Musings from a black woman: I can weigh in on this!

Write What You Know: Limiting or Authentic?, by Neesha Meminger, Racialicious. Emphases mine. It is a long post, but keep reading. You can do it!

The other day, I came across a blog post by Editorial Anonymous, “The CSK is Dead (Long Live the CSK).” The Coretta Scott King Award was established in 1969 and is given to outstanding African-American authors and illustrators of children’s books.

Editorial Anonymous writes,

"If the CSK were in charge, male writers wouldn't be able to comment on what it's like to be a woman. The CSK is saying that you cannot understand what it is to be black in America unless you are black.

"Giving an award for creating art about the experience of race is a wonderful thing. But giving an award for creating art and being a particular race?

"That’s racism in action."

So this set me a-pondering. Is it cool for white people to write from the perspective of people of color? How about, as Editorial Anonymous mentions in the quote above, for men to write from the perspective of women?

[. . .]

[prize-winning white woman author Laurie Halse Anderson] also goes on to write, “Slavery affects all Americans today, regardless of ethnic background, or how long our families have lived here. Slavery is the elephant in our country’s living room. It won’t go away until we acknowledge, understand, and deal with it.”

This is absolutely true. Racism (and slavery) affects every single one of us, no matter what our background. White people should be taking it up as an issue – just as men should be taking up the issue of sexism and misogyny –and talking about it, examining it, exploring, and looking for more equitable and just paradigms. And writing a novel like Chains may be this one white woman’s way of doing that.

So . . . what’s the issue? Is there an issue?

There is the view among some writers that one’s creativity or artistic vision should not be limited or “fenced in,” and restricting writers to write only what they know does exactly that. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard some variation of, “Who wants to read about a liberal white woman from New Jersey/Iowa/Seattle?” [I would!]

However, in an interview on ustrek.org, Sherman Alexie, author of Ten Little Indians and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, as well as the writer/director for Smoke Signals, jokingly suggested a “10-year moratorium for white writers so that Indians can tell their own stories instead of having white people tell them. ‘The fact is, when white authors step away from their typewriters, they’re still white. When I get up from the typewriter, I’m still an Indian.’ He wants those authors to question their privileged positions.”

[. . .]

Next time you go to a bookstore, check the shelves and see how many books there, are in any given genre on any given subject, written by people of color. My guess is that very few genres, if any, will have an accurate representation of global demographics in the titles. And that is because there are so few writers of color getting picked up and supported by publishers in any kind of substantial way (a là Twilight, Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, etc. And, of course, these examples hold true for film as they were all adaptations of novels).

As a South Asian author writing YA, I know from experience that many editors are hesitant to pick up more than one novel with an Indian-American protagonist written by an Indian-American author – even if the two novels are different genres and about entirely different subjects – because both novels still fall under the Multicultural category. This often creates the “everyone elbowing for the one seat on the bus” phenomenon among the marginalized authors who have to fight for that one lone multicultural spot. But I digress…

Yet, as we all know from visiting our local bookstores, or taking an online stroll through Amazon, there is an abundance of books/films by white writers writing on every subject, in every genre – with more than one writer often covering the same topic for varying perspectives. A publishing house can have several white fantasy authors and historical romance authors, even a few writing about spiritual journeys and all of those books are seen as different books. None of my white author friends have ever had their agents come back to them with, “No, this editor declined because she already has a European title about identity issues.”

I, on the other hand, have heard that exact same phrase, substituting “European” with “Asian.” . . .

I thought about this recently as I was looking at some of my associates who insist upon socializing with and befriending others based on color and gender. I'm not kidding. It is that bad. When you look at them, you feel embarrassed for them. It is hard to believe that they are 30-year-olds living in California, instead of high school seniors going to a segregated Georgia prom.

As I try to explain to people with whom I have enlightening discussions, there is a difference between white men writing about nonwhite and/or nonmale people, and those people writing about themselves. For instance, I know infinitely more about white men than they could ever know about me or any other black woman. I have personally encountered thousands of white men in my short lifetime. That does not include the countless number of white men I have been forced to read about, listen to or watch as part of my "educational" process. In the United States, white men are in your face all the time. Unless you live on a reservation with no mainstream media access, you cannot escape them. I could tell you gross generalizations of what they like, what they don't like, how they grew up, what they think of themselves, the lies they have been told and which they subsequently believe, and who they dream of becoming and why. I could adopt a pseudonym, write Memoirs of Joe Six-Pack, and it would sell millions. (Don't steal my idea! Or, if you do, please blog about it and let me know.)

