Because boys need even more attention.

Disney to target boys with rebranded cable channel, by Dawn C. Chmielewski at LA Times.

The entertainment giant plans to relaunch Toon Disney as Disney XD [on Friday, February 13, at 12 midnight], which will be aimed at boys ages 6 to 14.

. . . the Disney Channel has struggled for years to find the right programming formula to lure boys, who tend to gravitate to Viacom’s Nickelodeon and Time Warner’s Cartoon Network – that is, when they’re not spending time playing video games. The Disney Channel’s popular live-action shows, from its early tween phenomenon, “Lizzie McGuire,” through its current pop-culture sensation, “Hannah Montana,” mainly attract girls. Efforts to bring in more boys, through male-led series such as “Even Stevens” or “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” still haven’t succeeded enough to close the gender gap between female and male viewers. Animation, traditionally a draw for boys, has been a struggle for Disney Channel, although its newest series, “Phineas and Ferb,” appears to be building a strong male following. But so far, the network has failed to produce a blockbuster to compete with Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants;” or match the guy-centric focus of Cartoon Network, which one ad-buyer described as the “ESPN” of animation.

"You’re fighting the brand perception, the very, very strong brand equity that’s been in the marketplace for many, many years," Kahn said of the Disney Channel. "It would almost require a completely separate effort to reach tween boys, with a completely different name somehow associated with the Disney property, to reach these tween males."

None of this is news to Ross, who, with his executive team, spent more than a year with focus groups pondering the eternal verities: “What do boys want?”

The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is that boys want it all. "What we heard, loud and clear, is they expect from Disney this broad array," Ross said, with programs running the gamut from animation to action-adventure to comedy. "They expect from Disney the whole thing, including movies." In short, tween boys are looking for more than a show or two wedged in the midst of the musical theater-inspired programs that have come to define the Disney Channel. They want, Disney says, a channel they can call their own.

"They want a place, essentially a headquarters for them where their favorite content exists, that has this broad array of shapes and sizes and tenors and complexities, and treats them with the respect that Disney Channel treats all kids, and the girls are fanatical about," Ross said.

So tiny girls get The Disney Channel, with many shows whose casts are actually more than 50% male. And tiny boys get Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney XD, with shows whose casts are almost 100% male. Yes we can! If we are tiny and white and male!

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I don't even watch Avatar,

but this sounds like standard Hollywood procedure:


Airbending Racism in The Last Airbender, at A Chatterbox.

Recently, an announcement came out regarding the casting for the “The Last Airbender” movie, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and based on the cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender“. You can find the post with the announcement and pictures of the proposed actors here.

Now, even if you don’t know much about the show or were unaware that it was heavily influenced by a variety of Asian cultures, you could at least pick up on the fact that while the drawn pictures of the sister and brother pair, Katara and Sokka, show them as being brown skinned, the actors picked for them are very, very white.

and

M. Night, say it isn't so, by nojojojo at The Angry Black Woman.

. . . one of the things that hooked me about this show was that it was set in an all-Asian world. And it wasn’t fucked up. OK, let me clarify. You know how usually, when there’s an Asian character in an American TV show, he (or more frequently she) ends up as the martial arts master, the (white) hero’s submissive love interest, the dragon lady vamp, or the magical elderly person dishing out nonsensical proverbs and occasionally a can of whoopass? The thing is, all of these stereotypes are present in Avatar to some degree. But because the whole world is Asian, they’re lost in a sea of non-stereotypical, non-exoticized, perfectly normal human beings. How amazing is that? Not only that, but Avatar actually depicts different Asian ethnicities. Though this is a fantasy world, there are clear allusions to the Inuit, Koreans, Mongols, Tibetans, several flavors of southeast Asian, various Indians, and more. The Chinese- and Japanese-analogues of the story actually come in several varieties (Earth Kingdom and Fire Kingdom, Kyoshi warriors, etc.) . . .

. . . I’m sick of this. I know it happens all the goddamn time, but I’m sick of it. This persistent belief on Hollywood’s part that brown people “don’t sell” has to change. I would’ve expected better from M. Night, who is Asian himself, but as we all know, being a PoC doesn’t make one immune to white supremacist thinking, or stupidity . . .

I like "Leavin'" more the next person, but I couldn't get through an entire episode of Summerland. If Jesse McCartney wasn't compelling enough to keep my interest in a WB series (and I watched Young Americans . . . and Pepper Dennis), I don't think he has the talent to convince me that he is both Asian and a skilled martial artist. But since he fits the teen idol mold, Jesse (and others like him, winky wink) gets the part, regardless of his actual qualifications.

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I blog in my pajamas.

Don't you?

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I was thinking about that, too!

Yoko Ono: A Feminist Analysis (Introduction: Oh Yoko!), by Cara at The Curvature via Feministe.

. . . the treatment of Yoko Ono is still relevant to our understanding of art, relationships and a woman’s place in society.

Yoko Ono’s name is tossed around as an insult, sometimes "jokingly," sometimes really and truly hatefully. Any woman who dates a male band member and expects to be treated like a person, or any woman who is seen to in some way cause a change in a male artist of any kind, is particularly at risk of being called “Yoko.” To a lesser extent, so is any woman who expects to be given equal consideration as her partner and her partner’s friends friends. Why is it an insult, exactly? Well, because “everyone” hates Yoko Ono. She’s a mentally unbalanced, scheming, money-grubbing, castrating bitch. Oh, and she broke up the Beatles. Or so they say . . .

. . . If you actually take the time to read Beatles history, you’ll see pretty clearly that the cracks in the band were showing for some time before John Lennon even met Yoko. John was growing away from the Beatles musically, struggling with drug addiction and with the insecurity he seemed to feel in varying degrees throughout most of his life, and was therefore lashing out and pulling away from the group. Paul McCartney was making a power grab for control of the band, one that he was winning and John felt powerless to stop — and while John had a tendency to be nasty to the people closest to him, Paul had a tendency to be extremely condescending and controlling. George Harrison was resentful of John and (especially) Paul’s refusal to take his songwriting and musicianship seriously — even though despite being neither the greatest songwriter or vocalist in the group, he was absolutely fucking brilliant. Ringo Starr never had a serious problem with any of the other Beatles, but was feeling incredibly marginalized within the band and distraught over the disharmony.

