Early Registration

I learn a TON from Genni's posts here. Yesterday, I learned something I suspected anyhow, but which nevertheless made me sad:

We get this socialization about how not-the-same we all are (and somehow that's always explained to us in terms of what we can't, oughtn't, or mustn't do) EARLY.

Bean got it sometime in elementary school. Genni got it in the third grade. Lesley got it at seven. BBrugger, around the same time. Meryl is something of a late bloomer, not getting it until the sixth grade. But Bitey got it at five, and--me for the win!--I got it at four.

De-PRES-sing!

But, you know, fuck all that. There are other click moments, click moments when you go, wait a second: You mean it doesn't have to be this way? And that's the kind of moment I want to talk about.

Some of us seemingly slide out of the womb feminists--read Amanda's story and marvel at how early she figured it out. Sure, she notes that in a town like the one she grew up in, it could hardly have been any other way; but I was going to church every Sunday for three hours at a stretch, plus an hour every weekday once I got into high school, in a religion that taught (unofficially, but nonetheless all the time) that in heaven, men would have multiple wives--and I STILL didn't get it.

I was at the opposite end of the spectrum. I was real slow. I had a dozen or more this-could-be-a-clue moments that I just never followed up on. For example:

I was about 17 or 18 and I was working at McDonald's and I remember I was in the women's room, touching up my makeup. I have no idea how makeup works these days because I mostly don't buy the shit, but back then the thing to do was to get a little trio of eyeshadow colors, and I remember the one I had, the one I was using that day to touch up, one of my favorite ones, was made by Cover Girl. It had a beautiful rich bronze for the lid color, dark coffee bean for the contour color, and pale sandy beige for the highlighting color.

(Let me just interrupt myself for a second. If you do not know what I mean by lid, contour, and highlight, congratulate yourself: You are the proud owner of some pretty awesome male privilege.)

I was always in the women's room touching up my makeup, or back in the break room touching up my makeup, because working at McDonald's, especially a McDonald's in a suburb of Phoenix, was HELL on makeup. All that grease, all that heat--my makeup was always either smearing or fading or both. Plus, it was the 80s; makeup wasn't optional and the natural look was o-u-t OUT. I don't remember any of us girls ever saying to the other, "You're wearing too much makeup," any more than we'd ever have said, "You have too much mousse in your hair." There was no such thing. Or rather, there was, and here's how you could tell: You were wearing too much mousse in your hair when the nasty shit started flaking off all over your shoulders like dandruff.

You compensated for this tendency of mousse to self-destruct by combining it with hairspray and gel.

So I spent a lot of time "doing facial repair," as I too-cutesily referred to it back then--and when I think too much about this, I nearly cry. I was 18. I had been blessed with very little true acne in my teen years. I probably looked FABULOUS without all that shit on my face. Instead, there I was, doing facial repair every 15 minutes.

And that day in the restroom at McDonald's, as I raised the applicator to my eyelid crease to touch up the contour, for some reason, I suddenly stopped, and I looked at myself.

And I thought, "Ilyka, what the fuck are you doing?"

It just hit me like a train how many hours I was spending on it. And not just how many hours I spent doing it, but how many hours I spent WORRYING about doing it, about being able to do it: Would there be a restroom? Would it have good lighting? Had I remembered my powder, my concealer, my lipstick, my mascara? I never left the house without my makeup. No one I knew did. It would have been unthinkable. I rode a bicycle often back then, and I still made sure I had my makeup with me to touch up along the ride. You understand? I was wearing and maintaining and fussing over and worrying about makeup on BIKE RIDES.

Although, then again, I always have been a little on the obsessive side.

But, you know, I had that moment, and all I really did about it was back off the eyeshadow a little bit. And then a little bit more, and then a little bit more, until finally it was the 90s and eyeshadow went o-u-t OUT, just like the 70s natural look had done in the 80s, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had gotten away with kissing off eyeshadow.

And then I set about earnestly buying lipsticks with that new enhanced staying power, 8-hour long-lasting, virtually all-day color--so you see, I really learned a lot from that moment in the restroom.

That is how it has usually gone for me. I am not kidding about being slow on the uptake.

(Of course, some people wear makeup like their face is a canvas and makeup is the paint. I love that. But I am not talking about that. I am talking about feeling like I wasn't enough without it. I am talking about being a makeup junkie. I am talking about not being able to accept my own face without makeup on it. That is not healthy.)

I really gave up makeup about three years later, when I was living with a guy who liked to belt me one now and again. As my wearing makeup or not didn't seem to affect the likelihood of his belting me one or not, I quit bothering, except to cover up the occasional black eye or bruised cheek.

It was about that time I started working with Kathie. Kathie was a counselor at the county AIDS clinic where I worked. I was a secretary--oh, excuse me, administrative assistant. It wasn't a bad job, actually. I had a boss who liked to delegate and who accepted that his grammar was lousy. He let me edit all his correspondence. Hell, he let me draft the contracts and the grant proposals. To this day I give good abstract. He was a good guy, as bosses go. And perhaps it sounds bad to say it, but working at the AIDS clinic was a lot of fun.

I got to know Kathie about three weeks into the job, when she asked me if I would mind giving her a ride home. On the way out to my car, she explained that not only had her girlfriend failed to pick her up--

(Her girlfriend?)

--but, but, her trauma didn't end there, because once she got home she would have to figure out some way to meet her girlfriend at the bar, and she really hoped her girlfriend would not be too drunk by the time she got there because her ex-girlfriend was also going to be there, performing for open mic, and--gack, it was just going to be so awkward--

I dunno how I kept walking, to be honest. I remember my voice went into auto-polite mode: "Oh, really? Oh, how terrible for you--" but like every paranoid hetero what I was thinking was, "Fuck, fuck--is she hitting on me? No, come on--she has a girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend, she's clearly got her hands full--okay, just don't freak out. DON'T FREAK OUT. Act normal. This is normal. NORMAL."

Because the thing was, another lesbian had hit on me a few years back and it had really freaked me out; I worried ever after that I had done something. Somehow or other, without my knowing it, I must have given off that lesbian vibe. When, really, I was lucky to be getting any attention from anybody, considering I was walking around with half of Drug Emporium's cosmetics section on my face. But I didn't look at things like that back then.

It took me awhile to get over my initial freakout at finding out Kathie was One Of Those. Initially, figuring I had to go along to get along, I mentally substituted "boyfriend" whenever she said "girlfriend;" but after awhile, even my dumb ass realized this was a pointless substitution, because it made no damn difference. Relationship problems are relationship problems. Her girlfriend wouldn't ever clean the cat box?--My boyfriend wouldn't ever clean the cat box! Her girlfriend was emotionally abusive?--My boyfriend was emotionally abusive! (And then some!) In fact, we were basically dating the same person, except Kathie's girlfriend looked better in men's dress shirts than my boyfriend did.

It turned out the weirdest, oddest, strangest thing about Kathie was not that she was a lesbian. The weirdest, oddest, strangest thing was that she was a feminist, a vocal feminist. She didn't think men were shit, but she thought you were probably safer so assuming. She had a Scandinavian last name that she'd had legally changed to end in -syn, instead of its original -sen. She had me type up her resume (on the sly, of course), and I boggled at the seminars she had attended: Who the hell was Starhawk and what the fuck were womyn? "Hoo, boy," I thought, "this is some wild shit."

But, you know, I was paid to type, so I typed. And formatted. And printed multiple copies on the good heavyweight cream-colored stock, after my boss had gone home. Your tax dollars at work.

Kathie read a lot. I had used to read a lot, but I had stopped, because my boyfriend didn't like it. He had grown up with a bookworm mother, and he told story after story about all the times she had failed to pay any attention to him because she was in the middle of a book.

"Oh, fuck him," said Kathie. "Grow UP."

And out loud I made excuses for him. But inside I thought, yeah, you know what? Fuck him. Had my childhood been all roses? No, it had not. But I wasn't telling him not to do the things he loved as a result of it, now, was I?

I broke up with my boyfriend and got my own apartment. It wasn't a real breakup; I still went over to his place every other night (he needed me! Besides, getting used to sleeping alone after sleeping next to someone can be tough.). But I had some space. I had 500 square feet for $365 a month and I could read books again, so Kathie started lending me some.

Actually, she lent me a lot of books.

The first one she lent me was Mists of Avalon. I objected when she made her pitch for it.

"Kathie," I said, "I don't LIKE King Arthur. My MOM likes King Arthur. She's totally into that shit. I grew up with Camelot on HBO every six hours. She loves Camelot. But I HATE IT."

"That's why you need to read this book."

"I don't even want to like King Arthur!"

"Honey," Kathie said, "this book isn't about King Arthur. It's nominally about King Arthur, but what it's really about is the women surrounding King Arthur."

"I don't know anything about them. I never read this stuff. I never made it through a full showing of Camelot, even. Look, it's just fantasy. Chivalry and knights and magic spelled with a 'k.' I don't CARE. I am not into that shit."

"Look: Just take it home, read a few pages. If you don't like it, bring it back tomorrow."