However, that does not work in the reverse. Some white men have never met any black women, or any nonwhite people at all. Others can count all the colorful friends they have ever had on one hand. They could also count the important black women they have heard of on two hands. An example:

1. Rosa Parks
2. Harriet Tubman
3. Michelle Obama
4. Oprah
5. The overly-mentioned Halle Berry
6. Weezy Jefferson
7. Whoopi Goldberg
8. Tyra Banks
9. um . . .

There aren't even any black women in either of the Night at the Museum movies, as if black women never existed in history, or at least in museums. There are two women (barely) featured in the second one, including Amy Adams, who primarily function as Ben Stiller's younger, better-looking love interest. Or "Amelia Earhart." Whichever.

Based on my above analysis, writing what you know may be limiting, but it can be more authentic. It is revolting that so many books, TV shows and movies that include (white) female characters are written by (white) men. It comes through in the voices of those characters, like when those middle-aged men were writing about those self-involved twentysomethings. It is dishonest, less than believable and disappointing. If more nonwhite and nonmale people were allowed to actively participate in the infrastructure of corporate media, then sure, write whatever you want. But that is not the case, and I do not appreciate having my alleged story told by white men who all share the same one black friend. That is, if my story gets told at all.

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I have never worn Lacoste.

But I have read Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster who is featured above. It was funny. Too bad we don't all have the time to exercise for four hours a day like the main character of the book has.

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My advice:

Take a nap.

Here, Here! 13 Years Of Perfect Attendance., by , The Washington Post via Yahoo!.

. . . Stefanie Zaner, Iron Kid of Darnestown, is closing in on her 2,340th straight day of public school. The 18-year-old is unlikely to get the standing ovation afforded Ripken for his streak when she arrives at Northwest High School on Friday for the last day of senior classes in Montgomery County. But hers is a rare accomplishment. Not once in 13 years was Stefanie marked absent: not for a cold, a family vacation, a college visit or a senior skip day. She once went on a freshman trip to Shanghai with the school marching band and boarded the plane with her clarinet only after securing written assurance from the principal that the trip would not count as an absence. She has never broken a bone, thrown up or caught the flu or even a bad cough, she said. "There were days in high school when I thought she was too tired to get up," said Debbie Zaner, Stefanie's mother. "But by high school, it was up to her. It wasn't up to me." . . .

In five years, no one will care that you missed no days of school and got straight As. Furthermore, college visits are way more important than attending class during your second semester of your senior year.

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What is that supposed to mean?

Hello, Mr. Heartache, by Jincy Willett, New York Times via Jennifer Weiner´s blog.

Holly Frick, the writer at the heart of Sarah Dunn’s new novel, hates the term “chick lit.” Since we never actually get to read her own novel, “Hello, Mr. Heartache” — whose horrible title was imposed by her publisher’s marketing department — we can’t be certain that she hasn’t actually written “fiction by and for women,” the generally agreed-­upon definition of that loathsome term. But the novel in which Holly herself appears was definitely not written just for women, no matter how it’s packaged. True, the protagonist is female, the setting is Manhattan, and the focus is on relationships — and there’s a big shopping scene. True, mostly women will read it. But then women are the ones mostly reading every­thing. Besides, it’s not about shoes. And the shopping is for books, at the Strand. Also, unlike chick lit, chick TV and chick movies, “Secrets to Happiness” is actually funny.

Way to self-hate, Ms. Willett.

bt-dubs, New York Times: aren´t you up for sale?

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"A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders!"

And how.

Republican women: A minority in a minority, by Erika Lovley, Politico via Yahoo! News.

Women make up almost 51 percent of the U.S. population but less than 10 percent of the House and Senate GOP — a gender disconnect that could make the Republicans’ climb back to power even steeper than it would be otherwise.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) notices that she’s part of a shrinking minority every time she heads to the Senate floor for a vote.

Republican women in the House say they feel the problem — literally — when their male colleagues nudge them to the front of GOP press conferences to break up the solid lines of middle-aged white men in neckties.

Indeed, Rep. Kay Granger — the first and only Republican woman to represent Texas in the House — says Republican women have to work to make sure they’re even represented at public events in the first place. "We pass the word to make sure we're there at this ceremony or that photo-op, because there are fewer of us and we're spread more thinly," Granger said. "We're working in a very successful manner, and we want to make sure that’s shown."

I would like to be in a photo-op!

While Palin provided a high-profile role model for Republican women thinking of running for office, her experience was a double-edged sword. Lawmakers say the rough treatment Palin received showcased the nastiness of modern campaigns and underscored the notion that women are susceptible to the charge that they’ve been picked to run because they’re a good demographic fit — and not because they’re the most qualified.

Yes, the rough treatment that Sarah Palin received during the 2008 Presidential campaign. No one else received rough treatment. No one else at all.

