As if American Apparel shouldn't already go f*ck itself

for its sexist, misogynistic and body-image-distorting ads. And its sexist pig of a CEO. Add to the list a raging case of co-opting and misrepresenting culture.

plus, who would want to wear those pants anyway?

Palin Charges Rape Victims for their Own Justice

While Mayor, Sarah Palin Charged Rape Victims for their Own Justice - Feministing

The argument regarding the abortion issue is particularly pithy. Also, the contrast between Palin's "fierce mother hen" persona and the purely commercial act of charging victims for their own rape kits is a pretty sickening kind of hypocrisy. In light of recent, disturbing conversations regarding rape and date rape (see Helen Mirren's comments in a British GQ article), to potentially be putting someone with these ideas into any kind of executive position (especially where you have some -- albeit ceremonial -- involvement in the legislative branch) I think is dangerous. It's much too much a step backward for women in particular and society in general.

I mean, doesn't it just assume that men have no control over their sexual impulses, and that women who cross certain physical boundaries (threshold to a hotel room, for example) are no longer allowed control over their own bodies? 'Cuz that's what Mirren's comments mean to me.


Soooooo disappointing, Helen Mirren.

Wow...Seriously?

Three NYC Detectives Acquitted in Bell Shooting Death - washingtonpost.com

I truly do think this is a miscarriage of justice.

money money money starts with...m

Making a budget can eat it. By it see, "D", in wikipedia.

World Music: Discuss.

So why is it that anything that is not rock, pop (distinctly American traditions), or classical (distinctly a European tradition), is now called world music? Shouldn't it all be called world music? Or none of it be called world music, and instead just categorized under its own specific name? The categorization is oversimplifying and to my mind somewhat patronizing. If you don't have time to classify some stuff over others, then you shouldn't be classifying at all.

A Pet Peeve: Appraise vs. Apprise

Contrary to popular belief/popular utility, these words are NOT interchangeable.

appraise :

Etymology:

Middle English appraysen, probably from Anglo-French *appreiser, from a- (from Latin ad-) + preiser to prize, praise

Date:

15th century

1: to set a value on : estimate the amount of <appraise the damage>
2: to evaluate the worth, significance, or status of; especially : to give an expert judgment of the value or merit of <appraise an actor's career>

apprise :

Etymology:

French appris, past participle of apprendre to learn, teach, from Old French aprendre

Date:

1694

: to give notice to : tell apprised him of his rights>

synonyms see inform

People at large and in general: Quit saying "I shall appraise you of the ongoing events" because it's just fucking WRONG.

Moving Sucks.

Like, really really sucks.

Tempezt iz teh Teapot!

Someone on Facebook has inexplicably created the "LOLCats" application. Those of you who have Facebook will recognize this as one of a thousand new applications that are nothing but a useless and highly diverting waste of time (I draw the line at "compare people!" because I don't want no drama). However, one girl made one minor request that resulted in a huge outcry, one that I of course fully support because I am, as has been noted before, a raging feminist/humanist/proponent of civil rights and liberties. The exchanges that have followed this young woman have been anything but civil. She's been assaulted with some pretty vile language on this thread -- which she's assuredly reading -- in ways that make even me cringe.

And the most cringe-worthy aspect is the fact that many of the (predominantly) men posting are in high school. I liked to pretend that I was exaggerating the state of high school kids these days. I liked thinking that I was all curmudgeonly and that kids are just being kids because that's what they do. But here they are, in open territory, attacking each other in sexist and racist ways that are demoralizing. And yes, feel free to tell me that kids have always used bad language and been mean to one another. I know that quite well. The problem is that suddenly they have an entire parallel universe in which to go wild, a place where no teacher is going to catch them scratching the F word into a desk or a parent overhear a phone conversation. Online they're accountable to exactly no one, and are therefore develop an attitude that translates into everyday life. Don't believe me? Think I'm being alarmist? Take a day and substitute-teach in the suburbs (cause inner city kids usually get the chance to waste hours on the internet beefing with one another). You'll see that attitude staring at you from the front row. It's obnoxious, and frightening.

Just when I was starting to love you...

...Boston, you go and do it again.

