The Honorable Samantha Grace sent me birthday flowers in a matter of hours.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
another reason women are bitches
Apparently some women won't vote for a male candidate if they don't like his wife. The fact that women WHO AREN'T EVEN RUNNING FOR THE OFFICE IN QUESTION have to endure such scrutiny and measure up to unrealistic standards and hyprocrisy is just vile. A new series in Slate covers the "state of the unions" of presidential candidates.
This may be the most vomit inducing thing I have read this week:
Way to uphold the patriarchy, ya cunt.
This may be the most vomit inducing thing I have read this week:
Do presidential unions matter? Voters think they do. A recent survey found that fully one-third of women voters not only take the happiness of a presidential candidate's marriage into account, but cite it as a significant factor in their decision. In 2004, I argued against the notion that Teresa Heinz Kerry had hurt her husband's chances, but I was wrong. In interviews across the country for my book about what women really want in a president, I heard her perceived snootiness cited more often than I would ever have believed possible as the deciding factor against John Kerry. What these women didn't like about his wife reflected and intensified their reservations about the candidate himself. Just a few weeks after the election, a public health nurse in Illinois put it like this: "I'm a registered Democrat and I'm not for being in Iraq, but I'll tell you what, I voted for Bush. I don't know that Bush is totally truthful, and he's not the smartest person in the world. But Kerry, I really didn't like his wife, and that influenced me. She has a smart mouth and doesn't control it.''
Way to uphold the patriarchy, ya cunt.
A Very Moxie Birthday
Along with Phil Collins and Dick Cheney, marilynjean is celebrating a birthday today. Yeah, bitches. Here are pics from the birthday cake delivered last night by the G-o-d rents.
$400 haircuts aside
I'm really going to miss Edwards. I voted for him in the 2004 primary, and I was secretly thinking about doing it again. I thought he was "The Sleeper" of 2008. When you really look at it, he has done more and kept it more real. And it pisses me off to see him lose SC - his own fucking home state to a guy who sails on starlight and dreamdust.
I hope the Dem frontrunner entertains VP interest in him. I think a Obama/Edwards ticket would be the one to beat, actually. Attorney General Edwards doesn't sound so bad either....
I hope the Dem frontrunner entertains VP interest in him. I think a Obama/Edwards ticket would be the one to beat, actually. Attorney General Edwards doesn't sound so bad either....
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Quote of the Week (and it's only Tuesday)
"While it’s true that hope has always been the predicate for Black resistance, I’m deeply skeptical of the idea that an Obama victory represents resistance to anything except a legitimate Left-wing movement. Unlike slave revolts, where Black people used faith and hope to animate their escape from oppressive circumstances, the Obama campaign merely represents the opportunity to elect a Black man as boss of the plantation. "
~Marc Lamont Hill, Assistant Professor of Urban Education and American Studies - Temple University
~Marc Lamont Hill, Assistant Professor of Urban Education and American Studies - Temple University
Call me when Jesus decides on an endorsement
Endorsements are a strange thing. Consider this week's latest endorsements of Barama by Ted Kennedy and Toni Morrison.
I love Ted Kennedy, but he is a drunk bastard. Not to mention that if Barama mentions JFK one more time in a speech, he's likely to get assassinated in Dallas, TX. (Besides, why has Teddy avoided the Kennedy curse?)
But what really gets me is Ms. Morrison's endorsement. This woman, who famously labeled Bill Clinton as the "first Black President" has the audacity to make her opinion known once again with Barama. I lost a lot of respect for her because all of the things that she said made Clinton "Black" are often times considered derogatory and undesirable:
Yeah, because that's how I want mainstream culture to see Blacks. Barama couldn't be farther from the above description, yet she thinks he is the Great White Hope.
so. over. it.
I love Ted Kennedy, but he is a drunk bastard. Not to mention that if Barama mentions JFK one more time in a speech, he's likely to get assassinated in Dallas, TX. (Besides, why has Teddy avoided the Kennedy curse?)
But what really gets me is Ms. Morrison's endorsement. This woman, who famously labeled Bill Clinton as the "first Black President" has the audacity to make her opinion known once again with Barama. I lost a lot of respect for her because all of the things that she said made Clinton "Black" are often times considered derogatory and undesirable:
In 1998, Morrison wrote a column for the New Yorker magazine in which she wrote of Bill Clinton: "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."
Yeah, because that's how I want mainstream culture to see Blacks. Barama couldn't be farther from the above description, yet she thinks he is the Great White Hope.
so. over. it.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Suicide is so muy caliente now
Crying Out For Help
Suicide Attempts Reveal Strains on Young Latinas
By Laura Sessions SteppWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 22, 2008; HE01
The second time Michelle, 16, swallowed sleeping pills, she collapsed on the living room floor.
It was late at night, and her mom, Maribel, jumped up from her chair, managed to pick up her skinny, 5-foot-10-inch eldest daughter, slapped her a couple of times hoping to bring her back to consciousness, and let go. Michelle fell down again and her eyes rolled back.
Maribel, who's from Puerto Rico, says she thought Michelle was drunk. She grabbed a blanket and a pillow and lay down next to Michelle, thinking her daughter would eventually wake up.
A few hours later, the sun rose over their small home in a working-class section of New York City and, unable to rouse Michelle, Maribel yelled at someone in the house to call 911.
An ambulance arrived along with a couple of police officers, one of whom suggested Michelle was faking unconsciousness. "You're daughter's probably just joking," he told her.
It was no joke. Michelle had swallowed an entire bottle of Ambien and didn't wake until she had been checked into a nearby hospital in the Bronx. She spent two days there. She then was transferred to a psychiatric unit inManhattan -- one young Latina among approximately 2 million in the United States who have attempted suicide.
Latinas ages 12 to 17 are the largest minority group of girls in the country, and growing. They are more likely to try to take their lives than any other racial or ethnic group their age. Twenty-five percent say they've thought about suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 15 percent attempt it, compared with approximately 10 percent of white and black teen girls. Other studies put the proportion of attempters at 20 percent -- slightly less than the fraction who smoke cigarettes.
