I stumbled on this earlier tonight, and I swear I couldn't even watch it all the way through...
http://www.flowgo.com/funny/4477_50-ways-kill-your-husband.html
It's hard for me to believe someone actually spent the time to write this, animate it and post it on the Internet. What's more troubling is that people have actually commented on it, leaving such witty suggestions as "put the whole bottle of viagra on his tea then put on an iron underwear, lock it, throw away the keys."
Okay, ladies...if any of you are reading this and snickering at the thought of shoving your husband off a cliff because he looked too long at a busty woman in the grocery store check-out line or something, let me ask you this. How hard would you be laughing if this were entitled "50 ways to Kill Your Wife"? If some guy out there in cyber-land had devoted hours to developing a cartoon ditty that extolled the possibilities of stabbing one's wife in the back, would you find that amusing? I wouldn't.
A few days ago, Feministing.com posted this picture of a billboard run by a concrete company in New York - aside from being offensive, it's just not funny. As you can see if you read the comments to the Feministing post, at least some readers chided those who find an ad based on domestic violence-humor to be troubling, writing that the billboard wasn't really offensive. And other posters questioned why so many women are quick to jump on "jokes" that denigrate women, but give a free pass to those that devalue men.
So, for the record, this is me, proclaiming to anyone who'll listen that the "50 Ways to Kill Your Husband" cartoon is just as offensive to me personally as the "kill your wife with concrete this Christmas" billboard. I'll go a step further - not only are jokes about domestic violence not funny, any joke that derives its "humor" from sexism, period, isn't funny. That goes for the e-mail that one of the male administrators sent out to our entire office this week poking fun at female drivers - yes, this actually happened in the Year of Our Lord 2007. (And yes, I called him on it, and yes, he apologized. His defense? The person who'd sent it to him was a woman, so therefore it wasn't offensive. Right. Because your female acquaintance is an effin' idiot, I shouldn't be offended.)
In one of my undergrad classes on advertising, my professor cautioned us about using imagery or slogans that played on ethnic or gender stereotypes (apparently NOT a subject covered by the writer of the concrete billboard...). She gave us this rule of thumb - if you replace the subject of the "joke" with a member of another demographic, is it still funny or clever? If not, than your brilliant ad copy is most likely racist/sexist/classist/otherwise bad.
In the case of the concrete company's billboard, "Husband need new shoes?" would still be just as unsettling to me. Jokes about killing your spouse AREN'T FUNNY. So, by definition, they're not jokes.
As for other sexist "humor" - the sad thing is, my co-worker's e-mail would've been just as amusing if it had included a few male drivers. And it wouldn't have opened our company up to a sexual harassment suit. (But it still would've been pretty unprofessional to send a frickin' e-mail forward to the entire office. Sheesh.)
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
WGA Strike: A Love Story
Thanks to my friend Keith for this one...
I like this for two reasons:
A) the reference to "From Here To Eternity," and
B) the fact that no studio is going to make a dime off of it, which is kind of ironically funny if you're up on the reasons for the WGA strike.
By the way, i'm totally blaming my recent lack of motivation on the strike. Not on my own laziness. No-sir-ee.
I like this for two reasons:
A) the reference to "From Here To Eternity," and
B) the fact that no studio is going to make a dime off of it, which is kind of ironically funny if you're up on the reasons for the WGA strike.
By the way, i'm totally blaming my recent lack of motivation on the strike. Not on my own laziness. No-sir-ee.
The Khmer Rouge: Another one bites the dust
There's something I've always wondered ... in my heart of hearts, I'm the most unrepentant liberal utopian, my fantasy U.S.A. a vision of publicly managed corporations and utilities - a house, a job, and education and health care for every American; natural resources managed in an ethical, sustainable fashion; in all, a civic paradise of educated, committed citizens based on the shared ideal that what's good for one person is good for society as a whole.
Of course, this is a complete pipe dream. Of course, it would be lovely, but people simply don't work that way. No socialist economy has ever survived - on a large or small scale - without incorporating some free market elements or collapsing entirely. (Or just brutally supressing its own citizens, but I'll get to that later.) I can certainly understand the ideological appeal of a system that shares resources rather than leaving behind those who can't or won't compete for them. But in actual practice, those systems simply don't work.
Which brings me to my question ... if socialist societies are so "Big Rock Candy Mountain"-dreamlike, then why do people have to be forced to live in them at gunpoint? Why can't their perfect insitutions withstand a little political dissent? I'm talking to you, Cuba. And China. And North Korea.
