So remember when Michelle Obama was whining about what a pain it was to fix her daughters a decent dinner?
Yeah. Well...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
When did Michelle Obama get a pseudonym?
Haven't blogged in ages because school is keeping me busy, not to mention far away from my beloved TCM (except for one glorious day last week with Barbara Stanwyck, sigh).
I had to pop in for a sec, though, to point you to this modern feminist work of art. The only thing I have to add to Miss Fiano's take is that the self-centered bitterness of it all reminds me of my favorite Michelle Obama quotation ever, one that gets a lot less notice than the many, many others:
"that doesn't include the jobs that happen when you come home from work. Those jobs, quite frankly, that still fall predominantly on the laps of women, things like getting the laundry done, making dinner, nutritious dinners, because you can't just make a dinner. It's got to be a nutritious dinner grown with good, fresh, clean food. That takes time, trust me."
She actually has to feed her own children! And she can't just order up a happy meal, she has to struggle all the harder to make them a healthy dinner! Herself! The unfairness of it all! The ingrateful little bastards - what the heck is stopping them from putting down the bratz dolls and chopping up their own goshdarn arugula?
And so, you see, I'm not joking about Michelle's pseudonym. Motherhood in her speech, exactly like marriage in the article, is transformed from a blessing and a loving duty into a job. Why? Well, for the wife, it's to make it easier for her to come to terms with divorce, transforming it into a brave display of independence against a pointy-haired boss - you can't fire me, I quit! For the mother, well, if only there were as civilized a solution as divorce...
Speaking of infanticide, my favorite Joe Biden quotation: "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."
I had to pop in for a sec, though, to point you to this modern feminist work of art. The only thing I have to add to Miss Fiano's take is that the self-centered bitterness of it all reminds me of my favorite Michelle Obama quotation ever, one that gets a lot less notice than the many, many others:
"that doesn't include the jobs that happen when you come home from work. Those jobs, quite frankly, that still fall predominantly on the laps of women, things like getting the laundry done, making dinner, nutritious dinners, because you can't just make a dinner. It's got to be a nutritious dinner grown with good, fresh, clean food. That takes time, trust me."
She actually has to feed her own children! And she can't just order up a happy meal, she has to struggle all the harder to make them a healthy dinner! Herself! The unfairness of it all! The ingrateful little bastards - what the heck is stopping them from putting down the bratz dolls and chopping up their own goshdarn arugula?
And so, you see, I'm not joking about Michelle's pseudonym. Motherhood in her speech, exactly like marriage in the article, is transformed from a blessing and a loving duty into a job. Why? Well, for the wife, it's to make it easier for her to come to terms with divorce, transforming it into a brave display of independence against a pointy-haired boss - you can't fire me, I quit! For the mother, well, if only there were as civilized a solution as divorce...
Speaking of infanticide, my favorite Joe Biden quotation: "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."
Saturday, July 19, 2008
"when you end a Flannery O’Connor story, you’re furious at her...
because you say, 'Well what did that mean?!' You always think there were three missing pages where she was supposed to tell you what everything meant. And what you have to do is keep going over it and over it and over it until you figure it out. That’s the process of saving you. But Flannery really respects her audience. Now granted a lot of the audience misses the deeper level. But you know what, the ones who get it – it saves their soul."
I can vouch for that.
I can vouch for that.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Two Quick Things
1. Someone in America complaining about an oil crisis is like a vegan in a steakhouse complaining about a hunger crisis. Yes, you're gonna be starving, but only as long as you cling to your silly, privileged lifestyle. And Americans are going to have an oil crisis only as long as they value polar bears they will never see (and that aren't threatened anyway) over their own lives.
2. Michelle Obama spent this past weekend comparing gay rights activists to the black civil rights movement from slavery through Jim Crow. Everybody's distracting her children with criticism about how wrong and perverse her remarks were. Actually, she has a point. Gays today are being oppressed severely. Some, even a few as young as fifteen, are being murdered - hanged, actually - by state officials simply for being gay. Of course, this isn't taking place in America, but in Iran. Yes, the very same Iran Michelle's husband has pledged to cozy up to with friendly negotiations. Wouldn't it be just a tad ironic if America's first black president was the best thing that ever happened to a country that regularly lynches its citizens?
