Saturday with the Duke, meditations on fat...

I dunno why I watch reruns of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in McLintock! (1963)... because I am a glutton for punishment?

The movie amazes me in its "playful" but violent sexism; the way the music goes all cutesy flutes-and-piccolos-and-pipes when he is chasing her around and eventually forcibly carries her up the stairs, Rhett Butler-style. She is still issuing orders to her black servant as he carries her backwards to the second floor, to have his way with her. Now, I ask you: is that cute or what?

I have written here before of how uncomfortable I am with the old movies I am simultaneously addicted to. I have also written of how common it is, in these old films, to find something horrifyingly reactionary right next to something progressive. In McLintock, John Wayne takes up for the beleaguered Comanche Nation, who get thoroughly shit on in no uncertain terms. As a kid, I remember watching this movie; it was my first real education regarding Native American rights (or lack of them) and what had actually occurred in the Old West. Remember, we were all raised on "bad Indian" history lessons, and the whole truth was not presented to the masses until Dee Brown's landmark bestseller, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.(1970) [1] My mother read passages of the book out loud to us, with an incredulous tone in her voice. Most of us had no knowledge of the history of broken treaties and lies; our history books unambiguously portrayed the Indians as bloodthirsty killers that needed to be 1) wiped out or 2) converted. Ironically, the same movies that slandered the Indians, also reminded us that they were human beings, they had their own ways. The movies, then, were subversive.

And so, we get a movie that tells the kids: The Comanches got messed over. And then, the same movie joyously-endorses spanking grown women; it famously winds up with bitchy Maureen getting turned over John Wayne's knee for some good old-fashioned discipline, as the wild-west crowd (who hate these uppity red-headed broads from back East) cheer him on. (Stefanie Powers, the Duke's daughter, is also spanked by her boyfriend, while the cutesy flutes play on in the background and Dad chortles delightedly.) Lots of talk about manhood in this movie, and what it means to be a man. For George Washington McLintock, not surprisingly, manhood is some heavy patriotic assignment from God Almighty. (The Comanche, too, proclaim they will not take charity from whites, which is for the widows and orphans; they are MEN and will die like warriors.) This movie is a whole tutorial in manhood, and the proper place of MEN, even as it extends empathy to the indigenous people... but wait, not all of them. The MEN. The Comanche males are given a voice here, but their concerns are all about their vanquished manhood, not the fate of their tribe and nation. (And does anyone believe that? Sounds like more John Wayne, doesn't it?)

I watch this stuff to look for progress, since it sometimes appears that there is none. But watching this, I assure you, there is!

And another thing, common to old Hollywood westerns: The horses look sick and overworked. At the end credits, I didn't see any such, "No animals were harmed during the making of this picture," and highly doubt they could make that claim.

:(


~*~

The Fat Wars in Feminist Blogdonia rage ever onward. The Feministe "Fat and Health" thread nearly blew up feminist Blogdonia. There is currently an "answer post" by Zuzu, titled "Fat and Health, A Response" with another accompanying endless thread. This time, no "fuck yous" and so on (as I wrote back on September 3). It's most decidedly a love-in, as everyone blows kisses to Zuzu for restoring order and assuring everyone that there is no connection between fat and... well, apparently anything.

But as I read the piece, a few things jumped right out at me.

I have been wondering why I don't understand what is being discussed, exactly, and I think the light is dawning. Once again: class and age.

Question: Is this how a lone black woman feels when they enter a room and all the white women are talking about how they fix their hair? Uncomfortable, disconnected?

And here it is: I don't know what lots of these fat women are talking about, and it's time I came right out and said so.

Example, Zuzu says weight and eating are not connected. Of course it is. For me, it certainly is, and for the hundreds (thousands?) of people I have talked to about fat on my job, it most assuredly is. I hear about bad food choices due to no time for preparation (the appearance of the home-microwave and the incidence of increasing obesity are a definite correlation!), no places to exercise, no time to walk anywhere (not even into a building from the lower parking lot), no opportunities for fitness at all. In the thread, folks assure us that changing this state of affairs is good, and yet at the same time, tell us that obesity is okay. But both realities can't be true; the first situation has in fact CAUSED the other.

Zuzu claims Monica's original post seemed to highlight the "moral failings" of fat people. Then I got it, at least some of it: If you admit that food makes people fat, then people are bad for eating too much food. Therefore, food doesn't make people fat, since we have to be nice to everyone, and that is regarded as a rude thing to say. (It's a lot like Chris Prentiss' approach to addiction at his classy Malibu treatment center: His first step is to NOT call you an addict and make you feel bad.)

Being fat is no moral failing. Being an addict or alcoholic is ALSO not a moral failing (yes, I just compared them).[2] Oppressive, harried, breakneck-paced modern capitalist American life works on us all in different ways; I don't know anyone who emerges totally unscathed. Some of us smoke pot to relieve stress, some of us exercise or do yoga to relieve stress, some of us eat to relieve stress, some of us drink vodka to relieve stress, some go to BigPharm to relieve stress, some come to me and ask for herbs to relieve stress.

The common element? The stress. Where is all the STRESS coming from? Hm. Let me guess.

In my case, I can easily eat a lot, and I love food. In my prime, I could have been in one of those bizarre eating contests on TV; I have the capacity to pack it in as fast as any of those guys. I can take in amazing amounts of food. [3] Everyone in my family could also eat amazing amounts, and did. And we were all fat. If anything, we should have been lots bigger.

And you know, I will not shut up about that fact, simply because the Fat Acceptance Police have decided that truth, my truth, is the enemy. It is true. And you know what? I also know that my family ate MORE because they were fucking exhausted all the time, and that is the truth, too. But I read precious little about the relationship between hard work and appetite in that thread. I think most of those women are (like Zuzu) well-educated, elite professionals (which is why I found the chorus of "fuck yous" in the first thread, so surprising).

~*~

And the term "fat shaming" keeps annoying me. What is all this "fat shaming" I keep hearing about? What exactly is "fat shaming"? Why is anyone ashamed? Seriously, I'm asking. Why are self-defined feminists complaining about being ashamed of their size? How can you be ashamed without your consent? The task is to NOT BE ASHAMED--not to rearrange reality so fat is actually a good thing, so there is nothing to be "ashamed" of.

In addition, all the fuss about doctors blew my mind. Maybe because I have worked for so many (and listened to them and transcribed their meandering, solipsistic, often silly nonsense), they don't automatically command my respect or impress me much. (M.D. = Medical Deity, but not to me.) All this fear of going to doctors to avoid some arrogant bullshit? (My experience has shown me that many actually specialize in arrogant bullshit, so I am usually impressed when they don't act like that.) But AVOIDING the doctor for this reason? You gotta be kidding me. It's YOUR money; if you are in the USA, you are paying for this shit! They work for you. Why are you putting up with this stuff?