I didn't bring it back "tomorrow." I brought it back three days later, puffy-eyed and red-lidded from staying up all night to read just a little bit more, and then I didn't shut up about the damn book for roughly the next 10 years.

I recommended Mists of Avalon to everybody. It was unsafe to begin a conversation with me. Grocery clerks kept their distance. Given any opening at all, including "Hello! How are you today?" I would start in:

"Have you read Mists of Avalon?"

"What?"

"Mists of Avalon! Marion Zimmer Bradley. Oh, man, you NEED to read that. It will change your LIFE."

"Uh-huh. That'll be $46.83, ma'am. Cash or check?"

I bought a copy for my mother, the King Arthur fan. She unwrapped it, examined the back cover critically, and expressed skepticism that she might enjoy a book about the women of the King Arthur tales.

"Just read a few pages," I said, "and then, if you don't like it . . . ."

A week later she called me up sobbing.

"This is the best book! But it's so SAD! Oh, I can't stop crying, it's just so unfair--"

"I KNOW!" I said. "And it's so frustrating because all the time you're like, 'Morgaine, go HOME. Go back to Avalon. Viviane NEEDS you.'"

"Oh, Viviane, what they DID to her--"

"I know!"

Other books followed rapidly after that: The Stories of Eva Luna. The Bean Trees. (She kept telling me Pigs in Heaven was better, but years later I read it and I got so mad I threw it across the room. It is not good when I throw books across the room.) Summer People and Woman on the Edge of Time (remind me to write about Woman on the Edge of Time some day). Stone Butch Blues, which, again, I initially balked at, but: "Just read a few pages. And then, if you don't like it . . . ."

I didn't send Stone Butch Blues to my mother. I had my limits, and she had hers. Instead I cried my eyes out over it, and tried vainly to repent. Oh, how stupid we high school girls had been! "Poor Coach Adams, never gonna get a man looking like that"--yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we'd been idiots. Coach Adams had the worse life for all the reasons in Stone Butch Blues and then some. But Coach Adams also had what we didn't: The ability to not give a fuck. You can't forget your makeup if you don't wear makeup. You can't bitch about a run in your new stockings if you don't wear stockings. And you can't worry that no man is ever going to love you if that's not how you're built to love in the first place.

None of which is to say that reading Stone Butch Blues will fill you full of envy for butch lesbians. If it does THAT, odds are you can't read. But it sure as hell did make me think a lot, and feel a lot.

I owe Kathie more than I can ever repay. Until I met Kathie I thought there were exactly two novelists who wrote about women: L.M. Montgomery and Betty Smith. The rest were all romance novelists, because that's what paid and who could blame them. That's how I had it figured.

But through all those books, the world got bigger and wider and it started to make a teeny bit of room for me. I started to think I could fit in it somehow, even without a bitchin' Cover Girl eyeshadow trio.

And it was at some point in the middle of all this relentless feminist indoctrination that I bought myself a book, a book I took a lot of shit about from my not-quite-ex-boyfriend, a book I tried to give to his mother, the bookworm, as a present: A book she sneered at, muttering something about how women were never going to get anywhere if they kept miring themselves in victimhood like that.

And that, my dear lurking Republican women, is why most of what you say is not only so familiar, but too familiar. And that is why I don't care to respond to most of it: You are raising old objections, objections that go back centuries, objections that are not new or provocative or innovative but simply old, old, old. You can work those objections out your own self, same as I did: Slowly.

Or, you can read your history. There is more to it than you think. Just read a few pages. And then, if you don't like it . . . .

I Will Quit Beating This Dead Horse When You Pry the Club from my Cold, Dead Fingers

Yes, it's more language nerdery!

I was gonna post this at Pandagon but, honestly, I think I've done enough to drive its traffic into the gutter for awhile. Let me nurse my obsessiveness here, instead.

In this post, I said:

Do you really need to talk about how Ann Coulter looks? It doesn’t actually hurt Ann–you know, Ann, bestselling author, fabulously successful (if repulsive) media personality, that Ann?–if you type on your blahg that she’s Mann Coulter. She doesn’t read your stupid blog. She doesn’t CARE. The transgendered person who settles in for a fun evening of Coulter-bashing at your stupid blog, however, who discovers hirself being used as the chief weapon against Ann–that person cares. Ditto the liberal women who have to read about what a skank she is. WE care.

And we remember that there yet exist men who can criticize conservative women without going there, and we read them instead. So, really, fuck you and your eighth-grade drag queen jokes.

And I was pretty tickled when this earned a response from Roy Edroso, the blogger linked in the excerpt above. Roy said, in part:

Also, I still say "cunt" and "pussy" a lot. Now, when used in reference to the female pudend, these terms should be unobjectionable to any thinking person. But sometimes I use them in unflattering reference to human behaviors, and that can raise -- and has raised, in my comments -- objections that I am saying something bad about women by using female genital referents as negatives.

My only answer is this: language is my metier, and I try to use it to my best advantage. One of the best tools toward that end is the unexpected choice. Sometimes I put academic, literary, or other elevated types of language into situations that do not seem to call for them. (George Plimpton was a pro at this schtick. I remember him writing about Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre, and saying of an act that was about to emphatically get the hook, "The crowd desired that he would be silent.")

Sometimes I go another way and use crude language as a crotch-kick against pretension -- as when I called this thick-necked Men's Rights blowhard a pussy. As for "cunt," well, it's just a fun word.

Pass over that last bit for a second because it's the part about "the unexpected choice" I want to talk about first--or rather, I want to say that the unexpected choice, the change-up, the decision to go vulgar against pretension and pretentious against vulgarity--none of that is at all what anyone was objecting to in any of the myriad discussions that sprung up in the wake of this post. At least, I don't think anyone was doing that; it was, after all, a very long thread.

But the funny thing about Roy saying "Sometimes I go another way and use crude language as a crotch-kick against pretension" is that I'd had just such an example of his cited in an attempted gotcha-you're-a-hypocrite maneuver by someone in the Feministe thread. The question:

*What* do you guys read around here in the way of other liberal blogs? Roy just said ‘cunt’ a bunch of times today, so plainly he hates all women and should be blacklisted.

My response:

Roy’s cunt thing: I wasn’t too bothered by that, since one of the points was to use as many of the seven dirties as possible to show how ridiculous a standard for moral rightness “no cussing” is when the ideas you’re espousing are reprehensible. I wince every time I see the c-word, and Roy’s post was no exception to that, but I saw the joke, and Roy’s too hilarious for me to quit.

And now, NOW we can talk about "cunt" being "just a fun word to say:" Sure it is, when you're a guy. When you've had it directed at you personally, not to refer to your parts but to reduce you to them, it's not such a blast. Roy gets this, I think, but the kinds of guys who want a cookie for being bravely Politically Incorrect(TM) never do.

But beyond that bit of obviousness, there is the further obviousness--or so I considered it to be, before the thread that ate the internet--that the way the word is being used, what it means in a particular context, affects how people react to it. That's why I could give a halfhearted pass to the use of "cunt" in Roy's post mocking the idea that it's only dirty words that make a thing uncivil: It's used once to insult Instapundit as a "stupid cunt," and then a second time to refer to the female pudend (Michelle Malkin's, as it happens). In fact, if I were inclined to target that post as an example of hate speech, I'd be far more likely to go after "stanky-ass cum buckets" and "twinky-ass bitch" than the instances of the c-word.

But I'm not inclined to target that post, because the point of that post isn't to tell women to shut up and make Roy a sandwich, or to tell 'em to wipe the ejaculate off their chins, or to shame fatty into a fad diet or onto the treadmill. The point of that post is to make plain that reprehensible ideas are reprehensible no matter how you word 'em, civilly or uncivilly. Or to give you the thesis:

If some stupid cunt says we're "not anti-war, just on the other side," why the fuck shouldn't we call the motherfucker out?

Exactly. But again, addressing the bravely Politically Incorrect(TM) who refuse to see the difference:

Call 'em uptight, call 'em oversensitive, call 'em whatever you like, but it turns out most feminists, and more'n a few just plain women, find being reduced to a hot-or-not fuckhole, rather than being treated like the human beings they actually are, reprehensible. And THAT is the idea behind 99.95% of the usage of "cunt." That's its most popular meaning: A woman scarcely worth the organ she's providing a life-support system for. That's what's vile, not the word itself. We are not being language police when we say "please quit calling us cunts;" we are being worse than that. We are being idea police, and we'd like the idea that you cockslaps have any right to dehumanize us, any of us, to die, now. It is past time.

And as I've been round and round and round again about this enough times to know what's coming, here's my response:

The reason you shouldn't call out that motherfucker Dafydd ab Hugh for being too fat to serve in the military, despite his being the best thing that ever happened to war porn, is that it misses the fucking point, which is that whether he weighed 98 pounds or 298 pounds he was never going to serve anyway, because that type never does; and in between the real point and the dumb point you chose to make was an area wide enough (ho, ho!) to accommodate a gaggle of halfwits who couldn't even follow the dumb point all the way through--and thus was "too fat to serve in the military he claims to adore" abbreviated to "too fat."

