all i have to say at this point

is this:



Well, no, that's not totally true; I have a couple of comments down at the end of this post at RE's. If it's saying anything new to anyone who has ears to hear, well, Maud speed and Maud bless.

meanwhile, well, the Great Work continues, don't she.

"and life goes on."

the call is coming from inside the house.

Tom Cruise is from head Org and he's here to help.

We are the authorities on, getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind. We are the authorities on improving conditions. Crimanon, we can rehabilitate criminals. Way to happiness, we can bring peace, ahh, uhh, and unite cultures...that...you know, whatever, it's like: We're here to help.

on edit: the Compleat Suppresive Parody video page.

Quote of the day: 1/25/08, ii

"Another word to the faux-liberal press, who are already jumping on
Clinton with their tiny, pink, clawed cat feet, suppurating
condescension for all things "southern," most of all white male
southerners, presumably because these press members saw 'In the Heat
of the Night' in college. You are the shitsuckers that sank Jimmy
Carter's noble ship and slick-slimed the skidding way for Reagan's
greedanoids, from whom we will not recover in our children's
lifetimes. Read Willie Morris or dozens of others on the subject.
See if you can write a piece without mentioning BBQ, dogs, the local
sheriff, chewing tobacco, bubbas, pop coolers, and pickups. It is
important not to miss the world that is actually there."

--Jim Harrison, "The Raw and the Cooked," ca 1992


**no, this is -still- not an endorsement for Hillary

Quote of the day: 1/25/08

Watch these mono-issue people. They ain’t gonna do you no good. I don’t care who they are. And there are people who prioritize the cutting line of the struggle. And they say the cutting line is this issue, and more than anything we must move on this issue and that’s automatically saying that whatever’s bothering you will be put down if you bring it up. You have to watch these folks. Watch these groups that can only deal with one thing at a time. On the other hand, learn about space within coalition. You can’t have everybody sitting up there talking about everything that concerns you at the same time or you won’t get no place.

...I am concerned that we are very shortsighted, and we think that the issue we have at this moment has to be addressed at this moment or we will die. It is not true. It is only a minor skirmish. It must be waged guerrilla-warfare style. You shoot it out, get behind the tree so you don’t get killed, because they ain’t gonna give you what you asked for. You must be ready to go out again tomorrow and while you’re behind the tree you must be training the people who will be carrying the message forward into the next period, when they do kill you from behind the tree.

You must believe that believing in human beings in balance with the environment and the universe is a good thing. You must believe—and I’m being biased and bigoted here again—that having a society that doesn’t solve everything with guns is a good thing...The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.

--Bernice Johnson Reagon

as if there weren't enough reasons to loathe these people

John Gibson says! Heath Ledger's death is so funny, you know, he played that gay cowboy that was all tragic and now he's dead for reals, isn't that funny?

dear talking heads: Matthews, Gibson, fucking O'Rly, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Coulter, Hannity, please feel free to insert your own:

Just: Die In A Fire already. 'K? Yes, you got me, that's right, I'm NOT a bleeding heart liberal, and I'm not laughing today, my heart is BURNING, and I have no more blood or laughter or empathy for empathy-devoid wastes of skin like you. Just: disappear. LEAVE this planet. You have consumed far too much oxygen as it is. There's not enough to go around, you're RIGHT. Now: you go first.

No, seriously. GO. Die in a pool of your own broken misery, you soulless cesspits from hell. Go on. It'll be -funny.- It'll be ENTERTAINING. Isn't it always? Maybe we can snap a pic of your bloodied undies while we're at it, hm? You worthless, wretched, GHOULS. You bloated, entitled, smug pasty fuckers. You, sitting on a pile of your own waste and calling it "civilization," the thing you want to -protect-, STANDARDS, you -foul- little pieces of shit--

tell me, o righteous defenders of Christmas, borders, America, Family Values, hapless blonde women who aren't alive to protest your salivations, who's going to save us from -you?- Who, you carrion feeding fucks? YOU -are- the Weakest Link, goddamit; and while getting rid of your -slime- for once and for all wouldn't fix what's wrong with this culture, probably wouldn't even be much of a beginning, godDAM but it would be a spark to my heart.

Maybe then, I'd have some blood for you. Maybe, finally, then. But not before.

For now, you'll have to settle for bile.

It's all the same to you anyway, isn't it?

fookin' brill

Just a quick link to this piece/speech by Bernice Johnson Reagon, as reprinted at She Who Stumbles. Not currently in the headspace for further commentary, although it did remind me that at some point I had this hazy idea for a post on sociopolitics/activism as "henotheism." anyway: go read, if you haven't already.

