Saturday, March 15, 2008

Guest Post by Soopermouse

Why I don't like Barack Obama

1. I do not believe in a politician who doesn't have the courage to express an opinion. Voting "present" is the act of a coward. Voting "present" on the issue whether 15 year old black kids should be tried as adults is COWARDICE.

2. The fact that he was conveniently not available to vote on Kyl Liebermann. However, what some people forget, he co sponsored "The Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007." which states:

“(14) the United States should designate the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which purveys terrorism throughout the Middle East and plays an important role in the Iranian economy, as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of specially designated global terrorists, and place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and their supporters; “
This didn’t pass. However, does it mean that he should be given a free pass because of it?

I don’t think so. However, in light of Barack Obama’s track record on missing on important votes, I have to wonder whether he intentionally missed the Kyl Liebermann vote. It is very easy to criticise those with the c ourage to stand up and be counted when you don’t do it yourself.

It might be interesting to remember that Barack Obama’s link to Liebermann is long and well documented. If he would have been in the Senate that day, would he have voted against his friend and mentor’s measure?

This question has to be asked, because you can’t miss on votes when you are president. If the Democrats do not ask these questions, the Republicans will.

3. The pandering to the homophobes- see SC tour. This is in my opinion a severe issue for the LGBT community. Or at least it should be. There is no good reason why a candidate who pretends to be on our side should give a stage to someone who regards us as liars and dangerous, to someone who wants to destroy us.

I have heard people telling me that he is trying to unite the black community by appealing to both the LGBT community and the homophobes, but I cannot buy it. I have heard an explanation that might apply to this situation, but I am not sure if I can accept it, namely that , since he is heterosexual, he doesn’t have the experience that the rest of us have had with the homophobes, and thus he believes that a common ground could be achieved.

The problem with that however is that I have problems believing that Barack Obama is stupid. I do not think that he was unaware of the implications of his action, the fact that he did not appear on the same stage with McClurkin speaks volumes. However, he did not drop McClurkin either.

So my question is: in his quest for each and every vote, is Barack Obama taking the LGBT votes for granted? Yes, I know that he has made a discourse supporting LGBT since. Still, the fact that, although he had been warned repeatedly that such an action was extremely offensive

So what does this tell me?

It tells me that barrack Obama wants both the votes of the LGBT community AND the votes of the homophobes. And that he is willing to compromise with our interests to get both. Even if it is disrespectful to us, that doesn’t seem too important since we don’t have anywhere else to go. It’s not like anyone but the most misguided ones would vote for McCain. So in the general , the LGBT votes would have to go to him, because where else would they go?

You don’t have to appease those who are sure of. And that brings me to another question:

Barrack Obama needs the votes of the LGBT community now. If he cannot be bothered to respect us, my brothers and sisters, now when he needs us, do you think he would respect us when he doesn’t need our votes anymore?

4. The fact that he complains about lobbyists while having one in his NH campaign as co-chair, namely Jim Demers, a lobbyist for drug company interests in NH.
This one speaks for itself, and it is called hypocrisy. It might not bother others, and I am sure the “Hillary is worse” cries will erupt like volcanoes, however I believe that a politician who is running on a “change” platform should start the change with himself.

There is also another issue that ties into this, namely the healthcare plan issue. According to him, the HMOs and big Pharma should be trusted to lower the prices for healthcare on their own accord. Anyone with an understanding of capitalism and big corporations can understand why this is an extremely unreasonable expectation. Corporations will never cut into their own bottomline without being forced to do so. That is the whole foundation of capitalism.

5. The fact that while he continuously talking about “Change” he constantly failed to explain what he wants to change.

This is important. “Change” is a very powerful word, but not all changes are good. GW Bush brought change upon the USA, but that was not a good change, was it?

There is nobody with 2 neurons to run together that would not agree that the USA NEEDS change. However, what does Barack Obama plan to change?

