My statcounter deal says several searchers for "women who like to be raped" somehow found their way here.
SO, DIRTBAGS and RAPISTS, let me tell you this: there is NO SUCH THING as a woman who likes to be raped. Pull your head out of your ass and hear this now: Go, get a LOT of therapy, or cut your nuts off, or jump off a bridge, I don't care which, because if you are looking to rape a woman, you are a sick and evil waste of carbon.
They are NOT JOKING AROUND when they say you might have "vivid dreams" when you take Chantix.
Night one: I am roommates with Peyton Manning and several other people. He needs a ride downtown, but first I must find socks in the large communal closet. One dresser is six drawers of socks - three drawers mine, three his. I throw out several shirts in my quest for a clean shirt. We go downtown and hang out in his swanky hotel room. He changes into much-too-small denim shorts and I get him to wear normal pants. We hang out some more. Then he needs a ride to the game. The playoff game, which in this context is the Sunday before the SuperBowl. Peyton is charming and tall and funny, as one would expect him to be.
??
Night two: I have a dream that I am part of a group of photographers trying to get pics of Paul McCartney. He lets some of us in and I discover I have my lenses, but no camera body, in my bag. I take out a notebook and start writing down everything he says. There are several pools in the backyard, and a diving board. We walk around the back yard, and the pools, and through the house. I have been in the housed before, house-sitting, but he doesn't know it. Someone else hired me to do it while he was out of town. Pool/backyard morphs into a raggedy beach "resort" with a pier. At the end of the pier is sort of a surf hut/bar/hangout. Dominic Monaghan (of Lord of the Rings and Lost) is there, and he is dirty. Like, clearly, he has been sleeping rough, out there on the beach, and needs a shower. We keep taking walks out down a levee,then back again. There is much rooting in fridges for beverages. Sometimes beer, sometimes soda. The kitchen is filthy in the way an undergrad party house is filthy. But there's beer in multiple fridges. Dominic Monaghan is hitting on me, but he really needs a shower.
So, night three is tonight. I wonder which random celebrity will be featured in this one.
I have a fondness for mid-century modern design. It's sleek and beautifully designed, but made of homely industrial materials. My house is by no means sleek & efficient enough to really come close to the mid-century modern aesthetic, but sometimes, I see a thing that I want, and it gives me a pang. I want it, because it's beautiful and red and rich, and the curves are perfect, the form and function are in perfect sync, and the pang, well: I can't afford it. I can't see ever having so much disposable income that I can buy this, this perfect, beautiful, red chair, for eight HUNDRED dollars:
Here's an alternate view, in plain wood, so you can see how delicious and perfect and loungy the bent plywood is:
Really, if I think about it too much, I might just cry. Wah.
It's been an all-vinyl day here at Casa Jezebella. Laundry, homemade veggie/potato soup, hot tea, and, right now, Adam & the Ants "Kings of the Wild Frontier" is on the turntable.
Having finally downloaded pictures to the laptop, it's time for a kitty update.
Ferris is very serious about inhabiting the slow-cooker box. Alas, someone peed on it, and it had to go in the trash shortly after this photo shoot. Also, I can't get Picasa to rotate the damned picture for some reason.
Bennet is very serious about everything, all the time. He looks worried a lot. He's currently concerned about the presence of a fourth cat. Said fourth cat will be the topic of another post, because between downloading pics on Saturday and this afternoon, the camera cable has stopped working.
And Pippin loves human food. Here he's enjoying some organic baby spring greens, which he prefers without dressing. Always concerned about his girlish figure, that one.
I got a call at 8:30 this morning. On a Saturday. Everyone knows I'm in bed at that hour on a weekend. Hell, I'm usually still in bed at that hour on a weekday. It's the Poet: "Look out your window." Me: "Huhwhat?" Poet: "Look out your window." Me: "Well, that's unexpected."
It was snowing. In Buttcrack, Mississippi. I've been here over five years and it's only snowed once before. Tragically (ahem) I was in Paris at the time, so I missed it. No big deal, as a few winters in the Midwest cured me of any fascination I might have had with snow. So, I went back to sleep, during which time the power went off. It got a bit chilly, I drank a lot of hot tea, and fortunately, the power came back on just after noon. I headed out late this afternoon to shoots some pictures just to prove that, yes, Virginia, sometimes it really DOES snow in the Deep South. By late afternoon it was turning slushy, and now it's about to drop into the 20s so I expect it'll be a charming lot of ice by midnight. I hope the rednecks who successfully navigated the snow in their pick-em-up trucks realize that ice? It's nothing like snow. You simply cannot drive on ice, no matter how big & manly your truck is. Anyway, I'm staying off the roads. I'm thinking of baking a cake, but first I'd have to clean the oven, and, ick, who wants to do THAT on a Saturday night? But, mmmmm....cake! It's a tough decision to make. I'm also anticipating another power outage as soon as the branches start freezing & cracking, so I've got the central heat cranked up a few extra degrees. This will not prevent the cats from sleeping in a pile on top of me. Yay! Cat blanket!
