that's just great. i'm working on the post. get 4 paragraphs and save to draft only to lose the whole thing because blogger's down.
i don't know what the deal is but lately it seems there are a lot more problems with blogger and this may have been scheduled maintance but i didn't see a message on the log in screen. seems like they could put it right up there so every 1 could see. 'blogger will be going down for maintance in 20 minutes.'
for mike, here's something from democracy now:
Reuters Protests 'Long Parade' of Media Deaths in Iraq
The Reuters News Agency says the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war from reaching the American public. In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate. The letter from the agency's Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise these issues with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday. Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq." At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. U.S. forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on Aug. 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. The Pentagon says the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth Reuters journalist, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a U.S. sniper. Schlesinger said the Pentagon has refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.
we're counting on john warner? lots of luck there. as c.i. noted this morning at the common ills:
John Warner's making those "maybe" rumbles again. But if pattern holds, they're just rumbles. Warner won't do anything. He's lucky that the re-election rate is so high (my opinion) because otherwise he would have been out of Congress as soon as Elizabeth Taylor dumped him. Back then, Mr. Dull made every meeting and was so proud of his attendance. He really seemed to expect a gold star. I hope the attendance held because he's got nothing else to be proud of as he stifles one investigation after another.
mr. dull. and mr. do nothing.
if elizabeth taylor hadn't elevated him, he'd still be scratching his ass on the side of the road to loserville.
need laughs? check out betty's "Thomas Friedman's Endgame Should Start With A Shower:"
Gail Collins has some very interesting choices in men. Carson Daly? Elaine and I both exchanged looks on that one. I mean, I guess I could see the attraction, if I really looked hard enough but he seems so non-Gail Collins-ish. I had to wonder if the fumes from Todd S. Purdum's smelly jock strap had effected her as well?
(Thomas Friedman swears that the fumes from Todd S. Purdum's smelly jock are like a jolt of warm coffee in the morning. He is just sniffing, right?)
After that a long lull set in as Gail Collins had discussed walking hand in hand with Daly back to her place and then tying him to the bed . . .We were honestly a little shocked. But after we realized it, we all had a good laugh.
"Is it that I'm too old for Carson Daly?" Gail Collins wondered.
I explained that he just didn't seem her type -- which I always pictured to be more Village, more intellectual, and a lot less photogenic. Sighing, Gail Collins said she was a little envious of me because I had seen Davy Brooks in a sock. I tried to assure her that it was a very empty sock but she wasn't having any of that. She likes his teeth. Says they remind her of a hamster she had as a child, Cuddles.
Giggling, she waved a large envelope around. She told Elaine and I that she'd been leaving Davy subtle hints for the last three months. Little posts its on his computer with smiley faces and notes like, "How's my big boy?" She'd even taken to ordering him a sandwich from time to time.
"Are you trying to date him or mother him?" the always to the point Elaine asked.
"Well, he got the message," Gail Collins said a little huffily. "He obviously did because he left me this."
Again she waved the envelope.
"He is the Mr. Darcy to my Miss Elizabeth Bennet!"
Poor Gail, she never looked more caucasion, more white-bread, more in need of some real sex.
from the third estate sunday review's "'Why Are You Here' and 'What's Changed:'"
87) Benny, 17, high school student: For the first time it feels like maybe a difference can come. We're studying about government and it really seems wild and out there but it's about us and I guess Cindy Sheehan drives that point home to me. So I am here for that reason and the change is that people wake up and you can see it in my class. We're debating and discussing what does free speech mean and what are your duties to be an American and stuff that I have never taken time to think on and it just seems real and connected to me. Maybe it's selfish and all too because we got the guys on campus goin, "Sign up and we'll take care of you. Free college." All these promises and you ask about war and like injuries and they don't talk about it. They brush you off or say, "You just watch out for yourself and you're fine." And I bet the 1900 men and women who are dead were watching out but that didn't save them. So it's just a lot to think about and maybe having government this year drives it home.
now go check out seth in the city, new blog from a community member.
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
Mikey Likes It
Thomas Friedman Is A Great Man
The Common Ills
Cedric's Big Mix
The Third Estate Sunday Review
Kat's Korner
Like Maria Said PazSeth in the City
9/29/2005
9/28/2005
christine & pop politics
good evening. i ended up relaxing a little too much this evening. watching television, old sitcoms on television that weren't that good to begin with.
who's the boss is the show. but elaine and i used to watch that show. i saw 1 of our favorite episodes where samantha is working for angela but wants to quit. it's really a harmless show and there's much worse out there.
like the home improvements and the raymonds and all the other shows where 'the little woman' just sits around saying 'oh tim' or 'oh ray' and has no life of her own.
i can remember when judith light was karen on 1 life to live. anybody else go back that far? probably not. but she was really amazing. karen was a prostitute but her husband didn't know it. to save her friend from a murder charge, she had to admit it on the witness stand, in front of every 1 including her husband.
judith light is a good actress. and the worst that can be said about who's the boss is that it was sometimes just silly. these days you can say so much more about so many other shows.
tv on the brain tonight and you can blame that on christine of ms. musing.
ava and c.i. offer a feminist critique of tv shows each week over at the third estate sunday review. (they reviewed the hideous three wishes most recently.) and for 2 years now, christine's offered a feminist critique on pop culture and a host of other issues via ms.'s website.
but that's over there now.
i can't imagine why. ms. has 2 new blogs and 1 is really funny and the other will be hard hitting politics by eleanor smeal. (they're on my blogroll: a new leif and the smeal report.) but i can't imagine why christine's not going to be there anymore. if you read her last post it just seems to come out of the blue.
i hope it was a mutual decision and i hope ms. understands how important christine was to visitors of the site.
they aren't a monthly magazine, ms., they're not bimonthly. they publish 4 times a year and the content isn't always available online of each issue. this isn't to run down ms. for instance, i support the naacp but they need to realize that when people visit their site, they're wanting something more then 'about the naacp.'