Does he plan to change the faulty US political system, the dual party system that hurts democracy? Does he plan to change the electoral college?

The ruling hand corporations have over his country? The wage slavery?

All of these are things that need to change. All of these are things that have to change.

But stating that you want to change one particular thing is a commitment. You can be held accountable for not keeping a campaign promise. But if you don’t say what exactly you want to change, nobody can hold you accountable for breaking a promise, and everyone can project their hopes onto you. They all can interpret your words as saying what they want you to say.

They can invest you with the mantle of the knight in the shining armor, and , what is more important, you don’t have to do anything about it.

6. Voted for Dick Cheney's energy plan.

In my personal opinion, this in one of those unexplainable and unpardonable things that make me look at Barack Obama with squinted eyes and a grimace on my face.

The energy plan is nothing short of evil and corporate pork, so why, oh why would a candidate who is running for “change” would vote for it?

7. Voted for all the spending bills for the Iraq war despite claiming to be against said war. Exactly the same votes as Hillary ( with one exception, Hillary was against confirming General Casey, the former Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq, to be Army Chief of Staff).

Yes, I have heard about how he voted for all the funding bills in order to “support the troops”, but… that is not the vote of someone who opposes the war. Everybody and their mothers knew the money was about the big fees for Haliburton, Blackwater etc. Those money were not for the soldiers.

Also, here are a couple of declarations of Barack Obama regarding the war. First in July 2004:

“I’m not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don’t know”

And

“There’s not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush’s position at this stage.”

There is also the issue of Barack Obama smacking down the Kerry proposal to withdraw the troops from Iraq in 2006.

“... .. For all these reasons, I would like nothing more than to support the Kerry Amendment; to bring our brave troops home on a date certain, and spare the American people more pain, suffering and sorrow.

But having visited Iraq, I'm also acutely aware that a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, driven by Congressional edict rather than the realities on the ground, will not undo the mistakes made by this Administration. It could compound them.

It could compound them by plunging Iraq into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis.

We must exit Iraq, but not in a way that leaves behind a security vacuum filled with terrorism, chaos, ethnic cleansing and genocide that could engulf large swaths of the Middle East and endanger America. We have both moral and national security reasons to manage our exit in a responsible way.

I share many of the goals set forth in the Kerry Amendment. We should send a clear message to the Iraqis that we won't be there forever, and that by next year our primary role should be to conduct counter-insurgency actions, train Iraqi security forces, and provide needed logistical support.”

Beyond Chron has a better tally of Obama’s contradictory declarations here

“First, he opposed the war in Iraq while in the Illinois state legislature. Once he was running for US Senate though, when public opinion and support for the war was at its highest, he was quoted in the July 27, 2004 Chicago Tribune as saying, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who’s in a position to execute.” The Tribune went on to say that Obama, “now believes US forces must remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation – a policy not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration.”
Obama’s campaign says he was referring to the ongoing occupation and how best to stabilize the region. But why wouldn’t he have taken the opportunity to urge withdrawal if he truly opposed the war? Was he trying to signal to conservative voters that he would subjugate his anti-war position if elected to the US Senate and perhaps support a lengthy occupation? Well as it turns out, he’s done just that.

Since taking office in January 2005 he has voted to approve every war appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion. He also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her complicity in the Bush Administration’s various false justifications for going to war in Iraq. Why would he vote to make one of the architects of “Operation Iraqi Liberation” the head of US foreign policy? Curiously, he lacked the courage of 13 of his colleagues who voted against her confirmation.”

Furthermore:

“Recently, with anti-war sentiment on the rise, Obama declared he will get our combat troops out of Iraq in 2009. But Obama isn’t actually saying he wants to get all of our troops out of Iraq. At a September 2007 debate before the New Hampshire primary, moderated by Tim Russert, Obama refused to commit to getting our troops out of Iraq by January 2013 and, on the campaign trail, he has repeatedly stated his desire to add 100,000 combat troops to the military.