I got to thinking about this today after reading on BBC.com about the arrest of Khieu Samphan, a former president of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. He's the fifth Khmer Rouge official to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed tribunal. Khieu Samphan is 76-years old. Starting just five years before I was born, he and his regime killed more than a million people, directly and indirectly.
The Khmer Rouge sought to develop Cambodia into a classless agrarian society - pretty ironic, since its leader, Pol Pot, was the son of a privileged landowner who first learned about Marxist philosophy as a student in Paris (he was fluent in French, having attended elite colonial schools) and who worked as a teacher himself. Nevertheless, Pol Pot and his administration saught to revolutionize Cambodian society by evening-out the disparities in wealth fostered by the colonial/capitalist economy.
Anything resembling industry or modernity was dismantled. No more currency, private property, religion or even family affiliations. City-dwellers were forced to evacuate; people with education (except for Pol Pot himself, of course) were threats. Imagine for a moment that U.S. society were suddenly plunged back 200 years - no electricity, no cars or even railroads and you and I forced out from in front of the television to go plant crops. Oh, and if you have an objection to this, you get send to a re-education camp to be tortured. Riiiii-ight.
How these whack-jobs managed to stay in power for four years is beyond me. (Sorry - I don't mean to sound flippant, but seriously, can you think of a better word than "whack-job" to describe people who think this way, and are willing to torture or kill those who disagree with them???) Pol Pot fled the country when Viet Nam invaded Cambodia in 1978, eventually to die in Thailand 20 years later. He'll never be brought to justice for what he did, but at least many of the men who helped him will.
Today, Cambodia still struggles to rebuild its infrastructure, after a 10-year occupation by the Vietnamese and another 13-year-long civil war that only ended in 1991. For most of the 90's, the U.N. cobbled together democratically elected governments. The CIA Factbook entry on Cambodia calls 1999 "the first full year of peace in 30 years" - 20 years after the defeat of Pol Pot's social experiment, Cambodia finally got the breathing room to start recovery.
I'm glad that the U.N. is backing the tribunal. As Isabel Allende said last week when she was speaking here on campus, you can't have reconciliation without truth first. She was talking about her native country, Chile (the rare socialist economy that might have succeeded without Henry Kissinger's interference), but it's true for Cambodia as well.
I hope that the MSM continues to cover this story with 10 per cent or so of the energy it devotes to Lindsay Lohan's latest DUI and Hillary Clinton's laugh.
BTW - I've always been fascinated by how our MSM tends to treat phenomena like the Khmer Rouge as if they came out of nowhere, when in fact one could clearly see Pol Pot coming for a good 20 years earlier. History is riddled with similar examples. Pol Pot's contempory Ho Chi Minh was at the Treaty of Versailles talks to end World War I, for heaven's sake...Oh, but that's a rant for another time. (Kind of sad how few strong references there are for this available online...) I just wish that the gatekeepers of our information were better stewards.
Of course, this is a complete pipe dream. Of course, it would be lovely, but people simply don't work that way. No socialist economy has ever survived - on a large or small scale - without incorporating some free market elements or collapsing entirely. (Or just brutally supressing its own citizens, but I'll get to that later.) I can certainly understand the ideological appeal of a system that shares resources rather than leaving behind those who can't or won't compete for them. But in actual practice, those systems simply don't work.
Which brings me to my question ... if socialist societies are so "Big Rock Candy Mountain"-dreamlike, then why do people have to be forced to live in them at gunpoint? Why can't their perfect insitutions withstand a little political dissent? I'm talking to you, Cuba. And China. And North Korea.
I got to thinking about this today after reading on BBC.com about the arrest of Khieu Samphan, a former president of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. He's the fifth Khmer Rouge official to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed tribunal. Khieu Samphan is 76-years old. Starting just five years before I was born, he and his regime killed more than a million people, directly and indirectly.
The Khmer Rouge sought to develop Cambodia into a classless agrarian society - pretty ironic, since its leader, Pol Pot, was the son of a privileged landowner who first learned about Marxist philosophy as a student in Paris (he was fluent in French, having attended elite colonial schools) and who worked as a teacher himself. Nevertheless, Pol Pot and his administration saught to revolutionize Cambodian society by evening-out the disparities in wealth fostered by the colonial/capitalist economy.