-waves rusty gardening shears at Chris Matthews menacingly-, o what a giveaway

So, just to get this out of the way up front: this sort of thing does -not-, of itself, make me more inclined to vote for Hillary, or for anyone else, for that matter. I remain just as enthusiastic about this whole process as I was before.

What it -does- make me think/feel is

1) y'know, if the point is the pervasiveness of good ol' fashioned sexism in the media and specifically that of Chris "Tweety" Matthews, no arguments from me here; and, yes, they ("they" being Media Matters, who sent the following in one of the six squillion mass emails I get from various sources) have a point there, kids

2) thank -fuck- I got rid of cable, my sadness over missing the debut of Torchwood S2 notwithstanding; it's worth it to have had my eyeballs be more or less blissfully free from Big Noxious Giant Talking Head-induced pencil stabs

3) sweet Jesus, I hate Chris Matthews.

Oh, yeah, the email:

Dear Friend,

By now, you may be familiar with this recent exchange between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews:

Sen. Clinton: "I don't know what to do with men who are obsessed with me. I honestly have never understood it."

[...]

Matthews: "It's not obsession."

If you have ever watched an episode of Hardball, you may find Matthews' above statement a bit suspect. After all, as Media Matters for America has previously documented, after The New York Times published an article on Hillary and Bill Clinton's marriage in May of 2006, Matthews asked at least 90 questions on the subject over the course of seven broadcasts on his two programs (Hardball and The Chris Matthews Show). One of his guests during these broadcasts, Washington Post reporter Lois Romano, called Matthews out after he repeatedly inquired about how many days the Clintons slept under the same roof. "[W]hat is your obsession with logistics here?" she asked.

To get an idea of the type of language Matthews regularly uses when covering Clinton, take a look at this sampling:

"I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for."
"She Devil"
"Nurse Ratched"
"Madame Defarge"
"Witchy"
"Anti-male"
"[U]ppity"
"She's going to tell us what to do."
"Her scolding manner in terms of her public speaking"
"[L]et's talk about the troops ...Will they take the orders?"
"[D]oesn't she know she looks like a fraud?"
"Look at those eyes. Look at the cold eyes that she's giving him. Look at that cold look."
"[L]ike a strip-teaser saying she's flattered by the all the attention"
On Sen. Clinton's endorsers: "castratos in the eunuch chorus"
"Let me tell you how short Hillary's leash is."
"Is she a convincing mom?"
On Sen. Clinton's laugh: "What do you make of the cackle?"
"[S]he's clapping, like she's Chinese. I know the Chinese clap at each other, but what is she clapping at? I mean, it's like one of these wind-up things."
"[S]he was giving a campaign barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard, perhaps."
"Is there, out there in the country or out in the Atlantic Ocean, some gigantic monster -- big, green, horny-headed, all kinds of horns coming out, big, aggressive monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself: it's based upon gender ..."
"[B]eing surrounded by women, does that make a case for commander in chief -- or does it make a case against it?"
"Is she hemmed in by the fact that she's a woman and can't admit a mistake, or else the Republicans will say, 'Oh, that's a woman's prerogative to change her mind,' or 'another fickle woman'? Is her gender a problem in her ability to change her mind?"
"[T]he reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around."
"She may have gotten The Des Moines Register's endorsement the other day, thanks to her husband's lobbying with its female editors and publisher ..."

She may take the brunt of his vitriol and sexist commentary, but Clinton is far from the only woman targeted by Matthews. Here are some other notable examples:

On House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

Described her as "scary"
Suggested she would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Wondered how she could disagree with President Bush "without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?"

On Michelle Obama during the first Democratic presidential debate:

"I thought Michelle, whatever you say about Obama, his wife looked perfect -- perfect for the occasion ... I'm sorry, those things are important. You guys are ignoring it. Some people are, by the way, just watching tonight. They stopped listening a half-hour in, and they noticed how pretty she is -- Michelle -- and they said, 'I like the fact he's got this pretty wife. He's happily married. I like that.' " After Matthews' take on Michelle Obama's appearance, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Mrs. Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer.

On potential future female presidential candidates:

"[T]here's not even another on the horizon. Where are the governors? Where are the big-state women governors? Where are they? Name one. They don't exist." (Note: Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all run states with populations comparable to male governors who have recently run for president, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Richardson.)