At the same event, Obama committed to keeping enough soldiers in Iraq to “carry out our counter-terrorism activities there” which includes “striking at al Qaeda in Iraq.” What he didn’t say is this continued warfare will require an estimated 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq according to a May 2006 report prepared by the Center for American Progress. Moreover, it appears he intends to “redeploy” the troops he takes out of the unpopular war in Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. So it appears that under Obama’s plan the US will remain heavily engaged in war.”
This is not the position of an anti war candidate. Pardon the wonkish me, but this is not in any way consistent. This is however someone who seems to want to garner all possible votes, and consistency be damned.

How could I trust him?

8. Skipped the MoveOn.org vote

Do I need to explain this further? I don’t think so.

9. Refused to vote ( aka voted “present”) on a law that required children to be taught respect for others in schools.

“Mr. Obama was also the sole present vote on a bill that easily passed the Senate that would require teaching respect for others in schools. He also voted present on a measure to prohibit sex-related shops from opening near schools or places of worship. It passed the Senate.”

Why would anyone in his right mind abstain from voting on such a common sense measure?

However, senator Obama did not vote “present” on the re authorization of the Patriot Act. He approved of it. Go figure.

10. As a president of a Senate subcommittee who deals with the relations with the European Union, senator Obama did not even hold one hearing in said subcommittee. This is a serious issue for those of us who are looking at the US’ standing in the world. The two possible explanations for that would be that either he isn’t interested in relations with the European Union, which is an unbelievably daft thing to do for any US politician, or just he didn’t have the time to do so, since he spent most of his term campaigning.

Neither of these motivations bode well. In the first case, one could be wondering whether he took that position to pad his resume only. In the second case, if we corroborate this little occurrence or lack thereof with the fact that senator Obama has the 4th highest record of absenteeism in the Senate, it’s starting to look like the citizens of Illinois who sent him to the Senate were a little bit defrauded since the candidate sent to look after their interests is a lot more interested in running for president than representing their interests. Should the US Senate be a corporation de jure as it is de facto, Barack Obama would have been fired a long time ago for fraud, as in “getting paid for work he didn’t do”.

This list initially stopped here. However, more facts coming to surface have forced me to expand it.

11. Nefarious connections with Nuclear Industry lobbyists and lying to voters.

While campaigning in Iowa in December 2007, senator Obama claimed that he had passed a Senate Bill requiring nuclear leaks to be reported immediately. The truth however is a bit different:

“The truth, however, was that Obama allowed the bill to be amended in Committee by Senate Republicans, replacing language mandating reporting with verbiage that merely offered guidance to regulators on how to address unreported leaks. The story noted that even this version of Obama’s bill failed to pass the Senate, so it was unclear why Obama was claiming to have passed the legislation. The February 3, 2008 The New York Times article titled “Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate” by Mike McIntire also noted the opinion of one of Obama’s constituents, which was hardly enthusiastic about Obama’s legislative efforts:"Senator Obama's staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft," said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. "The teeth were just taken out of it."

As it turns out, the New York Times story noted: “Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.”

On short, Senator Obama made sure that the interests of his fundraisers were protected. In the process, he lied to the Iowa citizens about it.

However, tied with his vote on Cheney’s Energy Bill, we do get an image of a corporate owned senator who is running on a platform of lies and air.

12. On September 29th 2006, Barack Obama voted on building 700 miles of double fence at the border with Mexico. When campaigning in Texas for the latino vote, he stated that he would “employ a different border solution”. It doesn’t seem to have worked for him though.

13. Barack Obama is pro death penalty.

This, correlated with his vote to have teenagers trialed as adults, tells me that he is not even remotely a progressive, nor is he a compassionate person.

14. Barack Obama opposed impeachment of G W Bush (“Obama: Impeachment is not acceptable,” USA Today, June 28, 2007)

Impardonable on all counts.

