a closed door, she sticks her wee paw under the door and BANG BANG BANG!s it in its frame, yowling like she is being gripped by death. If I eat in a chair or on the couch, holding my plate, she encroaches upon me until I have my plate clutched against my chest desperately, trying to shove her away with my elbows.
If she sees any opportunity at all, she will snatch food right off my plate.
Nothing deters her. I can put her on the floor one thousand times every meal, I can spritz her with water, I can scold her, I can shove her, and she is right back like nothing happened, zeroing in on the FOOD OMG FOOOOOOOOD like a laser. Despite the fact that there is always dry food in her bowl. Always.
One time, four or five years ago, Iain came home with some food from Taco Bell, and no sooner had he set the bag on the table, then Livs had snatched a taco by its wrapper and went running down the hall with it, a trail of lettuce and cheese scattered behind her.
She is so tremendously annoying. And yet I utterly admire her steadfast persistence.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
I have previously mentioned how much I love the TV series Good Times, which was a spin-off of Bea Arthur's show Maude—so I was interested to read yesterday that Sony is planning a big-screen version of the '70s TV show.
On the one hand, Good Times! And this is a very good time for a film that tells the sort of story that Good Times told with the pathos by which it told it.
Good Times' Florida and James Evans
(Esther Rolle and John Amos)
On the other hand, I have absolutely no faith in the film industry to actually accomplish that, no less in a feature film.
Sony Pictures and producer Scott Rudin will turn the groundbreaking '70s sitcom Good Times into a feature film. They've set a writer, Phil Johnston, whose most recent credits include Wreck-It Ralph and Cedar Rapids. Rudin will produce the family comedy with Eli Bush.
...Rudin is selective about the remakes with which he becomes involved – Manchurian Candidate, Shaft and Sabrina...
Oof. Those are not great remakes. And I bet I don't need to tell you that Scott Rudin and Phil Johnston are both white.
So was Norman Lear, who created Good Times, but he was one of a kind. And even then, not above criticism.
I dunno. I desperately hope that the film will be good, and really fear that it won't.
This is the actual public testimony of "concerned Minnesotan, father, and husband" Mike Frey, given yesterday at a public hearing on marriage equality in the Minnesota State House. His major concern about marriage equality is the cost to Minnesota taxpayers of all the AIDS that same-sex marriage will cause, and he's got a lot of excellent facts to back him up:
[Frey asks to have a packet of information [sic] handed out to the committee members]
My name is Mike Frey, and I speak as a concerned Minnesotan, and father, and a husband. And the thing about same sex marriage is that people who are married do have sex. And when same-sex people are married, they do have sex—there's something called sodomy. Sodomy defined in Minnesota is sex by or with the mouth or through the anus. When there is ejaculation into a vagina, there is a barrier there — as in your packet it states there — of a cellular tissue that doesn't allow the sperm, that has an enzyme at the head of it, to penetrate the blood flow. It is designed to go to the egg — that enzyme is designed to burn the outside membrane of the egg cell — go inside the egg, and then deposit the DNA. We call that conception.
When ejaculation occurs inside of a colon — it is a highly absorbent material — the cells do not have a barrier for the sperm, and those enzymes to enter into the bloodflow. When the enzymes enter into the bloodflow and a continued, prolonged, um, environment to that happens these enzymes into bloodflow it causes what we know as AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. And AIDS of course brings on common diseases, colds and things, and it magnifies them to a point where it's unhealthy. Not only does it strengthen the disease within the carrier of AIDS — the person that has a destroyed immune system — but it also strengthens the disease that can be spread to the society at large.
There is an example in Los Angeles County, California, where among the gay community a rash almost like boils, and a very raw skin broke out on the hands, feet, butt, mouth of these gay communities and they couldn't find a cure for it for a long time. Their doctors called the Centers for Disease Control and they couldn't find this cure for it. The cure they found, a very extrenuous [sic] antibiotic, was Zyvox. It cost $2,400 for one course of use.
I urge you to vote against the changes inside this bill, because it's going to put a health risk for the society at large, and it's going to put a financial burden on the people of Minnesota to be able to support all the diseases that will come out of this. Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for all the solid info, Dr. Genius!
All these years, I was under the impression that unmarried straight, gay, and bi people can have sex. And that not all married people have sex. And that lots of straight and bi people are into sodomy. And that lesbians exist. And that the reason half of the world's HIV/AIDS population are female is, in fact, because of our "biological vulnerability to HIV infection" which makes us "twice more likely to become infected with HIV through unprotected heterosexual intercourse than men." GLAD TO HAVE ALL THAT CLEARED UP!