But the pool is shallow. State legislatures, which often serve as feeders for Congress, are also seeing fewer Republican women step up to the plate. Meanwhile, Democratic training outlets such EMILY’s List have been well-organized and highly successful at recruiting, while Republican womens' groups, such as the National Federation of Republican Women and the Wish List, say they are bracing for another tough election cycle.

. . . "If you believe that a more centrist position for the Republican Party would bring about more success and bring more voters back, then women would help make that happen," [said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics]. "Women bring a voice of moderation that could pull them back to the party."

The Republican Party should focus on bringing in moderate people, not simply matching the Democratic Party by getting more women, or by putting a white lady and a black guy in high-profile leadership positions.

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The children are our future,

including the future of our media: Wonder Where All The Assistants Were?, Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood.

Some observant comments:

Wow! Look at all the minorities! Why aren’t there any white male assistants? Someone really needs to do something about this, guess they just can’t find any. Oh wait, there’s one, there’s another, oh, the tint on my screen was on. The number of blacks in the oval office is equal to the number of blacks in this photo.

- Anonymous

We need one black one, an asian, a white one, a persian, filipino, ok one more white guy, uh, a latino, a light skinned brotha, move along people, leave no empty seats, women please take the back seats, we’re on a tight schedule…

- Roll call

Even Rockville CA is better than the fictional account of this industry subset: The Assistants. At least Josh Schwartz's characters have pigmentation in their eyes and hair, if not in their skin.

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We have come so far.

No, really, we have. That's not sarcasm. Much further than this:

Now we get this:

And this:

Though, no more of this:

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I knew there was something missing in the new/old Star Trek.

Black to the Future, by Danielle Belton, The Black Snob.

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY THERE ARE SO FEW BLACKS IN THE FUTURE

1. Segregation. Most of us are working the elevator lifts and have other shitty jobs no one else wants.

2. New DNA technology allows us to be "bred" out making, white skin a dominate gene trait.

3. Still too broke for space!

4. New technology allows people the choice on whether to be born black or not. God. Was that a story in "Faces At the Bottom of the Well" because that sounds scary as shit.

5. Hey! That AIDS finally worked. Wait. What?

OK. I've officially scared myself with all these oddly plausible scenarios. Anyone else got a theory on how we got left behind?

I counted two black people in the Star Trek trailer, and one of them was also playing the role of "the girl." Then there was the beloved John Cho, who had approximately 4 seconds of screen time. I will hypothesize that all the colorful people, along with and including all the women, found a peaceful planet, and left the paler gentlemen to play their reindeer games.

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"Plus or minus black people"

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Because it's not enough to be born in this country to be considered a real American. This is why I never like to call anyone a hyphen-American. I've never even been to Africa. If only black people didn't vote. Or exist. Then the results would be more accurate?

Byron York responds to the claims that he is a racist, which, okay . . .? Instead of addressing the problems with the article he wrote--including a faulty poll which "divided respondents into black and white, with no other groups reported", as if no other people live in United States--Mr. York is worrying about allegedly being considered a racist. He should worry more about being considered a shoddy journalist.

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I concur, ladies.

ShePop: Time to feed our longtime girl crush on 'Target Women' host Sarah Haskins!, by Jennifer Armstrong, Entertainment Weekly. Emphases mine.

EW: [Your Target Women videos on Current TV] have gotten you enough attention to sell a script.

Sarah Haskins: I’m supposed to technically say it’s been "optioned." It’s called Book Smart. I wrote it with my writing partner Emily Halpern, who’s written for The Unit and Private Practice. I know her from college. It’s about two girls who have been perfect their whole life and they decide senior year they’re going to devote their perfection to the getting of boyfriends. We wanted to do a female take on a typical teen movie. I think just complexity of character is a little bit lacking [in many female-focused films], and I think you’re also missing a broader spectrum of women. There are all these beautiful ladies who can’t get a boyfriend, and it’s like, Really?

Jennifer Weiner, A Moment of Jen. Emphases mine.

Last week, home sick, I read HAPPENS EVERY DAY: AN ALL-TOO-TRUE STORY by Isabel Gillies, the story of a young mother’s marriage falling apart. Probably you’ve seen it – they’re selling it at Starbucks. More importantly, probably you’ve seen Ms. Gillies, who was an actress with a recurring role on Law & Order before she chucked it all to follow her feckless husband to the hinterlands of Ohio, in the name of love.

Gillies is, in a word, gorgeous: a statuesque blue-eyed blond with killer bone structure. But I didn’t know that when I downloaded her memoir, and the Kindle didn’t provide me with either a book cover or an author photo.

In a weird way, the omission made the book a lot more suspenseful than it would have been if I’d had Ms. Gillies’ visage staring me in the face every time I glanced at the back flap. A happy ending would have been a foregone conclusion. Of course she was going to meet “the love of (her) life,” as she wrote on the very last page. Probably on the way back from the post office where she mailed in her manuscript! And she probably got proposed to twice on the way there!