with ms. when nothing else changed, you always had fresh content from christine. i get the print edition of the magazine so i honestly only went to the website because of christine.
and i hope they realize that and that she was appreciated.
she gave you a feminist critique. which doesn't mean every 1 always agreed with her because there is not 1 feminist critique. c.i. and ava both hit the roof 1 time when jim was putting something about 'the feminist critique' and they had to walk him through on how there isn't 1 feminist critique of tv shows, let alone of everything out there.
but christine would offer her opinions and steer you towards some show to watch or a cause to support. she was 1 of the handful of people i saw blogging about the issue of animals in new orleans after hurricane katrina. she didn't just write an entry either, she went down there.
she was an important voice and she really was the voice of the website because her content was new. so i hope she was appreciated and that she left because she felt it was time to focus on her own site (pop politics).
c.i.'s noted that she's moved on (and is noting pop politics) but i hope others are as well. christine is so the antithesis of the type of woman i wrote about yesterday. she truly was in it for every 1 and out of the desire to support women. elaine and c.i. did an e-mail today asking every 1 to consider adding pop politics to their blogrolls and i can't imagine any 1 in the community saying no to that. but if any blogger from outside the community reads this, i hope they will think about adding pop politics as well.
besides the fact that christine supported everyone, there's also the fact, and c.i. and elaine made this point strongly in their joint e-mail, that pop culture especially needs feminist critiques. before susan faludi's backlash, you'd meet a lot of women who would sneer, women who identified as feminist, about pop culture being critiqued.
i can think of 1 hideous woman that c.i. knew. we all knew her but, as usual, c.i. was the high roader who was nice to her. the woman was a lesbian but not out then. and she was trying to hide being a lesbian with every 1 that knew her. so, this is around 1987 or 1988, she went through this phase of going on and on about michael douglas and how hot he was. fatal attraction was out.
every 1 was raising their eye brows over her comments about his butt because there was no reason for her to be in the closet - we all knew and had no problem with that. but at 1 point when she was going on about michael douglas's butt for the 9th or 10th time, c.i. said that fatal attraction was really an anti-woman movie. i need a name for the woman so i'll just call her 'closet.'
closet hit the roof. she started yelling and screaming about how women were being beaten up and there wasn't time to waste on movies.
this after closet had gone on and on about the butt of michael douglas which i doubt had any healing effects on battered women.
she was an older feminist. she'd been one of the 1st of the 2nd wave. and she just wasn't open to discussions on anything that she didn't feel was a feminist issue.
when susan faludi's backlash came out, i remember elaine and i telling c.i. that closet had to be given a copy. 1st off, c.i. was handing that book out like crazy which isn't uncommon. when c.i. falls for a book, every 1 gets a copy. 2nd of all, faludi was critiquing film, television and fashion.
and that doesn't seem like a big deal now but it really did take faludi and that book to make a number of feminists realize the importance of offering critiques on those topics.
in their joint e-mail, elaine & c.i. noted lucy hughes-hallet which is another favorite author. she wrote a book on cleopatra that i do not remember the name of. (pray c.i. doesn't read that and i don't hear 'uh, rebecca, i gave you that book, didn't you keep it?') but hughes-hallet goes through various time periods to illustrate how cleopatra is never, when people write about her or make films of her, a fixed point of reference. you can find the thoughts and moods of the times in each portrayal. and our popular narratives do not critiquing.
we need to struggle to figure out what the message is. that doesn't mean we'll always agree.
for instance, i doubt i'd agree with christine on buffy the vampire slayer. i think after buffy came back from the dead and moved to upn the show had no feminist message.
there's a review of that which everyone worked on at the third estate sunday review and i was the 1st to say, let me blow my horn, 'let ava and c.i. write the tv reviews.' the strong points in that review come from them. it's a muddled review. and that's because every 1 was tossing out stuff. but buffy went from a strong woman to a pretty pathetic woman and i agree with them that this had to do with joss whedon wanting to play with the big boys which always means, as they point out, that a whedon or a glenn gordon caron reject the women that made him famous.
whedon kept trying to prop up angel to the point that he even lets buffy get slapped by angel in 1 cross-over episode. the star, the character every 1 loved from the bigger show, is reduced to carping, jealous woman who gets slapped for it.
that says a lot about where whedon's priorities were.
so i never agree with the claim that buffy was this powerful feminist statement. i agree that on the wb it was. there was enough of an arc to carry it through. but when you have buffy sleeping with spike and all the other drag her through the mud nonsense of the upn years, it's just not about feminism in my opinion.
and you know what? a lot of feminists would disagree. that's because there's not 1 feminist opinion. and we need to have these discussions (if we don't we end up supporting women blindly, including war hawks, and weakening ourselves and our own message of equality). not to say 'you're wrong, i'm right!' but to get another take and inform ourselves.
and it really is important because, as elaine & c.i. noted, pop culture is the narrative of our times, the fairy tales we grow up on, the equivalent of legends passed around the campfire.
and for 2 years at ms. musing, christine's taken on that and so much more.
abbey e-mailed me about christine. specifically, she wondered why christine was always called that at the common ills.
there are a number of reasons but the most obvious 1 is because you were supposed to think of her as a friend. she had a sight and it was to make sure she was approachable the way she would be if you were sitting around talking to your friends and 1 was present and you'd say of her, 'did you hear what christine said?' we aren't first wavers of the second wave, elaine, c.i. and i. so we do have that 'gloria steinem!' to this day. but it would probably be better if we did that with gloria steinem and others as well, said 'gloria' or whatever. because the hiearchy of titles is something that feminism really isn't about.
that's why c.i. doesn't say 'senator' or 'mr.' or 'ms.' when it's some 1 of the clergy, c.i. will go back and forth on it but always put in the title if they are a nun or a priest.
