It’s Friday afternoon and I’m a bit tapped out of opinions of any great importance. But I want to bring up a subject that might be still be a bit raw for the public still traumatized by Kanye West’s enormous show of alcohol-induced ego tripping. But fuck it, I’m going to say it.
Kanye West had a point.
Oh, he was indulging in some hyperbole, for sure, but the general sentiment there---that Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” is by far a better product than Taylor Swift’s instantly forgettable song---was the correct one. Sady Doyle summed up the situation correctly.
#1. KANYE WEST IS YOUR DRUNK UNCLE
.......And this, like a lot of the things that your drunk uncle says at Thanksgiving ("LINDA! ARE YOU STILL GETTING THE ABORTION?!") is both relatively true and very embarrassing for all involved.
I criticized “Single Ladies” when it came out for its sexist lyrical content, but it is indisputably going straight into the canon of dance songs, without passing Go or collecting anything short of platinum. You can just tell when a song is #1 with a bullet, and that song was it. And it deserved it. You hear it once and you find yourself singing it to yourself while kind of grooving around dorkily before you realize what you’re doing. It’s not my taste, and I’m not going to rush out and buy the album or anything. But if I was in a dancing situation and that song came on, I’d be very happy.
In contrast, I listened to Taylor Swift’s song right before writing this, to make sure I was being completely fair to it, and I have, in the space of 10 minutes, not only forgotten what it sounds like, I have forgotten what it’s called. I hear that it’s supposed to be “country western”, but as someone who grew up in Texas and has accumulated more country western listening minutes than I will ever admit to, I must say that I’m skeptical of this claim. What makes someone country western now? Wearing pants that go all the way down to the ankles on stage?
It’s nothing to leap out of your chair and carry on about, but I suspect that half the reason that West’s little stunt got the traction it did was that deep down in our collective hearts, America knew he had a point.
No big theme today. Today’s song to run the iTunes Genius function off of was picked simply because it came up on my random generator last night, and I love it. (Lauren from Feministe turned me onto this cover.) But it does suit the amount of rain we’ve had this week, because it’s created a rather slow mix. Of course, all this rain has meant that it hasn’t broken 90 all week, and just recently it was hitting 100 nearly every day, so it’s more a blessing than anything. This has meant people have been exclaiming that they’ve been able to wear a) jeans b) long-sleeved but light shirts and c) sneakers with socks. Joy all around. Leave yours in comments!
Original song: “Thunder Road” by Tortoise and Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Bruce Springsteen cover)
1) “Hatchet"---Low
2) “Burned by the Christians"---Califone
3) “The Shape Is In A Trance"---Thurston Moore
4) “Do You Believe In Rapture?"---Sonic Youth (Genius is cheating.)
5) “Rebel Jew"---The Silver Jews
6) “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House"---Yo La Tengo
7) “The Perfect Me"---Deerhoof (where this starts to pick up)
8) “Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack"---The Liars
9) “Rise Above"---The Dirty Projectors
10) “War Is Dead"---David Pajo
At Netroots Nation, I picked up a copy of Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles Pierce, and thoroughly enjoyed its often-hilarious, generally impatient, occasionally lyrical examination of the stranglehold Idiot America has on our once-great nation. Pierce’s great contribution to the growing pile of books bemoaning the same loss is to distinguish between the American crank, a species he has great respect for, and Idiot America. The difference is a simple one: cranks know their place. They don’t vie for power or mainstream acceptance. They offer their crank ideas to the world and let them subvert the common wisdom, but don’t employ volume, power, and money to elevate crankery to a level of prestige it doesn’t deserve. The good cranks in Pierce’s eyes are JFK assassination conspiracy theorists (except probably Oliver Stone), the Mormons in Joseph Smith’s era, and the guy who came up with the theory that Atlantis is the source of all civilization. Idiot America, however, is George Bush suggesting that we should “teach the controversy” over evolution. Idiot America are the people who tried to lay claim to Terri Schiavo’s body that encased her slowly liquefying brain. Idiot America is Justice Scalia referencing “24” as if it had any bearing on how torture works in the real world.