Instead, I read without knowing what the author looked like…although, to be fair, I figured that if she was a working actress she probably did not have the kind of face and figure that would cause observers to run away, screaming…and Gillies notes, more than once, that she considers herself pretty, is considered pretty by others, and often slid by on her good looks.

But a picture is, as they say, worth a thousand words. Being told someone is a looker is not the same as having the evidence right there in your hand. And so I read, thumbing that “NEXT PAGE” button with the dread you feel watching a horror movie, when the pretty girl whose car breaks down hikes to the creepy mansion on the hill to ask for help, and decides to take her top off beforehand. No! I thought, upon learning that Gillies’ intended had ditched his first wife while she was pregnant. Don’t marry him! It’s not going to end well!

I was charmed by Gillies’ description of arranging wildflowers in Ball jars on the organic farm outside of Oberlin; engrossed as I read about the wallpaper she and her husband chose for their big, brick house, the sweet nicknames they used for one another; enchanted with descriptions of her morning routine and her afternoon tea and the tomato-and-gruyere tart she cooked. My heart was in my throat when the gamine brunette who would eventually steal her husband’s heart showed up on campus. When Gillies, clad in a puffy down parka that probably had Cheerios in its pockets, falls to her knees in front of her husband’s mistress to beg for her marriage, I was right there in the snow with her.

Would I have felt that level of identification, that empathy, that edge-of-my-seat, thrill if I’d known that the author probably hadn’t lacked for male attention since age twelve and wouldn’t be lacking for it long, even with two kids, in the wake of a broken marriage?

I’m not sure. I suspect the truth is that I would have looked at the picture more than once, and read the book rolling my eyes. Those charming descriptions of wildflowers and nicknames and tomato tarts and summers with her still-married parents in Maine would have sounded precious. The drama of the kneeling-in-the-snow scene would have read as melodrama. And the ending would have had me cynically shaking my head: babe lands boyfriend. Stop the presses!

C'est tout.

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Which is worse:

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calling a former US President a war criminal (no, not that one), or dropping atomic bombs on Japan? I would think it is worse to kill over 200,000 people with nuclear weapons.

I don't understand how Jon Stewart has spent the past eight years validly lambasting the second Bush administration for its wrongdoing, yet feels the need to apologize for validly calling someone a war criminal who attacked two cities with nuclear weapons. No other president or country has ever done that. Maybe Jon would feel differently if he had ancestors or family from Nagasaki or Hiroshima who went through that permanent destruction of their homes and lives.

But what do I know? I don't have a late night talk show on a basic cable network.

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"I fold my socks."

Something for the ladies. If only more companies cared about what women actually want.

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"Meredith, where are your panties?!"

Oh, dear.

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"What's up, vaginas?"

I've been watching Rockville CA on TheWB.com over the past few days, and the commercial above is accurate. The commercial is also almost as long as each episode.

My thoughts on the series so far:

• How could Aiden play a dumber role than he did on South of Nowhere? I didn't think that was humanly possible.



• When did Dan move to California? Oh, that's not Dan? Is that Adam Brody? No, I was mistaken: in this show, the self-referential, adorkable, dark-haired, pale-skinned gentleman who bears a remarkable resemblance to creator Josh Schwartz is named "Hunter." He is completely different that the other two doppelgängers.



• Just because you can use salty language (at 1:30) on the interwebs that you cannot use on network television does not mean that it will add to your program's humor or quality. For advice on including cursing in jokes, please see Jim Gaffigan.



• The only nonwhite person in the show is the well-read bouncer? Really, TheWB.com?

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She will Bea missed.

'Golden Girls' star Bea Arthur dies at 86, AP via omg! news on Yahoo!.

I am totally a Dorothy, though I do have my Sophia moments.

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This is one reason I like Free Radio:

the characters look like and act like relatively normal people, including the two women on the show. Though, this is not the normal situation in mainstream media:

Fat Actors vs Skinny Actresses, by Melissa Silverstein, Women & Hollywood.


What’s the Skinny on the Heftier Stars?, by Michael Cieply, The New York Times.

A scene from the new journalistic thriller “State of Play” says it all.

Jeff Daniels, as the politician George Fergus, squares off with Russell Crowe, as the pen-wielding journalist Cal McAffrey.

Two men. One notebook. Four chins.

Hollywood’s pool of leading men is getting larger — and not necessarily in a good way.

Based on a close look at trailers, still photos and some films already released, at least a dozen male stars in some of the year’s most prominent movies have been adding on the pounds of late.