Examples, for your edification:

:: When one doctor said to me, lose weight, I gave him my standard reply: I didn't come here for that, thanks. "Well, that's my opinion," he said, and I said, "Duly noted." He didn't press the issue.

:: Another time: The good doctor kept pressing the issue: lose weight, lose weight, "blah blah blah would be better if you lost weight, blah blah blah," I stopped him, carefully looked him right in the eye and said, "About the weight? I. Have. Heard. You." and made it very clear, any more weight-blather would be VERY UNWELCOME. He stopped.

:: Another time, when asked by a doctor in the first five seconds (the health matter was totally unrelated): "Don't you think you should lose weight?" I asked him, "Don't you think you should want me to pay for this visit?" That always strikes right to the heart of the matter, I've discovered, for just about everyone (in the USA, anyway).

In another words: BE A BIG GIRL, Jesus H. Christ, what the hell happened to feminists? It used to mean you were a PROUD BITCH who didn't TAKE NO SHIT.

When I read "fat shaming" I think of little orphan-waifs weeping and blowing their noses after someone calls them fatty. That was me as an 11-year-old, but I grew out of it. By the time I was 13, whenever these asshole boys would scream "Fat Ass!" at me out the windows of cars, I gave them the finger and told em what I thought of their manners in no uncertain terms, which is even more unprintable than my usual rants. As a young feminist, just discovering the Second Wave, I loved cussing them out and actually regarded it as my FEMINIST DUTY, since I didn't know any other feminists besides my mother. (I decided they needed to hear it!) And my mother had given me permission to use the nastiest words of all, for the boys who yelled at me. My joy over my newly-expanded vocabulary easily eclipsed any upset I may have had over being called "Fat Ass!" (Sometimes, I would even come home disappointed no boys had yelled anything, so eager was I to try out the Forbidden Vocabulary.) Mostly what I noticed was how I would get wolf-whistles AND "Fat Ass!" --sometimes in the very same day. I realized, this was proof of men's inferior, confused sensibilities, they can't even decide if I am supposed to be attractive or not, poor saps. Tsk tsk. My feminism got stronger and stronger.

"Fat Ass!" used to piss me off a lot, but never made me ashamed. [4]

Moral of MY story: Good God, girls, show some gumption!

I am very tired of the whole VICTIM CHIC, and yes, I am aware of how damnably libertarian that sounds. The libertarians in my readership (quite a few) are likely chuckling in delight.

~*~

Another thing I thought of was the Bernard conference, wherein the Second Wave officially imploded. And it imploded over orthodoxy/dogma, the particular dogma being SEX:

Perhaps the most famous confrontation in the lesbian sex wars occurred in 1982 at a conference at Barnard College in New York City. Organized under the title "The Feminist and the Scholar IX," the conference brought together a diverse group of feminist thinkers and activists to consider the complex relationship between pleasure and danger.

Local radical feminists deemed some of the topics offensive and attempted to shut the conference down, claiming it promoted anti-feminist values. Protesters handed out leaflets describing individual speakers as sexual "deviants." Clearly, sexuality had become a deeply divisive issue, even as the focus on such issues as s/m, pornography, and censorship obscured other feminist and lesbian issues related to sexuality.

I remember when Samois, the lesbian SM group, was kicked out of the San Francisco Women's Building, simply for existing.

According to Second Wave dogma, rape fantasies were an invention of male porn, women didn't really have them. No woman actually enjoyed BDSM, more male fantasies, more lies about women. "Porn tells lies about women!" was a picket-sign often held by WAP in various late-70s/early-80s demonstrations against movies (including one of my favorites, the extremely politically-incorrect DRESSED TO KILL). If it was in porn? Then you can count on it NOT being true. No women enjoy stripping, sex work, fetishes, blow jobs, anal sex, or any of that stuff. [5] Butch/femme lesbians are reactionary, and they need to wise up. Etc. The Barnard conference laid all of this bare, as some women stepped up and said, "Well, I, ummmm, kinda like some of that stuff and think we could even have some feminist versions," and the Second Wave just freaking blew up. KABOOM.

My friend asked me, "Are garter belts going to destroy feminism?" and I laughed my ass off. I never dreamed it would be true.

And now, we come to Third Wave dogma: Fat Acceptance, or Else.

It is amusing that the Third Wave even HAS dogma... mostly they have defined themselves in direct opposition to the Vicious Nun Vibe of the Second Wave: Hey, come on in! We love everybody!

Wow, I guess it turns out that they DO have some dogma, lurking in the rafters, huh? (LOL-gotcha!) And now, they are imploding from the nuclear reaction of people questioning THEIR dogma. Deja Vu all over again. (And as I wrote previously, the disintegration of the coalition, right on schedule.)

It is fascinating to me that BOTH of these dogmas are about a denial of women's appetites:

Second Wave: WOMEN DON'T LIKE BDSM, WE ARE LADIES! We aren't bad girls with bad fantasies and sexual desires! Sex is dirty!

Third Wave: FAT WOMEN DON'T GET FAT FROM EATING, WE ARE LADIES! We aren't bad girls who eat more than our share and have cravings! Food is gross!

Note the similarity.

As I said during the first Feminist Inquisition: I like the Sex Pistols, I like DRESSED TO KILL, I secretly-think all manner of politically-incorrect sexual thoughts. I am not nice. I like sex.

And now I will reprise: I like ice cream, I like cake, I secretly-wish I could eat enormous amounts of cheese with no gastronomic or caloric consequences. I am not nice. I like food.

And the house comes down!

It makes you wonder: How strong was the house to begin with?


~*~



[1] I can't imagine a history book of this kind making the bestseller lists now.

[2] And as regular readers of my blog know, I don't consider addiction a moral issue AT BASE, but a health/psychological issue.

[3] It takes an average of 8 minutes for your brain to get the "satiety" message, that you are "full". One of the secrets of eating contests, is to pack as much food in before you get that message, when you simply can't eat anymore. One interesting theory is that some folks get that satiety message "late"; most of the people in the eating contests can go up to 12-15 minutes before they feel the "stop" impulse. Maybe this is key to obesity, too: if you only get X amount of minutes to eat at work or school and you pile it all in at once, you are probably eating far more than you really need, but your brain doesn't get the chance to tell you. One of the major things I have learned is to STOP PERIODICALLY and WAIT for the damn message. For me, takes about 15 minutes, almost twice the length of a 'normal' (haha) person. I am convinced this is a huge part of how increased weight happens in our time-is-money culture.

Also, stress while eating creates indigestion problems, and is a large contributor to acid reflux. Acid reflux medications slow digestion WAY DOWN (causing weight gain, water retention and constipation) and make the problem worse. DIGESTIVE ENZYMES ARE SUPERIOR TO NEXIUM, ET AL., please try some instead of the deadly BigPharm concoctions, I guarantee you won't be sorry (speaking from experience now).