Anything resembling industry or modernity was dismantled. No more currency, private property, religion or even family affiliations. City-dwellers were forced to evacuate; people with education (except for Pol Pot himself, of course) were threats. Imagine for a moment that U.S. society were suddenly plunged back 200 years - no electricity, no cars or even railroads and you and I forced out from in front of the television to go plant crops. Oh, and if you have an objection to this, you get send to a re-education camp to be tortured. Riiiii-ight.
How these whack-jobs managed to stay in power for four years is beyond me. (Sorry - I don't mean to sound flippant, but seriously, can you think of a better word than "whack-job" to describe people who think this way, and are willing to torture or kill those who disagree with them???) Pol Pot fled the country when Viet Nam invaded Cambodia in 1978, eventually to die in Thailand 20 years later. He'll never be brought to justice for what he did, but at least many of the men who helped him will.
Today, Cambodia still struggles to rebuild its infrastructure, after a 10-year occupation by the Vietnamese and another 13-year-long civil war that only ended in 1991. For most of the 90's, the U.N. cobbled together democratically elected governments. The CIA Factbook entry on Cambodia calls 1999 "the first full year of peace in 30 years" - 20 years after the defeat of Pol Pot's social experiment, Cambodia finally got the breathing room to start recovery.
I'm glad that the U.N. is backing the tribunal. As Isabel Allende said last week when she was speaking here on campus, you can't have reconciliation without truth first. She was talking about her native country, Chile (the rare socialist economy that might have succeeded without Henry Kissinger's interference), but it's true for Cambodia as well.
I hope that the MSM continues to cover this story with 10 per cent or so of the energy it devotes to Lindsay Lohan's latest DUI and Hillary Clinton's laugh.
BTW - I've always been fascinated by how our MSM tends to treat phenomena like the Khmer Rouge as if they came out of nowhere, when in fact one could clearly see Pol Pot coming for a good 20 years earlier. History is riddled with similar examples. Pol Pot's contempory Ho Chi Minh was at the Treaty of Versailles talks to end World War I, for heaven's sake...Oh, but that's a rant for another time. (Kind of sad how few strong references there are for this available online...) I just wish that the gatekeepers of our information were better stewards.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Some unsolicited advice for Senator McCain
By now, you may have heard about a question that Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain was asked out on the campaign trail recently. A woman (!) in Hilton Head, S.C., asked McCain simply, "How do we beat the bitch?"
For the moment, I'm going to put aside my disgust that any sane person could refer to another candidate using such a derogatory term, let alone express it out loud in a public forum. (Hey, question-asking woman - you want a cookie for your incisive political analysis? What an f-in idiot...) And I won't comment on the irony of the fact that it was a woman who said this about another woman, yet another piece of evidence supporting the argument that it's "mean girl"-type tactics as much as the evil patriarchy that keeps women in their subservient place.
Let's just address Senator McCain's half-baked response. Sure, he looks somewhat taken aback, but not at all appalled as he should be, considering the blatant impropriety and obscenity of the question. In any public Q&A, you get inappropriate questions. One of the marks of a good politician is the ability to handle those questions by appeasing the anger of the questioner without going too far to the extreme. I won't pretend it's easy to walk that line ... but I have personally seen Rep. Mel Watt point-blank tell constituents that, for instance, he's not going to support an impeachment inquiry against President Bush or VP Cheney. Real leaders aren't afraid to tell their supporters what they don't want to hear.
But after however-many years in the public eye and a previous presidential campaign, McCain should know better than to brush off a question like this. His response was a golden opportunity to strike a blow for mature political discourse, and he whiffed it.
If I'm McCain's media person, this is what I'd hope he says here:
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch?
McCain: Pardon me??? [coupled with suitably appalled expression]
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch? [accompanied by a few more scattered sniggers from the crowd]
McCain: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. [Because it would be bad, you know, to admit publicly that you hear "bitch" and immediately think "Hillary Clinton." This is one of those times it's best to play dumb.]
Rude woman: Hillary. [Maybe a few more sniggers, though starting to sound a mite uncomfortable.]
McCain: You mean Senator Clinton? [Pause for icy stare at Rude Woman, during which time audience is silenced by the power of McCain's awesome integrity] Well...[launch into discussion that poll he talked about, which no one remembers because in real life it was preceded by McCain's tacit calling of Sen. Clinton a bitch.]
See? This is much better. It makes McCain not look like a misogynist dick, or at least a man who's afraid to call out a misogynist dick. Now the story is not "McCain a misogynist dick," but something more positive.
C'mon people, this isn't rocket surgery. I still fail to understand why so many candidates think I should hire them to run my country when they don't have the judgment to navigate a simple frickin' Q&A.