In “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” a subway heist movie due from Columbia Pictures and MGM in June, Denzel Washington, 54, goes cheek-to-jowl with the bulky John Travolta, 55 — and they are beginning to look like a matched set. Mr. Washington is no longer the lean, mean boxing machine he portrayed in “The Hurricane,” 10 years ago.

[. . . ]

Even Leonardo DiCaprio, the young heartthrob from “Titanic,” is better padded these days, at 34. Photos from the set of “Shutter Island,” a thriller on tap from Paramount Pictures and the director Martin Scorsese in October, show a little bit more to love.

Hollywood’s women may have weight issues of their own. But it is somehow less noticeable, possibly because actresses who expand do not often get roles to showcase that growth. Kathleen Turner, 54 and the onetime seductress of “Body Heat,” last December put in a rare film performance as Ms. Kornblut, the plus-size dog trainer in “Marley & Me.”

[ . . . ]

Appearing on the “Today” show on Tuesday, Mr. Crowe, 45, said he was working his way down to fighting trim for his current role as Robin Hood in a new film for Universal, but he confessed that pounds were dropping more slowly than he had hoped.

He might want to get some diet advice from Jason Segel.

Mr. Segel, 29, was fairly hefty in “I Love You, Man,” a comedy released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in March. But his face looked surprisingly thin on billboards advertising the film.

The advertising photos were done some weeks after the film shoot, with a slimmer Mr. Segel, said Katie Martin Kelley, a publicity executive with Paramount. “There was no retouching done,” Ms. Kelley said.

I had not noticed Russell Crowe's increased "insulation" in the State of Play trailer. Though I did notice Jason Segel's in I Love You, Man; Jason had even more cushioning than he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yet the women allowed to appear in all three of these movies are painfully thin, completely overshadowed--literally and figuratively--by their male counterparts.
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I would like to have couple friends like these:

Jennie and Peter look like so much fun. I loved Can't Hardly Wait and Dancer, Texas Pop. 81. Fastlane not so much, but Peter does have children to feed.

Chelsea seems like a entertaining pretty entertaining person, too. Good for her being the only lady with a late-night talk show in the US.

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I'm in LA this weekend. Why?

Ask Professor Foxy: Was I Assaulted?, by Professor Foxy, Feministing. Emphases mine.

. . . A few months ago me and a few friends went on a road trip. it was supposed to be a fun weekend at the beach etc etc, but something happened between me and a (now former) male friend that ruined it.

I never drink (can't control myself when i do), but this "friend" _always_ harassed me about it. He made me feel like i was no fun, or whatever, and just would not shut up about my not drinking. we ended up at a party and he badgered me all night about not drinking, so, i did. a lot.

i thought i was safe around my friends and that nothing could happen. big mistake . . .

Some things just aren't my bag, man. I hope everyone else stays safe. Because in a male-dominated, testosterone-fueled atmosphere, where the true name of the game is "fitting in at almost any cost", the story above is horrifically commonplace and underreported.

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Whenever I think to myself,

"Is it just me, or . . .", it is never just me. Janeane Garofalo, who recently played a caricature of a women's studies professor on Greek, crystallizes the TEA party movement for me:

"Let's be honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism, straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks."

For additional coverage, here are some articles:

appreciate opportunities to release their repressed racism in public, by Macon D, stuff white people do.


10 Most Offensive Tea Party Signs, by Nico Pitney, The Huffington Post.

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A Separate Peace

I recently had a conversation with someone about coming-of-age novels, like the above mentioned book by John Knowles. I expressed to him that during middle school and upper school, I was required to read my fill of said novels, which, I lamented, were almost always about boys. Specifically, white, American or British, heterosexual boys. He innocently replied that coming-of-age novels have universal stories about growing up, implying that these stories should be relatable to anyone who reads them.

Oh really?

What I wanted to do then was give him a two to five-minute presentation on white heterosexual male privilege, including references to the exclusively-male cast of Lord of the Flies, the misogyny present in The Chocolate War and in its sequel, and everything Superbad, along with an appendix on contemporary gender studies and Reviving Ophelia.

What I did was say, "Hmm."

Why didn't I say something more scathing, or at least more verbose? In the words of Avril Lavigne, he was a boy, I was a girl; can I make it anymore obvious? I wanted to be likeable, instead of being my usual "too much".

Additionally, a month ago I had a conversation with an entirely different gentleman about an entirely different subject. Specifically, this second person thought that it had been an unwise move for a certain Fortune 500 company to purchase a certain television network. I disagreed, stating that it was a overdue power move that the company needed to make to control distribution. He then said that I was picking on him. I said that I was sharing my opinion. Later, another gentleman applauded my words . . . by saying that he was glad that I had been "combative".