[4] I also loved the look of surprise on their faces: Sweet, blond, innocent 13-year-old Hayley Mills look-alike (only bigger), suddenly erupts into obscene invective... they just looked slack-jawed and stunned.

I loved it and felt very powerful.

[5] I can actually recall in one feminist newspaper (probably OFF OUR BACKS, but I won't swear to it), they brought in a battered-women's advocate/activist, to "refute" an SM practitioner. (?!?!?) Do you believe?!?

[6] One commenter very big on Fat Acceptance was BStu. I checked out this person's blog and the first thing I see is a Notes from the Fat-o-sphere Feed informing me that Judy Freespirit has died. I met her in San Francisco decades ago, one of those very charismatic feminists you simply never forget, and I am saddened.

RIP, dear Judy.

Can comics be pornography?

An Australian Supreme Court justice says yes:

Simpsons cartoon rip-off is child porn: judge
December 8, 2008

A NSW Supreme Court judge has ruled an internet cartoon in which lookalike child characters from The Simpsons engage in sexual acts is child pornography.

In a landmark finding, Justice Michael Adams today upheld a decision convicting a man of possessing child pornography after the cartoons, depicting characters modelled on Bart, Lisa and Maggie engaging in sex acts, were found on his computer.

The main issue of the case was whether a fictional cartoon character could "depict" a "person" under law.

"If the persons were real, such depictions could never be permitted,"Justice Adams said in his judgement. "Their creation would constitute crimes at the very highest end of the criminal calendar."

Alan John McEwan had been convicted in the Parramatta Local Court of possessing child pornography and of using a carriage service to access child pornography material, the latter of which has a maximum penalty of 10 years' jail.

The male figures in the cartoons had what appeared to be human genitalia, as did the mother and the girl depicted in the cartoons.

The magistrate had said that had the images involved real children, McEwan would have been jailed.

However, he was fined $3000 and required to enter into a two-year good behaviour bond in respect to each of the charges.

McEwan appealed the decision arguing that fictional cartoon characters could not be considered people as they "plainly and deliberately" departed from the human form.

But Justice Adams agreed with the magistrate, finding that while The Simpsons characters had hands with four fingers and their faces were "markedly and deliberately different to those of any possible human being", the mere fact that they were not realistic representations of human beings did not mean that they could not be considered people.

Justice Adams said the purpose of the legislation was to stop sexual exploitation and child abuse where images are depicted of "real" children.

Graphic novelist/comic-book author Neil Gaiman pointedly disagrees:

The idea that you could be arrested in the Western World for having [similar images] in your computer is mind-boggling, let alone for owning Lost Girls, or for doodling members of the Peanuts gang doing things they tended not to do in the Schulz comics, or for reading Harry Potter slash, or owning the Brass Eye Paedophilia special. And, I should warn members of the Australian judiciary, fictional characters don't just have sex. Sometimes they murder each other, and take fictional drugs, and are cruel to fictional animals, and throw fictional babies off roofs. Crimes, crime everywhere.

The ability to distinguish between fiction and reality is, I think, an important indicator of sanity, perhaps the most important. And it looks like the Australian legal system has failed on that score.

I don't know if it's something that they can further legally appeal, or afford to appeal, but I hope they can. If not, I hope that a bunch of Australians will get together to change the law.

Feminist comic book fan Valerie D'Orazio, responds to the ruling on her blog Occasional Superheroine, and it's on:

For example (I've decided to totally edit this description of one of the Simpsons images out at the last minute, as it's just too disturbing). This is different, in my humble opinion, from Daisy Duck and Mickey Mouse having passionate sex against a wall. Daisy and Mickey are consenting adults sowing their wild oats in the usual way -- albeit by committing adultery and unfaithfulness to Minnie and Daffy!

So I shed no tears for the absence of porn based on underage cartoon characters on the Internet. Nor will I miss feeling like a party to an illegal act every time I do an image search for cartoon and comic book characters.

However, there must be a rather sizable number of people actually visiting these XXX cartoon parody sites -- not just those who get off on such images, but just regular people looking for some gross-out humor. Will the latter category find themselves roped in with these crackdowns, even arrested? Would having an illustration of a "Peanuts Orgy" on your hard drive be enough to convict you as a sex offender?

Good question! And several people reply on the subsequent thread, as Valerie clarifies:

As for defending free speech, I hope when somebody comes out with a comic book that Gaiman and the rest find personally hateful and offensive, they will step up to the bat and defend that too. Not an art book with beautiful Melinda Gebbie illustrations. But some sort of over-the-top extremely religious comic book full of hate for a variety of topics -- like Jack Chick on speed. If a book like that gets published, and prosecuted for "hate speech," I want to see all these free-thinkers defend their right to be hateful. Because when I see a cartoon image of a little child being sexualized and engaged in carnal acts, I consider it hateful, and "hate speech."

I realize I'm just a big square (draws polygon around her head for emphasis)

Predictably, the contentious follow-up thread on Occasional Superheroine drew 80 comments before finally being closed.

Valerie D’Orazio writes:

When you champion this sort of porn, you run the risk of taking all porn down with you. People outside of the quaint aesthetic bubble you are living in look at you making this passionate case for illustrated child porn and...they can't even identify with you, can't even understand what you're saying. And then in turn you make fun of these people, call them all puritanical maniacs, religious nuts. Nothing gets accomplished. There is no middle-ground. There are just extremists on both sides: extreme liberals who fight for the right to publish child porn, and extreme conservatives who put fig leaves on the penises of statues.

But there is a whole lot of people who are on the middle in this debate. In the end, you have to stop preaching to the choir and start addressing them. Understand where they are coming from, stop turning your nose up at them. Try your explanation on them about how harmless images of Lisa Simpson having sex with her dad are, and see how well that goes.

I like the CBLDF a lot, but if they were fighting for the right of a publisher to print images of little children having sex, I'm not interested in supporting that fight. I'm not. I know I would be more popular if I did. But I just can't do it.

I read stuff like what Neil Gaiman wrote, and it's like I'm living in a completely different world from him. I can't relate to it. I'm all for eroticism. I'm not here to take away Playboys, Witchblades, and your assorted avant-garde pornography. But...

It's a bubble. It's a big bubble. And it's a bubble in which I feel I do not have the complete freedom to speak my mind. It's a bubble all about "freedom" -- in theory. But it really isn't. It's only about the freedom to agree with the majority view within Bubbleland. I feel as oppressed by this bubble as I do by people I feel who are sexist, probably more. I mean, I don't really give a damn what the sexist people think of me. But to come up against the Bubble -- I don't have the guts to do it. Honestly, it scares me to death.

And frankly, I feel like I am occupying another universe than the one she is in. My First Amendment absolutism comes into play, and I am once again a feminist at odds with traditional feminism.

