Jonathan Chait is right, sorry

Jonathan Chait's much-discussed New York magazine piece titled Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say created such a spectacle throughout the lefty-internet last month, I momentarily believed there might be a real live discussion about it. SALON appeared to be collectively in shock, and printed Chait-hate pieces every hour for awhile, it seemed. There was a lively hashtag-debate that said it all: #Chaitgate. There are still periodic Two-Minute Hates being blasted at Chait for daring to express this opinion; it was a scandal.

Yes, a SCANDAL.

Free speech, free inquiry, demanding the Left explain the disgusting, ineffectual witch-hunting and open provocateur behavior of the past few years... is now regarded as a SCANDAL. Sit down and suck it up, obedient left-leaning androids, or go join the Right. (And you know, I think lots of disgruntled free-speech-purists indeed might choose to do that, but now I am getting ahead of myself.)

Most of the response to Chait was the same response I got when I mentioned Engels in an old Tumblr discussion: White hetero privileged guy! Bleat, bleat, bleat, WHITE HETERO PRIVILEGED GUY!

That's the response.

That's their WHOLE REPLY. That's IT.

None of these self-appointed "social justice activists" [1] (aka SJWs) actually explain WHY or HOW Chait's piece radiates or replicates whiteness or maleness, as (for example) James Baldwin or Kate Millett did in their social criticism. That requires actually engaging with the text. To some of the SJWs, the words of certain genders or races are automatically inferior and do not even rate direct replies. (And what does THAT remind me of? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.) In a recent discussion, I deliberately centered old people in my responses [2] and asked what SJWs thought when a certain historic event occurred (I was fully aware most hadn't even been born yet) and they instantly became furious. Thus, we see, some groups are worthy of being "centered"--and some are clearly not. [3]

In other words, if I just mindlessly bleated "you're young! you're young!" to END a discussion, in this same fashion? I'd be laughed at. It doesn't work for everybody, only for those with properly-trendy identities. (PS: Many young Jews are learning that in social justice circles, they do not have a trendy identity, as Christians also do not.)

From Chait's piece:

After political correctness burst onto the academic scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it went into a long remission. Now it has returned. Some of its expressions have a familiar tint, like the protesting of even mildly controversial speakers on college campuses. You may remember when 6,000 people at the University of California–Berkeley signed a petition last year to stop a commencement address by Bill Maher, who has criticized Islam (along with nearly all the other major world religions). Or when protesters at Smith College demanded the cancellation of a commencement address by Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, blaming the organization for “imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” Also last year, Rutgers protesters scared away Condoleezza Rice; others at Brandeis blocked Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s-rights champion who is also a staunch critic of Islam; and those at Haverford successfully protested ­former Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who was disqualified by an episode in which the school’s police used force against Occupy protesters.

At a growing number of campuses, professors now attach “trigger warnings” to texts that may upset students, and there is a campaign to eradicate “microaggressions,” or small social slights that might cause searing trauma. These newly fashionable terms merely repackage a central tenet of the first p.c. movement: that people should be expected to treat even faintly unpleasant ideas or behaviors as full-scale offenses. Stanford recently canceled a performance of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson after protests by Native American students. UCLA students staged a sit-in to protest microaggressions such as when a professor corrected a student’s decision to spell the word indigenous with an uppercase I — one example of many “perceived grammatical choices that in actuality reflect ideologies.” A theater group at Mount Holyoke College recently announced it would no longer put on The Vagina Monologues in part because the material excludes women without vaginas. These sorts of episodes now hardly even qualify as exceptional.

Trigger warnings aren’t much help in actually overcoming trauma — an analysis by the Institute of Medicine has found that the best approach is controlled exposure to it, and experts say avoidance can reinforce suffering. Indeed, one professor at a prestigious university told me that, just in the last few years, she has noticed a dramatic upsurge in her students’ sensitivity toward even the mildest social or ideological slights; she and her fellow faculty members are terrified of facing accusations of triggering trauma — or, more consequentially, violating her school’s new sexual-harassment policy — merely by carrying out the traditional academic work of intellectual exploration. “This is an environment of fear, believe it or not,” she told me by way of explaining her request for anonymity. It reminds her of the previous outbreak of political correctness — “Every other day I say to my friends, ‘How did we get back to 1991?’ ”

But it would be a mistake to categorize today’s p.c. culture as only an academic phenomenon. Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate. Two decades ago, the only communities where the left could exert such hegemonic control lay within academia, which gave it an influence on intellectual life far out of proportion to its numeric size. Today’s political correctness flourishes most consequentially on social media, where it enjoys a frisson of cool and vast new cultural reach. And since social media is also now the milieu that hosts most political debate, the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old.

It also makes money. Every media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media industry beset by insecurity. A year ago, for instance, a photographer compiled images of Fordham students displaying signs recounting “an instance of racial microaggression they have faced.” The stories ranged from uncomfortable (“No, where are you really from?”) to relatively innocuous (“ ‘Can you read this?’ He showed me a Japanese character on his phone”). BuzzFeed published part of her project, and it has since received more than 2 million views. This is not an anomaly.

In a short period of time, the p.c. movement has assumed a towering presence in the psychic space of politically active people in general and the left in particular. “All over social media, there dwell armies of unpaid but widely read commentators, ready to launch hashtag campaigns and circulate Change.org petitions in response to the slightest of identity-politics missteps,” Rebecca Traister wrote recently in The New Republic.

For sure, let's not forget the wages of sin: blogswarms, mass defriendings, social isolation, flaming, the spreading of inaccurate rumors, doxxing, streams of sicko emails, etc etc. This shit has real-life consequences. (I once got this treatment over ONE QUESTION--not even a statement!-- in a post.) It is disgusting, evil, bullying behavior, and there is NO DEFENSE from anyone who imagines themselves about social justice. Social justice is not about threatening to torture people, in case you didn't know.

Chait continues:

Social media, where swarms of jeering critics can materialize in an instant, paradoxically creates this feeling of isolation. [Hanna Rosin commented] “You do immediately get the sense that it’s one against millions, even though it’s not.” Subjects of these massed attacks often describe an impulse to withdraw.

Political correctness is a term whose meaning has been gradually diluted since it became a flashpoint 25 years ago. People use the phrase to describe politeness (perhaps to excess), or evasion of hard truths, or (as a term of abuse by conservatives) liberalism in general. The confusion has made it more attractive to liberals, who share the goal of combating race and gender bias.

But political correctness is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism. Indeed, its most frequent victims turn out to be liberals themselves.

And this is a major reason why its wrong--this demand for perfection is never directed at the enemy. It is always directed at other leftists and allies.

In this way, it is counter-productive and makes the Right stronger. As Chait says,

Under p.c. culture, the same idea can be expressed identically by two people but received differently depending on the race and sex of the individuals doing the expressing. This has led to elaborate norms and terminology within certain communities on the left. For instance, “mansplaining,” a concept popularized in 2008 by Rebecca Solnit, who described the tendency of men to patronizingly hold forth to women on subjects the woman knows better — in Solnit’s case, the man in question mansplained her own book to her. The fast popularization of the term speaks to how exasperating the phenomenon can be, and mansplaining has, at times, proved useful in identifying discrimination embedded in everyday rudeness. But it has now grown into an all-purpose term of abuse that can be used to discredit any argument by any man. (MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry once disdainfully called White House press secretary Jay Carney’s defense of the relative pay of men and women in the administration “man­splaining,” even though the question he responded to was posed by a male.) Mansplaining has since given rise to “whitesplaining” and “straightsplaining.” The phrase “solidarity is for white women,” used in a popular hashtag, broadly signifies any criticism of white feminists by nonwhite ones.