And since when did words like "bitch" become appropriate public commentary? I hope the kids in that woman's church see that clip. Sweet Baby Jesus, I hope she's proud of herself. I'd love to hear what choice descriptions she has for the candidates who are racial minorities. Does she call Barak Obama "the n-word"? I'll bet good money she doesn't call Rudy Giuliani "the adulturer."
And - though Hillary Clinton is not the Democrat candidate I support - what exactly makes her a bitch? Wikipedia defines "bitch" as "malicious, spiteful, domineering, intrusive or unpleasant" - I've never met her personally, so I can't comment on her personality. What in Clinton's public actions puts her in the "bitch" camp? She's never, to my knowledge, just as a for instance, told a Senate colleague to go f@ck himself - something I would characterize as malicious, spiteful and domineering.
So, is it just being an unapologetically powerful female that makes Clinton a "bitch"? Because if so, I believe that to be true of a number of politically conservative women, too. Or is it okay to start calling Senator Elizabeth Dole a bitch, too? (Probably not, since she hasn't actually accomplished anything.) How about Margaret Thatcher? Or the late Tillie Kidd Fowler, once the highest-ranking woman in in the GOP? I hope not, she was a personal hero of mine...but if we're painting one strong woman with the "bitch" brush, why make an exception based on political philosophy, right?
For the moment, I'm going to put aside my disgust that any sane person could refer to another candidate using such a derogatory term, let alone express it out loud in a public forum. (Hey, question-asking woman - you want a cookie for your incisive political analysis? What an f-in idiot...) And I won't comment on the irony of the fact that it was a woman who said this about another woman, yet another piece of evidence supporting the argument that it's "mean girl"-type tactics as much as the evil patriarchy that keeps women in their subservient place.
Let's just address Senator McCain's half-baked response. Sure, he looks somewhat taken aback, but not at all appalled as he should be, considering the blatant impropriety and obscenity of the question. In any public Q&A, you get inappropriate questions. One of the marks of a good politician is the ability to handle those questions by appeasing the anger of the questioner without going too far to the extreme. I won't pretend it's easy to walk that line ... but I have personally seen Rep. Mel Watt point-blank tell constituents that, for instance, he's not going to support an impeachment inquiry against President Bush or VP Cheney. Real leaders aren't afraid to tell their supporters what they don't want to hear.
But after however-many years in the public eye and a previous presidential campaign, McCain should know better than to brush off a question like this. His response was a golden opportunity to strike a blow for mature political discourse, and he whiffed it.
If I'm McCain's media person, this is what I'd hope he says here:
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch?
McCain: Pardon me??? [coupled with suitably appalled expression]
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch? [accompanied by a few more scattered sniggers from the crowd]
McCain: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. [Because it would be bad, you know, to admit publicly that you hear "bitch" and immediately think "Hillary Clinton." This is one of those times it's best to play dumb.]
Rude woman: Hillary. [Maybe a few more sniggers, though starting to sound a mite uncomfortable.]
McCain: You mean Senator Clinton? [Pause for icy stare at Rude Woman, during which time audience is silenced by the power of McCain's awesome integrity] Well...[launch into discussion that poll he talked about, which no one remembers because in real life it was preceded by McCain's tacit calling of Sen. Clinton a bitch.]
See? This is much better. It makes McCain not look like a misogynist dick, or at least a man who's afraid to call out a misogynist dick. Now the story is not "McCain a misogynist dick," but something more positive.
C'mon people, this isn't rocket surgery. I still fail to understand why so many candidates think I should hire them to run my country when they don't have the judgment to navigate a simple frickin' Q&A.
And since when did words like "bitch" become appropriate public commentary? I hope the kids in that woman's church see that clip. Sweet Baby Jesus, I hope she's proud of herself. I'd love to hear what choice descriptions she has for the candidates who are racial minorities. Does she call Barak Obama "the n-word"? I'll bet good money she doesn't call Rudy Giuliani "the adulturer."
And - though Hillary Clinton is not the Democrat candidate I support - what exactly makes her a bitch? Wikipedia defines "bitch" as "malicious, spiteful, domineering, intrusive or unpleasant" - I've never met her personally, so I can't comment on her personality. What in Clinton's public actions puts her in the "bitch" camp? She's never, to my knowledge, just as a for instance, told a Senate colleague to go f@ck himself - something I would characterize as malicious, spiteful and domineering.
