who is the hottest foreign correspondent? the votes are in

still sick and had to cancel my plans for this evening. (yes, the same hot hunky.)
15 of you said christian parenti was hotter and 9 of you said dahr was hotter while 1 of you voted for john f. burns and 15 of you voted for christian amanpour. but myra and jodie both made the same point: you have a hot weekend with christian parenti, you marry dahr jamail and live happily ever after.
so the christians won the hottest foreign correspondent contest with a tie - parenti and amanpour.
so i was listening to the majority report tonight and where the heck was janeane during the last 1/2 hour?
but the real news? sam seder likes simon rosenberg. why is that news? when janeane was on vacation, sam and bill scher of the liberal oasis did a weak ass, bullshit interview with simon rosenberg. and the blog went wild so sam felt the need to defend himself (mainly by trashing howard dean). he said that he wasn't supporting simon, he was just interviewing him. but tonight we learn that he's enamored of simon. that explains the star fucking he and bill gave him.
the other thing we learned? bill doesn't know a lot. he didn't know that the hideous mel gibson's passion of jewish hatred marketed as psuedo catholicism was oscar nominated and he didn't know that the phones of the senate were almost shut down due to the large amount of calls on the day stephanie tubbs jones was looking for 1 senator to support her on the ohio stolen vote.
if you remember barbara boxer stepped out. she stepped up again last week with tough questions for condasleeza rice and again this week on the vote.
as i said before barbara boxer is so cool if she were a rock and roller, she'd have to be mama michelle phillips of the mamas and papas.
i'm listening to mike malloy right now and he always makes me laugh. i have friends who say 'he just screams and screams!' i think he modulates well. and he has never failed to lift my spirits.
but he might tonight because i feel so sick.
george w. bush the bully boy prevented me and others from getting flu shots and if you're suffering like i am now or if you have suffered, you really hope some 1 in the press will start pointing out the disaster that was his administration's "planning" when it came to dealing with flu shots last fall.
i'll blog tomorrow even if i don't feel better. but i'm just going to lie on the bed now and listen to malloy with the hope that he'll make me feel better. (if he can't, i may be beyond medical help!)

saluting jack reed

is it wrong to kick the ladies when they're down? yes, i'm talking about lizz and rachel again. this morning they confused senators harry reid and jack reed.
this wasn't just a slip of the tongue. a friend called me and said 'turn on unfiltered! they're so wrong it's funny!' so i listen and there's lizz talking about how harry reid voted against condi rice's nomination. and then it's skit time (to the tune of 'wind beneath my wings') and big brain's reading a list and let's us know "reid of nevada" voted against condi rice.
only problem is that he didn't.
jack reed voted against her, harry reid voted for her.
but harry got shout outs and a skit. and jack?
when the ladies finally realized their mistake (it was all over the unfiltered blog according to my friend, including before the skit started) after the commercial break, they did own up to it and i will give them credit for that.
but in owning up, they went on and on about how they correct and how other's don't and big brain pops off with her favorite part of the new york times is the corrections and starts into this long story about her favorite correction . . . but what does this have to do with jack reed being shortchanged?
all the others got praised at length and in skit. then it's back from commercial, "we made a mistake, here's why . . ." but no where was there any need to discuss jack reed.
so yes, the ladies did do a correction, but they might as well have ignored it considering how little attention they gave to jack reed.
and for a 55 year old man, jack reed's kind of cute. he's got nice eyes. he's got a sexy kind of senator thing going on. as of 2003, he had a 100% rating by naral so he's got some coolness going on. he's rated 95 by the lcv so he cares about the environment. no 1's record is perfect but he's taken brave votes before. and anyone voted 0% by the christian coalition is certainly date worthy.
and he probably should have gotten a little attention today once the gals realized their mistake.
mistakes happen and when my friend called me, i said 'they are talking on air and the last name is the same so it's easy to mean 1 person but think another' but my friend was saying 'turn it on.'
so i did and my excuse for the ladies flew out the window when they made the same mistake in a skit that was prepared. it's fine to make a mistake in conversation but the skit was prepared ahead of time.
and it's still fine to make a mistake and give the gals credit for owning up to it.
but i was just surprised that poor jack reed stood up against condi and was overlooked prior to them realizing their mistake and then after they realized their mistake.
when they thought it was harry reid, they couldn't say enough things about harry reid. but when they came back and did their correction, it was 'that was jack reed' and then a dicussion on corrections.
poor jack reed.
well we'll recognize him here. and i'm sure that will just make his day! that's sarcasm. i doubt he'd be heavily impressed. 'senator you were praised on a blog!'
reed: really? which 1?
aide: let's see, it's called . . . uh, you were praised.
reed: what's it called?
aide: sex and politics and screeds and attitude.
reed rolls his eyes.
aide: but they really praised you. they said you had a great record.
reed: what was their last entry?
aide: let's see they did 1 called . . . uh, 'cocks and dicks.'
reed shakes his head.
aide: but this rebecca woman said you had nice eyes, kind of cute and sexy.
reed is already walking away.