2. Michelle Obama spent this past weekend comparing gay rights activists to the black civil rights movement from slavery through Jim Crow. Everybody's distracting her children with criticism about how wrong and perverse her remarks were. Actually, she has a point. Gays today are being oppressed severely. Some, even a few as young as fifteen, are being murdered - hanged, actually - by state officials simply for being gay. Of course, this isn't taking place in America, but in Iran. Yes, the very same Iran Michelle's husband has pledged to cozy up to with friendly negotiations. Wouldn't it be just a tad ironic if America's first black president was the best thing that ever happened to a country that regularly lynches its citizens?
Friday, June 6, 2008
Insecure
While at Harvard, I must have had five or six different passwords for their various systems, not to mention my ATM PIN. They were all fairly short and contained familiar words or codes that had meaning to me. As such, they were all very easy for me to remember, and I never had to write them down. Here at UVA, though, they're far more intense about internet security, and none of my passwords are permitted. All passwords have to be very long and have to contain letters, numbers, and symbols, in no familiar or oft-repeated pattern. Now, this might make my passwords a whole lot more difficult if not impossible to crack, but there's a problem. They thus also become absolutely impossible for me to remember. They're just long, random combinations of unrelated symbols. The only way I can log into anything is by writing all my passwords down and carrying them with me all the time. Which means if my wallet is lost or stolen, whoever has it has access to every last drop of info about me and can easily steal my identity and generally cause mischief. It is thus my carefully considered professional opinion that these so-called 'high security' passwords are in fact anything but, and serve precisely the opposite purpose: since you have to write them down and take them around with you, they are far more likely to be stolen than the short and sweet ones you easily memorize. I predict this whole system will backfire if it hasn't already. Then again, I also predicted a Lakers sweep, so what do I know?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Sign I'm not at Harvard anymore...
A ROTC building! Actually on campus. I still feel a little stunned.
Sign I'm not in Canada anymore...
Walked past a Barnes and Nobles yesterday here in Virginia. Brazenly on display in the front window? Mark Steyn's America Alone.
UPDATE: Welcome, fellow Steyn fans! You might like this old thing, or this one. Have a great weekend!
UPDATE: Welcome, fellow Steyn fans! You might like this old thing, or this one. Have a great weekend!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Leaving on a Jet Plane
I'll be away from the interwebs for a week or so. But not to worry, the blogroll has everything more than covered! I call your attention especially to Rachel Lucas, who has been absolutely blogging her butt off the past couple weeks and doing a great job of it, too. This post is my favorite. And don't forget to wish her a happy birthday on the 21st! I happen to remember the date because, to my everlasting honor and delight, it's one we share. The downside is that it's also the Queen's birthday, so most of the good presents (snow leopards, priceless jewels, small islands) get taken.
And please go and support Kathy Shaidle in her fight against Richard Warman. The more money you give, the sooner the slasher movie version of the trial will get made (tagline on the blood-soaked poster: "He messed with the wrong blogger..."). I almost feel sorry for the guy, I don't think he understands just what he's gotten himself into, dude is in for a big-league butthurtin' (though, just between you, me, and the CHRC, I'd venture that he's intimately familiar with that particular soreness already).
And please go and support Kathy Shaidle in her fight against Richard Warman. The more money you give, the sooner the slasher movie version of the trial will get made (tagline on the blood-soaked poster: "He messed with the wrong blogger..."). I almost feel sorry for the guy, I don't think he understands just what he's gotten himself into, dude is in for a big-league butthurtin' (though, just between you, me, and the CHRC, I'd venture that he's intimately familiar with that particular soreness already).
My Brilliant Light Bulb Idea
Okay, so if I were a Senator (and let's face it, it's just a matter of time), I would bring one of them newfangled efficient lightbulbs to the floor and 'accidentally' drop it. The whole Senate would have to be evacuated because of the toxic mercury fumes, the networks would have no choice but to cover it. The reaction from the average American viewer: "The Senate was evacuated!? What was it - terrorism? Al Qaeda? Another anthrax scare? A sniper?Wait - what? What did he say? A lightbulb? The very same lightbulb that this Senate is forcing us to buy for the rest of our lives? Well, fuck that!" And that would be the end of that.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Old French(-Canadian) Whore
Few things get on my nerves like modern moralizing. Not because it's nosy, or faddish, or state-imposed (though none of these help), but because it lacks one crucial element: morality. Whether the campaign is anti-drinking, anti-drugs, or even anti-sex, things always come down to one all-important concern: health. In other words, screw your immortal soul, just keep an eye out for your liver and any embarrassing rashes. In fact, I guarantee you that in this godless age, the Ten Commandments would make a comeback, and big time, if it could somehow be proven that worshipping false idols increases bad cholesterol.