but christine was supposed to be a 1 name the way elaine says 'rebecca' and not 'rebecca winters.' feminism is supposed to be welcoming and that was supposed to drive it home. it was 'here's norman solomon and there's katrina vanden heuvel and here's christine' as in 'here's our friend christine.'
and that's what she was and is, everyone's online friend. so i hope you'll try to check out pop politics and give some thought to what she and the other women are writing there.
i've only been today because i'm running behind but if there are men writing there as well i am not trying to slight them, i just didn't see any. but men can be feminists and they should be. we all should be. that doesn't mean that i agree that every 1 who uses the term is a feminist. and that's something that christine and the other women (jaclyn's a name that stands out) there will really get across, what feminism is about.
now some people will go back and read the feminist mystique by betty friedan and good for them. i've read the book. i've read gloria's books as well (and prefer gloria's books). but with something like pop culture, in discussing something that we can all usually grasp, it's an easier way to get across feminist principles. a lot of my readers in high school, if i say 'comprable pay for comprable work' would probably wonder what i was talking about. if i said something like why did joshua jackson make more money than katie holmes on dawson's creek, they'd get that.
and you can do that with any feminist issue.
look at ava & c.i.'s review of three wishes. they're tackling some really big issues like what we owe one another as a society and how it's really easy to say 'personal problem' and dismiss something that way.
they could do (and they could, they're very smart) a thing, a historical thing, with no pop cultural refs on how women have long been told that any issue that matters to them or harms them is a 'personal problem.' your husband beat you? that's a personal problem.
believe it or not, there was a time when that was the attitude, the overwhelming attitude, on spousal abuse or rape or any number of issues. if you're older and were alive when these issues were 1st being seriously addressed, you remember the excitement as women said, 'it happens to me too' over and over and we started seeing it was a societal issue and not the dismissive personal problem.
but for those of us who can remember those days it can be easy to think every 1 else knows all about it and the topic doesn't need to be discussed anymore in terms of leading a person through it, just address the heart of the issue. and in doing that, a lot of people new to feminism end up lost and saying 'why are we talking about this?' a pop culture critique can go a long way in educating us to the feminist issues that might otherwise go unexplained.
so please try to visit christine's site pop politics and show her your support. she and the others will raise issues that are worth raising. and it won't be heavy handed and you won't be bored. they're doing a feminist critique of popular culture. you don't need to do any outside reading to engage in the conversation you just need to be willing to read and think about it. or, if you're a poster, i'm not, but if you are, you can join in on the dialogue and say 'oh i agree with that' or 'i think differently and here's what i'm seeing.'
Christine Cupaiuolo
Pop Politics
Like Maria Said Paz
The Third Estate Sunday Review
The Common Ills
Feminism
Ms. Musing
who's the boss is the show. but elaine and i used to watch that show. i saw 1 of our favorite episodes where samantha is working for angela but wants to quit. it's really a harmless show and there's much worse out there.
like the home improvements and the raymonds and all the other shows where 'the little woman' just sits around saying 'oh tim' or 'oh ray' and has no life of her own.
i can remember when judith light was karen on 1 life to live. anybody else go back that far? probably not. but she was really amazing. karen was a prostitute but her husband didn't know it. to save her friend from a murder charge, she had to admit it on the witness stand, in front of every 1 including her husband.
judith light is a good actress. and the worst that can be said about who's the boss is that it was sometimes just silly. these days you can say so much more about so many other shows.
tv on the brain tonight and you can blame that on christine of ms. musing.
ava and c.i. offer a feminist critique of tv shows each week over at the third estate sunday review. (they reviewed the hideous three wishes most recently.) and for 2 years now, christine's offered a feminist critique on pop culture and a host of other issues via ms.'s website.
but that's over there now.
i can't imagine why. ms. has 2 new blogs and 1 is really funny and the other will be hard hitting politics by eleanor smeal. (they're on my blogroll: a new leif and the smeal report.) but i can't imagine why christine's not going to be there anymore. if you read her last post it just seems to come out of the blue.
i hope it was a mutual decision and i hope ms. understands how important christine was to visitors of the site.
they aren't a monthly magazine, ms., they're not bimonthly. they publish 4 times a year and the content isn't always available online of each issue. this isn't to run down ms. for instance, i support the naacp but they need to realize that when people visit their site, they're wanting something more then 'about the naacp.'
with ms. when nothing else changed, you always had fresh content from christine. i get the print edition of the magazine so i honestly only went to the website because of christine.
and i hope they realize that and that she was appreciated.
she gave you a feminist critique. which doesn't mean every 1 always agreed with her because there is not 1 feminist critique. c.i. and ava both hit the roof 1 time when jim was putting something about 'the feminist critique' and they had to walk him through on how there isn't 1 feminist critique of tv shows, let alone of everything out there.
but christine would offer her opinions and steer you towards some show to watch or a cause to support. she was 1 of the handful of people i saw blogging about the issue of animals in new orleans after hurricane katrina. she didn't just write an entry either, she went down there.
she was an important voice and she really was the voice of the website because her content was new. so i hope she was appreciated and that she left because she felt it was time to focus on her own site (pop politics).
c.i.'s noted that she's moved on (and is noting pop politics) but i hope others are as well. christine is so the antithesis of the type of woman i wrote about yesterday. she truly was in it for every 1 and out of the desire to support women. elaine and c.i. did an e-mail today asking every 1 to consider adding pop politics to their blogrolls and i can't imagine any 1 in the community saying no to that. but if any blogger from outside the community reads this, i hope they will think about adding pop politics as well.
besides the fact that christine supported everyone, there's also the fact, and c.i. and elaine made this point strongly in their joint e-mail, that pop culture especially needs feminist critiques. before susan faludi's backlash, you'd meet a lot of women who would sneer, women who identified as feminist, about pop culture being critiqued.
i can think of 1 hideous woman that c.i. knew. we all knew her but, as usual, c.i. was the high roader who was nice to her. the woman was a lesbian but not out then. and she was trying to hide being a lesbian with every 1 that knew her. so, this is around 1987 or 1988, she went through this phase of going on and on about michael douglas and how hot he was. fatal attraction was out.