If a person who is accused of bias attempts to defend his intentions, he merely compounds his own guilt. (Here one might find oneself accused of man/white/straightsplaining.) It is likewise taboo to request that the accusation be rendered in a less hostile manner. This is called “tone policing.” If you are accused of bias, or “called out,” reflection and apology are the only acceptable response — to dispute a call-out only makes it worse. There is no allowance in p.c. culture for the possibility that the accusation may be erroneous. A white person or a man can achieve the status of “ally,” however, if he follows the rules of p.c. dialogue. A community, virtual or real, that adheres to the rules is deemed “safe.” The extensive terminology plays a crucial role, locking in shared ideological assumptions that make meaningful disagreement impossible.

Read the comments, boys and girls. There is NO argument about the accuracy of ANY of these outrageous stories of censorship.... just a torrent of self-satisfied white guys streaming forward to brag that they can "handle it" and aren't "threatened" the way Chait is. There is absolutely NO discussion about whether this mode of "take no prisoners" discourse is decent or self-destructive behavior for the Left to engage in, just that THEY are cool about it all. Chait's piece provided the perfect opportunity for a veritable TORRENT of strutting, unbridled narcissism from the "social justice activists" -- as they all congratulated each other for not being like him and not agreeing with him... or if they did agree with him, they tried to make it sound like they didn't.

I have been so upset by the invasion of the Left by these fascist wannabes, that I have lost considerable sleep over it. I have considered not bothering at all, leaving the net entirely to the bullies. Only my sheer stubbornness keeps me coming back.

And I know I am not the only one. Chait reports--

“It seems to me now that the public face of social liberalism has ceased to seem positive, joyful, human, and freeing,” confessed the progressive writer Freddie deBoer. “There are so many ways to step on a land mine now, so many terms that have become forbidden, so many attitudes that will get you cast out if you even appear to hold them. I’m far from alone in feeling that it’s typically not worth it to engage, given the risks.” [Michelle] Goldberg wrote recently about people “who feel emotionally savaged by their involvement in [online feminism] — not because of sexist trolls, but because of the slashing righteousness of other feminists.”

And is that what we want the Left to be? The land of the Thought Police?

How on earth can we arrive at solutions if we are not allowed to discuss anything?

~*~

As one on liberal talk radio in the most conservative county in the USA, I can't use esoteric internet political in-group terminology and expect the local Baptists to understand me. Further, as an older person, I frequently use unfashionable or antiquated words. This crime alone, in the current hyped-up politically-correct climate, is enough to get a well-meaning but unsuspecting newcomer savaged [4], as I have witnessed numerous times. Once the social justice police have applied the Mark of Cain, it means anything the stigmatized say (or any political event we report on) is either attacked relentlessly or totally ignored. Remember the early internet, where people argued for days at a time? Where minds were actually CHANGED? (and mine was one, so I know) Well, that's all over now. Many once-lively, fun places are now just battlegrounds where no ideas or nuance can be seriously developed or mulled over [5]. For example, the once-exciting FEMINISTE blog is now mostly a place for trans women to police cis women for various ideological crimes; a blog that once might have hundreds of comments per thread, now routinely gets 3-10 per thread, if that. Reddit calls the political correctness situation "Metareddit Cancer" (since it has spread to the moderators). And as Chait reminds us, this phenomenon now extends to powerful news organizations; The New York Times and CNN both censored the Charlie Hebdo cover with the drawing of Mohammed, showing themselves to be craven cowards, and giving the terrorists exactly the censorship they demanded. (No negotiation with terrorists, huh? Major news organizations excepted!)

I have become so upset with the Left in this regard, I could barely summon up the strength to blog... I've simply entered my snarky comebacks on Tumblr, enjoyed the cute animals photos (the main reason Tumblr exists) and grumbled. It is Chait and his guts that made me decide to speak up here, now that the smoke has cleared.

He's right. The Left is becoming a cartoon of itself.

And another thing... a message I got from a sister Tumblrite, after another of the fabled arguments in which I was told how dumb I am, how wrong, how bad, please go away. Remember how I once said Women's Movement pioneers are mostly shit on, while Civil Rights pioneers are lauded and praised as precious? (And I wonder what that's like?)

I really don't understand so much about this epidemic of self-righteousness and narcissism (which is what I think characterizes so much of the most extreme PC babbling), and began chatting with another feminist who had some amazing insights (and shall hereby remain anonymous).

She certainly inspired some deep thinking here at DEAD AIR:

The social justice sector may skew younger, because the ethos of instant moral certitude and endless identity-gazing would appeal to adolescents, the profusion of stupid neologisms less offensive to eyes and ears that haven’t known much discourse. It helps my sanity to bear in mind that a lot of these people are 9th and 10th graders who’ve never had a moment of real-world political activity (or offline interaction with the identity communities they claim to represent, for that matter) in their lives. What’s more, many of them probably never will. Because it is a subjective enterprise conducted primarily by those who are privileged to endlessly indulge their subjectivity.

For many reasons, “social justice” cannot be equated with what we would have once called the radical left. I’ve been thinking about your comments on sabotage and agents provocateurs. Sadly, I think very few of them are being paid or otherwise extrinsically motivated. I think most of it is organic and sincere, which is worse.

For the past week or so I’ve been coming across posts warning white people away from police brutality protests because “it’s not about you,” accompanied by extensive instructions for all the self-examination white people should do it rather than join the movement. What a brilliant trick that would be from a deliberate saboteur! But horribly enough it’s absolutely sincere - SJWs who don’t understand that it’s not “about” any of the protestors; who honestly mistake mass protest for an arena for the elaboration and display of identities. Which again, suggests less than robust experience with actual protests.

The emphasis on subjectivity and invisible ideological purity is, I’m sure you realize, the reason they attack people who are “on the same side” - if your subjectivity isn’t PERFECT, you aren’t actually on the same side. They are for the most part just too dumb (or less uncharitably, too naive) to comprehend the opportunity that the endless goalpost-moving and ratcheting up of standards creates for those who are up to no good.

And here is where I remind everyone that there are still wars going on. Obama is seeking further war authorization as we speak. Here is your golden opportunity to GET OFF YOUR DERRIERE and start a real live anti-war movement, instead of a pretend-movement on Tumblr.

Let me know when you are ready for real politics. As long as this extended silliness continues, I will treat it as the mindless din that it is.

I have serious work to do.


~*~



[1] I put quotes around the term since this is what they call themselves, even though as I have pointed out before, the vast majority have actually done NO activism at all. (Asking for a resume is a good way to shut them up and call out the hypocrisy.) "SJW" is nothing more than a label and requires no one do anything risky in real life, otherwise we wouldn't have 2-3 wars going on at once, apparently without missing a beat or noticing this imperialism enough to even remark about it on their extra-special SJW sites... let alone actually attempt to, you know, STOP THE WARS.

[2] Social justice activists habitually claim they are "centering" this or that oppressed group and therefore do not have to argue with any political criticism on the opposite side of the divide. So, I decided to use this tactic myself as an old person, and re-center baby-boomer experience.

And I guess you know how well THAT went over.

[3] I was told that I am too old to be on Tumblr, and that it is automatically "suspect" (!) when any older person is there. Also: "ageism is not a thing"--yes, I swear, these two statements came from the SAME PERSON. But in short, treating old people like shit is still fine, same as it ever was. Somehow, age has not entered that sacrosanct category of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and all the other social justice status-labels.

[4] It has been deemed "racist" to use the word "savage"--even as a verb. I tell them: stop doing it, I'll stop using the word. What other words do you prefer? Barbarism? Bullying?

I am committed to bringing back the word McCARTHYISM.

