Those of you who look to me for political commentary might be advised to look elsewhere, because being outraged over Stupak is exhausting. What you are about to read is a gigantic ejaculation of my geekiness across the digital page.

I've wanted to do a cleolinda-style parody for Doctor Who ever since the 2008 Christmas special. Problem is, I just couldn't work up the interest over The Next Doctor, which I found somewhat disappointing, and it'll be better for all of us if we just don't talk about Planet of the Dead. But dammit, I've been working on these previouslies since last December, so they're gonna see the light of day. So without further ado:

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I own not Doctor Who, The Venture Bros.,Farscape, Girl Genius, Slade, David Bowie,TVTropes, io9, or any of their respective subsidiaries or spinoffs, etc. Also, the "Movies in 15 Minutes" recap format is credited to cleolinda, who does far superior Movies-in-15-Minutes at m15m .I encourage you to buy her eBook, as it's an excellent read, and also, hilarious.

Dear Congressman Davis,
      I am a third year law student at the University of Alabama. I'm not entirely sure how you got my e-mail address (perhaps it was via a past donation to another Democrat), but I have received your fundraising e-mails since you began sending them. Although I have not yet been able to give, as I am living on a student budget, I was looking forward to being able to cast my vote in good conscience for you, as the first African-American governor of the state of Alabama and the first liberal governor in eight years.
    Following your vote on the Stupak amendment to HR3962 on November 7, 2009, it is my honest regret to inform you that I cannot, in good faith, give you my vote for Governor, and short of proposing an amendment yourself (which the time has passed for), there is little that you can do to change my mind. As you have decided to make my choice for me with regards to my own reproductive healthcare, I must exercise the only choice I have, and that is to vote for a write-in candidate who respects women's rights next November.

Thank you,

TheElusiveN

I hate nosebleeds.


In other news, if I do have the swiiiiiiine fluuuuuuu, I'm gonna be upset with someone down at the Student Health Center, because for all the brouhaha about people wearing masks if they have it, in all the times I've been there to straighten out insurance and pick up my regular prescriptions, I haven't seen a single person wearing a damn mask.

Amount I pay in rent, excluding utilities, per month to live in a one-bedroom apartment in the "safest" complex in town: $685.

Number of police cars that arrived in my apartment complex last night: 11.

Number of K9 units: 2.

Number of fire trucks: 2.

Number of ambulances: 1.

Jersey number of the starting University of Alabama defensive end who was shot in an armed robbery attempt: 95.

Number of gunshots I heard: 0.

ETA: HOSHIT, more details have emerged. Apparently this guy was just wandering the parking lot around 10 PM. Whether he was specifically waiting for a football player to rob, or just anyone, is anyone's guess. This scares me because I routinely go check my mail around midnight without a second thought.

Shorter Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: Eating organic produce ensures that we won't need that pesky universal health care. What a coincidence that the company I own just so happens to sell it at ridiculously high prices.

( I'll see your asinine and raise you a fatuous, Mackey. )

I'd go on, but I'm late for my appointment with the Nefarious Fatties and Sickos Cabal. We sit in a dark clubhouse, flushing pills down the toilet, rubbing our fingers together with glee, and eating baby doughnuts in an effort to make you pay more for our health care.

Ours is an evil laugh.

the first Michael Jackson video I remember watching: 2000's Ghost. I remember thinking, "Really? He...wow. That's daring." (For those of you at work, the plot is that MJ is a sorcerer who lives up in a giant mansion on a hill and tells ghost stories to the kids. The parents of the town don't like him taking them away; so they come up to his castle to confront him. He dances at them for a while. The parents see how wonderful and cool he is and cheer. The end. This in no way reflects on anything in Jackson's real life at all. Really. )

One performance that I've seen making the rounds on people's LJ's is the 2001 performance of "The Way You Make Me Feel" with Britney Spears and Michael Jackson. It's sad, really, because they're both in the same boat, which is to say, that of the premature parental meal ticket. Jackson's father started making him perform around the time he could walk, and I'd be willing to bet the guy never had a real friend the way you and I have them. He never sat down in third period French in the sixth grade next to someone who had a wacky sense of humor and made him laugh, mostly because he never had third period French, but also because even if he had, there would always be that "fame" thing hanging over his head. He never had a high school or college experience. When you and I were at an age where we were laughing ourselves senseless at four in the morning in a dormitory common room in college, he was surrounded by an entourage on a tour bus and probably just wanted to be alone for a while.

