It’s not easy being green
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But we won’t see the Incredible Sulk for another couple of weeks.
For those too young to remember — once upon a time, if you pissed off Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno turned green and ruined his trousers.
October 19, 2010 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 13
No matter how lack of experience you have
Well, I speak as a 26-year-old woman. And my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how lack of experience you have. And it scares me for a lot of reasons, and I just know in my group of friends it just turns people off, because she’s seen as a nutjob.
Ohhhhhhhh…savor it, my friends. Let that roll around on your cerebral cortex for a while. Its rarity. Its purity. That there is the sweetest, strongest, melt-in-your-skull stupid you’re likely to see in this whole delightfulfully moronic political season.
Shame on Christiane Amanpour, whoring out this chubby retard for cheap ratings points.
Somebody — somebody who loves her — must sit Meghan McCain down and show her how to diagram a sentence. Then make her watch Mr Smith Goes to Washington until her eyes bleed.
At least it’ll keep her busy and off the air for a while.
Don’t remember the source image? Enjoy.
Now with AUDIO!
[audio:mccain.mp3]
October 18, 2010 — 7:38 pm
Comments: 31
Is it just me?
This image is really grating on my nerves: the President of the United States walking around clutching a huge goofy-ass microphone, like Bob Barker or some shit.
Bipartisan bitch. Bush did it. Clinton did it. I even found a picture of Bush I at it.
If they can’t wire him up so his voice mysteriously booms out of everywhere like Jovian magic, at least could they give him a long slender Trekky sort of mic? Or one of those little wireless ear clippy things, like some kind of President Tony Stark?
I don’t mind it so much in the initial campaign, but once you’re the leader of my country, I expect you to comport yourself with more dignity than the last fifteen minutes of a Jerry Lewis telethon. Thenk yew.
October 14, 2010 — 10:26 pm
Comments: 24
Vote Barack
…or Michelle will give you a Big Hug.
Just fold you right up in the giant mutant embrace of those…holy shit, lady, what have you been doing to yourself? It looks like she’s been benchpressing Barack’s ego.
My Google news search juxtaposed the source picture with the caption Democrats bring in heavy hitter: Michelle Obama.
‘Tcha! I guess!
October 13, 2010 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 25
I earned my Slurpee today. You earn yours in three weeks, m’kay?
Ace is trying to flog some kind of Get Out the Vote thing. Looks like maybe more on that tomorrow. Let’s make Hopechangelo suck on that stupid Slurpee metaphor until he gets the Mother of All Brain Freezes.
Pretty please?
October 12, 2010 — 11:30 pm
Comments: 19
Let us cowboy up, my Princesses
There was an article in Wired last month about why athletes choke under pressure.
Feh. Sports. I didn’t get that gene. But buried in the middle of it was a really interesting concept sports psychologists call stereotype threat.
It was first noticed when two Stanford psych profs were able to knock down black Stanford undergrads’ GRE scores fifty percent, just by telling them it was an IQ test. Lest you think that’s one of those lefty bullshit stats aimed at Certain Populations, it’s been tested many times since and it works for everybody. You can psych out women before a math test by reminding them they’re women. You can screw up white men before a math test by telling them they’ll be compared to Asians.
…in 1999, Jeff Stone, a social psychologist at the University of Arizona, asked both white and black golfers to play a putting game framed as a test of either “sports intelligence” or “natural athletic ability.” The results still astonish: Among the golfers considering the putting game a test of “natural athletic ability,” blacks did better than usual and whites did worse. Among those framing it as a sort of sports intelligence test, whites did better and blacks worse.
Basically, we’ve all internalized the stereotypes, and other people can psych the HELL out of us with them.
This whole whoregate thing made me think of this — one of Jerry Brown’s associates (looks like his wife, maybe) called his opponent, Meg Whitman, a whore.
Oh. Dear. A lewd, woman-specific insult aimed at a woman.
Why, this is…a…a…a perfectly ordinary game of hardball, ladies. This is the kind of ugly trash talk that is entirely unexceptional.
And yes, I know it’s not nice and I know it’s not fun (my email can occasionaly be unfun; I can’t imagine how Michelle Malkin takes hers in stride) — and it sure as hell isn’t an approach I’d be comfy taking — but it’s no big. We demean ourselves by pretending otherwise.
We aren’t getting womany insults because we’re women; we’re getting whatever insults they think will get under our skin and screw up our game, because we’re playing with the big boys. And some of them don’t play nice.
ADDENDUM: on the other hand, we should certainly make a big effing deal of this language whenever they use ugly stereotypes, on account of they pretend they don’t. As Alinsky sez:
Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
October 11, 2010 — 11:41 pm
Comments: 17
Hm. No. Haven’t quite got him yet…
Here’s the weirdest ethnic stereotype you’ll hear all day: black men typically have very tiny ears. I guess black women do, too, but it’s particularly noticeable on men.