[5] When I asked some critical questions of anti-sex-work feminists, it was assumed (with a nasty, snarky vibe) that I must think sex work is fabulous and great. Um, no, I don't, I just think sex workers need basic protections from arrests and harassment. It was then decided that I must believe women are "empowered" by sex work (language I don't even use!) ... In short, SJWs assume everyone is sharply PRO or CON (meaning: their very limited version of PRO and CON positions, usually a rehash of what they've seen on CNN or something)...they never see political positions as evolving, undecided, nuanced, changing, learning... which is where the vast majority of people live out their political realities on a day-to-day basis.

The SJWs live on Planet Certainty, and most people don't. Further, most people aren't sure they want to live there.

And on that note, let me clarify: JUST BECAUSE I AGREE WITH JONATHAN CHAIT ABOUT THIS SUBJECT, does not mean I agree with everything he says about everything. It seems obvious and ridiculous to have to say such a thing, but in the climate we are describing, it is required. If you like a blog post, its obvious you must love the author and love everything they say (see above)-- so you are accountable for something they wrote in 2006 too.

Europa Report

I have now seen Guardians of the Galaxy twice, in both 2D and 3D. And it still ticks me off that, yes, the BADDEST BITCH IN THE UNIVERSE, Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana), has to be rescued by A MAN, and a hapless one at that. Good Lord. Is there NO ESCAPE????

Well, maybe not from Marvel Universe... but there are these cool things called INDIE MOVIES, and I now hereby recommend one: Europa Report was sheer joy from beginning to end.

I had almost forgotten how old shows like The Twilight Zone and the early Star Trek were made: on the cheap, with the emphasis on provocative, interesting scripts, excellent acting and cool, otherworldly ideas. Europa Report (2013) reminds us that IDEAS and DRAMA are behind good sci-fi, and no amount of razzle-dazzle special effects can take the place of these compelling and enthralling story-telling elements.

Europa Report was made on a scant budget (less than $10 million) and occasionally, it does seem like it. But the whole concept of watching an upload of the first mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa (a mission by a private company, of course) is a creative way around not having the razzle-dazzle. As in the original version of ALIEN, we are watching the everyday blahblahblah-boredom of a long space mission, where people might easily become stir crazy and act silly. And then shit happens, somebody goes drifting off into space (I hate it when that happens), and we are suddenly reminded of the tenuousness of life, especially millions of miles away, "sitting in a tin can"--as in David Bowie's famous lyric.

The landing on Europa is terrifying. I felt almost-dizzy watching from that point onward, but in a good, delicious way. I could identify with the crew, who kept saying how they couldn't believe they had actually arrived and how long they had dreamed of it, how long they had waited. As I said in my review of Another Earth, I looooove invented-scenery of enormous planets in the sky, and they give us a great view of Jupiter-in-eclipse, which they see from their landing site on Europa. They are nearly hypnotized by it, as I surely would be.

And one of the best things? When it seems their landing site is on ice too thick to get the samples (the whole reason for the trip), one of the women crew-members announces she is walking out onto the ice to get it herself. NO MAN HAS TO DO IT! It's not even a man's IDEA! Praise the Lord, a woman decides to save the mission! Huzzahs! (And she isn't even the baddest bitch in the universe, as Gamora is, but just another scientist.)

The crew's collective devotion to the mission, in and of itself, is intense and moving; in fact, it is quite wonderful. I often think the science-freaks (those irreverent atheists) have no respect for anything, but after seeing this movie, I get it: they respect the scientific process above all else, even above their own lives. The sample-collector (played by Karolina Wydra) doesn't know if radiation will fry her out there on Europa's surface, but dammit, they need the specimens and she plunges out onto the strange unearthly ice with no hesitations whatsoever. Her voice quavers with emotion when she finds a small one-celled creature in the ice, which she says appears Precambrian. It is like they have found God or something, and it is hard not to imagine the emotional intensity of seeing such a thing, close-up and for real. The acting is fantastic and always believable.

I don't want to ruin it for you, but the ending is brilliant and understated, both scary and amazing (terrifying and wonderful, said some reviewer I now can't find to link). Science is like that, right? The closing of one door and the blasting open of still another you never even knew existed. You can't go back, once you know.

And did I mention that this lovely understated but brilliant ending is made possible by (more huzzahs!) another woman crew member who ain't scared? (And let's be clear: by this point in the story, I would be a raving hysterical maniac, so that is truly saying something.) I can't tell you how proud of her I was.

Just as we involuntarily grimace when Gamora needs rescue (and try to forget that we just saw the baddest bitch in the universe floating around like zero-gravity-Sleeping Beauty, waiting for Chris Pratt to scoop her up in his manly arms), we are unaccountably PROUD when these Europa women kick some scientific ass and do important stuff without waiting for men to tell them.

This tells us how far we have to go.

Check out the movie. If you like drama and don't need a bunch of bells and whistles (as I admit Guardians of the Galaxy has a parcel of em), you won't be disappointed. If you have ever had intense dreams or fantasies of visiting other planets, you will find it mesmerizing, and it will stay with you a long time.

The women come out great, but the science is the thing. It's the real star.

USC-Upstate closing their Gender Studies Center

USC-Upstate is closing their Gender Studies Center. I apologize for my tardiness in reporting this story, since I left town right after the huge hoopla broke out on my Facebook feed. In short, plenty of locals believe it was a waste of money and a good cost-cutting measure.

Others disagreed, and decided to protest.

This action was widely regarded as an act of retribution. From reporter Alison Piepmeier at Charleston City Paper:

On the afternoon of Mon. May 12, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor John Masterson explained to select faculty members that the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at USC Upstate will be closed starting July 1, 2014.

Given the fact that USC Upstate has faced homophobic threats and retaliation from the General Assembly, both for its reading program that offered the book “Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio” (a decision the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies had nothing to do with) and its decision to book the satirical play “How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less,” some faculty do not believe the elimination of the center is simply coincidental, especially since their budget for programming is $500 a year. “In my personal opinion it’s an act of retribution,” one faculty member told me.

We’re in a moment when the legislature continues to attempt to enact budget cuts for CofC and USC Upstate for books they’ve offered their students, books that present characters and nonfictional accounts addressing — among many other things — LGBTQ people and topics. The nation — indeed, the world —has been paying attention to the homophobia and sexism that our legislature has clearly and unapologetically voiced.

In addition to the book USC Upstate offered in the fall semester, in the spring the Center had the Bodies of Knowledge Symposium, an academic conference they’ve been holding since 2007. This is a conference that is based on current research in Women’s and Gender Studies, and they’ve always featured evening entertainment for participants.

This year when the conference offered a satirical one-woman play called How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less, Rep. Mike Fair (R-Greenville) called them out. Rep. Fair, a Christian fundamentalist who leads the legislative fight for creationism, has been very open about his homophobia. “It’s just not normal and then you glorify … same-sex orientation,” he told Greenville TV station WYFF. “That’s not an explanation of ‘I was born this way.’ That’s recruiting.”

State Sen. Kevin Bryant got even more specific, telling The State [newspaper], “If they’ve got extra money sitting around to promote perversion, obviously they’ve got more money than they really need.”

After Fair and Bryant raised a stink, the school’s administration cancelled the performance. At the time, Tammy E. Whaley, assistant vice chancellor for university communications at USC Upstate, said that the move was actually an action in favor of academic freedom: “The controversy surrounding this performance has become a distraction to the educational mission of USC Upstate and the overall purpose of the Bodies of Knowledge symposium.”

Photo of USC-Upstate demonstration at left, from GoUpstate.



The Center for Women’s and Gender Studies has been an important entity on the USC Upstate campus. A faculty member told me that the administration is now “removing the only element of the campus that responds to the needs of marginalized people.” The center offered a host of services to faculty, staff, and students, from professional development opportunities for women in academia to a space on campus where students — from sorority members to trans activists — were welcome.

“To say I’m disgusted is an understatement,” a faculty member told me. “The center was a sign of a positive and progressive workplace for faculty and staff and a safe haven for students, gone now with no input from the faculty, staff, and students it served.” Indeed, almost every faculty member I spoke with referred to the center as a safe space.