every 1 was raising their eye brows over her comments about his butt because there was no reason for her to be in the closet - we all knew and had no problem with that. but at 1 point when she was going on about michael douglas's butt for the 9th or 10th time, c.i. said that fatal attraction was really an anti-woman movie. i need a name for the woman so i'll just call her 'closet.'
closet hit the roof. she started yelling and screaming about how women were being beaten up and there wasn't time to waste on movies.
this after closet had gone on and on about the butt of michael douglas which i doubt had any healing effects on battered women.
she was an older feminist. she'd been one of the 1st of the 2nd wave. and she just wasn't open to discussions on anything that she didn't feel was a feminist issue.
when susan faludi's backlash came out, i remember elaine and i telling c.i. that closet had to be given a copy. 1st off, c.i. was handing that book out like crazy which isn't uncommon. when c.i. falls for a book, every 1 gets a copy. 2nd of all, faludi was critiquing film, television and fashion.
and that doesn't seem like a big deal now but it really did take faludi and that book to make a number of feminists realize the importance of offering critiques on those topics.
in their joint e-mail, elaine & c.i. noted lucy hughes-hallet which is another favorite author. she wrote a book on cleopatra that i do not remember the name of. (pray c.i. doesn't read that and i don't hear 'uh, rebecca, i gave you that book, didn't you keep it?') but hughes-hallet goes through various time periods to illustrate how cleopatra is never, when people write about her or make films of her, a fixed point of reference. you can find the thoughts and moods of the times in each portrayal. and our popular narratives do not critiquing.
we need to struggle to figure out what the message is. that doesn't mean we'll always agree.
for instance, i doubt i'd agree with christine on buffy the vampire slayer. i think after buffy came back from the dead and moved to upn the show had no feminist message.
there's a review of that which everyone worked on at the third estate sunday review and i was the 1st to say, let me blow my horn, 'let ava and c.i. write the tv reviews.' the strong points in that review come from them. it's a muddled review. and that's because every 1 was tossing out stuff. but buffy went from a strong woman to a pretty pathetic woman and i agree with them that this had to do with joss whedon wanting to play with the big boys which always means, as they point out, that a whedon or a glenn gordon caron reject the women that made him famous.
whedon kept trying to prop up angel to the point that he even lets buffy get slapped by angel in 1 cross-over episode. the star, the character every 1 loved from the bigger show, is reduced to carping, jealous woman who gets slapped for it.
that says a lot about where whedon's priorities were.
so i never agree with the claim that buffy was this powerful feminist statement. i agree that on the wb it was. there was enough of an arc to carry it through. but when you have buffy sleeping with spike and all the other drag her through the mud nonsense of the upn years, it's just not about feminism in my opinion.
and you know what? a lot of feminists would disagree. that's because there's not 1 feminist opinion. and we need to have these discussions (if we don't we end up supporting women blindly, including war hawks, and weakening ourselves and our own message of equality). not to say 'you're wrong, i'm right!' but to get another take and inform ourselves.
and it really is important because, as elaine & c.i. noted, pop culture is the narrative of our times, the fairy tales we grow up on, the equivalent of legends passed around the campfire.
and for 2 years at ms. musing, christine's taken on that and so much more.
abbey e-mailed me about christine. specifically, she wondered why christine was always called that at the common ills.
there are a number of reasons but the most obvious 1 is because you were supposed to think of her as a friend. she had a sight and it was to make sure she was approachable the way she would be if you were sitting around talking to your friends and 1 was present and you'd say of her, 'did you hear what christine said?' we aren't first wavers of the second wave, elaine, c.i. and i. so we do have that 'gloria steinem!' to this day. but it would probably be better if we did that with gloria steinem and others as well, said 'gloria' or whatever. because the hiearchy of titles is something that feminism really isn't about.
that's why c.i. doesn't say 'senator' or 'mr.' or 'ms.' when it's some 1 of the clergy, c.i. will go back and forth on it but always put in the title if they are a nun or a priest.
but christine was supposed to be a 1 name the way elaine says 'rebecca' and not 'rebecca winters.' feminism is supposed to be welcoming and that was supposed to drive it home. it was 'here's norman solomon and there's katrina vanden heuvel and here's christine' as in 'here's our friend christine.'
and that's what she was and is, everyone's online friend. so i hope you'll try to check out pop politics and give some thought to what she and the other women are writing there.
i've only been today because i'm running behind but if there are men writing there as well i am not trying to slight them, i just didn't see any. but men can be feminists and they should be. we all should be. that doesn't mean that i agree that every 1 who uses the term is a feminist. and that's something that christine and the other women (jaclyn's a name that stands out) there will really get across, what feminism is about.
now some people will go back and read the feminist mystique by betty friedan and good for them. i've read the book. i've read gloria's books as well (and prefer gloria's books). but with something like pop culture, in discussing something that we can all usually grasp, it's an easier way to get across feminist principles. a lot of my readers in high school, if i say 'comprable pay for comprable work' would probably wonder what i was talking about. if i said something like why did joshua jackson make more money than katie holmes on dawson's creek, they'd get that.
and you can do that with any feminist issue.
look at ava & c.i.'s review of three wishes. they're tackling some really big issues like what we owe one another as a society and how it's really easy to say 'personal problem' and dismiss something that way.
they could do (and they could, they're very smart) a thing, a historical thing, with no pop cultural refs on how women have long been told that any issue that matters to them or harms them is a 'personal problem.' your husband beat you? that's a personal problem.
believe it or not, there was a time when that was the attitude, the overwhelming attitude, on spousal abuse or rape or any number of issues. if you're older and were alive when these issues were 1st being seriously addressed, you remember the excitement as women said, 'it happens to me too' over and over and we started seeing it was a societal issue and not the dismissive personal problem.
but for those of us who can remember those days it can be easy to think every 1 else knows all about it and the topic doesn't need to be discussed anymore in terms of leading a person through it, just address the heart of the issue. and in doing that, a lot of people new to feminism end up lost and saying 'why are we talking about this?' a pop culture critique can go a long way in educating us to the feminist issues that might otherwise go unexplained.
so please try to visit christine's site pop politics and show her your support. she and the others will raise issues that are worth raising. and it won't be heavy handed and you won't be bored. they're doing a feminist critique of popular culture. you don't need to do any outside reading to engage in the conversation you just need to be willing to read and think about it. or, if you're a poster, i'm not, but if you are, you can join in on the dialogue and say 'oh i agree with that' or 'i think differently and here's what i'm seeing.'