Not that I noticed this myself. My mother — who was a very talented portrait painter — pointed it out to me years ago. Check it out; it’s true.
Came to mind today when I saw a caricature of Obama that relied entirely on giving him HUGE ears. Just making stuff big is a lazy way to catch a likeness. The great caricaturist Al Hirschfeld captured likenesses with some spooky voodoo shit I don’t even understand. I never liked his work much, but he sure could do likenesses.
Anyhoo, dude’s ears are kinda big for a brother, but it’s really more that they stick out at a jaunty angle. Been playing with the president’s ears all evening. Haven’t quite got it yet.
October 4, 2010 — 10:32 pm
Comments: 19
Okay, I’m in
I was really starting to sweat this; I wrote away for my absentee ballot weeks and weeks ago. I wanna be a part of the revolution, dammit!
Rhode Island politics — for once! — look interesting this year. I could almost wish I’d kept my registration there for one more cycle.
But no. I own property in Tennessee. I pay taxes in Tennessee. My family is in Tennessee. And, most importantly, Tennessee politics is nuttier’n a squirrel’s rectum in a circus tent.
Two words: Basil Marceaux. Treat yourself to a trip to his campaign website.
I must say, he makes a tempting offer: VOTE FOR ME AND IF I WIN I WILL IMMUNE YOU FROM ALL STATE CRIMES FOR THE REST OF YOU LIFE! Never know; could come in handy. It takes a serious man to make his campaign promises in all caps.
Then there’s Zach Wamp, who totally deserves to be governor for having the awesomest name since Buff Orpington.
Too bad I skipped the primary. George T. Erdel of District 6 assured me he was my “Tea Party Democrat.” I don’t know if his campaign website used to be a campaign website, but it’s now all about Islam = Sharia. Right nutty fringe, wrong party.
Man I’m going to need some help making a choice. Anybody know any good Tennessee political blogs?
At least I know how to vote on the proposed amendment to the state constitution:
The citizens of this state shall have the personal right to hunt and fish, subject to reasonable regulations and restrictions prescribed by law. The recognition of this right does not abrogate any private or public property rights, nor does it limit the state’s power to regulate commercial activity. Traditional manners and means may be used to take non-threatened species.
My choices are No, Yes or Yeeeeee-haaaaa!
Good weekend, everyone.
September 24, 2010 — 9:36 pm
Comments: 52
The Panties of Liberty
I am so not into identity politics. No, scratch that — I really hate identity politics. I have consistently refused to participate in women’s art shows (I can compete in the regular kind just fine, thank you). A lifetime of observing the increasing role of women in politics and the workplace has convinced me the female influence in those places has been mostly bad. Really bad.
A mother is someone who has stuck her finger down the back of somebody’s else’s pants to see if he’s shat himself. That sort of person no longer recognizes boundaries like the rest of us. “None of your business” just doesn’t compute any more.
So it isn’t some reflexively feminist impulse that the number of women candidates on our ticket this year makes me think of this lady. Liberty, up there. That particular seated Liberty was all over our money in the 19th Century (by law, Liberty has to appear somewhere on US coins).
I love this one, because it looks like she’s waving her panties around on a stick. Which totally says “Liberty” to me.
Like, “Woohoo! LIBERTYYYYYYYYYYY!!”
(Okay, it’s a Phrygian cap on a liberty pole, but it’ll always be panties on a stick to me).
Good weekend, all!
September 17, 2010 — 9:17 pm
Comments: 29
Let the mockery begin!
Or “How the Democratic Party Lost its Cool.”
On Tuesday, this enchanting whiff of bullshit was released into the ‘sphere:
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine plans to make what’s being billed as a major announcement Wednesday about the future of the party, according to a Democratic source with knowledge of the speech.
The source tells CNN that Kaine will announce something that will excite Democrats across the country. Kaine’s event comes as Democrats face the difficult task of holding onto their majorities in the House and Senate this November.
And finally it was Wednesday, and lo the big, exciting surprise was…a D with a circle around it!
Some may think: it’s just a logo—it’s just a brand. Well I don’t believe the Democratic Party is a logo or a brand—we are much more than that. We are Democrats. We create change that matters. Ours is a party of ideas and ideals, of policies and people, history and purpose.
Really. A new logo. That would be chock full of all kinds of FAIL right there, if it had turned out to be a GOOD new logo. But it’s not. It’s awful.
Let’s make fun of it.
September 16, 2010 — 7:40 pm
Comments: 64