that's how i think any alerting to reed about his praise here would go.
which is cool. we're not for everyone.
i made that point today when i was doing an interview with the wonderful people at the third estate sunday review.
that was a lot of fun. i think it goes up this sunday.
annie e-mailed me to ask me if i was over the flu yet. and the answer is no and i think it is mutating.
i was so cold today and i didn't check the temperature once because if it wasn't a cold day, i didn't want to know because that would mean i was sicker than i thought. (i have natural gas heat so there's no temperature thermostat, i just turn the knobs to a number between one and ten and today i had them all up to ten because i was freezing.)
i didn't even go outside to check the mail. and no, not because i had tina turner hair again. i brushed and styled first thing in the morning hoping that would give me some energy for the day but it didn't and i was so tired after that i sat down on the couch for what i thought was a second but ended up waking up 2 hours later.
then i caught democracy now! but fell asleep before it was over because i'm just so tired and so cold. i did have a pretty hot dream about dahr jamail who was on the 1st 1/2 of democracy now! today.
but then it got silly ("oh, dahr, embed me! embed me!") and i woke up pissed off.
question i'll toss out, who is the hottest international correspondent?
sometimes i think it has to be dahr and sometimes i think it has to be christian parenti.
but i did read the common ills this evening and clicked on the story john f. burns did for the new york times. i've seen him on tv and he's a little older than i like them but after today's article, i would so totally do him!
so let me know who you think is hot. let me check my e-mail address because i'm that out of it from this ever mutating flu.
it's sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com so let me know if you've been eyeing any hot international correspondents -- print, tv or radio. and yes, you can pick a woman as well. and no, international does not just mean iraq.
i hope every 1 is feeling better than i am right now. and i hope we all take a moment to recognize jack reed who showed real guts (yet again) in voting against condi rice.