:(

I know none of those gentlemen was trying to confuzzle me or hurt my feelings. Yet as a black woman, I walk this tightrope of misconceptions and expectations from all sides that few people I know can understand. This balancing act fosters personal fear, doubt and anxiety.

Today I spent my part of my afternoon listening to a panel about being a multiple minority, or more precisely, about being in multiple oppressed groups. For instance, being a black lady like myself. Or being a gay Filipino individual like Alec Mapa or the animated Rick Brocka. The message to take away from the panelists was a positive one: let other people get to know you as a person, and they will stop seeing you a simply a minority. Just be the best you that you can be. No, my mother was not on the panel.

That sentiment is easy to say and difficult to practice. It also doesn't provide you with any solace when you know that expressing an opinion can get you labeled as angry witch. Whereas that same opinion expressed by a (paler) gentleman gets him labeled as an assertive leader. The sentiment "it is was it is" does not make you feel any less isolated when you experience a situations that no one you know is going through because you are literally the only one currently going through it at the moment.

This why I watched Girlfriends before it was canceled. This is why I listen to Frangela on the radio (when they are not preempted by sports) and why I ask that they write a book about their career. This is why I want the new Wanda Sykes talk show on Fox to succeed. I need role models. There are events and issues and humor and pain that are specific to being an overeducated black woman in business, in comedy (Hey, I think I'm funny), in life that other people don't completely get. It helps to know that someone else has been there before, or is still there now.

You know what would help? More coming-of-age stories about girls. It would be a start.

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Clever comedians selling frozen "healthy" food:

It's good to see two funny women over forty still working on the TV.

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"What about fetuses with guns?"

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It's so cute when they try to answer grown-up questions. And by "they", I mean Republicans like Aaron Schock, the current US Representative for the 18th district of Illinois.

Stephen Colbert: Tell me about the Fightin' 18th.

Aaron Schock: Tell you about what?

Colbert: The Fightin' 18th.

Schock: The Fightin' 18th? What's the Fightin' 18th?

Colbert: Do you not represent the 18th district of Illinois?

Schock: Yes?

Colbert: Tell me about the Fightin' 18th.

Schock: You mean like tell you about my district?

[Has Aaron never watched The Colbert Report, including the segment on which he is appearing, called "Better Know a District"?]

Colbert: It sounds better to say the Fightin' 18th.

Oy vey. If Representative Schock is truly "the new face of the Republican party" (what happened to Bobby Jindal?), then we can all sleep easy.

There were also few quotes which, when taken out of context, can sound dirty, especially if you were already objectifying Representative Schock, as I was. Is he more than "just a pretty face, hair and body"? Readers, I suggest you watch the video and decide for yourselves.

Either way, I don't do Republicans; they are weird. I envision Republicans on a spectrum of, at best, misguided, and at worse, evil/Dick Cheney. He shot an old man in the face!

Colbert: Is there a spanking machine.

Schock: No spanking machine in Congress.

If only there were.

Colbert: It's a simple question. I think your constituents deserve to know. Do you or do you not have six-pack abs?

Schock: Well, you know, as soon as I say that, and then I get out of shape, you're going to use it against me. So, you know.

Colbert: You're implying that I am so taken with you right now. You're just implying that I am going to stay obsessed with your abs, sir. And yes. I'm not saying there's no chemistry here. But I'm saying I'm keeping this professional. All right? And I'd wish you do the same.

I wish he wouldn't.

Colbert: Congressman, thank you for taking the time to shock and awe me.

Thank you, indeed.

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A little to the left, please.

Those dogs look so happy. Maybe I need some Pup-peroni.

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Seriously? Do people not get what taxes are for?

Today, Wednesday, April 15, 2009, is National TEA Party Day, which I just learned about, and which I am now mocking. www.TEApartyday.com.

From the site:

On April 15, be part of the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party rally in your community

On the day you pay your taxes, Wednesday, April 15, join others across the country and in your hometown who will be participating in TAX Day TEA party rallies in front of their city halls. The TAX Day TEA party rally will begin at 12 noon. See this video - the momentum is growing!

Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who:

• vote for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it?
  
• are spending trillions of borrowed dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying?
• consistently give special interest groups billions of dollars in earmarks to help get themselves re-elected?
• want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?
• punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?
• admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?
• run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?
• want government controlled health care?
• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?
• want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?
• want to reduce your tax deductibility for charitable gifts?
• take money from your family budget to pay for their federal budget?

If so, participate in the TAX Day TEA party rally, the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party.

Bring your cell phone and call Congress and the president while attending the TAX Day TEA party rally (Representative and Senators, 202-224-3121; President, 202-456-1414). Tell Every American about this effort by forwarding this invitation to your friends. Together we can make a difference.