And thus were innocent large persons annoyed, and thus did they complain, and here I must observe for only the 473rd time that "complain" is not synonymous with "blacklist," "police," or "prohibit." So quit pitching a fit about the PC-police at Feministe already, ya fuckin' douchebags, because last I checked the Piny Campaign for Language Dictator had run into fundraising difficulties, so I really don't think you need to worry about having your rights infringed upon from that quarter. Maybe take your own advice and fight the real enemy? I don't know.

And with that, I am done. Call me if the horse gets up again, but I think he's done too.

UPDATE: Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

A cursory read of the comments at alicublog makes it pretty plain that the commenters are reading Roy as agreeing with their position that it's totally okay to use "cunt" whenever you want to, because the problem always lies with the silly-ass cunts who get offended when you do so; just like the problem with "nigger" isn't its oppressive usage history, but rather the rampant-running PC Police who stir up those temperamental black folk to raise a needless fuss about it. This, for example, is fairly typical:

Here's another way to look at it: The staggering diversity of opinion on what cunt means just on this thread makes its intent cloudy no? Could mean a lot of things -- thus, like in MOST THINGS, context matters. And the context of nigger does too -- obviously.

But that doesn't even address the fact that blacks can choose all by themselves what they consider offensive, just as everyone else can.

The "staggering diversity of opinion on what cunt means," it will not surprise you to learn, is achieved almost entirely from members of the class who have traditionally used the term, and scarcely at all from members of the class against whom it has been used. Pardon my incivility, but fuck your fake diversity, you bubbling leg-dribbles of choleric shit.

So what'm I getting out of this? Chiefly, that there are more ostensible progressives out there than I thought who want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they want to dissociate themselves from assholes like these, feign shock and horror that similar-such behavior could be occuring in our most elite halls of learning, and congratulate themselves on not being one bit like that themselves* because they appreciate and understand context, see.

On the other hand, they want to throw a motherfucking neverending tantrum, weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth all over the internet, anytime someone points out that their understanding of the context is incomplete due to the unavoidable limitations of their own lived experiences--a point which should be obvious, and which any of these jackboot-licking nerds could easily prove or disprove merely by walking up to any large man of African-American descent and explaining to him why he shouldn't choose to find the n-word offensive. But these whiny-ass tittybabies aren't going to do that, because deep down they know that's going to end in an ass-kicking, with the probability of the ass getting kicked being theirs approaching 1.

So let's take swipes at the dumb cunt feminazis, instead. What can they possibly do about it?


*No slam meant against junk science; just noting that the closing lines:

We need to spend time shaking our heads that such people exist and congratulating ourselves for being better than them. We don’t need to be above pointing out that we’re better than them.

--reflect perfectly the attitude of the guys who told us they could take whichever cheap shots they wanted to because they're on the side of the angels. You aren't, but you could be, though until you are, I hope you choke. The End.

Let's Talk About the Important Issues of the Day (or: It Never Fucking Ends)

I want to be taken seriously as a serious blogger, blogging only about serious things, so let's open up the floor for discussion of what is inarguably the most important issue facing the United States right now:



Dinesh D'Souza: Would you fuck him?

What if he were still wearing the sweater? Would you then?

Serious answers only, please. All nonserious respondents will be expelled from the Party for attempting to fracture our carefully crafted political coalition. I am utterly serious about this.

Silly-Ass Shit for my Night Off Work

Sarah Brown once said that AC/DC's "Back in Black" was the tune that should play every time she walked into a room. Despite my cranky persona online, there are actually very few things written on the internet that make me steaming mad--but this was one of them, because I wished to hell I'd come up with it first.

(And now I cannot for the life of me find it. But I know she said it. I know because she also listed as a turn-off "people who cannot get past the fact that they were once gifted children," and that was ANOTHER thing I wished to hell I'd said first, and I was able to turn that up, so I'm probably right about "Back in Black," don't you think?)

Anyway, thanks to Sarah Brown getting there first, I lost all claim to "Back in Black" as a theme song, which is probably just as well, as that would have been a stretch for me to pull off even in my imagination, and my imagination is wild. So I have had to find a substitute, and the best I have been able to do is still way awkward. That is: Were it not for the cultural-appropriation and vaguely misogynist* issues apparent in my selection, this would be the song I would choose to have play whenever I entered a room commandeered a space with my inimitable presence:



So. What's yours?


*Regarding misogyny and hip-hop, you could do worse than this one. Witness my favorite couplet:

I cook, I clean, I swear that mami,
Just as long as you don't go off and tell nobody

See? He's a good guy at heart. Just keep your mouth shut that he's a good guy at heart, lest you trash his rep with tha boyz. Man, the lengths a fella will go to in order to keep people from thinking he's in any way womanly.

And a Perfect Example of What NOT to Do

In the last post I tried to explain how one goes about not being a dickhead at a feminist blog, thus sparing oneself the painful and humiliating foot-in-ass treatment.

And because I am not just clever, talented, and charming, but full of helpfulness for my fellow man besides, I shared that advice with Margalis, one of the eloquent young men who wandered over to I Blame the Patriarchy from Sadly, No!

Margalis had questions, so many questions, about the reception his fellow SNer mikey had received upon making his patriarchy-blaming debut. Questions like:

Can I point out a few things in as non-antagonistic tone as I can?

Which was immediately followed by this non-antagonistic gem:

First, adding a comment at the top of Mikey’s first post is beyond lame.

I hate beginning sentences with "As a blogger," but let me tell you anyway: As a blogger, the one thing I guaranfuckingtee you is that just as there is no Santa Claus, there is also no such thing as the blogger who wants your worthless opinion about how to blog. That blogger does not exist. That doesn't stop Margalis in his quest to be non-antagonizing, though:

Second, I don’t see anyone addressing his point.

I Blame the Patriarchy, like so many other blogs, exists solely to address the points of first-time commenters who will not or cannot read the FAQ.

I think many of you simply read what you wanted to read and looked for an excuse to attack him.

He is right: There haven't been enough flame wars on feminist blogs lately. We must make more.

What I love here is the form Margalis uses in his comment, because it's classic feminist blog-trolling:

Begin from an all-I-want-is-peace-and-maybe-a-pony posture, then lurch headlong into all the reasons the damn feminists are making this peace IMPOSSIBLE. It would be like conducting negotiations with a foreign power this way*:

Us: May I just say one thing as non-antagonistically as possible?

Them: Why, of course.

Us: Okay. We're going to invade your country, kill all your leaders, and convert you to Christianity.

Them: You asshole!

Us: Huh? What are you getting all bent out of shape about? Don't you want our help? How are we ever going to come to terms if you won't let us help?**

You doubt me? Don't doubt me:

There are plenty of us ‘liberal dudes’ that agree with you - why make it so difficult for us? Why pile on someone who agrees with you?

Because you are being an ass who will not or cannot read the FAQ, Margalis.

That said, why do I feel like I am being attacked? Can someone point out what I, as a liberal dude, have done wrong exactly?

Hmm, it's not getting through for some reason. I'll try putting it in all-caps this time: YOU ARE BEING AN ASS, MARGALIS.

It goes downhill from there. Eventually the perpetually hurt-feelinged Margalis expresses befuddlement at all the hostility:

It just seems silly that it would be so easy to defuse the situation and maybe inform someone and turn them to your point of view, but instead you run them out of town.

That tugged my pity strings, so I explained it to him:

I understand your point, but that goes both ways. For example: It would be so easy for commenters to read the comment instructions atop each comment entry field:

“New to I Blame The Patriarchy? Cast your jaundiced eye upon this before commenting.”

. . .

More importantly, however, it actually would not be “so easy to defuse the situation.” It is actually a lot of work, work I am doing right now, work women do a hugely disproportionate share of in patriarchy, and so maybe you can understand why there must exist some places where we may unburden ourselves of that obligation for a few minutes. This blog is one of those places. It does not exist to persuade or debate. It exists (and again I refer you to the FAQ) “to advance the radical feminist views of Twisty Faster.”

Finally: I don’t think myself that you are a troll, but consider what you’re doing here and see why some blamers might think otherwise. You aren’t discussing the post; you’re defending your pal, and now I’m complicit in thread-drift by responding to you. Mikey, however, is not the topic. I am pretty sure Twisty didn’t write this to generate discussion of how we can all work harder to be nicer to mikey.

Now I will give you two guesses as to what happened next, plus a hint: It's number 2, all right?

1. Margalis read, considered, and replied to what I wrote.

2. Margalis completely ignored what I wrote, replying instead to another commenter in order to repeat the exact same brickheadedly stupid shit he'd tried to lay on me earlier.

Did you guess number 2? If you guessed number 1, can you check something for me?--Are you breathing?

It’s just the age old tale of boy stumbles across website, boy posts without understanding culture, boy gets beat down. Only with added drama.

It seems strange to make an enemy when you can make a friend.