In most cases, a girl swallows pills at home, according to Luis Zayas, a psychologist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Zayas is in the middle of a five-year study of more than 150 young Latina girls who have attempted suicide. He says cutting is also finding a following among Latinas.
The physical pain of cutting helps to mask their emotional pain, says Carolina Hausman, a social worker who assists Zayas. "These adolescents have intense emotions and no tools to process them," she adds. "Their body has to be calmed down somehow. They talk about seeing blood go down their wrist as a release."
Suicide attempts can spread like a virus, from girlfriend to girlfriend. Michelle -- whose last name, like some others in this article, has been withheld to protect her privacy -- says she knew of two girls who had made attempts before she did. A friend of one girl Hausman works with not only told the girl how to cut herself but advised her to minimize the pain by putting Vaselineon the area.
Zayas and other experts suggest that suicide attempts like these are more a cry for help than evidence of a will to die. Were these girls living in the countries they or their parents were born in -- where they might enjoy strong ties to relatives, communities and familiar customs -- there's a good chance they wouldn't feel a need to act out, Zayas says. But here they struggle with feelings of powerlessness and frustration, torn between an American popular culture that encourages them to be sexy and assertive, and family expectations that they be modest and submissive.
Add to that the isolation they may feel in school and you get some pretty depressed teenagers, Zayas says. They rarely seek help partly because they and their parents are suspicious of mental health services and believe in keeping family troubles in the family.
"Crossing the border," Zayas says, "can be hazardous to Latinas' health. Until we understand the cultural conflict, we will not be able to prevent this."
* * *
Jocelyn Garay's parents, who fled the war in El Salvador in the early 1980s, always demanded a lot of their bubbly, dark-haired daughter: that she excel in school, help out with housework, be attentive to her younger sister and attend church. Her father, who, true to Hispanic custom, considered himself the boss of the family, had a hard time understanding why she wanted to do anything else. He considered some common teen social activities to be unnecessary, even dangerous. She says he forbade her from going to sleepovers at her friends' houses until she was 18. He said no when she asked to try out for the cheerleading team. He opposed dance lessons and put her in taekwondo instead, wanting her to learn to defend herself in what seemed to him (though not to his daughter, who was born here) a strange land.
The high school senior in Northern Virginia says has never tried to kill herself. But she has thought about it.
Washington psychologist Lillian Comas-Diaz, who counsels immigrants, says parents often don't understand that for many adolescents here, social success inspires motivation and academic success.
What parents do know is that by moving to the United States they left behind the relatives, friends and neighbors who would have watched out for their daughter. They may be more rigid than they would have been back home -- and meanwhile their daughter is hearing from her non-Latino friends, "Think about yourself and what you want. Forget your parents."'
The daughter, then, tries to be dutiful at home and to fit in at school, what Comas-Diaz calls being "of the divided heart."
The phrase describes Jocelyn in middle school and early high school. She spent much of that time being angry both at her father for having what she considered unrealistically high academic expectations and at herself for failing to meet them.
She joined a Hispanic gang in seventh grade and alienated her white friends. In the spring of ninth grade, her father finally let go of his opposition to cheerleading and she made the team, only to be chastised by her Hispanic friends as being "whitewashed. "
"I don't want to live anymore," she remembers telling her younger sister. "If I'm not comfortable at home or school, what's the point?"
"Don't do it," she recalls her sister saying. "Please, don't leave me alone."
Jocelyn never acted on her thoughts. Her mother has an intuitive sense of the pull between family and classmates, Jocelyn says, and helped her navigate her father's demands. Last year, Jocelyn joined a Girl Scout troop, where she found encouraging adults and new, upbeat friends. She now considers her father her biggest champion and her mom her closest friend.
* * *
Hispanics have the highest unmarried birth rate in the country, according to the CDC, and experts say many youths who have attempted suicide have witnessed a parade of boyfriends move in and out of their homes. Abuse is not infrequent and can contribute to feelings of worthlessness, as Yadasmarie knows.
Yadasmarie, 17, is a blond, blue-eyed Puerto Rican living in New York . She has never met her father, who she says is in prison, and rarely sees her mother anymore. In her early years, she lived with her mother, her mother's children by another man and her mother's boyfriend. Her mother and the boyfriend fought regularly, she says. The boyfriend would occasionally turn on Yadasmarie; once, when he caught her biting her nails, he punished her by putting her hand on the hot burner of the kitchen stove.
She got along well with her mom's next boyfriend, whom she called "Dad," and when Mom decided to leave that man a year ago, Yadasmarie insisted on staying with him. The man's father was bothered that Yadasmarie was living with his unmarried son, though. "It looks bad," he told Yadasmarie's mother, who then insisted that she live with this "grandfather" and his wife. "Dad" was told not to contact her.
A year ago, Yadasmarie cut her right arm with a razor blade. She is now in therapy and living with the "grandparents. " She rarely sees her mother and wishes she could move back with her "dad."
"I'm basically by myself right now," she says.
* * *
A Latina 's relationship with her mother is the single biggest factor in whether that girl copes well with stress, according to a study published by Fordham University 's Graduate School of Social Service. "It's not just being loved, but knowing they're loved," says Edgardo Menvielle, a psychiatrist at Washington 's Children's Hospital who also works at the Cliniqua de Pueblo in Adams Morgan.
Zayas can spot the difference quickly by listening to a girl talk. "It's the difference between 'My mother doesn't understand' and 'My mother is old-fashioned but she listens.' "
Some Latina mothers -- exhausted by fighting with boyfriends, raising children and working several jobs, or burdened by their own emotional problems -- have trouble showing mother love. Paula, a petite high school senior with curly black hair and a big smile, says her mother used to be that way.
The two of them immigrated to New York from Ecuador four years ago, in part to escape Paula's violent father. Paula's relationship with her mother was strained after their arrival, and she believed her aunt, whose home they moved into, resented her presence.