I'd had a lovely morning with Captain Boyfriend, had just dropped him off at his house after seeing his really sweet new apartment (bay windows! I'm so envious) and was chilling out, about to pull onto Linden Street to go up to campus for the afternoon. Now, Linden Street gets busy at times and it is never all that great a place in terms of trying to see beyond the parked cars which line the street, so I was taking my time deciding when to pull out.

As I'm idling at the stop, waiting for traffic to space out, I hear the double-beep "would you please move" behind me. Uncertain as to whether it was directly to me or maybe a double-beep "hey, person I know, what's up, good to see you in a car" to someone else, I didn't pay any attention.

The cars continued to move along.

Suddenly, the 58-year-old man in the second-hand ex-cruiser Crown Vic behind me pulls out and around to make a right turn in front of my vehicle. "What are you waiting for?" he hollers, stopping a Nissan X-terra dead in its tracks as he whips onto Linden. With all the charm and sangfroid I could muster, I holler back: "Fuck off!". "Fuck you, bitch!" he whoops as he guns away.

I am still kind of boiling with rage.

My initial response to his shitty move (he really did stop traffic by pulling out and in front of me. There was no real time at which I could have gone without causing other cars to either brake or slam into me) was admittedly crass. I actually don't like swearing at other people, because it's a level to which I don't particularly care to stoop. But the past two or three drivers who have been pointedly aggressive and obscene have NOT been teenagers, students, persons of color, or even taxi drivers. They have all been middle-to-older-aged white males, typical old-guard Bostonians -- I could tell by the accent, I promise I'm not just assuming -- with huge sedans and chips on their shoulders. There was one other incident where a young white Bostonian woman told Captain Boyfriend within my hearing that he was "fuckin' retahded" because he wouldn't let her cut in front of him. That's the only recent anomaly.

Sometimes I drive irresponsibly, and sometimes I drive TOO responsibly. It can be frustrating to people either way. Nevertheless, this idea of Bostonians being privileged to scream obscenities at people when they don't drive as said Bostonian would prefer is totally fucked. I truly, truly dislike being referred to by epithets that are specifically female-derogatory. This includes but is not limited to the B-word and the C-word (if you don't know what I'm talking about, check Wikipedia. It will help. It is the font of all pop culture wisdom). I dislike it when people are yelling it at me in cars, particularly when that person has a woman sitting next to them, I dislike it when friends or acquaintances use it around me or to me, either in jest or in earnest. I do not speak to other people like that as a general rule (although having people around me who DO use that language makes it harder for me not to) and I expect to be treated similarly.

I'm totally okay with being called an "asshole." Everyone has one of those. But don't call me a bitch. I will take dirty sanitary pads and rub them in your face while you sleep. That's what you'll get for trying to use my femaleness against me -- I'll use it against you.

Yeah, even you, Crown Vic guy. I know where you live, and it'll be that time of the month, very very soon.

I Hate Your iPod®: Take Three

I totally called this one, too. Not that I said anything here. But I called it, mentally, every time someone was like "ooo, ooo, I want an iPhone!". Truly, how is it that touch screens are supposed to be the wave of the future? I think it sounds like a terrible idea. The first thing to break on everyone's stuff -- mp3 players, regular cell phones, Blackberries, etc. -- is usually the display. So why bother to make that the central point of functionality on your gadget? Especially when something as ubiquitous and basic as water (necessary for human existence, might I remind you) can disable your screen in less than ten seconds? What happens when you get thrown in the pool? C'mon. Everyone secretly likes getting thrown or pushed into the pool. Why not avoid the stress of possibly having a ridiculously expensive electronic device in your pocket when you're being dunked?

It's not "it's", you idiots, it's "its"!

a brief rant:

The anglophonic world has now gotten so bad about using its/it's in the correct order and context that I am starting to get confused when I read sentences in which the possessive/conjunction is used incorrectly. I have to stop and stare at it, muttering "it's...it is" after which I can go on reading and mentally bemoaning the state of English grammar in this world.

Celebitchy vs. Madonna

Celebitchy just published a neat little note regarding the Live Earth concert. I liked what she had to say, and I like the direction the site is moving in in general. It's getting a good deal more intelligent, which makes me happy.

One thing that doesn't get covered all that often is the carbon-credit exchange, and how useless it is in terms of making corporations alter their approach. In ten years' time, it's not going to matter whether or not your corporation has purchased enough credits to pollute freely. Because corporations shouldn't be allowed to pollute at all. The mindset has to change.