Yes, that's all it is: The age-old tale of boy stumbles (innocently!) across website, boy posts without understanding culture (or reading a single fucking word by anyone eager to explain the culture to him), boy gets beat down (but not nearly enough). It certainly can't be that boy is being a dissembling, arrogant, passive-aggressive jackass, because you just know the real problem is feminist hostility. It seems so strange to make an enemy when you can make a friend.

Anyway, the feminists: What do you suppose could have happened to make them all so bitchy like that? Please tell me, so I can ignore your response and repeat my question another fifty fucking times, like a flambéed Tickle Me Elmo whose circuits aren't melting quite fast enough.




*More or less as we have been, in other words.
**I was tempted to add here, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" I got over it.

Occasionally Conversations with my Man Are Instructive

He came home from the store this afternoon and asked, "So, what's new with the thread that never ends?"

"Oh, that's dead finally," I told him. "Turns out all I hadda do to kill it was talk about the topic in great wonky and laborious detail. I wish I'd realized that 600 comments ago."

"I thought the topic was how mean you all are."

"That's what they say . . . hey, there has been one new development: Pinko Punko dropped a link to I Blame the Patriarchy at Sadly, No!"

"Oh dear God."

"Pretty much, man, pretty much."

So later I had him read the thread at Twisty's, and he said, "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Okay . . . I get that there's a culture on feminist blogs, and you read them all the time, you understand that culture, most of the time I'm even okay with it, but then sometimes . . . do you guys not realize how you sound?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, if someone who'd never really read Feministe just went over and all they read was that post of piny's--well, no, not so much that post, or even Feministe necessarily, but like, I can see how some of these guys get the idea that you all hate men. Because you're talking to the regulars, and the regulars know you don't hate men, but some new guy reading some of this stuff, he's going to be all, wait, what did I do? I didn't rape anybody, I never beat up a transsexual--"

"No, I get that," I interrupted him. "That's a lot like--like, I used to have the same reaction reading blogs by people of color. I'd see something like 'white people sure suck sometimes,' and I'd be all, 'Hey! Wait! Not all of us! Not me!' Even though I probably do suck as a white person sometimes--but I mean, I'd take it too personally."

"It's hard not to take it personally."

"It's not as hard if you move yourself out of the center of everything, though. That's what I finally got through my thick skull. It's not ABOUT me, always. And even if it is about me, so what? I'm not perfect. Why shouldn't I have to take some shit once in awhile? Heaven knows I dish enough out in a day. Would it kill me to get an attitude adjustment? Would it kill me to listen to someone unlike me for five minutes?"

"But if you aren't the problem," he argued, "It sucks to be treated like you're the problem. It's like being accused of something you didn't do."

"If I'm not the problem," I explained, "then why should I get invested in identifying with the problem? If the problem is some particular batch of white people, doing or saying shit I'd never in a million years do myself, why should I feel the need to put myself in their shoes? Just because they're white and I'm white? That's stupid. Like all the idiot white dudes who identify with the Duke lacrosse players--they don't even comprehend that unless they're just as wealthy and elite, which you know 95% of them aren't, the fucking lacrosse players would SPIT on them. They're ID-ing with the players, but I guarantee you the players aren't ID-ing with them."

"A lot of the guys written about on feminist blogs do things I would never do."

"Then don't identify with them. It's not about you! You stand to pee, they stand to pee, beyond that, what's the commonality?"

"That's why the argument you guys make that I like the best is that patriarchy screws men too."

"Well, it does," I agreed with him, "but I think why you like that argument so much is because then it's about you again. All's right with the universe. Man the sun, woman the earth."

"No, I've figured out that you guys don't like that, and I'm trying not to do that, I swear, but the way you express things sometimes, isn't it just making it easier for men to get defensive?"

"No," I said firmly, "What we aren't doing is taking care of them. Nurturing them. Putting their feelings first. Looking out for them, making things safe for them. We aren't making them the center. We're talking just the way we'd talk, the way we do talk, when y'all aren't around."

"And you know sometimes that gets ugly," I continued, "but the thing to do then is to remember: Everything else IS centered around y'all. Everything else--you guys got the talk radio to take care of you, the ESPN, the CNN, the New York Times, the advertising industry--you can't bask in all that adoration day in and day out and then pitch a fit because a handful of blogs on the internet don't recognize your awesomeness. Or I mean, you can pitch a fit, go right ahead, but it's not going to end with me bringing you your binky and kissing your forehead. It's going to end with my foot in your ass."

"But for a new guy--"

"For a new guy the best policy is to lurk, read, get a feel for the place, and just keep chanting: 'It's not about me. It's not about me. It is not about me.' Twisty even has an FAQ to help people out, but does anyone ever read it? Not the guys. They figure they already know everything important and no spinster aunt is going to tell THEM."

"I don't think I Blame the Patriarchy is where they should start out."

"Word. It says 'for advanced blamers only' on it for a reason. Twisty has the S.C.U.M. manifesto posted there, for crying out loud. I don't know what Pinko was thinking."

"You should have a beginner's blog."

"Periodically someone says as much, but that's a lot of work and boring to slog through if you already have some idea. I used to think a feminism 101 blog would be great, but anymore I'm like, 'No, you can take your ass to the library. Or take a women's studies class.' But you say that last one, it's like you suggested the dude go castrate himself."

"That's what I think I figured out--I shouldn't expect one of you to walk me through everything."

"Right. You don't get a tour guide. That costs extra."

"So now you know: This is why I mostly read sports blogs. I'm lazy, and I have enough homework as it is."

"To be honest with you," I confessed to him, "There are days I think sports blogs might be the way to go myself."

We'll See How Long This Lasts

Resolution of the day:

I will not return to that timesucking Feministe thread. I will not return to that timesucking Feministe thread. I will NOT return to that timesucking Feministe thread.

You should read the post, though. The post is very good.

Just don't get sucked into the comments. I mean, don't let ME get sucked into the comments. Because, you know, sometimes? In the comments? I get a little hysterical.

I can't help it. It's the vagina. And the fat. The fat vagina, that's what it is. Making me all hysterical.

And the political correctness. Can't forget the political correctness. I hate political correctness; it makes it harder for people who are not that funny to get away with being not that funny.

Brain Leaking Out Ears, Can't Deal with Internet Right Now

Let this serve as an apology for not writing anything here and for slacking off writing anything at Pandagon. Basically these people are highly skilled at whipping up a tornado of pure insanity and right now, this is about the part where the roof has blown clean off and I'm hurtling through the air gripping the sides of a claw-foot bathtub, hoping I don't get beaned in the head by a flying cow.

Moo.

Supposedly this all ends tomorrow morning. SUPPOSEDLY. That leaves me hoping the bathtub makes a smooth landing and the cow lands 30 yards over yonder, instead of right on top of me like I'm thinking it will.

Weddings: Still Very Definitely Not a Fan

So, I went to this wedding over the weekend up in Santa Fe, and I have a question for y'all:

Say you and your significant other arrive about 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning. And say your significant other is staying in a different hotel with his relatives, and say he's on his way up to his room when he runs into the groom.

And say the groom has a bleeding cut on his forehead and generally looks a little rough around the edges.

Now just suppose the groom and your significant other exchange awkward pleasantries, and suppose that then the groom lays out this story about having gone out to Denny's, in the middle of the night in Santa Fe, the night before his wedding, and about having been jumped on the way back by three vatos, all of whom the groom, manly man that he is, thrashed soundly.

Suppose your significant other is . . . skeptical. But then suppose he relays the story to his father that night, and then suppose your significant other's father, who happens to be the father of the bride, is kind of a talker, and suppose your significant other's dad winds up relaying this story to the bride as she's on her way out the next morning to her 7:00 a.m. bridal hair appointment.

Then suppose that the groom tries to deny any of this ever happened.

And now say people come back to your significant other and want to know what gives? Say your significant other stands by his story, forcing the groom to relent and grant that, okay, he really did fend off an attempted mugging and he really did beat up three guys.

Now say you're me: Do you buy any of this? Hell, no, you don't. You ask me, weren't no Denny's, weren't no three Hispanic men. You ask me, I think the groom ran afoul of a pimp. No man runs out to Denny's, in the middle of the night, in 35-degree temperatures, the night before his wedding. No one does this. It doesn't happen. And even if it does, dudes in their late 40s, I don't care how fit, don't beat up three younger dudes, either.

You know what I think? I think my boyfriend's sister just married herself a real schmuck, and a racist schmuck at that.

Well, better her than me.

*

So we're on the way back home and I ask my boyfriend, "You think there's any chance your parents will stop by?"

"What?!"

"Do you think they'll swing through Las Cruces on their way home?"

"Fuck, no. It's not even on their way."

My boyfriend's getting agitated because he's never even considered this possibility, that his parents might drop by for a visit.

My boyfriend is a born fool.

"Calm down," I tell him. "I just want to know, is this a possibility? Because that sounds like just the sort of thing they'd do."

"They didn't say anything to me about it while we were there."

"But does that rule it out?"

"Of course! They didn't even say anything about it."

"And you think they definitely would?"