Poor Ringo. :( I see him as the undersung Beatle.

The other thing that changed my mind was John himself, and his persistent, repeated earnestness in professing that he wanted out of the Beatles long before Yoko and she only gave him the strength to do it; not to mention his proclamations of happiness and rightful insistence that anyone who hated Yoko and didn’t respect their relationship certainly didn’t love him or have his best interests at heart. And realizing that Yoko wasn’t to blame for the Beatles breakup makes you ask a question. Why does the myth persist?

Why indeed. Rebel Grrrl mentions the old SAT-style analogy "Men:Heroes as Women:villains". I agree with that in so many ways. Cara is bringing the deepness with her Yoko Ono posts.

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I would report on more Princess Unicorn stories if I could,

but these provocative stories just jump out at me:

Katrina's Hidden Race War, By A.C. Thompson, The Nation via Feministing.

. . . During the summer of 2005 Herrington was working as an armored-car driver for the Brink's company and living in a rented duplex about a mile from Algiers Point. Katrina thrashed the place, blowing out windows, pitching a hefty pine tree limb through the roof and dumping rain on Herrington's possessions. On the day of the shooting, Herrington, Alexander and Collins were all trying to escape the stricken city, and set out together on foot for the Algiers Point ferry terminal in the hopes of getting on an evacuation bus.

Those hopes were dashed by a barrage of shotgun pellets. After two shots erupted, Collins and Alexander took off running and ducked into a shed behind a house to hide from the gunmen, Alexander tells me. The armed men, he says, discovered them in the shed and jammed pistols in their faces, yelling, "We got you niggers! We got you niggers!" He continues, "They said they was gonna tie us up, put us in the back of the truck and burn us. They was gonna make us suffer.... I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was gonna leave earth."

Apparently thinking they'd caught some looters, the gunmen interrogated and verbally threatened Collins and Alexander for ten to fifteen minutes, Alexander says, before one of the armed men issued an ultimatum: if Alexander and Collins left Algiers Point and told their friends not to set foot in the area, they'd be allowed to live.

Meanwhile, Herrington was staring at death. "I was bleeding pretty bad from my neck area," he recalls. When two white men drove by in a black pickup truck, he begged them for help. "I said, Help me, help me--I'm shot," Herrington recalls. The response, he tells me, was immediate and hostile. One of the men told Herrington, "Get away from this truck, nigger. We're not gonna help you. We're liable to kill you ourselves." My God, thought Herrington, what's going on out here?

He managed to stumble back to a neighbor's house, collapsing on the front porch. The neighbors, an African-American couple, wrapped him in a sheet and sped him to the nearest hospital, the West Jefferson Medical Center, where, medical records show, he was X-rayed at 3:30 pm. According to the records, a doctor who reviewed the X-rays found "metallic buckshot" scattered throughout his chest, arms, back and abdomen, as well as "at least seven [pellets] in the right neck." Within minutes, Herrington was wheeled into an operating room for emergency surgery.

"It was a close-range buckshot wound from a shotgun," says Charles Thomas, one of the doctors who operated on Herrington. "If he hadn't gotten to the hospital, he wouldn't have lived. He had a hole in his internal jugular vein, and we were able to find it and fix it."

After three days in the hospital, which lacked running water, air conditioning and functional toilets, Herrington was shuttled to a medical facility in Baton Rouge. When he returned to New Orleans months later, he paid a visit to the Fourth District police station, whose officers patrol the west bank, and learned there was no police report documenting the attack. Herrington, who now has a wide scar stretching the length of his neck, says the officers he spoke with failed to take a report or check out his story, a fact that still bothers him. "If the shoe was on the other foot, if a black guy was willing to go out shooting white guys, the police would be up there real quick," he says. "I feel these guys should definitely be held accountable. These guys had absolutely no right to do what they did." . . .

There's more!

. . . militia member Wayne Janak, 60, a carpenter and contractor, is more forthcoming with me. "Three people got shot in just one day!" he tells me, laughing. We're sitting in his home, a boxy beige-and-pink structure on a corner about five blocks from Daigle's Grocery. "Three of them got hit right here in this intersection with a riot gun," he says, motioning toward the streets outside his home. Janak tells me he assumed the shooting victims, who were African-American, were looters because they were carrying sneakers and baseball caps with them. He guessed that the property had been stolen from a nearby shopping mall. According to Janak, a neighbor "unloaded a riot gun"--a shotgun--"on them. We chased them down."

Janak, who was carrying a pistol, says he grabbed one of the suspected looters and considered killing him, but decided to be merciful. "I rolled him over in the grass and saw that he'd been hit in the back with the riot gun," he tells me. "I thought that was good enough. I said, 'Go back to your neighborhood so people will know Algiers Point is not a place you go for a vacation. We're not doing tours right now.'"

He's equally blunt in Welcome to New Orleans, an hourlong documentary produced by the Danish video team, who captured Janak, beer in hand, gloating about hunting humans. Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."

Janak, who says he'd been armed with two .38s and a shotgun, brags about keeping the bloody shirt worn by a shooting victim as a trophy. When "looters" showed up in the neighborhood, "they left full of buckshot," he brags, adding, "You know what? Algiers Point is not a pussy community."

Within that community the gunmen enjoyed wide support. In an outtake from the documentary, a group of white Algiers Point residents gathers to celebrate the arrival of military troops sent to police the area. Addressing the crowd, one local praises the vigilantes for holding the neighborhood together until the Army Humvees trundled into town, noting that some of the militia figures are present at the party. "You all know who you are," the man says. "And I'm proud of every one of you all." Cheering and applause erupts from the assembled locals.

Some of the gunmen prowling Algiers Point were out to wage a race war, says one woman whose uncle and two cousins joined the cause. A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all--white against black--that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."

"They didn't want any of the 'ghetto niggers' coming over" from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as "fair game." One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who'd been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was "gleeful"--her cousin was happy that "they were shooting niggers." . . .

I support peace.

Israeli troops and tanks slice deep into Gaza, by Ibrahim Barzak and Jason Keyser, AP via Yahoo! News.

Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships surrounded Gaza's largest city and fought militants at close range on Sunday, in the first full day of an overwhelming ground offensive in the coastal territory.

Israel said it has inflicted a heavy blow against Hamas as it expands a weeklong offensive meant to stop rocket fire on southern Israel. But spiraling civilian casualties among Palestinians fueled an international outcry, even as the U.S. blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement Saturday night calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Israel's ground forces moved in after nightfall Saturday following hours of intense, fiery artillery shelling to clear the way, and Hamas warned that its fighters would turn Gaza into an Israeli "graveyard."

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers continued to fight primarily in open areas in the launching zones used by Gaza's militants to send rockets raining down on Israeli cities. As the troops in three brigade-size formations moved in, residents of those Israeli cities began emerging from bomb shelters in hopes that the rocket fire would taper off.

Backing up the troops, mobile artillery units fired shells that exploded in veils of white smoke over Gaza's urban skyline. Tanks pushed south of Gaza City as deep as the abandoned settlement of Netzarim, which Israel left along with other Israeli communities when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

That effectively cut off Gaza City, the territory's largest population center with some 400,000 residents, from the rest of Gaza to the south.

The article continues:

Gaza officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in the onslaught, which also continued from the air.

At one hospital, in the northern village of Beit Lahiya, medics carrying three injured children in their arms rushed them to treatment. One of the children had a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his head and covering his eyes.

An Israeli airstrike close to Gaza City's main market showered the area with shrapnel, killing three children, all of them siblings, medics said. Militants were using empty land next to the Firas market to fire rockets.

Israeli forces killed dozens of armed Hamas gunmen, an army statement said, but Gaza officials could confirm only a handful of dead fighters — in part because rescue teams could not reach the battle zones.

The new deaths brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip to more than 512 since Dec. 27. The tally is based on figures from the U.N. and Palestinian health officials as well as a count by The Associated Press.

One Israeli soldier died — the first to be killed in the ground operation — and 30 others were wounded, some of them in heavy exchanges of fire near the militant stronghold of Jebaliya, a town on Gaza City's northern outskirts, the army said. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.

Condemnation of Israel's ground operation poured in from around the Middle East and Europe.

"It is absolutely necessary that the violence has to stop," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

And then:

Support for Israel remained firm from U.S. officials, who squarely blame Hamas.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Israel "didn't seek clearance or approval from us, certainly" before thousands of soldiers pushed into Gaza after nightfall on Saturday.

Sens. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin — the top two Democrats in the chamber — and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell all described Israel's actions as understandable. "I think what the Israelis are doing is very important," Reid said. "I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away. They've got to come to their senses."

I don't understand how any of this is "understandable". I don't understand why U.S. officials are taking sides. I don't understand how to "put away" a "terrorist organization" by killing civilians, including children. If someone is reading this who knows more about this almost century-long situation, please explain it to me.

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It's okay, he was 21.

I am currently crushing on Matthew Broderick in WarGames. He was a computer dork who liked hacking into undersecured mainframes; what's not to love? I watched part of the movie this morning, but I didn't get to finish it. Barry Corbin was a lot nicer in One Tree Hill, and Ally Sheedy was a lot more interesting in The Breakfast Club. Well, she was until Molly Ringwald turned her into a Soc for Emilio Estevez. Is Emilio still working? Oh. The things you do for family.

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Not in my house,

not around my kids.

The Pink & Blue Project by JeongMee Yoon, by Sarahh, Apartment Therapy.

. . . The Korean artist's ongoing photographic series explores the links between cultural preferences, gender socialization, and identity through the bedrooms and belongings of various little boys and girls.

The "Pink & Blue Project" overwhelmingly reminds us of how socially ingrained the two colors are with set genders. Looking at Yoon's photos makes us want to send something blue to our friend and family's little daughters and something pink to their sons . . .

This is why I give my nieces and nephews non-gender-specific gifts. This is also why I won't be telling my family and friends the genders of my future babies until they pop out, or arrive, in the case of the acquired ones. I will be raising my kids in the manner of the Fabulous Child named X. My children are going to love their socially-nonconformist mother. And by "love", I mean "be thoroughly embarrassed by".

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Speaking of Edward Cullen . . .

Let the comparisons continue.

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The chicken came first.

On Race and YA Lit, by Neesha Meminger, Racialicious.

. . . years ago when I was submitting my first (admittedly awful) manuscript to agents, some of the nicest rejections I received were accompanied with, “Your novel has much to love, but regrettably, we already have an Asian author for our list.”

Now I understand The Brushoff – I’ve provided plenty of those in my life and do not resent or judge other providers of same. But to be satisfied with ONE author representing an entire continent that consists of countries as varied as Korea, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, and Nepal? Seriously?

All you have to do is stroll through the aisles of a bookstore to see that the fantasy, mystery, romance genres are stocked full. And not with fantasy, mystery, or romance by authors of Color. Those, if and when they exist, often get stocked in the African-American, Native-American, Asian-American, Latin-American, or Multicultural sections.

Given the choices that agents, publishers, and major bookstores make about what they acquire and how they promote it, does the market inform what gets published?

Or does what gets published actually inform the market?

It's the latter.

This week I had a related discussion with one of my male colleagues [Hello, and please leave a comment!] about women in television. It is the same argument I have with many male people about the representation of women in American media. Their side usually goes like this:

"I see women in television all the time. There's Lifetime, WE, Oxygen. Men only have Spike. Even though men comprise the leads on almost every scripted and nonscripted series on television, along with almost all the substantial secondary roles, that reflects the demand of the audience. If women demanded more TV shows about women, then networks would produce them. Studios and networks don't want to lose money. You shouldn't blame them for producing programming for men, by men and about men (specifically white, ostensibly heterosexual and Christian men) because that's what audiences want. Why do you hate capitalism?"

That was a compilation of sentiments, not direct quotes. During my last conversation like this, I wanted to start screaming and throwing things. It usually takes my Dirty Girls story to get the other person to accept that I have a valid, informed position about media representation, despite the fact that I've been writing about this for over two years and I have a degree in film production . But by that point in the discussion, the other person is irritated by a multitude of issues, mainly the fact that I won't back down because I know what I'm talking about.