Cleolinda makes an excellent point that for someone so tied up in a childlike, Peter Pan image, he has a bizarre undercurrent of aggression in his music, with the paramilitary costuming and the "Beat It"/"I'm Bad" progression. And yet, on the other hand, the undercurrent of aggression makes a small modicum of sense; like he was finally so tired of having to defend himself that he just flipped his shit and went, "You know what? You don't like me? Fine! I can kick your ass...yeah....I think..." Everyone who was even a remotely weird kid in elementary, middle, or high school can to a certain extent empathize with the feeling of wanting to feel power over the people who torment you; they just didn't happen to have talent and a recording studio at hand to do it.

The one that always perplexed me the most was the last track on his 2001 album, Invincible: it was called Threatened, and contained some highly unfortunate lyrics, including a Rod Serling-style The Twilight Zone intro, a chorus ending, "And you should feel threatened by me"; and included the lyric "When you're in bed, I'm underneath..." (That one was what convinced me that he had no idea what he sounded like.)



Now isn't the time to gloss over, of course, the allegations of sexual abuse. Because they happened, and it's unfortunate for his victims that his talent and celebrity was allowed to overshadow their right to be taken seriously. But a look back through his personal history makes it make some form of sense, at least.

Some assvertising is for products. Other assvertising is, well, an advertisement that you're an ass.
( When Gawker Media is cringing, it's a bad sign. )

Here's the other assvertising, and really, I have no words for it. At least it wasn't posted on Craigslist, but seriously, that isn't really much of an improvement.

One word that has had a remarkably lengthy tenure in the progressive blogosphere despite the fact it gives pejorative connotations to the physically disabled is the word "lame." It reared its ugly head regularly during election season, when people frequently referred to Republican Senator John McCain as "McLame," a pejorative that should already be beyond the realm of the acceptable for the fact that it associates people with disabilities with negativity, but that is doubly offensive as McCain himself is disabled. Now, defending a man who thinks my uterus is public property is hardly the first thing I want to do on a Tuesday morning, particularly one on which Barack Obama is being sworn in as President.  But, for approximately the 103,000th time, a progressive blogger used the word "lame", this time to mention a "lame pun." And I snapped.

Folks, there are a plethora, indeed, a veritable panoply of words that can be used to convey negativity without maligning individuals with disabilities. And most of them will make you look smarter. I can think of 50 off the top of my head, and I'm going to prove it to you:

1. Ill-advised
2. Lousy
3. Immature
4. Foolish
5. Ridiculous
6. Silly
7. Tired
8. Uninspired
9. Unfunny
10. Unworthy of attention/ink/air/breath/energy expended
11. Asinine
12. Childish
13. Lacking in sense
14. Sophomoric
15. Dull
16. Absurd
17. Cretinous
18. Daft
19. Inane
20. Absurd Note: at 6:35 CST, I just realized that "absurd" was repeated. "Hackneyed" is much better.
21. Jejune
22. Insipid
23. Puerile
24. Fatuous
25. Farcical
26. Preposterous
27. Trifling
28. Risible
29. Ludicrous
30. Infantile
31. Trivial
32. Sterile
33. Uninventive
34. Stodgy
35. Boring
36. Uncreative
37. Unimaginative
38. Unoriginal
39. Tedious
40. Tiresome
41. Declasse
42. Banal
43. Bland
44. Not half as funny as the teller thinks it is.
45. Stale
46. Vapid
47. Tasteless
48. Nonsensical
49. Vacuous
50. Witless

I'm sure that there are more that I have missed; please feel free to add them in the comments.

A fellow student at my law school is nominated as one of the top student legal bloggers according to the ABA. She's also the founder of the facebook group,  "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar."

Show her some love? Pretty please?

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (125 mL) butter or margarine
1 cup (250 mL) white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp (10 mL) vanilla extract
1 cup (250 mL) chopped apples, cored and peeled
2 cups (500 mL) flour
1 tsp (10 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
1/2 tsp (5 mL) salt
Optional: 1/2 cup (125 mL) chopped walnuts.

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit (175 Celsius). Lightly grease a 9"x5"x3" (23x18x8 cm) pan and set aside.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and, if using them, the nuts.
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter or margarine, the sugar, and one egg together until you get a smooth consistency. Add the second egg and beat well. Add the vanilla,  and apples. Add this mixture to the flour mixture from part 2. Stir well with a spatula and then pour into the pan.
4.  Cook in oven for 50 to 60 minutes.

It's a very sweet bread, more suitable for dessert.

I live in Tuscaloosa, AL. My law school town is the state CAPITAL of ludicrous, over-the-top football fandom behavior, in which this conversation has occurred in full seriousness:

FAN #1: I hate Auburn so much, I won't even wear an orange shirt with jeans.
FAN #2: You own an orange shirt?