Pierce’s insight is a surprisingly useful one. It’s all too easy for people to grow genuinely scary shit like powerful wingnuttery with other things that are simply tasteless and stupid, like reality TV, and suggest it’s all part of a general trend of American fuckwittery. But in Pierce’s universe, something like reality TV should be viewed benevolently as part of the American tolerance and even love of irreverence. Reality TV stars, after all, aren’t running for public office, and more importantly, they seem to have a grasp of their own station in the public eye as objects of ridicule that are paid in fame. They’re fine with this, so no harm, no foul. Like Pierce says, we should worry not that reality TV shows are scripted, and more about the Bush administration that fantasized its own reality.
Reading this and listening to the most recent “This American Life” about “Frenemies” dovetailed neatly. Rich Juzwiak has put together a video of all the clips he could find of reality TV contestants spouting the all-time best reality TV cliche, “I’m not here to make friends.”
Okay, so that’s really funny and his dissection of the history of this cliche on “This American Life” is hysterical. But it got me to thinking about how reality TV has really come into its own in the past few years, and what that means for our culture. Why do we love watching “ordinary” Americans tear each others’ throats out in the most degrading way, all while spouting their battle cry, “I’m not here to make friends!” It’s not that much of a mystery, really. The country as a whole has really been in a period of cutthroat capitalism, backed up by war-mongering. We, as a nation, are reaching heights of bloodthirstiness and stupidity. No wonder we want that reflected back to us in our TVs.
But it’s not as simple as stating that Americans are stupid and bloodthirsty, and therefore that’s what we make our entertainment. Reality TV is more than modern bear-baiting, though it seems like that on its surface. The truth of the matter is that a substantial portion of the audience for reality TV---perhaps even a majority?---watching it is not about enjoying it in a straightforward manner. It’s ironic, and about feeling superior. The pleasure is in not buying in the values espoused in the reality TV show, but actually rejecting those values.
It reminds me a lot of how the 80s had a spate of movies that had an ambiguous relationship with hyper-capitalism, with “Wall Street” being the most famous. Is it satire? Is it celebration of debased rejection of basic decency in pursuit of the almighty buck (or fame)? Depends on who’s watching. Reality TV occupies the same ambiguous space for us.
Now that we’re in a recession, perhaps the pleasure/disapproval continuum of reality TV shows will end. It’s time, anyway. Reality TV entered its baroque period when they started doing vagina shots on “Rock of Love”. I’m not going to write some preachy piece celebrating the end of irony---I fucking hate that shit---but I suggest that perhaps Americans have a different fantasy/disapproval need. During economic hard times, that usually centers around the concept of luxury, from the lush films about the upper classes from the 30s to Chic singing about “Good Times” in the 70s---for Americans in hard times, these products produce a fantasy for those who want that, and a satire for those who want that. I expect we’ll start seeing a 21st century version of that soon.
it’s no surprise that the 2009 Values Voter Summit, launching on Friday, sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and a host of other professional anti-gay, misogynist, forced birth advocates, will entertain the attendees with a screening of Speechless: Silencing the Christians.
This is the flick that was peddled around the country in local markets to air and scare people about the Homosexual Agenda. Since watching a film about say, Obama’s health care plan and why it’s SOCIALISM; it’s always good to go back to the old saw of hating on the gays to give the crowd a collective hard-on. (OnTopMag):
In the documentary, the AFA asserts that proposed federal hate crime legislation would outlaw religious speech, that employment protection laws force churches to hire gays and lesbians, that gay men and women are largely responsible for HIV/AIDS and all STDs, and that gay marriage hurts the family because it deprives children of a mother or a father.
In July, hundreds of gay activists protested outside the Florida offices of Tampa’s WFLA Channel 8 after executives decided to broadcast the video. The rally was organized by several local gay rights groups including Equality Florida and Pride Tampa Bay, and the Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa, a gay-inclusive Christian denomination. The groups’ pleas to not air the special had fallen on deaf ears.
But in other markets, gay activists were successful in derailing the film’s release, including WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and WSXY 6.2 in Columbus, Ohio.
“There’s a time and place to show such hateful trash, a gathering of bigoted homophobes is the only place,” R. Zeke Fread, director of Pride Tampa Bay, told On Top Magazine in an email. “I’m sure Speechless will receive enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation [at Value Voters Summit].”
On Saturday, FOTF will have a conference session on “countering the “homosexual agenda” in public schools” and another on how marriage equality will destroy religious liberty.