I'm back at work, so I imagine these rants are going to get more boring and soapbox-y rather than being exciting details of my trip to Ireland. I'll still be listing some of the super cool fun stuff I did, but I'll be back to my usual tricks of being astoundingly boring on the political and social consciousness front.

Elizabeth Edwards vs. Ann Coulter or The South Shall Rise Again!

I certainly liked and respected the woman before this (one son dead, a disappointing presidential campaign, and then breast cancer like a cherry-on-top), but I have even more respect for Elizabeth Edwards after this. I think my mom would do something like this in the same situation. I think even conservatives could agree that Coulter's shallow ad hominem attacks don't do a whole lot to advance the dignity and dialogue of the right.

And she's ugly. And probably anorexic. And a mean person.

I Hate Your iPod® -- Take Two

See? I told you it was a bad idea. Y'all should have listened.

Like we didn't see THAT one coming.

Saudi Arabia sez, "Fuck All Y'all."

Seriously, if this isn't *exactly* what any man woman and child thought would happen once Israel started swinging its balls (I can talk like this because my little brother is at the beach right now and I don't think he reads my old blogs anyway), I will stand corrected. But the minute Israel began bombing the south of Lebanon, a sovreign nation, in return for what a "rogue" militaristic force has done by way of kidnapping and border skirmishes, it was clear that there would be Big Trouble.

It's hard to come down on one side of the issue or the other -- I have not been a big fan of Israel's ever since Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Despite my sympathy for the precarious position of being the lone Jewish state in a sea of Islamic countries, the somewhat egocentric logic of duking it out with everyone to prove that you're here to stay and you're not taking any bullshit has been proven unsuccessful time and time again. One of the biggest inherent flaws here is Israel's reliance upon the US as a staunch ally and heavy-hitter in the Middle East. Whether or not that was one of the first strengths to be taken into account, they have nevertheless ignored or underestimated the drastic loss of US credibility in the Middle East. It's only going to get worse, too. US is unremittingly supporting Israel's onslaught (incredible enough position that it is) by not calling for an immediate ceasefire. WTF, Mate?

The problem is, Israel's link to the US has turned into a double-edged sword. Seeing Israel as Little Brother, Islamic extremist sentiments are being multiplied and reinforced across the region and across the world at large. Support for Palestine, already strong, is going to get stronger -- there will be no peace in Israel for ages because they've targeted themselves. And when Saudi Arabia, a typically canny and subtle country who's in bed with everyone and therefore usually doesn't say too terribly much that isn't entirely cloaked in diplomatic language, comes out to tell the leaders of the Western world that there will be a war in the Middle East...well, bitches bettah be scared.

As usual this post is unnecessarily inflammatory, has very little solid evidence to back it up, and is more or less the product of my fevered and highly aggressive brain (this week, anyway). Someday I'll get better at citing sources, people, I promise. It's just easier to ignore formalities and veracity in the summer time because...

...I'm gonna be on the Outer Banks in approximately 24 hours, and I'm going to be gone for a hot week and a half. I believe I will simply not check my email, or MySpace, or whatever, for that entire time. Do you think I can do it? Will you give me a dollar if I do? I'll think of you guys, as I lounge in the surf, splashing, bike-riding, shopping, eating gratuitous amounts of ice cream, drinking beers and generally enjoying all that North Carolina can throw at me in one week.

Yeah, baby.

Doesn't it just burn you.

And it does, really, when other people are better at insights and expressing them and being trendy than you yourself are?

I'm talking about you, you fool. Not me. I'm far trendier than you could possibly imagine.

(It's always about me, really.)

Anyway, I commented on someone else's blog today, and I'm filled with shame because their blog is:

• Far more attractive than mine, despite the IDENTICAL TEMPLATE
• Much wittier. Hands down. When he rants about social injustice, he does it with style.
• Gets a helluva lot more "traffic," which I didn't realize I was supposed to care about until I read this other blog and discovered that yes, in fact I care deeply.
• Based in NYC. Mine's struggling between fifteen different locations and about to be dragged temporarily back to Paris...of course I had to throw that in. I'm struggling here, people. The benefit of being grounded somewhere (NYC, no less) is the span it gives you for really developing a cast of characters and establishing the legitimacy of "no really, I have a life outside of this blog/MySpace/my email account/aim/porn." No Locus, No Legitimacy.