Christine Cupaiuolo
Pop Politics
Like Maria Said Paz
The Third Estate Sunday Review
The Common Ills
Feminism
Ms. Musing
9/27/2005
sick of it
i've been exploring the notion of feminism today.
i am a feminist. most of my friends are and self-describe that way regardless of gender.
but there's an attitude of any 1 should be able to use the term. i'm not slamming that attitude. c.i. has that attitude. the point being that it's often turned into a dirty word so any 1 willing to use it, great.
but i'm seeing a lot of female hawks these days. little security mommies. and they're worse than neocons because the neocons do not give a crap. these women (and they're probably some men too) seem to think that they can play war hawk and claim feminism.
now the feminists i hang out with are strong feminists. you've got elaine, c.i., ruth, betty, ava and dona, kat and jess. he's a feminist. (mike, you'd make me very happy if you'd start using the word because you are a feminist.)
but when i'm talking to them we realize, like now pointed out, peace is a feminist issue.
and i'm tired of people getting to use the word.
i don't mean i own the word. i certainly don't.
but it seems like there are standards by which you meet the term.
and somehow it's all become about wages.
that's not surprising in our money hungry society.
but that's not feminism.
and i'm really getting tired of these war hawks claiming that they are feminists. or building on something because they are a woman. and if you don't like what they say, it's 'oh i'm being picked on because i'm a woman.' no, you're being picked on because you are moron regardless of gender.
and let me make a few points here. these women never really care about any 1 else's wages or how they're doing, it's just about them.
that's why they can slam a working class or poverty level single mother and talk to her about 'responsibility.' that's not feminism.
and when someone wants to do that, when she wants to make that kind of statement, she needs to quit getting a pass because she's a woman.
there was an alert from gina & krista in their round-robin so a lot of people will know what i'm talking about.
as usual, c.i. set the record straight in such a way that the person who's angered every 1 isn't named. but i think the community will be happy if not today then tomorrow.
mike's bit his tongue over and over about this woman.
we are a feminist community, regardless of whether all members use the term or not.
when c.i. mentioned pro-choice was something the community supported, gina & krista had already done the polling. there may be visitors that swing by that aren't pro-choice, but the community is. we're against the war. we're in favor of equal opportunities for all and realize that means a social safety net because not every 1 starts off at the same point and because life can really screw you over. you can work your ass off and still be living paycheck to paycheck.
the community knows what feminism means.
and this nonsense that c.i. has to put up with ... i understand members are mad at some 1 but it's like every week now c.i. has to issue a clarification post (like this morning) to make it clear that the person in question, who's not a member of the community and doesn't link to us doesn't speak for us.
this is an issue that came up in d.c. we've got another blog that will be going live either today or tomorrow and another right behind that. the point is, the community is self-sustaining. and there's enough going on in the community without having to go out of it.
cedric gave a really great speech on this, and it was a speech (the thing gina & krista published on sunday in their special round-robin on d.c.). cedric said it's great that c.i. pushes his posts and he always appreciates that because he's just started up. but there are some people that shouldn't be linked to. and just being quiet about them isn't enough if they've got a link on the side. jim agreed with that as well. jim and i are always the 1s saying this stuff so it's great that it came from cedric this time.
the best thing elaine did for me besides fill in was to clean the blogroll. i wouldn't have taken those women down because i was thinking 'oh they're women.' but they don't do shit for us. some of them e-mailed me their problems and i was sitting there wasting my time telling them it was okay and they were okay. and i felt sorry and added some to my blogroll.
but you'll note, they could whine to me but they weren't going to do shit for me.
that's messed up. and when cedric posted on this and elaine spoke to c.i. about it, that was the 1st c.i. knew of it. c.i. doesn't care about links because the community is c.i.'s. we all benefit, we're all members but c.i. built it and there's not a member that doesn't go to the common ills.
and on thursday, in the private e-mail account for members, c.i. had 2035 e-mails. so there's no reason for c.i. to ever think that the rest of us aren't all doing equally well.
but when elaine and cedric raised the issue of the way i've been treated, c.i. got pissed off. if we hadn't had the problems this weekend that we had (and thanks to gina & krista for running the third entries in their round-robin that wouldn't post), it would have already been dealt with. but today, c.i. had to clarify that the person doesn't speak for the community (or for c.i.) and i think c.i.'s sick of it. i know c.i. is. and the point c.i. made this weekend when we had time to talk about it was, 'no 1 gets linked to by this woman?'
no, none of us.
so why have we linked to her?
jim said, 'look, if she linked to people, it would be 1 thing. we could say "okay, we disagree but everyone's got a right to free speech and don't go there if you don't like her." but the fact remains that she doesn't link to us. and that's not right.'
the link hurts c.i. more than any 1 because every week now she's writing something that members are up in arms about. karla will visit or some 1 else and copy and paste and it will circulate (with criticism) throughout the community. as it does, c.i. will get all these e-mails on it from members and have to drop everything to issue some statement (while taking the high road) to make it clear that those aren't the sentiments of the community.
and this all ties into why c.i. wrote the entries on sheryl crow yesterday.
we all heard that lame cd or parts of it this weekend. (i bailed after the 2nd song.) but jim said, 'this is just like sheryl crow, she'll get a pass because she's a woman. she's not doing anything for women. she's doing it for herself and turning her back on the peace movement but she'll get a pass.'