***
I wondered what the turnout would be for the dozens of invited “special guests” in the wingnut, bible beating world at this year’s gathering. Stephen Baldwin will be there, btw. And you know 2012 presidential Clown Car peeps showed up—Huckabee and Mitt, but no Bible Spice. Tony Perkins didn’t forget to close the deal on his black pulpit puppets—Bishop Harry Jackson and Ken Hutcherson—plus Star Parker.
See who is attending (and who turned them down), below the fold.
The right’s newest poster children, James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles, are getting a lot of publicity these days. A comment on this story says that O’Keefe was partly responsible for the Rutgers affirmative action bake sale - the one where cookies cost different amounts depending on your ethnicity. And Hannah Giles, well...she’s a young, conventionally attractive woman who’s embraced Republican ideology. It’s pretty easy to guess what the reaction might be in the right blogosphere.
But seriously, having seen the picture of how they were dressed, I can’t imagine how anyone ever took them seriously enough to not laugh them out of the office. What’s next - will ACORN be caught aiding an escaped fugitive? Offering advice to a serial killer? Or tax shelters to a giant rabbit? Until absolutely proven otherwise, I say that every ACORN employee including the ones in the “most damning” video were, at worst, trying not to upset the crazy people.
Rush Limbaugh goes on a racist rant. Rod Dreher criticizes it...while still embracing the exact racism that drives the entire point.
How low will these people go? Look, I think it’s important to talk about black male violence, or at least as important as it is to talk about any other important social trend. I don’t think we should be squeamish about discussing it in a responsible and fair-minded way, despite what the politically correct say. But good grief, Limbaugh is up to something wicked. He’s plainly trying to rally white conservatives into thinking that now that we have a black president, blacks are rising up to attack white kids! Christ have mercy, what is wrong with these people?
See, black males have a problem with violence, but it’s not because there’s a black male in office...it’s just because black males are violent! Now, let’s discuss. Responsibly and fair-mindedly.
Why is it so much easier for so many conservatives to get angry about Communism and czars than it is about actual bigotry that has an actual impact on their lives? Simply put, it’s because Communism and czars are big fake things that they’ll never have to worry about having any impact on their lives. It’s easy to take responsibility for keeping dragons from burning down your home, because dragons don’t exist and you can do whatever crazy shit you want while claiming absolute anti-dragon success. It’s much hard to take responsibility for, say, paying your bills, because there are real people who want real money from you for real things.
It probably feels great to go to D.C., wave around a Gadsden flag and hand-paint a sign demanding that we overthrow our government or just keep watermelon out of the White House garden. But it feels so great and is so easy to motivate yourself to do because there’s no chance that you’ll ever meet the sort of dispiriting resistance or setbacks that people who tackle real problems do. If you admit racism exists beyond the boundaries of a radio rant that you can easily distance yourself from, that means you have to take all that energy used to theorize that Barack Obama will use GM to build light tanks for his youth army and use it to stop people you have influence over from doing terrible things to other people. That takes actual work and actual bravery, which is why there’s no sobbing dough-faced faux-comedian scribbling nonsense on chalkboards and making millions of dollars a year doing it.
The inevitable ”how dare you call someone racist just because they’re racist?” drivel is starting up. And as usual, I can’t believe the nerve of some people. This isn’t a case that has a lot of ambiguity. This isn’t an example of people having unexamined privilege but good intentions, people making embarrassing errors because of ignorance, or even a matter of structural racism. This is a matter of people writing things like “Robbin’ for the Hood” on signs at 9/12 rallies. It’s in-your-face racism from people who enjoy making deliberately racist comments to provoke liberals, and who sincerely and overtly think that non-white people are dirty, stupid, and lazy. That they’ll make exceptions to the rule doesn’t they’re not racist, and the fact that they don’t make an exception for the President disinclines me to think that they’re as good at making exceptions as they probably think they are.
Read this hysterical screed by Dan Riehl, where he seems to sincerely think that he’s finally going to get the race war of his dreams. I’m sure that Dan Riehl thinks he’s not a racist. But he probably also thinks he’s not an asshole. We can’t go by his self-assessments here. Rush Limbaugh is also hyperventilating about the armies of black kids that are going to kill him, and I haven’t checked, but I’m sure Glenn Beck is on that train, too.