The demonstration was on May 21st, headed up by students (and local atheist activist Peggy Dellinger! Woo-hoo! Friends of the radio show!).

From GoUpstate:

USC Upstate’s Center for Women’s and Gender Studies featured programming on a variety of topics, including race, sexual orientation, feminism and religion, and it was women who took center stage during Wednesday’s protest of its closure.

“The center was closed without consulting the women faculty,” said Jennifer Parker, associate dean for arts and sciences. “This was a decision that did not involve the collective voice.”

The protest was in response to last week’s announcement by University of South Carolina Upstate officials that cuts to programs and administrative changes would be made to save $450,000, including closing the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. The cuts would be effective July 1. Closing the center would equal $45,000 in savings.

Protesters first gathered at the fountain in front of the administration building, then moved to the quad behind it. They held signs that stated, “It’s not a good time for women at USCU” and “Closing CWGS = $45K, promoting peace, justice and opportunity for all = priceless” and chanted, “No more margins. We want the center.”

Parker said she was not attacking Chancellor Tom Moore, but asked that he rethink the closing of the center.

“It was a huge blow to the women on campus,” she said. “I hope he reconsiders this decision.”

The Petition is here, if you'd like to sign it.

Another one bites the dust

My always-vigilant, intrepid spies tell me the fundamentalist Christian world has been rocked by still another scandal. In addition to the hoopla brought about by Stephen Jones resigning the presidency of Bob Jones University, we learn that Vision Forum Ministries will be permanently shutting down.

And the hits just keep on comin.

Christian Post reports that misogynist nuisance Doug Phillips resigned from heading up Vision Forum, because (nah, go on!) he couldn't keep his hands to himself. As a response, Vision Forum is calling it a day. Good riddance!

But hey, that's a lotta dough:

According to Vision Forum Ministry's 2011 tax returns, the nonprofit wing of the organization, its total revenue was $3,345,150, while its total expenses were $1,734,985.

Phillips announced his resignation at the end of October, describing it as "inappropriately romantic and affectionate," though he denied any sexual relationship between him and the woman, asserting that he had not known her in a "biblical sense."

Yes, we all know what this means... another powerful man who doesn't know what the meaning of IS, is. ;)

(For more, check out Jen's blog; she properly clocks his worthless ass and has been for some time now.)

Phillips is well-known in fundie circles for his infamous "Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy" a guide popular among Quiverfull households. (Phillips and his spouse Beall have 8 children.)

Religion News reports:

Phillips is a leader among conservative Christians who reject birth control and believe that large families are a sign of God’s blessings, as seen in his friends Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s family on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” He preaches a message of “biblical patriarchy,” in which a man is called to “rule over his household” and “the God-ordained and proper sphere of dominion for a wife is the household.”

Phillips also takes a dim view of women in the public sphere, saying it is not “the ordinary and fitting role of women to work alongside men as their functional equals” outside the home in business, government and the military.

The damage done by these oppressive, repressive charlatans is hard to quantify, but here is one such example, from Spiritual Sounding Board:

I don’t know where to begin…as I have read through so many of the posts about the [Doug Phillips] mess, I have been forced to reevaluate my own life. Let me state from the beginning that we are not a part of any Integrated Church, and not a part of the “patriarch movement”…but we did, long ago, embrace some of their teachings….like having a large family, homeschooling, courtship, and such.

We have ten children. Six of them are out on their own, five of those are married. Not a single one married with our blessing/agreement….three lived with their spouse before marriage. One son is involved with drugs…one daughter is tattooed like crazy….two remain active in “church work” ……but none “honor” their mother and father…and this is where I find myself…in a time of really re-evaluating what I believe. I feel that for our older six to be who they are must be connected to our wrong beliefs….at least to an extent.

As painful as it is to admit, I am beginning to see that we fostered some pretty difficult beliefs upon our older children all in the name of “protecting” their futures.
We are a divided family now, and my hope that there will ever be a time that we can be all at peace with one another wanes with every passing day.

This Thanksgiving…the children are celebrating without mom and dad…as I just couldn’t host another holiday with all this underlying pain/issues.

My request is to pray for us…as we face this holiday season, as I work through this season of looking at myself and what I believe squarely in the eye…that I will find real answers….maybe for the first time in a long, long time. Thanks for a safe place to express these rather painful admissions.

When I get mad at the Bob Jones people for messing up this town for so long, I try to focus on what I know must be the internal damage that is not readily apparent to the rest of us. This passage, from this mother in pain, reminds me to be compassionate and remember that there is so much more going on than meets the eye. The seemingly-united front and moral superiority that they unfailingly present to non-fundamentalists can be shattered in an instant... because much of it is based on the egos of these selfish, hypocritical religious shysters, who created their empires for themselves, not for God.

And humans are fallible. There is not one righteous. No, not one.

Tuesday links with Crazy Horse

At left: Mac Arnold and Plate Full O Blues at Fall for Greenville... he totally burned the place down! AWESOMENESS! I got more photos on my Flickr page, so be sure to check out my photos of Mac and his famous gas-can guitar.

INCENDIARY BLOOZ!

~*~




:: My favorite reading of the week is Thomas Frank's TED TALKS ARE LYING TO YOU, which is just so right-on. An excerpt:

Those who urge us to “think different,” in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed. Creativity, they all tell us, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on it. And by dint of careful study and the hardest science — by, say, sliding a jazz pianist’s head into an MRI machine — we can crack the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power.

That was the ultimate lesson. That’s where the music, the theology, the physics and the ethereal water lilies were meant to direct us. Our correspondent could think of no books that tried to work the equation the other way around — holding up the invention of air conditioning or Velcro as a model for a jazz trumpeter trying to work out his solo.

And why was this worth noticing? Well, for one thing, because we’re talking about the literature of creativity, for Pete’s sake. If there is a non-fiction genre from which you have a right to expect clever prose and uncanny insight, it should be this one. So why is it so utterly consumed by formula and repetition?

Read it all! The next time you hear the word "creativity" spoken from a calm NPR-sounding voice (and my radio consigliere, Gregg Jocoy, can do a bang-up NPR-announcer impersonation!) --you should keep this essay in mind.

In fact, I may never watch a TED talk again! (Jimi Hendrix reference: "You'll never hear surf music again")

~*~

:: A nasty Georgia Tech frat-boy email has recently gone viral, since it's title--"Luring Your Rapebait"--was guaranteed to get attention. It's offensive, and appears to be one of those GAME things (more about which in due course) that plague the internet like winter head-colds.

Danny, who is no feminist, politely takes it on in his ever-graceful fashion. His post is titled Open Letter to a Frat Brother on the view of masculinity:

I can understand that sex is a desirable thing but I worry that you, just like many others, place too much priority on having sex with women as being a necessary part of masculinity.

Have you considered what affects this pressure can have on guys, namely guys who are in a position where they need to gain the approval of others? Don't you think that pressure can lead to them doing things that range from immoral to illegal in order to gain favor and approval?

Yes, you can say that "They choose to do that stuff." That would be true. But why do you exert such pressure in the first place? Why expect those pledges to be on such a vigilant lookout for sex partners? Why not just let nature take care itself and just throw a party and if people want to get together they get together on their own rather because they might get tossed out of the party and shamed for not looking for women?

Why, indeed?

Maybe because "looking for women" is the very DEFINITION of manhood, for these sorts of guys. The idea of NOT looking for women?!? Well, what ELSE would they do?

These men are conditioned from an early age, that this is "what men do." They don't know how to have a good time and just BE. The female equivalent are the Sex and The City gals who spend most of their evenings fussing over their appearance, and won't dance or get rowdy because they might sweat or mess up their hair.