So, is it just being an unapologetically powerful female that makes Clinton a "bitch"? Because if so, I believe that to be true of a number of politically conservative women, too. Or is it okay to start calling Senator Elizabeth Dole a bitch, too? (Probably not, since she hasn't actually accomplished anything.) How about Margaret Thatcher? Or the late Tillie Kidd Fowler, once the highest-ranking woman in in the GOP? I hope not, she was a personal hero of mine...but if we're painting one strong woman with the "bitch" brush, why make an exception based on political philosophy, right?
Feet are killing me...
...but I'm *finally* home. We had the second event in our Bryan Series tonight, a lecture by Isabel Allende. I didn't stay for the whole thing, having gotten to speak with her this afternoon during the student session. I knew she'd be fabulous, and she was. She's also about three-and-a-half feet tall, and quite possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever met in person.
This was technically my first Bryan Series event, seeing as how I didn't make it too far into the first one. Yep, I spent the evening getting steroid shots and cursing the catering staff at the Coliseum for not labeling the peanut sauce. (Seriously, in this day and age, you'd think that would be a no-brainer...) And apparently the word got out, because I had no fewer than four dozen people either ask me if I were okay or warn me not to eat the brownies - which is nice, but it's not the obvious, apparent nuts that bother me. But it's nice to be known for something, I guess!
Even one of the wait staff remembered me. When I was going through the buffet line, I noticed the exact same chicken entree that nearly killed me last time. She leaned across the table and said, "It's okay, it's a different sauce this time." Nice, but I skipped it anyway.
My main responsibility for the evening was to gather the cards with audience-member questions, cull the dopey ones and pass them off to the Q&A moderator. Simple, right? Except that, as of about five minutes into her lecture, we still only had maybe four or five questions. I'd been told to mix in a few "ringers" - questions I wrote myself - if necessary, which I really didn't want to do, since a) it struck me as a trifle unethical, and b) I've never actually read any of Allende's books (though I did have the Antonio Banderas-featuring movie poster from "House of the Spirits" on my wall back in the day).
If all people wanted to hear about was the 1973 military coup against Allende's uncle Salvador, then the socialist (but democratically elected) president of Chile, I could've popped out the Q's all night. I might've even managed to write one about why Latin America produces so many writers in the magical realism genre (is it cultural, or is it simply that those are the authors that get published? Isn't there a Chilean Sebastian Junger or Anne Rice or Elmore Leonard out there?) - but alas, someone beat me to it.
I was beginning to mildly freak out about this, when an usher who'd apparently been hoarding a stash of audience cards found me in the lobby. Whew! I handed them off to the moderator, and I was out of there.
So now I'm home, sipping a Rolling Rock, checking MySpace for the first time in days and fuming about that high-handed SOB Henry Kissinger, U2's "Mothers of the Disappeared" running through my head. (Great song, by the way.) There's no way I'm going to be able to stay up for "Nip/Tuck" later tonight, and that's probably a good thing - I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance right now.
This was technically my first Bryan Series event, seeing as how I didn't make it too far into the first one. Yep, I spent the evening getting steroid shots and cursing the catering staff at the Coliseum for not labeling the peanut sauce. (Seriously, in this day and age, you'd think that would be a no-brainer...) And apparently the word got out, because I had no fewer than four dozen people either ask me if I were okay or warn me not to eat the brownies - which is nice, but it's not the obvious, apparent nuts that bother me. But it's nice to be known for something, I guess!
Even one of the wait staff remembered me. When I was going through the buffet line, I noticed the exact same chicken entree that nearly killed me last time. She leaned across the table and said, "It's okay, it's a different sauce this time." Nice, but I skipped it anyway.
My main responsibility for the evening was to gather the cards with audience-member questions, cull the dopey ones and pass them off to the Q&A moderator. Simple, right? Except that, as of about five minutes into her lecture, we still only had maybe four or five questions. I'd been told to mix in a few "ringers" - questions I wrote myself - if necessary, which I really didn't want to do, since a) it struck me as a trifle unethical, and b) I've never actually read any of Allende's books (though I did have the Antonio Banderas-featuring movie poster from "House of the Spirits" on my wall back in the day).
If all people wanted to hear about was the 1973 military coup against Allende's uncle Salvador, then the socialist (but democratically elected) president of Chile, I could've popped out the Q's all night. I might've even managed to write one about why Latin America produces so many writers in the magical realism genre (is it cultural, or is it simply that those are the authors that get published? Isn't there a Chilean Sebastian Junger or Anne Rice or Elmore Leonard out there?) - but alas, someone beat me to it.