On Double X, Hanna Rosin argued that Joe Wilson is actually pretty typical in South Carolina, and so this “you’re a racist” pile-up is uncalled for. Marjorie Valburnand I argued that the white mainstream of South Carolina is pretty racist, and that we’re happy using the walks/talks/flies/swims level of proof before concluding that this individual is a duck.
I bring all this up, because it appears that the bar has been raised so high for calling someone a racist that Joe Wilson could probably walk around in a Klan hood and someone would say, “He’s just for white pride!” Which is, of course, their argument. I think part of the reason is a lot of white people are afraid that if it’s okay to start suggesting that someone’s a racist just because they engage in overt, malicious racism, then we’re all going to be called racists, even those of us that fall into the “mean well, but fuck up a lot” category, or that in our attempts to avoid being called a racist, we’ll start to fall into 10th level white liberal guilt hell, where you’re reading Stuff White People Like, and then burning your Threadless shirts and having your ironic tattoo sliced off with a razor blade to feel better about yourself, which doesn’t work and doesn’t help anyone.
The problem with these concerns isn’t that they’re illegitimate, it’s that if they hold you in their thrall, you’re being self-centered. You’re putting the fear of being called a racist ahead of the serious problems faced by people who experience racism.
Part of the problem is that when we hear words like “sexist”, “racist”, or “homophobe”, we conjure up pictures of monsters, since Americans aren’t fond of ambiguities. This is doubly true of conservatives, who have problems grasping that one can both be a bad thing like a sexist and still be a good thing like good at your job or loving towards your family. Part of the problem is Hollywood, where oppressors are usually pure monsters, where a rapist seems to be sprung from pure evil, and we never see that it might be someone whose disdain for his sex partners doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his mother. I think that’s why “Mad Men” is such a breath of fresh air, because the writers actually treat the audience like we’re grown-ups, and we can see that someone might be a racist, but is also a charming cad, or that someone might be a sexist, but he’s also capable of respecting a female coworker with talent and feeling sincerely guilty about neglecting his wife. But mostly, you don’t see this, and so a lot of white people balk at these words, because they don’t want to think of their grandfather who gave them candies whenever they asked as a “racist” just because he makes shrill, unavoidably racist comments.
But all this is really unhelpful, because the “no one’s being racist” shuffle helps feed an illusion that in turn is used to foster racism. Working with bad information in general is a bad idea. Striving mightily to pretend that people who wave around signs like this aren’t motivated by racism creates a situation where you’re going to make bad decisions on how to deal with them. You really should know your enemy, and this whole debacle shows why. If you persist in believing right wing opposition are a bunch of well-meaning people who are simply afraid because they’ve heard all these rumors, you’re going to keep trying to correct their misconceptions and hitting your head against a brick wall, because they aren’t going to let truth get in the way of their rumor-mongering. If you accept that these rumors are being spread by people with malicious intent, then your strategy changes. You put out the correct information to sweep up the people who really are gullible fools, and then simply go around the rest, as they are too busy swirling down a drain of hatred and paranoia to be dealt with.
I wanted to update you on the horrible story of the black woman who was beaten down at a Georgia Cracker Barrel by mullet-sporting trash Troy Dale West. The incident was caught on the restaurant’s surveillance video, and it has been turned over to the FBI. Tasha Hill’s seven-year-old daughter witnessed this man pummel her mother and now blames herself for what happened to her mother because she’s the one who wanted to go to Cracker Barrel. Local news video is up.
A police report of the incident said Hill’s daughter was “crying uncontrollably and her body [was] shaking/trembling” from witnessing the attack.
According to Hill’s report, and confirmed by many witnesses, West screamed out racial slurs before punching her in the face. ”He said, ‘You’re an fucking black nigger bitch,’ is what he said,” said Hill.
Oh guess what - look at the charges West faces:
A judge dropped a felony child cruelty charge against Troy D. West Jr. He was released from the Clayton County jail Friday—two days after being arrested for striking Tashawnea Hill in front of her 7-year-old daughter.
District Attorney Tracy Graham Lawson said she may file felony charges against West. We’re reviewing the police reports and talking to witnesses to determine whether felony charges should be presented to the grand jury,” Lawson said Wednesday.
West, 47, is charged with battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to children—all misdemeanors.
Clayton Solicitor General Tasha Mosley, who prosecutes misdemeanor charges, said she sent the case to the district attorney because West should face aggravated assault charges.