Quite possibly, they deserve each other. I just wish they wouldn't clutter up the parties and fun spaces for everyone else.

~*~

:: If you need something to explain the government shutdown to you, have a look on my Tumblr, where I quoted from a great article on No More Mister Nice Blog, titled The Punishers Want To Run The Country or We Are All Tipped Waitstaff Now.

Check it out, it's a gem. It explains so much. (And if you are now/ever were a restaurant server, required reading.)

~*~

:: There has been LOTS of arguing in cyberspace over the "Pick Up Artist" (PUA) movement, men who claim to know all the evo-psych rules of just exactly what makes those stubborn, mysterious sexy ladies put out. It's called GAME, and they endlessly talk about it on their many forums and blogs (warning: those link are gross, but fairly typical). Like most evo-psych fans, they make everything that happens fit into their concept of GAME, which is damned annoying. (It's exactly the same way very religious people will inevitably see everything that happens as being an answer to a prayer.) This is why you can't argue with them using facts; they will simply claim that your facts prove --GAME is CORRECT!--right after they tweak them a few times, or twenty.

It gets old, so I stopped bothering some time ago... or even reading. If I see a male blogger refer to GAME, I reach for my mouse, clickety-click, gone, GONE WITH THE WIND.

But Echidne recently found an intrinsic contradiction in the statement of Roosh, one of the BIGGEST of the BIG GAME THEORISTS. Roosh went to Denmark (he writes books about how to apply GAME in every country; getting-laid travel guides for men), where apparently, he says GAME doesn't work:

Roosh calls [his book about Denmark] the “most angry book” he’s ever written. “This book is a warning of how bad things can get for a single man looking for beautiful, feminine, sexy women.”

What’s blocking the pussy flow in Denmark? The country’s excellent social welfare services. Really.

...

Danish women “won’t defer to your masculinity,” he writes. “They can fuck you, but no more. What they do have are pussies and opinions you don’t really care about hearing. That’s it.” Advocates of Nordic social democracy should be thrilled to discover a perk of gender-equalizing work-family reconciliation policies: they combat skeeviness.

Roosh comes to the conclusion that women who aren’t as dependent on men for financial support are not susceptible to the narcissistic salesmanship that constitutes phase one: “attraction.” That’s why Roosh fails to advance to the second level—”trust”—without being creepy. Thus “seduction” is almost always out of the question.

Wow, during this awful government shutdown, we see STILL ANOTHER great reason for the welfare state! Then again, haven't anti-feminist conservatives like George Gilder always argued that welfare services for women and children would inexorably lead to women becoming far more picky about who they, um, spend their time with?

The reality of WELFARE means women won't experience the material desperation men have always depended on, to make their case.

Echidne is all over it:

But that refutes his evo-psycho theories about what women want! If women were hard-wired to go for the dominant growling alpha monkey, then women would do that even in Denmark. That they do not suggests that dating rules and what appeals to people is also culture-dependent and affected by economic realities.

Whatever happened to Neil Young's "Welfare Mothers make better lovers?"

I guess the official PUA verdict is in: No they don't.

~*~

Speaking of which, I used to wonder if that was a sexist song or not. During the time *I* was a welfare mother, I remember feeling like persona non grata, not like I was considered a better lover or any kind of bargain. In fact, it seemed to me that this one fact about me would easily scare people away in droves, potential lovers and friends alike. (Maybe they were afraid I would ask them for money?)

I used to listen to the song ruefully and wonder JUST WHO he was talking about, hoping that maybe I was getting some good press in the bargain. But I was pretty sure I wasn't... hard to believe that love is free, now.

But whatever else, it sure does ROCK.

Welfare Mothers - Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Billie: How we've changed, continued

Old movie time! As I've said before, some movies instruct us in great detail about how far we've come as women, since they almost seem like they came from another planet. One such movie is BILLIE (1965), starring a major DEAD AIR heroine, Oscar winner and former union president, wonderful Patty Duke.

I grew up with Patty, adore her without reservations, read her book (needless to say) and watched a bushel of her movies and various TV-guest appearances, including the bad ones like MARCUS WELBY. (Marcus Welby?!?!?--say the kids in one voice. Who?) And as the list here makes clear, THAT IS A WHOLE LOTTA VIEWING, MY FRIENDS!

Young folks mostly know Duke (if they know her at all) as the mother of Lord of the Rings actor Sean Astin or from the camp classic, Valley of the Dolls, wherein she ferociously chewed the scenery as Neely O'Hara, a character too-obviously based on Judy Garland. (Everybody in the film chewed the scenery, okay? Not just Patty! PS: I loved the pulpy novel too!) The film is widely regarded as one of the worst ever made, and therefore terribly watchable... and it also went down in 60s pop-history because one of the lead actresses was subsequently butchered by the Manson family.

I first saw Patty when I was a wee thing, on BEN CASEY (another TV-doctor you never heard of) and I followed her faithfully forever after. Her weekly sitcom was essential viewing for us Barbie-obsessed little baby-boomer girls. (Although I now know she was miserable through it all, she never seemed unhappy.) We watched Patty's show and then excitedly talked about it the next day, all day long, sometimes acting out favorite scenes. She played a dual-role (Patty and her cousin Cathy), and there were lots of people who didn't even realize she was playing both roles. Patty was the American id, all emotions on the surface and totally unguarded (the TV-theme song explained: "Patty loves to rock 'n' roll, a hot dog makes her lose control!"), while Cathy was her "identical cousin"--the polite, ladylike British girl who knew how to behave. It was the internal drama then being fought by ALL OF US! We all wanted to be demure, sweet Cathy, and yet (at least in my working class neighborhood), we knew we were really extroverted, often-scheming Patty ... and hot dogs made us lose control. (Patty gobbled food, Cathy ate delicately and left some on her plate.)

As a child (age 12), Patty blew everyone away playing Helen Keller on Broadway in The Miracle Worker, and then again in the film version, for which she became (at the time) the youngest person to win an Oscar at age 16. The Broadway play ran for two years, which she wrote about in depth in her book, Call me Anna. She and Anne Bancroft (who played Annie Sullivan) actually became furious at each other. It was riveting; they had an extended, violent scene together (Annie Sullivan fighting hard to subdue Helen, who is having none of it) and they had to repeat this raucous physical battle every night on the stage. They started actually hurting each other, "getting even" with each other during the same scene the next night. It is amazing to read, and so very human. (Bancroft actually knocked one of Duke's teeth loose.) Duke finally went full circle, later in her life playing the Annie Sullivan role in the 1979 TV-version of The Miracle Worker, with Melissa Gilbert playing Keller. Duke had always wanted to play Sullivan, the "adult" in the story, and I just love the "recovery" aspect of that choice! Since the 80s, Duke has been a mental-health advocate, which has made me so happy. My grandmother used to sneer at her for going on talk shows and babbling like "a crazy bitch", and I would get so upset, I would cry about it. Leave Patty alone!!!

Later, we had words for that behavior: bi-polar disorder. But at the time? Everybody just talked about how crazy she was... and yes, she would meet people and marry them after partying with them for a week. (I repeatedly defended her as a tortured artist, but privately worried she was popping amphetamines, like my mother.) After learning of her diagnosis, I was very relieved that Patty would be staying with us for a long time. I had long worried she would jump off a bridge, take too much LSD or something. Of course I read all about her tumultuous personal life in the cast-off movie-magazines I discovered in the magical room at the paper-mill (mentioned in #14 here). I sent her autobiography to my AA sponsor and she was the subject of a whole nother round of discussions. So, I learned from Patty as a girl and as a grown-up.

And now, I learn from her yet again, as I dissect her old movie BILLIE.