This guy is the fucking worst. I have seen some rank homophobia in my day, and burying it behind Jesus and "tradition" are terrible enough, but burying it behind a garbage science lesson and fearmongering about the public cost of HIV/AIDS is somehow extra terrible.
And, frankly, Mr. Frey had better hope that the government is not persuaded to start legislating against unions whose sexual consequences could cost the taxpayers money, as long as we're still funding public education for schoolchildren.
Anyway. One final thought: Who the fuck are these conservative dudes who imagine cis women have magic vaginas?! We can stop pregnancy after rape with our magic vaginas! We can stop the transmission of HIV with our magic vaginas! We can stop speeding bullets with our magic vaginas!
Would that my magic vagina could stop these dipshits from talking.
We've done this one before, originally suggested by Shaker Annepersand: "What is your favorite fictional character's name? Not the name of your favorite character, mind you, but your favorite name that belongs to a fictional character, either because it's really amazingly apt or sounds funny or you just love the way the sounds work together."
Mine is totes Uriah Heep, from Dickens' David Copperfield. With honorary mention to Casanova Frankenstein, from the film Mystery Men.
Here are some pictures of Tom Hardy snuggling and kissing a pit bull puppy wearing a sweater, on the New York City set of of his new film, Animal Rescue. You're welcome.
Former Alaska Governor and former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has a new book coming out later this year, reportedly titled A Happy Holiday IS a Merry Christmas. Ha ha great title! I love this book already. One hundred copies, please!
HarperCollins announced Monday that the book will criticize the "over-commercialism" and "homogenization" of Christmas and call for a renewed emphasis on the religious importance.
"Amidst the fragility of this politically correct era, it is imperative that we stand up for our beliefs before the element of faith in a glorious and traditional holiday like Christmas is marginalized and ignored," Palin said in a statement released through her publisher. "This will be a fun, festive, thought provoking book, which will encourage all to see what is possible when we unite in defense of our faith and ignore the politically correct Scrooges who would rather take Christ out of Christmas."
...According to the publisher, the book will advocate "reserving Jesus Christ in Christmas – whether in public displays, school concerts (or) pageants. Palin also "will share personal memories and traditions from her own Christmases and illustrate the reasons why the celebration of Jesus Christ's nativity is the centerpiece of her faith."
Now, bear in mind that I am a hell-bound atheist who only had 18 years of Lutheran indoctrination followed by four years at a Catholic University, at which I minored in theology in actual classes with actual titles like "Old Testament," "New Testament," and "Jesus Christ," so far be it from me to tell the Good Lady Palin what "the centerpiece of her faith" is, but I am pretty sure the centerpiece of most Christians' faith is the Easter holiday, including Good Friday and Ascension, when the Christian lord and savior who was specifically sent to die for Christians' sins did that thing, then rose from the dead and flew to heaven.
Not that Christmas isn't super fun and shit, but without the whole "died for your sins" bit, it's just the birthday of some dude with a powerful dad. And Romneymas just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Anyway. Whatever. I look forward to reading all of Sarah Palin's cool ideas about getting back to the purity of REAL Christmas celebrations. Like getting rid of those goddamn pagan conifers.
That about sums it up. But I'll nonetheless share this from Ezra's piece as well (emphasis mine):
[T]he real point of Ryan's budget is its ambitious reforms, not its savings. It turns Medicare into a voucher program, turns Medicaid, food stamps, and a host of other programs for the poor into block grants managed by the states, shrinks the federal role on priorities like infrastructure and education to a tiny fraction of its current level, and envisions an entirely new tax code that will do much less to encourage home buying and health insurance.
Ryan's budget is intended to do nothing less than fundamentally transform the relationship between Americans and their government. That, and not deficit reduction, is its real point, as it has been Ryan's real point throughout his career.
Paul Ryan is terrible. His party is terrible. Their policies are terrible. They have been comprehensively and repeatedly discredited as terrible.
And what continually baffles me about the terrible championing of such terrible ideas is how terribly short-sighted it is: Progressives recognize that we're all in this together—even the people who won't get our backs, the bullies who attack us just to feel less put upon themselves, the self-loathing enablers who harbor foolish dreams of being invited to the table of privilege one day, the barrel-chested barons of a new Gilded Age who stand astride the bodies of those condemned to less fortunate fates, singing the praises of social Darwinism, bellowing about the superfluity of a social safety net, and declaring "The government never gave me anything!" as they deposit seven-figure bonuses made possible by a taxpayer-funded bailout.