Each time I have this conversation, I try to get better at it. Yet it still amazes me when people are oblivious to their own privilege and the effects that it has on everyone else. Which leads to the screaming inside my head.

Lack of demand does lead to certain shows getting canceled and certain books not flying off the shelves. However, if the people who control the supply of media don't believe that certain demographics exist (or would prefer that certain demographics didn't exist at all), the audience can never demand what they don't know about.

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What about the customers?

I'm totally not Abercrombie.

One of my New York buddies reminded me of these sketches this week, so I posted the video. Hello New York buddy!

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Almost worse than Twilight

How does Anne Hathaway go from helping break barriers in Brokeback Mountain, to reinforcing stereotypes in Bride Wars?

bt-dubs, I started reading Twilight, and the experience has not been a good one. The pattern of physical and psychological abuse starts early for Bella and Edward.

An excerpt:

"What if I'm not a superhero? What if I'm the bad guy?" [Edward] smiled playfully, but his eyes were impenetrable.

"Oh," I said, as several things he'd hinted fell suddenly into place. "I see."

"Do you?" His face was abruptly severe, as if he were afraid that he'd accidentally said too much.

"You're dangerous?" I guessed, my pulse quickening as I intuitively realized the truth of my own words. He was dangerous. He'd been trying to tell me that all along.

He just looked at me, eyes full of some emotion I couldn't comprehend.

"But not bad," I whispered, shaking my head. "No, I don't believe that you're bad."

"You're wrong." [. . .]

Umm . . .

[. . .] We were near the parking lot now. I veered left, toward my truck. Something caught my jacket, yanking me back.

"Where do you think you're going?" [Edward] asked, outraged. He was griping a fistful of my jacket in one hand.

I was confused. "I'm going home."

"Didn't you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?" His voice was still indignant.

"What condition? And what about my truck?" I complained.

"I'll have Alice drop it off after school." He was towing me toward his car now, pulling me by my jacket. It was all I could do to keep form falling backward. He'd probably just drag me along anyway if I did.

Oh, it continues.

"Let go!" I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideway across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me -- I stumbled against the pasenger door.

"You are so pushy!" I grumbled.

"It's open," was all he responded. He got in the driver's side.

"I am perfectly capable of driving myself home!" I stood by the car, fuming. It was raining harder now, and I'd never put my hood up, so my hair was dripping down my back.

He lowered the automatic window and leaned toward me across the seat. "Get in, Bella."

I didn't answer. I was mentally calculating my chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me. I had to admit, they weren't good.

"I'll just drag you back," he threatened, guessing my plan.

I tried to maintain what dignity I could as I got into his car. I wasn't very successful -- I looked like a half-drowned cat and my boots squeaked.

This is in Chapter 5. I haven't gotten halfway through the book yet, and already the main character is being dragged across a parking lot by the twisted, emotionally-manipulative vampire that she is inexplicably in love with.

Readers, if your love interest tells you that he is "the bad guy", believe him. Then run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

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Taking it to a whole . . . 'nother . . . level.

Why must you leave me, MADtv?

Take it away, krumping clowns:

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Saving me an hour and a half.

Bring it on down to Turkeyville!

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It's not easy being funny.

Seriously funny, by Jessica Valenti, The Irish Times.

. . . What's particularly radical about this humour isn't just that feminists aren't expected to be funny, but that women in general are so often accused of being humourless. Christopher Hitchens' 2007 Vanity Fair article "Why Women Aren't Funny" [referenced by me here] caused a storm of both approval and opprobrium, and was just the latest in a long line of male swipes at women's comedic ability - there are dozens of websites dedicated to just how unfunny women supposedly are.

And these attitudes can be a big problem for women entering the industry.

Comedian Kathy Griffin, star of the reality show My Life on the D-List, has said that "the level of profound sexism in stand-up is so extreme and so high; not only is [the male-to-female ratio] not 50/50 in the comedy world . . . it's like 90/10." At the root of this culture seems to be the fact that, as Joan Rivers once noted, "men find funny women threatening". Any woman who wields her wit is refusing to be put in her place. . . .

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You cannot afford it!

I need my own show.

I was watching The Suze Orman Show a few weeks ago, as I am prone to do, and I just don't know what is wrong with some people. Most of the guests that talk to Suze in the first segment usually want help and are eager to take Suze's sound advice. However, last night's guest was living in a fantasy world inspired by The Real Housewives of Orange County. She and her husband were emerged in a lifestyle that cost them twice what they earned per month. They also had over $230,000 of credit card debt. Yet this woman, who was physically on the show asking Suze, wanted to ignore Suze's advice. Instead of selling everything and moving into a small apartment that her family could afford, she wanted to keep the overstuffed, overblown mansion and the belongings that she didn't actually own.

This week, a woman called in to the "Can I Afford It?" segment and wanted to spend $1200 on a professional resume writer. $1200? Ummm . . .

People need to call into my imaginary show so I can give them advice. Here are the exclamations that you will hear from me every Saturday night from 6:00 to 7:00 pm:

• Preach the word, Suze!

• That's what I'm saying!

• Diversification!

• Don't get a second mortgage to lease a second car!

• Sign the prenup!

• Get your own retirement account!

• You can't live in your vintage sports car/Chanel bag/used speedboat/Christian Louboutin shoes!

• Move your money out of the stock market if you are ready to retire!

• How are you calling into The Suze Orman Show with credit card debt? Pay off your credit cards!

Unfortunately the people who call Suze can't hear me through the TV.

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The best part of my Thanksgiving:

hanging out with people who know why it is bizarre to only have friends who look exactly like you.

Seriously. It has been difficult to find someone who doesn't think it is normal and natural to primarily associate with people who look like you, regardless of whether those people have anything else in common with you.

Here is a story to illustrate my situation and my point. Let's say I moved to a new neighborhood named Sesame Street. Who are the people in your neighborhood? There are Big Birds and Snuffleupaguses and Counts and various monsters and domestic partners and grouches. Let's say I'm a frog. I could hang out with Kermit and his nephew Robin, but they are often busy with The Muppet Show on another set. I could hang out with the other characters in my neighborhood, who seem nice overall. The problem is, those characters tend to segregate themselves by gender or by category: the boys, the monsters, the birds, the grouches. It's hard enough to break into a clique. It's even harder when many of these characters have never before met--much less befriended--any frogs before; and previously, their closest encounter was with those burping Budweiser frogs from the TV.