Paula knew no English as she started high school. At home, she was expected to keep her aunt's house clean, wash the dishes and do the laundry. Overwhelmed early one evening that first year, she sought out a bottle of high-dose Motrin, a painkiller, and took one pill. This past September, it was two pills. She was looking at the bottle, wondering whether to take more, when a good friend called and she told him what she was doing. The friend came over, took her to the emergency room and stayed with her until her mom arrived.
Therapists see this pattern frequently: A girl chooses something a parent wouldn't notice -- a pill or two, a light scratch with a sharp instrument. The next time it's two or three pills or a deeper cut, then more. With each attempt, the girl is more likely to die, which is why early intervention is critical.
Though not foolproof.
Paula found a counselor early. Her mother and aunt made efforts to talk to her more. Her boyfriend, currently a student at Montgomery Community College , started visiting more often and has plans to move to New York in June. Yet like the other girls, Paula remains very aware of her own vulnerabilities.
* * *
Social worker Hausman, herself a Latina , worries about girls like Paula who come from lower-income homes. She wonders about their mental health long-term, given the continuing conflict in their families and lack of outside resources. Their schools and neighborhoods need preventive mental health services more attuned to Hispanic culture, she says -- starting with parenting classes.
"In middle- and upper-class families, success is expected," she says. "If a child's mental health interferes with success, it tends to be noticed earlier. Low-income parents don't expect anything of their girls. Every middle-class mother tells me she wants her daughter to be a professional at 24, married with three children. These mothers want their girls to do the laundry." ¿
News researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report. Comments:steppl@washpost. com.
Suicide Attempts Reveal Strains on Young Latinas
By Laura Sessions SteppWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 22, 2008; HE01
The second time Michelle, 16, swallowed sleeping pills, she collapsed on the living room floor.
It was late at night, and her mom, Maribel, jumped up from her chair, managed to pick up her skinny, 5-foot-10-inch eldest daughter, slapped her a couple of times hoping to bring her back to consciousness, and let go. Michelle fell down again and her eyes rolled back.
Maribel, who's from Puerto Rico, says she thought Michelle was drunk. She grabbed a blanket and a pillow and lay down next to Michelle, thinking her daughter would eventually wake up.
A few hours later, the sun rose over their small home in a working-class section of New York City and, unable to rouse Michelle, Maribel yelled at someone in the house to call 911.
An ambulance arrived along with a couple of police officers, one of whom suggested Michelle was faking unconsciousness. "You're daughter's probably just joking," he told her.
It was no joke. Michelle had swallowed an entire bottle of Ambien and didn't wake until she had been checked into a nearby hospital in the Bronx. She spent two days there. She then was transferred to a psychiatric unit inManhattan -- one young Latina among approximately 2 million in the United States who have attempted suicide.
Latinas ages 12 to 17 are the largest minority group of girls in the country, and growing. They are more likely to try to take their lives than any other racial or ethnic group their age. Twenty-five percent say they've thought about suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 15 percent attempt it, compared with approximately 10 percent of white and black teen girls. Other studies put the proportion of attempters at 20 percent -- slightly less than the fraction who smoke cigarettes.
In most cases, a girl swallows pills at home, according to Luis Zayas, a psychologist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Zayas is in the middle of a five-year study of more than 150 young Latina girls who have attempted suicide. He says cutting is also finding a following among Latinas.
The physical pain of cutting helps to mask their emotional pain, says Carolina Hausman, a social worker who assists Zayas. "These adolescents have intense emotions and no tools to process them," she adds. "Their body has to be calmed down somehow. They talk about seeing blood go down their wrist as a release."
Suicide attempts can spread like a virus, from girlfriend to girlfriend. Michelle -- whose last name, like some others in this article, has been withheld to protect her privacy -- says she knew of two girls who had made attempts before she did. A friend of one girl Hausman works with not only told the girl how to cut herself but advised her to minimize the pain by putting Vaselineon the area.
Zayas and other experts suggest that suicide attempts like these are more a cry for help than evidence of a will to die. Were these girls living in the countries they or their parents were born in -- where they might enjoy strong ties to relatives, communities and familiar customs -- there's a good chance they wouldn't feel a need to act out, Zayas says. But here they struggle with feelings of powerlessness and frustration, torn between an American popular culture that encourages them to be sexy and assertive, and family expectations that they be modest and submissive.
Add to that the isolation they may feel in school and you get some pretty depressed teenagers, Zayas says. They rarely seek help partly because they and their parents are suspicious of mental health services and believe in keeping family troubles in the family.
"Crossing the border," Zayas says, "can be hazardous to Latinas' health. Until we understand the cultural conflict, we will not be able to prevent this."
* * *
Jocelyn Garay's parents, who fled the war in El Salvador in the early 1980s, always demanded a lot of their bubbly, dark-haired daughter: that she excel in school, help out with housework, be attentive to her younger sister and attend church. Her father, who, true to Hispanic custom, considered himself the boss of the family, had a hard time understanding why she wanted to do anything else. He considered some common teen social activities to be unnecessary, even dangerous. She says he forbade her from going to sleepovers at her friends' houses until she was 18. He said no when she asked to try out for the cheerleading team. He opposed dance lessons and put her in taekwondo instead, wanting her to learn to defend herself in what seemed to him (though not to his daughter, who was born here) a strange land.
The high school senior in Northern Virginia says has never tried to kill herself. But she has thought about it.
Washington psychologist Lillian Comas-Diaz, who counsels immigrants, says parents often don't understand that for many adolescents here, social success inspires motivation and academic success.
What parents do know is that by moving to the United States they left behind the relatives, friends and neighbors who would have watched out for their daughter. They may be more rigid than they would have been back home -- and meanwhile their daughter is hearing from her non-Latino friends, "Think about yourself and what you want. Forget your parents."'
The daughter, then, tries to be dutiful at home and to fit in at school, what Comas-Diaz calls being "of the divided heart."
The phrase describes Jocelyn in middle school and early high school. She spent much of that time being angry both at her father for having what she considered unrealistically high academic expectations and at herself for failing to meet them.