Progressives know we are all in the same leaky, creaky, unreliable boat. And knowing that means understanding even the most voracious self-interest is best served by egalitarianism: A fortune is worth nothing at the bottom of the ocean, less than a single penny carried safely to shore.
The title is pretty much all the introduction it needs: The Shining Meets Dumb & Dumber. It is The Shining's "Here's Johnny!" scene intercut with Dumb & Dumber's explosive shit scene. Classics collide!
Video Description: Set to ominous music, Jack Nicholson (as Jack Torrance in The Shining) walks up interior stairs, carrying an ax and looking menacing. Cut to Jeff Daniels (as Harry Dunne in Dumb & Dumber) frantically trying to open interior doors. He eventually finds an unlocked door and runs inside the room behind it. Cut back to Nicholson: "Come out, come out, wherever you are." Cut back to Daniels, racing to a toilet with his hand on his butt. He hurriedly lifts the toilet lid and pulls down his pants. Cut to Nicholson, now outside an interior door. He tries the knob and finds it locked. He knocks, with a disturbing expression. From the other side of the door comes the sounds of Daniels having explosive diarrhea. Cut to Daniels shitting his guts out. Ominous music continues to play. Cut back to Nicholson: "Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!" Cut back to Daniels laughing with relief and farting. Cut back to Nicholson: "Not by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin?!" Cut to Daniels cracking a window in the bathroom. Cut back to Nicholson: "Then I'll huff! And I'll puff! And I'll blow your house in!" Cut to Daniels waving stink out the window. Cut to Nicholson swinging the ax at the door. Cut to Daniels looking alarmed, still sitting on the toilet. Cut to Nicholson whacking at the door. Cut to Daniels: "Be right out!" Cut to Nicholson pressing his face through the hole in the door he's made: "Here's Johnny!" Cut to a zoom in on Daniels' alarmed face: "Huh?!" Text Onscreen: "Harry Dunne: 1955-1994."
"My 3-year-old daughter and I play a lot of old games. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked me if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She's played as Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally just assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game; she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else can I do? I'm up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline."—Other Ocean Interactive creative director and supercool dad Mike Mika. Neat!
You can see video of Mika's hack for his daughter here.
Last weekend, Saturday Night Live aired another grossly transphobic piece, in which the idea of a woman with a penis was the entire punchline:
[Video Description: Video of a rom-com trailer parody in which show host Justin Timberlake and cast member Nasim Pedrad star as a couple who have fallen in love in a typical New York romantic comedy formula, but serving in place of the typical manufactured issue keeping them apart, before the happy ending, is the fact that Pedad's character has a penis. The name of the fake movie is: She's Got a Dick.]
The curious thing about this digital sketch is that there's the discernible shape of an actual progressive story there. Pedrad's character is not misgendered, and Timberlake's character is neither freaked out nor a trans* fetishist—he loves her just as she is. Literally, the entire joke is that women with penises exist.
Ha ha?
I know, I know—it's SNL. What do I expect? More, that's what.
If you would like to contact SNL and tell them you expect more and don't find transphobia funny, tweet at them @nbcsnl or contact them here.
The papal conclave is meeting inside a Faraday cage, blocking wi-fi signals in and out of their conference room at the Vatican City Best Western. This is the most high-tech thing the Vatican has done in six centuries. Neat!
Iranian media say authorities are planning to sue Hollywood over the Oscar-winning Argo because of the movie's allegedly unrealistic portrayal of the country. Okay!
The new David Bowie album, The Next Day, is out today.
Hundreds staged a kiss in at the mall where a gay couple was kicked out for kissing.
Residents of the Falkland Islands have voted overwhelmingly to remain a British Overseas Territory. Hail Britannia!
Just can't get enough? Depeche Mode announces U.S. tour dates! Neat!
The two newspaper delivery women who were shot during the manhunt for Christopher Dorner will not be getting a new replacement truck as promised by the LAPD. Keep up the good work, LAPD!
A new study reveals that sexual orientation can be predicted almost 90 percent of the time just by simply looking at what a user Likes on Facebook. (Just FYI, I liked pink donuts on Facebook.)
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
If you would like to contact SNL and tell them you expect more and don't find transphobia funny, tweet at them 
[Content note: Homophobia, police brutality, violence]