Suffice it to say that outside of its fans as a sociological phenomenon, my disinterest in football is nigh-sexual in its intensity, but, any time there's a game going on, that's all that's on every radio in town, including the muzak at the mall. So one truthfully can't ignore it.
Yesterday, on their first touchdown, Alabama got red-flagged for "excessive celebration." Seriously. I literally turned around from what I was doing and said, "What the hell?" out loud.

Then I realized what I'd done and bashfully sneaked into a dressing room.

Dear Alabama,
Please to be scoring at least one touchdown after halftime...ever.
Kthanxbai,
theelusiven 

</lj>

1. Makes a will in favor of parents and siblings.
2. Has a daughter Matilda with Michelle Williams.
3. *dies*



It seemed very cat-macro to me. Go figure.

Sadly, this was true a long time before the bailout.::glares at Congress for confirming Alito::

At first, I thought that this version of the life-sized Sarah Palin poster at WallMonkeys.com, where Palin is depicted in a paper-doll-esque manner with accessories such as lipstick, a hockey stick, a rifle, and a plastic dime-store tiara, was the only version of their Life-Sized Sarah Palin Wall-Monkey, which appears to be a sticker that can be affixed to one's wall without causing permanent damage, available.

Then I noticed that it carried the term,  "Sarah Palin, Democrat Version, SP02," so I clicked over to their main page, and found that the Sarah Palin product was being sold via a banner ad on their front page. Upon clicking there, one could choose the Democrat Version or the Republican Version. Feeling dirty about myself, I clicked on the Republican version, and found this image, which is slightly more respectful:

I'm not sure what offends me more: the automatic assumption that Democrats will want to mock Palin using sexist frames, the obvious mockery of Palin using sexist frames, or the implication that any progressive has $70 to drop on a life-size image of someone of whom they're not particularly a fan, and if so, what purpose said effigy will serve.
Now, I'm all for Photoshops that call out political figures for their failings, and Sarah Palin is not without several of them. But by including the dime-store tiara and the lipstick, it calls Palin out for her status as a former beauty queen and for the trappings of her femininity. The wallmonkey brings the strong implication that she is a  one-dimensional paper doll, little more than the sum of her accessories, and implies that the trappings of her femininity (the lipstick, which is a different debate entirely, and the dime-store plastic tiara, which is both a class mockery of her title as a beauty queen, in addition to being just plain infantilizing and suggesting that all women just want to be pretty, pretty princesses) are liabilities to be mocked. It's not so hard to remember that just a few short months ago, Hillary Clinton was being bashed for her lack of same, which indicates to me that it's less about appearing conventionally feminine and more about a political candidate having scary ladyparts.


By all means, bust on Palin for her increasingly apparent Dan Quayle tendencies. In fact, I'd be posting about how hilarious this is, if the accessories were different, like this:

How Sarah Palin sees Russia from her backyard

Debate Cram Session Study Cards

While I was struggling to find the words to phrase exactly why this bothers me, the hits kept coming:

• Coming Soon: A Sarah Palin Porno. Via New York Magazine, a Craigslist LA ad went up last night for an adult film actress who bears a resemblance to Palin. By this morning, the ad had already been pulled.  Adoxography has more.
  • Edited to Add: Gawker has a screencap of the ad; New York Daily News confirms that Larry Flynt's Hustler Video is behind the film, which has already (!) wrapped.
• How Sarah Palin Embodies the Christian Right Archetype of the Sexy Puritan. Oh, look! Slate finally extracted its head from its ass long enough to notice the latest way the Christian right has been trying to sell abstinence-only approaches to sex: with the "Purity is Sexy" meme that's been available on t-shirts in Christian bookstores since I was twelve. But did they really have to illustrate it with this image?
• Venus de Wasilla: A Chicago bar has installed a nude portrait of Sarah Palin posing with an AK-47.

To borrow language from Shakesville, "We defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because we endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works."

*A riff on the "Duh Truck", which is a frequent rider over at Kate Harding's Shapely Prose

Cross-Posted

John McCain Suspends His Campaign.

In other economic news, behold The Dark Bailout:


I'm guessing it's the American public who end up with the sharpened pencil in the eye.

While posting this, I got an e-mail from the Silly Party that I must share in its entirety:
( Those responsible for the sacking of those who have been sacked, have been sacked. )</div>

I should've known the day was going to be craptacular when I stepped out of the shower to hear the noise that no wet, naked person not in reach of their bathrobe ever wants to hear: a knock on the door.