She joined a Hispanic gang in seventh grade and alienated her white friends. In the spring of ninth grade, her father finally let go of his opposition to cheerleading and she made the team, only to be chastised by her Hispanic friends as being "whitewashed. "
"I don't want to live anymore," she remembers telling her younger sister. "If I'm not comfortable at home or school, what's the point?"
"Don't do it," she recalls her sister saying. "Please, don't leave me alone."
Jocelyn never acted on her thoughts. Her mother has an intuitive sense of the pull between family and classmates, Jocelyn says, and helped her navigate her father's demands. Last year, Jocelyn joined a Girl Scout troop, where she found encouraging adults and new, upbeat friends. She now considers her father her biggest champion and her mom her closest friend.
* * *
Hispanics have the highest unmarried birth rate in the country, according to the CDC, and experts say many youths who have attempted suicide have witnessed a parade of boyfriends move in and out of their homes. Abuse is not infrequent and can contribute to feelings of worthlessness, as Yadasmarie knows.
Yadasmarie, 17, is a blond, blue-eyed Puerto Rican living in New York . She has never met her father, who she says is in prison, and rarely sees her mother anymore. In her early years, she lived with her mother, her mother's children by another man and her mother's boyfriend. Her mother and the boyfriend fought regularly, she says. The boyfriend would occasionally turn on Yadasmarie; once, when he caught her biting her nails, he punished her by putting her hand on the hot burner of the kitchen stove.
She got along well with her mom's next boyfriend, whom she called "Dad," and when Mom decided to leave that man a year ago, Yadasmarie insisted on staying with him. The man's father was bothered that Yadasmarie was living with his unmarried son, though. "It looks bad," he told Yadasmarie's mother, who then insisted that she live with this "grandfather" and his wife. "Dad" was told not to contact her.
A year ago, Yadasmarie cut her right arm with a razor blade. She is now in therapy and living with the "grandparents. " She rarely sees her mother and wishes she could move back with her "dad."
"I'm basically by myself right now," she says.
* * *
A Latina 's relationship with her mother is the single biggest factor in whether that girl copes well with stress, according to a study published by Fordham University 's Graduate School of Social Service. "It's not just being loved, but knowing they're loved," says Edgardo Menvielle, a psychiatrist at Washington 's Children's Hospital who also works at the Cliniqua de Pueblo in Adams Morgan.
Zayas can spot the difference quickly by listening to a girl talk. "It's the difference between 'My mother doesn't understand' and 'My mother is old-fashioned but she listens.' "
Some Latina mothers -- exhausted by fighting with boyfriends, raising children and working several jobs, or burdened by their own emotional problems -- have trouble showing mother love. Paula, a petite high school senior with curly black hair and a big smile, says her mother used to be that way.
The two of them immigrated to New York from Ecuador four years ago, in part to escape Paula's violent father. Paula's relationship with her mother was strained after their arrival, and she believed her aunt, whose home they moved into, resented her presence.
Paula knew no English as she started high school. At home, she was expected to keep her aunt's house clean, wash the dishes and do the laundry. Overwhelmed early one evening that first year, she sought out a bottle of high-dose Motrin, a painkiller, and took one pill. This past September, it was two pills. She was looking at the bottle, wondering whether to take more, when a good friend called and she told him what she was doing. The friend came over, took her to the emergency room and stayed with her until her mom arrived.
Therapists see this pattern frequently: A girl chooses something a parent wouldn't notice -- a pill or two, a light scratch with a sharp instrument. The next time it's two or three pills or a deeper cut, then more. With each attempt, the girl is more likely to die, which is why early intervention is critical.
Though not foolproof.
Paula found a counselor early. Her mother and aunt made efforts to talk to her more. Her boyfriend, currently a student at Montgomery Community College , started visiting more often and has plans to move to New York in June. Yet like the other girls, Paula remains very aware of her own vulnerabilities.
* * *
Social worker Hausman, herself a Latina , worries about girls like Paula who come from lower-income homes. She wonders about their mental health long-term, given the continuing conflict in their families and lack of outside resources. Their schools and neighborhoods need preventive mental health services more attuned to Hispanic culture, she says -- starting with parenting classes.
"In middle- and upper-class families, success is expected," she says. "If a child's mental health interferes with success, it tends to be noticed earlier. Low-income parents don't expect anything of their girls. Every middle-class mother tells me she wants her daughter to be a professional at 24, married with three children. These mothers want their girls to do the laundry." ¿
News researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report. Comments:steppl@washpost. com.
Reality Check of the Month
Goes to Barack Obama for calling hoes out at a Black church over gays, Jews and immigrants. Check, check, reality check, check one:
"For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Quote of the Month
"It is hard to vote your interests if you can't judge your circumstances."
~Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African-American studies -Princeton University
~Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African-American studies -Princeton University
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Fuck it all, fuck it all to hell
Things I'm Over
1. Stimulus package - even if I get money back, and this whole don't say the R word thing
2. Britney
3. Celebrity Deaths
4. The Primaries
5. The Writer's Strike
6. New England Patriots
7. This Cold Front
And it's only January.
2. Britney
3. Celebrity Deaths
4. The Primaries
5. The Writer's Strike
6. New England Patriots
7. This Cold Front
And it's only January.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I will follow him...follow him wherever he may go
In this LAT story, a reporter talks to female ex-pats who live with their Saudi husbands in Saudi Arabia. I can't help but wonder what in the world made these women leave the U S of A to join their men in fucking Saudi Arabia. We're not talking about Spain or even Cuba - I could understand that. I would leave this country for the next rich Frenchman that came along. But Saudi Arabia? I can't help but assume that these women are white. I can't help but notice that all these men are rich. I can't help but question how and why they thought marrying a rich foreigner from a country where hatred for women is seen as cultural and godly was a good idea.
That is sad to me. Really sad. Is financial security and being someone's baby mama worth it?
That is sad to me. Really sad. Is financial security and being someone's baby mama worth it?