“A hand or a foot can be used as a deadly weapon,” Mosley said. “You can kill somebody or cause bodily injury with a hand.”
West is now claiming that Hill spit on him; witnesses said she did no such thing. Hey big man, you want to pound on a negro—man up and say you’re proud to do it and that you’d do it again. Such bullsh*t. Oh, and of course the media checked in with West’s mom who said her son just couldn’t be capable of violence:
West’s mother, Johnnie West, said her son was not available, but that he would never harm anyone—especially in front of a child.
“That doesn’t sound like something my son would do,” she said Wednesday when reached at her Poulan home. “He has children and is a good father.”
Sorry Johnnie, it’s all on the videotape. Your son is a racist scumbag; I guess his saving grace is he wouldn’t hurt anyone in front of a white child, given his world view.
First they came for abortion, then they came for contraception, then they attacked HPV vaccination, and now they’re coming for mammograms. I’ve long figured this was the direction that the anti-choice movement is heading, but watching it unfold is like watching a snail try to cross a football field. Working up the bullshit excuse and the courage to expand their opposition to health care for women---at least that addressing our the parts that make us not-men and therefore are too disgusting to be considered, much less exposed to medical examination---takes these cowards and morons a long fucking time.
Say what you will about the actual Taliban, but at least they cut to the chase. One all-purpose excuse for why women can’t see doctors---because it’s immodest---and they’re done. They have their reason to deny women health care, and they don’t have to admit that it’s because the idea of fucking women up by proxy pleases them. Modesty is an infinitely better excuse than “the babies” in terms of wrapping your excuse around the goal. Anti-choicers chose “the babies” because it made their nuttiness more sympathetic, and seemed to be a more effective disguise for their misogyny. But they’re trading coherence for sympathy. Every new incursion into agitating against ladyparts health care must be related somehow to saving embryos, fetuses, or potential ones, which is why the argument against contraception isn’t a straightforward, “We want you to be punished for fucking,” but, “Condoms create a ‘contraceptive mentality’ that leads to abortion.”
The tortured reasoning in play here is this: The Susan G. Komen Foundation is offensive, because they a) don’t “admit” to a connection between breast cancer and abortion that doesn’t exist and b) they give money to Planned Parenthood so they can pay for mammograms for lower income women. But as we all know, Planned Parenthood is in the “abortion industry"---Ross Douthat told me so!---and so it’s not possible that they’re actually providing mammograms with the mammogram money. For all we know, there is no such thing as a “mammogram”. It’s probably just another, more gruesome way to perform abortions.
Let’s face it: Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood are conspiring to cover up the fact that women are now growing babies in their boobs. And these “mammograms” are simply an attempt to abort those precious little babies by squishing them.
I know what you’re thinking: if women could grow babies in their breasts, wouldn’t we have figured this out already? Human being have been having babies for 4,000 years now, longer if you’re a heathen who believes in evolution.
There’s a simple answer to your question: Babies grow in boobies because women swallow semen, duh. If you were having sex the normal way, you’d get babies in the normal lower ladypart region. But now these young girls these days think it’s fine to have a man ejaculate in their mouths, and sometimes that means they pay the consequence of boob-babies. It makes perfect sense. That’s roughly where your throat ends, isn’t it? A man’s Jesus spooge has to go somewhere, doesn’t it? Boobs are the only logical place.
The means that the existence of boob-babies can be traced back to 1997, when Bill Clinton invented the blow job. And since he’s so pro-abort, you know he immediately enlisted Planned Parenthood and Susan G. Komen to cover up the consequences of his terrible discovery. And only now is the truth coming out.
I think it’s safe to say that a host of “Cracker” Barrel jokes will be launched in the wake of this story.
Police are investigating a possible hate crime as a white man, Troy Dale West of Poulan, GA, put the beatdown on a black woman, Tasha Hill. He did so in front of her daughter when Hill told West to watch out for her child as the mullet-sporting West swung open a door to leave a Morrow, GA Cracker Barrel.
As West was leaving, the exit door came close to striking the 7-year-old daughter of the victim, police said. Hill, by all witness accounts, politely asked West to be careful , officials said.
“The man slung open the door pretty hard and fast and I had to push my daughter out of the way. I turned to the man and I just said, ‘Excuse me sir, you need to watch yourself you almost hit my daughter in the face.’ And from there it just went downhill ,” said Hill.