All of which leads me to the latest example that grits my teeth: a public service announcement, paid for by the Quebec government, being run endlessly on local radio. The ad is about the importance of having a designated driver. Well, that's not quite right. It's about how designated drivers can still have hot one night stands. The ad in full: A beautiful woman (well, she sounds beautiful!) tells her girlfriend she met a stranger at a bar the night before, and he was a designated driver, which is just sooo sexy, so she invited him home - the rest is left to our imagination, but it's quite clear they didn't busy themselves drafting MADD pamphlets.
Look, I'm not asking that the government broadcast Dawn Eden's articles (though wouldn't that be nice!), but at the very least could they please refrain from actively campaigning for empty, soul-destroying one night stands?
I don't care if they test negative til the cows come home, I for one do not look forward to living in a province full of healthy old whores!
All of which leads me to the latest example that grits my teeth: a public service announcement, paid for by the Quebec government, being run endlessly on local radio. The ad is about the importance of having a designated driver. Well, that's not quite right. It's about how designated drivers can still have hot one night stands. The ad in full: A beautiful woman (well, she sounds beautiful!) tells her girlfriend she met a stranger at a bar the night before, and he was a designated driver, which is just sooo sexy, so she invited him home - the rest is left to our imagination, but it's quite clear they didn't busy themselves drafting MADD pamphlets.
Look, I'm not asking that the government broadcast Dawn Eden's articles (though wouldn't that be nice!), but at the very least could they please refrain from actively campaigning for empty, soul-destroying one night stands?
I don't care if they test negative til the cows come home, I for one do not look forward to living in a province full of healthy old whores!
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon... because it went with her shoes
Via ALDaily comes this article, on a much-needed book. Unfortunately, both essay and book seem to typify the often meaningless, always over-complicated academic writing of our time (and the review's author, judging by her bio, appears to be some sort of abortion lobbyist, disgusting). Still, it's all worth it, for two reasons. One, because it blames the hippies, and anything that blames hippies is all right with me. Two, because of this absolutely priceless anecdote:
"When I asked one of the young female interviewees who wore a pink-ribbon t-shirt what made her choose to wear the garment on certain days, I was seeking to understand whether there were certain situations, relationships and experiences that prompted her to show her awareness of breast cancer. Her keen reply took me by surprise: 'I think ‘it’s got pink in it, what goes with pink?' Actually I wear it with this skirt quite a lot …'."
"When I asked one of the young female interviewees who wore a pink-ribbon t-shirt what made her choose to wear the garment on certain days, I was seeking to understand whether there were certain situations, relationships and experiences that prompted her to show her awareness of breast cancer. Her keen reply took me by surprise: 'I think ‘it’s got pink in it, what goes with pink?' Actually I wear it with this skirt quite a lot …'."
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Greatest Sentence Ever
This was in The Montreal Gazette a couple weeks ago, I put it aside and forgot about it til now. The paper celebrated International Women's Day on March 8th with a feature on feminism. One of their articles, on page B4, included this sentence:
"In her second year of environmental and First Nations studies at McGill, Rea Fenger is not sure she would even have called herself a feminist before she started working on the Radical Vulvas project."
The world has come a long way in my short lifetime for a sentence like that to even be conceivable, let alone to be presented in such an entirely matter-of-fact, unremarkable manner. Ah, progress.
Lower down, on the very same page, just to show us that there are still some perversions which even our society will disapprove of, is an article condemning that great evil, stay-at-home motherhood. Choice excerpts include a call for "a life more challenging than the playground and the PTA," the contention that women who leave the workplace "are neglecting their duty to society in general," and the plea that these women not abandon the public world for "the private world of laundry and kissing boo-boos." I, for one, take solace in the knowledge that for all those incredibly selfish stay-at-home mothers who, let's face it, should have had abortions in the first place, there are brave, progressive pioneers like Rea Fenger, studying the effects of Friday night bingo games on the ozone layer, and radicalizing vulvas wherever she goes.
The weirdest part of that anti-motherhood opinion piece (by The Gazette's Peggy Curran, if anybody cares, and titled 'Get To Work manifesto takes aim at the backlash generation') is this statement, presented not as opinion but as fact: "Conservatives are already asking why society should spend resources educating women." Really? Funny, I know my fair share of conservatives, and while the movement to repeal the nineteenth amendment is gaining ground, I haven't heard anyone suggest women shouldn't be allowed an education. The very idea is profoundly unfair. Can you imagine, women banned from a place like Harvard? The very thought makes me furious - I mean, why should they get all the breaks?!