Of course, of the two days that Action Environmental Services could've chosen to show up at my apartment to spray for spiders at seven-thirty in the morning, they'd pick the day where I get to sleep in (by comparison to the days where I have 8:15 class with a federal judge who locks you out of his classroom if you're late) and therefore wouldn't be gone by that point in time. Cursing, I stuck my head out the bathroom door and yelled, "Can you come back later, please?" Not hearing an affirmative response, I had to wrap my towel around myself and continue to approach the door, still yelling, "Can you come back later, please?"

Until I slipped on the tile by the front door, having not had adequate time to dry my feet, and fell forwards, losing my towel and whanging my left knee on the tile floor (it's ALWAYS my left knee. It gets slammed in doors, I whack it on desks, and when I change heel heights, it has the sharpest needling pinched-nerve pains) , and then, in an attempt to stand up, fell backwards, and landed on the carpet behind me. Followed by my yelling at the pesticide guys to "Come back later!"

And that, dear friends, is how I came to have wicked bruises on my knees and ass.

Other Pop-Culture and Sci-fi Musings:
( On REPO!, Doctor Who, and Heroes. )

A casual read of 2 Elle indicates that your blogmistress, theelusiven and kevinsparakeet (pictured in the icon, after the Crewe of Columbus Ball in 2005) are engaged to be married. We first got together over the presidential election in 2004, and have never stopped talking politics. Sometime in the winter of '06, I discovered that a fair number of my personal principles aligned with those of feminism, and started reading some feminist blogs. (If you haven't read any feminist blogs/are unfamiliar with feminist principles in general, start with Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog and Feministing. Those are the starter set; and once you're good and familiar with those, head on over to Shakesville.) Today, I self-identify as feminist, so occasionally, we talk feminism; these conversations typically consist of me trying to convince him that he is a feminist while he puts on his He-Man Face of Dudeliness ^tm and tells me that I'm a single-issue voter. (It's a cute face, but it's also frustrating.) This is the first time a conversation on feminism has become instructive. And, with his permission, I am sharing it with you, in the hopes that it can create a greater dialogue.
I will concede that I have edited it, partially because we do a lot of Altman-esque talking over each other and maintain at least 2 different conversational threads at the same time, and partially to add linky goodness.
( KevinsParakeet and TheElusiveN on The Economy )

theelusiven: Yup.
theelusiven: Sigh. Privilege is the plague of humanity. Have you seen the latest wankery to come out of California?
theelusiven: Apparently, the new wedding license forms don't say, "Bride" and "Groom" but "Party A" and "Party B". A couple crossed out the language on the form and wrote in Bride and Groom, and their marriage license was rejected, quelle surprise, because they altered a frickin' state document.
( In which Real Life Wankery Sparkles with Heterocisgendered Privilege like an Emotionally Stunted Stalkerpire )
 
kevinsparakeet: Q: What is the reason Bristol's uterus is more important in the media than Joe Biden's son's DUI? (Assume that families are important in "the issues")
kevinsparakeet: A: Shotgun weddings are always more of a hoot.
theelusiven: A: The patriarchy is terrified of the pussy.
( In which a flippant <i>True Blood</i> quote leads to a discourse on sexism, racism, and ageism. )
kevinsparakeet: It is a good example. It is part of why I don't think your definition of feminism is accurate. It is a worldview/looking glass as opposed to a position.
theelusiven: How so?
theelusiven: I mean, I comprehend the individual words in your previous statement, but not their meaning as a whole.
kevinsparakeet: This is why we hold many of the same positions, but I still contend that I am not a feminist. It isn't my primary worldview. You are much quicker, along with other self-described feminists, to use that lens.
theelusiven: I see.
theelusiven: And that's part of your male privilege, there. Your gender is the default.
theelusiven: Whereas my gender is a "lens."
( TheElusiveN and KevinsParakeet Discuss Privilege )
kevinsparakeet: Do you at least get why I don't consider myself a feminist despite agreeing with you on those issues?
theelusiven: Yes. I do. Because that's not your primary worldview, and I get that. But you at least acknowledge that you agree with a lot of feminist points.
kevinsparakeet: yay
theelusiven: ‘Cause if you were a scary-ass MRA, I'd be dumping you by the side of the road with all your stuff.
kevinsparakeet: Well, on that subject... the MRA thing is more an excuse to hide the scary fundie worldview. The male-oriented looking glass is somewhat absent in my worldview because if you asked me what it means to be a man, I couldn't tell you. Due to lack of male influence growing up, I didn't absorb a lot of those traits/memes that typically were passed down to male offspring.
( What does it mean to be male? To be female? )
theelusiven: Boot to the head?
kevinsparakeet: Yes. Boot to the head.

Repeat after me:

The contents of Sarah and Bristol Palin's uteri are none of my business.