I ain't the only one. Collateral Damage blogger rattsu writes:

I'm sorry. I love this blog. I really do. I've never minded the snark or the battles. I've read it for the insights into the industry, and being a woman, for the views that it offered on what sometimes went on behind the scenes.

However, I can't continue reading it anymore. I know that this doesn't really matter, but I wanted to explain why.

You see, I don't want to continue reading the blog of someone that looks down on me. That thinks I might be dangerous on the level of people carrying around loaded guns in their bags. That thinks that the things I like eventually might seep into my mind and make me enact things in real life. Hell, I'm 37 years old. I've been through a lot of censorship debates. I've been a part of the underground video tape trading where we dealt with third and fourth generation copies taken from the countries where the movies I liked managed to sneak through uncut. A lot of the things I loved back then, who was dead illegal and forbidden (especially in sweden where I live) are now shown in every movie theater.

This is not about loaded guns. This is about morals and the public consensus. It is ALWAYS dangerous. It must ALWAYS be stopped. Whether comics or music or porn, the difference is where you draw the line. And if that line is drawn to include art? With things drawn on paper? With figments of your imagination? With fictional tales of word in stories?

Then I'm sorry. Like it or hate it, if that's turned illegal, then I am a criminal, and support criminal activities. Sure, Simpsons porn for me is about as daft as furries and not my thing, but seriously...

Comparing reading what I assume to be hardcore SM porn to carrying a loaded gun? *facepalm*

I'm sorry Val. You have lost all my respect there. Goodbye.

And thread contributor Will speaks for me:

As for defending things I don't like (i.e. religions or groups I agree with), well, that's the whole point. If we only defend those things that we agree with, that's not much of a freedom of speech.

People are arguing that this case is a thought crime are not watering down the meaning of the words, because this case is a thought crime. This guy hasn't done anything. What if it so that erotic novels about vampires were declared obscene and owning one would get you tossed in jail (banned for promoting an unnatural attraction and sexualization of the dead). You didn't actually have sex with a dead person, just owned a story about someone who did.

I know, I know, vampires aren't real (neither are the Simpson's though) and child molesters are, but I hope you at least understand where some of us are coming from. Once you start jailing people for possessing drawings, no matter how distasteful, where do you stop?

Indeed, where DO we stop?

What do you think?

Links and whining for your Tuesday

Sign reads: Local peaches on right! (Only a dullard could resist.)

~*~

Still recovering at home, against my will. I have assorted documentation and will therefore get paid anyway, so that is something. No thanks to anti-labor Republicans!

I have debated blogging over my current disaster. But the fact is, it's embarrassing. I'll let you all guess: What is the first sign of getting old? What happens to old ladies, like clockwork? If you guess right, I'll fess up. Pretty shoddy of me, since I like to think I am Big Disability Rights Advocate Womyn!!! Ha, well, I guess not when it's ME, and some rather predictable old-lady thing. But that's how it works, yes? You don't get to choose these things yourself.

Onward, with the linkage, and your required reading/listening.

Aunt B writes some awesomeness about country music. Pertinent quote:

My contention is and has always been that country music and urban music are the fun-house mirror reflections of each other–both share many of the same themes: deep pride in where one is from cut through with a strain of shame and anger about the circumstances one came from; a definition of manliness based in sexual prowess; a fascination with violence and guns; deep pride and anger about being outside of the mainstream; a definition of womanhood that is either based on very traditional notions of femininity or on being able to out-man the men; a love of vehicles; drinking; honoring tradition; and Mama.

And it’s no surprise to see them dancing around each other while very rarely crossing over. You can count the successful, respected white rappers on one hand, and use the other hand to count the successful, black country singers.

I bring all this up because I want to make a point about what country music means in terms of its racial focus and make-up. Country music is not usually “white” music. It’s traditionally specifically for white people who are outside of the mainstream, but who believe themselves to be some kind of bearer of Truth, some authentic experience unavailable to most folks, who are not “regular” folks.

In other words, it’s music of “regular” white people, but white folks who, in claiming regularity are claiming that in opposition to what most white folks have.

This kind of writing is why I am now addicted to Aunt B's blog!

Smirking Chimp reminds us: Think U.S. is moving far left? That terrain's not even close. And he explains why, too, which is the really depressing part.

Speaking of disability activism, check out Crip Chick's post on Sins Invalid, particularly the attractive and riveting Rodney Bell (first clip). Oh my!

When such people exist, why do they give reality TV shows to increasingly uninteresting, boring clones? I ask you: Where is Rodney's show????

The death of trans woman Duanna Johnson is being discussed by many bloggers, and will certainly be part of The International Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20th.

If there is no event in your city, you could start your own. Here in the most conservative county in the USA, folks usually just meet over coffee and talk about books, blogs, and community--but that is something.

And it means, as always, passing the important knowledge on. And on.

Jill at Feministe points us to a fantastic article in THE ECONOMIST, about the dumbing down of the Republican party:

Many conservatives—particularly lower-income ones—are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin’s apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honour.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today’s pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Conservative intellectuals are also engaged in their own version of what Julian Benda dubbed la trahison des clercs, the treason of the learned. They have fallen into constructing cartoon images of “real Americans”, with their “volkish” wisdom and charming habit of dropping their “g”s. Mrs Palin was invented as a national political force by Beltway journalists from the Weekly Standard and the National Review who met her when they were on luxury cruises around Alaska, and then noisily championed her cause.

I wondered where they got her from. CRUISES! Well, this explains plenty.

And finally, POP FEMINIST gives a 70-minute interview about what it's like to grow up with a pornographer mother!

Hmph! Just when you think your childhood was the weirdest of em all, someone comes along and OUTDOES you.

~*~

During my endless convalescence, my (never that solid) sanity has been saved by streaming the wonderful RadioIO. (Although hearing the late Porter Wagoner's "The Rubber Room" was a rather bizarre experience.) I was inordinately pleased to hear Robin Trower's "Too Rolling Stoned" after about 30 years. If you are up for over 7 minutes of psychedelic gee-tar, blowing your little mind (and certainly, I have nowhere else to go, dunno about yourself!)--please check it out... if you can't dig the first minute, as Queen Emily might say, you are rubbish! :P

And if you rock out to the whole thing? Go, my child, and sin no more. You've been redeemed!

Robin Trower - Too Rolling Stoned

Odds and Sods - Crepe Myrtle edition

Left: The Crepe Myrtle trees are now in fabulous bloom!

~*~

Amber Rhea and I have argued about a lot of stuff, veterans included, but her post yesterday was just too great AND IMPORTANT not to mention, particularly after all the hubbub over the 4th of July, when the incident she writes about occurred:

“Support our troops” means put a fucking yellow ribbon magnet on the back of your SUV (yes, it’s so cliché to even say it at this point, we’ve all heard it before), not actually providing care and coverage to the infirm. Oh right my dad gets a piddly $200 a month benefit from the government for being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam; “oops, our bad for exposing you to a potentially deadly chemical; here’s two hundred bucks!”