~*~

I saw BILLIE as a kid, and remembered it as being about a tomboy trying to femme it up for a boy she develops a crush on. And yes, it surely IS, but it now seems far more insidious and awful in its mid-60s har-har-har misogyny than I ever remembered. (I sometimes wonder what it did to me, mindlessly ingesting this kind of thing during my formative years. Yighhhh! Terrifying to contemplate.)

BILLIE is FAR WORSE than the nice girl/hell-raiser dichotomy we ate up on weekly installments of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW. For example, one line intended to be funny, Billie/Patty whines, "I wish I was a boy!" and Jim Backus, her dad, barks back, "Well, so do I, but you're not!"--something like that. Just awful. The movie is about Jim Backus (whom you know as the voice of Mr Magoo or the redoubtable Thurston Howell the III) running for mayor of Anywhere, USA, and he has assured the town conservatives that females should never compete with males... and then the track team coach asks super-fast Billie (at left) to be on the team. (It is understood that this means THE BOYS TEAM, since at that time, there WERE no girls teams.) HORRORS! This might cost her dad the election (!) and Jim Backus/Thurston Howell tries to make her quit the team.

It goes without saying that Billie falls in love with a boy on the team, who is not as fast as SHE is... and the feminist good news is, by the end of the movie, our young prince doesn't mind that Billie can beat him at sports. But it is only since she has properly feminized herself (finally all dolled up in high-school-dance drag, wearing a short dress and heels) and has also given him her HEART, that this is so. An interesting, and very lucidly-presented message about heterosexual romance TAMING the dangerous demon that is women careening about on sports teams and so forth: As long as they are fuckable, cute and know their place, it's okay. Even if she is a famous television star!

There is actually a short blog on the movie, called Billie's got the Beat. It would appear this is ALSO a cult movie now. (shudders)

Long live Patty! We love you!

This is your cat on catnip

Internet connection woes have plagued me for days now. Days. Bah.

Sorry about that.

Here is our recent show on WOLT-FM, have a listen. After the show, we chowed down at The Red Bowl, which has the greatest sauce (for my veggie lo mein) in the entire universe. I regret to say I don't even know what it's called. If I knew how to make it myself, I would dump it all over everything and eat it daily.

Right now: enjoying the dapper Anderson Cooper and the spirited CNN discussion about women in combat. My mother once told me that if women were ever required to register for the Selective Service (military draft) en masse, you'd see a baby-boom the likes of which this country has never seen. I always wondered if she was right. But allowing women in combat is still a long way from forcing them to register for the Selective Service. (more discussion here)

Mr Daisy is currently listening to the namesake of this blog, UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR, and I am getting ready to join him.

But first, thought you should see this Public Service Announcement. I already posted it on Facebook, just to get the word out.

Get your cats and make em watch! The life you save may be theirs!

This short, seven-minute film (by Jason Willis) debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Truly inspired!

CATNIP: EGRESS TO OBLIVION?

My problem with "Men's Rights Advocates"

I try to read the Men's Rights Activists... I really do. I try to see their point of view. I have spent hours arguing with the ones who are willing to argue.

And... I... well, I hardly know what to say. Because I usually can't get past the first paragraphs of what the MRAs write. I can't even get to the heart of their arguments, assuming they have any.

For example, take this blog post from earlier this year (recently emailed to me), titled I am Schrodinger's Rapist. This piece was based on a popular, widely-circulated feminist essay titled Schrodinger's Rapist, which was about women's fear of strange men. And just like in hip-hop, a witty "reply post" was inevitably required.

Although I had read the original, I had never read the "reply"--which is why my correspondent just HAD to email it to me. It is definitive!--he promised.

Really? Oh, dear God.

This is my ongoing dilemma with the men intent on improving what we here at DEAD AIR call, The Male Dilemma. I can't read beyond the sarcastic intro-paragraphs of their blog posts.

From the above link:

Hello, average looking, aging, perimenopausal female hipster. Yes, you with the horn rim glasses.

Translation: She's old, and therefore unattractive.

Ageism is a given with many of the MRAs, of course. I've been insulted with "You're old!" more times than I can count. Now, just why this is supposed to be automatically bad is never explained in depth. It just IS, grandma! (When I fully admit that I am old, it means they do not have to reply to me, since I cease to exist.)

An old and/or unattractive woman is not worth taking seriously. She is dowdy, and thus unimportant. She has mousy glasses.

Not that men only judge women by their appearance, you understand! In MRA-universe, this is a SEXIST thing to say; you are a man-hater if you suggest that! Therefore the MRAs can still attack women's appearance with impunity, while trashing you as a man-hater for suggesting they shouldn't do it. Good work if you can get it.

What's wrong with being an average-looking, aging, perimenopausal (us awful post-menopausal women are not even important enough to address AT ALL) hipster? Is it supposed to be self-evident that such a person is simply bad, just from the description? We certainly need LOTS MORE of them here in upstate South Carolina/Bob Jones University-land!

Wait, I think this means the writer of this piece comes from a cool place on the coasts with lots of these people. But don't you DARE call him privileged, you anti-male feminist, you!

Yes those frames which were chic-retro back in the 90′s

OH MY GOD! An unfashionable woman! How horrible!

But as stated above, no anti-male comments about how men judge women purely on appearances, that is SEXIST AGAINST MEN! Man-hater!

Besides, you aren't fashionable enough to have an opinion.

- yes, you, the one drinking soy-milk latte and clutching a purse-sized single-use can of pepper spray in a white-knuckled grip behind your pant-leg. Yes, hello: I’m Schrodinger’s rapist.

Now soy-milk latte is bad, too? Can I ask why? Is this another self-evident thing on the coasts? (For the record, here in upstate SC, we can hardly find a place around here to buy one!)

Oh I get it: she is too unattractive to be raped, so its funny that she has a can of pepper spray! HAHA!

That MRA humor! Ain't they just a HOOT?!

Now I know you’re neurotic and probably taking mood stabilizing drugs, so you might be a little confused. I’m not an actual rapist–well, I might be–but what I mean to say is, I’m a man, and therefore, only a rapist in potential, since I haven’t – you know, raped anyone – that you know of.

Ah, so she is CRAZY, too! So she is DOUBLY ridiculous... or should I say triple, quadruple? Let's tally it up: old, unattractive, unfashionable, drinking the wrong thing... now she is ON SOME LOONEY MEDS, so that makes her quintuply uncool, doesn't it?

Insult after insult after insult... and look at the kind of insults they are.

If you thought I would read that last part of your paragraph and take it seriously after all the insults (assuming I got that far)... why would you think that? You are too busy assuring me how superior you are. I am not GOOD ENOUGH to read your post, obviously!

And after all, I’m a rather bland looking fellow, even though on the daytime TV you’ve allowed to shape so much of your concept of reality, they always seem to have an average looking actor playing the sexual predator role don’t they? Your fear sells more nail polish, Paxil and granola bars than your confidence does.

Daytime TV? Ah, a dimwitted hausfrau! It is simply assumed that she is home watching the dreaded dumbass DAYTIME TV! Dumb bitch!

But don't you call him a sexist, since it is sexist of you to say that.

And the references to nail polish (superficial old biddy) and Paxil (crazy old biddy) and granola (just plain OLD biddy, and likely a hippie too) finish her off.

If the author included a good point in there about TV-casting, and I think he did, I was too busy noticing the insults to catch it.

Remember, I’m not a real man, I’m a probabilistic man. I’m a cloud of possibilities. So here’s another possibility to consider: I’m a peaceful, loving, compassionate human being, and I’m an adult. And despite being subjected to more than a decade of physical, emotional and sexual abuse as a child, I am now totally repulsed by the prospect of violence and abuse – even your hypothetical, probabilistic speculations of violence and abuse.

Repulsed!

Now, since you have alerted me that I am a ridiculous stereotype not to be taken seriously, and likely a crazy, drugged-up hippie who is drinking THE WRONG THING... why would I ever think this about you?