At that point, West became enraged and began to beat the victim in front of her 7-year-old daughter , according to police. Hill said she told West she was an Army servicemember and she did not want any trouble.
West threw her to the ground and hit her in the head with his fists and feet, police said. During the exchange, witnesses said West could be heard screaming racial slurs at the victim .
You can see the news report here, as we see yet again that a post-racial society is nowhere to be found.
Blogenfreude and I were discussing this over email; he said ”it’s going to get much more violent out there. The 24% that thought Bush was doing a good job ‘til the end won’t rest until there’s a body count. Sad, but true.”
My reply: ”24% is a hell of a lot of people. And imagine how many of them have guns...and have untreated mental illness...and have been convicted for violent crimes. It really is frightening.”
Ohio has been one of those states that was fertile ground for a marriage amendment; in 2004 there were not enough progressive or moderate voters to keep it at bay, a cornucopia of religious fundamentalists and bigots marshalled forces to power it through to the polls where it easily passed, 61.7%-38.3%. If only it had been able to stop that amendment to wait for the people and the legislature to catch up culturally as more states approved marriage equality—and the world didn’t come to an end.
But there was a ray of light Tuesday as the Ohio House passed a state non-discrimination bill, H.B. 176, the Equal Housing and Employment Act. Chris@Law Dork:
The EHEA would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodations in Ohio, and its passage in the House marks the first time a pro-LGBT bill passed either chamber of the Ohio Statehouse.
Sponsors Rep. Dan Stewart (D) and Rep. Ross McGregor (R) both spoke in favor of the bill’s passage, with Stewart talking about the changes in our past leading toward more enlightened positions on equality — including a mention of P.M. Gordon Brown’s apology of last week — and urging that “Injustice to one is injustice to all.”
As usual, a member opposed to the bill stood up and gave an asinine excuse for supporting discrimination—even as he took care to say “When speaking against a bill like this, it’s easy to come across the wrong way.” I give you Republican Rep. Jeff Wagner:
Wagner then did his best to prove his point, talking about the “sexual revolution,” how increased numbers of homosexuals have led to increased incident of sexually transmitted diseases and the dangers inherent in living in a world in which homosexuality is accepted. He told his colleagues, “You can live with whoever you want, but don’t use the state government to force acceptance.”
ROTFLOL—that’s classic jackassery. Wagner’s his own punchline! Are homos cloning one another to jack up our numbers? After all, the bible-beaters told us we couldn’t procreate, right? Or perhaps our recruitment efforts are now on a roll of—ahem—biblical proportions.
Gee, I can’t recall how many toasters have been distributed lately.
But congratulations to Ohio for this bit of history—and kudos to Equality Ohio’s staff, board, and volunteers for achieving this win.
Now if they could only roll back that amendment. :( One day, it will happen.
(UPDATE: I just want to note that the the talking heads on the left as well as the right are trying to minimize the amount of racism being tossed out there; as if it’s only a handful of people doing this. James Carville was on CNN just this AM trying to downplay the bigotry. I think not. Take a look at my long list—a sampling—of what has transpired not just in the South but all over the country. It’s not just teabaggers, it’s DC insiders and pols spewing racist garbage on the air as fact. )
Carter’s observations may seem obvious to many of us here at Pandagon. We’ve seen this racist, code-laden garbage surface during the 2008 campaign only to revive with a bigoted bang right after the inauguration. But it’s significant that the former President, a man of the South (as is Joe “You Lie!” Wilson) during a time when there was enormous social race-based upheaval calls it out so bluntly. He knows most of this crap is simply dancing around calling the current President of the United States a n*gger—and you know Wilson knows it too.
Honestly, I’m surprised these fringe birthers, teabaggers and junior-league Klan member wannabes haven’t thrown down that card yet. It’s on the tips of their forked tongues. (Huff Post):
“I think it’s based on racism. There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”
The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.
“Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,” he said. “It’s deeper than that.”
“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American,” Carter told NBC in an interview. “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans”
Continued Carter: “And that racism inclination still exists… It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.”
Damn you, Atrios! Here I was, innocently tweeting links that I didn’t feel I could come up with a full blog post about, and I see that Atrios is making fun of the Washington Post for printing this pointless screed of Michael Gerson’s encouraging young people to get into unhappy marriages headed straight for divorce. Because he cares about your happiness. It certainly has nothing to do with the perverse need of conservatives to stomp out joy and pleasure wherever they see it, nor their especially strong need to do so when young people are being young, which can provoke jealousy if you’re not mature and capable enough to look the other way and count your blessings.