I am really sorry people, but these are not the deeds of a progressive candidate. They are however the actions of a ruthless politician who wants to win at all costs.

The main issue however, from a feminist’s POV, is the fact that his campaign has been consistently sexist. The sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton appear to be not isolated incidents, but a pattern of thinking that regards women not as half of the human species, as full human beings with equal rights and obligations, but yet another special interests group to be pliated with promises, but not actually listened to and respected. And now it appears that we are taken for granted, because no woman in her right mind would vote for Mc Cain. The spectre of Roe being overturned should keep all women voting Democrat, so there is no need for them to be placated anymore, is there?

Again, if during the campaign when he actually needs our votes, Obama is willing to throw us under the bus, what will happen when he doesn’t need women’s votes anymore?

What can happen? Obama’s website tells us that he believes that women should have “some” control over their bodies. That scares the hell out of me, because some is not “full”. “Some control” is double speech for “no control”. Either you have control of your body, or you don’t.

I do not have a problem with anyone who chooses to vote for Barack Obama based on his issues and his track record. I do however have a problem with those who cast a vote for the feel good candidate that will make everything better by his mere existence.

When someone tells you one thing and all of his actions go in the opposite directions, would you trust that person? Would he be your friend in real life? If your work colleague would tell you how hard of a worker he is, but you would be confronted every day with evidence of his laziness … would you still believe them?

When your friend tells you that he wants A but everything he has done is in support of the opposite of A, will he still be your friend?

He won’t. You’d probably call these people on their dishonesty and at least attempt to remove them from your life. So why would you give a political candidate more leniency?

I know that for a lot of people, a lot of young people, experience is a bad word. I know that experience doesn’t matter for those who don’t have it. It might also be the word used to give the job to someone older than you, although you felt that you were the better candidate, but they have this nasty experience thing.

Unfortunately, experience IS necessary. Actions speak louder than words, and this is a truth that seems to be missing from this campaign.

Words are cheap. Anyone can say those same exact words. But when one’s actions contradict those words, then you should beware.

Quit with the slut shaming already


Dear People:

Eliot Spitzer had sex with a prostitute. Whoop de doo. I have just heard her called "The most notorious bad girl in the country" and "a mysterious jezebel" in the last 3 minutes on the teeeveee. Then they have to bring out a "duped" ex boyfriend who had no idea how is girlfriend was paying for her studio in NYC.

She really didn't do anything wrong. He did. She wasn't being a hypocrite by prosecuting women for prostitution by day while paying for prostitutes at night, he was.

It is neither the girl's or the wife's fault that Spitzer is a lying fuckwad. That is totally on Spitzer. Go call him an ass on the teevee.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Ear Candy- All Nostalgia All the Time

Since I named this running series over at Random Babble, I have no problem shamelessly liberating it. Besides it's Friday. And in one week and one day- I'm leaving on a jet plane!

Since I am getting old, I'm doing songs that got me through high school. Rawk on peeps! Rawk on!


Since Erasure was so popular at Christmas, here's Oh L'amor



My favorite Cure song ever (OMG Robert Smith was so young and Hot Hot Hot!)



Concrete Blond- Someday. Johnette Napolitano was my first ever girl crush and I can almost sing this song in key. That is a major accomplishment.



And because it came up last night- Alphaville Forever Young. This was the theme song from prom my freshman year. The prom theme was young and innocent, which was funny cause we had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country at the time. That I waited until I was almost 10 to have a baby is the equivalent of having waited until I was 40 in any other community.edited to add DEAR GAWD WOMAN- read your stuff before you post! That was supposed to say waited until I was 20- NOT 10. How fucked up would that be? (The song is actually about nuclear holocaust, but why would we let actual meaning get in our way)



Depeche Mode- Master and Servant. I was insanely jealous because one of my good friend's older sister got to hang out in a hot tub with these guys.


Cake!

