links for 2007-02-01

• Dead Barbaro speaks…
  “Well, I’m dead. You happy now, motherfucker? I’m sure you thought I went somewhere else, but I hate to break it to you, chappy: I’m in horse heaven. I’m eating oats soaked in Cristal and getting my giant horse balls licked by a 20-year-old Anne B
• iPod vibrator attachment
  Ladies, I would buy this for you. I’m that kind of guy.

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Are you fucking kidding me?

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shorter today show segment: mothers should be sentenced to 18 years of complete and total sobriety

Favorite story/commentary of the day: Melissa, a mother and blogger, discusses how she was invited onto the Today Show under sort of false pretenses and challenged/shamed for her assertion that it was actually okay for women to have a glass of wine around their kids, that this is okay even out of the presence of men, that women in general are in fact intelligent enough to know the difference between having a glass of wine with friends during their kids’ playdates and getting sloshed a la Joan Crawford in front of their kids, that moms are not glorified babysitters hired by their husbands, and that discussing all of this in a rational and open and friendly manner would not, in fact, encourage other moms to host playdate keggers. It’s a long post, but Melissa manages to be all at once indignant, level-headed, poignant and hilarious.

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Barry Obama, everyman

I feel like Barack Obama is getting enough coverage on his own, to the extent that I was trying to not to blog about him, but I can’t resist the crazy lapels of the late 1970s.
Obama is all over the place, so it’s no surprise that people who knew him back in the day are starting to come out of the woodwork with anecdotes about their pal Barry (no kidding, Barry). In fact, no one seems to have a bad thing to say about the guy. So much so that Slate is doing an ongoing Obama Messiah Watch, which apparently will end in his presidency or his ascension to the right hand of God, whichever comes first.
The article piquing my interest today is this LA Times clip where alums of Occidental College in Los Angeles recall fondly the two fleeting years they got to spend with the man who would become Barack Hussein Obama, Senator and possible presidential candidate. (If the site asks you to register, do what I did and click through from the aforementioned Slate article; you’ll be able to view at least the first page).
This is mainly a fluff (no pun about his afro intended) piece about his time in Haines dorm and his performance on the JV basketball team, but there is some mention of his oratory skills and philisophical idealism. The latter goes hand in hand with the mentions of ‘dope’, and I found myself wondering if the reporter was using the middle-aged classmate’s verbiage to remind us all that those drug tales are 25+ years old. The stories all make Obama seem like a polite and jovial young man, if not obvious presidential material. Although at one point, a former classmate drops the phrase ‘Clinton-esque’, referring to Barry’s succinct writing style and demeanor. Someone’s looking for a cushy cabinet position.
The rest below is page two of the article, because I took one for the team and registered:

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we’re lurking in front of your computer, watching you blog!

there’s been a lot of talk about crazy cat lady stereotypes (and cat gentlemen, too) recently. I don’t have anything to add, really, except this:

and this quote from my ex-roommate, uttered when our (bi-gendered) household last year ended up with 4 humans and 5 cats (it wasn’t planned that way, but sometimes everybody just brings cats to the table, these things happen!):

“I hope I always live in a place with more cats than people.”**

She’s much more of a crazy cat lady than me. And she’s getting married. So … um … hah!

** this is also the same girl who once said, “cats are so much cuter than babies. i don’t know why people ever have babies when they can just have cats.”

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huh

Alexandra Pelosi: You just want me to vote for you for your own ego. What are you going to do for me if I vote for you?
George W. Bush: I’m going to give you a little kiss on the cheek.
Alexandra Pelosi: A kiss?

I just recently realized that the maker of Journeys with George, the 2002 documentary that actually kinda shows how George W. Bush CAN come across as funny and charming, was made by Alexandra Pelosi, who is Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. Its been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but if I remember correctly, it starts off with Pelosi dead-set on hating mr. bush, only to be won over, of sorts, by his 5th-grade-boy-like-flirting and attention.

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links for 2007-01-31

• Goodnight, Sweet Prince – Deadspin
  Barbaro is dead. Millions of cats are hungry today. You simply must read the comments to this article.

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What if he really likes horseback riding with a new cowboy hat while listening to hip hop music on his super awesome ipod?

This made me laugh pretty hard:

Next time I’m out on a date with her, all I have to do is drop something like, “Yeah the other weekend I went horseback riding with my new cowboy hat while listening to hip hop music on my iPod. I took breaks every hour to eat some danish pastries I made.” Then I watch as her pupils dilate with rapport-filled goodness. I wouldn’t dare add her until after I seal the deal.

That’s why I totally made my account private.

P.S. I’ll add you anyway.

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Buzz Word of the Year

It might be a bit hard to say but get use to it. The newest techno phenom is MoSoSo (Mobile Social Network Software).