Maria Kay
LAT does this piece on how Latinas are "changing the face" of Mary Kay cosmetics. The article illustrates the trials and benefits of these low-income, under-educated, immigrant women working as consultants for Mary Kay. One woman highlighted in the story can't wait for her fucking pink cadillac.
Christ.
How about instead selling your fellow poor Latinas stupid make-up, you all start a reading circle. A community garden. A barter and sell club exchanging useful services like babysitting and cooking. Advocate for something. Volunteer at your church. ANYTHING but sell Mary fucking Kay. What the fuck? Sell Mary Kay so you can get a job with no benefits and a pink Cadillac that might likely get stolen....great idea.
I get that make-up can empower. Being your own boss is appealing, but LORD knows I can't understand why poor Latina women are signing up for this shit. I am SURE that Ms. Ash didn't have them in mind when she started her company and I HOPE they realize that they are being exploited as much here as they would be picking oranges in the groves.
Ridiculous.
Christ.
How about instead selling your fellow poor Latinas stupid make-up, you all start a reading circle. A community garden. A barter and sell club exchanging useful services like babysitting and cooking. Advocate for something. Volunteer at your church. ANYTHING but sell Mary fucking Kay. What the fuck? Sell Mary Kay so you can get a job with no benefits and a pink Cadillac that might likely get stolen....great idea.
I get that make-up can empower. Being your own boss is appealing, but LORD knows I can't understand why poor Latina women are signing up for this shit. I am SURE that Ms. Ash didn't have them in mind when she started her company and I HOPE they realize that they are being exploited as much here as they would be picking oranges in the groves.
Ridiculous.
Hard and Fast Way to Look at Life
The Logic of Life by economist, Tim Harford, aims to help us understand social conundrums with numbers. Imagine my relief when I realized the only reason I don't have a mate right now was not because I am a loser, but because a shitload of eligible Black men are in prison and the rest are too cool to settle with anyone. There is also an excerpt about The Pill and how it revolutionized American Life. Women can control their pregnancies? Really? Now they can go to law school!
Of course, he isn't saying things that feminists and historians didn't already know, but somehow the hard and fast numbers adds that extra dose of validity.
Of course, he isn't saying things that feminists and historians didn't already know, but somehow the hard and fast numbers adds that extra dose of validity.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
SugarDaddy.com
This article about websites that match sugardaddies with young, "needy" women is interesting. On one hand, I want to sign up on these sites myself. On the other hand, it makes light of the serious issues of prostitution and sex trafficking where women don't have fancy cars, get their rent paid or go on dinner dates. The author of this article complains about her meager annual earnings, which might actually be more than what the richest person in the poorest country would see in a decade.
And even though she describes herself as a "sex-positive" feminist, doesn't she still have to grapple internally with the idea that men still think that woman can be purchased for pleasure? And doesn't it sadden her that men are trapped in the same oppressive bindings that require them to be rich to be attractive to women?
I'm sure there are sex workers who would love to make what she makes as a liberal journalist without having to have sex with dirty assholes. Just sayin'. Ahhh, the privilege we Western feminists have sometimes.
And even though she describes herself as a "sex-positive" feminist, doesn't she still have to grapple internally with the idea that men still think that woman can be purchased for pleasure? And doesn't it sadden her that men are trapped in the same oppressive bindings that require them to be rich to be attractive to women?
I'm sure there are sex workers who would love to make what she makes as a liberal journalist without having to have sex with dirty assholes. Just sayin'. Ahhh, the privilege we Western feminists have sometimes.
Chris Hitch on Barama
Chris Hitch and I agree on one thing and that is: Hoes is trippin'. Here is his chock full of reality checks column in full. [Moxie comments in bold.]
Identity Crisis
There's something pathetic and embarrassing about our obsession with Barack Obama's race.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, at 12:04 PM ET
To put it squarely and bluntly, is it because he is or is it because he isn't? To phrase it another way, is it because of what he says or what he doesn't say? Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool. [Brillantly put.] He sometimes claims credit on behalf of all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, blah blah blah, though his recent speeches appear also to claim a victory for blackness while his supporters—most especially the white ones [ESPECIALLY the white ones]—sob happily that at last we can have an African-American chief executive. [I'd say he's a flip flopper like the rest of 'em.] Off to the side, snarling with barely concealed rage, are the Clinton machine-minders, [that is I] who, having failed to ignite the same kind of identity excitement with an aging and resentful female, are perhaps wishing that they had made more of her errant husband having already been "our first black president."[Now that is just plain wrong. And funny. Getting blowjobs in office should not make you one with the Black peoples.]
Or perhaps not. Isn't there something pathetic and embarrassing about this emphasis on shade? And why is a man with a white mother considered to be "black," anyway? Is it for this that we fought so hard to get over Plessy v. Ferguson? Would we accept, if Obama's mother had also been Jewish, that he would therefore be the first Jewish president? [HELLO. Race is a social construct that I can't live without.]The more that people claim Obama's mere identity to be a "breakthrough," the more they demonstrate that they have failed to emancipate themselves from the original categories of identity that acted as a fetter upon clear thought. [Second that.]
One can't exactly say that Sen. Obama himself panders to questions of skin color. One of the best chapters of his charming autobiography describes the moment when his black Republican opponent in the Illinois Senate race—Alan Keyes—accused him of possessing insufficient negritude because he wasn't the descendant of slaves! [Alan Keyes? Nigga, please.]Obama's decision to be light-hearted—and perhaps light-skinned[He sorta is. He would have been a house negro]—about this was a milestone in itself. But are we not in danger of emulating Keyes' insane mistake every time we bang on about the senator's pigmentation? If you wanted a "black" president or vice president so much, you could long ago have turned out en masse for Angela Davis—also the first woman to be on a national ticket—or for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. So, why didn't you? Could it have been the politics?[HELLO. HELLO. Like Shelby Steele said: the amount of progressive/liberal white guilt that is perpetuating Barama's success is overwhelming. And what about when Collin Powell was rumored to be running???? Isn't Barama simply the Democratic version of Powell?]