the dicks: joe lieberman, hillary clinton, and lizz & big brain

it's official, joe lieberman is the ultimate dick. who in the world ever thought this man was qualified to be a vice-president on a democratic ticket. i saw over at the common ills that a guy from lieberman's state had written in to note that not every 1 was happy with him. is any 1?
and what is up with that lizz winstead on unfiltered?
i'm bored today, so i listen and big mistake.
remember i told you how she uses the blog to vent and gripe about people. well she went off on some guy who'd made some comment about air america. i have no idea what it was.
who could tell with her ranting and screaming.
i believe the guy's name was robert.
so she's in banshee territory when she starts talking about how she created the air america radio network.
what is up with that?
when randi rhodes talks, i know what she means. she'd proven that she could be successful in any market clear channel would let her in. (they refused to syndicate her show properly because she was too much competition for the house pet rush limbaugh.)
randi was looking for a way to take her show nation wide.
i'm sure she was very vocal when meeting the potential air america investors.
i understand what she's talking about completely.
and let's be real honest, she's one of the few (though not the only 1) who proved that liberal radio shows could get high ratings.
but la lizz?
i'm sure she made some key decisions, though radio wasn't her resume high point (the high point, sadly, was the craig kilborne daily show on comedy central).
but to hear her raging and screaming 'i created this network!' i honestly worried for rachel's safety. she was bellowing like faye dunaway in mommie dearest!
i kept picturing her grabbing a thing of comet cleaner and whacking rachel over the head with it while she continued screeching 'i created this network!'
does she really need to take credit like that. 'i!'
and if she does, can she do it nicely?
is there a reason to scream and yell, via the radio, at some guy on the blog?
p.m.s. much, lizz?
maybe her screech fest is why the blog was so dead. i went to it and tried to figure out who offended her so. 51 posts total. the day before there was over 400.
maybe people don't care for that screaming shit?
or maybe they're just tired of bullshit.
the ladies who laugh took it upon themselves to defend hillary clinton.
proving how uninformed they both are. yeah, that includes the big brain rachel.
to hear the chatty cathys tell it, hillary clinton was the world's biggest supporter of abortion rights.
that's why she voted in favor of the ban for late term abortions? is that the party line you're pushing?
ladies, ladies, lay off the yucks long enough to get informed.
maybe then you'd realize that hillary's actions have a context and the context is the party's attempt to back off from reproductive rights.
now lizz supports abortion rights. i'd never try to imply that she didn't. she believes in choice and she defends the right.
so how come she can't call hillary on bullshit?
and how come she and big brain are so unaware of triangulation -- the key clinton legacy?
any 1 with basic history, who isn't a clintonista, is well aware of the war on the poor conducted by bill (and sold via hillary) to triangulate with the republicans, to try to find common ground.
hillary even sold out her supposed friend marian wright edelman over that issue.
hillary's always been religious. that's the kind of in depth analysis the ladies gave us today.
see they think you can't criticize hillary because apparently they don't spend a lot of time in the feminist world.
despite the right's tarring hillary with the term feminist (or "feminazi") none of my feminist friends see hillary as a feminist.
she holds some progressive views, some. but she's not a feminist. that's like calling diane feinstein a feminist.
she's the first first-lady to become a senator. okay, well that's a record for hillary but like most of her records, they're about her. i don't see any uplifting of women.
and if we want to talk about how she's always been a church goer, let's talk about how she started out a goldwater girl as in barry. how even after her 'transformation' she still had barry to the white house.
i think we see that goldwater girl creep out a little too much in the current hillary.
and that they'd ignore reality (the dems push to the right on the abortion issue) and defend her after her husband was reported in the press to have told john kerry to basically disown civil unions is really amazing since big brain is a lesbian.
spit on me once, shame on you; spit on twice, i'm into water sports?
i mean come on rachel show a little pride.
common ground. that's what the ladies told us that hillary was going for.
common ground?
that's the excuse for all the triangulation in the clinton administration.
so when hillary starts heading to the "common ground," the left should worry.
and why do we want to make common ground with people radically opposed to a woman's right to choose?
this was a point that lizz made at 1 point during the show.
that's reality lizz and i'll applaud you for it.
but that nonsense about hillary, all those 'stop questioning her.'
aren't they the same ladies who were telling us that we'd have to keep the pressure on?
but when it comes to hillary it's 'back off bitch' time.
maybe they're still starry eyed that hillary graced them with a brief, very brief, appearence prior to the election?
that was fluff time all the way.
remember when bill clinton tried to softball amy goodman in 2000? goodman didn't stand for it because she's got integrity. she didn't say 'oh well it's not a bush so i need to fuss and flatter.'
she held him accountable. and he needed that and we should have been doing that all along.
but the ladies go weak knee-ed when hillary is the issue.
which is really funny because what has hillary done for the party this month?
uh, she's refused to vote with boxer on ohio. and today she refused to vote against condi rice.
let me repeat that last part because it's still news today - hillary voted to confirm condi rice as secretary of state.
this is our feminist hero?
ladies, ladies, buy some common sense and, if they're having a two-for sale, pick up some integrity while you're at it.
today was just disgusting.
people are trying to hold hillary accountable, people on the left, and you 2 rush in to say 'back off!' are you her body guards?
hillary's a grown up, she's responsible for her actions. to hold her accountable or to question her, that's part of what a democracy is.
now lizz would go off into her 'i'm just a comedian' nonsense.
whenever lizz is wrong or still smarting over some 1 calling her out on being wrong, she'll launch into that lame excuse.
i don't care what you are lizz, you're filling up three hours monday through friday talking about current events (for the most part). either educate yourself or shut up.
quit whining.
and i happened to catch al franken today as well.
he's doing this mocking of bill o'reilly (thank god) for o'lielly implying he'd served in the military.
hey lizz, what's going to happen when o'lielly puts together a tape of you, randi and al all claiming to have created the air america network?
you think you won't look stupid then?
quit being such an ego maniac and if some 1 feels you made fun of mark dayton, don't turn around and say, 'i created this network! don't lecture me! and i'm from . . .'
who cares lizz? really.
you sold out on hillary. you made her more important than reproductive rights. big brain was right there with you.
you can't even whisper you were following marching orders from on high, i mean, you created the network after all!
grow up.
hillary's trying to move the debate over. she's against late term abortions (and that's on the record but since you're a 'comedian' maybe you don't think you have to know that fact -- i have no idea what big brain's excuse is) and while feminists are loudly decrying the party's softening stance on reproductive rights, hillary clinton chooses to give the speech she gave.
to abortion rights supporters no less!
who was she trying to reach out to in that crowd?
and abstinence only is a waste of time as studies have shown. we don't need to throw any more money out on that bull shit. it's less effective than that stupid dare program.
but you both want to act as though moses has come down the mountain and we all need to fall in line.
get real. hillary's feminist credentials, such as they were, vanished during her husband's first term.
i'm not going to play rally around hillary.
if a man made those statements, the 2 ladies would rip him apart.
but because it's hillary they rush to tell us to stop questioning, to stop demanding accountability.
if this is the way it's going to be, they might want to change the name of the network from air america to clinton america.
ladies, today you were both dicks.
remember readers, i warned you that ladies could be dicks as well. condi rice, for instance.
today, big brain and over-forty-and-underweight were dicks.
maybe by tomorrow morning they'll have stopped off at a tag sale and picked up some common sense.