On women who live in the suburbs who "may not work outside the home":

"They're talking around election time -- the husband and the wife -- you know, she says, 'I sort of like this Hillary, the first woman president. She's pro-choice.' And the husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' "

...

yadda yadda etc. etc., world without end, ad frakkin' nauseum.

a response to Tom

because i hadn't had a chance to get back to it earlier and the thread in question's now well off the front page over at RE's.

specifically, to this:

"I mean, even you have been using the term "moderate feminist," and just--no"

And just--why not? What's wrong with distinguishing between certain feminists who have certain views and certain other feminists who have certain other views? Is it that you dislike "moderate" and "extremist" in particular, or do you object to any such categorizations?

No, I don't object to any categorizations, categorically. The problem I have with this set-up is that it implies, again, a single-axis continuum ranging from "radical feminist" at one end to "MRA" on the other. And, that's just not how it works. This is the same frustration I've had at I suspect many of the same feminist blogs that have frustrated you, albeit perhaps for different reasons:

1) it inadvertently suggests that second-wave (white Anglo-American) radical and/or cultural feminism(s) (which is what's usually meant by what you're referring to as "extremist" feminism) is the expression of "pure" feminism, all other feminisms being merely more reasonable modifications thereof, when in fact it is no such thing.

2) again, it doesn't take into account any sort of intersectionality, which is the same damn problem I have with I Blame The Patriarchy or any number of other places. It's a web, not a line. For me that's particularly true of sexuality and gender; I am -interested- in what het cis men have to say, okay, but the ongoing back and forth between them and het cis women is just -not- what I find of central importance or how I frame all this shit.

and then, beyond that, there's race, there's class, there are...any number of axes. and, this rarely gets covered, the existence of these other axes, let alone how and where they intersect with sex and/or gender; and no, FC is certainly not the only offender in this regard, but it's one more reason I get frustrated and don't stick around.

3) to a lesser extent: I don't find "moderate feminist" a terrible terrible insult, no, but it's not particularly what I call -myself-, especially, and it'd be nice to be asked, first.

More to the point, and in line with 1): this is the problem I've kept having with FC in general: there -are- names for the various branches of feminism already. You don't have to agree with the delineations for every single one--hell, there's no total consensus where the boundaries always are as far as that goes--but at minimum, it's good to be aware that this is out there, yeah?

So, let's see, what else is news. Oo--primary season! whee. also, I really need to go to the dentist, it's been a while.

Yeah; it's kind of like that right now.

Roughly this is where I'm at, wrt electionblagh:

First of all, per who I'm supporting in the primaries: I'd vote for the exhumed bones of Wellstone + a Ouija board channeling if someone undertook the project. Gore I think we can rule out at this point. Beyond that...well, I keep saying Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later, but Later's pretty much now-ish, and you know, somehow, I still can't be arsed. I'll vote for whoever gets the nom, and I might even put some back into it, depending on...depending. No more money, though. Sorry. Been there, done that, got bills to pay and other shit, thanks.

Never would've thought I'd be this singularly unthrilled at the prospect of finally seeing the back of Dubya, I must say.

Which is not to say that I don't -care-, at all.

But I'm looking at the way this is playing out, -has- been playing out, and thinking: okay, so, assuming the least worst happens. Then what?

This is my analysis, for what it's worth (you might be able to get an espresso at Starfucks if you also rummage around inside the sofa for a while):

There's a...theme that I've been keeping an eye on for quite a while: that it's not smart to put too much faith in the whole, the populist -left- is gonna be the alternative to the Bush administration, even putting aside the whole "oh, yeah, actually the Democratic Establishment isn't really what you'd call populist, is
it. or Left, for that matter." The backlash to the whole Iraq adventure--well, we're seeing it play out already, with the nativism and the anti-immigrant ugliness, which of course all of the Repub hopefuls have been all over like flies on shit; still, it's understood that some of them -really mean it- more than others. Much more so the whole theocratic riff.

There are roughly two ways the whole "rawwwwh America, we're the best, Live Free Or Die" etc. thing plays out, I think, within the R/right. One is what we've been seeing, the neocons, neo-imperialism, combined with a superficially secular/modern/"moderate" appeal to status quo; the real radicalism plays out a little below the surface, Over There, same as it has been for most of these administrations, more or less. They tend or tended to include a lot of spooked former wealthy liberals/libertines of the Christopher Hitchens/Dennis Miller/Gerard Van der Leun sort.

The other is more radically right there in your face: it was partly embodied by the Ashcroft side of the Bush admin (there's a reason why he left, I would say). They might go to war, but it has a somewhat different flavor at least in the initial appeal. First of all they're turned inward and At Home, for better or for worse, depending on who you are. Secular comfortable queers like o say Andrew Sullivan or y'know a -lot- of us are probably going to -personally- be in a lot more trouble with this bunch. They tend to be much more nativist and hardcore reactionary; they also tend to appeal more toward the underclasses, the rural, the blue-collar workers, and, of course, the hard-core Religious Right. Essentially, I would say, we're talking about Tories versus Roundheads.