How are government controlled health care (which millions of people already have, including those employed by the government), secret ballots in union elections, illegal immigration, child pornography and abortions related to taxes? Who are these people? Do they not drive on government-funded roads or appreciate the government-funded police and fire departments?

Readers, if you or someone you know is attending a TEA party today unironically, please leave a comment!

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"Hey, I know you. Lance Armstrong!"

Zac Efron's Pool Party from Zac Efron

Thank goodness I do not have an Uncle Hank. Though I would like to hang out with Lance Bass.

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I cannot process this animal feces anymore.

[Big angry baby head!]

Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You, by Margaret, Jezebel.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it.

It surprises me how many posts I have generated on Seth Rogen, and that most of those posts are about the misogyny of his projects. This is the same Seth Rogen whom I was first introduced to in the beloved Freaks and Geeks. I now refer to Mr. Rogen in my head as "that f-ing f-er who can eat bleep and go bleep himself. Bleephole."

Sady at Tiger Beatdown does the research and says it all so I don't have to, emphases mine: Um.

Anyway, I could spend a little while talking about how even though this comedy is going to be intentionally dark and edgy and scary and weird, and even though I know representation is not the same as perpetuation, and even though as a lady I am somehow always supposed to be a "good sport" and "understanding," because it's not as if women could look back on the history of the world and note that it has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and the history of art and note that it too has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and note when looking at art produced by men within a male-dominated culture that a whole lot of it reflects and perpetuates male domination, because that would mean they are just terrible people who cannot hear the Music of the Spheres nor hear the Eternal Human Verities within this canon that kind of perpetually excludes or insults or misrepresents them, this is fucked up. I could talk about how I am a person who routinely makes jokes about her own experience of sexual assault, and has maybe the least mature or gentle sense of humor in the world, and I still feel that the whole "dumb bitch gets raped by comic hero" thing is indescribably foul, and yeah, maybe I could "give it a chance," maybe I could try to be "fair" about this, but maybe I just have better things to do than watch a movie that might be about a woman who gets a deserved raping, maybe I've reached the precise point at which I cannot be a "good sport" any longer and that is the point at which I am asked to pay ten fucking dollars plus however much a soda is these days for a movie that may very well insult me and every woman who's ever had an unwanted dick shoved into her body. I could talk about how, even though I got warned in advance, even though I won't be seeing the movie, the incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see it, and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives.

I could talk about all of that, but I won't. These conversations last so long and always seem to involve some guy calling me "oversensitive" or accusing me of making shit up or otherwise calling my perceptions invalid because they conflict with his own or just saying that I'm pissy and not funny and mean, and all of it makes me so tired, you guys, so unbelievably tired of stating basic facts that pretty much everyone with a shred of decency should comprehend but most people and/or movie studios and/or acclaimed Artists of Our Times just fucking don't. So, nope, not getting into it. I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I am, apparently, psychic. Because, of all the many things this is, it is not even remotely surprising.

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AmazonFail, or, Dirty!

[Yes, that is Tom Everett Scott, best known as Zack Morris's sidekick in Dead Man on Campus. And that movie where he played a young Tom Hanks.]

Amazon Follies, by Mark R. Probst.

Amazon under fire for perceived anti-gay policy, by Andrea James, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

AmazonFail: A Twitter movement in action, by C. A. Bridges, Daytona Beach News-Journal Online.

Online censorship? Amazon strips ranking of Gay and Lesbian books, by Mari Kurisato, Denver Internet Examiner. Emphases mine.

One of the most powerful indicators of how a book is doing sales wise and can be a leading factor for generating or killing interest in a book. Though many factors go into the sales ranking system, the primary driving factor has been sales-number of books sold. Using that method, a shopper could look at similar titles within a genre and see which books were generating sales. The method however, now seems altered, in a manner that feels similar to the unsavory practice of banning books.

Amazon isn't actually no longer selling the books, of course, but it is delisting “adult” titles from the sales ranking system. Which would seem like a fine policy, if it were applied equally. But as an online petition points out the following publications remain on the sales ranking system:

-Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
--Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Bertrice Smal's Skye o'Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances
--and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)

while the following LGBT books have been removed:

--Radclyffe Hill's classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
--Mark R Probst's YA novel The Filly about a young man in the wild West discovering that he's gay (gay romance, no sex);
--Charlie Cochrane's Lessons in Love (gay romance with no sex);
--The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience, edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues);
--and Homophobia: A History by Bryan Fone (non-fiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years).

Overall, the sales rank delisting may seem like a minor issue, but it can have a very serious impact for publishers and authors of lesser known works which depend on the sales ranking to get noticed and help spread the word. Amazon pulls unranked books from search results.