And leaving the infuriating irony aside, this whole situation has brought out into the light (yet again) the stark, ugly reality of the divide between the haves and the have-nots. We can spend billions of dollars on a wall between the US and Mexico but somehow we can’t figure out how to provide comprehensive health coverage for every citizen.

Read the whole righteous rant. Amber reminds me of what some of the Ron Paul supporters have said: it isn't so much that they are "against" the war, but rather that they just don't trust the government to do it (or anything else) correctly and without bankrupting us all as a side effect.

~*~

THE CANARY COALITION is sponsoring the 2008 Relay for Clean Air on August 23rd:

We all have the right to breathe clean air and The Relay for Clean Air is the annual civil rights march staged by the Canary Coalition to focus national attention on poor air quality in the greater Appalachian Region. The Relay flag is passed from one segment to the next over the 100 mile course that stretches from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along the Blue Ridge Parkway to downtown Asheville, NC. There are segments of the Relay designed for bicycle riders, runners and for walkers. The Relay is not a race, but rather a cooperative demonstration of determination by its participants.

Here is a detailed relay schedule, and you should contact them if you want to participate!

~*~

I haven't kept up with the whole fake-Obama-birth-certificate hoopla, and I am indebted to Mattt over at Bastard.logic for providing me with a handy-dandy link-o-rama to the whole thing. Firedoglake updates us:

Only the most rabid of partisans would place their blind trust in the candidacy of a man who cannot even prove he was born. What evidence do we have that this "Barack Hussein Obama" even exists? After all, detailed investigation reveals that his name, "Barack Hussein Obama," is an anagram for either "Dread Cthulu," or else, even more frighteningly, "Tom Boerwinkle." Why, his "father's" "race" is listed as "African," when he was really Black! Ha! HAH! Heh. Ho. Hum.

The Strata-Sphere debunks the birth certificate carefully, point by point, for any lingering doubters.

~*~

Another righteous rant over at Lotus, regarding Obama's flip-flop on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA):

Let it be noted clearly that Barack Obama, who previously pledged to join in a filibuster of any bill that contained telcom immunity, not only didn't join any filibuster attempt, not only voted for the damn bill, he voted in favor of cloture. It would be hard to imagine a clearer reversal of position; this is the kind of thing for which the phrase "flip-flop" was truly destined.

But what made it even worse than the bald, cruel fact of the bill's passage was the way the media treated the story. Both AP and Reuters covered the vote as simply another question of political games, of a "legislative victory" for Bush, just another version of the horse-race coverage, who's up, who's down, without any consideration of the meaning of the vote. Worse, where they did consider the bill, they got it maddeningly, grossly, infuriatingly wrong.

Yes, you are hereby ordered to read all of this rant, too.

~*~

Finally, my homegirl Renegade Evolution had a harrowing accident, getting burned whilst "fire-spinning" (oh, holy God!)... but has characteristically taken this turn of events with her usual good humor. Nonetheless, she isn't feeling too well, so send her some good vibes!

She also reports on an interesting fellow named Kyle Payne, who seems to be making the rounds of feminist Blogdonia. What's this guy on about, anyway?

Left: red and lavender periwinkle.



Well, on the face of it, Kyle appears to be a terribly earnest young man who hates porn and misogyny. Oh my, yes. He weeps actual tears of sympathy for women, blah blah blah. I figured, a young John Stoltenberg acolyte, but with a blog.

Nope. Check out what Belledame reports, courtesy of the Iowa Independent:

An Iowa blogger who claimed to use activism and education to promote “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” for women, especially those women who have been victims of sexual violence, has pleaded guilty to photographing and filming a college student's breasts without her consent.

Kyle D. Payne, 22 of Ida Grove, presented his guilty plea Monday in Iowa District Court for Buena Vista County. He agreed he was guilty of felony attempted burglary in the second degree and two counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor.
Lynda Waddington :: Iowa Blogger Pleads Guilty to Secretly Photographing Woman's Breasts

In documents filed with the court, Payne agrees that "with an intent to arouse my sexual desire, I photographed and filmed Jane Doe and her breast without her consent." A portion of the plea agreement stating that Payne was of sound mind when the incident took place in early 2007 was stricken from the document, leaving only the portion where Payne agrees that he is currently of sound mind.

At the time of the incident, Payne had been employed by Buena Vista University as a dormitory resident adviser. Police reports indicate that while attending to an intoxicated and unconscious female student, Payne reportedly assaulted and photographed her. The guilty plea entered Monday did not include assault charges. Tips received by police and campus security following the incident led to a 10-month investigation that resulted in Payne's arrest in February....

Payne, who identified with radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin, attended a training for feminist anti-pornography activists in January at the University of Texas in Austin. An article in the Ida County Courier stated that Payne had "written papers and given several public presentations on feminist critiques of pornography, prostitution, and the 'rape culture,' in addition to serving as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence." According to a resume previously posted on his blog, he has attended many such conferences since 2004.

Payne faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $7,500. As a condition of the plea deal, the state has agreed that no other charges will be filed as a result of this incident. Sentencing has been set for Aug. 11.

You really can't make this stuff up!

**

EDIT 6:00PM--Long thread about Kyle Payne, with details on the case, accusations, unsubstantiated gossip, etc.

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Listening to: The Pogues - Amadie
via FoxyTunes

Odds and Sods - post-frenectomy edition

Here at Dead Air, I try to keep my readers updated on the newest frontiers in hippie-aging. Today, we discuss frenectomy, specifically a labial frenectomy. (Nooooo, not THAT labia!)

First, imagine my heart-stopping reaction when I am referred to a periodontist (yes, as always, the consult-a-rama never ends!) with the same surname as a local politician whom I have, umm, written about in an unkind manner here at DEAD AIR! (((gulp))) A friendly question brings out that YES, they are RELATED (as everyone in the south is, of course). I can only hope this individual isn't fond of frequently Googling their relatives, or if so, maybe secretly hates their politician kinfolk as much as the rest of us do.

So...I go to see the periodontist for a graft of my receding gum and a frenectomy, which is the snipping-and-mending of that long, weblike piece of skin that attaches lip to gum; a useless fold of skin that we don't really need. Some evolutionary adaptation, maybe, like our appendix, no longer necessary. Now, it exists merely to attract stray hulls of popcorn, as well as pull on your gum and make your gum recede even faster than it normally would. This procedure is called a labial frenectomy. I also had two skin-grafts, over two teeth.

Simply put, this hurts like a mofo. But there are drugs to be had, and the days of my chemical purity in such matters are long gone. As Alan Arkin reminded us in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, when you're young it's crazy to do drugs; when you're old, it's crazy not to.