Last week happened to be the week that the nation of Kenya—birthplace of Obama's father—was convulsed by a political war that contained ghastly overtones of violent and sadistic tribalism. It would sound as absurd to a Kenyan to hear praise for a black candidate as it would sound to most of my European readers to hear a recommendation of a "great white hope." A white visitor to Kenya might not be able to tell a Kikuyu from a Luo at a glance, but a Kenyan would have no such difficulty. The time is pretty much past, in our country, when a Polish-American would not vote for a candidate with a German name or when Sharks and Jets were at daggers drawn, but this is all because (to borrow from Ernest Renan's definition of a nation) people agreed to forget a lot of things as well as to remember a number of things. So, which are we doing presently? [THE CALLING OUT OF HOES THAT ARE TRIPPIN' HAS OCCURED. RIGHT HERE.]
Sen. Obama is a congregant of a church in Chicago called Trinity United Church of Christ. I recommend that you take a brisk tour of its Web site. Run by the sort of character that the press often guardedly describes as "flamboyant"—a man calling himself the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.—this bizarre outfit describes itself as "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and speaks of "a chosen people" whose nature we are allowed to assume is "Afrocentric." Trinity United sells creationist books and its home page includes a graphic link to a thing called Goodsearch—the name is surmounted with a halo in its logo—which announces cheerily that "Every time you search or shop online! Our Church earns money." Much or most of what Trinity United says is harmless and boring, rather like Gov. Mike Huckabee's idiotic belief that his own success in Iowa is comparable to the "miracle" of the loaves and fishes, and the site offers a volume called Bad Girls of the Bible: Exploring Women of Questionable Virtue, which I have added to my cart, but nobody who wants to be taken seriously can possibly be associated with such a substandard and shade-oriented place. [nothing wrong with being "shade-oriented", but this church is a sham. Barama lost 50 cool points just for being a member.]
All this easy talk about being a "uniter" and not a "divider" is piffle if people are talking out of both sides of their mouths. [Which Barama is so doing.]I have been droning on for months about how Mitt Romney needs to answer questions about the flat-out racist background of his own church, and about how Huckabee has shown in public that he does not even understand the first thing about a theory—the crucial theory of evolution by natural selection—in which he claims not to believe. Many Democrats are with me on this, but they go completely quiet when Sen. Obama chooses to give his allegiance to a crackpot church with a decidedly ethnic character. [nothing wrong with that, again. And in the end, he can belong to any church he wants to, but he still loses cool points. Plus: is this church pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-woman?]
The unspoken agreement to concede the black community to the sway of the pulpit is itself a form of racist condescension. [I can't wait for all the church visits by politicans. It's like being at the fucking Improv.]The sickly canonization [<--- now that is some wordsmithing right there] of Martin Luther King Jr. has led to a crude rewriting of history that obliterates the great black and white secularists—Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther—who actually organized the March on Washington.[King is awesome, but indeed overrated.]It has also allowed a free pass to any demagogue who can manage to get the word reverend in front of his name. The white voters who subconsciously make the allowance that black folks sure love to hear their preachers are not only patronizing their black brothers and sisters but also helping to empower white ministers or deacons who make the same pitch, from Jimmy Carter to Mike Huckabee. The Iowa caucuses of 2008 were not the end of our long national nightmare about race, but another stage in our protracted national nightmare of piety, "uplift," and deceptive optimistic windbaggery. [and isn't all optimism windbaggery? and what the fuck is "uplift" and "change" anyway? shit ain't changed and shit won't change. it's called game-cutting. the word every candidate should be looking for is game-cutting.]
Hitchens does a great job of beginning to articulate (so eloquently) my frustration with Barama. Obviously, his race is a big deal and anyone who says it isn't is full of shit. In a country where race matters A WHOLE LOT, the regressive color-blind view that whites take on certain things is laughable. People keep saying Barama can make history. So can Hillary, so let's all simmer on that point. Barama at times downplays his racial identity, then after Iowa, the song was "Barama proved that white people will vote for a BLACK candidate". Really? Well, if we are so color-blind, why wouldn't they?
Barama is playing the race card when he knows it will win the game. White people wouldn't vote for a candidate that was "in yo face sucka" about his/her race. Men (including Barama - he pees standing up doesn't he? Being a racial/ethnic minority doesn't exclude you from being a sexist bastard) call Hillary out anytime the concept of her having a vagina comes up, so obviously she can't get away with playing the gender card like he can get away with playing the race card. Maybe people just don't like Hillary (she did vote for the war). Fine. But the hatred and dislike that people have for her is rooted - subconsciously even - in misogynistic, patriarchal mindsets. Just ask the "Iron My Shirt" guys. Really. When was the last time someone hung a noose outside a Barama event?
When it comes down to it, the white support of Barama is almost condescending. Remember, just a few months ago, Black people were all for Hillary. Who the fuck is this new guy with the funny name? And Barama knew he would have to sell up his Blackness, just like Hillary thought it was a good idea to sell herself to the American vajority. The reality is we have gotten better at HIDING our racism more than we have on hiding our hatred of women in this country. Just look at how there has been a shitload coverage about a "low-cut" shirt Hillary wore one day and most recently how her tearing up at a fucking event makes her look more human, or is it more weak? WHAT THE FUCK DO WE WANT FROM HER? TELL ME, PLEASE. If any male candidate had did that, it wouldn't even register on the fucking news map! C'MON PEOPLE.
Don't get me started on how an attractive male candidate can rely on his looks (ask JFK and his brother), yet women couldn't do the same thing.