The casual sex promoted in advertising and entertainment often leads, in the real world of fragile hearts and STDs, to emotional and physical wreckage.
In conservative-land, there’s no such thing as condoms, of course. Sometimes I think it’s because they literally cannot fathom asking a man to care about contraception, as the implication is that you’re a big pussy who gives a shit about a woman’s well-being, even if she’s not your official property. But setting aside the STD scare tactics, I have a pop quiz for the Pandagon community. What do you think breaks your heart more: Dating someone for awhile and deciding it’s not working out and moving on, or doing so after getting married, having children, and promising to love and honor each other for life? Which rift do you think takes longer to heal? Because, as much as conservatives like to monkey with and distort statistics to try to prove otherwise, the wedding band doesn’t heal a bad relationship. What a wedding band does seem to unfortunately do is drag out the break-up, or worse, make you feel you can’t leave, and so you waste your life away in an unhappy relationship.
But we’ve trod this ground before. What I like about Gerson’s piece is that it takes conservative incoherence to a new level. He bemoans casual sex, but then he gets all bent out of shape about cohabitation. Kids can’t commit, and to demonstrate their lack of commitment, I’m going to trot out a bunch of kids that are making commitments! Though not the commitment that Gerson wants, so it doesn’t count. Sometimes I get the impression that cohabitation is such a hobby horse for social conservatives because they think that the fact that you’re living in sin makes the sex hotter. Well, as someone in the scandalous state of cohabitation, I’m not going to disabuse them of that notion. Eat it, marriage monkeys.
(Warning: “Marriage monkeys” should not be misconstrued by people trolling for offense to mean anyone who is married. The marriage pimps are the sole object of scorn here.)
But this is not the only incoherence. Gerson admits that many, probably most people living in sin are test-driving the relationship to see if it’s marriage material. Then he says this:
Relationships defined by lower levels of commitment are, not unexpectedly, more likely to break up. Three-quarters of children born to cohabiting parents will see their parents split up by the time they turn 16, compared with about one-third of children born to married parents.
Could it be because people who actually make the leap into marriage are more sure than people who don’t, on average? (Very few sinners are boycotting marriage like my dude and myself.) And that people who are less sure are more likely to break up? Correlation does not equal causation: a concept social conservatives will never get as long as it continues to be inconvenient. You see the same problem with people who point out that very early 20s marriages are no more likely to end in divorce than later marriages. Well, yes---in an era where few people marry that young, so the group that does so is self-selecting. But if you forcibly expanded that group to include people who don’t feel sure yet, then I imagine that would change dramatically. Same with these statistics. There’s no reason to think these couples would have stayed together if they were married. The far more likely explanation is people whose relationships are rife with problems understandably hesitate to marry before they fix the problems. And as much as our self-help culture would like to deny this, the existence of problems that might make you hesitate to marry is a strong predictor of the chance of breaking up down the line. Or even the existence of problems you ignore to marry. The existence of problems in general. I, for one, would like to congratulate Americans who realize that the “ignore them and they’ll go away after the wedding” approach to problems does not work.
What’s really amusing is that Gerson doesn’t seem to realize that a more enthusiastic attitude about abortion would also fix the problem he’s concerned about. You know who doesn’t give birth out of wedlock? Women who are dead set on not doing so, and therefore choose abortion if they get pregnant out of wedlock. I’m just saying. But of course, anything that conflicts with the larger, unspoken principle that people should have less fun and pleasure is immediately discarded.
Sorry to bump it to Tuesday again. But alas, we were too busy to watch it Sunday night, so had to watch it last night. That may perhaps be the most melancholic script ever built around a birth, which is one of the touches I really appreciate with “Mad Men”. Betty’s hunched shoulders and pause before she went to tend to the crying infant was a heart-breaking touch. When Peggy asked Don if all this is old hat, I thought to myself that this would be a better question to ask Betty. Because it seems more and more that she’s the one thinking that. The hardest part of watching them try to patch it up is that I sense that they not only love each other, but they really like each other. You see glimpses of their chemistry. But it’s not each other, it’s the trap that they find themselves in.