I was beginning to mildly freak out about this, when an usher who'd apparently been hoarding a stash of audience cards found me in the lobby. Whew! I handed them off to the moderator, and I was out of there.
So now I'm home, sipping a Rolling Rock, checking MySpace for the first time in days and fuming about that high-handed SOB Henry Kissinger, U2's "Mothers of the Disappeared" running through my head. (Great song, by the way.) There's no way I'm going to be able to stay up for "Nip/Tuck" later tonight, and that's probably a good thing - I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance right now.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Your campaign staff and you
Not that I'm a fan of racial or gender quotas - I'm kind of a meritocracy gal, myself - but this breakdown of the ethnicities of staffers on several of the major presidential campaigns is worth a look.
On my old blog, I wrote in a post way back that, in my opinion, it's unrealistic to expect a candidate to be all things to all people. It's not important to me that the person for whom I'm voting shares all of my experiences, but he or she needs to understand that there are perspectives other than his or her own - especially with respect to economic differences.
This is where one's staff comes in. President Bush may have an ethnically diverse gang at his side, but if they all think the same way, what's the point? In my experience, the best managers and leaders were the ones who invited differing opinions and experiences, knowing that varied viewpoints sharpened their own perspectives.
So, while the ethnic make-up of a campaign staff certainly doesn't tell the whole story, for me it's a piece. If nothing else, it reflects the candidate's consciousness of the fact that most Americans do not get the Rich White Guy Experience. I like knowing that my future president cares about these things.
So what do we have here? Stereotype alert! Democrats are more diverse, and Rudy Giuliani (in addition to being a shameless sports bigamist, adulterer and uniformed civil servant whore-er) isn't much into hiring people of color. (Full disclosure - because DiversityInc, who did this study, is subscriber-based, I have no idea who they include in their Caucasian classification. It seems to not include African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American people.)
What's more interesting to me is that the Democratic campaigns cooperated with the survey, while the Republican campaigns did not. C'mon, guys - especially you, Rudy the Allegedly Pugnacious. From a PR view, what the hell is that? Why appear to be hiding something? You can't spin your way out of an all-white campaign staff, but you want me to send you to deal with Congress and that whack-job in Iran? Puh-leeze. Go back to your third wife and your fat consulting job, and call me when you're REALLY ready to rule the world.
And pick a baseball team and stick with it, you chickensh*t.
(BTW, props to my man Bill Richardson for being the only campaign to employ a Native American.)
On my old blog, I wrote in a post way back that, in my opinion, it's unrealistic to expect a candidate to be all things to all people. It's not important to me that the person for whom I'm voting shares all of my experiences, but he or she needs to understand that there are perspectives other than his or her own - especially with respect to economic differences.
This is where one's staff comes in. President Bush may have an ethnically diverse gang at his side, but if they all think the same way, what's the point? In my experience, the best managers and leaders were the ones who invited differing opinions and experiences, knowing that varied viewpoints sharpened their own perspectives.
So, while the ethnic make-up of a campaign staff certainly doesn't tell the whole story, for me it's a piece. If nothing else, it reflects the candidate's consciousness of the fact that most Americans do not get the Rich White Guy Experience. I like knowing that my future president cares about these things.
So what do we have here? Stereotype alert! Democrats are more diverse, and Rudy Giuliani (in addition to being a shameless sports bigamist, adulterer and uniformed civil servant whore-er) isn't much into hiring people of color. (Full disclosure - because DiversityInc, who did this study, is subscriber-based, I have no idea who they include in their Caucasian classification. It seems to not include African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American people.)
What's more interesting to me is that the Democratic campaigns cooperated with the survey, while the Republican campaigns did not. C'mon, guys - especially you, Rudy the Allegedly Pugnacious. From a PR view, what the hell is that? Why appear to be hiding something? You can't spin your way out of an all-white campaign staff, but you want me to send you to deal with Congress and that whack-job in Iran? Puh-leeze. Go back to your third wife and your fat consulting job, and call me when you're REALLY ready to rule the world.
And pick a baseball team and stick with it, you chickensh*t.
(BTW, props to my man Bill Richardson for being the only campaign to employ a Native American.)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Dude...
Check out this picture...
Now, I've met Kris Jenkins. He's about as giant as you'd expect him to be. But unless he's slouching and Jerry Richardson is wearing heels...DUDE. No wonder Richardson always gets his way in those owners' meetings. Would YOU want to go up against that guy?