Now I can see my boyfriend is really getting wound up. He says, "No, listen, they can't do that. They--it's not even on the WAY. They didn't even say anything to me. They couldn't--they're just not going to do that."

He sounds more as though he's trying to convince himself of this than he is trying to convince me.

"So far," I remind my boyfriend, "Every time I have predicted what your parents will do in a given situation, I have been right, and you have been wrong. Every time."

"Well not this time. They're not doing this. They can't do this. They didn't even say anything--"

"Yeah yeah yeah they didn't say anything to you about it. Of course they're not gonna say anything to you about it! Your family doesn't communicate--unless it's your dad dumping bad news on your sister four hours before her wedding. Now that kind of communication--"

"Can we please quit talking about my family for awhile? It's giving me a headache," he pleads.

So we talk about something else.

*

Today at 12:30 p.m., when I received a cell phone call from his mother, en route to Las Cruces from Santa Fe, I was this surprised. Yessir, you bet.

On the plus side, my house is now very, very clean. His family can say what they like of me--and they do--but "she lives like a pig!" isn't going to be one of the things they say.

On the minus side, they aren't leaving until Thursday morning.

Have I mentioned that my boyfriend's parents are extremely Catholic? Extremely conservatively Catholic? I'm-not-certain-Vatican-II-was-a-good-idea Catholic? Probably-fans-of-Bill-Donohue's-Catholic-League Catholic?

Pseudonyms: I can't recommend blogging under one enough.

It's Friday, You Say?

Is_it_a_crime, originally uploaded by ilyka_damen.

Then I guess you get cats. Very, very, very much in love cats.

See Also: Utilized*

"People with all your fancy 'dictionaries' and whatnot trying to tell me 'enthused' is a word? I’ve got one question for you: who’s The Fucking Editors around here?"


*Except that "utilized" really is a word--a word I despise in the marrow of my bones. And now that I've said that, you're all going to make sure to use it in your comments, aren't you? Well, you suck for even thinking of doing that.

Happy Birthday to Rob

He's finally old enough to vote, give or take a few years.

Photo: Gratuitous Pawn

Stop by and wish him happy birthday, plus another 50 more.

I Need Advice

What the hell should I do with this blog?

It's like this: A couple months or so ago, I started getting back into politics here and there in my posts. That was great and all, but now I've got this Pandagon thing and my inclination is to leave the silly and/or personal stuff here, save the issues stuff for there.

But then the Edwards thing blew up, and I'm realizing, I'm not going to be able to play it that way, after all. Anyone I piss off at Pandagon is just going to follow me here.

On top of that, I have legacy trolls already--people who are pissed off that I don't agree with them so much anymore. I have never quite figured out why that's so enraging to some people, but clearly, it is. I guess everyone needs a hobby. What that means for me is, I need better bannination capabilities. I'm just not willing to put up with someone, some hypothetical troll, some imaginary skunk who could be named anything, perhaps even "Marlene Dick," or "Seth Weaver," leaving her tapeworm-segment-studded skid marks all over the comments just because OH HEAVENS, I'M A COMMUNIST NOW.

Do you know what I had for breakfast this morning, by the way? Poached embryos on English muffins. They were delicious. Next time I'm going to try them in a little hollandaise, which I will also make, naturally, out of human embryos.

Where was I?

Right! See, with Blogger, I can either manually delete trolling comments after they've already appeared (and usually, thanks to my wack schedule, after they've already been responded to by a few of y'all--thanks for that, btw), or I can put EVERYONE on moderation. You know how I feel about that last option.

So I said a long, long time ago I planned to use Blogger only temporarily, but, you know, I'm lazy, and then the Blogger beta came out and I kind of liked it, and again, I can't say it often enough, I'm lazy. But I'm thinking now's the time to get off my ass and go shopping for hosting plans. I'm getting pretty fond of that Wordpress from using it at Feministe and Pandagon.

If I do that, though, no more eponymous blog--"Ilyka Damen" has outlived its usefulness, though not its stupidity (never, never that). I would like, if she'd be cool with this, something collaborative with Genni. You know what? She's the artist. I should ask HER to name it, right?

My goodness, I'm an idiot.

So that's what I'm thinking, I guess. Tentatively, you know, how I do.

Any suggestions? Complaints? Ideas? Shoulder shrugs?

Compare and Contrast

Chris Clarke, former Catholic:

In honor of recent events: A brief story about an actual Catholic. Well, technically, two actual Catholics. Because I was Roman Catholic back then as well, when Benjamin Cobos was my homeroom teacher. He was a Catholic priest. He was one of the finest men I have ever met.

Frank J., practicing Catholic:

[Amanda Marcotte] made a fool of herself and John Edwards, and now she has some rants up playing herself the stereotypical victim to all those stronger, mean men out there. It's disgusting, really. A woman with self-esteem would admit her mistake and take the consequences... not try and dodge them by hiding behind rantings about a "patriarchy." I know many strong women in my life, and these "feminists" do nothing more than make a virtue out of weakness. Women have gained too much over too long a period to have to suffer the likes of such fools.

It is a sad, sad thing when the former Christians make better Christians than the actual ones.

But I am not done with Frank J. Oh, no, not by a long shot. Did you know "the consequences" of making a fool of yourself--I'm feeling charitable and will grant Frank's interpretation of events for the moment--include an inbox filled with emails like:

It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ?

I make a fool of myself every day and I don't get email like that. If ever I do, I'll be sure to share it with you, so Frank can complain that I'm whining.

Yes indeed, that is some swell bearing false witness you have going on there, Frank--the way you mischaracterize Amanda's announcement that she resigned her position as a "rant," for one, but that's not the star of this show. No, the star is your boldfaced lie that Amanda was whining. I notice you don't quote anything to back that up, Frank--probably because you couldn't find anything that would fit. Certainly this comment of Amanda's makes a liar out of you:

I’m serious, I love hatemail. While it’s obvious to me that Bill Donohue doesn’t have a spiritual or loving bone in his body and only uses Christianity as an excuse to hate women and shill for the Republican party, it’s not obvious to everyone since he does demonstrate some semblance—at times—of an ability to ineptly use dog whistles and code words. But the people who lift their heads when the dog whistle is blown show no such restraint. Turn on the light and the cockroaches scatter, etc.

But let's NOT be honest. Let's just manipulate every complaint by a known feminist until we've forced it to fit into one of our ignorant strawfeminist templates. Which shall we use?--We've got "There They Go with Their Love of Victimhood Again" or "Ha, Ha, Frothing-at-the-Mouth Hysterical Feminazis Need To Just Chill Already." Say, I know! Let's just USE BOTH.

Really, Frank. When did you become such a sad little hack?

More to the point, when did you become so adept at ignoring the teachings of Christ? Because here's what I thought would happen when I clicked your trackbacked link from Pandagon: I thought what would happen was that you would express horror at the people who invoked your God, your religion, to write things like:

Catholics are concerned about killing unborn children, you stupid bitch. Chop away if it suits you, but we don’t have to accept that as moral. That’s why it’s called a religion. Look into it.

And:

Amanda,
after reading your vile screed against Catholics and the Holy Spirit, I just had to see what you looked like. (I envisioned you eyebrow-less, with no visible pupils, and a blank, dead stare.) I see I was correct about the blank, dead stare, but other than that you’re not too bad. I then thought maybe you were mad at God (and by proxy Catholics) for making you ugly, but now I’m figuring you’re just mad at him for making you a woman.

You remember how Jesus was always calling sinners ugly and refusing to 'sociate with 'em because of that? Wait, that wasn't the Bible--that was Mean Girls. I got confused for a minute. Say, what's this?

Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears.

Although this author doesn't explicitly identify as Christian, so perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt--just like you did with Amanda, Frank.

You couldn't stand up and say, "Amanda, I disagree with your positions vehemently, and I was gravely offended by what you wrote about Catholicism--but I am also sorry that some Catholics felt sending you rape threats was an appropriate way to defend their faith, and I want you to know that not all of us support that behavior."

You couldn't do that. Instead, you taunted Amanda for doing something she didn't even do--whining. Instead, you mischaracterized what she wrote. Instead, you lied to your readers for a few cheap laughs. Instead, you took the opportunity to kick someone when she was down, just like Jesus was always doing.

And that says all I need to know about your so-called faith, right there.

UPDATE: Were I blogging the Frank way, the hack way, I might take a moment to note disgustedly that the most ostensibly fervent pro-Israel, anti-anti-Semitic right-wing goybloggers were only too happy to get on board the Amanda-bashing bus with Bill Donohue, a vile bigot given to such remarks as:

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins.

But I am not blogging the Frank way, the Darleen way, the we-only-support-Israel-because-Bush-sort-of-does*, but-if-ever-the-Palestinians-find-oil-and-promise-us-a-sweet-deal-on-it, or-alternately, just-say-something-mean-about-Amanda, you-can-kiss-our-support-goodbye, wingnut hack sort of way--because I don't blog like that, I will just say that I think it is perfectly possible to be angry with both Donohue AND Amanda, because it is. Duh.