Now I look like I've been pummeled. And you know all that perky-ass Mouseketeer bullshit you heard as a kid? I now speak very specifically to baby-boomer-aged American females, bludgeoned daily with: SMILE! It takes MANY MORE MUSCLES TO FROWN! This line was usually delivered by some insufferable, strenuously earnest 4th grade teacher, fresh from the local Midwestern Teacher College. The immediate capitalist goal was the continuous baby-boomer Gidgetizing of the masses of American womanhood during the halcyon 60s--ambiguous or thoughtful facial expressions were banned by the cultural authorities as signs of female independence. "Frowning" also referred to various versions of not-smiling, such as smirking, scowling, or sneering. Looking perplexed or furrowing one's brow in thought, were pretty risky also. Related other facial expressions that might imply girls were thinking for themselves, needless to say, were NOT permissible. We were constantly exhorted to SMILE, SMILE, SMILE.

Well, lo and behold--it turns out that...YES! It IS easier to smile. My preliminary research shows that reading blogs, post-periodontal surgery, has brought on involuntary painful smirking, scowling and the especially post-surgically-stinging sneer. (Aiyeeee)

I am suddenly aware of just how much smirking and sneering I actually DO in a day.

What would I do without the net, to teach me these important things?

~*~

Renegade Evolution reports that various anti-porn websites using porn performers' images without their consent, are just as much in violation of the law as any actual porn site that does the same thing:

The Stop Porn Culture Slide Show Training Program includes a script, tips for conducting the session; it also includes the power Point Visual presentation, which contains pornographic material. They are saying that this slide show falls under the preview of Fair Use.

However, as it can now be watched, downloaded, viewed, reproduced, and yes, even sold, the creators of Stop Porn Culture, or anyone and everyone else who wishes to showcase, distribute, or otherwise use the material in the slide show is in violation of Federal Law 2257.

Never mind that not a one of the performers featured in this “educational tool” were asked their opinions, or for their consent, nor were the companies that originally produced the images…but now see, there are questions of a Federal Law which applies to Pornographers, and as these people have essentially made themselves such, the law also applies to them. Any person exhibiting pornography, even if it is free, is beholden to 2257, this includes SPC, and those who run this seminar. You will note, at the end of the presentation, there is a claim of copyright over images already subject to copyright, and used without permission.

Another one of those interesting paradoxes that never occurred to me; rather as the film Tongues Untied was later used in anti-gay videos made by the Christian right (and I saw one of those; this isn't academic). Some of these clips were pretty explicit, too... it is interesting how far the "anti" people go in utilizing so-called obscene material to make their points. I can't help but wonder how much of this is to draw the audience in, to guarantee them some sexual excitement and appeal to their own repressed, unacknowledged prurience.

~*~

Some brave souls on the left and right are finally daring to take on the seemingly-sacrosanct matter of John McCain's war record. Politico reports:

Critics have accused McCain of war crimes for bombing targets in Hanoi in the 1960s. A widely read liberal blog on Sunday accused McCain of "disloyalty" during his captivity in Vietnam for his coerced participation in propaganda films and interviews after he had been tortured.

"A lot of people don't know ... that McCain made a propaganda video for the enemy while he was in captivity," wrote Americablog.com's John Aravosis. "Putting that bit of disloyalty aside, what exactly is McCain's military experience that prepares him for being commander in chief?"

"Getting shot down, tortured and then doing propaganda for the enemy is not command experience," Aravosis wrote in the blog post, titled "Honestly, besides being tortured, what did McCain do to excel in the military?"

Wow! And predictably, it's ON. (226 comments so far! Check it out.)

~*~

Blogdonia's most recent feminist trainwreck concerns the CARNIVAL OF FEMINISTS (#59), which included an extremely transphobic blog post purporting to "deconstruct" transgenderism. The article was eventually removed, but the resulting conflagration (113 comments) continues.

Again, I feel it necessary to apologize to transpeople for the actions of these bigoted radical feminists, as I apologize to people bullied by Christians, by southerners, by white people, by Americans...I can only say I am sorry, folks.

They do not speak for me.

----------------
Listening to: Grateful Dead - Estimated Prophet
via FoxyTunes

Odds and Sods - Sunday Matinee edition

Check out Neil Sinhababu's Six Reasons Why Clinton shouldn't be Obama's VP over at Cogitamus. Speaking personally, I thought a joint ticket was a pretty good idea until reading this. Hmm. (Great discussion, worth price of admission.)

Also: I need to calm down (formerly known as Vox Ex Machina) writes about Racism in the Voting Booth.

~*~

A Very Public Sociologist reports on the Gender, Law and Sexuality postgraduate symposium at Keele University (UK). Feminist researcher Wei Wei Cao's presentation was especially interesting:

Where bioethics are concerned feminism opposes legal obstacles placed in the way of women's access to (reproductive) medical services. But, Cao argued, there has been a tendency for feminism to place emphasis at different times on legal arguments, and at others ethical arguments, instead of a more coherent approach. This failure to combine them effectively can lead to the enshrining of progressive legal rights on paper, but in practice, serving to perpetuate the patriarchal structures they aimed to combat. For example, in Cao's native China, abortion law is very liberal. But far from enhancing women's reproductive rights, it has strengthened patriarchy's hold over women's fertility by "encouraging" the abortion of female foetuses, particularly in rural China. Taken with the one child policy this has resulted in there being somewhere in the region of 50-60 million more (mainly young) men than women.

And as we know, in the more liberal societies of the West, abortion is still taboo. Many women who undergo the procedure often have to deal with the difficulties of doing so in silence.

Therefore, Cao suggests that while the fight for reproductive autonomy remains a key feminist objective it needs to be more sensitive to women's experience.

~*~

As I have stated before, my favorite author and the greatest living genius of our age, JG Ballard, is very ill with late-stage cancer. BALLARDIAN offers us a Spring 2007 interview in an unnamed German scifi publication, titled “I really would not want to fuck George W. Bush!”: A Conversation with J. G. Ballard, conducted by Werner Fuchs and Sascha Mamczak:

Ballard: I’m very interested in social pathology, in what really drives us on in our everyday lives. My newest novel Kingdom Come raises the question of whether the consumer thinking of the present day might not at some point suddenly turn into fascism.

A very trenchant thesis.

Yes, but just take a look at what’s going on in these huge shopping malls. Evidently not much more than shopping is left for us. That and sport. That’s where we get our kicks, those are the new religions. I already believe that one of these days we could end up in a kind of leisure-time dictatorship.

But don’t events like the attacks of the 11th of September or the catastrophe in New Orleans remind people of the hard facts of reality?

I’m not so sure about that. I think it was difficult for many people to distinguish the picture of the collapsed World Trade Center from all the other images they know from Hollywood. It’s such a binary matter: real, unreal, real, unreal… And as for whether the current American administration finds itself brought down to reality or not, I very much doubt it. No, I think we live in dangerous times.