You have just engaged in ageism, stereotyping, cultural superiority and prejudice... and now you want me to know you are peaceful, loving and compassionate? Are you serious?

Why do you judge women negatively based on their advanced age, what they drink, their uncool glasses, their viewing habits and if they might have depression... and then claim to be a compassionate guy?

Do you understand how funny that is?

Do you understand that I have already stopped reading?

Yes, you, Miss LonelyHearts, you who have declared yourself my humble instructor – and who have given to my kindness to children and animals, and to my donations to charity, your approval.

First though, what part of appointing yourself my instructor and judge lead to you also declare yourself humble? What combination of diazapam, seraquel, lorazapam, trazadone and the four Grey Goose martinis you had at lunch led you to imagine your approval or your disapproval was of even slight interest to anyone?

More ableist insults of people who use meds... and by now, I think it's plenty obvious this author is in Canada, since nobody in the USA can afford all of that unless they live on Park Avenue.

But really, this is the kind of nastiness one continually reads on MRA websites. This particular writer recently called all feminists "termites" (and he specified he meant ALL OF US--no exceptions!) on his radio broadcast, and I had actually been listening with interest to some of his economic points (about unemployment) up to that point.

But hey, TERMITES? Really? That was that. Click, off went the broadcast. I guess I never will know the rest of his ideas. Just like I will never read the rest of his post.

I don't think postmenopausal southern termites (that can't find a decent soy-latte anywhere) are his intended audience, anyway.

I do worry about the folks who are, though.

Got links?

At left: a very colorful Page of Cups.



Lots of great reading out there, and I can barely keep up.

Here's a sampler of goodies you may have missed:

[] Arkansas Republican endorses death penalty for children (Raw Story) In case you wonder, candidate Charlie Fuqua got this straight from Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

So if you disagree, talk to God about it, okay?

[] Woo hoo, it's Conspiracy Theory time! Elections bring them out of the woodwork as little else does. AlterNet gives us 10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears, which is entertaining enough that I hope to cover a couple of these on my upcoming radio show.

As a South Carolina Green Party member in good standing, my hands-down favorite is "The Green Plot to enslave the world":

Agenda 21, a little known and non-binding resolution adopted by the United Nations, is viewed by some on the right as an attempt to control the lives of people throughout the world by regulating everything they do. Amongst their paranoid fears is that Agenda 21 will cede U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. and a one-world government. The truth is that Agenda 21 is a set of principles to guide the development of practices to preserve a sustainable environment for future generations. It is entirely voluntary and was agreed to by the U.N. in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush.

But to hear doomsayers like Glenn Beck put it, it will “suck all the blood out of [our communities], and we will not be able to survive.”

[] My friend JW finally had the daughter I foretold for her and her partner in their Tarot readings. Alright! Our hearty Deadhead congratulations go out to both of them, as well as lovely big sister LM (whom regular DEAD AIR readers may recall from THIS photo).

To celebrate, a look back at JW's reading, as well as a popular piece I wrote about the Tarot titled, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Tarot.

In addition, here is South Carolina Boy's post about my reading of his cards.

[] Anti-Muslim subway ads that sparked anger in New York are now popping up in D.C. (Huffington Post)

The ads, paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, are supposed to be posted in the U Street, Georgia Avenue, Takoma and Glenmont stations for one month.

The ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." They have been widely condemned as promoting Islamophobia.

[] Interesting piece titled Nerds and Male Privilege comes directly on the heels of Annalee Newitz's controversial The Great Geek Sexism Debate. BE INFORMED!

[] A heated exchange about disability and abortion starts with Disability, Prenatal Testing and the Case for a Moral, Compassionate Abortion, which brings an angry response from Tiger Beatdown: Lives worth living: Disability, abortion, and slipshod ethics (comments also mandatory reading). Response/Part II: Disability and Abortion, Part Two: Individual moral choices are not categorical imperatives.

Caution: Very heavy, emotionally-wrenching stuff, but it's what we all ought to be thinking about, as science marches on and genetic testing becomes increasingly commonplace and culturally accepted.

[] Historic Number of Women on Ballots Could Lead to Historic Year for Female Lawmakers (Reality Check) Thanks to my California-droog Barbara! (kiss)

Along these same lines, check out some FEMINIST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

[] In further election news, our embarrassing Teabagger Senator, Jim DeMint, has decided to join Rick Santorum in backing Todd Akin for Senate in Missouri. I do find it interesting that Chris Christie wants no part of Akin, and has cut him loose.

Translation: Obviously, Christie has his eye on the proverbial Big Tent (higher office), while DeMint is intent on consolidating his power and influence on the right.

[] No list of links is complete without Glenn Greenwald. I especially recommend last month's one-two punch, CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news (subtitled: The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial)... and Conservatives, Democrats and the convenience of denouncing free speech (subtitled: Westerners love to decry censorship aimed at them by Muslims while ignoring the extreme censorship they impose on them). Both from the UK Guardian, and required reading for newshounds.

[] And finally, your long-overdue dose of cute: Panda mama nurses her little baby pandas. AIYEEE! SQUEEE!!! (((dead from cuteness)))

Anti-feminists defend John Edwards, sex machine and role model

Recent John Edwards photo from the Los Angeles Times.





Hey you scandal-mongering folks out there... who among you is currently following the entertaining John Edwards follies?

Here and here are some fairly decent summations of the corruption trial so far. But I have to say, the hands-down BEST commentary came from a proud Men's Rights Marine over at the GendErratic blog, named Dungone -- who explains to us dumb wimmenz that John Edwards is NOT being publicly tried for funneling campaign funds to his mistress and their child (a violation of campaign-finance laws), but instead is being PUNISHED for having a $400 haircut and ROBUST MALE SEXUALITY!!!

Yes, its the feminists again, who made poor John Edwards take Rielle Hunter as his mistress, and in turn made Rielle refrain from birth control and get knocked up. OUR. FAULT.

Got that, bitches?

I can't do any better than to quote some of our exchange, verbatim. Just in case you think I am some crazy feminist exaggerating what this man has said, let me first link the whole thread HERE. And these are his exact quotes.

Dungone:

[Unlike] women, men are actually mocked for caring about their appearance, such as John Edward for his $400 haircut. [links to Wonkette photo of Edwards] If we were sane, we would acknowledge that a good haircut is a common sense investment for anyone who has to appear in front of a national TV audience on a daily basis – but we are not sane because we cannot even acknowledge that man even have an appearance. The fact that it’s even a political snowball in the first place is ridiculous – regular housewives spend as much money as some male celebrities on their physical appearance and no one thinks it’s a big deal. But men are in a double bind – they have to look good but it has to be a bigger secret than Victoria’s Secret or else they’re screwed.

Me:

Dungone, as someone here in Edwards’ neck of the woods, let me clarify… it was all that down-home populism and I-love-the-poor-folks bullshit of his and THEN the $400 haircut –that brought the scorn. There was a context for that… now when the story went national, maybe they just talked about the haircut… but around HERE, it was in the context of his “fightin for the po folks” reputation and alla that.

Dungone:

Please, don’t give me that. It’s straight up bullshit. All the feminists endorsed Hillary Clinton since she supposedly fought for oppressed women. But how much does she pay for a hair cut? Why was that never an issue? Every woman who runs for public office probably spends way more on haircuts than any man, so I guess if expensive haircuts would make a man into a hypocrite then we shouldn’t even consider voting for a woman.

Of course, regular readers know that I did not back Hillary, so already, he is incorrect about "all the feminists"--and our election-year marching orders.