Of course, if that were so--if the boo-Amanda crowd were equally horrified by the anti-Semitism of Bill Donohue--one might expect to find one or two posts denouncing Bill Donohue mixed in with all the anti-Amanda hysteria--but one might only expect that if one had just connected to the internet for the first time yesterday.

*Except when he doesn't, but I notice those posts of Meryl's do not get nearly so much attention on the right.

And Guess What Else I Hate?

"You'd better leave now if you're gonna get a parking spot," I nagged my man helpfully this morning.

"Yeah, and I want to stop for coffee."

"Go through the drive-thru at Starbucks."

"Takes too long. I'll just get some at McDonald's or something."

"It's too bad they closed that one shop across the street from campus. Hey, you're coming straight home, right?"

"No. I thought I'd do a little shopping afterwards."

"But you went to the store yesterday!"

"Honey," my boyfriend says tiredly, "what day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"But what DATE?"

"I--oh."

"Yeah."

"Look, don't get me anything. I thought we agreed last year that we're through celebrating this dumb non-holiday."

"I don't remember that. What's the big deal? Let me get you a little present."

But of course, that means I have to get him a little present. And then 10 days from now, on his birthday, I have to get him another one.

I HATE Valentine's Day.

I Hate Weddings

--but I just realized, I have to go to one Saturday, and I don't even like the woman getting married. Life is cruel.

So anyway: Pantsuits--completely not acceptable wedding attire? Sometimes acceptable wedding attire? I'm pretty sure you're all going to tell me they are never okay, which means I am going to have to buy a dress, which is going to make me cry. And yes, I can make a melodramatic production out of ANYTHING. Why do you ask?

Speaking of weddings, all I have to say to this is, I never liked when fundamentalists on the right wanted to butt into your personal business and make everything about their politcs, and I don't like it when someone takes a simple request for wedding suggestions and turns it into "should you even be getting married as long as that right is reserved to heterosexual couples?" Jiminy Christmas, SHUT UP. Let a woman get hitched without it being A Thing for just once. Not everything needs to be a motherfucking action item.

Of course, you're free to make everything an action item anyway, but then I'd better not hear any complaining when someone points out that progressives are just as capable of being annoying Butthead Buttinskis as fundamentalists are, and how that like shouldn't even be a valid comparison because fundamentalists are so wrong and progressives are so right so, you know, they aren't equal. To which I say "I think you are mostly right about that, but when you behave in a manner completely indistinguishable from the people you think are so wrong, don't feign shock when the rest of us have difficulty telling you apart." And because I can't get enough of cliches lately, just insert something here about if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc.

Just personally, I don't care if you're making my business your business because you hate inequality, or because you hate fornication. Either way, you're in my business and you need to get out.

Damn, but I hate going to the mall. It just makes me so cranky.

UPDATE: Next time I need to solicit your advice more than five minutes before leaving for the mall because, unsurprisingly, it turned out you were all right, and there were very nearly NO skirts or dresses to be had. It's ALL pants suits these days. Did I bask in that knowledge? Did I celebrate it properly by buying pants? No, that would have been too easy. Instead, I dug out the one sweater/skirt combo I could find that didn't look completely ridiculous. Which is not to say it didn't look mostly ridiculous, because--well:



When I exited the dressing room, my boyfriend immediately commenced whistling "On the Good Ship Lollipop," because he's a dick. But he's an at least semi-accurate dick (points off for not realizing that "On the Good Ship Lollipop" is actually a song about airplanes), because the outfit does sort of give off that Julie McCoy vibe. And what's with that cutesy ribbon at the neckline? It doesn't actually untie anything. It's just there to look twee.

Oh, well. If worse comes to worst I can wear it to job interviews for Princess Cruises.

Game Over

It's not an ideal win, but I'll take it:

Statement on Campaign Bloggers

John Edwards in News Feed of
2/08/2007 at 11:36 AM EST

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

Also, what Gavin said, though I prefer to express it in nerd video form.



I don't care if you're full.

EITHER YOU'RE STUPID OR DISHONEST, AND I'M SICK OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHICH IT IS, IF IN FACT IT ISN'T BOTH - AN UPDATE: Sure enough, I have a commenter doing the old stick-fingers-in-ears, pretend-can't-hear-you, keep-repeating-same-lines-as-though-that-will-make-them-true maneuver:

What accounts for Amanda's hatred? She seems deeply engrossed in theological issues like "Limbo."

She seem highly perturbed and demonstrates a white hit pursuit of Roman Catholic teaching.

Has she ever expressed religious beliefs of her own? Maybe she on the road to Damascus.

This will not be lived down. Wait till Hillary's guys Carville (a Catholic) and Begala (I think he's catholic, too) get ahold of this.

Johnny-boy, you just might need to get back to channelling dead babies in the courtroom.

"If we just keep saying this will hurt Edwards, maybe it really WILL hurt Edwards" is the refrain of the week, because saying so makes it true if you absolutely under no circumstances EVER QUIT SAYING IT. But never mind--let me deal now with this whole "But wasn't what Amanda said very offensive to Catholics?" thing once and for all.

Oh, wait; I already did that today. Well, if repeating things often enough helps them sink in--

Professor Blather, try a little reading yourself. This very post, for example:

One imagines that the next notion down the pike is going to be that Allah was merely writing satire. And indeed, normally, we’d be down with that. But when you read the Hot Air piece in all its switchbacks and updates, you find that Allah and Bryan have already carefully blocked that exit, doing a #2 woo-woo war dance of outrage over the notion that Amanda’s writing should be taken at anything but than face value.

The problem is not that anyone here fails to recognize parody. The problem is that the bloggers at Hot Air fail to recognize satire or context. And the context of Amanda’s post that Allahpundit is clutching his pearls over is a debunking of the misinformation on birth control that a Catholic premarital seminar was providing–and I’m being charitable by calling it “misinformation.” “Boldfaced lying about how birth control pills work” would be more accurate. Amanda’s weapon of choice against that nonsense was satire. Cribbing from the definition helpfully provided by Sean in another thread:

1.a. A work or composition in prose or verse which (usu. humorously) exposes prevailing vices or follies or ridicules an (esp. prominent) individual; a lampoon; a performance or broadcast of a similar nature.

Here’s the best part: Allahpundit, Preston, and even the crazy one all know this. Normally–that is, if no political hay were to be made off Edwards hiring Amanda–they’d even agree with Amanda that the Catholic church’s teachings on birth control are pretty backward (when they’re not outright false). I mean, last I checked, not one of them was the father of seven good Catholic children.

I’m tired of this sudden conservative genius for missing the point. You guys are not actually that stupid. You know damn well what the point was–with Amanda’s post as well as with what Gavin did here, which was to show that the standard ol’ Cuckoo for Cockopuffs tries to apply to Amanda’s writing doesn’t work when it’s applied to his ideological cronies, and therefore likely doesn’t work applied to Amanda either.

Now if you’d just quit trying to play the rest of us for fools, that would be fabulous.

--then maybe reposting it here will help.

See, the problem is, someone reminded Sadly, No! of an old post Allah wrote that was a little harsh on some Catholic practices. The things is, "Allah" was a character, a parody of a deity gone mad for jihad, and so duh, of course the Muslim deity is going to think transubstantiation is a nutso doctrine. All fine, all good--it's a parody, and the Catholic-bashing is being used in the service of the parody, and the point of the parody is to make fun of jihadists, and if we can't make fun of people who blow up shit for Allah then I don't know what we could possibly have left to laugh at, honestly. Now please pardon me a minute while I whip out the bold and the caps in a futile attempt to prevent another tidal wave of stupidity-or-dishonesty-or-both from crashing down on my poor head:

EVERYONE GETS THAT IT'S A PARODY. NO ONE, NOT ONE PERSON, IS CONFUSED BY ALLAHPUNDIT'S POST. AND SHOULD I BE MISTAKEN ABOUT THAT, IF THERE IN FACT DOES EXIST THAT ONE PERSON, I HEREBY DENOUNCE THAT PERSON. I HEAR YOU GUYS REALLY DIG THE DENUCIATIONS, SO PLEASE CONSIDER THIS MY DENUNCIATION OF ANYONE WHO DOESN'T GET THAT ALLAHPUNDIT WAS TOTALLY FUCKING KIDDING.

So why do I bring all this up? Simple: Because there's that stupid-or-dishonest thing again, in which what appears to be nearly the entire right side of the blogosphere is suddenly pretending not to notice WHY Amanda wrote mean, nasty things about the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (something that, thankfully, none of them ever do, and certainly none of them ever yuk it up about how fuckable the Blessed Mother is), and I'll bet it is not really going to surprise any of my readers to learn that she did it for a similar reason: To make fun of something stupid. And, people, excommunicate me now if you must, but let's not kid ourselves about this: The Catholic church's teaching on contraception is stupid. It's so stupid that very few Catholics even pretend to follow it.

But not only is it a little stupid, some of it's dishonest. Telling lies about how birth control pills work?--I'm not putting that down to stupidity; that one gets marked in the dishonesty column.