c.i. just made the comment about her writing bad lyrics yesterday morning. but when sheryl freaks came swarming to say 'how dare you,' c.i. did another post that dealt with crow. (and c.i. held the tongue on that. i do know 1 of the rockers that c.i. was referring to. and he's given me an earfull on crow and how disappointed everyone is with her.) (he's my claim to groupie status!)
but doing that entry (and it's a great entry, i laugh at this: '", man" is implied' everytime i read it) took up time and the entry c.i. hoped to do had to wait. and that's how it is with this woman. every week, c.i. has to find a way to high road a commentary for the community.
there was the time the woman didn't know shit about cindy sheehan and c.i. had to do a remedial post. so it just takes up too much time.
and that was jim's point, if she linked to any of us the attitude could be 'well free speech and all that' but she doesn't link to us and she causes problems because we have linked to her. we end up with e-mails asking, have you seen this!
people are offended. and it's not worth it to link to her.
so i'm sick of it tonight. i'm sick of war cheerleaders and women who get a pass because they're women. they don't help other women. they only help who they want to help. they don't stand for feminism but they benefit from it. they benefit from 'where are the women bloggers' and so women try to link to each other. but these women who don't do the same just look out for themselves.
it's rude, it's hypocritical and it's not worth it because they're not doing anything to promote women. they're only promoting themselves.
this may be my topic this week. tomorrow i may post on 1 woman who's written me repeatedly and always ends with some nonsense about 'remember we all need to stick together' and she means women by 'we' and she wrote about 3 times a week until i went on vacation. and i linked to her, put her on my blogroll. but she never did the same. it was about her. 'we all need to stick together' translated as 'every 1 needs to link to me!'
remember, tomorrow mike has an interview with 1 of the best women bloggers, betty. don't miss it.
make sure you don't miss kat's review of the rolling stone's latest cd.
i am a feminist. most of my friends are and self-describe that way regardless of gender.
but there's an attitude of any 1 should be able to use the term. i'm not slamming that attitude. c.i. has that attitude. the point being that it's often turned into a dirty word so any 1 willing to use it, great.
but i'm seeing a lot of female hawks these days. little security mommies. and they're worse than neocons because the neocons do not give a crap. these women (and they're probably some men too) seem to think that they can play war hawk and claim feminism.
now the feminists i hang out with are strong feminists. you've got elaine, c.i., ruth, betty, ava and dona, kat and jess. he's a feminist. (mike, you'd make me very happy if you'd start using the word because you are a feminist.)
but when i'm talking to them we realize, like now pointed out, peace is a feminist issue.
and i'm tired of people getting to use the word.
i don't mean i own the word. i certainly don't.
but it seems like there are standards by which you meet the term.
and somehow it's all become about wages.
that's not surprising in our money hungry society.
but that's not feminism.
and i'm really getting tired of these war hawks claiming that they are feminists. or building on something because they are a woman. and if you don't like what they say, it's 'oh i'm being picked on because i'm a woman.' no, you're being picked on because you are moron regardless of gender.
and let me make a few points here. these women never really care about any 1 else's wages or how they're doing, it's just about them.
that's why they can slam a working class or poverty level single mother and talk to her about 'responsibility.' that's not feminism.
and when someone wants to do that, when she wants to make that kind of statement, she needs to quit getting a pass because she's a woman.
there was an alert from gina & krista in their round-robin so a lot of people will know what i'm talking about.
as usual, c.i. set the record straight in such a way that the person who's angered every 1 isn't named. but i think the community will be happy if not today then tomorrow.
mike's bit his tongue over and over about this woman.
we are a feminist community, regardless of whether all members use the term or not.
when c.i. mentioned pro-choice was something the community supported, gina & krista had already done the polling. there may be visitors that swing by that aren't pro-choice, but the community is. we're against the war. we're in favor of equal opportunities for all and realize that means a social safety net because not every 1 starts off at the same point and because life can really screw you over. you can work your ass off and still be living paycheck to paycheck.
the community knows what feminism means.
and this nonsense that c.i. has to put up with ... i understand members are mad at some 1 but it's like every week now c.i. has to issue a clarification post (like this morning) to make it clear that the person in question, who's not a member of the community and doesn't link to us doesn't speak for us.
this is an issue that came up in d.c. we've got another blog that will be going live either today or tomorrow and another right behind that. the point is, the community is self-sustaining. and there's enough going on in the community without having to go out of it.
cedric gave a really great speech on this, and it was a speech (the thing gina & krista published on sunday in their special round-robin on d.c.). cedric said it's great that c.i. pushes his posts and he always appreciates that because he's just started up. but there are some people that shouldn't be linked to. and just being quiet about them isn't enough if they've got a link on the side. jim agreed with that as well. jim and i are always the 1s saying this stuff so it's great that it came from cedric this time.
the best thing elaine did for me besides fill in was to clean the blogroll. i wouldn't have taken those women down because i was thinking 'oh they're women.' but they don't do shit for us. some of them e-mailed me their problems and i was sitting there wasting my time telling them it was okay and they were okay. and i felt sorry and added some to my blogroll.
but you'll note, they could whine to me but they weren't going to do shit for me.
that's messed up. and when cedric posted on this and elaine spoke to c.i. about it, that was the 1st c.i. knew of it. c.i. doesn't care about links because the community is c.i.'s. we all benefit, we're all members but c.i. built it and there's not a member that doesn't go to the common ills.
and on thursday, in the private e-mail account for members, c.i. had 2035 e-mails. so there's no reason for c.i. to ever think that the rest of us aren't all doing equally well.
but when elaine and cedric raised the issue of the way i've been treated, c.i. got pissed off. if we hadn't had the problems this weekend that we had (and thanks to gina & krista for running the third entries in their round-robin that wouldn't post), it would have already been dealt with. but today, c.i. had to clarify that the person doesn't speak for the community (or for c.i.) and i think c.i.'s sick of it. i know c.i. is. and the point c.i. made this weekend when we had time to talk about it was, 'no 1 gets linked to by this woman?'