I liked Dennis Kucinich, I really did. But I'm done with him. He's progressive, but not progressive on women's rights. Apparently the "workers," "people" and "human rights" he promotes are for men only.
First, I found out he hosted a fundraiser with notorious misogynist & pornographer Larry Flynt at Hustler Headquarters. Flynt, let's be clear, isn't just a pornographer. He's a purveyor of sexism and racism. To wit:
THEN, I find out he's got a no-holds-barred anti-choice voting record. I'm not talking just anti-abortion - he's anti-contraception. Here's his comment on it:
Oh, okay then. We'll just talk about what YOU want to talk about? Uh uh. I don't think so. As Pollitt notes, "That a solidly anti-choice politician could become a standard- bearer for progressivism, the subject of hagiographic profiles in The Nation and elsewhere, speaks volumes about the low priority of women's rights to the self-described economic left, forever chasing the white male working-class vote."
So, Dennis Kucinich: You are a grave disappointment to me. You proved to me that the left is still as misogynist as the right. That even lefty men don't think women are human. That "human rights" don't include "women's rights." I will no longer be voting for you in the primary.
*Props to Blamers gentaggard & Bird for the links.
Something's been bothering me for a while now. Men crying on television. Athletes, actors, politicians, reporters: all men, all crying, all the time. Why does this bother me? I'm a feminist. I should be fine with men expressing their emotions. The problem, I've realized, is women don't have the same freedom. Sure, the boundaries of male behavior are expanding, but a woman who cries is still seen as irrational, emotional, "feminine".
Here are two descriptions related to political candidates crying in public:
Guess whose tears are "humanizing"? Guess whose tears are torpedoing their campaign?
A. Mitt Romney, penis owner B. Hillary Rodham Clinton, uterus owner
When Mitt Romney cries, it's spun as positive. When Hillary Clinton is "tearful" - she didn't even actually CRY, people! - she is admitting defeat, looking like a loser, and being de-humanized.
How is that crying humanizes men and de-humanizes women (makes them ineligible for responsible jobs, for example)? It doesn't. It can't. There is no logic in this.
This is why I'm sick of looking at men cry. Because there are always, always negative consequences when a woman cries in public, and now there are positive consequences when a man cries in public.
How often did Bill Clinton weep while campaigning or in office? All. The. Time. Hillary "tears up" and the doom-and-gloomers predict the end of her campaign, her career, her very believability as a candidate.
Next time you pop by the Stop-n-Rob for a tasty, sugary Gas-o-cchino, and then decide to opt for wintry hot cocoa goodness, stick with the 12-oz. cup. Because, trust me, no one needs 16 ounces of hot chocolate at once.
People sometimes think I'm a Debbie Downer for not being a cheerful, Fun Feminist. They think feminists "go looking" for things to be angry about. They're wrong. All you have to do is open your damn eyes, look past your front door, and you'll SEE all the things there are to be angry about, to be sad about, to be righteously indignant about. Kim Gandy ties it all up in a neat package for you here.
A Maddening Reminder
Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy
January 4, 2008
Sadly, the year 2007 ended with a maddening reminder that violence is a popular tool of oppression. From the most powerful leaders in the world, to the tyrant next door, those who aim to exploit, control and silence others predictably turn to aggression and brutality.
On Dec. 27, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, robbed the world of a charismatic and dedicated advocate for democracy in the Middle East. The news was horrific, but hardly surprising given the numerous death threats Bhutto had received over the years.
In 1988 Prime Minister Bhutto became the first woman democratically elected to lead a modern Muslim nation, and repeatedly put her life on the line to advance democracy in a volatile country. Bhutto knew the risk that came with returning to Pakistan to run for a third term, but she refused to let that threat stand in her way. She was prepared to pay the ultimate price for freedom, and she did.
Bhutto's murder dominated the news for days, but millions of women across the globe are killed, raped, beaten and mutilated every year without any public pause.
According to Amnesty International, more than 15,000 women are sold into sexual slavery in China annually. Six thousand women are genitally mutilated each day in North Africa. In Bangladesh, hundreds of women are horribly disfigured when spurned husbands or suitors burn them with acid. More than 7,000 women in India are murdered by their families and in-laws in disputes over dowries per year. Even here in the U.S., an average of three women are murdered every day by husbands or boyfriends, and an estimated one million to three million women are abused by them.