“These technologies are addictive,” says author Michael Bugeja, bemoaning what he calls a growing self- absorption encouraged by social networking. “With a society that is increasingly amusing and distracting itself to death, what’s at stake is nothing less than the collective conscience.”

Move over Myspace.

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universities suffering from too much snark?

Ruth Wisse at WSJ’s Opinion Journal thinks so:

Recent surveys confirm that university faculties have been tilting steadily leftward, but I think it is wrong to assume they have been tilting toward “liberalism” as is commonly assumed. Liberalism worthy of the name emphasizes freedom of the individual, democracy and the rule of law. Liberalism is prepared to fight for those freedoms through constitutional participatory government, and to protect those freedoms, in battle if necessary. What we see on the American campus is not liberalism, but a gutted and gutless “gliberalism,” that leaves to others the responsibility for governance, and arrogates to itself the right to criticize.

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which is why you don’t see Donald Trump with a “clunker”

In his latest New York Times op-ed, John Tierney wonders “why do women suffer to look like skeletons even when men don’t want them to?”

I love this opening line, Tierney’s not-so-concealed awe that women might be doing something even when men don’t want them to! The fact that extreme thinness is even an issue of contemplation for him is men don’t find extremely thin women attractive! Oh goodness — women are doing something that is not categorically focused on maximizing their attraction potential for men? Preposterous! Ridiculous! Women, don’t you know that’s supposed to be the de facto goal of your existence??? Seriously, what good are you if you’re not striving to conform to the ideal of patriarchal beauty standards?

Tierney’s thesis, then, is that women strive to be thin and wear high heels and all the rest because of pressure from other women. The whole basis for the op-ed is, in usual Tierney style, incredibly patronizing — geez, women are such silly and ridiculous little creatures, always creating their own little problems for themselves and one another! — as if there is no such thing as, you know, a dominant culture to take into effect (he does take into effect is, of course, evolutionary biology).

Tierney does go beyond his women-make-other-women starve themselves basis to point out that “People admire whichever body seems harder to attain.”

Which, as Amanda at Pandagon points out, perfectly plays into women-doing-things-in-order-to-attractt-the-male-gaze, because even if most men will express a visual preference for a “womanly” body with hips and boobs and all the rest, the hyper-thin woman still conjures up all those Victorian-ly feminine issues about deprivation and moderation and restraint, willingness to sacrifice pleasure in order to fulfill an culturally-preferred body standard, and this makes her a high-value commodity, which in turn makes her attractive in a women-as-commodities based society. I’m not saying it quite as eloquently as I’d like. Just read Amanda:

Thinness is valued because it’s on a sliding scale—there’s super-thin, just thin, average, etc. Sort of like cars come in a scale from Rolls Royce to clunker. If I sound harsh, like I’m describing women’s bodies as purchasable items, then that’s on purpose. Because in our capitalist patriarchy, they are indeed purchasable items and the entire reason that the very thinnest women in the world are snatched up to model the more ridiculously expensive clothes is an extension of these factors. Hyper-thinness indicates that the “owner” of the woman, in this case the fashion industry in general, is so rich they can just pay for women like that, who are so thin that many of them are obviously barely alive the way they are dropping like flies from anorexia. The model who died in Madrid did so right after walking the catwalk, which makes me wonder if the energy it took to stalk up and down it was a factor in her heart attack. Displaying useless women has always been a symbol of wealth and you don’t get much more useless than someone who can’t walk fast for fear of dropping dead.

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smoking ban bandwagon

Via To The People, according to DC Council Member Jim Graham’s unofficial Web site poll, 85 percent of people reported being less likely to go out to bars now that the DC smoking ban is in effect:

Smoke-free bars in the District: are you more or less likely to go out now?
Less likely.
352 85%
More likely.
52 12.6%
Doesn’t matter.
10 2.4%

Meanwhile, the Virginia Senate has introduced its own smoking ban bill. Eek. We’ve already lost Paris. That was the beginning of the end. Virginia is really the final nail in the coffin.

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celebrities are sometimes racist, sexist, homobigoted people, too. get over it.

I don’t understand the media frenzy over Isaiah Washington gay-bashing co-worker TR Knight, mostly because I don’t understand we expect celebrities to live up to a higher standard than everyone else.

You could make the argument that celebrities, by virtue of being in the public eye, are inherently supposed to be role models (an argument which I would reject), but even if that’s true, that would only account for what their behavior is like when they’re in the public eye. Washington didn’t call his co-worker a faggot in a national magazine, on a TV interview, in a public place … he said it on the closed set of their TV show. Which doesn’t excuse it. It just means … well, it’s really none of the rest of our business. A friend made the argument last night that it probably didn’t contribute to a good working environment for the cast — well, sure. But that’s kind of the show’s producer’s thing to worry about, isn’t it? I mean, if they want to fire Washington, fine. That could be a reasonable course of action. But why does everyone feel like that’s the general public’s decision to make at all?