~*~

Left: A boy and his dog, outside the Greenville County Library yesterday.

From the Roanoke Times, comes another puppy mill conviction. And once again, no time will be served. (Why do they bother?)

This one is notable in that Carroll County (VA) animal rights activists intervened and alerted authorities:

Junior Horton, who operated Horton's Pups in Hillsville where more than 1,000 dogs were discovered in November by local authorities acting on a tip from the Virginia Partnership for Animal Welfare and Support, had been charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty, 25 counts of animal neglect and one count of failing to obtain a license tax for 125 unlicensed adult dogs.

700+ dogs were rescued. The Humane Society has called it the largest canine rescue operation in the USA.

Veterinarians working with the animal welfare advocates filed reports to the office of Carroll County Commonwealth's Attorney Gregory Goad. The charges accused Horton of depriving dogs of necessary food, drink, shelter or emergency veterinary treatment, and of failing to adequately house, feed, water, exercise or care for animals in his possession.

~*~

And finally, this just in--by way of Renegade Evolution. Pornographer Nina Hartley was hacked by some Islamic extremists. As reported by Ernest Greene on The Blog of Pro-Porn Activism (you've been duly warned as to content):

Nina.com was hacked by a couple of young guys in Turkey who characterize themselves as "Islamic cyber-warriors." They've hacked hundreds of other sites all over the world that they regard as suitable targets for their jihadist fury for whatever reasons and make no secret of their intention to go right on doing so. Indeed, for a couple of days after the fact, they were all over Turkish media trumpeting their great triumph at shutting down the site of the "Jew whore" Nina Hartley. And they got pretty far with that too, even making it onto the TV news back home. This will get them more views for their clumsy gangsta-rap vids on youtube (you can see their collection of laptops in the background as they bust their moves) and presumably sell more of the malware they peddle on their own site. Great heroes of the coming caliphate are these two twenty-nothings. May they be welcomed into paradise by those 72 virgins at the earliest possible date. Given the TNP's impatience with swaggering braggarts who like to stir up trouble, that date may come rather sooner than they expect.

But those of us over here are stuck with some troubling questions whatever fate may hold in store for these pathetic low-lifes. The unpleasant fact remains that the hate they feel for Nina and all she believes is shared in equal measure among right-wing Christian evangelicals, left-wing anti-porn feminists and their fellow Islamic fundamentalist fanatics all around the world. Even though these extremists all despise each other, they agree on something basic about human nature - their deep-seated distrust and dislike for it. Where they find common ground is in their abhorrence of personal freedom and individual liberty.

Indeed.

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Listening to: The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
via FoxyTunes

Free speech for sex workers!

Left: Renegade Evolution, best sex-worker blogger in all of Blogdonia, ready to debate.

Colleges are known for serious drinking and hardy partying, right? Fraternities hire strippers and varsity athletes hire sex workers for private parties, as we learned during the educational Duke Lacrosse case. Just don't let the stripper come in through the FRONT DOOR.

Octogalore, being all lawyerly, offers these facts:

Our friend Renegade Evolution was asked to speak Monday, April 21st, at 5:30 pm, in the Andrews Building on the Campus of William and Mary College on pornography and sex work, in a debate alongside with Jill Brenneman. Debating Ren and Jill will be John Foubert, a professor at the college, and Samantha Berg, who started and runs genderberg.com.

Read more about it here and here.

Unfortunately, Sam has apparently complained about comments Ren made and is attempting to get her disinvited. While these comments were clearly dramatic and not at all serious, Sam is attempting to piggyback on them to hide other, less sympathetic reasons for stifling the First Amendment...

(Read more of Octo's smart-lawyer comments here.)

Ren's actual post (that Sam is currently yowling about) was something along the lines of, I wish Sam would fall under a truck. Sam is hyperventilating that the mean stripper might hurt her and push her under a moving vehicle. She is pretending that the Blogdonia hyperbole of several "fuck-yous" exchanged on blogs in the past, is the equivalent to a real threat.

Indeed, this sums up Sam.

If you've ever read Sam's pedal-to-the-metal hysterical writing (she refers to our kind of feminism as "spreademism"--do I need to say more?), you know that she is given to major hyperbole also. But even more than that, she seems to believe that pornography is "real"--that simulated rape-movies are actual rape, that all women who perform in pornography are hoodwinked, ignorant gals who blundered into it, just as most of the flimsy story-lines would have you believe. Sam has blurred the line between fantasy and reality for so long in her politics, she seems to have forgotten that things we say online are quite often not "serious"--thus, "fall under a truck" translates as "I think what you are saying is pernicious and you have bad politics"... but alas, puritan hysteria and censorship are Sam's stock and trade.

And so, we see which side favors freedom of speech and open debate, and which side would shut it down.

Not for one second do I believe that Sam is truly physically "afraid" of lil ole 5'2" Ren. What I believe she is afraid of is not being able to debate her. And she has every reason to be afraid, because Ren will clean the clock of ANY puritan censor, particularly one disguised as a feminist.

If Sam IS afraid of Ren, all I can say is, she ain't gonna be much for taking on the REAL patriarchs, you know, the big boys with guns? Yeah, the patriarchy must be a-quakin in their boots, when they see Sam approach!

Other folks have written about this situation, too. Galling Galla asks "Who is feminism for, anyway?" and ties this incident to other recent skirmishes in Feminist Blogdonia, and rightly so:

when [feminists] engage in the silencing tactics that they have against sex workers, exactly how are these “radical feminists” any different from religious fundamentalists?

Good question. Any takers?

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Listening to: Sugar - A Good Idea
via FoxyTunes

Odds and Sods - primary edition

Left: Senators Lindsey Graham and Trent Lott, yesterday (1/12/08) at Tanner's Big Orange, Greenville, SC.



You'll have to forgive the blurry photo, but I was standing on a chair, in the back.

I was given the mistaken impression by our fearless Greenville News, that Senator John McCain himself, war hero, author and Republican presidential candidate, would be at Tanner's Big Orange yesterday. So, I hightailed it over there, only to discover that NO, he only sent his flunkies, Senators Graham and Lott. Also appearing, McCain backers, Greenville Mayor Knox White and State Senator Mike Fair. These are the heavies, folks. Mitt Romney has obviously been left for dead.

Tanner's Big Orange is as old south as it gets. We were generously given free onion rings (I skipped on the chili dogs, thanks) and orange juice while we waited for the legendary Straight Talk Express, McCain's bus, to pull up. Straight Talk? He isn't even on his bus, he is up in Michigan campaigning for the big numbers. Am I supposed to be impressed with that? And, um, Lindsey? Straight talk? Do we really wanna go there?