no, none of us.
so why have we linked to her?
jim said, 'look, if she linked to people, it would be 1 thing. we could say "okay, we disagree but everyone's got a right to free speech and don't go there if you don't like her." but the fact remains that she doesn't link to us. and that's not right.'
the link hurts c.i. more than any 1 because every week now she's writing something that members are up in arms about. karla will visit or some 1 else and copy and paste and it will circulate (with criticism) throughout the community. as it does, c.i. will get all these e-mails on it from members and have to drop everything to issue some statement (while taking the high road) to make it clear that those aren't the sentiments of the community.
and this all ties into why c.i. wrote the entries on sheryl crow yesterday.
we all heard that lame cd or parts of it this weekend. (i bailed after the 2nd song.) but jim said, 'this is just like sheryl crow, she'll get a pass because she's a woman. she's not doing anything for women. she's doing it for herself and turning her back on the peace movement but she'll get a pass.'
c.i. just made the comment about her writing bad lyrics yesterday morning. but when sheryl freaks came swarming to say 'how dare you,' c.i. did another post that dealt with crow. (and c.i. held the tongue on that. i do know 1 of the rockers that c.i. was referring to. and he's given me an earfull on crow and how disappointed everyone is with her.) (he's my claim to groupie status!)
but doing that entry (and it's a great entry, i laugh at this: '", man" is implied' everytime i read it) took up time and the entry c.i. hoped to do had to wait. and that's how it is with this woman. every week, c.i. has to find a way to high road a commentary for the community.
there was the time the woman didn't know shit about cindy sheehan and c.i. had to do a remedial post. so it just takes up too much time.
and that was jim's point, if she linked to any of us the attitude could be 'well free speech and all that' but she doesn't link to us and she causes problems because we have linked to her. we end up with e-mails asking, have you seen this!
people are offended. and it's not worth it to link to her.
so i'm sick of it tonight. i'm sick of war cheerleaders and women who get a pass because they're women. they don't help other women. they only help who they want to help. they don't stand for feminism but they benefit from it. they benefit from 'where are the women bloggers' and so women try to link to each other. but these women who don't do the same just look out for themselves.
it's rude, it's hypocritical and it's not worth it because they're not doing anything to promote women. they're only promoting themselves.
this may be my topic this week. tomorrow i may post on 1 woman who's written me repeatedly and always ends with some nonsense about 'remember we all need to stick together' and she means women by 'we' and she wrote about 3 times a week until i went on vacation. and i linked to her, put her on my blogroll. but she never did the same. it was about her. 'we all need to stick together' translated as 'every 1 needs to link to me!'
remember, tomorrow mike has an interview with 1 of the best women bloggers, betty. don't miss it.
make sure you don't miss kat's review of the rolling stone's latest cd.
9/26/2005
back home
so your president has returned home. she's tired. how are you?
i'm listening to pacifica because everyone was talking about pacifica this weekend, ruth was talking about how you could real news and tracey was saying that the 'jerry springer-ization' of air america radio had made her almost give on that network. (she still loves janeane and she and her mother go to ruth's on saturdays to listen to the laura flanders show together and to work on a quilt. ruth's teaching them how to quilt.)
i love janeane too. i just can't take that tone that sam gets. it just irritates me. for awhile, i was just listening on friday when sam was off and janeane had the whole show to herself but then they had thom hartman for the full week and i didn't see the point. that's not a slam at hartman. but if i'm listening to a talk show, i listen for the host. like i'll listen to mike malloy because i like him.
but sam's voice, and fellows don't take offense if you're the same, just rises and rises until he's like a little girl squealing and it really gets on my nerves. i also can't take all of his rants. janeane has rants too, i know. but she's got a deep voice and she will also break it up with humor. but the real thing is, i don't feel like she's grabbing me by the shirt and spitting in my face as she squeals. when sam gets worked up, that's what i feel like. he's the guy made for dockers. you want to tell him to just stop and take a breath.
so i'm hearing about how a prison in new orleans didn't call for help until after the hurricane hit and how all the prisoners aren't accounted for.
i'm sure that some will say, 'well they were in prison.' all being in prison means is that it's our responsibility to protect them. we've locked them away, we need to be responsible for their well being. guilt or innocence isn't the issue once we take control of their lives by locking them away.
the man in charge of the prison, i didn't catch his name, needs to be fired. he failed to protect the people. he's the warden. they are the wards. it's his job to protect them. there's no excuse for it.
it was a lot of fun this weekend. some got really bummed about blogger and i don't blame them for that. i couldn't even log in when i tried to on saturday. but i said, 'you know what, fuck it, focus on the activism' and i think that's what we all ended up doing and the weekend was wonderful.
some guy wrote in and he's using 1 of those dopey screen names so i won't even name it except to say 'try millimeters because there's no way that's inches' but he's just in a tizzy that i haven't written about hurricane rita.
why would i?
i haven't been online or sitting in front of a tv and i'm not in that area.
am i suddenly the weather channel?
i was in d.c. for the protests.
i don't know why the guy expected that i'd be giving bulletins on hurricane rita.
maybe his computer only gets 1 web page and he has to count on little me to provide him with every detail in the world or he misses out?
thursday night, friday morning, elaine and i were helping c.i. go through the e-mails for the indy media posts and 1 e-mailer was upset about an article that she'd seen.
i don't blame her for being upset (and i even wrote her back). this woman had a problem with the fact that people were going to d.c. for the protests. 'what about the victims of hurricane katrina!' she screamed over and over. then she went on to slam codepink and move on for not doing anything for the victims.
she needs to know her facts and that includes that those organizations and others like them had done things prior to the weekend and did do things during the weekend.