Do not worry, hetero Amazon users: 9 1/2 Weeks, Wild Orchid, SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale and XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits are still available on Amazon for purchase and rating.

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"Well, there's not a lot of elections in China."

Texas lawmaker suggests Asians adopt easier names, by R.G. Ratcliffe, Houston & Texas News.

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with."

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?" Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: "Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"

Well my peace. "You and your citizens"? Isn't she talking about Americans? Whose citizens does she think these people are?

Here are two comments that explain some of my thoughts on the situation, sic implied:

By suggesting that Asian-Americans adopt names that are easier for "Americans" to deal with, she implies that Asian-Americans are not "American" by separating the terms. While that may not have been her intent, it was the consequence she should have expected, assuming she is adequately educated of course.

- danieln92000

[ . . . ] that women is keep saying, "You and your people", "easier for us". so it's You vs. US? that woman has already set her mind that Asian-Americans are not part of Americans.

- sangjai90

Also, Toby is an easy-to-pronounce American name, dating back to the good old colonial days of the United States. I'd bet Representative Brown finds it much easier to deal with than Kunta Kinte.

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She doesn't get paid?

Mad About Michelle, by Katha Pollitt, The Nation. Emphases mine.

Just after the election Rebecca Traister wrote a terrific piece in Salon lamenting the "momification" of Michelle Obama. Probably it was inevitable: "In part because of the legacy left her by Hillary and her detractors," Traister observed, "powerful couples must now tread as far as possible from the 'two for one' talk, lest the female half get smacked with a nutcracker." Besides, there was that Angry Black Woman image to banish. It might have been politically necessary, and for all I know Michelle Obama is having the time of her life--unlike most professional women who take (let's hope) eight years off, she doesn't have to worry about the cost to her career. Some days I think just being a highly visible admirable black woman is a social cause all by itself, given how little of that side of black life most white Americans see. Still, there's something depressing about the joy and relief with which the high-end media have greeted Michelle's makeover from accomplished professional and outspoken social critic to new-traditionalist homebody. They're not only not ready for Hillary Clinton, they're apparently not even ready for Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the American Prospect, Dana Goldstein recently argued that being first lady should be treated like the job it is and awarded a salary. Michelle is "a public face of the Obama administration," working behind the scenes to rally support for her husband's programs--and she endures a schedule of ceremonial duties and photo ops that would put most women on Prozac and that are not optional. She can't decide to skip dinner with the Democratic chairmen of Congressional committees and watch TV with the girls instead. If first ladies were paid--Goldstein suggests that the money could come from lowering the president's $400,000 salary--we might respect them more.

Meanwhile, we should be counting ourselves lucky that Michelle Obama is working for free and let her wear whatever she wants.

I don't think the First Lady's salary should come from cutting the President's salary. I'm sure our national budget could do with a few less $400 ashtrays. Michelle Obama's salary from her last job as head of community affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals was $273,618. That is equivalent to 685 ashtrays. Or half the cost of a Tomahawk missile.

It would be a bargain, considering that the First Lady probably does the jobs of at least ten people combined. At an average Washington, DC, salary of $72,000 (as of April 9 2009), the position of First Lady would be worth $720,000. That's new math for you. Plus, everyone at the White House--excluding the children, the dog, and Grandma--is on salary except for Michelle Obama. Yet she has one of the biggest jobs there. How far we have come.

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Musings from a black woman: I'm wise,

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Morally Bankrupt
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

but I'm not sassy. (The funny is at 1:51.) No wonder I'm not on TV.

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But who will teach Professor Modi's classes?

Oh my God they killed Kutner. Bastards!, by abhi at Sepia Mutiny.

Kal Penn goes from 'House' to the White House, by Thomas Conner, Chicago Sun-Times.

I don't even watch House, but instead of killing off Kal's character, couldn't the writers have had him get a job at the White House? Less morbid, yet cheeky.

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My six-word memoir:

Underappreciating myself, yet amazing everyone else.

(Present tense since I'm still here.)

You can read it here, too.

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Sean Maguire is working again!

Krod Mandoon	Thurs, 10p / 9c
Krod Mandoon Series Preview
comedycentral.com
Matt Lucas Kevin Hart Sean Mcguire

Is that an American accent? I thought Sean Maguire always played British.

John Cho is working. Eddie Kaye Thomas is working. Jason George is working? I did not know that. Is Eli Stone still on? And Lauren Stamile is still working, too.

Good for you, cast of Off Centre. Like so many shows on The WB, it left too soon. I'm looking at you, Grosse Pointe.

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"I'm sorry. I just love my country."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

"And I love the musical Rent." But not the movie version. Chris Columbus never fails to disappoint me with his schmaltz.

Sign me up for the 10/31 Project. Though I can never figure out a clever costume to wear.

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