My cats want to know, Betty: What’s so wrong with being a housecat?
The two parts of the episode I want to address in depth, however, are the scenes with Peggy and Pete, both together and separate. I liked, for instance, how the show demonstrated quickly how legislation mandating things like equal pay don’t work that well if the only enforcement mechanism is a lawsuit. But I also have to say: Called it. Last week I noted that it seems that Peggy gets paid less than Paul for doing twice the work and holding the same title, and I wondered if she’d find the courage to ask for more. Well, she did! We know Peggy’s not going to sue Sterling Cooper, but the game changer is the job offer from Duck to work for Grey Advertising. (Or, that’s who I assume he works for.) It certainly seems it would fit her personality better to have a place that puts an emphasis on modernity, but I suspect that she is both loyal to Don and, understandably, afraid of what will happen if she leaves his protection. That moment between them where babies came up, and there was a pregnant pause? That was a reminder that Don knows Peggy’s secret and doesn’t judge her. Having a boss like that who cares about you is not something you throw away easily under any circumstances, but when you’re a woman in the 60s, having that and also having a boss who doesn’t sexualize you or harass you? Priceless. I wonder if Don would be more open to paying Peggy more if his boss wasn’t breathing down his neck. It seems like he’s more just taking advantage of the fact that he can pay her less, more than he’s demonstrating an aggressive unwillingness to reward her work. I thought the scene between them subtly demonstrated how far Peggy’s star has risen at Sterling Cooper---which is to say she’s being treated more “like a man” every day. Don just has her sit down and pours her a drink, like he would a male coworker. In fact, she gets better treatment than anyone else down the ladder from Don in some ways. The combination of respect and reflexive sexism he exhibits towards her is something I think a lot of intelligent women have encountered in work and school from some men.
Pete Campbell’s scenes in this show epitomized the concept of self-defeating behavior. Turning down a job offer from someone who wants him to fight for a job that he’s got a 50% chance of losing, because he’s angry at Peggy? Even allowing that he has a reason to be angry with Peggy (as understandable as her behavior was, she still gave a baby he fathered away without telling him), that’s just stupid. Why hurt yourself to get back at her?
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m a bit tapped out of opinions of any great importance. But I want to bring up a subject that might be still be a bit raw for the public still traumatized by Kanye West’s enormous show of alcohol-induced ego tripping. But fuck it, I’m going to say it.
At Netroots Nation, I picked up a copy of 
it’s no surprise that the 2009 Values Voter Summit, launching on Friday, sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and a host of other professional anti-gay, misogynist, forced birth advocates, will entertain the attendees with a screening of Speechless: Silencing the Christians.
I wondered what the turnout would be for the dozens of invited “special guests” in the wingnut, bible beating world at this year’s gathering. Stephen Baldwin will be there, btw. And you know 2012 presidential Clown Car peeps showed up—Huckabee and Mitt, but no Bible Spice. Tony Perkins didn’t forget to close the deal on his black pulpit puppets—Bishop Harry Jackson and Ken Hutcherson—plus Star Parker.
I wanted to update you on the horrible story of 
West is now claiming that Hill spit on him; witnesses said she did no such thing. Hey big man, you want to pound on a negro—man up and say you’re proud to do it and that you’d do it again. Such bullsh*t. Oh, and of course the media checked in with West’s mom who said her son just couldn’t be capable of violence:
I think it’s safe to say that a host of “Cracker” Barrel jokes will be launched in the wake of this story.
As usual, a member opposed to the bill stood up and gave an asinine excuse for supporting discrimination—even as he took care to say “When speaking against a bill like this, it’s easy to come across the wrong way.” I give you Republican Rep. Jeff Wagner:
Related:
Sorry to bump it to Tuesday again. But alas, we were too busy to watch it Sunday night, so had to watch it last night. That may perhaps be the most melancholic script ever built around a birth, which is one of the touches I really appreciate with “Mad Men”. Betty’s hunched shoulders and pause before she went to tend to the crying infant was a heart-breaking touch. When Peggy asked Don if all this is old hat, I thought to myself that this would be a better question to ask Betty. Because it seems more and more that she’s the one thinking that. The hardest part of watching them try to patch it up is that I sense that they not only love each other, but they really like each other. You see glimpses of their chemistry. But it’s not each other, it’s the trap that they find themselves in.