cocks and dicks

shelley e-mailed and asked me if that guy who kept e-mailing me telling me to stop writing about sex and men's bodies had made me decide to stop.
no. he's just a blow hard who thinks he can push a woman, any woman, around. maybe he pushes his wife around the way he bragged about how he wouldn't "let" her go to this site, but he doesn't push me around.
i did write about the very hot hottie billie joe armstrong. and i find otis redding's voice very sexual. but i was sick this weekend and besides my hair looking like a tossed aside tina turner wig, i wasn't feeling very sexy or sexual.
don't worry though, i won't shy from talking about men and their bodies no matter how many wack jobs e-mail me screaming, 'get thee to a nunnery!'
but in case anyone else was concerned, i figured i'd make that clear and hopefully the title does.
cocks and dicks.
do we know the difference?
straight ladies? gay guys? bisexuals?
a cock can be a beautiful thing if you're attracted to men. and a dick is just a dick.
bill frist, for instance, is a dick. that's not a compliment. richard nixon was a dick.
while i was at the drug store getting flu medicine this morning, this bland nightmare in dockers -- natch -- calls out 'little dick, get over here!'
little dick?
i must have looked at mr. dockers strangely because he felt the need to explain that he and his son were both williams. his son was 'little dick' and he was 'big dick.'
how some men won't torture their own children to feed their massive egos.
i made a point to study his docker encased pouch (and i had to study it because there was very little bulge) before i said, 'i think you may have gotten the names backwards.'
anyho, so jim morrison, for instance, had a cock. pat boone has a dick and is a dick.
does that make sense?
a cock is an organ that can do these wonderful things. it's nice to look at and always eager for your touch.
a dick's just a dick. and someone who is a dick is so because they just bascially piss on every 1 they know.
hence, bill frist, dick. john turek has a cock.
are you feeling me?
turek appears to have a mighty, might corn husk. but a cock doesn't have to be large to be beautiful. in fact, i've been with some guys who've had smaller cocks and they've had their own beauty.
and it can also be a nice relief not to have one going down your throat into, apparently, your belly. no offense to fellows with big ones. (which are their own reward in other ways.)
a smaller or smallish cock can get me excited. i guess it's the same way that small breasts can excite some guys. no, despite the media and hooters talk to the contrary, all straight men aren't into big breasts.
so cocks come in all shapes and sizes and a range of colors. i don't just mean black and white. or black, brown and white.
any woman who's enjoyed sex without guilt probably gets what i'm talking about.
but a dick is just a dick.
markus rogan has a cock. 1 that i've dreamt of often.
tom delay has and is a dick.
now some might say, 'rebecca, where is the politics in this!'
i say the politics in this is that it's important for everyone (regardless of sexual orientation) to understand the difference.
for instance, condi rice is a dick. she doesn't have 1 (nor does she have a cock) but she's a dick because she pisses on everyone around her.
she's a tool.
avoid the dicks regardless of your sexual orientation.
if you like the male form, embrace the cock.
you hear the word 'dick' all the time. sometimes referring to the sex organ, sometimes referring to some 1 being a tool.
but cock?
i can remember in the 90s, forget which year, when it was the year of the cock. elaine told me that some chinese food places weren't saying 'cock.' we called around and would ask what year it was and the man or woman on the other end of the phone would say 'year of the rooster.'
cock!
it's a lovely word.
and if from my sick bed and fevered delirium i've done nothing else today but helped us all understand the difference between a cock and a dick, i'll sleep soundly tonight.
i hope i'm over the flu tomorrow. but ella, whom i caught it from, only started feeling better this morning. i'll try to write something else regardless. maybe i'll feel good enough to hunt down a photo. if any of you has a photo of john turek or markus rogan that you're holding out on me, take pity on a gal in her sick bed and send it on in. i won't post any fully nude guys but i still can enjoy them privately. the e-mail address is sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com so feel free to share your hotties with me. and don't bogart the rogan and turek!