So, if 1) the other frogs are rarely in my neighborhood, and 2) the people in my neighborhood are confuzzled by frogs in general, then who am I supposed to hang out with? :(

I encourage you readers to take an honest look at the people in your lives. If you look to your left, then you look to your right, and your closest friends are near carbon copies of you--down to the highlights in your hair, or the lack of hair all together--you should think about that. Just like the employees at Enron failed to diversify their 401K portfolios, your homogeneous friend investment could lead to high vulnerability. But most importantly, frogs are super nice and sometimes shy, so you should try to include them, i.e., me. :)

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What the . . . ?

'Twilight' redefines the meaning of 'chick flick', AP via Yahoo! News.

Someone needs to remind me of the original meaning, because I thought this movie was about some dude agonizing over being a vampire. Does "chick flick" [that phrase makes me want to vomit] now mean "any movie featuring a woman in a speaking role"?

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines chick flick as "a motion picture intended to appeal especially to women." But "Twilight" is no lightweight date movie — instead, it's a real-girl's chick flick, where a normal-looking teenager finds romance with a modern (if undead) Prince Charming.

"It's the most insanely romantic film since ' The Notebook ,'" said Harry Medved, a spokesman for Fandango.com, who described Pattinson's Edward Cullen as "the ideal boyfriend. ... He's incredibly strong, superfast, impossibly handsome, he plays the piano and all he cares about is what's on her mind."

So much to unpack, so little time. Main point: I am tired of so-called journalists expressing shock at the fact that women go to movies, and subsequently categorizing any movie that women watch with a condescending label. Also, regarding "some of the top-grossing chick flicks in recent years", what part of High School Musical 3 translated to any definition of "chick flick" [retching]? It was a movie with actors in their 20s playing kids in high school, that was watched by kids in elementary school.

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Who went to see Backstreet Boys tonight?

I did!

It was awesome for many reasons. Here are the top two:

1. Kevin came back! He made a surprise appearance during the last song, "Shape of My Heart."

2. Going to this concert with my friends helped me feel better about who I am and what I am about. Apparently I'm all about Backstreet Boys. I will have to add that to my value proposition, because it needs some padding right about now.

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I'm a Vanessa

Not from Gossip Girl, but from The Cosby Show.

Readers, Which Huxtable Are You?

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The Receptionist and The First Lady

Will Michelle Obama Spark the Next 'Mommy Wars' Skirmish?, by PunditMom, BlogHer.

The momification of Michelle Obama, by Rebecca Traister, Salon.

The Associated Press wondered what kind of first lady Michelle will be, and concludes, "the kind of first lady this country has not seen in decades." You mean, the kind with a high-powered job? No, "the mother of young children." True enough, and the AP story did include the fact that Michelle is known to be her husband's closest advisor. But it made sure to emphasize the campaign's assertions that "she is not interested in shaping policy or reserving a seat for herself at her husband's decision-making table. She prefers, at least for now, to focus on easing the transition for Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 -- getting them in new schools, settled and comfortable with a new way of life." Indeed, Michelle herself has been flogging the term "mom-in-chief" as the cheerily unthreatening title she'll assume when she gets to the White House . . .

. . . Prior to Hillary Clinton, we'd never had a first lady who had a post-graduate degree. Michelle Obama went to college at Princeton and law school at Harvard. She was a practicing lawyer at the Chicago firm Sidley Austin when she was assigned to mentor the summer associate who would become her husband. She was his mentor . . .

In one of the smartest pieces that has been written about the next first lady, Geraldine Brooks' profile of her in the October issue of More magazine, Brooks writes that while you can see Michelle's life as the quintessential modern woman's success story, the trajectory can also be read as a "depressingly retrograde narrative of stifling gender roles and frustrating trade-offs." In serious ways, Brooks writes, "it is her husband's career, his choices -- choices she has not always applauded -- that have shaped her life in the last decade."

I am so tired. I'm tired of women in my media regressing to roles befitting Leave it to Beaver or The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet or even I Dream of Jeannie. These women have powers far beyond those of their male partners. Yet these women choose to play down their powers as much as they can so as not to overshadow their men.

I didn't look hard enough to find similar articles about Pam on The Office, so I'll summarize the situation. (You can watch the latest episode, "Frame Toby", on the NBC website, until it is taken away.) Pam leaves her receptionist job in Scranton, PA, (yes, that Scranton) to attend art school in New York City for three months, where she can exercise her notable talent. At the end of three months, Pam fails a class and must decide whether to stay in New York to retake it. Instead of continuing to follow her dream, she returns to Scranton, to her receptionist job at a failing company, so that she can be with her fiancé Jim, who is stuck in a dead-end career at the same company. Jim then buys his parents' crumbling house--thereby acquiring major debt in a depreciating investment vehicle during a recession [look at my fancy book-learning!]--and "surprises" Pam with it. And Pam . . . loves it? Her exact words are, "You bought me a house!"

Yeah, no. I understand that the writers of The Office had to lock down Jim and Pam in Scranton so that the series could continue. However, the series has now passed the point of plausibility in many regards, including the Jim and Pam story. The writers have given no explanation for why Jim couldn't move to New York and accelerate his career at the corporate office; the corporate executives already want him to work there. That way Jim could be with Pam, and support Pam's dreams to work as a skilled artist in New York. But no, they are both back in Scranton. Why? So that they can be Ozzie and Harriet.

It leads me back to the First Lady and President-elect, and to what I was talking about in August, when the John Edwards scandal was a-buzzing. At the moment, I am working so hard in so many ways to make my career and my life successful. Yet the most prominently featured woman in the United States media has traded in her higher education to become Donna Reed. I hadn't thought about this before, but there is going to be someone in the White House who looks like me. That should be cause for celebration. I'm sure people think I'm jazzed about First Lady Michelle Obama. But I'm not. Because I see exactly what's going on. Michelle Obama is being painted as someone's wife/mom/decorator. Or, as in the case of The Stephanie Miller Show yesterday morning, she is categorized as a black woman with a large behind. And in many ways, Michelle Obama isn't challenging that characterization.

