Get your war on

Yes yes yes. It’s back!

I love you David Rees.

Privilege Denying Dude

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here:

“The Internet has carried over the ‘neutral’ we’ve always seen, meaning that if it’s online, it better appeal to straight white men before and above anyone else. A lot of us hate it. We find humor in other memes, but sometimes we see a misogynist or homophobic joke in the bunch… and we just scroll on past it. It’s disappointing how used to that we are.”

Lopez notes the hypocrisy in the reaction from many of the straight white men who felt burned by [Privilege Denying Dude] .  “The result [of a previous feminist pushback against a rape joke] was one of those ‘sorry if you got offended’ mock apologies. That was it. Life went on. What I saw with PDD was straight white men specifically displeased, speaking out about [the joke being on them], and demanding results,” Lopez says. “They felt entitled to their space, the Web.”

Yup.

Aren’t you embarrassed?

The movie is Sex and the City 2. I downloaded it. I watched 45 minutes on the weekend and the rest of it last night (it is a very long movie). It was terrible. There were so many moments where I felt so very embarrassed for the actors in the movie. When I wasn’t actively embarrassed for them, I was often cringing in a state of near-embarrassment. The worst moment was when the women did karaoke at a club in Abu Dhabi. They sang “I am woman.” Their dance moves, the way they sang, what they were wearing, the “reaction” shots of the crowd…I have rarely felt so embarrassed for any other group of people on screen. There was really only one scene in the whole movie that actually seemed like it could’ve happened in real life. Two of the characters who are mothers are at a bar talking about how hard it is to be a mom. There was a line that was embarrassing (“And I have help [a nanny]! How do women without help do it?”) but I suppose it was also telling because these characters cannot imagine a world where people or a single person might raise a child without any outside help (or even without a consistent partner). And yet, that is THE world. It is far rarer that a parent has extra help, like a nanny, rather than not having that extra help. But not in their world. This movie is entrenched in that clueless, privileged attitude, and even if you can’t really put your finger on it, rest assured that that is what is so embarrassing about this movie.

Private concerns, redux

I first wrote about airport virtual strip-search machines here. I wrote in that post that the airport security person really seemed to want me to go through the scanner, presumably because it keeps the line moving faster than having to do a pat-down. My pat-down was then done in the middle of the security area, and definitely seemed to have an undercurrent of, “fine, I guess you’ll just be humiliated in public then!” Now the TSA (and I’m sure Canada will follow suit, why not?) has instituted “enhanced pat-downs,” descriptions of which sound terrifying and are, in at least these few cases, an excuse for government-approved sexual assault. My guess (and not just mine) is that these gropings are being instituted to force people into going through the scanners to keep the lines moving.

If you want to fly, and you are at an airport with a scanner, your choice is now to submit to a virtual strip-search, which may actually be harmful to your health (and the image of your naked body may not be deleted), or you can be groped.

As Melissa says, No, Thanks. I Guess I’ll Just Never Go Anywhere.

George Bush does care about Kanye West (‘s opinion)

…and also was AGAINST the war in Iraq, duh.

What a fucking asshole!:

So, Kanye’s statement was “disgusting,” but that whole “leaving people to die” thing, a close second, I’m sure. Or was 9/11 second? Hard to say when being pointed out as a racist ranks so high on the list of things you are disgusted with.

 

LOLOLOL!!!!! What?!!?!? I didn’t realize his memoir was going to be mostly fictional!! What a great book this will be. Good Christmas gift, I’m sure.

Dummies

An Honorary Oscar Revives a Controversy

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

Published: November 1, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Late last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was still coming to terms with that most deeply confounding of European filmmakers, Jean-Luc Godard.

No one had yet signed on to present an honorary Oscar to Mr. Godard, who has said he will not be on hand anyway at the academy’s awards banquet in Hollywood a week from Saturday. But there was also the touchy question of how to deal with newly highlighted claims that Mr. Godard, a master of modern film, has long harbored anti-Jewish views that threaten to widen his distance from Hollywood, even as the film industry’s leading institution is trying to close the gap.

Haha, what a dummy! Doesn’t Godard know that Hollywood would rather honour a child rapist?

Child Soldier for Al Qaeda Is Sentenced for War Crimes

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: November 1, 2010

WASHINGTON — A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.

A panel of seven military officers at the American military base in Cuba determined on Sunday that the child soldier, Omar Khadr, 24, should be imprisoned — for terrorism-related offenses he committed in Afghanistan when he was a teenager — until he nearly reaches retirement age.

Haha, what a dummy! Doesn’t Khadr know that only Americans are allowed to kill citizens in other countries?