This is the Monkey's Lemon Lime birthday cake. I had no idea how I was going to decorate it until I snipped the end off a ziplock and decided to do spirals all over.

The thin greenish lines that seem to criss cross it say "Happy Birthday" (the pic is upside down-, there now you can see it. It's like op art. ). I didn't trust my ziplock cake decorating skills for lettering, so I bought a tube of green gel icing. It didn't work out so well. So this is the world's ugliest cake, but it sure was tasty.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Pot, Kettle, Kettle, Pot

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor thinks that Hillary "ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted".

Seriously, she's the better politician, lawyer and wonk, yet her husband was Governor and President long before she even got to start her own political career. And even before she was a politician she spent 8 years being the target of more Republican mud slinging than any first lady in history and still managed to walk out of there without a trace of dirt on her. Pastor Wright, she has worked not just twice as hard but she dealt with being slandered as a murder. Please pull your head out of your ass now, thank you.

But where is the outrage about how Obama is being tolerant of sexism because he has not come out with a strong and harshly worded condemnation of his pastors comments? Where are the news outlets that buzz whenever the word black comes out of the mouth of anyone who has ever met Hillary? I am pretty sure that Hillary could say "I'm not a fan of black coffee" and have it turned into a big ordeal about how "black coffee" is code for black people.

If Ferraro's comments were so atrocious that Hillary had to condem them and Ferraro had to leave the campaign, shouldn't Barak's pastor have to do the same thing? I mean, he basically is saying that Hillary has it easier cause she's a woman?

I am so incredibly tired of sexism being okay with the general public that I am thinking we should declare women to be our own separate, mixed race so that next time someone says something like "women are bad drivers" we can call the racist and have them shamed in the national media.

OMG! Get the valium!

I am officially the mother of a teenager. How the fuckity fuck did that happen? Who said he was allowed to get older?

But most importantly- does this make me old? (Cause children's birthdays are all about the parents, natch) I'm about to have my 30th birthday (for the 4th time) I only kinda feel old. And I kinda feel not old.

Remember what I said about prostitution

From Pandagon:

In contrast, Sweden experimented in 1999 with a radically different approach that many now regard as much more successful: it decriminalized the sale of sex but made it a crime to buy sex. In effect, the policy was to arrest customers, but not the prostitutes.

Some Swedish prostitutes have complained that the policy reduced demand and thus lowered prices, while forcing sex work underground. But the evidence is strong that the new approach reduced trafficking in Sweden, and opinion polls show that Swedes regard the experiment as a considerable success. And the bottom line is that if you want to rape a 13-year-old girl imported from Eastern Europe, you’ll have a much easier time in Amsterdam than in Stockholm.

Emphasis mine.

I love it when I'm right. I mean I'm right fairly often, but when there is evidence to back me up, I'm very happy. You should know that a lot of the time- I'm just pulling shit out of my ass when I rant here. It's not uninformed shit, but it is just off the top of my head most days.



Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Blogroll please.............

I just added Blue Lyon and Girl Detective to the blogroll. I feel like I am forgetting someone. Am I forgetting someone? My brain feels stuffed full of fluff. If I forgot you, yell at me in comments.

You know it's a bad night when....

I'm mad at Keith Olbermann & Glenn Beck is making sense.

Dear Fuckwad:

Your attentions are unwanted.

Yes, I saw you when you pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and did the creepy look up thing at me. I ignored you. I'm not interested. I am simply waiting for a cab with a cart full of groceries and my child at the end of a long ass day. I am not here for your visual pleasure.

So the cab took a really really long time, as they do in this neighborhood. But finally I see it pulling into the parking lot just as you, Dear Fuckwad, decide that harassing a woman with a child from your car is a good idea. So you flip a uey and CUT MY CAB OFF so you can pull up and "hey baby"-ing me. When I flip you off, you can't understand why.

So I tell you. I'm not interested. I'm with my kid. AND YOUR BLOCKING MY CAB YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.

