(RQ, hope you don't mind. I woke up to this news and it's sort of like finding out that hell DID freeze over.)
For those of you who ever had a connection to Boston, the news that gangster Whitey Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica, California last night after 16 years on the lam is a big deal. Shocking, even. The guy fled in 1995 on the eve of being arrested for a bunch of charges. In his absence, he was charged with as many as 19 murders. (He was also an FBI informant who played the FBI far better than they played him.)
What's not shocking to me: it was a tip generated from the outreach to women. After 16 years of screw-up after screw-up from the FBI, they finally decided to start a PR outreach to women in the hopes of finding his girlfriend, who fled with him.
THREE DAYS after the campaign started on TV in 14 cities, they caught him. Based on a tip generated from that campaign. In other words, it took civilian women of a certain age a few days to clean up the mess that a male-dominated subculture screwed up for nearly two decades.
In light of this, the SCOTUS decision letting Walmart skate on a humongous sex-discrimination suit is even more offensive, but hey, that's me.
Women in the Santa Monica area, rock on. Rock on.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
It's Time For BINGO
Dilbert creating dillhole, Scott Adams, is still trying to defend his all men are rapists theory by interviewing Jezebel's Irin Carmon.
His responses to her answers are classic douchenoodlery, deserving of a BINGO card (look, I made Obot bingo during the primaries and I've got a mess of people coming over for Carnitas! tonight, so I can't make the card. Someone make the card!)
So Imma gonna shorthand it a bit.
"Whew, wordy" = you women sure do talk a lot. It's like my ears shut down when you just go on and on and on.
"Can you try again, in simpler terms, and without the history lesson, to explain your objection to my post?" = I am too lazy to know actual history or to use a dictionary, explain yourself in tiny words female, or I can't be bothered to comprehend you (He actually pulls this shit 2x)
"The men who complained imagined I was saying all men are repressed rapists. That's a simple case of bad reading comprehension" = Just because I said all men have to repress the urge to rape doesn't mean I meant all men have to repress the urge to rape.o
How many spot across do I have to get to have bingo again? And what's the free space? And seriously, it's not feminists who think all men are repressing their rapey urges in order to function in society.
His responses to her answers are classic douchenoodlery, deserving of a BINGO card (look, I made Obot bingo during the primaries and I've got a mess of people coming over for Carnitas! tonight, so I can't make the card. Someone make the card!)
So Imma gonna shorthand it a bit.
"Whew, wordy" = you women sure do talk a lot. It's like my ears shut down when you just go on and on and on.
"Can you try again, in simpler terms, and without the history lesson, to explain your objection to my post?" = I am too lazy to know actual history or to use a dictionary, explain yourself in tiny words female, or I can't be bothered to comprehend you (He actually pulls this shit 2x)
"The men who complained imagined I was saying all men are repressed rapists. That's a simple case of bad reading comprehension" = Just because I said all men have to repress the urge to rape doesn't mean I meant all men have to repress the urge to rape.o
How many spot across do I have to get to have bingo again? And what's the free space? And seriously, it's not feminists who think all men are repressing their rapey urges in order to function in society.
A Tale of Two Abortion Movies
Since we are well into the War on Women and Planned Parenthood in Indiana now has to turn away medicaid recipients, I thought I should watch Vera Drake. A few months ago I watched Story of Women with the incomparable Isabelle Huppert. One of these stories is fiction, the other is based on a real woman. The differences are telling.
Vera Drake is a saint. She's poor but she loves and cares for her family and neighbors. She "helps women" (and never says abortion) out of the kindness of her heart and not for any money. The first third of the movie is all about her moving through space doing kind acts and making tea for everyone she comes across.
In contrast, Huppert's Marie is a bit vain, also poor but decidedly more materialistic than Vera Drake. She cheats on her husband. She's friends with prostitutes. We're made to see her as human, flawed, but still providing a service desperately needed in Nazi occupied France and providing for her family better than her husband can. (Oh the feminism, it burns the little men).
Spoiler alerts
Marie is the real story, and it's based on the life and death of Marie-Louise Geraud who was the last woman guillotined in France. She was sentenced to death for performing abortions.
Vera, a fictional saint pulled from the mind of Mike Leigh, gets 2 years and meets a bunch of other women in prison for the same thing. And she never ever stands up for herself or the women she has helped. She just whimpers and snivels and accepts her fate and apologizes.
Here's the thing, we don't need straw saints, anymore than we need straw people in general. Vera Drake is an okay movie. You'd only see it if you were already pro-choice anyways. Story of Women is a fantastic movie. Sit through the subtitles, it's worth it to watch a fully fleshed out human being portrayed.