Now, I've met Kris Jenkins. He's about as giant as you'd expect him to be. But unless he's slouching and Jerry Richardson is wearing heels...DUDE. No wonder Richardson always gets his way in those owners' meetings. Would YOU want to go up against that guy?
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Easily the most f*cked up thing I've read today...
I stumbled on this kind of by accident this evening. I can't tell whether I'm more pissed off or sickened.
Background: Lawmakers in Montgomery County, Maryland, are considering adding language to include gender identity in its non-discrimination laws. Yes, I know this sounds like nothing more than a bunch over overly conscientious liberals with too much time on their hands. But unfortunately, discrimination against trans-gendered people is alive and well in America, a country whose Constitution specifically allows for equal protection under the law for ALL people, whether you personally approve of their lifestyles or not.
And I realize that gender identity may not seem like a hot topic to the 9 out of 10 of us who fit comfortably at the straight ends of the spectrum. But it's real. Witness the case of this woman, who was thrown out of a women's restroom in New York (that stronghold of gender-pure conservatives) because she didn't look enough like a woman. At least according to the male bouncer who did the kicking-out. Because, as we all know, men are the only real arbiters of what constitutes womanhood.
So I completely support the idea of the Montgomery County Council's proposed legislation, recognizing that, in its real-world application, there will obviously be some practical issues to iron out. But I have to confess that how to keep pedophiles from showering with little girls wasn't really something for which I'd game-planned .
But then again, I'm not a right-wing pervert. I don't know about the Larry Craig/Bob Allen set, but in the restrooms and locker rooms that I frequent, we have stalls. And we use them, judiciously, if we have qualms about being seen stark naked by perfect strangers. Yet for some reason, the primary opposition to the gender identity bill seems to be the alleged danger that public facilities will be wide open to whatever Tom, Dick (he-he, I wrote "Dick") or Harry should wander by in a dress.
*Sigh*
A) Once again, WE HAVE STALLS. Go hide in one if you're that terrified of the chicks with dicks.
B) A trans-gendered man is trans-gendered because HE LIKES DUDES. And vice versa for the trans-gendered women. The bill would allow people to use the restroom/locker room etc. that corresponds with his/her/zher preferred identity. Force a gay woman who'd rather be a man to use a women's restroom, and you're doing the exact OPPOSITE of what you want to accomplish.
C) It's 2007. Can we PLEASE drop the notion that all non-heterosexuals are predators? At least in the absence of some actual empirical evidence? Thank you.
D) I thought you anti-LGBT rights folks were all about American Gothic family values. If you're so worried about Little Susie seeing some dude's duct tape, then why aren't you in the locker room with her?
E) Should a clever pedophile cross-dress and spend his/her days camping out in the locker room at the public pool...that's why God invented PRISONS. And COPS. Try calling them. Sheesh.
And finally...Why does the conversation focus on men in the women's rooms? It works both ways, you know. Oh, right, I forgot. Women who prey on boys are hot. The rest of us wimmins need 'round the clock protection, despite the fact that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by non-strangers.
Which brings me to the most f*cked up thing I've read today. TeachTheFacts.org has posted a few letters that the Montgomery County Council has received opposing the bill. Now, I can absolutely respect that people might have issues with the bill, but these are BEYOND f*cked up. Especially the second one, which reads in part:
"Allowing men who think they’re women into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms?
ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?
Hopefully, it will be one of your daughters who gets raped first!"
Ooh...Yes, rape is such an appropriate punishment for a relative of lawmaker who has the temerity to actually enforce the law. I want to find this SOB (his name is Gabriel Espinosa) and just...talk to him. I wouldn't bother exploring the deep-seated misogyny in his remark, though it screams out at me like a flashing neon sign reading "I hate women! To me women are nothing more than objects and sex is the tool of their degradation!" because anyone who uses that kind of language in a civic discussion most likely lacks the intellectual capacity to grasp my meaning.
I'd just say this, to Mr. Espinosa and anyone who read his letter and thought, "Yeah! You go, Gabriel!":
I sincerely hope you never have to learn from personal experience how deeply traumatic rape is. It's the theft of the one thing over which you have true control, your body, and it can never be given back. I hope you lose just a little sleep tonight after wishing this on someone else's child in order to prove your own wrong-headed political opinion.
I sincerely hope that neither you or anyone about whom you care is the target of discrimination or violence due to an incontrovertible fact of your/their person-hood.