To which you reply with a "You stuck up white bitch". You don't move until the cab driver gets out of his cab to come tell you to fuck off.

Dear Fuckwad, next time I see your stupid black car at the grocery store I'm gonna key it and puncture your tires. That's how we stuck up white bitchez roll.

Sincerely,
ElizaBITCH

Is it racist

to talk about how race affects things? Actually I think it's fine to talk about how race impacts people in a negative way, but what if you're talking about how someone of an oppressed race might be benefiting from it?

What I'm getting at is that I think Ferraro had a point. I think that if Obama were just another white guy, this would be an entirely different campaign. I think that because Obama is black it gives a lot of people (particularly white men) a way of not looking like a privileged asswipe while still maintaining privilege over women. See, they can say they are all progressive and stuff- They're supporting the Black Guy!

But here's the thing. For months people (okay, privileged white guys) have been bitching about how Hillary has an edge with women. But we don't call that sexist when they point it out. Hillary, a woman and therefor also from a traditionally oppressed class gets harangued pretty often for her middle aged lady support (If it weren't for old ladies- Hillary wouldn't be in the race kind of stuff).

So why is it racist to point out that being Black is helping Obama, but not sexist to point out that having a vagina is helping Clinton?

The trouble with men- a satire

This year's election may be historical for electing the first man to the top job in the government, and some would say the world, should Mr. Obama succeed in winning the Democratic nomination and then the presidency.

Mr. Obama is not the first man to aspire to that office. We cannot forget the disaster that was John Kennedy's attempt, the first by any man, to be president. He was famously brought down when he uttered the infamous line "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". While I'm sure Mr. Kennedy had meant for his words to be taken as a call to action for the American people, what we saw was another man trying to put off the hard work of a job onto his subordinates. That is what the public saw, and Mr. Kennedy crashed and burned as Ms. Nixon was elected to office.

Today the news shows are buzzing with Gerard Ferraro's recent comments. Ferraro, you will recall, was Ms. Mondale's running mate in the 1984 election and the first male on a major ticket since the Kennedy debacle. Mr. Ferraro had said that if Mr. Obama was Ms., his campaign would never have gotten this far. On ABC this morning, he tried to clarify his remarks.

"I was talking about historic candidacies and what I started off by saying (was that) if you go back to 1984 and look at my historic candidacy, which I had just talked about all these things, in 1984 if my name was Geraldine Ferraro instead of Gerard Ferraro, I would have never been chosen as a vice presidential candidate, it had nothing to do with my qualification."
The Obama camp has been defending itself from what it calls "sexist" attacks, though to many it looks like the same old victimology that we often see from menenist groups. While Mr. Kennedy was certainly not the first menenist, his campaign is credited with being the start of the "all men are victims" ideology. Mr. Obama seems to be playing that aspect to the hilt. One day he is crying on camera, the next he is whining about fairness.

I'm not a sexist, I just don't think that Obama is the right man to be the first male president. He is inexperienced and I am not sure that we want someone with that kind of emotional distance to be in charge of the red button. Do we really want a president who won't think about the children in times of crisis? Do we really want a president who might be too distracted by sports playoffs to handle the business of our country? Mr. Obama has displayed some of the worst traits of his kind, from whining about fairness to being cold and dispassionate as a speaker, and getting tripped up on the meanings of words while claiming all the time that words matter. Do we really want someone with lacking verbal skills to be in charge of diplomacy for us? And let's not forget his children, who have been left at home in Chicago while he galavants around the country. Can we trust a man who cares so little for his own children to care for all the children of America?

Some say that our dislike of Obama is because of his gender. They have said that those of us who would cross party lines to vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination are traitors to the Democratic party and mired in misandry.