I could probably think of more. On the flip side, however, there are certain similarities. He appears to share the love for the ellipse (ellipses?). I like the parallel that his profile picture and mine both feature alcoholic beverages and a public setting. Mine you can't really tell, but I assure you, I am holding a vodka and soda that's been cropped out of the pic, some guy's shoulder is behind me, and I am absolutely at a bar. I swear it. I am, however, too tired to list all the things that make TAN so much the better blogger (I don't think I even count as a blogger, though).

Yeah, cause, see, if I were a real blogger, I'd probably know for certain whether I'm allowed to link to his blog. I don't really know. I'm probably violating fifteen unspoken yet universally followed blogging codes RIGHT NOW. Too bad I'll be in bed when the Blog Police arrive.

Really, if anyone else feels like developing an addiction to the internet, check the links out. I am seriously giving up the 'Net for Lent.

But not until Lent.

A spot of fury for your Sunday morning...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4497006.stm

How can the government expect its European Allies to trust it when its own citizens won't?

I Hate Your iPod®

...and your cellphone, too.

It's not envy, oh you happy, plugged-in masses. I do not cloak my craving for the latest technology in disdain and contempt. I really, sweartahgod, don't want one. You know why? This is why. I watch you, all of you, you twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, yuppies and slackers alike, nice girls and bitches, frat boys and flamers...I watch you, on the T, on the way down the street, in the airport, at the store, on campus...every other one of you, sometimes two or three in a row, with the telltale white wires snaking up your chest and into your ears. You all have that same half-here-half-not look on your faces, a face that says, "No, seriously, I'm listening to my iPod®. Don't bother me. I'm serious! I don't care if the subway has been overrun with al-Qaeda® operatives. I'm totally into my flavor-of-the-nanosecond-pop-band." So, seriously, no, I wouldn't tell you if your ass was on fire, not with that look on your face.

I hope I don't come off sounding too snarky, and maybe in my subconscious, there is a part of me that desperately wants one and feels the need to lash out, labeling it "my fight against materialism, and its role as the new opiate of the masses" but truthfully, I doubt it. I'll be honest with you: I think it's a reaction to what I perceive as a conscious decision to render one's fellow human beings nonextistant (non-extant?). I noticed a few things today as I waited for eons for my one chance at getting back to Boston the under-$200 way. The only people who really spoke to me were over the age of 50, and that was mostly at the airport. Everyone else was either a) wired to an iPod or b) sealed to a cellphone.

(By the way, this invective can also be applied to cellphones. I have one, which I feel I use far too much for a person with as little going on in her life as I have, but I'm embarassed to use it in public--gasp--especially while in an enclosed public area such as a shopping mall, train station, campus, restaurant, bathroom, hookah bar, you name it. Not unless I'm on it for 30 seconds to establish locations and ETAs. I also think it's tremendously rude to be on your cellphone for longer than that when in the company of even one other person. You're with someone. You have company. They have priority since they're giving you their time. Show some respect). For example, I'm coming home today from the library, oh happy student that I am, and some kid was behind me on his cellphone. He was probably a good twenty yards behind me, possibly more, but I heard everything he said to his friend on the cellphone. Some of it was incorrect, all of it was inane and loud. I'm not saying I've never been wrong/inane/loud, both on and off a cellphone. But at the same time, I do try to avoid being all of these things at once and in public. I felt the urge to turn around and correct him ("no, it didn't snow 'a couple weeks ago' in Boston, it snowed last Saturday. No, it's not $200 each way to Boston, even from the coast---you can get much cheaper tickets on Travelzoo"). As my family and my boyfriend could tell you, the impulse to correct people is hardwired into my genes. But I would be completely uninterested and have a much higher opinion of you if you would just not be having a conversation in front of me. Really, people, it's so gauche.

I feel like I'm some kind of troglodyte, a throwback to an era I didn't even live in. I want to maintain the value of human communication. iPods block it, cellphones cheapen it. Why would you want that? If you have something valid to say, you want to say it to people while they have their full attention on you, not when they're gazing off into space, plugged into an electronic device of any sort. Unless, of course, it happens to be your grandmother and her hearing aid battery has died. That's a different story altogether.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953


He's a general. He knows what he's talking about. And to think that our initial offer of financial relief, to a region of the world that has lost over 100,000 people, is a piddling 35 million dollars. The state of West Virginia alone has endured the cost of $400,000,000 for the war in Iraq. We're among the top 5 poorest states in the nation, but go ahead -- suck us dry, take our National Guard, ignore our own natural disasters and crises, floods and slurry spills, we don't mind that you're bombing the shit out of a bunch of people who are pretty much just like us: impoverished, oppressed, poorly educated but spirited enough to fight back...