Dungone knowingly continues:

Don’t you think that $400 is reasonable for a haircut when your election campaign which is costing your backers millions of dollars could easily go down the tube over a bad haircut? Opportunists jump on any deviation from masculine perfection in political campaigns. And people, especially women, will in fact vote for the more handsome male candidate. We haven’t had a bald president since hats went out of fashion and women got the vote. Instead, we’ve had presidents who fucked Marilyn Monroe. But I guess you feminists are going to call men hypocrites for getting a decent haircut while you vote to uphold Sarah Palin in the ranks of pro-women women.

Do you know what the biggest irony is? A $400 haircut is money that goes to support a laborer from the working class. And after that “scandal”, Edwards got a $13 haircut at Supercuts. So let’s be clear – under-paying an employee at a big corporate chain = pro labor. Paying good money for good work = hypocrite. Good call, Daisy. You love workers.

Me: [Yes, my Irish was officially up]

And how long did you live in the Carolinas during the 2008 election season? You are now informing me about what local people were talking about? Excuse me, but you do not live here and you do not have a motherfucking clue. My own HUSBAND voted for Edwards and said that, okay?

...

The biggest irony is that you are defending a man who used his ‘status’ as a poor lint-head to con OTHER poor lint-heads into giving him money, then used that money to pay off his mistress for silence. And you are defending this embezzling piece of shit as a decent man. This is why he is on trial TODAY for embezzling and I hope they lock his ass up for it. Yes, I do love the workers, and I don’t like when some shyster politician can’t keep it zipped and then uses the money of the workers that was collected in good faith, to pay off his fucking sex scandals. And yes, I see why you admire such a person. Of course you do.

Are you going to visit him in prison?

Dungone:

Edwards would have seriously helped the working class and I find it deplorable that working class people would call him a hypocrite basically for no other reason than his physical appearance and personality

Me:

Um, he is ON TRIAL RIGHT NOW for his appearance and personality? Are you tripping? Earth to Dungone.

Dungone: [FOR THE WIN!]

He’s on trial for being a male slut and a $400 haircut. He violated campaign rules, which was wrong, but it’s understandable given that men are judged so harshly and unfairly for their sex lives. There are people sitting fat and happy in their mansion who should be on trial for war crimes and you’re talking about daytime talk show crap, including some of the ones that your neck of the woods sent to public office. But god damn, he didn’t “keep it zipped” so it’s over for him any way you slice it. You’re part of the problem, given that you sound exactly like exactly the kind of person who hates it when a man has a sex life. Stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with what he would do for the working class. Kennedy also had a sex life and he was one of our greatest and most beloved presidents. “Keep it zipped,” you say. What a sexist, bigoted thing to say.

Campaign finance rules are supposed to keep powerful millionaires from buying elections. They’re supposed to prevent politicians from covering up real crimes, conflicts of interest, and scandals that are actually relevant to the task of public office. But they do none of those things. They’re used to bring down men who tried to prevent having their sex lives dragged out in front of the public by their political enemies. You can be a truly evil son of a bitch who tortures people all over the world, fails to do a thing about 9/11… but if you get a blowjob or sent a text message, you get impeached. And here we have Daisy Deadhead crying a river over the way female politicians get judged for their looks.

Again, this is why you should not try to talk to Men's Rights Guys. DO. NOT. ENGAGE! This is a Marine, who in other contexts is quite proud of his war-making activities, talking about war crimes. (?) And the accompanying fact that much-lower-paid Andrew Young, Edwards' aide, will be taking the fall if Edwards is found innocent, does not seem to bother Dungone.

Obviously, per Orwell, some men are more equal than others.

Me:

So, let me clarify:

You think that if I gave money to a campaign for a man to run for president, and this politician gives it to his mistress to shut her up and support her in high style, that is “daytime talk show crap”?

Dumbfounded. See, I call that stealing. I know some of the people he stole from.

Amazing.

I hardly know what to say.

....

Do you understand that he was STEALING? Millions of dollars? And trying to pin it on one of his underlings? In all your identifying with Mr Sexpot, what about his employee Andrew Young? Is he just not important enough to identify with?

Ain’t he a man, too?

Dungone, again FOR THE WIN:

I believe that keeping one’s sex life out of the media is a valid use of campaign funds. I believe that our country has gone down the shit-hole because underhanded fundamentalist scumbags keep dragging people’s sex lives out into the open to humiliate them and ruin their careers. If we can’t protect people’s sex lives from public scrutiny then we will never be able to have, let’s say, a president in an open relationship, perhaps even a single president who is dating. You won’t have a gay or a lesbian president, either. Only the most bland, cookie-cutter, dust-web-ridden “family values” liars can survive in our culture’s political climate, and I believe that this is a huge detriment to us all. So I believe that it’s fair use of campaign funds to keep sex lives private.

And I will leave that unbelievable, amoral reply right there, for all to read again and behold for themselves.

Men's Rights Advocate assures us: A politician (in this case, a very RICH politician with a large number of POOR contributors) informing you that your hard-earned campaign contributions will be used for advertising or whatever, and instead using it to pay his mistresses' bills, is perfectly fine. Since nobody (of course!) can be expected to behave morally and honestly, then laws should be changed to allow candidates to use funds to pay off their girlfriends and tell you lies about where your money goes. To do otherwise is to be against MEN and SEX.

And you will notice, I never did get an answer from Dungone about duped fall-guy Andrew Young. Hey, Young is small potatoes, the important thing is that Rich Sexy Senator Who Can't Keep It Zipped can do as he pleases, at taxpayer expense. (PS: why is this "sexist" of me to say? Women do not have zippers now? Huh?)

As soon as I develop any sympathies for the MRAs, I am put in my place by one of them; usually banned from their blogs and/or given some sex-obsessed, thoroughly-entitled, good-old-boy insanity like this as a substitute for logic. Then I remember why I was a feminist in the first place.

So no, I don't believe Edwards should be able to take my friends' money and give it to his girlfriend to live in a pricey mansion, especially since he is a millionaire and can afford to pay her rent himself. Call me old-fashioned.

And yes, my feminism is intact.

I usually need something like this to remind me of how important it is.

Coming Attractions

Going in to the seventh month of the radio show, and I haven't collapsed yet. I am very nearly respectable; I have business cards and everything! (If you would like to advertise with us, speak to my overworked on-air host and talented consigliere, Gregg Jocoy.)

Tomorrow's show will be a bit irreverent and rude; I shall politely refrain from a rousing chorus of "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead"--but only because I already sang it yesterday, upon hearing the news of Andrew Breitbart's passing. Please don't miss our fabulous March 3rd show, where I will be repeating some of my nastier Tweets about Andrew, one of which got me called names by Ronald Reagan's clone! (And I can honestly say, I have never been so proud!) It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

I figure, if Rush Limbaugh can enthusiastically label women sluts and conservatives continue to take him seriously, I suppose I can openly speculate about conservative blogger (and shameless media-whore) Andrew Breitbart screaming like a deranged, whacked-out cokehead, and then suddenly dropping dead three weeks later. Toxicology report, please!

We will be reviewing Breitbart the pest, and some of his more disgusting, evil stunts. So stay tuned, sports fans!

~*~

Last week's show is here, have a listen. My interview with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is pretty good, but the overall broadcast-quality of our telephone interviews still needs improvement. (If you call in, please try a land-line and BE STILL, stop pacing around!)

When I am as famous as Rush Limbaugh, I will have well-paid assistants to take care of all of this technological stuff for me, of course. (Gregg is terribly overworked!)

Give us a call tomorrow morning, 9-10am, bright and early on WFIS-radio, 1600AM and/or 94.9FM in upstate South Carolina. We are in Fountain Inn, so the closer to the Golden Strip you are, the better. (I have noticed in downtown Greenville, the AM station comes in better than the FM, which is rather odd.)

Call 864-228-9347 to be on the air live. To listen to the show on your phone, call 724-444-7444 and enter Call ID: 112747#

I am also very proud to report that we are now on BlackTalk Radio Network and TalkShoe. Yall come visit.