manohla dargis, 'manohla tile,' rushes to flaunt her ignorance and the times happily assists

not a good day. i've caught emma's flu.
i slept in until noon, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and nearly screamed. tina turner's wigs have never stood up at so many angles.
so then i open the increasingly useless new york times and see andy sullivan trying to prop up his boy donnie rummy with his 'by gosh it all, the military was looking into this!' white wash.
the times feels sully's so goddamn important that they let him go on and on. considering that he understands brevity -- those personal ads seeking bareback sex for instance -- it's shocking that they turn over so much space to so questionable a writer.
but just when you're done with granny sully telling you there really is a santa clause, you have to take on the prat that is manohla dargis.
apparently manohla's never read one of those star biographies. you know that this self-proclaimed lover of valley of the dolls has read everyone she could get her hands on.
manohla eats up space in the times book review section by weighing in on a star gazer tome aimed at sean penn.
and apparenlty manohla's new to these type of books. (they often sell well but they rarely grace a best seller list).
manohla's shocked, just shocked, that a writer would write such a glossy treatment of penn. as someone who's flipped through books "about" sharon stone, goldie hawn, cher, johnny depp, river phoenix, warren beatty and countless others, i know when i pick up one of those books that we're looking at a subject without warts. kitty kelley's 1 of the few who's ever felt the need to show warts. and 1 of the few who's sold a book that explored the warts. even those loons who've develped a cottage industry out of their hatred of jane fonda haven't been able to land even a modest selling success. why is that?
because now that these books are no longer stocked in large numbers at the supermarkets or box stores, the only 1s buying them are fans of the star.
you don't make any money with a warts and all portrayal.
and no one even tries. which is why a biography on sharon stone works overtime to reassure us of all how she's one of the strongest critical thinkers of our time. yeah, there's sartre and then there's stone.
either manohla is ignorant of the book genre or she's so eager to trash sean penn that she plays dumb.
either way, the book isn't worthy of a review in the times and her "review" isn't worth printing.
she feels the need to tell us that "penn's resume is clogged with pretentious schlock like 'state of grace' and the ghastly 'i am sam.'" while praising mystic river, no less. (if pauline kael were alive, she's slap manohla's face!) that would be his oscar nominated performance in 'i am sam.'
as for pretentious, manohla might not want to throw stones.
sean penn, and a film critic should know this, is a character actor. as such, like every other character actor, he selects a film based upon the role he's offered. he's not giving a great deal of thought to the film's success or even it's merits. he's focused on whether the role gives him (as an actor) a chance to explore something.
for the record, i'm no fan of sean penn's. i've read countless biographies on madonna and wasn't impressed. nor have i ever found him sexy.
but i do not have the need to slam and distort his career. manhola apparently does.
it's not enough that she smear penn himself, she also goes after his dead father leo penn:
"he had been blacklisted, though he wasn't sure anyone had actually named his name. (in fact, he may have hit a wall as a screen actor. either way, the blacklist would become an important part of the penn family story.)"
would that be the same new york times family story manhola?

His film career had just begun when Penn was blacklisted after attending a pro-union meeting with other actors. That the group was actively supporting the first blacklistees, the Hollywood Ten, only worsened matters.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=106025&mod=bio

yeah, manohla tile, that's your own damn paper.

you might want to consider researching a little before you spew your venum. you're exactly the sort of 'critic' that kat was talking in thursday's kat's korner -- you mistake criticism for an appearence on crossfire!

maybe manohla tile is unaware of this too:

When he was called before the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee, and asked to expose Hollywood Communists, Leo Penn refused to name names.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20050118.html

or maybe the dumb ass just doesn't grasp how the blacklist worked, maybe she's historically ignorant as well as a bad writer?

you sure are quick to absolve the blacklisters and question the documented claims of a victim, manohla tile.

your piece shouldn't have been printed and someone needs to do something about the garbage that is the new york times book review.

facts don't matter, people say whatever they want. it's bullshit and it needs to stop.