And for pointing this out, for attending a Catholic seminar that peddled this birth-control-pill-as-abortifacent dishonesty, and then for coming home and posting about it, observing that lying about the way oral contraceptives work is harmful to women,--for that, well. You saw the results this week. Amanda hates God, she hates you for loving God, she hates all religions everWHAR!!!

This, mind you, from a guy who did an entire blog using the Muslim deity as a spoof character, who had to explain that he didn't really hate Muslims, he just hated Muslims who were prone to blowing things up. Funny thing: So do I. So do most people. So we're cool, right?

Except not really, because if what you want is to make fun of Muslims who blow things up, it might be better to title the blog "Osamapundit," you know, after a Muslim who enjoys blowing things up, instead of using the name of the god all the Muslims who DON'T blow things up ALSO WORSHIP. And since this is bound to come up, because there are no limits in the game of cake or death, or excuse me, stupid or dishonest, note that this blog is called Jesus's General, not "Jesuspundit" or "Jesus is in the House."

None of this is actually difficult to figure out, so I apologize for boring you all with it. I don't know what happened. I DO know that this rant will hereafter serve as my only explanation for why your dumbass Amanda-hates-Catholics comment disappeared from this blog (or, for that matter, from any posts I author at Pandagon): Your comment disappeared and your dissent was cruelly crushed along with it because it was either stupid or dishonest, and I'm not very fond of either quality. The end. Good NIGHT. And for fuck's sake, stop whining.

Why I Support Amanda and Melissa

It may be too late, but here is what I sent the Edwards campaign this morning:

I support Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan and hope you will keep them on board. Both are bright, witty writers, incisive analysts, and dedicated activists who can give this campaign exactly the progressive credibility it needs to distinguish itself from that of Hillary Clinton.

It would be a grave mistake to let the manufactured outrage peddled by right-wing extremists and bigots such as Michelle Malkin and Bill Donohue dissuade you from committing to your original brilliant decision to hire Amanda and Melissa: It would say to your supporters, "We don't have what it takes to lead this country out of the jingoistic, xenophobic, hate-filled place the Bush administration has driven it," and it would say to your opponents and detractors, "You are right; we do not really stand for what we claim to stand for; we are opportunists and politicians, not leaders; it is true, the Democratic Party is filled with unprincipled, fickle wimps."

The criticism John Edwards is receiving for hiring Amanda and Melissa is nothing but proof this campaign is on the right track, for all the most virulent bigots are enraged by it. They were never potential supporters, and they will always find new mud to sling no matter who is attached to this campaign.

Have the courage to do the right thing, Mr. Edwards. Reject the manufactured outrage. Retain these two women whose work means so much to voters like me who would love to support you.

And now just a word or two about how I feel personally about this:

Amanda and Melissa may lose their jobs, and you, the usual complete tools, may crow loud and long about it; but there were women watching your vile production yesterday who began to wonder how much, exactly, the right wing hates women; who began to wonder if this smear campaign would have been carried out in quite the same way had it been Duncan Black or Markos Moulitsas Zuniga whom Edwards hired; who began to wonder if this tidal wave of hate could ever conceivably come crashing down on them.

I say to them, it can.

And if ever you commit the unpardonable sin of changing your mind about anything, and you make the mistake of changing it in the wrong direction, it will.

More from Liza Sabater at Culture Kitchen, who has a roundup of responses.

UPDATE: Almost forgot--contact the campaign yourselves here. Write something supportive even if you don't like Melissa, even if you don't like Amanda.

What?

Yes. Write something supportive even if you don't like Melissa or Amanda, because what's happening to them could just as easily happen to bloggers you do like.

See, no blogger's archives are clean. That's what makes blogging lively, enjoyable, and timely--the ability to dash off your thoughts and receive back the dashed-off thoughts of others, until pretty soon people begin to form opinions, gradually, cautiously. But first, you have to have the brainstorming session. First you have to start with raw ideas.

Blogging is the brainstorming session writ large. As such, it is often messy; but at the other end of the spectrum, you have most political writing, which is banal, sterile platitude after banal, sterile platitude. The ideas have been finessed and massaged right out of most political writing. That's why it bores everyone to tears.

If you like the idea that someday it could even be you running a presidential hopeful's web site, then get behind this. Tell the wingnut bullies you won't say uncle, you aren't going to eat no mud today. Remind them that what goes around comes around. Let Edwards know that whether you agree with their opinions or not, you support the rights of Melissa and Amanda to blog them, and that you think his campaign's hiring decisions are the business of people who are considering voting for Edwards, not of right-wing racists and anti-Semites.

Taste

Let's get this out of the way up front: I have no taste in anything, not music, not movies, not clothes, not slipcovers, not shower curtains. I like what I like and what I like is usually crap. I'm aware of this. Given when I grew up, it was pretty much inevitable; or at least, I would have had to work really hard to fight it. And I don't work hard at anything.

That said, will you please tell me I'm right and the Fug Girls are wrong? Because they are:


They loved this getup; I hate it. The color is that horrible light cyan, good old 0x00FFFF; a color great for highlighting text in a Word document, tolerable for a spring or summer dress, and absolutely terrible for an evening gown. And yet, the color is not the worst of this. No, the worst part of this dress is the way it makes her boobs look--like two oranges in aqua-colored sacks being weighed on individual produce scales, they just sort of hang there, limply.

And then there is that empire waist with that old-lady trim beneath the bust: Vanessa Williams does not need to wear old-lady trim, and she does not need to hide her waist. The woman has a waist, and it is fabulous. Witness:


See? SEE? The Fug Girls didn't like this one, though. They liked the more
"toned down" aqua ensemble. I have my hackles about that "toned down" business. Now there's a phrase that's loaded.

I don't know. I think they got it wrong on this one. Or maybe I don't mean wrong; maybe I mean that all of a sudden the Fug Girls sound very, very white, white like sterility, white like tundra. Not every celebrity needs to follow the Hollywood template of straight light hair, understated gown, boring neutral color, "classic" drape, inoffensive texture. Damn it, we already HAVE Nicole Kidman. One's enough.

Vanessa #1 is Barbie; no more, no less. But Vanessa #2 is fierce. Vanessa #1 is a copy of a copy of a copy of an old mimeograph. Vanessa #2 is the original other people copy.

Am I wrong?

Great Moments in Mudslinging

Some of you might have smelled the smoke from the wingnut witch hunt of Amanda Marcotte, known around these parts as "the nice lady who done gimme a job," this weekend. Basically, the John Edwards 2008 campaign hired Amanda to manage Edwards' campaign blog without consulting Wingnut Nation, and now Wingnut Nation is all kinds of mad because right up until Edwards did that, they were totally going to vote for him.

It seems the court of wingnut opinion finds Amanda guilty of expressing opinions they don't like about the Duke lacrosse case. If this is the sort of triviality we're going to get hung up on in blogland, then I vote we just go ahead and shut the internet down right now. What's the point of saying your piece anyway? Why even have opinions? They cause so much incivility.

Remember this nonsense the next time a right-winger asserts that it's actually liberals who are anti-free speech. Uh-huh? You don't say!

Here, then, are the top five idiocies of wingnut nation's latest fake scandal--or, "Out with Jamil; in with Amanda:"

5: Amanda Marcotte owes the Duke lacrosse team an apology

Source: Dan Collins, Protein Wisdom

What would it take to end the cycle of interblogger violence occasioned by Amanda’s ascension to Edwardian Blogatrix, at least here at PW (if you guys don’t mind my suggestion)? One thing, and one thing only:

Please apologize to the Duke Women’s Lacrosse Team.

I’m not even asking that Amanda apologize to the guys. They’re going to exact their apologies through the legal system (perhaps Edwards will take it on pro bono).

That’s all she has to do, and we’ll leave her alone. Fair?

Why It's So Stupid: You mean aside from the mind-boggling moment when you realize some putz on the internet actually thinks he has the power to make people type what he wants them to type? Because I thought that part was plenty stupid, myself.

Oh, fine: How 'bout because Amanda simply didn't do anything to these guys that might require an apology. It wasn't Amanda who suspended the players for the rest of their season, and it wasn't Amanda who took this case to the press, and it wasn't Amanda who requested DNA samples from the team--and it isn't Amanda who has any power to affect the fortunes of the lacrosse players in any way whatsoever.

For suggesting the most obvious idiocy, Dan Collins just squeaks into the number five spot; sadly, he's going to have to work much harder at his craft to do any better than last place. Better luck next year, Dan!

4. Amanda's got a foul, foul mouth

Source: Multiple, but hitting the Early Times Foulmouthed Bourbon especially hard lately are an advocate of (selective) sweetness and light; this repulsive creature; this one guy who at least admits he's a potty-mouth himself, but doesn't let that stop him from getting on his high horse about Such Language; and, for that grace note of irony that makes even the rottenest fruit smell just a tiny bit sweeter for a moment, a commenter at Protein Wisdom--you know, the site that was scrubbed from Right Wing News' blogroll for profanity? The site which garnered cheers and chuckles galore for producing this?