(yes I used that title as a Dickens reference to another story, set in both England and France, about a miscarriage of justice)
Vera Drake is a saint. She's poor but she loves and cares for her family and neighbors. She "helps women" (and never says abortion) out of the kindness of her heart and not for any money. The first third of the movie is all about her moving through space doing kind acts and making tea for everyone she comes across.
In contrast, Huppert's Marie is a bit vain, also poor but decidedly more materialistic than Vera Drake. She cheats on her husband. She's friends with prostitutes. We're made to see her as human, flawed, but still providing a service desperately needed in Nazi occupied France and providing for her family better than her husband can. (Oh the feminism, it burns the little men).
Spoiler alerts
Marie is the real story, and it's based on the life and death of Marie-Louise Geraud who was the last woman guillotined in France. She was sentenced to death for performing abortions.
Vera, a fictional saint pulled from the mind of Mike Leigh, gets 2 years and meets a bunch of other women in prison for the same thing. And she never ever stands up for herself or the women she has helped. She just whimpers and snivels and accepts her fate and apologizes.
Here's the thing, we don't need straw saints, anymore than we need straw people in general. Vera Drake is an okay movie. You'd only see it if you were already pro-choice anyways. Story of Women is a fantastic movie. Sit through the subtitles, it's worth it to watch a fully fleshed out human being portrayed.
(yes I used that title as a Dickens reference to another story, set in both England and France, about a miscarriage of justice)
Monday, June 20, 2011
Excuse me while rant for a second
Stupid fucking Microsoft Word and your shitastic formatting! I'm a fucking Office Pro. I got that shit down inside, outside, backwards forwards and twisted up like a tornado. And still you're utter shittiness makes doing anything take longer than it should. I don't need you to autoformat. YOU NEVER AUTOFORMAT IT RIGHT!!!! And heaven forbid I try working in something that isn't fucking Word, because everyone and their dog uses fucking Word and I'm gonna have to convert it anyways. And it NEVER converts right.
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am now on my millionth attempt to get my perfectly formatted google docs resume to look right in Word. I have wasted hours trying to fix shit. And what's really fucking funny is that the resume was originally written in Word and uploaded to docs so that I could move around the country without having to worry if I lost the usb drive the original was on (which I did). Google doesn't seem to have a problem understanding the formatting. Why does Word?
Hate, hate hate you, Microsoft Word. Hate.
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am now on my millionth attempt to get my perfectly formatted google docs resume to look right in Word. I have wasted hours trying to fix shit. And what's really fucking funny is that the resume was originally written in Word and uploaded to docs so that I could move around the country without having to worry if I lost the usb drive the original was on (which I did). Google doesn't seem to have a problem understanding the formatting. Why does Word?
Hate, hate hate you, Microsoft Word. Hate.
Put in much simpler terms by someone more elegant than I
Arthur Silber on Stockholm Syndrome when the captor is the State.
Which is all just a much more concise way of saying that common sense isn't actually common sense for us plebeians. Which is, I freely grant, just a convoluted and appropriated way of saying "You can't bring down the master's house with the master's tools".
There is no fixing a system that's lone function is to oppress by using mechanisms designed by the masters specifically to obfuscate the oppression.
(It's so clear and simple, I often feel like I've been banging my head on a wall to write about it. But then I have to remember that it took me a really fucking long time to see it and that others have probably felt like they had been banging their heads while I rah-rah the voting apparatus. So I owe some people apologies and some people some patience. I'm good at the first and bad at the last).
H/T to Blue Lyon.
Most "dissenting" writers exhibit the characteristics of Stockholm Syndrome, even if to a somewhat lesser degree than reflexive supporters of the status quo. Consider the deeply awful Sam Smith article that I analyzed the other day. Smith identifies a number of reasons for his strong criticisms of Obama -- and then proceeds to offer transparently unconvincing rationalizations for voting for Obama next year (because, as Smith says, Obama will "do us the least harm," ignoring that Obama, too, is committed to your complete destruction).
Which is all just a much more concise way of saying that common sense isn't actually common sense for us plebeians. Which is, I freely grant, just a convoluted and appropriated way of saying "You can't bring down the master's house with the master's tools".
There is no fixing a system that's lone function is to oppress by using mechanisms designed by the masters specifically to obfuscate the oppression.
(It's so clear and simple, I often feel like I've been banging my head on a wall to write about it. But then I have to remember that it took me a really fucking long time to see it and that others have probably felt like they had been banging their heads while I rah-rah the voting apparatus. So I owe some people apologies and some people some patience. I'm good at the first and bad at the last).
H/T to Blue Lyon.
So now internet scammers are working the disemployed
Ugh, I just got a response back to one of the resumes I sent out last week asking me to submit to a credit check through a seedy looking site. Actually everything about it looked seedy. But you can't check these things out before you email your resume when all you've got is an anonymous craigslist email.