The place was jam-packed with southern hawks, diehard military fellas with shirts, buttons and patches letting you know which wars they were in. (One of them politely offered me his seat--yes, southern gentlemen!) This made me sweat a bit, suddenly conscious of my corduroy tie-dye skirt and long hair, but a few of the veterans had that scruffy, long-haired outsider-look Dennis Hopper used to have before he started shilling for Wall Street. These guys are SOLID behind McCain, and totally unapologetic for the Iraq War. They are there to WIN, as Lindsey repeatedly said, to cheers.

Lindsey Graham, to put it very honestly and bluntly, is one of the most charming people in the world. He is sweet, funny and whimsical. He has a million one-liners, delivered in his lilting, gee-whiz-I'm-a-Senator-can-you-dig-it? fashion. This seems like a sharp contrast to his style on the Senate floor, where he doesn't miss a trick. Nonetheless, when he started talking, I was jarred by the juxtaposition of the hard-ass, masculine veterans and sweet, nonmasculine Lindsey, and I am always surprised at how much they like him. Do they see it? If they do, they don't care. Lindsey, as usual, appealed to his military service, which he holds up like a banner in most political discussions of Iraq. And then he tells jokes. He'd be fine with ANY of the good men running for the GOP nomination, he said, except Ron Paul (whose name was met with a round of boos)...but Lindsey says he figures he'll have to worry about that when he is drafted for the NBA (he's short), so he isn't too worried.

About John Edwards (more boos), he says people don't realize that they BOTH were born in Seneca, South Carolina. In fact, Lindsey Graham and John Edwards were born in the same hospital! "I was born in the right wing of that hospital, and he was born in the left wing of that hospital!" The crowd ate it up.

I didn't hang around for Trent Lott, hey, I have my limits, okay? But I will say that in person, his toupee is something to behold. It looks much more toupee-ish than on TV, and you wonder, if he can afford summer homes and the like, can't he find a decent toupee? What's up with that?

On the way out, I spied two Ron Paul boys of college age, busily leafleting windshields. HEY GUYS! "They are trashing Ron Paul in there," I told them. They sneered in the general direction of Tanner's Big Orange. "Not too surprising!" sneered one. "Politics as usual!" sneered the other. Both chuckled that McCain couldn't even be bothered to show up in person.

Maybe, I thought, he doesn't have to. It's obviously between McCain and Huckabee here in the upstate, and judging by the tenor of the Tanner's crowd, I'd give the SC primary to McCain.

~*~

My piece on Spider-Man and Mary Jane, the non-marriage that has rocked the comics-world to its foundations, has been linked on When Fangirls Attack, as well as Anthony McCune's Surfer's Paradise blog carnival! WELCOME EVERYONE, and stick around!

~*~

Left: Graphic from Earthstation1.com.

Check out Ren's post, patiently explaining why pornography (and she makes it, so she knows whereof she speaks) is NOT the same as sex education. And never the twain shall meet:

Well, as I’ve said before, and as I am saying right now, and as I am sure I will have to say in the future, Porn Is Absolutely Shitty Sex Education. It sucks as sex education. It is, quite possibly, the worst excuse/form/whatever of sex education out there. Porn is adult entertainment. Pornographers and porn performers are adult entertainers. Sex Education rarely if ever enters the mind of a lot people in the porn biz, and yeah, they would do themselves a huge favor if they made porn less accessible to minors, but with the internet, file sharing, downloading, free sites, so on, I don’t even really know how much that would help. Either way, it is known that kids, male and female, are looking at porn and taking it as some form of sexual education, and that is not at all what it’s for, and the messages they are getting out of it in regards to sex & sex ed are totally inane, misinformed, and even dangerous.

A great post, really worth reading. ADULTS ONLY please! (Although maybe the teenage boys need to read it, in particular.)

GOOD WORK, REN!

~*~

Also check out Mother Jones' excellent article of last issue, Did I Steal My Daughter?--which is about international adoption.

And that's when it finally sank in: Beatriz hadn't made a "choice" in the liberating way that our post-Roe culture thinks about reproductive options. Like any woman in the developing world placing a child for adoption, she'd buckled under crushing financial or social pressure—perhaps even coercion. I'd considered this before, but had always batted the thought away by telling myself that Flora was going to be adopted, whether it was we who stepped forward or someone else.

These issues are regularly discussed on Marley Greiner's fantastic blog, The Daily Bastardette.

No Dead Air Church today, but enjoy your Sabbath anyway!

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Listening to: The Pretenders - Message of Love
via FoxyTunes

Missing internet porn star

Photo at left from KCTV5.com.


The newest tabloid scandal of the hour involves a missing 18-year-old from Kansas, whom it turns out was an "upstart porn star" (quoting ABC):

Her Web site may have been taken down, but pictures of an upstart porn star named Zoey Zane can still be found on the Internet.

Now investigators in Kansas who have been searching for 18-year-old Emily Sander, a college student missing since Friday, must consider a startling discovery: Sander and Zane are the same person.

Sander was last seen leaving a bar in El Dorado, Kan., with Israel Mireles, 24, who has since taken off. Police say Sander met Mireles for the first time at the bar.

Suddenly the girl described by her grandfather as a "sweet," good kid appears to have been leading a secret double life as an aspiring adult movie starlet.

Sander's brother, Jacob Sander, confirmed last night to The Associated Press that his sister was, in fact, Zoey Zane, an actress who describes herself on an introduction to her Web site as "a spunky little teen with a super sexy side."

"As soon as I turned 18, I started shooting for my site," Sander writes under her screen name.

Nikki Watson, who described herself as a close friend of Sander's at Butler Community College in Kansas, first revealed Sander's double life Wednesday, telling the AP that Sander "enjoyed" making movies for the extra money. "Nobody in El Dorado knew besides her close friends," Watson said, adding that Sander recently signed a contract with a pornography company and had just told her parents over the Thanksgiving holiday. Sander's boyfriend, according to Watson, did not approve.

The FBI and Internet crime experts from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation have been called in to try to determine whether Sander's work as a porn star may have contributed to her disappearance.

A bit of a warning here? Watch it, gals, making your own porn might get you knocked off.

After leaving the bar with Mireles, the two went to a motel. Law enforcement was called when the motel manager (accompanied by Mireles' boss) later found the room covered with blood. DNA tests are under way as I write. Meanwhile, as stated above, Israel Mireles is long gone.

The revelation that Sander was keeping a double life as a porn star came as a shock to Sander's grandmother, who said she did not believe what people were saying about the teen. Earlier in the week, in an appeal to the public, Sander's grandfather, Clement, described her as "a sweet little girl" who has "done real good in school."

Sander is described as 5 foot, 3 inches with brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing jeans, a "Don't Mess With Texas" T-shirt and sneakers. She has multiple tattoos and body piercings.

My prayers are with Emily and her family.

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Listening to: Son Volt - Highways and Cigarettes
via FoxyTunes