On this, I am going to have to agree with Charles Allen's recent editorial in the Washington Post, men are a bit dim. The get obsessive about sports teams and fast engines, and are swooning for Obama like teenage boys at a LadyBugs concert. For Obama, he might do better to stick with the things men are naturally good at, like home maintenance and yard work and he might want to get back to his own kids in Chicago. He just doesn't have the experience or the temperament to be president. He is not the right woman for the job.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Keith, I'm Leaving You

I tried to ignore the "keeping tabs" segment of your show, wherein you and the odious Michael Musto indulge some creepy middle-aged guy compulsion to pick on Britney, Paris, and Lindsay for the imagined offense of being young, female, and visible.

I grimaced when you bent over backwards to kiss David Schuster's ass while supposedly apologizing to Chelsea Clinton and her entire family for his obnoxious remarks.

Because I thought you were a journalist. One of the rare few in the mainstream media that would say outright "George W Bush is a criminal."

So imagine my dismay that you can't even pause your personal segment of the MSNBC kingmaking spin machine to observe that over the weekend Pres. Bush vetoed legislation that would have barred the CIA from using waterboarding and other means of torture ?

Not that Bush's actions suprise me, but your silence certainly does.

the love affair with your own reflection is getting old Mr O'Reil-- oops, Obam-- oops. Olbermann.

Prostitution Sucks

I have a hard time with sex work and porn. The social libertarian in me says people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies, even sell it. But it isn't that simple.

Sex work and modeling are the only two professions where women consistently make more money than men. And that is where it gets complicated.

I've been offered substantial amounts of money to do porn. I have only ever considered doing it when I was broke as hell and wasn't sure if we were going to lose our home, etc. That is how it works for a lot of women (not all, yes some choose to do it happily and others don't choose to do it all but are forced into it). In the end, I've always turned it down because while I might not leave my day job for a million dollars, porn is one of those things that I wouldn't do if I had an extra $500, hell even $200. It is a job of desperation. It is physically much riskier than almost any other job. There is disease and violence. There are the mental health issues (most drug addicted prostitutes become that way after- not before they start working). Without the combination of a big payoff AND serious desperation, there is no incentive to do it.

But does that mean prostitution should be illegal?

No.

Right now the majority of people who get arrested for prostitution are prostitutes. Not Johns, not pimps. We have to stop punishing the victims of sex work and it starts by decriminalizing what they do to survive. When prostitution is legal (and not in the Nevada brothel rape houses kind of way, but simply not something you can be arrested for) then the price tends to go down, making it less rewarding for the girls and giving them more incentive to get out. Then we can concentrate on doing things like busting human traffickers.

So all this is on my mind because of the Elliot Spitzer case, of course. He's not my governor, but had it merely been a case of him getting some action on the side, I don't think it's a big deal. But he wanted the woman to do something risky. General consensus is that he wanted to have sex without a condom. For a guy with a wife visiting a prostitute, that's pretty low down. You're not just risking yourself, but two other people. One who needs the money from you and may have to put herself in danger to pay rent, the other who is a probably unsuspecting wife. NOT COOL.

But none of this fixes the most basic problem, the reason why the only 2 jobs where women make more money than men are jobs where they sell their bodies. Women are not fuckholes, they are human beings. Until we are treated as human by all of society, then we will continue to be looked at first and foremost as fuckable or not fuckable before anything else about is acknowledged.

I hate French President Sarkozy

He is pretty much the European version of Guliani, but......

I have a massive girl crush on his new wife, Carla Bruni. She's got the same problems with monotony, I mean monogamy that I do.

After Sarkozy's very public break up with his ex-wife, who had been cheating on him for years, and with his new wife who would rather be poly, I am starting to think the little man has a wee bit of a cuckold fetish. I can fault him for a lot of things, but that is not one of them.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The great debate demystified.

It is "Hear hear", not "Here, here".

The more you know peeps. The more you know.

And I'll be damned, I've heard the Stephin Merritt gum commercial 3 times in the last hour.

