Show Them Your Brain

Good advice from Ellen’s ‘common cement’ speech at Tulane:

Life is like one big Mardi Gras

But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain

And if they like what they see, youll have more beads than you know what to do with

 

Violence Against Women Overload

It can all be quite overwhelming sometimes.

I woke up to this: a reminder that some people have a very different definition than I do of “life,” and skewed ideas about who decides whose lives are worth saving.

Then I stumbled upon this discussion of the sexual assault in the Watchmen and the general narrative of a rape victim falling in love with her rapist. Apparently, some people laughed at the rape scene in this movie. I worry that some of those people that laughed may live near me, or may even be people I know. I also worry what message this movie sends to young people, especially boys, about sex.

I not only found the scene not funny, but felt that it was rather explicit rape apologia and victim-blaming. Dr. Manhattan was evidently violating Laurie’s trust and expressed wishes in a sexual context, and then justified his actions by pointing to her alleged failure.

Last night at dinner, the waiter joked with my friend that if she wasn’t careful, he might have to Chris Brown her. Because punching your girlfriend in the face until her mouth fills with blood is hilarious. Yet the discourse surrounding that incident managed to allude to the fact that Rihanna was at least somewhat to blame as well.

Then I just came across this article, discussing how we’re still blaming women for the violence perpetrated against them.

The findings of the poll, conducted for the Home Office, also disclosed about a quarter of people believe that wearing sexy or revealing clothing should lead to a woman being held partly responsible for being raped or sexually assaulted.

Several reminders of why International Women’s Day is important, Obama’s new post for international women’s issues is necessary, and how far we have to go.

 

Californians’ Lives Not a Joke

Most of the time I hear Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice, I change the station. It irks me how he always seems to be joking about things I do not find funny. It’s a trait George W. possessed as well. I think it betrays their inability to discuss the situation at hand intelligently, like the class clown who acted out because he couldn’t read.

Californians are suffering. The budget has been hung up for months, over what increasingly looks like Republicans’ failed ideological stance against raising taxes. They even ousted their leader last night, during their budget nightmare sleepover that failed to reach an agreement. Due to the lack of one Republican vote, 20,000 people are getting pink slips in our state. Those are real people who probably would have chosen to pay a few more cents on the dollar in taxes to losing their jobs and their abilities to support their families.

 

McCain Gets Barack Rolled

 

The Stupid Party

Check out Paul Krugman’s op-ed in the New York Times about how the GOP has morphed from being the “party of ideas” to the party of…

stupid.

He said it. It’s not that Republicans are dumb…

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

How else can we explain John McCain shouting “drill here, drill now” from the stage of a bikers and bikinis festival, after offering his wife up to a topless beauty pageant? The scary part about all this is that it’s working.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

Question the lack of logic in the “drill here, drill now” policy, or even dare to counter it with facts, and they’ll call you names.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats.

So, I hate to sound like an elitist or a wimp, but I’ll risk it in the face of chest-thumping, name-calling stupidity. There is nothing weak about thinking things through. Listening to a wide variety of opinions before taking action on an issue does not make someone less macho or more feminine. If we continue to paint measured, intelligent choices as pathetic options which are below us, we will be stuck with immature, increasingly misogynist, policies and leaders.

UPDATE: For a comical look on how the punditry is setting the bar increasingly low, check out this link.

 

Obama Supports Equal Pay

Obama is campaigning with Hillary Clinton tonight, reminding women that he supports equal pay. That’s an issue he should continue to press, considering John McCain didn’t bother to show up for the vote on the Equal Pay Act. McCain claims that women need more education and training, not equal pay, and insists he would have voted against the Act because he believes it would encourage frivolous lawsuits.

A young woman challenged McCain on the issue when he tried to put her on the spot.  He later laughed about equality for women on the Daily Show.

 

Great Spelling Bee Moment

What’d you call me?