"The primary focus for the first year will be making sure that the kids make it through the transition," [Michelle Obama] said, sitting alongside her husband [on 60 Minutes]. "But there are many issues that I care deeply about." She cited two that she focused on during the campaign: Military families, and the work-family balance.

One part of these situations that irks me greatly is the complicity of the men involved. Rebecca Traister calls it "crucial (and heartening)". However, silence is acceptance, no matter how much Barack Obama acknowledges "that Michelle's challenges in these coming years may not be much fun for her." Don't sit there watching your wife's career and individual identity slip away from her; do something about it.

. . . In "The Audacity of Hope," he describes the gradual tipping of the professional scales in his relationship with Michelle, as she allows him to become a distraction, and then a date, and then a husband and a father, at the same time that he is becoming a politician. At first, he writes, they were both "working hard," he as a civil rights lawyer and a professor, she for the city and at Public Allies. Then they had Malia, and "the strains in our relationship began to show."

When he launched his congressional run, Barack writes, "Michelle put up no pretense of being happy with the decision. My failure to clean up the kitchen suddenly became less endearing. Leaning down to kiss Michelle good-bye in the morning, all I would get was a peck on the cheek. By the time Sasha was born ... my wife's anger toward me seemed barely contained."

Barack continues, "No matter how liberated I liked to see myself as -- no matter how much I told myself that Michelle and I were equal partners, and that her dreams and ambitions were as important as my own -- the fact was that when children showed up, it was Michelle and not I who was expected to make the necessary adjustments. Sure, I helped, but it was always on my terms, on my schedule. Meanwhile, she was the one who had to put her career on hold." Barack considers his dawning realization that in his wife, as in so many working women, there was a battle raging. "In her own mind, two visions of herself were at war with each other," he writes. "The desire to be the woman her mother had been, solid, dependable, making a home and always there for her kids, and the desire to excel in her profession, to make her mark on the world and realize all those plans she'd had on the very first day that we met."

What a touching story. He tried to help. It's so sad that Barack Obama hands were tied by his own naked ambition. I must dab the tears from my eyes.

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Best news of the day

Stevens loses Alaska Senate race, by Michael R. Blood, AP via Yahoo! News.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn't survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

Stevens' ouster on his 85th birthday marks an abrupt realignment in Alaska politics and will alter the power structure in the Senate, where he has served since the days of the Johnson administration while holding seats on some of the most influential committees in Congress.

This is the same Senator Ted Stevens who fought for the Bridges to Nowhere and against using that money to help repair bridge damage from Hurricane Katrina.

The crotchety octogenarian [There's no need for editorializing, Mr. Blood, regardless of how accurate.] built like a birch sapling likes to encourage comparisons with the Incredible Hulk, but he occupies an outsized place in Alaska history. His involvement in politics dates to the days before Alaska statehood, and he is esteemed for his ability to secure billions of dollars in federal aid for transportation and military projects. The Anchorage airport bears his name; in Alaska, it's simply "Uncle Ted."

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Agreeing with Republicans

Showdown looming in Congress of automaker rescue, by Stephen Ohlemacher, AP via Google News. Emphases mine.

Hardline opponents of an auto industry bailout branded the industry a "dinosaur" whose "day of reckoning" is near, while Democrats pledged Sunday to do their best to get Detroit a slice of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue in this week's lame-duck session of Congress.

The companies are seeking $25 billion from the financial industry bailout for emergency loans, though supporters of the aid for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have offered to reduce the size of the rescue to win backing in Congress . . .

. . . Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said it would be a mistake to use any of the Wall Street rescue money to prop up the automakers because a bailout would only postpone the industry's demise.

"Companies fail everyday and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down," said Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "They're not building the right products," he said. "They've got good workers but I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur in a sense."

Added Kyl, the Senate's second-ranking Republican: "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."

If you do agree with bailing out General Motors, I suggest you watch Who Killed the Electric Car?, and then reevaluate your opinion.

There is no need to give corrupt millionaires and billionaires even more taxpayer money.

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These are my people, too.

Because they are women and comedians. Not because half of them are British.

So many insights. If only more people had told me that I was funny when I was growing up. Now I get to be a later-in-life funny lady.

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Musing from a black woman: Barack Obama = African American

Yesterday I was greeted with this questionable, newsy article on the Yahoo! front page: Obama victory opens door to new black identity, by Jesse Washington, AP via Yahoo! News.

Before Tuesday, black identity and community were largely rooted in the shared experience of the struggle — real or perceived — [Apparently my struggle is now perceived] against a hostile white majority. Even as late as Election Day, many blacks still harbored deep doubts about whether whites would vote for Obama.

Obama's overwhelming triumph cast America in a different light. There was no sign of the "Bradley Effect," when whites mislead pollsters about their intent to vote for black candidates. Nationwide, Obama collected 44 percent of the white vote, more than John Kerry, Al Gore or even Bill Clinton, exit polls show . . .

. . . Certainly racism did not disappear after Obama's white votes were counted. No one is claiming that black culture and pride and community are no longer valuable. Many also dismiss the idea of a "post-racial" America as long as blacks and other minorities are still disproportionately afflicted by disparities in income, education, health, incarceration and single parenthood.

But white groups that once faced discrimination, such as the Italians, Jews and Irish, have moved from the margins to the mainstream. America debated whether John F. Kennedy could become the first Catholic president; now that's a historical footnote.

If I ever again have to hear someone mention groups of white people who had been discriminated against in the past, and then equate them with black people who continue to be discriminated against in the present, it will be too soon. There are historical differences amongst various oppressed ethnic groups, and it is unwise to ignore those differences. For instance, the ancestors of Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans and Catholic Americans (some of whom are all the same people) came to the United States relatively voluntarily. Whereas the ancestors of many (though not all) black Americans did not come to the United States voluntarily; they just happened to survive the Middle Passage.