People do not necessarily become good people just by virtue of being a celebrity. Just as their are homobigoted office managers and policemen and school teachers and scientists and grocery store clerks out there, some celebrities are probably going to be racist or sexist or intolerant, too. Do we really all expect them to be paragons of tolerance just because they’re on TV?

And then there’s everyone’s reaction to his repeating the word faggot at an awards ceremony last week.

“No, I did not call (co-star) T.R. (Knight) a faggot,” Washington told reporters. “Never happened, never happened.”

This is, according to other cast members, patently untrue. So, okay, find fault with him for lying. But people seem to be finding fault with him for the public use of the word faggot. My friend argued last night that it was completely inexcusable for him to repeat the word, especially at the golden globes ceremony (hallowed ground, apparently). Um, what was he supposed to say? “The F-word?” (I think that implies something else).

Via Julian Sanchez, a Texas mayor proposes a ban that would make using the word nigger illegal and punishable by fine, no matter in what context the word is used.

Says Mayor Corley: “The word is not used or abused in the streets of our town; it’s more, amongst the black community, as a term of endearment, OK? … But it is a national issue, and I would like the city of Brazoria to take a leadership role throughout the nation in banning the use of this word.”

… ugh. words are not just, like, these completely object things with unilateral intent and meaning. they derive their power and meaning from context.

So back to Washington, I’m not saying that what he said is excusable, or that he wasn’t wrong, or that people shouldn’t be offended by his intolerance, or feel negatively about Washington now. I just don’t understand why everyone is always so SHOCKED when a celebrity acts in an intolerant way. Especially when we don’t hold are politicians to the same standard ….

Making celebrity bad behavior into a media frenzy like this doesn’t really serve any purpose, as far as I can see, except to have celebrities then go on a disingenuous apology tour while the initial offense gets repeated over and over and over …. the same magazines chastising Washington for his repeated use of the word in his denial of ever using it are now positively bursting with faggot headlines …

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Disco Blood Bath

What would James St. James say?

But research has not proved that moderate or low doses of ecstasy are particularly dangerous. And avant-garde psychiatrists have long argued that in a controlled clinical setting, low amounts can play a role by reducing fear, without sedation, and so encourage openness and emotional insight.

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in lieu of $1million, he’ll take their carts full of plastic bags

Antique dealer sues four unnamed homeless people for $1 million for loitering outside his gallery. Heaven forbid the huddled masses interfere with his sales of “rare Biedermeier and Art Deco.”

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Is there anyone a girl can stand behind?

And there goes any hope for me ever voting for a Democratic candidate. At least there is one bright light . It’s really going to come down to what I deem the important issues of 2008.

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red beans and liquor…

… no “co-mingling” between the two.

At the Red & the Black, it’s not just about feeling good, it’s about looking good, too. To that end, on Feb. 6, the club plans to inaugurate “Fat Tuesdays Phat Haircut and a Shot”—a trim and a dose of liquor for $12.

Bill Spieler, the club’s co-owner, says the idea comes direct from the Big Easy, where the H Street bar gets its inspiration. “Since we’re themed after New Orleans, there’s a bar [there] called R Bar where they do the exact same thing every Monday night,” Spieler says.

Only problem is, here in the District, the haircut-shot combo may not be legal. Ronnie Taylor, supervisory sanitarian for the Food Safety and Hygiene Inspection Services Division of the Department of Health, says, “No food establishment is authorized to co-mingle with any other nonfood establishment”—which means a tavern offering food can’t double as a hair salon.

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Oh my god, he’s black? AND white? It’s so confusing!

Speculative political question I am quickly tiring of: Will Obama appeal to blacks?

Not that it’s not a valid question (and maybe it only seems all-pervasive to me because I recently had to lexisnexis through 2 years worth of obama coverage), but I just find something sort of frustrating about this whole is he white enough for white people? is he black enough for black people? analysis/frame …

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To spread the music or not?

Here’s a site I’ve been going to for a while. Again, I’ve just been sitting on it. So here it is to share, I just got some free Bright Eyes. I’d recommend The Hong Kong and Human Television but there is a lot of other good free music to play with.

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iLike

I read about iLike about a month ago and didn’t post about it. Well now it’s getting mass press and I feel like whoring it out as one of the first (or first thousand) bloggers to talk about it. It’s a free social-network of sorts. My favorite part is the iTunes plug-in that tells you similar artists you may like depending on who you are listening to. It reminds me of the good ole days of Audio Galaxy. It offers up uknown bands that can you download for free. Of course, it won’t be social-network with out the plethra of indie pics people upload, but it’s great way to hear about some new bands or just to meet people who also have an unhealthy obession with the Jackson Five. For all you Myspacers, there is an add-on to let your friends see what you are listening to. So let Steve sing.

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