Why It's So Stupid: Really, wingnuts, people can use Google, okay?

For so perfectly illustrating the double standard that feminism's opponents are always insisting doesn't exist anymore, every purulent pustule who complained about Amanda's language whooshes straight down the porcelain bowl to septic tank number four.

3. I don't know whether to hate Amanda for her not wanting to fuck me, or for her not being a woman I'd want to fuck

Source: Dan Riehl, Riehl World View

Why It's So Stupid: No one wants to fuck Dan Riehl.

For tempting me to rip off The Editors' "Easy Answers to Unnecessary Questions" shtick, Dan Astroglides singlehandedly into the number three position.

2. I'm Concerned: The Classic Concern-Troll Maneuver
a. Amanda won't play in Peoria.
b. This hiring decision really reflects poorly on Edwards.
c. Didn't the campaign office research Amanda before hiring her?

Source: Multiple, including James Taranto:

At the very least, this is potentially libelous, given that the lacrosse players--although still charged with sexual assault (but not rape)--haven't actually been convicted of anything. It is also, shall we say, rather intemperate in tone, and one wonders if Edwards knew just what kind of blogger he was hiring here.

An imaginary Democrat who apparently didn't pay attention to the 2006 elections:

This is to funny - thanks for the laughs. I am not a troll and stumbled on this site from KC’s DIW. KC and Bill A. are brillant, articulate, excellent writers, well schooled and of course, have a vocabulatory that extends beyond using cuss words. Amanda is “bored” - who cares. Of course, she is not going to play in Peoria or outside her group of like thinkers and cursers. To compare her to Ben D. is insulting because he can write. I am a life long liberal Democrat, but had no intention of voting for Edwards anyway. I am going with the gentle warriers Rudy and McCain. The Democrats have lost their base. .

And commenter Earl at Feministe:

I think it is very poor public relations for the Edwards campaign to hire someone who regularly refers to Christians as “godbags.”

I say this as someone who is generally strongly supportive of Edwards, especially his “Two Americas” theme - income inequality in America is way, way out of control and someone needs to do something about it.

Put simply, Amanda Marcotte won’t play in Peoria. Edwards needs to cut her loose before Fox News gets hold of the vitriol she regularly spews.

Why It's So Stupid: I'm just going to crib from my respone to a concerned citizen commenter at Feministe. The commenter's original remarks are italicized:

I read Pandagon and agree with Amanda more often than not, but I think that the text Earl quoted is in poor taste, misrepresentative of the facts of the Duke case, and inconsistent with the quality of most of Amanda’s writing at Pandagon.

Funny thing about that: I’d agree with a kinder, gentler version of that assessment, and yet it never once occurred to me to try to harass Amanda out of a job for speaking her mind; nor do I think her disagreeing with me about the case has any effect on her ability to do the job for which she was hired (that was blogmaster, remember, not press secretary, campaign manager, political strategist, or speech writer).

But then, I’m not a posturing propagator of faux outrage, so I guess that figures, huh?

For supposing that (1) we're stupid enough to believe that this smear campaign has anything to do with Edwards' chances at winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination; (2) we're stupid enough to think Amanda Marcotte has any more influence on John Edwards than you or I do; and (3) we're stupid enough not to notice that the only people who hyped this hatchet job are dedicated misogynists--for supposing all that, every concern troll in this pretend scandal can now pat him- or herself on the back for having reached numero dos on the idiocy list. Congratulations, Concerned American Citizens: You beat the dynamic Dans.

1. Amanda Marcotte is a delusional bitch and, something something some other thing, blah blah--and therefore, the Edwards campaign should fire her.

Source: Gee, guess.

Why It's So Stupid: Because, Dan-O, for a guy who tries to pull this off:

I don’t care that Amanda’s working for John Edwards, and you’re right, Libby, that I’m not drawn from the pool of potential voters for the Bunnyman. I don’t even suppose that it necessarily reflects terribly badly on Edwards that his staff has made such a bizarre gaffe in choosing the Edwardian Blogatrix to run their blog.

--you sure fall flat on your face in the process. Look: You clearly do care, very much, that Amanda's achieved something your sad hack-of-a-hack ass never will, and it's obvious to everyone who reads you, Dan, that your left nut is never going to descend back down out of its happy place until that horrid bitch Amanda is toast. And that's why this is the alarm that sounds in the head of every woman who has had the misfortune to date your type, Dan:

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-EEP

So congratulations, Mr. Collins: For your surprise comeback from last place to first, for your transparent dishonesty that didn't fool my dumbest cat, and for your touchingly naive belief that you could simultaneously (1) hammer the same stupid points over and over again and actually (2) NOT have anyone wonder if perhaps you're a bit obsessive, you've reached number one on the Top Five Idiocies of the Amanda Marcotte Witch Hunt.

Here's your prize!

UPDATE: The divine Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Sheezlebub, on the blatant hypocrisy of Amanda's critics:

While you're at it, perhaps you should look at your own uncivil and bullying behavior before you freak out over the fact that a liberal had the gall to tell you to shove it in the past. Mocking Molly Ivins' death pretty much makes your moral authority nil. Maybe, in other words, you should follow the moral code you insist liberal women follow.

Aw, now, where's the fun in that? "Morality" means "I get to set arbitrary and hypocritical standards for other people," not "I have to live up to those standards myself first."

Further Adventures in Vanity

Later on I hope to have something up about the latest nonscandal enthralling the usual complete tools. In the meantime, click that last link to figure out how I got reminded of the MyHeritage face recognition tool that Jill found last summer.



I am pretty pleased with the results, though less happy to see the bride of Satan in there. Still, not bad for an old broad--and at least it didn't turn up Tor Johnson. Glass houses, stones . . . I used to know a fella who hates Amanda a lot more than you do, Dan, and even he could figure out to put the rock down.

At Last, Something to Look Forward To

Hey! How come I'm only just now finding out that Prince is doing the halftime show today?

Oh, right: Because I never follow sports or entertainment news. But geez, one of you could have told me.

In celebration I present the best Prince song ever. There will be no arguments about this. Like the oily sheen of misogyny clinging to Michael Douglas, it just is.

UPDATE: Well! That was . . . hmm.

Says It Better Than I Could

Oh, exactly:

From this day forward I will call myself a Feminist. That’s it. No radfem, no sex-pos, no anti or pro-porn, no modifiers anymore. There’s too much baggage attached to modifiers. There’s too many restrictions, rules and regulations. There’s too much wagon-circling, too much banding together against the wrong opposition. Too many needlessly hurt feelings. This goes for all of us.

I wanted to leave Vera a comment saying how much I wished I'd written that, but I couldn't figure out how to register. So, Vera, I'm linking, and thank you for putting it so well.

And those five-foot-long utensils are going to come in so handy at the next food fight. One word: Catapult!

Whither Civility?

Cancer remains a guaranteed laugh-getter on the left:

"Mrs. Ivins lived a hard life bashing conservatives in her daily syndicated columns, so unfortunately this her diagnosis wasn't a matter of 'if' but rather 'when,'" said Dr. Thomas Butters, Chief Physician at the University of Texas Medical Center where Ivins died. "When we first discovered Molly had liberalphoma the growth was relatively small considering her history of viciously attacking Republicans starting all the way back to Nixon during Watergate. We advised she rethink future printings of her "Bushwhacked" novel criticizing President Bush, but she wouldn't hear of it. It was almost like she had a death wish."

Liberalphoma, so named because of its' irrational growth rate and side effects that include abnormal bleeding of the heart, has become one of the fastest growing cancers in America.

[holds up hands, palms facing outward, thumbs at 90 degrees]

Whoops! I always have struggled to tell the difference between left and right, but that "liberalphoma" word reminded me to double-check. And what a good thing I did, for it turns out this post is NOT an example of cancer being a guaranteed laugh-getter on the left! Rather, it's just another example of why complaints about civility from the right blogosphere are increasingly greeted with "Yeah? You first, pal. You can start by remembering that cancer isn't fucking funny."

(Via update here.)

Blog Pimpin'

Two posts up now at Pandagon:

Iraqi Police Officer Targeted for Daring To Exist After All - on Jamilgate
Beg, Borrow, or Steal (But Mostly Borrow) - on the minimum wage increase

And then, of course, there are like all these other bloggers posting stuff, but who cares about them?

Oh, fine:

Sheezlebub - Extraordinary Hypocrisy
Chris Clarke - When Corporations Literally Suck
Roxanne - On "Articulate" Black People
Auguste - LGFers Deliver an Early Christmas Present

I am not going to stoop to begging or anything, really I'm not, but it does cross my mind occasionally that it might be nice to see a few familiar names in the comments once in awhile.

You Aren't Meant to Drink It

Helen has been KILLING me this week. I basically had to stop in the middle of reading this, just to link it before I could forget to.

I have not consulted Genni yet on this blog's official position on the subject, but for my part it is somewhere in the neighborhood of fervent agreement. One's not bad; the other is horrible.

I eagerly await speculation on the influence Helen's topic has had on my political thinking from the usual knobs.