And as a woman of color (women of color, by the way, got the right to vote AFTER Black men), the question I have to ask over and over and over again is which is worse to the white majority: an uppity nigger or an uppity bitch living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Identity Crisis
There's something pathetic and embarrassing about our obsession with Barack Obama's race.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, at 12:04 PM ET
To put it squarely and bluntly, is it because he is or is it because he isn't? To phrase it another way, is it because of what he says or what he doesn't say? Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool. [Brillantly put.] He sometimes claims credit on behalf of all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, blah blah blah, though his recent speeches appear also to claim a victory for blackness while his supporters—most especially the white ones [ESPECIALLY the white ones]—sob happily that at last we can have an African-American chief executive. [I'd say he's a flip flopper like the rest of 'em.] Off to the side, snarling with barely concealed rage, are the Clinton machine-minders, [that is I] who, having failed to ignite the same kind of identity excitement with an aging and resentful female, are perhaps wishing that they had made more of her errant husband having already been "our first black president."[Now that is just plain wrong. And funny. Getting blowjobs in office should not make you one with the Black peoples.]
Or perhaps not. Isn't there something pathetic and embarrassing about this emphasis on shade? And why is a man with a white mother considered to be "black," anyway? Is it for this that we fought so hard to get over Plessy v. Ferguson? Would we accept, if Obama's mother had also been Jewish, that he would therefore be the first Jewish president? [HELLO. Race is a social construct that I can't live without.]The more that people claim Obama's mere identity to be a "breakthrough," the more they demonstrate that they have failed to emancipate themselves from the original categories of identity that acted as a fetter upon clear thought. [Second that.]
One can't exactly say that Sen. Obama himself panders to questions of skin color. One of the best chapters of his charming autobiography describes the moment when his black Republican opponent in the Illinois Senate race—Alan Keyes—accused him of possessing insufficient negritude because he wasn't the descendant of slaves! [Alan Keyes? Nigga, please.]Obama's decision to be light-hearted—and perhaps light-skinned[He sorta is. He would have been a house negro]—about this was a milestone in itself. But are we not in danger of emulating Keyes' insane mistake every time we bang on about the senator's pigmentation? If you wanted a "black" president or vice president so much, you could long ago have turned out en masse for Angela Davis—also the first woman to be on a national ticket—or for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. So, why didn't you? Could it have been the politics?[HELLO. HELLO. Like Shelby Steele said: the amount of progressive/liberal white guilt that is perpetuating Barama's success is overwhelming. And what about when Collin Powell was rumored to be running???? Isn't Barama simply the Democratic version of Powell?]
Last week happened to be the week that the nation of Kenya—birthplace of Obama's father—was convulsed by a political war that contained ghastly overtones of violent and sadistic tribalism. It would sound as absurd to a Kenyan to hear praise for a black candidate as it would sound to most of my European readers to hear a recommendation of a "great white hope." A white visitor to Kenya might not be able to tell a Kikuyu from a Luo at a glance, but a Kenyan would have no such difficulty. The time is pretty much past, in our country, when a Polish-American would not vote for a candidate with a German name or when Sharks and Jets were at daggers drawn, but this is all because (to borrow from Ernest Renan's definition of a nation) people agreed to forget a lot of things as well as to remember a number of things. So, which are we doing presently? [THE CALLING OUT OF HOES THAT ARE TRIPPIN' HAS OCCURED. RIGHT HERE.]
Sen. Obama is a congregant of a church in Chicago called Trinity United Church of Christ. I recommend that you take a brisk tour of its Web site. Run by the sort of character that the press often guardedly describes as "flamboyant"—a man calling himself the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.—this bizarre outfit describes itself as "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and speaks of "a chosen people" whose nature we are allowed to assume is "Afrocentric." Trinity United sells creationist books and its home page includes a graphic link to a thing called Goodsearch—the name is surmounted with a halo in its logo—which announces cheerily that "Every time you search or shop online! Our Church earns money." Much or most of what Trinity United says is harmless and boring, rather like Gov. Mike Huckabee's idiotic belief that his own success in Iowa is comparable to the "miracle" of the loaves and fishes, and the site offers a volume called Bad Girls of the Bible: Exploring Women of Questionable Virtue, which I have added to my cart, but nobody who wants to be taken seriously can possibly be associated with such a substandard and shade-oriented place. [nothing wrong with being "shade-oriented", but this church is a sham. Barama lost 50 cool points just for being a member.]
All this easy talk about being a "uniter" and not a "divider" is piffle if people are talking out of both sides of their mouths. [Which Barama is so doing.]I have been droning on for months about how Mitt Romney needs to answer questions about the flat-out racist background of his own church, and about how Huckabee has shown in public that he does not even understand the first thing about a theory—the crucial theory of evolution by natural selection—in which he claims not to believe. Many Democrats are with me on this, but they go completely quiet when Sen. Obama chooses to give his allegiance to a crackpot church with a decidedly ethnic character. [nothing wrong with that, again. And in the end, he can belong to any church he wants to, but he still loses cool points. Plus: is this church pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-woman?]
The unspoken agreement to concede the black community to the sway of the pulpit is itself a form of racist condescension. [I can't wait for all the church visits by politicans. It's like being at the fucking Improv.]The sickly canonization [<--- now that is some wordsmithing right there] of Martin Luther King Jr. has led to a crude rewriting of history that obliterates the great black and white secularists—Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther—who actually organized the March on Washington.[King is awesome, but indeed overrated.]It has also allowed a free pass to any demagogue who can manage to get the word reverend in front of his name. The white voters who subconsciously make the allowance that black folks sure love to hear their preachers are not only patronizing their black brothers and sisters but also helping to empower white ministers or deacons who make the same pitch, from Jimmy Carter to Mike Huckabee. The Iowa caucuses of 2008 were not the end of our long national nightmare about race, but another stage in our protracted national nightmare of piety, "uplift," and deceptive optimistic windbaggery. [and isn't all optimism windbaggery? and what the fuck is "uplift" and "change" anyway? shit ain't changed and shit won't change. it's called game-cutting. the word every candidate should be looking for is game-cutting.]
Hitchens does a great job of beginning to articulate (so eloquently) my frustration with Barama. Obviously, his race is a big deal and anyone who says it isn't is full of shit. In a country where race matters A WHOLE LOT, the regressive color-blind view that whites take on certain things is laughable. People keep saying Barama can make history. So can Hillary, so let's all simmer on that point. Barama at times downplays his racial identity, then after Iowa, the song was "Barama proved that white people will vote for a BLACK candidate". Really? Well, if we are so color-blind, why wouldn't they?