In the conflict-ravaged region of Darfur, in western Sudan, as many as 400,000 innocent people have been killed and more than 2.5 million driven from their homes. Rape and sexual violence have been used to terrorize and displace rural communities. Even after fleeing Darfur, women and girls in refugee camps continue to be raped and assaulted by civilians or militia members.
The brutalization of women in war zones and the appropriation of their bodies as "spoils of war" are common practices that have persisted for centuries. The United States condemns the use of these tactics, but at the same time our female service members fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are being raped by the same commanders and comrades they trusted to fight beside them. They are reluctant or afraid to report these crimes, and the added trauma is taking its toll, as reported in USA Today this week.
This report comes on the heels of a story of gender-based crime and punishment that sparked considerable media interest. In 2006, a 19-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia brought charges against seven men for gang-rape. In addition to the punishments handed down to the perpetrators, the judge sentenced the young woman herself to 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man who was not a relative of hers just before the attack.
Even a country like Saudi Arabia, a strong ally of the Bush administration, treats women residents like second-class citizens. Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts following a strict interpretation of Islamic Shari'a law. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and must get a male relative's permission before having surgery, going to college, seeking a job or accepting a marriage proposal.
The case of "the Girl from Qatif" (as she came to be known) attracted worldwide attention for its outrageous injustice. Last year, a Saudi court more than doubled the young woman's penalty to 200 lashes and six months in jail. According to Arab News, the court said the woman's punishment was increased because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
After even greater condemnation from the world community, King Abdullah eventually granted the woman a pardon in December. However, this incident served as a reminder that patriarchy continues to exist in its most extreme forms, sanction by governments that are not accustomed to being challenged.
Some conservatives argue that discrimination and violence against women in the Middle East should be reason enough for feminists to support the U.S. right-wing's agenda of invading Islamic countries and installing Bush-style "democracy" as in Iraq.
But the Bush administration is not on a mission to do the women of the world any favors. Just look at how women have suffered in Iraq, and at the deteriorating conditions for women in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is making a comeback.
Obviously the reliance on brute force to keep women from overstepping proscribed boundaries is not limited to convenient interpretations of Islam. Violence and misogyny transcend territory, language, ethnicity, culture, politics, religion -- you name it. The desire to dominate, combined with sexism, fuels violence against women in every corner of the world.
In 2006, the United Nations released a report officially classifying violence against women as a human rights violation, increasing pressure on nation-states in the UN to intensify and improve systems in place for handling violence against women. Calling violence against women "unacceptable," the report goals included: surveying the pervasiveness of violence against women around the world; reminding UN states of the importance of this issue; finding better, more effective ways to combat violence against women; and increasing accountability of UN states for violations of women's human rights.
Responding to and preventing violence will be most effective when the U.S. and all societies across the globe are willing to acknowledge and address its root causes. Our current president lacks credibility on this issue because he is a bully himself, someone who resorts to violence to get his way, a man who laughed at the impending execution of a woman in the state he governed. Let's face it, Bush just doesn't get it.
This nation needs a leader who can speak with authority on this subject. Someone who can influence other countries to join us in eradicating violence, hatred and discrimination of all kinds. Someone who will shine a light on this issue and set a bold example for the world. Someone who believes that women's rights are human rights. I hope that we will end 2008 with a newly elected president who can do just that.
Wish there were better videos out there, but these'll do for now.
This one is from far away, lousy audio, but it's the whole song:
Dance Break!
This one is better video & audio, but starts mid-song, and is for some reason turned sideways:
And here are the lyrics:
"Mother Of Pearl"
Feminists don't have a sense of humor Feminists just want to be alone (boo-hoo) Feminists spread vicious lies and rumor They have a tumor on their funny bone
They say child molestation isn't funny Rape and degradation's just a crime (lighten up, ladies) Rampant prostitution, sex for money (what's wrong with that) Can't these chicks do anything but whine
Dance break Woo-hoo (Take it off)
They say cheap objectification isn't witty, it's hot Equal work and wages worth the fight (sing us a new one) On demand abortion, every city (okay, but no gun control) Won't these women ever get a life
Feminists don't have a sense of humor (poor Hilary) Feminists and vegetarians Feminists spread vicious lies and rumor They're far too sensitive to ever be a ham That's why these feminists just need to find a man
I'm Dennis Kucinich, and I approve this message
(c)
You have to imagine a male chorus singing the responses in parentheses, as in the CD version.
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