I am creeped out because these people have my name, address and employment history already. Now they want to scam me out of my social security number and birthday. Fuckers. Not. Gonna. Happen. (actually I sent all the info to the WA state AG's office. Once upon a time this office used to do awesome things, but I have very low expectations of our second term Republifucker AG).
But this is all to be expected in an economy with the highest level of sustained unemployment since The Great Depression. It's also expected that the poor and desperate are most likely to be the targets of these scams. Rich people don't have to do things like log every employment contact and accept any job, no matter how awful, that comes along or suffer more consequences than being merely unemployed.
Ugh. People suck.
I am creeped out because these people have my name, address and employment history already. Now they want to scam me out of my social security number and birthday. Fuckers. Not. Gonna. Happen. (actually I sent all the info to the WA state AG's office. Once upon a time this office used to do awesome things, but I have very low expectations of our second term Republifucker AG).
But this is all to be expected in an economy with the highest level of sustained unemployment since The Great Depression. It's also expected that the poor and desperate are most likely to be the targets of these scams. Rich people don't have to do things like log every employment contact and accept any job, no matter how awful, that comes along or suffer more consequences than being merely unemployed.
Ugh. People suck.
Linkfarming cause Mama's got a sick bug
I'm all stuffy nosed and raspy voiced and not at all happy about it. So here's a lazy bloggers post. There will be lots of shit to piss you the fuck off in these links. Trigger warnings everywhere.
Scott Adams, creator of the super crappy Dilbert who has gotten himself in trouble before for writing some shitty stuff and then sock-puppeting to his own defense, now writes about how rape is one of mens' natural instincts. Does anyone remember that study that showed that rapists and/or wife beaters were more likely to think that all men acted like they did? I think Scott Adams may have just outed himself as a creepy rapist if those stats are true. How else do you explain a man who thinks rape is something all men want? (This is the tactic I think I will take with all rape apologists in the future. They have all ready told us who they are, we should give them the respect they deserve.
From (one of) the fauxgressives on my Facebook (ugh, why?) comes a link to this post about how a whiny, self-involved asswipe of a woman blames feminism, and not her abysmal taste in men and/or her own selfishness for making her a single, middle aged mother. Boo fucking hoo. I am also a single (almost) middle aged mother and feminism is one of the things that has kept me from going all Sylvia Plath, but perhaps that's because I don't think feminism means license to be a douchenoodle.
I'm not a big one for poetry, but White Women Laughed is amazing. Thank you Anishinaabekwe.
Dan over at Womanist Musings writes about minor incidents of stealing in order to get by while poor. Pearl-clutching ensues in comments. Let's all remember what I think about "common sense" and ask ourselves how starving is more sensible than eating while poor?
There is officially no branch of government fighting against the War on Women. Not the Legislative, not the Executive, and not the Judicial. I would suggest that the wives of the tacky men in their tacky blue suits (or polyester black robes) go all lysistrata. I all ready make it a policy not to sleep with men who hate women, or I'd go lysistrata too. (ETA fuck that link to Jezebel. Read this link at The Crow's Eye instead )
So peeps, since I am laid up all- gimme something good to read. Leave me a link in comments and I will love you forever.
Scott Adams, creator of the super crappy Dilbert who has gotten himself in trouble before for writing some shitty stuff and then sock-puppeting to his own defense, now writes about how rape is one of mens' natural instincts. Does anyone remember that study that showed that rapists and/or wife beaters were more likely to think that all men acted like they did? I think Scott Adams may have just outed himself as a creepy rapist if those stats are true. How else do you explain a man who thinks rape is something all men want? (This is the tactic I think I will take with all rape apologists in the future. They have all ready told us who they are, we should give them the respect they deserve.
From (one of) the fauxgressives on my Facebook (ugh, why?) comes a link to this post about how a whiny, self-involved asswipe of a woman blames feminism, and not her abysmal taste in men and/or her own selfishness for making her a single, middle aged mother. Boo fucking hoo. I am also a single (almost) middle aged mother and feminism is one of the things that has kept me from going all Sylvia Plath, but perhaps that's because I don't think feminism means license to be a douchenoodle.
I'm not a big one for poetry, but White Women Laughed is amazing. Thank you Anishinaabekwe.
Dan over at Womanist Musings writes about minor incidents of stealing in order to get by while poor. Pearl-clutching ensues in comments. Let's all remember what I think about "common sense" and ask ourselves how starving is more sensible than eating while poor?
There is officially no branch of government fighting against the War on Women. Not the Legislative, not the Executive, and not the Judicial. I would suggest that the wives of the tacky men in their tacky blue suits (or polyester black robes) go all lysistrata. I all ready make it a policy not to sleep with men who hate women, or I'd go lysistrata too. (ETA fuck that link to Jezebel. Read this link at The Crow's Eye instead )
So peeps, since I am laid up all- gimme something good to read. Leave me a link in comments and I will love you forever.
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