Barama is playing the race card when he knows it will win the game. White people wouldn't vote for a candidate that was "in yo face sucka" about his/her race. Men (including Barama - he pees standing up doesn't he? Being a racial/ethnic minority doesn't exclude you from being a sexist bastard) call Hillary out anytime the concept of her having a vagina comes up, so obviously she can't get away with playing the gender card like he can get away with playing the race card. Maybe people just don't like Hillary (she did vote for the war). Fine. But the hatred and dislike that people have for her is rooted - subconsciously even - in misogynistic, patriarchal mindsets. Just ask the "Iron My Shirt" guys. Really. When was the last time someone hung a noose outside a Barama event?
When it comes down to it, the white support of Barama is almost condescending. Remember, just a few months ago, Black people were all for Hillary. Who the fuck is this new guy with the funny name? And Barama knew he would have to sell up his Blackness, just like Hillary thought it was a good idea to sell herself to the American vajority. The reality is we have gotten better at HIDING our racism more than we have on hiding our hatred of women in this country. Just look at how there has been a shitload coverage about a "low-cut" shirt Hillary wore one day and most recently how her tearing up at a fucking event makes her look more human, or is it more weak? WHAT THE FUCK DO WE WANT FROM HER? TELL ME, PLEASE. If any male candidate had did that, it wouldn't even register on the fucking news map! C'MON PEOPLE.
Don't get me started on how an attractive male candidate can rely on his looks (ask JFK and his brother), yet women couldn't do the same thing.
And as a woman of color (women of color, by the way, got the right to vote AFTER Black men), the question I have to ask over and over and over again is which is worse to the white majority: an uppity nigger or an uppity bitch living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
This is so gay
So this insurance company has decided not to provide property insurance to a church because it supports homosexuals and their crazy same sex lifestyles. The company claims that the CRAZY, Christian-based principle of loving your brother and living in non-judgement places the church in a vulnerable position where it could be subject to violent attacks and "increased litagation".
Monday, January 7, 2008
If only all political interviews were like this
Naomi Campbell, supermodel, interviews Hugo Chavez, leader/dictator, for GQ. Yes. It's really true. Among topics discussed:
- Which world leader has the best style.
Answer: Fidel
- What does he think about George W.
Answer: He is crazy.
- Would he be photographed topless like Putin.
Answer: Yes.
Additionally, you will be glad to know that Naomi, like all of us but Prince Charles, thinks Camilla is ugly.
- Which world leader has the best style.
Answer: Fidel
- What does he think about George W.
Answer: He is crazy.
- Would he be photographed topless like Putin.
Answer: Yes.
Additionally, you will be glad to know that Naomi, like all of us but Prince Charles, thinks Camilla is ugly.
Shit I could have told you - Foundation giving edition
While any living, breathing nonprofit employee could have told you this, the NYT has an article about foundations that are starting to return to the days of giving out operating money versus project-based support. Why? Because operating support actually supports an organization's ability to survive.
Ya don't say.
Ya don't say.
Recently Watched - In the Mood for Love
God I love Netflix. Just watched In the Mood for Love, this Chinese film about two married people who discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. It's set in 1960s Hong Kong and the costumes rock. The actors are hot and the plot is good. Film junkies will appreciate the cinematic shit like sound, colors and camera work. Also, the soundtrack is damn good.
Keeping your baby is so hot right now
Katha Pollitt from The Nation drops some mad wisdom on this whole teens and babies thing that is so hot right now due to this and this.
Meanwhile, the LAT has this story about abortion's effect on men. Really? Really. Apparently this is the hot thing now with the anti-choice assholes. Killing baby fetus humans hurts men, too. Boo hoo. Where do I begin with this one? Should I start with the picture that shows one of the subjects of the article and his long, curly mullet?
Maybe the part about the men praying at a church counseling session where they are instructed to picture their aborted children playing in a meadow with Jesus. OR maybe I can point out that all the men featured in the article got multiple women pregnant and yet none of them talk about how stupid they were for not using birth control in the first fucking place.
I could mention tons of other shit, but this...this little diddy has to sum it all up:
Exactly.
Meanwhile, the LAT has this story about abortion's effect on men. Really? Really. Apparently this is the hot thing now with the anti-choice assholes. Killing baby fetus humans hurts men, too. Boo hoo. Where do I begin with this one? Should I start with the picture that shows one of the subjects of the article and his long, curly mullet?
Maybe the part about the men praying at a church counseling session where they are instructed to picture their aborted children playing in a meadow with Jesus. OR maybe I can point out that all the men featured in the article got multiple women pregnant and yet none of them talk about how stupid they were for not using birth control in the first fucking place.
I could mention tons of other shit, but this...this little diddy has to sum it all up:
"In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?Aubert looks startled. "I never really thought about it for the woman," he says slowly."
Exactly.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
I swear I am the same person
...but I found myself agreeing with more than 1% of what Shelby Steele was saying on Charlie Rose after the Iowa caucus. *shudder*
just in case you didn't click the Shelby Steele link, he's not this guy pictured above. just sayin'...
just in case you didn't click the Shelby Steele link, he's not this guy pictured above. just sayin'...
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
When Wednesday feels like the Tuesday that is the new Monday
Couple requests for this week:
1. Refrain from using exclamation points in any correspondence with me.
2. Don't ask me about my holiday.
3. Speak when spoken to.
4. Let's not talk about the weather.
5. Is it really a happy new year? It just started and it ain't looking that good yet, so don't greet me with the words "happy", "year", or "new" used in any sort of order. Let's just slide comfortably into February.
1. Refrain from using exclamation points in any correspondence with me.
2. Don't ask me about my holiday.
3. Speak when spoken to.
4. Let's not talk about the weather.
5. Is it really a happy new year? It just started and it ain't looking that good yet, so don't greet me with the words "happy", "year", or "new" used in any sort of order. Let's just slide comfortably into February.
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