look her cause, her only cause, is the victims of hurricane katrina. great cause. hopefully she works hard. but i wouldn't have read something by her talking about how she was there doing relief effort and felt the need to scream, 'why isn't she in d.c.!' that's her cause, her only cause.
but to whine and bitch about the fact that the marches and rallies weren't called off is nonsense. those were planned in advance and, more importantly, there's no reason to call them off.
it was total bullshit from the little princess who wanted to stand up and say 'look at me! look at me!'
get a fucking grip.
she's like those people in the movie twister, chasing after this or that.
problems are interconnected, and read ava and c.i.'s latest tv review for more on that, so it's really silly for some little moron to act like there can only be 1 issue in the nation and that people working to end the war are jerking off.
she didn't mention the environment once in her little pity party. as though global warming had nothing to do with the hurricane, as though the toxic nature of new orleans now is not the result of pollution.
she reminded me of muffy tupperman on square pegs going on and on about some cause as if it were the only 1 on the face of the planet.
so the unnamed visitor should be reading her. i'm sure she'll find something to say about hurricane rita. from what i saw on cnn it looks like the residents of beaumont, texas were hard hit but it doesn't look like it was of the scale that hurricane katrina was.
but who knows? i'm going by what the media told me. and they didn't spend a lot of time telling me about the rallies and marches.
they honestly looked bored on cnn. like they were thinking, 'gee, maybe christian slater will get busted tonight and we can do full coverage on that tomorrow! maybe they'll even be a court case and we can act like this is the most important story in the world!'
want some reality, go read the 101 voices from d.c.
i'm listening to pacifica because everyone was talking about pacifica this weekend, ruth was talking about how you could real news and tracey was saying that the 'jerry springer-ization' of air america radio had made her almost give on that network. (she still loves janeane and she and her mother go to ruth's on saturdays to listen to the laura flanders show together and to work on a quilt. ruth's teaching them how to quilt.)
i love janeane too. i just can't take that tone that sam gets. it just irritates me. for awhile, i was just listening on friday when sam was off and janeane had the whole show to herself but then they had thom hartman for the full week and i didn't see the point. that's not a slam at hartman. but if i'm listening to a talk show, i listen for the host. like i'll listen to mike malloy because i like him.
but sam's voice, and fellows don't take offense if you're the same, just rises and rises until he's like a little girl squealing and it really gets on my nerves. i also can't take all of his rants. janeane has rants too, i know. but she's got a deep voice and she will also break it up with humor. but the real thing is, i don't feel like she's grabbing me by the shirt and spitting in my face as she squeals. when sam gets worked up, that's what i feel like. he's the guy made for dockers. you want to tell him to just stop and take a breath.
so i'm hearing about how a prison in new orleans didn't call for help until after the hurricane hit and how all the prisoners aren't accounted for.
i'm sure that some will say, 'well they were in prison.' all being in prison means is that it's our responsibility to protect them. we've locked them away, we need to be responsible for their well being. guilt or innocence isn't the issue once we take control of their lives by locking them away.
the man in charge of the prison, i didn't catch his name, needs to be fired. he failed to protect the people. he's the warden. they are the wards. it's his job to protect them. there's no excuse for it.
it was a lot of fun this weekend. some got really bummed about blogger and i don't blame them for that. i couldn't even log in when i tried to on saturday. but i said, 'you know what, fuck it, focus on the activism' and i think that's what we all ended up doing and the weekend was wonderful.
some guy wrote in and he's using 1 of those dopey screen names so i won't even name it except to say 'try millimeters because there's no way that's inches' but he's just in a tizzy that i haven't written about hurricane rita.
why would i?
i haven't been online or sitting in front of a tv and i'm not in that area.
am i suddenly the weather channel?
i was in d.c. for the protests.
i don't know why the guy expected that i'd be giving bulletins on hurricane rita.
maybe his computer only gets 1 web page and he has to count on little me to provide him with every detail in the world or he misses out?
thursday night, friday morning, elaine and i were helping c.i. go through the e-mails for the indy media posts and 1 e-mailer was upset about an article that she'd seen.
i don't blame her for being upset (and i even wrote her back). this woman had a problem with the fact that people were going to d.c. for the protests. 'what about the victims of hurricane katrina!' she screamed over and over. then she went on to slam codepink and move on for not doing anything for the victims.
she needs to know her facts and that includes that those organizations and others like them had done things prior to the weekend and did do things during the weekend.
look her cause, her only cause, is the victims of hurricane katrina. great cause. hopefully she works hard. but i wouldn't have read something by her talking about how she was there doing relief effort and felt the need to scream, 'why isn't she in d.c.!' that's her cause, her only cause.
but to whine and bitch about the fact that the marches and rallies weren't called off is nonsense. those were planned in advance and, more importantly, there's no reason to call them off.
it was total bullshit from the little princess who wanted to stand up and say 'look at me! look at me!'
get a fucking grip.
she's like those people in the movie twister, chasing after this or that.
problems are interconnected, and read ava and c.i.'s latest tv review for more on that, so it's really silly for some little moron to act like there can only be 1 issue in the nation and that people working to end the war are jerking off.
she didn't mention the environment once in her little pity party. as though global warming had nothing to do with the hurricane, as though the toxic nature of new orleans now is not the result of pollution.
she reminded me of muffy tupperman on square pegs going on and on about some cause as if it were the only 1 on the face of the planet.
so the unnamed visitor should be reading her. i'm sure she'll find something to say about hurricane rita. from what i saw on cnn it looks like the residents of beaumont, texas were hard hit but it doesn't look like it was of the scale that hurricane katrina was.
but who knows? i'm going by what the media told me. and they didn't spend a lot of time telling me about the rallies and marches.
they honestly looked bored on cnn. like they were thinking, 'gee, maybe christian slater will get busted tonight and we can do full coverage on that tomorrow! maybe they'll even be a court case and we can act like this is the most important story in the world!'
want some reality, go read the 101 voices from d.c.
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