This seemingly endless election and the final results have reminded me of something Wanda Sykes said in her Comedy Central Presents special. She repeated in her book, Yeah, I Said It:

I'm not politically correct. I still say black. I say it because with African American, there's no bonus. It doesn't make your life any easier. You don't see black people standing around, saying, "Oh yeah, African American. Man, I'll tell ya, this beats the hell outta being black. We should've made the switch years ago. Oh, this is nice."

You don't see any of us going into Bank of America, "Excuse me, I'm here to pick up my loan."

"Uh, Ms. Sykes, you were rejected for that loan last week."

"Oh, that was last week. I was black then. See, I'm African American now. I'll just go in the vault and take what I need. I'll sign on my way out."

African American ain't helping nobody. You think Rodney King's black ass is sitting somewhere, saying, "Damn, if I just would have waited two years before I acted a fool, they wouldn't have been beating my black ass. I would have been African American." . . .

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Seven percent

According to CNN's exit polls, 10% of the 2,240 respondents who voted on Proposition 8 were "African-American". 70% of those people voted yes on Proposition 8. Which means that 7% of the respondents who voted yes on Proposition 8 were black. Conversely, 93% of the respondents who voted yes on Proposition 8 were not black. 93%. And yet, black people are getting most of the blame.

Using the same data and method of calculation, here are some more statistics: Of the respondents who voted Yes on Proposition 8,

• 19% were white Republicans
  
• 25% were conservatives
• 25% approved of the war in Iraq
• 27% attended church weekly
• 30% voted for Bush in 2004
• 32% voted for McCain in 2008
• 37% were married

But it's still the black people's fault because . . . ?

Here's what Renee has to say about the situation: Black Friendly When We Need You, Womanist Musings via Feministe.

When other so-called justice programs needs us, they remind us of the ways in which we are marginalized and attempt to point out that their exclusion is the same. You know what I'm talking about, the "it's just like Rosa Parks line." This often makes me want to ask, really are you sure? It seems that white people have a history of knowing what blacks go thorough on a daily basis when it is convenient for them to admit the ways in which they discriminate against POC. When they want something from us, like a vote on a bill, organizing help, or even a gopher to make coffee they suddenly are so understanding of what blacks are dealing with.

The rest of the time we get told about how equal the world is; yes the wonderful post racial world that we have been informed that we are all living in. With the election of Obama we have even been flatly told that we have no excuses left for being at the bottom of the race and class hierarchy. White people have been decent enough to put aside their racial hatred and therefore blacks should just buck up and deal with the high level of incarceration, bad schools, inequity in employment, etc and etc., It's socially unacceptable to say nigger today, as that is the mark of a bigot; however the other ways in which blacks are disenfranchised are socially deemed a figment of our collective imaginations.

It seems it does not matter what the social movement is, as long as it is represented by white people, POC are ignored until needed. If you look at the advertising campaigns, or organizing patterns for gay rights, fat phobia, animal rights, and feminism, all have a tendency to ignore POC. Our specific interests within the movements are ignored in order to present a white image to the world. Somehow the idea that whites are facing discrimination is supposed to make the world stand up and take notice, yet the idea that blacks may be dealing with multiple areas of stigmatizations at the same time is unimportant . . .

. . . As I am watching the backlash from the GLBT community regarding PROP 8, I am filled with so much anger and sadness. Where is the angst for the white voters who supported PROP 8? The GLBT community spent no time in black churches, community centres or neighbourhoods and yet they expected to be supported. You cannot call upon us for convenience sake, and then shove us back into the closet (yes intentional choice of words) when we are no longer needed.

A gay black man or woman irregardless of race is still gay and some white members have turned this into a hostile movement for them. Where is the sense of community in this? What these organizers fail to realize is that they have precious little connection with POC [People of Color] to begin with, and if they begin with the racist taunts they will alienate the few supporters that they already have. This is a time when they need to be reaching out to POC to make a bridge that they never attempted to build in the first place, and yet descending into racial politics is the route that has been chosen. This is a myopic policy that will only serve to push gay rights even further back . . .

I hear that, dude.

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"Please welcome Liz Lem-ooon!"

I learn so much from 30 Rock. Apparently it's illegal to be black in Arizona. Good to know.

I could totally be a 12-year old Oprah, bringing black men and white women together. Wait a minute . . .

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That's not what the article said!

Why Gay Marriage Was Defeated in California, by John Cloud, Time magazine via Yahoo! News.

. . . Gays came back in some polls, but they couldn't pull out a win. Part of the reason is that Obama inspired unprecedented numbers of African Americans to vote. Polls show that black voters are more likely to attend church than whites and less likely to be comfortable with equality for gay people. According to CNN, African Americans voted against marriage equality by a wide margin, 69% to 31%. High turnout of African Americans in Florida probably help explain that state's lopsided vote to ban same-sex weddings . . .

Let's take this one section at a time.

". . . Gays came back in some polls, but they couldn't pull out a win. Part of the reason is that Obama inspired unprecedented numbers of African Americans to vote."

So Obama inspired black people to vote against gays? What about the gay people he inspired to vote for him? What about the black gay people he inspired to vote for him? And what about the nongay, nonblack people who voted for Obama but also voted for Proposition 8? Why is there consistently this overblown, overrated tension created by the media pitting groups against each other. It's getting as bad as the fabricated Mommy Wars stories that pop up every year.

"Polls show that black voters are more likely to attend church than whites and less likely to be comfortable with equality for gay people."

Did someone miss the past eight years with groups like Focus on the Family and the the Christian Coalition practically running the US political agenda? I don't think most of those people are black, but I do think many of them are uncomfortable about equality for gay people.

"According to CNN, African Americans voted against marriage equality by a wide margin, 69% to 31%."

What the linked CNN article actually says is, "African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin." Meaning, 69% of African-American California voters supported Proposition 8; not African-Americans in general voted against marriage equality. There is a difference. One sentence is a statistic, while the other is a misleading generalization.

"High turnout of African Americans in Florida probably help explain that state's lopsided vote to ban same-sex weddings."