Now, the Bush administration--hell, the entire last twenty-five/thirty years or so, at least, has seen a sort of unholy/uneasy alliance between these factions: we're going to war in Iraq to protect Western-style secular democracy; we're going to war because it is our Holy Duty as Crusaders for the Lord. They co-existed particularly nicely when the added glue was "by the way, if we don't attack them over here there'll be more attacks over here, AHH AHH WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE." And fuck knows what happens if/when the next major attack on U.S. soil happens.

Meanwhile, what we're beginning to see now, I would say, among other things, is the beginnings of a major rift between the Tories and the Roundheads. Some Dems and liberals and so on are rather gleeful about the whole thing--there's a term, "Huckenfreude," even. The trouble is of course is that, well, the fundamental problem hasn't changed. Genuine populism on the left is, if not actually moribund, still deeply fragmented; and shifting back to Whigs is only going to be a temporary stopgap at best. There are far deeper rifts going on here than simply Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Democrats, and that's echoing across the world, not just here; call it the class struggle reasserting itself if you like, call it Jihad versus McWorld if you like; they both still work.

The real problem is, if we want neither of those options, we've got our work cut out
for us and then some; and the hour groweth late.

yep, still postin' videos.

"We're sorry, but all of our circuits are busy right now. Thank you for your patience. Your click is important to us. Please stand by."






(thanks, Em! ^-^)









bonus fucked-uppedness: "Harry Potter and the Brokeback Goblet"

*ahem*

Okay, and -as- long as I'm on a fangirl streak anyway, I feel compelled to share these findings with whomever might also appreciate...such things: David Tennant in drag.

once as a joke



but here (think this must be from some years ago)...well, i think it's meant to be a comedy, probably? (i have no earthly clue what the Scottish men are saying; I think they're orcs) but um. DT's presentation/performance? oh my wordies. i'll be in my bunk...



Yeah, eventually i'll get back to more serious posting...

("bombs are flying...people are dying...the whole world's gone to hell, but how are you?...")

...eventually. Then again, i'm kind of enjoying the shallow end.

Btw, did I ever mention my theory that the Sims holds the secret of life?

No, SRSLY. See, they have these little bars indicating their virtual little needs: hunger, bladder, energy (sleep), social, comfort, fun, and, uh, aesthetic something or other. When all or most of the little bars are comfortably above the halfway point, at least, then they're happy, and you can make them do whatever you want, pretty much. They'll do the tedious shit without complaining much (take out the trash, study, look for a job, exercise), and whatever "fun" stuff they do (throw a party, come onto the cute neighbor) is far more likely to be successful. (Sexytime is part of "social," I guess). They're more likely to get promoted, spontaneously start writing a book or playing the piano, take good care of the kids, and so forth.

When one or more of the various bars is running near empty, they won't be able to do much until that need is taken care of (especially if it's hunger or sleep). And if they're running low overall, they whine and stamp their little feet and burst into tears randomly, sleep through their alarm, start fights, and go "uh uh" when asked to do something taxing, instead wandering off to watch TV.

If the social bar gets too low, they start regressing and eventually end up babbling to an imaginary giant rabbit.

It's great stuff, especially if you feel sadistic. Once I created a "Bush administration" household of eight and tormented them all to death. Well, first I had them fighting over three single beds, one shower, and one toilet; the rest had to take turns, and they were all really cranky so they kept kvetching and getting into fights. Then I removed all that stuff, and had them throw a party. It's not a great way to make friends and influence people, walking around unbathed for weeks, soiling one's virtual self and bursting into tears, picking fights, and of course, fly-encrusted garbage everywhere. Then I got tired of it. I put Rove in the swimming pool and removed the ladder; they swim till they drown. Cheney I locked in the attic with no food. Someone burned to death at the stove...and George was a schoolboy whose grades got so low that he was shipped off to boarding school; this was the old version where they don't age. If I had the capacity for Sims 2, I'd totally have had him get abducted and impregnated by aliens.

No, wait, but I had a point, here, somewhere. Something important. What was it again?...

oh, yeah:

Ole-like mjoel! Robaluki khan. Awasa poa. Uh, licht nar? Uh -uh!- Oo shonga day? Cayoo! Krach! Lamoo! Frabbit! Deepwa spanewash deepla blah!