RQ bitchez about music sellouts even though she knows she shouldn't

I was mortified awhile back to hear a bastardized version of an Of Montreal song as the new Outback Steakhouse jingle. I don't have a problem with artists letting their music be used in commercials per se because well, I like downloading free music and musicians need to pay the bill somehow. Better to make scary corporations pay than make both artists and music buyers subject to the evils of the price fixing RIAA.



But................

Changing a song, or writing a straight up cheesy jingle makes my ears hurt. Even though it shouldn't. I know it shouldn't. But it hurts me (and not just because I've been trying to wear earrings in my tender little earlobes for the last 24 hours)

So I keep seeing this ad for gum.



And the voice, the musical phrasing, the piano- it can't be Stephin Merrit of the Magnetic Fields? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Not my favorite go to angry gay for break up songs (I don't believe you being one of my favorites).

So kids, how do you feel about hearing your favorite bands music in commercials? Does it make you sad? Does it make you dislike the band for being sell-outs? Does it make you maybe a wee bit smug cause you recognize a song or singer that no one else would? (I have to admit to having that feeling on a few occasions, like when the awesomely beautiful Adrien Brody did a Diet Coke commercial to the Lyrics Born song Callin' Out)

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Society hates you

It's obvious to us girls, and has been for a long time, that society hates us. We are told we are to dumb to be in charge of anything important, so we might as well stay home and have babies. We are told we are too shallow for caring about our appearance, but then we risk losing jobs, money and social status if we don't play the beauty game. We are kill joys if we are smart and bimbos if we are not. We are empty vessels, but we are in charge of making sure none but the right kind of man fill us up.

But society hates you boys too. I know, you get a lot of privileges from this society, but you have to be willing to be stereotyped as an asshole. If we went by what society tells us a man is, then you are all sex crazed mad men who can't think of anything but pussy when a woman is around. You are stupid, lazy buffoons when it comes to children or houses or even dressing yourself, yet you're supposed to shoulder all of the economic burden on a family despite this. You are an emotionless machine except for anger and lust. You can't put a sentence together to save your life because of your paltry verbal skills. If left to your own devices, you and all the other men would spend your days in brutal fighting competitions over fertile females. You don't really care about children, but you do get to own them. You can't be trusted with food processors or ovens, but you can be trusted with firearms and barbques. Your taste buds only register red meat and beer. You can engineer a vacuum but you can't use one. You don't parent your own children, you babysit them. You cannot be trusted not to cheat on your partner.

Feminists don't hate men. We hate that you have been as stupidly stereotyped as we have.

OCD packer strikes again

SO after much laundry doing and outfit changing, I have finally come up with the perfect 8 outfits for Paris that will all fit into my backpack. The bad news is, there is no possible way for me to later stuff a couple of bottles of wine in there too. So I am taking a really ugly but checkable tote bag on the plane with me that will hold laundry later so that wine can be imported. Yay wine.

I also figured out which purse to take with me. I have two awesome travel purses. One is a dark red beaded hobo I got as a Hong Kong import special. For years I was the only person around with this bag and got lots of comments, but lately I keep seeing the same bag in green. The other is a pink, brown, red, green, black handmade bag covered in roses that I got in Mexico. It is really gorgeous and has awesome pockets, but it is too much for this trip. The good news is that my red hobo has been to Europe before, so it's been road tested.

I'm also trying to wear earrings. I made a pair of lever backs out of a set of vintage rhinestone clipons. They are very simple, chic and not able to fall out of my ears. The problem is that my ears don't like earrings. I have spent the last 24 hours way too conscious of my ear lobes. They hurt and I keep rubbing neosporin with pain reliever on them. But i want to wear earrings, I look cute in earrings. What is the good of having pierced ears if you can't use them? Besides, I did not suffer through the torment of an at home ear piercing with a safety pin and a potato at 15 just to not be able to wear earrings now.

Any piercing freaks out there? How long must one suffer through aches lobes before the nerve endings give up the ghost?