I sincerely hope that you aren't so repressed that you view your own gender identity as nothing more than a sex thing, which is apparently what you believe to be true of anyone who isn't hetero-normative like you.
But mainly, I would say this: I'm a woman. And I don't need your F*CKING help.
Background: Lawmakers in Montgomery County, Maryland, are considering adding language to include gender identity in its non-discrimination laws. Yes, I know this sounds like nothing more than a bunch over overly conscientious liberals with too much time on their hands. But unfortunately, discrimination against trans-gendered people is alive and well in America, a country whose Constitution specifically allows for equal protection under the law for ALL people, whether you personally approve of their lifestyles or not.
And I realize that gender identity may not seem like a hot topic to the 9 out of 10 of us who fit comfortably at the straight ends of the spectrum. But it's real. Witness the case of this woman, who was thrown out of a women's restroom in New York (that stronghold of gender-pure conservatives) because she didn't look enough like a woman. At least according to the male bouncer who did the kicking-out. Because, as we all know, men are the only real arbiters of what constitutes womanhood.
So I completely support the idea of the Montgomery County Council's proposed legislation, recognizing that, in its real-world application, there will obviously be some practical issues to iron out. But I have to confess that how to keep pedophiles from showering with little girls wasn't really something for which I'd game-planned .
But then again, I'm not a right-wing pervert. I don't know about the Larry Craig/Bob Allen set, but in the restrooms and locker rooms that I frequent, we have stalls. And we use them, judiciously, if we have qualms about being seen stark naked by perfect strangers. Yet for some reason, the primary opposition to the gender identity bill seems to be the alleged danger that public facilities will be wide open to whatever Tom, Dick (he-he, I wrote "Dick") or Harry should wander by in a dress.
*Sigh*
A) Once again, WE HAVE STALLS. Go hide in one if you're that terrified of the chicks with dicks.
B) A trans-gendered man is trans-gendered because HE LIKES DUDES. And vice versa for the trans-gendered women. The bill would allow people to use the restroom/locker room etc. that corresponds with his/her/zher preferred identity. Force a gay woman who'd rather be a man to use a women's restroom, and you're doing the exact OPPOSITE of what you want to accomplish.
C) It's 2007. Can we PLEASE drop the notion that all non-heterosexuals are predators? At least in the absence of some actual empirical evidence? Thank you.
D) I thought you anti-LGBT rights folks were all about American Gothic family values. If you're so worried about Little Susie seeing some dude's duct tape, then why aren't you in the locker room with her?
E) Should a clever pedophile cross-dress and spend his/her days camping out in the locker room at the public pool...that's why God invented PRISONS. And COPS. Try calling them. Sheesh.
And finally...Why does the conversation focus on men in the women's rooms? It works both ways, you know. Oh, right, I forgot. Women who prey on boys are hot. The rest of us wimmins need 'round the clock protection, despite the fact that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by non-strangers.
Which brings me to the most f*cked up thing I've read today. TeachTheFacts.org has posted a few letters that the Montgomery County Council has received opposing the bill. Now, I can absolutely respect that people might have issues with the bill, but these are BEYOND f*cked up. Especially the second one, which reads in part:
"Allowing men who think they’re women into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms?
ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?
Hopefully, it will be one of your daughters who gets raped first!"
Ooh...Yes, rape is such an appropriate punishment for a relative of lawmaker who has the temerity to actually enforce the law. I want to find this SOB (his name is Gabriel Espinosa) and just...talk to him. I wouldn't bother exploring the deep-seated misogyny in his remark, though it screams out at me like a flashing neon sign reading "I hate women! To me women are nothing more than objects and sex is the tool of their degradation!" because anyone who uses that kind of language in a civic discussion most likely lacks the intellectual capacity to grasp my meaning.
I'd just say this, to Mr. Espinosa and anyone who read his letter and thought, "Yeah! You go, Gabriel!":
I sincerely hope you never have to learn from personal experience how deeply traumatic rape is. It's the theft of the one thing over which you have true control, your body, and it can never be given back. I hope you lose just a little sleep tonight after wishing this on someone else's child in order to prove your own wrong-headed political opinion.
I sincerely hope that neither you or anyone about whom you care is the target of discrimination or violence due to an incontrovertible fact of your/their person-hood.
I sincerely hope that you aren't so repressed that you view your own gender identity as nothing more than a sex thing, which is apparently what you believe to be true of anyone who isn't hetero-normative like you.
But mainly, I would say this: I'm a woman. And I don't need your F*CKING help.
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