When will this country learn?

I think it must be that at some point in everyone's life, in every generation, one must stop and say, "has the world gone entirely mad?" I had my moment yesterday.

It has become increasingly apparent to me, over the past weeks--months--years that our president is a tweaked-out, ex-frat-boy cokehead who has piggybacked on his family name for the past 50 years of his life to get wherever he wanted or needed to go, including the bathroom. I have never met the frat boy I would want as my president. Nor have I met the cokehead I'd want as my president, for that matter. Can we all think back to the types of people we know with such histories (i.e., problems) and decide whether it's a good idea to install as the Leader of the Free World someone whose brain has been deteriorated by constant substance abuse, sanctioned and encouraged by guys with nicknames like "Moose" and "Chubbanutz"?

The arrogance of Bush's appeal to the UN today is unfathomable. It is the equivalent of a small child who, having been told not to play in the mud or push other children, has gone out and done just that, then returns with hands dirtied and the cries of other children behind him to the parent whose orders were so blatantly disobeyed and says "Clean it up! Now!" while stomping his feet. The UN ought to administer a nasty spanking and some bed without dinner. They would be well within their boundaries to do so. As Annan said earlier this week, there SHOULD HAVE BEEN a second resolution. There should have been action taken on the part of the Security Council. There SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN unsanctioned US and its allies' military mobilization against a third world country whose dictator happened to be on our bad side for all of 5 minutes...we seem to have forgotten that Moammar Khadafi was equally reviled---if not moreso---all of 10 minutes ago. You wanna talk about this war on terror? Hussein has not been found guilty of direct terrorist tactics. Khadafi is ultimately responsible for the Lockerbie bombings. It appears to me that we have targeted the wrong "terrorist."

Oh, yeah, that war on terror thing?

WHERE IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?????

WHERE IS HE, YOU PIG-HEADED, HALF-WIT, INARTICULATE EXCUSE FOR A TEXAN??????

Man, I am eventually gonna come up with a song for you that goes along to the melody of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch," only it will have a parental advisory warning on it, you stack of rotting stone-ground wheat flapjacks. You have my friends in a country that is half-way around the world from where Osama bin Laden is reported to be, you have al-Zarqawi running amuck and beheading people who are just over there to make a living, and you haven't found a single, god-loving thing: no WMDs, no al Qaeda, no biological weapons, nothing. You have done nothing more than stir up a hornet's nest of a country, with 24 million hornets. How much gold have you found? How much oil has pumped into your pocket at this point, about which you are eternally silent? What have you done? What have you problem solved? You miserable failure.

And if anyone wants to argue other issues, fine. I'm all about discussing abortion, gay marriage, the economy, unemployment, etc. etc.. If what you're more concerned about is whether Paul can marry Roderigo, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION. Yes, I'm a bleeding-heart liberal. But I don't think you have to be of any particular political persuasion to be anti-war, especially this war. No, none of the statements I've just made are qualified by anything more than my attention to the news, and they're not academic by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm angry, and I think the world's gone crazy, and I want everyone to vote like I do, and I love giving evil looks to people who drive cars with "W '04" on them. If I had my way, I'd print a million stickers that say "F W." Right now, I think the key issue everyone should focus on is the WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR. If you don't understand that people are being killed, and we're not actually supposed to be engaged in any sort of "war" formally, then you have had your head up your posterior for the past year and a half. If you support this war, because you think they're over there fighting for YOUR freedom, your head is so far up your posterior your nose is stuck in your ribcage. No one's fighting for YOUR freedom; your freedom was never compromised. They're fighting for the freedom of a bunch of people who don't even want them there anymore. I don't think it's fair that people I know and care about should have to be over there, playing target practice for the new generation of terrorists and insurgents who will undoubtedly be the footsoldiers in the upcoming civil war that will only add fuel to the fire of the Middle East's perpetually burning problem. Why are we involved? I haven't heard one good reason yet.