That's not what the linked Boston Globe article said. Here is what was actually stated:

". . . They were the kind of voters who gave Obama victories in key battleground states nationwide. In Florida, as elsewhere, turnout was especially strong in many African-American precincts yesterday. Tamika Ruffin, 29, a third grade teacher, said she was thinking of her brother as she cast her vote for Obama at the Blessed Trinity Catholic Church in a middle-class section of St. Petersburg. "He's going to give young black men and boys some self-esteem and hope," she said . . . "

The article mentioned nothing about the ban on same-sex weddings, nor did it attempt to put the blame on black people. Yet Mr. Cloud jumped to that conclusion all on his own and had the backing of both Time magazine and Yahoo!. Lovely.

Here is one more selection from Mr. Cloud:

"The entire New York legislature is now in Democratic hands, and New York's governor, David Paterson, is one of the nation's most eloquent pro-marriage-equality representatives. He is also, by the way, African American. Perhaps he can help bridge the gap between gays and blacks that widened on Nov. 4."

bt-dubs, y'all, there's a black guy in the Governor's Mansion. In New York. Even though I thought we were talking about propositions in California and Florida. Apparently black people will listen to any leader from any state, just as long as that leader is black.

I will say this again, Mr. Cloud: There are people who are both gay and black. Just like there are people who are both black and female. People can be more than one thing at the same time. Stop feeding into the myth that the black people are keeping the gay people down. There are some issues to be resolved, but we didn't start the fire. DOMA was signed into law back in 1996 by one of your pale brethren. And P.S.: Your gay brethren have some strong words for you, too.

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The Framers

Last night Senator Barack Obama got elected President of the United States. As of this morning, Californians have voted 52% to 48% to ban gay marriage. Here is what commenter Erik had to say on Feministe about these two situations:

At least some commentators are suggesting that what pushed Prop 8 over the top was African-American voters coming out to vote for Obama. I think we need more analysis to really say this, but there’s no question that there’s a lot of work to be done in the African-American community on LGBT issues.

Really, idiot? We black people don't have a monopoly on hate. Although, that is the impression one would get from reading articles in the mainstream media.

From Yahoo! News:

Exit polls for The Associated Press found that Proposition 8 received critical support from black voters who flocked to the polls to support Barack Obama for president. About seven in 10 blacks voted in favor of the ban, while Latinos also supported it and whites were split.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Supporters of same-sex marriage may have been hurt by the enthusiastic turnout among African-Americans for president-elect Barack Obama. CNN exit polls found black voters affirming Proposition 8 by a 70-to-30 margin. Whites and Latinos, however, were nearly evenly split.

"African-Americans are less supportive of same-sex marriage and more uncomfortable with the whole idea of gay rights than are whites," says Patrick Egan, a New York University professor of politics who has studied the issue. However, in previous years, exit polling found blacks no more likely than whites to vote for same-sex marriage bans, suggesting a reticence to take away rights.

From U.S. News & World Report:

The first results showing Proposition 8 leading were posted while Obama took the stage in Chicago to give his acceptance speech. Many same-sex-marriage supporters here were struck by the irony of the moment: While Obama represented a symbolic victory over historic discrimination, gay couples in California appeared to be losing the same battle. According to exit polls, in addition to widespread support among conservatives in the state, huge turnout among African-Americans may have played a role in the defeat of same-sex marriage. Seventy percent of blacks told pollsters they voted for the ban.

One of the many things that has been scarcely reported is where the monetary support for Proposition 8 is coming from.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

. . . one prominent organization that had entered the fray in support of Proposition 8 hasn’t escaped unscathed either. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) agreed to join a coalition that included other religious groups to advocate for the ban. Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City sent a letter in June asking church members in California to work for its passage.

Last I checked, there weren't that many black Mormons, except for the ones in my family. Yeah. I'm also doubtful of a large black population in the Knights of Columbus or in Focus on the Family, despite the imagery of the article.

Even if every black person in California voted for Proposition 8, we only make up less than 7 percent of the population of California. That means if the approximately 2.4 million of us black people--including the children and the people not registered to vote--all voted for Proposition 8, we still wouldn't make up half of the 5.3 million votes that were cast in favor of Proposition 8.

Simply put, there is no logical reason to blame black people for the passage of Proposition 8. And yet our media is perpetuating the message that since we black people were all obviously out voting for Barack Obama, we black people were all obviously out voting for Proposition 8 as well. Because we black people love the church and hate the gays. Right. Thank you, mainstream media, for your fair and balanced coverage.

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This is how far we have come

Obama's victory caps struggles of previous generations. Hooray!

New Congress turns more -- much more -- Democratic. Hooray!

Prop. 2, animal protection measure, wins. Hooray for the animals that we're going to eat?

Early numbers favor same sex marriage ban in California. What?

I would like to note that over 6 million Californians voted to protect the animals, while under 5 million Californians voted to protect the rights of their fellow human beings.

Some may say, "you should be happy about the first black guy in the White House." Well, I am happy that the reign of terror will be over soon. However, the video below displays one of the many reasons why I continue to be concerned, nay disappointed, in the direction of this country, especially with two men in charge who think that some people should be separate but equal:

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I still love the song

but that video is embarassing. I never saw the whole thing until today. I had to make sure it wasn't three guys parodying 911's "Love Sensation" video from 1996. It wasn't. That's really 911, prancing around a carnival, performing poorly choreographed dance moves on a suspension. I knew it was the real video when I saw Casper the Ghost, because the song was on the soundtrack for Casper: A Spirited Beginning. I had exquisite taste in music at age 15.

Happy voting!

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Hello new readers!

Thanks for stopping by! I encourage you to peruse the Best Posts Ever down on the right side of your screen, and please leave comments.

Here is my favorite headline of the day: 'Zack and Miri' Banned in Utah, by Jonathan Crow, Yahoo! Movies.

If you're looking forward to seeing Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks in director Kevin Smith's new R-rated comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" this weekend and you live in Salt Lake City, you might be out of luck. Utah Jazz and Megaplex Theaters owner Larry Miller has refused to book the film. The chain's spokesman Cal Gunderson expressed concerns about the film with The New York Post, citing the film's "graphic nudity and graphic sex" and that it was "too close to an NC-17."

The company's standards seem a little odd considering that the chain had no problems screening ultra-violent fare like "Saw V," which features beheadings and explicit self-mutilation. When asked why Megaplex Theaters did not object to the gory horror sequel, Gunderson had no comment . . .

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