"In her second year of environmental and First Nations studies at McGill, Rea Fenger is not sure she would even have called herself a feminist before she started working on the Radical Vulvas project."
The world has come a long way in my short lifetime for a sentence like that to even be conceivable, let alone to be presented in such an entirely matter-of-fact, unremarkable manner. Ah, progress.
Lower down, on the very same page, just to show us that there are still some perversions which even our society will disapprove of, is an article condemning that great evil, stay-at-home motherhood. Choice excerpts include a call for "a life more challenging than the playground and the PTA," the contention that women who leave the workplace "are neglecting their duty to society in general," and the plea that these women not abandon the public world for "the private world of laundry and kissing boo-boos." I, for one, take solace in the knowledge that for all those incredibly selfish stay-at-home mothers who, let's face it, should have had abortions in the first place, there are brave, progressive pioneers like Rea Fenger, studying the effects of Friday night bingo games on the ozone layer, and radicalizing vulvas wherever she goes.
The weirdest part of that anti-motherhood opinion piece (by The Gazette's Peggy Curran, if anybody cares, and titled 'Get To Work manifesto takes aim at the backlash generation') is this statement, presented not as opinion but as fact: "Conservatives are already asking why society should spend resources educating women." Really? Funny, I know my fair share of conservatives, and while the movement to repeal the nineteenth amendment is gaining ground, I haven't heard anyone suggest women shouldn't be allowed an education. The very idea is profoundly unfair. Can you imagine, women banned from a place like Harvard? The very thought makes me furious - I mean, why should they get all the breaks?!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Announcement
Sorry I haven't been blogging, I've been SUPER busy, working on lots of big non-bloggable projects and important career stuff, don't really have time to blog like I did when I started and was at school and bored out of my mind. I'll try my best, but you're really much better off reading Rachel Lucas and Kathy Shaidle and the other lovely folks in the blogroll anyway.
If I do post something soon, it'll be about how soul-numbingly awful No Country for Old Men is, I don't think I'll be able to keep that rant to myself.
Anyhoo, the announcement. I'm moving! To Virginia!!! I am beyond ecstatic. What a beautiful state, and I've always longed to live in the South, I set off in June and can hardly wait.
If I do post something soon, it'll be about how soul-numbingly awful No Country for Old Men is, I don't think I'll be able to keep that rant to myself.
Anyhoo, the announcement. I'm moving! To Virginia!!! I am beyond ecstatic. What a beautiful state, and I've always longed to live in the South, I set off in June and can hardly wait.
Friday, March 7, 2008
I LOVE This
Absolutely classic. I doubt the citizens of Ontario will prove as defiant (or imaginative)...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Nail on the Head
Very insightful, very accurate observations in this post over at Church of the Masses, don't miss it.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Great Obama post
Over at Rachel Lucas. Heck, all her posts are great, and if I'd be honest I'd do little more than link to her and Kathy Shaidle all day, but I'm trying to show some restraint here, folks. Anyway, my favorite part from this post:
The part where I disagree, though, comes here: "it makes no sense to me, because you’d think minorities would be less offended by Whitey treating them the same than by Whitey treating them like sensitive little children who can’t take their punches like everyone else." Come on, Rachel, you know that can't be true - if it were, affirmative action wouldn't even be an issue because black people would be too proud to accept it. We all know that certainly is not the case.
remember how much fun it was when Hillary was First Lady to call her names,
criticize everything about her (hair, face, clothes, ankles, size of butt,
voice, ideas, you name it)? How easy it was and how only some impotent feminists
cried foul? Well I hope you got it out of your system because you won’t be doing
the same to Michelle Obama when her husband gets elected, unless of course you
like being accused of racism.
The part where I disagree, though, comes here: "it makes no sense to me, because you’d think minorities would be less offended by Whitey treating them the same than by Whitey treating them like sensitive little children who can’t take their punches like everyone else." Come on, Rachel, you know that can't be true - if it were, affirmative action wouldn't even be an issue because black people would be too proud to accept it. We all know that certainly is not the case.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Now that's more like it
For a while there I felt a bit dizzy, looked liked the Canadiens might finally be getting competitive, a strange and foreign feeling. But then they reassure their fan base with one of their traditional trading day performances, sending a great goalie away for next to nothing and failing miserably in their attempts to do anything else. What, they couldn't lure Denis Savard out of retirement?
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